Is it logical and/or prudent for the Gay community to be aligned with Transsexuals?

Great Debates
21

I feel compelled to throw in my perspective.

I am not particularly well-informed on the issues important to the gay and trangendered communities; I am straight, white, male, middle-class, and more or less mainstream.

I like and admire way too many gay people to entertain a homophobic attitude. I support gay marriage and gay adoption, and will not hesitate to argue in favor of these issues in political discussions. To me, gay people are normal people.

On the flipside, I don’t know any transgendered people. I imagine that most (probably all) of the depictions of transgendered people I’ve seen on TV and in movies are wildly innacurate caricatures, but that’s all I’ve seen. On a gut level, I am not comfortable discussing the agenda of the transgendered community, or even watching trangendered people on TV. I just plain don’t want to have anything to do with transgendered people; I’d prefer if they’d live their lives the way they want to where I don’t have to deal with them. I don’t like that I have this aversion. I recognize that I have this aversion because of my own issues, and that I may feel differently a few years from now.

The fact remains, though, that while I have no problem backing homosexual rights, the T in LGBT would prevent me from getting on their bandwagon.

22

Since you acknowledge that you “imagine that most (probably all) of the depictions of transgendered people I’ve seen on TV and in movies are wildly innacurate caricatures,” I really don’t understand why you have this aversion. You apparently understand that until quite recently, most popular depictions of gay and lesbian people were at best broad stereotypes (even a positive stereotype is still a stereotype) and at worst “wildly innacurate caricatures.”

Are you more comfortable with gay and lesbian people because you know some? Don’t be so sure you don’t know any transgendered people. I know many, and I will tell you now that your average transwoman does not look like a linebacker in a garden frock and your average transman does not look like a Soviet-era lady athlete on steroids. How would you feel if you learned that someone you know wasn’t always the gender that you assumed they were? Would this make you more or less sensitive to the concerns of transgendered people?

How do you think transgendered people want to live their lives? If you agree that what you’ve seen are inaccurate depictions, then what’s left? If transgendered folks DON’T want actually want to be someone’s freak show, could it be that they want to do pretty much the same things you take for granted - do productive work, feel safe at home, grow old in the company of family? At that point, just how is the “agenda” of the transgendered community any different from that of the gay and lesbian community or from your own?

23

It’s important to point out that until recently, the same was true for **all **minorities – sexual, racial, religious, etc. If you go back only 50 years, the stereotypes you saw were not intended to make you want to embrace these people, even if your were one of them. I, as a gay man, **never **saw any positive portrayals of gay men until I was an adult. We all know what the standard stereotype was, and there was absolutely nothing to counteract it.

24

Perhaps I need to clarify the intention of my post. I in no way want to convey that I feel that my aversion to transgendered people is justified or acceptable. It isn’t. I may be off base, but I imagine that this attitude is commonplace in the mainstream. I shared my attitude simply to frame the question: Is it logical and/or prudent for the Gay community to be aligned with Transsexuals?

In response to your questions, cwthree, I really don’t know how I’d react if I were to discover that an acquaintance of mine is a transsexual. I imagine it would have a significant impact on my outlook; if I like said person, I would probably become more tolerant toward transsexuals (rather than less tolerant toward this particlar person). This requires more contemplation on my part. Thank you for challenging my attitude, cwthree.

25

As for the hijack - there are two big schools of thought in the subject of homosexuality and its history - the Social Constructionists and the Essentialists. Basically, a pure Social Constructionist believes that no one is gay or straight but sexuality is completely influenced by society. The pure essentialist believes that biology/psychology is responsible for our sexual drives. The Social Constructionists were the first big group that started back in the 70s with Foucalt and Halperin being the two main authors. Then in the 80s and 90s the essential camp began making a lot of noise with books from Boswell, Norton (I highly suggest his most famous book), Crompton and others. Most scholars aren’t pure, but tend to lean to one side. For example, I believe culture does strongly influence expressions of sexuality, but I think that biology is the main drive. I also believe that the ancient greeks (and other cultures) recognized that some individuals were gay because of something inborn and that there were gay ‘hangouts’ and subcultures and all that good stuff.

I am afraid I implied that the groups overall are hostile towards each other. That isn’t the case. I don’t know the exact percentage of hostility, but it isn’t the majority. Just the fact that hostility exists is annoying to me.

And for the reasons for the hostility, some gays (and people in general) think that transgendered people are just individuals who are in denial of their homosexuality. This completely ignores the fact that there are plenty of gay and lesbian transgendered people, but I have heard it said before. There are also gays who don’t want the T to be including in LGBT because they believe that having the T confuses straight people about homosexuality and makes gaining rights harder.

