@ 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.

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?

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.

Comment edited at poster’s request. Reason: fixing HTML.
Comment edited by admin. Reason: citing edit.

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.