GenderLife Forum: The Information Exchange

I think Hope's last post has them stymied. It was terrific....

"Is a MtF who is attracted to men a member of the gay community prior to transition but not after? What about a MtF attracted to women. Is she not a member of the lesbian community prior to SRS, but a member after SRS?"

It's a bit sad that we're still having to have this debate, actually.

Social evolution proceeds not only by natural selection, but by mutation as well. What is gradually changing is not the relations between G, L, B, and T factions, it's the merging and differentiating identities that characterize those groups. The G's and L's (and maybe a few B's) of previous decades who would have thrown the T's of the past to the lions are no longer in a position to do so.

As a group, the Gay Gentry of the HRC are typically straight-laced, middle-aged, conservative, upper middle-class, socially privileged white male assimilationists. Their prime issue is gay marriage and their numbers have been diminishing steadily as they retire to their lovingly restored Victorian condos. It is their money which maintains the HRC's political clout, not their waning social activism.

Younger generations of gays are increasingly diverse in their social, ethnic, economic, and educational backgrounds. The USA is becoming a post-imperial third-world conglomerate of social and economic sub-cultures, randomly spattered together in electronic media-dominated urban environments. Young gay people migrate here from the depressingly mortgage-burdened suburban wastelands and ethnic ghettos. The middle-class opportunities that were once available to young white gay men of the 70's and 80's have long since been claimed and exploited.

On the lesbian side, the range of sexual and gender identity expression has expanded enormously across the butch to andro to femme spectrum. It has become difficult to distinguish between L and T identification within the dyke community as women increasingly describe themselves as queer or explicitly genderqueer. Lesbian women never had the range of middle-class economic opportunities that white gay men once enjoyed and they don't expect any better nowadays. They value their personal relationships above all else and unlike the Gay Gentry's embrace of mainstream masculinity, they resent the conventional feminine stereotypes the straight world expects them to conform to.

Bisexuals are the real forgotten majority; they seem more like a special interest group than an identifiable community. They are often just as invisible to each other as they are to gays and lesbians. My impression is that bisexual women feel more in common with lesbians that they do with bisexual men, that sexual identification still trumps sexual orientation as a binding force.

The reality for trans people is NOT that we are being marginalized by a numerically superior LGB coalition. We are instead blending into an increasingly broad spectrum of non-traditional gender identities spearheaded by genderqueer dykes. At the same time, the lesbian community itself is gradually mutating into a queer sub-culture that incorporates potent images of masculinity as well as androgyny and femininity.

This is why protection of gender expression in ENDA is a non-negotiable demand of virtually every national LGBT organization except HRC. It is not because they want to be kind to trans people, it is a personal issue that impacts the lesbian community just as directly as it does us.

Lsh,
Is there any way you can boil that down to 1000 characters or less? It is a great post.

Hope

That is because the HRC's first priority is to sustain and grow its donations, and since I daresay most of its money comes from wealthy gay men, most of whom care little for us in the first place, they believed their donations would be only marginally impacted by the trabsgender sellout. As the first commenter on the sotry noted "HRC has done some good things, but by far their #1 accomplishment seems to be raising money."

One of the most well-spoken of the HRC apologists suggested that, as a sign of solidarity, "a pledge or vow from all Transgendered Americans that they will not marry until their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters can do so legally in this country."

To this I replied,

As someone who "supports" us, you're quite ignorant about us. Only about half the 50 states permits TGs to marry and only postop TSs. Postops are a *tiny* portion of the full TG population. (I am only 1 of 40000 postop women in the whole USA.) Finally I am lesbian - as are roughly half of TS women - so I am under the same marriage cloud gays are. So no more lip service about "supporting" TGs until you LEARN about us! P.S. When gay marriage is upheld in November, will you pledge not to marry until gays can marry in the other 48 states?

Let's get some more ladies on this comments board giving a thumbs-up to the anti-HRC, trans-positive comments and a thumbs-down to all the bigots and HRC apologists.

Don't forget the second proposal:

"Further, I would like to see that if someone transitions, that he or she uses his or her body as intended, i.e., no male pregnancies."

I know that opened up a huge can of worms on this forum as well, but here is my reply to those comments:

That is reality in some places: the "tolerant" liberal cities on the West Coast, for example.

The division is not between "sexual orientation" vs. "gender identity" but between "gender non-conforming" and "gender conforming" types.

The situation of the perfectly passable young wealthy TS woman is very similar to that of the masculine young wealthy gay guy: they are not facing open discrimination and hatred in the streets.

On the other hand, the discrimination faced by the "swishy" poor gay guy is quite similar to that of the poor non-passable TS woman.

The second group is being marginalized by the first. In fact, there is a gradation of marginalization, and one could break it in a dozen categories or more. The ones at the top have the most power, the ones in the middle have the most numbers.

So where is the line traced? The HRC is so exclusivist, they are losing the majority in the middle. Most other institutions are smart enough to include larger groups.

What happens, at this point, is a testing of the waters: how much can the mainstream tolerate?

But the principle behind it is the same: the process is not open to everybody at the same time, and some will have to be thrown to the lions. Whether they'll be the TS, or only the TGs/shemales, or the non-passable, or transpeople "of colour," or whatever, doesn't matter.