On the flip side, most of the Transgendered individuals I know are supportive of gays and gay rights (most are bisexual) but I do know some who say that they don’t ‘get’ homosexuality. I also know some who hate being aligned with the gay community and wish to seperate themselves, although these individuals are very rare.

26

I feel like I should say something here.

I was on board with gay rights before I went trans, but especially since I went trans I feel a strong kindred alliance with lesbian and gay issues and people. Now, gayness, lesbianism, and heterosexuality are all variations on one theme. Transgender is another thing entirely different from all of the above. Regardless of which way your sexual orientation is pointing, gay or straight, the basic fact is that it’s about who you’re attracted to. It’s all about relating to others. Kate Bornstein in her great book Gender Outlaw noted that gay and lesbian orientations inherently build communities, because it’s all about connecting with others. Meanwhile, transgender has no reference to others; it’s about how you understand your own self. It’s inherently introspective and maybe also introverted. That’s the explanation for why there isn’t much of a transgender “community” compared with the big, vibrant gay & lesbian communities.

Regardless of the above, gay and trans are natural allies because we’re all queers. Queerness unites us. That counts for a lot. KellyM was right on target by citing the Stonewall riots as not only the defining moment for gay consciousness, but for gay-trans alliance. It was mainly trans leaders who made it happen at Stonewall in 1969. How soon their contribution to queer liberation is forgotten.

I haven’t noticed animosity between gays and trans people personally, although I’ve been involved with the LGBT scene only a short time. There was one tendency among some feminists to bash transsexuality, but Patrick Califia (back when he was still a female-identified butch dyke named Pat Califia) argued back eloquently against this prejudice in Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism, and I think succeeded in persuading many lesbians and feminists to accept trans people. Califia has done a lot toward trans understanding, both before and after he went trans. I feel we all owe him a big debt of gratitude. As for trans prejudice against gays, this makes no sense to me whatever. I haven’t seen any such attitudes among the trans activists I’ve been among. AFAIK, it’s taken for granted that gay rights are for the good of society as a whole. We do have feelings of resentment for being treated as an afterthought, as stepchildren of the LGBT movement, in short, we hate being ignored. It’s just too easy to overlook us, to pretend to forget about us. We just don’t have the numbers to be very influential in anything. Gays and lesbians outnumber us by what, something like a thousand to one. Cite: www.gluteo_numeric_extraction.com :wink:

I don’t know what anyone means when they say trans people “are gay” or “are not gay.” Once you enter the trans zone and break down the gender binary, the very definitions of “gay” and “straight” lose their applicability and relevance. I do not think of myself in terms of either category. I don’t define myself by who I’m attracted to. If I were able to totally enter the female identity and be accepted as female, like a successfully passing stealth transsexual, then if I dated only women I suppose you could say I was “lesbian” and if I dated only men then you might be able to get away with saying I was “straight.” But it feels nonsensical to me to think along those lines. I know I’ll always be trans, and as such I’ll always be queer, so don’t you dare call me “straight” regardless of whom I date. Kate Bornstein likes to date women, but she doesn’t claim to be “lesbian” because there is a definite lesbian subculture, or rather a suite of various lesbian subcultures, none of which she really fits into. So she just says, I’m trans, deal with it.

As long as intelligent and caring gentlemen like matt_mcl are around, I believe the gay-trans alliance has a bright future. Thanks for explaining these things so well, matt!

27

bows deeply

28

Since they all have the same end result in mind, equal rights, then sure.

To be quite honest, I find two males having sex to be “icky” when I think about it, but that just means that it’s not for me personally. That’s my problem, not the problem of homosexuals. I’m pretty sure that for many of them, thinking about my wife and myself getting busy isn’t exactly pleasing either, but they aren’t trying to stop it from happening. The same applies to the “most people” you reference above. They don’t have to change the way they think about things, they just have to change the fact that they are treating people as second class citizens. Being humans, GLBTs are entitled to the exact same rights as you and I.

29

I’ve got nothing to contribute to the discussion. I just wanted to thank you profusely for this link. I’ve been looking for something similar.

30

Actually, you likely do. Most people know at least one transgendered person. They just likely don’t know it.

31

Which is a really interesting claim in light of several surveys that have found that a greater percentage of the population – even in conservative states like Virginia – favors nondiscrimination law for transsexuals than does nondiscrimination law for homosexuals. Adding gender identity language to a bill to protect sexual orientation does not appear to impair the ability of the bill to pass; for example, in Illinois almost no debate in the legislature focused on the gender identity language and nobody questioned its appropriateness. But if it’s not added, a subsequent attempt to add gender identity will frequently fail; for example, a bill to extend nondiscrimination in Vermont (which already has sexual orientation nondiscrimination) is failing due to a belief that it’s “redundant” with sexual orientation.

