Do LGB's Care About the "T's?"

The main thing is, a lot of gay people (particularly gay guys) do their best to appear to be "normal," mainstream, blue collar people so that the general public will like them. In turn, they try to distance themselves away from trans and the more eccentric parts of the gay community. "Hey, I'm just like one of you guys, except I happen to like other guys instead. I'm not one of those freaks."

^ Yup.

Also, some people consider LGB issues (which deal with sexuality) to be separate from T issues (which deal with gender). The LGBT community is diverse, and as such, it is not necessarily congruent as a community. There is a lot of splintering within that community that sometimes makes it seem not so much like a community but a series of cliques that care about their own specific issues (for instance, a lot of sort of "mainstream" gay people only seem to care about gay marriage.). Idk, the community obviously differs widely depending on what city/area you live in.

I definitely agree that right now, the mainstream gay community and its groups tend to be pretty disconnected from trans rights and issues. There's a lot of emphasis on marriage rights, which are a big deal to me, too, but it's far from the only important issue.

And there can be this attitude that anyone who "looks" queer or doesn't fit into the heteronormative, cisgender mainstream is doing LGBT people a disservice. Because we're "threatening."

I also think sometimes trans exclusion is done pretty innocently. People tend to be most concerned about and interested in issues that are relevant to them, and may not realize that their focus is limited. I think a lot of LGBT organizations include the T because it's just the norm now and they honestly want to be inclusive. But in practice, they don't actually spend much time or thought on trans issues and don't feel qualified to do so.

But in any case, it definitely depends on the individual people and communities. I'm really proud to say that the LGBT group I'm a part of at school was actively publicizing the CeCe McDonald case and organizing letter writing campaigns.

This is a tough question, which in some ways I feel it shouldn't be, so thanks for bringing it up.

I can speak only for myself, since I'm not affiliated with any queer "communities" apart from....well, this one. My real life friends are writers, coworkers, and extended family members. Some of which are queer. I don't really keep track that much.

That said--I have some mutual aquaintances, mostly gay men, who are most definitely cliquey and have said, out loud, that flamboyant gay men annoy and embarrass them. I don't think they represent the majority, but I'd wager a guess that the straight community might prefer to believe they do.

However, specifically addressing the issue in the article, that level of extreme violence--if I was witness to that, I'd probably just back away slowly and call the police. In that order. Because, well, I don't want to get hit. If it was someone I knew personally--like one of those aforementioned friends or extended family members--I'd get involved, and I'd go in swinging. But for a complete stranger, erm, no.

I like to think that if it happened in front of me, I'd have the presence of mind to video it for evidence as soon as I call 911. I would at least call 911.

I live in San Francisco now. I left Arkansas and the Midwest and the scary places I lived all the rest of my life, except for 1978-80 when I was here before.

In that time, when I first got diagnosed, I was an active, socially engaged lesbian with a partner who belonged to a lesbian BDSM group. A little far out in the lesbian community and at times confused by other people calling me things like Super Butch because I didn't think of myself as butch - I didn't like sports and wasn't capable of being handy, didn't like cars, didn't like a lot of the conservative male stereotypes. So I didn't see just how much of a stone butch I was when I used "lesbian" as a label for "I know I'm a man but I can't afford transition even if it existed for me. I'm bi."

When my lover and I got diagnosed, we went from L to G within a week of tests. We found some acceptance in the gay male community - largely because we were with each other and not cruising anyone else. But we were still part of the fringe because of the BDSM.

The all inclusive BDSM group Janus welcomed us all over again, cheered our coming out and thereafter treated us as a couple of guys in a relationship. They accepted our social gender shift better than anyone else. Janus was All About Diversity. The cisgender white members were each often in a category of one for sexual preferences which went down into much more detail than "who you're with" when "what you'd like to do" turns into a very long, complex menu. Bi members were more accepted in Janus than in either gay or lesbian groups at the time. People who wanted to experiment were open about saying that and often got a friendly volunteer as long as their menus had some matching items.

