Transgressive questions likely to be a transgender
conversation-ender.
Let’s say
you’re at work, a social setting, or political event,
and a real live transgender person says
“Hi!” You don’t want to say anything
wrong since you recall the tedious questions and responses
you’ve endured about your sexuality, but you
want to appear interested and engaged. Thankfully,
there’s etiquette for talking to trans people.
Here’s a look at questions to avoid. Trans
people will thank you for it.
What’s the T doing in LGBT? You
probably get the L and the G from
extensive personal experience. You might even get the
B (we’ll save that for another article).
But that pesky T can be a real mystery. LGBT
people (in fact, all people) have a gender identity
and expression. That’s how many LGBT people are
oppressed.
Our society
rewards partnering with the “opposite” gender
and is organized around a procreative ideology: Male
and female are the two types, and they make babies.
Same-sex partnering violates the first rule of gender
identity and expression, which is so deeply ingrained and
enforced that a violation of it is sometimes described as
“unnatural.”
Here’s the
real problem. We aren’t oppressed just because
we’re queer but often because we look
and act queer. That’s gender identity and
expression. And it’s often imposed from inside our
own community. Some LGBT personal ads demand only
“straight-acting” applicants need apply.
The community often rewards those who pass as members of the
majority culture.
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