As both a queer- and trans-rights activist, I have always felt a strong sense of community. However sometimes I feel torn between which community I’m supposed to be loyal to – is it the trans community? The queer community (as a whole, encompassing all the letters of the acronym)? The lesbian community? The kink community? The poly community? The pansexual community? That’s a lot of communities to be involved in, and while most overlap each other, they are at the same time distinct from each other. They are also all communities I feel a deep connection to.
Each of the communities mentioned above have a common thread – we all do something different than what heteronormative society expects of us, something that often sets others at unease. However, what we do differently isn’t common to all of us at all. In fact, each community is so diverse, it can be difficult to bind our groups together in the first place. Some focus on sexual attraction (lesbian and pansexual), some on sexual behaviors (kink), some on relationship structure (poly) and some on gender identity (trans).
The history of the Queer community hasn’t always been so inclusive. Early in queer activism, it was limited to what today we would term the gay and lesbian communities. Associated with the gay community was drag culture. Because of the frequent confusion between the drag and transgender communities, the trans community has been awkwardly associated with the queer community since the beginnings. But some trans people assert that we are a distinct community with our own distinct issues. That much is certainly true, as sexual orientation is completely separate from gender identity. A trans person may be gay, straight, or anything in between.
Another example of this phenomenon started with third-wave feminism. Because of the growing need for feminist communities to dissassociate themselves from men (as evidenced by the introduction of the spelling ‘womyn’) a lesbian separatist movement grew, consequently advocating the idea of the gay male community being wholly separate from the lesbian community. This idea never really became mainstream for two reasons: 1) both groups had essentially the same goals in mind, and 2) in the 80’s many gay men needed lesbian allies to help continue the fight for their rights after the AID outbreak. Yet still the idea remains to this day, ane every once in a while, someone speaks up to try to dissassociate lesbians and gay men from each other.
The familiar acronym we hear today first showed up in the 1990’s. It was around this time that it became recognized that being queer meant more than just your sexual orientation. Academics looked toward the idea that mainstream opposition to alternate sexual orientation came about because they contradict expected gender roles. A man is “supposed” to be attracted to women, just like a man is expected to not wear women’s clothes. At the same time, bisexual visibility was on the rise, and so in an effort to become more inclusive, the acronyms “GLBT” and “LGBT” became increasingly used around this time. Since the new millenium, in an effort to become more inclusive of various gender variant communities, these acronyms have continually expanded, now sometimes encopassing up to 10 letters. The now unwieldly nature of the acronym has now seen the rise of the term “alphabet soup” to describe its nature.
The LGBT acronym has been used to indicate that each group is considered equal to each other. However, in reality, each group has not always been treated as such. The very nature of putting the ‘L’ in the front was done basically in an effort to compensate for a lack of lesbian visibility. Likewise, some trans activists complain that “it’s as if the ‘T’ was just stuck on the end without any real consideration”. A recent incident supporting this claim is the 2007 attempt at passing ENDA in the States, where the term ‘gender identity’ was dropped from the bill in order to ensure it’s passage. This has led to much bitterness from the trans community directed towards some GLB groups that advocated taking the bill in such a direction. Some trans people have lamented that gay and lesbian people only support trans rights where it’s convenient for them, and forget about us the rest of the time.
Question: How much do the GLB communities have in common today with the T community?
I’m not sure how I can reply to your Question at the end! I don’t personally have much experience with the broader “GLB” community yet, so instead I’ll try to add my comments, however tangent:
I strongly agree with you, that the cissexual GLB communities drop the T on political and legal fronts, when it’s convenient, but that leaves me wondering; where are our trans representatives within the gay, lesbian, and bisexual spheres?
I have gone through transition, or as I like to rephrase it; reached a point of consolidation and physical dignity where I feel my gender presentation is (almost completely) aligned with my internal gender identity. I used to identify as ‘transgendered’ while in transition, however I now identify as cisgendered (i.e. consolidated), with an intersex condition and a trans history. I am ‘out’ about my trans history to close personal friends, but generally not online.
I always make an effort to educate cissexual allies, inclusive of any sexual orientation, about the realities of trans discrimination, heteronormativity, cissexism (where applicable), traditional and oppositional sexism, on behalf of the struggles I’ve experienced, even if I don’t feel as directly exposed to them anymore.