The lesbian BDSM group Samois was horrified and attacked in masse. I got told that I was a traitor to the women's movement, that I should live as a female because I'd be a leader in the women's community and the movement was more important than my happiness. I told her that if the Women's Movement needed a man to lead it, even a man with female organs, that contradicted everything I thought the Women's Movement stood for. I didn't qualify and I told them that I thought MtF women did, that they were women who needed the Movement more than most.

Then one of them called me a Spy for the Male Gender. Sorry, I didn't learn any of the Secret Lesbian Seduction Methods any straight man would Kill For. All the things I learned during my lesbian years were things that still make sense to me as a human being who hates sexism. They're things that need to be said to men openly. I listen to those things. Moving back here, I had another great round of consciousness raising as a man and I still respect the women's movement to lead itself and tell me what the important issues are. I'm not qualified to tell women what they are. It's my part there to be an ally and support.

I would have been a lot happier if they'd given us a farewell party, escorted us to a gay male bar, given us a friendlier exit.

CeCe broke my heart. Those stories set off PTSD flares. Just like the gay man who screamed he couldn't swim when five bullies threw him into the Chicago River... and those buggers got probation for it. That happened during the 80s.

I kept my head down and walked soft for too many years, living stealth.

I live here now.

Gods, I wish CeCe did.

Here is my report on San Francisco. I feel welcomed and accepted everywhere by people in general. Very few have given me any kind of trouble. I haven't yet found any GBLT events or groups that I have the energy to join, so I can't say how specific identified groups react to me. I'm heady on the support from all the allies I find - many of whom are gay or lesbian, but the group isn't about being gay or lesbian. I wound up in a Seniors and Disabled group and they're acting just like Janus did. When I came out at a City Hall meeting on the needs of disabled and elderly San Franciscans, the applause shook the hall literally.

T acceptance is part of the normal attitudes here in San Francisco. It's something taken for granted. I think that in itself may wear down the fears of gay or lesbian groups that think we might hold back marriage rights and their important issues.

Marriage rights matter to me too. My daughter told me "I'm not sure you could marry anyone in Arkansas unless it's a trans woman."

I've also read articles about transwomen denied widows' benefits or other relatives cutting them out of their husbands' wills because they argued the marriage wasn't valid. Gay and Lesbian marriage rights are T marriage rights too.

The big thing against T marriages is that "it would open the way to same sex marriages." Yeah, well, the time has come.

Your original point, that the mainstream gay news sources should cover CeCe and other stories where transwomen of color get killed or face terrible injustices is right on. They should. I hold them more responsible than the mainstream news because so much of the mainstream news belongs to ripoff CEO run corporations and slants so far to the right that it falls over into full on lies every time I look.

I care about all of these cases. I care about every one of these stories. I read AlterNet, which doesn't ignore them - yet AlterNet is just a progressive email news publication.

Like all the beautiful elders in San Francisco who thundered applause when I came out, AlterNet is generally progressive and includes everybody. It's much harder to sort things out for specific groups, I think. The issue is the same one as a black gay man deciding whether the civil rights movement or gay rights movement is more important at the time. This is one of those points where I think the less specific groups have it right - when everyone's included and diversity accepted as such, that's when we have the numbers to get it done.

I love my neighbors. I'm glad I live here. I'm glad the speaker after me was a 91 year old Chinese woman who didn't speak English but spoke from the heart in a language that sounded like song, thanking the Supervisors for the services that help her to live independently.

I get scared, really scared, when I remember where I'm from. CeCe is in a nightmare place, she's where I came from, Minnesota. I know how bad it gets there. Goddess, guard her and aid her in all ways. Give her the strength to survive.

I don't think one can make a blanket statement that LGBs care about Ts or not. In my area (liberal Washington state), the LGBTQI activist groups are very supportive of trans issues and support trans awareness. On the individual non-activist level, maybe not so much.