What matters is the principle: that the line is always traced at some point, and those who are beyond that point, no matter how much they kick and scream to be included, will have to be kicked, and hard.

What's happening at this point in time is that the economic foundation that normally provides a stable social hierarchy is itself collapsing. The elitist self-absorption of the HRC's Gay Gentry is no longer sustainable into the future. Attempting to draw an undisputed line in the quicksand of contemporary LGBT politics is as quaint a conceit as the archaic Imperial Court System.

Throwing the unwashed to the lions is likewise the self-aggrandizing tactic of an established and unchallenged gentry. A much different strategy prevails within a community which acts and operates more like an insurgent movement. When you allow the most stigmatized among your kind to be trashed, you give your adversaries an opportunity to slice off your grass-roots a sliver at a time. Zealously protecting the rights and dignity of the most disparaged ensures a wide buffer zone of social security for everyone in the coalition.

I concur with your reasoning and analysis, yet I would keep in mind that politics as a whole works very much like a game of chess or poker. You have gambits, bluffs and sacrifices to meet the ultimate ends. In chess and poker you have an element of tempo and timing. It’s arguable that it wasn’t the right time for us to be introduced into congress IN THAT VENUE, reference ENDA, when we are barely breaking ground in public media. Yet the aftermath of ENDA raised the bar to events that lead to the hearing congress had today. Wouldn’t it be nifty to know that may be part of the seat at the table strategy meeting…maybe not?

It doesn’t serve us to point the finger at the HRC until we have own house in order. The HRC isn’t congress or Barney Frank, as arrogant as Congressmen Frank is; his views about us are not widely shared by the rest of the house. He’s eating crow. I’ve been back in DC and I assure you that if you view an element of timing exist in this game, hopefully that will temper some of the ire and impetuousness in this thread.

While declaring ourselves (some of us mind you) as stealth—I’m not sure what our population numbers that are actually stealth—we are by derivation saying I don’t want to educate anyone. Yet even more amazing to come out in angry protest without a clear objective, and it makes no sense to me while members of our community would protest the HRC in open public by tearing up the most universal symbol out there (“=”) the equal sign. The average American when viewing such foolery—views that we’re against Equality.

I’ve seen our so called leaders in this community wielding and angry mob with such statements as “We know who the enemy is now” in reference to the HRC. Yes they know how to raise funds. So what? They’ve done lots of good work to that we seem to forget about while we beat dead horses. I say move on. This forum is full of complainers—I’m one of them.

If forced to choose, I rather have freedom than equality.

Even though the latter should make life easier for someone in my position in theory, I know enough about life to realize that promises of equality ain't, and at least with some freedom allowed one can fight back.

"Equality" is one of those key words politicians use to get fat bank accounts. I refuse to buy into it.

The blanket term used by almost every organization now is GLBT. It has been adopted by the GLBT community, and it is how society in general lumps us together. When the Americans with Disabilities Act passed, certain disabilities weren't left out to further the cause of others, and mental disabilities and physical disabilities were both included, even though their issues are somewhat different. Pushing for specific right at certain times is part of the chess game. Leaving out part of the class that is seeking protection is not.It's also arguable that this is the perfect time for us. Our media visibility is growing; our presence in mainstream society is growing. I'm not entirely passable, and the times when I've been read I may have been subject to a sneer, but not to attack (thank God) or verbal assaults. There is plenty of discrimination still to be overcome, but the walls are starting to show cracks. We are gaining presence in mainstream media as well. "Boys Don't Cry" and "TransAmerica" both received glowing reviews in the mainstream media and less outcry than "Brokeback Mountain." There is a transsexual playing a transsexual on one of my favorite TV shows (and for the lead actor, not that subplot) and another series that has been green-lighted on FX that deals with a woman with a family who begins her transition.What aftermath? Could it be the protests from within the GLBT community itself that led to the hearing? It certainly had something to do with it.Should we just allow the HRC to throw us under the bus whenever it is politically expedient, just because they have helped our cause in the past. When the going got tough for them, they caved. How many other organizations that in their mission statements include the entire GLBT community abandoned us when things got tough? The fight isn't with Barney Frank (not yet) or with the Gay community, it is specifically with the HRC. Being Gay carries less social stigma than being Trans, and has for years. When gays and lesbians faced far worse discrimination, what percentage of them stayed in the closet? Why do they still reference a closet at all, unless huge numbers of gays and lesbians are still hiding their orientation? I can think of one time, in a casino, when a friend of mine was told she couldn't use the women's restroom, and would either have to use the men's room. That has been the extent of organized action that I have seen in public. I know I've been lucky. In private, things are far different.

Why do so many more of us choose to hide rather than proclaim our 'Transness' proudly? Maybe because although homosexuality is no longer in the DSM, GID is. Maybe because reparative therapy has been widely renounced as a treatment option for homosexuality but is still used by some prominent psychologists for GID. It could also be because it's easy to live your day to day life, even have a same-sex partner with whom a person shares a residence, and still that fact unknown in most situations, including work. It's far different when a person transitions. Almost everyone knows someone who is gay, far fewer people know someone who is Trans. The less scary the stigma of being Trans is, the more protected we are by law, the greater the percentage of us that will no longer try to hide that part of ourselves, either pre- or post-transition.