I have yet to formally ‘enter’ lesbian- or pansexual-identified spheres, as I feel most closely oriented towards these labels, albeit non-explicitly. I anticipate some interesting dialogue surrounding these issues, as you discussed in this post, as I enter these communities and try to forge new friendships and relationships.
Ah, alphabet soup. Delicious! And wearisome. While I do think it is very important to recognise our differences and garner support from other individuals within a margin, what exasperates me about this is how easily people become divisive over these terms. It’s a slippery slope, where we quickly forget common causes — or the unifying fact that we are all, in fact, human beings — as we get swept away in a deluge of terminology and hasty assumptions. We should agree to disagree more often, keep the big picture in mind, and we should not seek to attach ourselves to any particular group in an effort to garner attention or momentum for our own cause. Instead, we should not piggyback. Be proud of our individuality. Find our own strength. All that good stuff.
That is a message that every person on the planet can learn from.
Personally, I don’t think transgender people fit into the LGB scene by merit of being transgender. If a transman happens to be gay, then that’s something. But what if he’s straight? He’ll find very little in common with these people. Gay men and straight men don’t often relate on their sexuality! The sexual dynamic just isn’t the same, and that’s a big part of it. And there is a significant portion of transgender people, maybe even most of them, that are straight.
And bisexual people tend to have the same problems. I think we can gain a lot by banding together, as we do have some important similarities, but I’ll write more on that later. For now, let me tell a short story from the front lines of the LGBTrenches.
An acquaintance of mine we’ll call C was once at his university’s “LGBT” meeting one night. He’s a bisexual transman. That night was sex talk night, and the organizer decided to split the group up into lesbians and gay men, so each could go their own way and chat about knocking boots the way they like best. Poor C is left in the middle going, “Uhh, which group do I go in?”
“Whichever you prefer!” quoth the cat-herder. Well, C is bisexual. He likes them both. A lot. When he pointed this out, the lesbian leader said “I don’t want to hear about gay guy stuff!” And the gay guy leader said “I won’t want to hear about lesbo stuff!”
Where does poor Charlie fit? He doesn’t! At least, he doesn’t if you’re going to run a LGBT group like that. It’s a running joke in transgender communities that LGBT is, in reality, upper-case G, lower-case L, tiny little b, and — oops, where’d that t go? Marginalisation occurs all too often in these groups. With C, we never even got to the fact that he’s a transman, which likely would’ve complicated things more than just being bisexual, which was bad enough. I’ll cite a great article on this later.
On the one hand, I want lesbians and gays to have their own spaces, as they have separate needs and interests, even from one another. On the other hand, all of these groups have a lot to gain by allying with one another, and as Emily states, we have in common that we are outside of heteronormity. That’s important. I think LGBT groups have a huge amount to gain if they recognise one another as separate in function but similar in interest — and try and to understand one another, damnit!
Lesbians and gay men have a lot to make up for in attempting the latter, but transgender people also need to make sure they don’t forget that we are a bit of a mystery to most people, and we don’t want to run off friends by aggressing on spaces they too have worked hard to create and preserve. Everyone has to do their part.
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Division from within!
I was once contributing to a forum discussion where I offered some of my misgivings about some aspects of HRT, and I was antagonised by a young transwoman for benig what she felt was ill-prepared and stupid. I just so happen to be pretty intelligent, and I had definitely done my homework, so I dealt with her the best way I know how to deal with such things: humour. But she’d had a long record of better-than-thou harassment, and the administrators weren’t pleased. She was banned for a spell, but I felt a little sad. I didn’t really want her to get in trouble. I wanted her to understand. I wanted her to put down her self-righteous crap and be friends with me. We gain nothing and lose much by such encounters.
One of my friends was off with a gaggle of gay friends, and somehow it came up that he was well-acquainted with a transgender person. Some didn’t care, but a few had their faces screw up in confusion or disgust. “I just don’t understand that,” one said dismissively. And what do people do, classically, with things they don’t understand? They hate them, usually. And what’s really tragic about this is that the very same modus operandi of thought is used against gay people! And it’s been used against blacks. And Jews. And — well, prejudice is nothing new. So why haven’t we learned to give it a rest? If nothing else, why do it to ourselves, in our own communities?
@ vanfemme85:
This is the first I’ve actually heard of a transgender person (or ex-transgender person, as the case may be) relinquishing the title entirely after transition is “complete.” I’m sure you’re not the first one to do it. I’m just saying this is the first time I’ve been exposed. Could you tell me more about your feelings on it? I’m really interested to hear.