Others have already mentioned the temptation for some to distance themselves from transfolk for being outliers who seem the most shocking to mainstream culture and who are less understood.

The same question is raised in feminist circles. Why are women who are so concerned about women's rights only concerned about some women's rights? (Same could be said about WoC, but I won't derail) Many feminists turn a blind eye to trans issues and exclude transwomen from women's spaces.

I think a lot of it comes down to lack of understanding. Gayness is easy to explain, to understand, and to "prove". Trans issues are more subtle, complex, hard to understand and explain, and impossible to prove. How does a female-bodied person "prove" that zie has a male gender? How can a transwoman who can't afford to transition get others to take her gender seriously?

That lack of understanding causes fear, and the fear leads to violence and rejection...

ETA: Obviously, a transperson doesn't have to prove anything, but in our "I won't consider it fact until you show me the evidence" culture, you know proof is demanded of them.

robertsloan2 said:

I live here now.

Gods, I wish CeCe did.

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This is not about where you live. Cece is from Minneapolis. That's not a "scary place in the Midwest." It's a major city with a huge QUILTBAG population.

This can happen anywhere.

Short Answer:
There's a lot of T-exclusion in certain LGB communities. There's also WoC-exclusion in both some LGB and T communities.

The trend is changing, and most T-exclusion and WoC-exclusion is accidental. But still, trans people of color (either gender, but especially trans women of color) are the most oppressed LGBT demographic in the western world. Trans women take up a disproportionate number of murdered LGBT hate crime victims, and most are trans women of color.

And then there's a few older lesbian or gay groups which are basically just ignorant ultra-conservatives of a different stripe, with outdated ideas and outright hatred of trans people. (Mostly, they say we're confused gay people trying to be straight, or confused straight people trying to infiltrate their communities.) They're the minority, but they're out there. Second-wave radical feminists, including some lesbians and "lesbians" (the straight women who appropriated lesbian identity as a political statement), are among the most notoriously anti-trans groups out there. Although not all second-wave radical feminists are transphobes.

Mostly, accidental T-exclusion is based on gay people either not knowing anything about it, or thinking it's just another type of sexual orientation, or just saying LGBT out of habit without knowing what the words mean. And also, a lot of it has to do with the major LGB groups (especially the HRC, which is also notoriously white-centric) focusing more on the rights of upper-class gay men than poor, non-white, or transgender people.

People of color-exclusion is usually based on sheer ignorance and white privilege. One particularly disgusting and common occurance is white middle-class trans women appropriating trans women of color's oppression and including themselves in it, and using that to get more support for whatever goals they're advocating for--which often are designed to help middle-class white trans women.
(EDIT: However, this does force them to pay attention, and the entire transgender community in the United States seems to have rallied around CeCe's cause. And often, in my experience, the appropriation thing tends to go away after a while, when individuals grow out of it.)

But all of these seem to be slowly improving.

I can only speak for myself and my friend group, but I care, as do most of my other LGB friends. The way I look at it is like... trans people are our minority brothers and sisters. We're not identical, but we're from the same family, and it's our job to look out for family. Plus, I feel like if people are still discriminating against one of us, they'll still discriminate against all of us, so we as a group should always be concerned with the welfare of other minority groups, especially the smaller ones who are less likely to be able to stick up for themselves. I know I have some cis/hetero friends who have said UNBELIEVABLY AWFUL, NASTY things about trans people (usually even prefacing them with "I'm all for gay rights, but ____" as if gay and trans are the same thing, or support for gay rights somehow negates the incredible bigotry against trans) and there aren't any trans people around to be like "Hey, that's fucking offensive" so I usually find I'm the one starting the arguments.

