Back of the Bus

Welcome transpeople. And by the way, please use the rear entrance and exit and move to the back of the bus. The LGB movement really doesn't want the "t" people interfering with their fight for legal protections and rights. To them "t" people just impede the progress and interfer with the process for turning legislation into law.

I mean just transpeople. Not the other transpeople often described as transgender under the umbrella term, but those who transistion to be physicially and legally the sex and gender they identify as, meaning (trans)women and (trans)men. These people go follow the medically prescribed proceedures and the legally defined process to become legall female or male from their opposite birth sex.

The rest of the transgroup, the drag queens, transvestities, cross-dresser, transsexuals (ie. non-op), and gender queer people, don't want the other transpeople messing up their world, so they push them to the back of the bus, and if they could, out the back door, to leave them at the bus stop standing alone.

Too tough? Ok, maybe, but reading the last few years of news about adding protections for transpeople, it's clear the LGB folks and the elected reprsentatives, like Barney Frank, don't really want to touch the issue of adding transpeople to the hate crime legislation and especially to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Those bills failed before because of opposition to adding protections for transpeople.

Transpeople are often considered the step-child of LGB's because they're not the same. LGB is about sexual orientation. Trans is about gender identification. And while real transpeople transistion to live as their identified gender, more non-transpeople have use the transgender umbrella term to attach themselves to being "one of them" for the medical protection when it doesn't apply (read the DSM, cross-dressing isn't a mental health issue).

They're not really transgender. Ok, my opinion. But there is a signficantly distinct difference between a transvestite a cross-dresser and others who identiify as their birth sex but just like to play dressup as the other gender. To them it's fun. They can't identify, and often cringe, at the notion of the medical proceedures to become the other gender. But they like to use the term when they dressup for the medical protection.

There is a big difference to a man playing dressup on weekends calling himself a woman when he's dressed up but doesn't want to be one and a transwoman who does transistion, including the sex/gender change surgery (srs) and legal documents, to live fulltime as one. And while the LGB movement recognizes both, they will support the former because many gay men are drag queens, transvestites and cross-dressers for work or pleasure.

But gay men don't want to recognize those born male but identify as female (it's becoming a known biological condition of birth) and transistion, especially giving up the one thing gay men love the most, their penis. Transwomen want a vagina to be complete and whole as women. While some don't have or elect not to have srs for various reasons, they're can't be legally recognized as female, they're still legally male and men.

But the gay men will still accept them because it's ok they keep their penis. And it's why the LGB folks will not really support or pursue adding transpeople to "their" legislation. And it's also why the transpeople are better off getting rights and protection under the Civil Rights Act as happened in the Diane Schoer case.

Simply put the trans folks should do what happened to them, jettison the rest of the transgender folks and follow their own course. Build, drive and carry their own bus to and for their freedom. This is what former Senator Bill Bradley recommended yes ago. Simply put all the LGB and T rights and protections in the Civil Rights Act.

Then everyone rides the same bus and sits anywhere they want, just like everyone else in this country. And the LGB community can't discriminate against transpeople without facing legal action. Transpeople can't simply walk away into the real world of people.