Many of us have therefore concluded that anyone who argues that adding gender identity to sexual orientation legislation will keep it from passing is actually a transophobe and is deliberately trying to keep trans people from getting rights.

There is some empirical evidence for this position: Rep. Barney Frank (one of the politicians who routinely opposes trans-friendly legislation in Congress) is a well-known transophobe, and his influence, combined with all the second-wave feminist lesbians that currently hold a lot of of the lobbying positions in these areas (second-wave feminists tend to be antitranssexual, due to the influence of Janice Raymond and of radical feminism generally on that demographic), make it appear that gay people don’t want trans people getting rights. Most of us realize that it’s not all gay people who hold those attitudes, just a strikingly large proportion of those gay people who are heavy into politics. Eventually the second-wavers will die off and the third-wavers (who are generally not transophobic) will take over and things will get better. But that’ll take another 20 years, probably.

32

KellyM, good news. Barney Frank has come around on trans issues, I found out a couple months ago when lobbying Congress with the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition. He supported trans inclusion in this year’s hate crimes bill, IIRC. Yes, it was rotten of him that in years past he wasn’t on board with trans rights, but he is now. I wouldn’t label him “transphobic” unless you can point to a specific thing he said that indicates he has a problem with TG per se. I think he excluded trans from previous legislation out of a “practical” motive, the misguided apprehension that trans inclusion would slow down the progress of gay rights. Mr. Frank is very intelligent, so he is capable of wising up if he is shown new evidence. I don’t know any reason to think he ever held ideological transphobia of the ugly Janice Raymond kind. I would like to think the sort of bigotry spewed by Raymond has been dying out for several years now in the lesbian community.

Thanks, Kelly, for the information about the surveys on transphobia and legislation. That is really interesting to hear. I wish the NTAC had thought of that when we were lobbying a couple months ago. It would have been a very useful fact to explain to Congress. Where did you find this out?

33

Cynical ol’ me believes that he’s supporting it now only because he knows the bill has no chance of passing. There is a lot of friction between HRC (which Frank gets a lot of his support from) and trans groups likes NTAC and TSM; HRC is trying to repair that now because they have no hope of getting any meaningful federal legislation out of the current Congress anyway. HRC has done this before, and then when they’ve gotten a friendlier legislative environment turned around and dropped trans support. I’m not buying it.

We’ve been around this merry-go-round with Frank and HRC over and over again: a public show of support, and a private “forget it, sweetcheeks”.

My source for most of my comments on this issue is Transsexual Menace International, whose mailing list I’ve been on for the past couple of years; a lot of the contributors on that list are the people who are in the trenches lobbying for NTAC and other trans rights groups. They’ve been fighting with Frank and HRC over their lackluster commitment to trans rights for many years now. The problem is that both Frank and HRC are in favor of gay rights for “normal looking gays”: that is, people like Will from Will and Grace. If you’re not a upper-middle class gay professional, you don’t count in their eyes (besides, you have no money to donate, so you REALLY don’t count). The rest of us can, and should, go away, and that includes the transsexuals, who are especially weird in their eyes and thus an embarrassment to them. A lot of us would prefer that HRC stop claiming to lobby for transsexual rights when in fact they don’t want to; by accepting money intended to benefit transsexuals and then not doing anything for transsexuals, they dilute the resources available to actually try to do something for transsexual rights. Which, as many of us suspect, is what they want.

34

I should add that the reason why Frank has opposed trans rights is what he calls “the locker room issue”. He feels that it’s inappropriate for trans people to be allowed to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender and has stated that he will not support any legislation that doesn’t address this issue. He feels that trans people should use whichever restroom corresponds to their genitalia. He’s been raising this issue for a long time now (far longer than it’s been in public play, which is really only since late 2004), long enough and consistently enough that a lot of us think that it’s a personal issue for him. Thus the conclusion that he’s transophobic.

Illinois has had law for quite some time that states that an individual is entitled to use whichever restroom (or locker room) corresponds to the legal sex listed on their Illinois state-issued identification; Illinois will change listed sex on a driver’s license based only on a letter from a doctor or psychologist. This, combined with Illinois’ recent adoption of nondiscrimination law for trans people, means that an MTF is entitled to use the women’s restroom and locker room, whether or not pre-op. I haven’t heard any screaming over this yet. Mr. Frank would prefer to have such a person required to change in the men’s locker room. Why?

35

Seems unlikely to me. How many TG people are there in the US?