I wasn't really aware of trans issues when I was younger, I admit. I met my first trans friend in high school - one of very few; I feel like trans people being so rare definitely hurts the visibility of their struggles - and that was when my eyes were kind of opened to this whole other world of identity and judgment. My friend was/is MTF and she is girlier than 99% of the girls I've EVER met! It made me furious to think that people could ever say "You can't use the women's bathroom" or "Those clothes are too girly, you were born a boy, you need to dress like a boy" to her, because I didn't care how she was born originally, she was a freaking GIRL. Teachers used the wrong pronouns, were caught off guard or ignored her when she told them she preferred to go by the girl version of her given name, etc. WATCHING these things happen made me aware, and I think A LOT of people who are ignorant of trans issues (or downright judgmental and nasty) probably haven't ever actually TALKED TO any trans people, much less been friends with them!

So, in short, THIS lesbian thinks it's important, haha. I can't speak for everyone but I really hope more people stop and consider the problems outside of their own little section of the world and maybe in the future people of ALL groups will have an easier time. =\

Mara said:

And then there's a few older lesbian or gay groups which are basically just ignorant ultra-conservatives of a different stripe, with outdated ideas and outright hatred of trans people. (Mostly, they say we're confused gay people trying to be straight, or confused straight people trying to infiltrate their communities.) They're the minority, but they're out there. Second-wave radical feminists, including some lesbians and "lesbians" (the straight women who appropriated lesbian identity as a political statement), are among the most notoriously anti-trans groups out there. Although not all second-wave radical feminists are transphobes.

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The thing about radical feminists is that a lot of them are not transphobic; they're gender-critical, which isn't the same thing. They see gender as an inherently harmful social construction that upholds the patriarchy and needs to be abolished. Which isn't to say that a lot of radical feminists aren't transphobic, because there are many who are, but radical feminists mostly hate gender rather than transgender people. That's the whole reason radical feminism is radical, I suppose, because it proposes ending systematic oppression perpetuated by the patriarchy by abolishing gender.

savagelilies said:

The thing about radical feminists is that a lot of them are not transphobic; they're gender-critical, which isn't the same thing.

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That reference to second-wave radical feminists is key thing to note though; it's a very specific tribe.

Medievalist said:

That reference to second-wave radical feminists is key thing to note though; it's a very specific tribe.

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Very true; the second wave is distinct in and of itself. I completely skimmed over the "second wave" part, which, it's true, is quite distinct as a whole.

/derail

Well, I was raised in a pretty much anti-LGBT environment, and still live in one. I, however, chose to disavow those views. My opinions on LGB and T are separate, though.

I wouldn't say that I don't care about the "T." I'm concerned about all groups who're oppressed simply because of who they are. And I'd like the "tranny," "chicks with dicks," and "men with boobs" jokes to stop, as they simply aren't funny, and they're rather offensive. But, I'm unable to get fully on the bandwagon because I believe gender and standards of what's truly feminine/masculine are inherently harmful to society. And I'm no radical feminist. I don't even consider myself a regular feminist.

I mean, things like this (and I don't mean to pick on you, pandaponies) bother me:

pandaponies said:

My friend was/is MTF and she is girlier than 99% of the girls I've EVER met! It made me furious to think that people could ever say "You can't use the women's bathroom" or "Those clothes are too girly, you were born a boy, you need to dress like a boy" to her, because I didn't care how she was born originally, she was a freaking GIRL.

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Because I've always been told I'm not "feminine" enough, that I should wear dresses and skirts if I want people to think I'm a girl -- cause I have been mistaken for a guy previously. And I really don't believe that some things are just inherently female and others are just inherently male. I think people should wear whatever they want to wear, and take up whatever hobbies they like, and wear whatever make up they like, without fear of being judged as too "girly" or too "manly" because those terms are rather meaningless when you just are a girl (or guy) to begin with.

I know being Trans is not a matter of wanting to be a woman (or man), but that you just are. But I'd rather the notion of what it takes to be a woman (or man) disappear. Because if you just are, you don't need to conform to what anyone tells you you need to be. A more "feminine" woman is no more of a woman than I am, and a "masculine" woman is no lesser, either.

