Being Abandoned

Now that the 17-year old Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) law has been replealed and will undergo an implementation period, it will be interesting if anything really changes in the military, for the "boots on the ground", for the officers supervising enlisted troops and more so for recruiters. Does the LGB community really think reality will change?

Or will they see a backlash within the forces against openly lesbian and gay troops? All the surveys supported repealing the law. And many of the survey said the troops don't mind, but none of that accommodates the reality of an an openly lesbian or gay person being near, or more so next to, you when not in combat and when and where many people react. It's human nature, something a law can't change or undo, only the person and that's not likely.

But that's not my point here. While I applaud the passage to repleal DADT, I wonder if the LGB community will see another reason to jettison the issues relating to transgender members in their organizations or the transgender community. The LGB community has seen a real major success, but nothing changes for transpeople in the military. They're still ostracised and discharged should they come out.

And we still have DOMA awaiting repeal and ENDA up for LGBT people awaiting passage. Will the LGB community, as we saw Representative Barney Franks did several times for ENDA, remove transpeople from the bill because it wasn't the right time for their incluson. In truth, he never meant to include transpeople.

And we know Joe Salmonese promised inclusion and then sponsored and supported exclusion of transpeople. The simple truth is that the LGB community as a whole doesn't have the interest for transpeople and many in the community are covertly and privately transphobic. And sometimes overtly and vocal.

This is the opportunity for them to jettison the transpeople from their political agenda and focus on what they've always wanted, just lesbian and gay rights. Some will express support and even demand support for transpeople, but they're in the minority and often politically shouted down and into silence.

And that will leave transpeople, where they are in many political and legal areas, standing alone with few supporters outside themselves. The recent change will only worsen that and increase the distance between the LGB and T parts of the community. It's a real possible reality that in a few years LGB people focusing on state marriage laws, DOMA and ENDA will not include transpeople.

Success breeds the interest for more where it's not, and the LGB people will see that, to them, the T is an anchor in the political and legal world for their rights. And the T will be more isolated than before, and have to continue what some have done for the last decade or so, stand and fight alone.

The question is if that will prompt cooperaton to be focused on all trangender people or only the subgroups, or as some use subclasses, of transpeople, meaning the transistion focused transwomen and men will do what they've wanted, and recent court cases have decided, focus on inclusion as women and men, exclusive of the "trans" identity.

And they too can leave the rest of the transgender community behind. That's been their goal and will be their goal as they are almost there for post-transistion women and men and will be there for in-transistion women and men. They will do what the LGB people did to them, leave the rest behind, left to their own political and legal devices.

And then, as many post-transistion women and men do private, sit on their hands when asked for a show of who's for the others. It's what they've done and will do. The question is if in-transistion women and men will do likewise in public as they do in private, become invisible.

Being abandoned teaches survival, which the transcommunity has long learned, but it also teaches success on your own terms, something the transcommunity has also long learned. And after being abadoned, they too will abandon those left who are not like them. That's their reality.