36

Estimates of the rate of incidence of transsexualism vary from 1 in 500 to 1 in 40,000 depending on who you ask; I personally suspect the rate is around 1 in 1000, as theorized by Lynn Conway. If Conway is correct, there are therefore around 300,000 transsexuals. Note also that this is the incidence of transsexualism; it doesn’t count nontranssexual transgendered individuals, for which it is even harder to establish incidence rates for because most of them never publicize their status to anyone other than their sexual partners, or they conduct their transgendered behaviors in a manner calculated to protect the privacy of their “everyday” lives. For all you know, the guy two cubicles down from you spends every Wednesday night dressed up as a blonde bombshell at a bar halfway across town.

37

Which is why I’m surprised there is an alliance.

What is inherent about homosexuality that is conducive to building communities?

Good point.

If you are using “queer” to be weird or out of the ordinary, then plenty of groups fit that description. I don’t really see why these two groups would choose to unite. Especially when one group has little to offer the other, has a completely different agenda, and is advocating a stance that most people will never accept.

But the fact that, beyond certain charismatic individual activists, transgendered people offer very little in terms of moving closer toward societal acceptance. In fact, I think they hinder the progress being made in many ways. That’s not to say the alliance is the wrong thing to do, just that you can’t be surprised that some in the homosexual community feel that way.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think most in the gay community are advocating what you seem to be advocating.

Cite?

38

I’ve been looking for it. I suspect it was from a Transsexual Menace email that is currently residing on my deceased laptop, and thus beyond my immediate access. I recall, however, a survey in Virginia that showed about 20% support for gay rights but nearly 60% for trans rights (where “rights” means nondiscrimination in employment and housing).

Many conservatives, especially the religious sort, view transsexualism as a “special test from God” and hark to Biblical passages such as “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out” as Biblical justification for acceptance of reassignment surgery. Pat Robertson, in particular, has expressed the foregoing views more than once, and as a result we have at least the tolerance of some of the religious right.

39

Well, I think she explained it: since a basic part of homosexuality involves sexual and affectional desire, we have a fairly essential incentive to seek out other homosexuals.

This is the thing. To me, at base, our agendas are the same: we wish to move society’s gender-based distinctions from mandatory to optional.

We just differ in the areas of focus: LGB people don’t want our romantic/sexual/family lives socially or legally limited by the gender of our partner/s; trans/genderqueer people don’t want our bodies, our presentation, our identities, and our legal personae to be gendered without our consent. Both of these involve removing gender from a matter of public meddling to a matter of private identity.

You’re right; nowadays, many LGB people would not necessarily describe our fight in this way. But at its base, there’s no denying that homophobia is discrimination on the basis of gender, gender roles, and gender presentation. Boys aren’t allowed to kiss other boys; girls aren’t allowed to kiss other girls. It’s queer. It’s gender queer.

40

WTF? You are confused. I was not advocating anything in that paragraph you quoted. I was just explaining my personal feelings why the concepts of “gay” and “straight” cannot apply to my situation.

Are you transphobic yourself, brickbacon? I reread your comments to see if there was any other way to interpret them. I could not. What would you have us do? Get back in the closet?

KellyM, it comes as news to me that right-wing Christians could be trans accepting. I was aware that in Islamic law several mullas, of whom the best known was Ruhollah Khomeini, have ruled that transsexual Muslims have the right to sex reassignment surgery and acceptance in their preferred gender. IIRC, Iran now has the highest rate of SRS per capita in the world. That’s right. The Islamic Republic of Iran. It sure makes for mixed feelings on my part as a leftist Witch. To have Pat Robertson and Khomeini as my political bedfellows? :smack: Especially while a liberal like Barney Frank is useless to my cause? Time to play “The World Turned Upside Down”! If this means I have to turn right-wing fundie, then just give me “mortality reassignment surgery,” i.e. kill me now!

I want to be friends with lesbians and gays. I feel more comfortable around them and I feel common shared goals with their community, as different as we are. It hurts to be rejected by them, dammit. Kelly, for many years I had admired Barney Frank as the most articulate and passionate liberal in the U.S. Congress. I totally looked up to him. Now I feel betrayed and sick at heart. Shakespeare said it best: “This was the most unkindest cut of all.”

Ironically, the first time I used a ladies’ room, a crowded ladies’ room at that, filled with women standing in line, it was in the Rayburn House Office Building when I was lobbying Congress with NTAC. I had absolutely no problem at all. The women all implicitly accepted me as one of them. Take that, Barney Frank! Ha! :stuck_out_tongue:

So the whole picture is confusing. On the one hand, we are less acceptable than gays. On the other hand, we are more acceptable. Depending on whom you ask. The only thing that’s clear is, America hasn’t quite got us figured out yet.