But, meh, I've never had any out trans friends or gay friends. My existence has been rather sheltered. I'd have no issue dating someone who was trans, though, speaking as someone who's black and bi.

Oh, no, absolutely, I totally understand/agree with you -- but as a 15/16-year-old meeting my first trans person ever, it made it very easy for me to understand that trans people aren't choosing their own gender to spite God or society -- they just ARE that gender. So all of us who grew up being friends with this girl were like "Oh, yeah, trans = you are that gender, our friend IS a girl, no-brainer." I feel like we were very fortunate to have this friend, firstly because she is a wonderful sweet person and secondly because I'm from the deep DEEP south where tension on these issues is high and I cringe to think that honestly if a lot of us hadn't met her, we might have been brainwashed by our parents (who say that trans people are an abomination to God even more so than gay people).

Personally re: acting a certain gender, I have the opposite problem - I'm a lesbian, but a very stereotypically "girly" one, so I'm constantly getting told that I can't be a lesbian because I'm not "butch" enough, asked to "prove it," getting told by other lesbians that I'm not as valid of a member of the LGB community because I blend/get accused of "hiding" etc. But that's off-topic.

thebloodfiend said:

I know being Trans is not a matter of wanting to be a woman (or man), but that you just are. But I'd rather the notion of what it takes to be a woman (or man) disappear.

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I understand what you're saying. I used to feel that way. I have always heard transgender explained like this: how would you feel if you woke up and found yourself in the body of the opposite sex? That is how transgendered people feel. For me, I can honestly say it wouldn't bother me. Other than the weird feeling of the completely impossible happening, of course. Just being a boy wouldnt bother me. That is why I never really understood it.

Now I realize that some people, it bothers. Gender is not simply a social construct. It is inherent in some people.

Celia Cyanide said:

Gender is not simply a social construct. It is inherent in some people.

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How so?

Of course, it's easy to say it wouldn't bother you to wake up in the opposite sex until it happens...

Which is why I need to build my gender/sex ray. I first designed it for use on the crazier republicans, but then decided that it'd be more fun to use on myself...for science.

...then I wake up...stupid reality.

Well, there is the question... if gender were *entirely* a social construct, wouldn't it then be possible to just "socialize" a trans person into "being" their birth-sex from birth? If gender is entirely a social construct, then how do binaried trans people exist? I think there IS a degree of biology + inherent state of being involved.

*ducks and hides* I hope this doesn't open a huge can of worms.

edit: I think the problem here stems from using the word "GENDER" and that gender IDENTITY should be separate from gender ROLES.

Well, and that gender and sex are different things that are easily confused by laypersons because people keep assuming that just because one is one, the other has to be that way too.

I can't honestly say how I'd feel if I woke up as a guy, so I won't address that.

I will say that I know the difference between sex and gender and I really doubt that gender is inherent. Having two X chromosomes doesn't make one more drawn to pink or dresses or dolls or better at empathizing, and less drawn to sports and guns and worse at math. I'm of the opinion that it's our society that sets those boundaries and tells us what is appropriate to like from an early age.

Feeling like a girl, or a guy, I would assume is completely different from wanting to wear a dress or wanting to watch football. But I'm not trans, so I don't know. I do know that I'm sick of being told what is and isn't appropriate for me to do based on my sex from certain members of my family, which is why I believe that the notion of gender is inherently harmful, or should at least be acknowledged as something cultural, rather than inherent, unlike sex.

Gender is a social construct insofar that it is a system of oppression. It's created to systematically oppress and other by creating the binary of man and woman, or universal Self and Other, for the Self to oppress the Other. It's all constructed. I'm not convinced that it's inherent, at all. Moreover, what is considered "masculine" and "feminine" is not inherently masculine or feminine; we ascribe these qualities to various things (ie blue is "masculine" and pink is "feminine, often to value or devalue them).

savagelilies said:

How so?

