LGB and T

I read an interesting column this last week by Sonia Horan about the myths of inclusion of transpeople in the LGB community. While she focuses on the highlight moment of betrayal by the LGB community with transpeople, she does present an excellent, in my view, perspective of what's wrong with the inclusion.

I'm not against the inclusion of transpeople in the LGB community, they've been there since the beginning in the late 1960's (and what many gay people quickly forget many of the folks at the Stonewall event were transpeople of the whole flavor) and they've been there throughout the history of the LGB issues, along with getting much support from members of the LGB community for the issues and causes of transpeople.

But the world of LGB and transpeople are fundamentally different by the very nature of the identity. Homosexuality, in its many flavors, is just another being, expression and behavior of human sexuality, as is heterosexuality. Gender identity, on the other hand, isn't about sexual identity, but gender identity. It's about how people see themselves and how the body reaffirms that identity or not.

Transpeople have a degree of mismatch between the mind and body, from the slight to the extreme, and that being expressed in the whole range of expression and behavior, including cross-dressers, female illusionists, androgynous, and transsexuals. They simply want to be and live as they see themselves. It's not hard to understand, but it's not about sex as many psychologists like to describe.

The last group has been a whole issue by itself as seen in the latest fight in and with the APA over gender identity in the DSM-V due out in 2012. People described as transsexuals, meaning gender identity, want to live fulltime, and some physically transistion, as the gender they are. This requires being obvious in public and being obvious for transphobia in the range of reactions, from violence and death (recent Angie Zapata case) through public humulitaion and to discrimination in employment, housing, health insurance, etc.

In addition the transgender community has the whole range of importance with issues. Those who identify as the other gender but life primarily as their birth gender, eg. cross-dressers, who want the freedom to express their alternative lifestyle in public without fear of retaliation and discrimination, often expressed as the "Bathroom issue" allowing men who dress as women use the public women's bathroom.

Transsexuals believe themselves to be the other gender and want everything it takes to live as that gender. Their issues are health insurance, employment rights and protections, legal documents, and so on. Male-to-female transsexuals simply want to be women, no less and everything more. To them their transistion is a means to an end and once completed, meaning surgeries and documents, they're not trans-anything, just women.

Homosexuals don't have to be obvious or public. They can simply dress as everyone else and no one will every know. Their gender identity isn't a conflict, they're as straight as the rest of the world. To them, it's about sexual attraction, something expressed in the privacy of their home, and only by choice in public at events.

This is where homosexuals have the advantage. They don't have problems near on par with transistioning transpeople. They don't want to change their sex. Few want to dress and go in public as the other gender. Few face the obviousness of simple standing in a public place being seen as different. They're free to be invisible.

This is where the worlds, issues and causes diverge and never meet, and where the two sides have different agendas. The LGB community doesn't have much need to be concerned with the same issues facing transpeople. It's not their experience, and this is where the transpeople have often been forgotten, usually intentionally by simply not including language in communications about LGB issues and causes.

In short, it was always easy for the LGB community to forget and only when the transcommunity raise their voices did they get inclusion in LGB issues and causes. But they always have to remind the LGB community of their existence even when their voices are ignored, such as in the ENDA bill in 2008 when gender identity and expression was removed by Representative Barney Frank, Congress' most openly gay member. He was supported by the HRC who jettisoned trans identity in support of the bill.

History has shown that when the transcommunity goes on their own they have more and better success in acceptance in every aspect of their lives, issues and causes. They succeed when they simply don't put LGB in their communications. And history has shown that they also get more success when they focus on the issues of in and pre-transistion and post-transistion transpeople.

The transcommunity has discovered they don't need the LGB community, and can use them when it's convenient or they have shared interests. Something they had done to them, except now being treated as the unwanted stepchild by the LGB community, they've found their own identity and voice. And they're building a choir, while facing the simple reality of their people.

But it comes with a catch. When a transperson transistions, meaning completing the medical surgeries and legal process to become their target gender, then don't identify as transsexuals anymore. They're simply men and women, just like everyone else. And to avoid all the problems and discrimination associated with the trans identity, they leave. The estimates are upwards of 90 percent and more.

This leaves the remaining 10% to fill the void. These are the ones who either out of fate, meaning their identity became a public issue due to their career, life, work or events, or out of choice. Few transpeople come out as trans out of choice and do to work in and for the community, most of them were visible and active in the community before and during their transistion. They simply continued the work.

But even that small group of activists have done more by themselves for transpeople without the LGB community than has been done with then over the last 3 decades. They discovered not only their individuality, but their community identity. And while some transgroups still align themselves with LGB groups for the larger issues and causes, they've also discovered more success by themselves.

And that's the point. Uniting despite difference is important, but uniting for your own uniqueness is more important. Shared needs, interests, experience and values bring its own unity. It's not a guarrantee of success, that takes dedication, discipline and vision, but it removes the divisiveness of differences.

This is where the T without the LGB will succeed. It could use the LGB's help but history now has shown it's not essential or necessary, and not even helpful at times. Stepping out of the shadow into your own light has its own rewards. Transpeople, working for their own identity, has seen and found that. And discovered it works.

And just maybe a few post-transistion people won't leave or will return to the community to help. There's always hope, especially when success is clearer and brighter standing equal and alone.