Taking One For The Team

Karyn, you really don't want to know what cisgender women do to other cisgender women in prison.

i'm sorry. as a woman, i would not want someone with a penis in a cell with me...especially not knowing what they did to get there. Sure, Miss Sandeen's transgressions weren't violent but what about the next MTF who gets thrown in the cell? And if i were a man (or hell just with common sense), a person with a vagina should not be in a cell with men. no one knows who will attack who or what will go down behind locked doors.

Oh Tom, my fellow Ohioan,m get your damn head out of your provincialism! Have you forgotten about Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson, two trans Stonewall Veterans? They worked tirelessly for the infant Gay Liberation Front and other early gay groups, but when it came time the the GLF to help Sylvia's group Street Action Transvestite Revolutionaries (STAR), she was shown the door? Despite popular opinion, darling there *are* lesbians who are MtF (I'm one!!) and gays who are FtM! Not only that, the sexual orientation of the trans community is just as wide and varied as humanity is! Transfolk *are* a part of the LBG community, as Autumn mentions in her article, always have been and always WILL be!

Tom, most trans people identify themselves at some point in their lives as lesbian, gay, or some variant on bisexual--not to mention just plain queer (yeah, I know a lot of people don't like that term because these days it suggests queer theory). For some, it's only before coming out or transitioning; for others, it's only after; for still others, it's their entire lives. Even those who have fully transitioned and see themselves as completely straight tend to "queer" sexuality in some way, and many of them maintain strong ties to the LGB communities in their area. Regardless, I see them as honorary LGB people, even if they're living a straight life now. I know that a lot of LGB people see used-to-be-LG-but-now-straight trans people as traitors, but I sure don't. (I'm not implying that you do, just pointing that out.) Anyway, that's my take on it.

The reason there is so much confusion over whether gay people are properly grouped with trans people is b/c we were never given the chance to fully debate this issue back in the 90s. White, privileged full-time activists prioritized their own "queer studies" view of the gay movement. Without discussion or input, they redefined "gay" to mean "transgressing one's gender" and thus added trans to the mix. I am sure this move garnered applause in the queer studies departments in universities around the US. But it didn't help millions of gay Americans who are trying to persuade their families that gay men are fully men and lesbians are fully women, not some third sex and not some hostile force seeking to overthrow gender. Gays, lesbians and bisexuals all belong to one community b/c they are all, by definition, attracted to their own sex. Trans people are not so defined and thus should never have been grouped with LGBs. They can be friends and allies, but they are on a different team.

This comment is for Mike down below, I think your parents should've named you Richard b/c you come of more like a Dick. GLBT stand together.

So, Mike, as a "fer instance," you would rather work (or see other people work) specifically for gay male rights and not gay AND lesbian rights, and leave the lesbians to do their own activism? There's a lot more bias against gay men than against lesbians; I wonder how you would feel if lesbians had success but gay men didn't and DADT were repealed for the women but not the men. Yeah, I know that particular scenario is pretty unlikely, but think about separate activism and how it might apply to other issues as well. I admit that sometimes I go to my LGBT (or GLBT) center and wonder where all the women came from, but I think they have a reason to be allied with gay men. And I think that the Christian right--and, indeed, any fanatical anti-gay group--will always find things to complain about. If it's not the alphabet soup nature of our alliances, they'll just focus on other stuff. They already do, mostly. Anyway, yours is probably a moot point now. Too late! One man's opinion.

Scott I think you misunderstand the reason why it is GLBT and not just G. That reason is that the issues facing all three groups, I lump gay and lesbian together because they reflect gender differentiated versions of the same concept, are grounded in the same problem. That is particular notions about the way gender should be performed. The issues of sexuality come up as a type of gendered behavior. According to the gender norms referenced by most antigay activists part of being a male is being attracted to females and vice versa. Bisexuals also fall under this line of reasoning, but take it further by refusing to accept being pigeonholed into one category in a binary system. And Transgender people undo the norms completely by denying the central tennet of the norms, that they are ridgid and immutable. So the whole GLBT acronym does what civil rights activists have tried to do for decades, address the broken system rather than the individual wrongs.

I believe it's about equal rights for all Americans that don't have them already. LGBTQ people are just people. People break into groups and still support and oppose each other. Even among friends we quarrel.

Personally, I believe adding "T" and even "B" have set us back, and to some extent even "L". Why couldn't we have just kept the original umbrella term of "Gay". The other words just don't give a lot of people a good visual, and we've only fueled the argument by the religious nuts of "what are they going to add next...", and quite frankly, I have to wonder that myself! Before you go off on me, think about it. It's the truth! Who are we going to take under our wing next and further ruin our chances of ever having any kind of civil rights.