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Inherent is the wrong word. But some people have it in their personality.

pandaponies said:

Well, there is the question... if gender were *entirely* a social construct, wouldn't it then be possible to just "socialize" a trans person into "being" their birth-sex from birth? If gender is entirely a social construct, then how do binaried trans people exist? I think there IS a degree of biology + inherent state of being involved.

*ducks and hides* I hope this doesn't open a huge can of worms.

edit: I think the problem here stems from using the word "GENDER" and that gender IDENTITY should be separate from gender ROLES.

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Trying to socialize kids into accepting normal gender roles is done to many that claim to be transgender (though of course, they don't actually use the term). It usually just ends up being torture for them. However, that alone isn't really proof, I suppose, because of the relatively small sample size.

There is a famous case of a circumcision going wrong and the kid ended up being raised as a girl in a psychological experiment that ended in failure. He felt miserable the whole time and transitioned back to male as soon as he heard the truth. On the flip side, there was another case of a circumcision going wrong and the child being raised as a girl but being completely ok as an adult woman. The way gender identity and social gender roles interact is still not fully understood.

I'm not going to go into a long explanation, because it's just too much stress right now.

1) savagelilies, I totally understand what you mean about gender roles and gender expression, and most educated trans people say they're bullshit.

But transsexualism isn't about gender expression or masculinity and femininity. Loads of trans women are masculine and loads of trans men are feminine.

Transsexualism is mostly about literally going insane because you're under the influence of the wrong hormones and they're ruining your quality of life (at least) and making you suicidal (usually). The body dysphoria (genitals etc.) are a secondary problem, and only seem to be a problem in some trans people, and there's research suggesting it might be linked to how our brains map our bodies. The social aspect, which the media _loves_ to focus on, is a very distant third. Most transsexual women were not "Princess Boys" when we were children, and most transsexual men were not hyper-masculine, but we all felt something was seriously physically wrong with us.

You can totally eliminate all socially constructed ideas of gender, but you'll still have some people who feel inexplicably depressed and/or full of rage and won't function correctly as adults until their hormone levels are fixed.

I'm kinda feminine and always was as a kid, and maybe being trans was part of that, but that has nothing to do with why I needed to transition. If it was about gender expression, I'd just wear a dress and makeup and call it a day. As it is, I don't express ultra-femininely and I still have loads of "male" interests. I never fit into either gender role and I still don't, and I'm fine with that.

Social theory is all well and good, but when it blocks access to life-saving medical treatment for people, that's when it becomes a problem.

2) Celia Cyanide, I have loads of respect for you, but this:

I understand what you're saying. I used to feel that way. I have always heard transgender explained like this: how would you feel if you woke up and found yourself in the body of the opposite sex? That is how transgendered people feel. For me, I can honestly say it wouldn't bother me.

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EDIT: (I sound mildly confrontional, gonna turn that down cause I TOTALLY didn't mean to come off like that.)

I think you're mistaken.

It's hard for you to understand what it feels like. At best, someone could dose you up with loads of testosterone, but that doesn't really simulate the years of growing up with the crap in your system during your most important years of development, and the social crap that comes with that.

It's not about what you look like on the outside that's the biggest problem (although gender constructs and social pressure _definitely_ makes them a huge problem for most trans people), it's about what those chemicals are doing to your mind.

Most trans women I know felt dangerously depressed, incredibly distracted, and often self-destructively angry prior to getting hormones. And within a few days of starting testosterone blockers, almost every single one (including me) stopped having those problems. I know someone who went, in the space of a week, from hitting herself and breaking chairs on walls and passing out from stress at the doctor's office and talking about suicide to being completely fine and normal and functional, just because she got testosterone blockers. (And the estrogen helped even more.)

"What if you woke up in the wrong body tommorrow?" is a neat mental exercise, but a much more realistic one is, "What if you woke up with severe mental illness tommorrow, and also you happened to look like the opposite sex?"