24 November 2007
BY MONICA ROBERTS
Why does the transgender community hate the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)? It’s a question I get frequently asked in GLBT settings. Considering the recent GLBT family feud erupting over ENDA, it’s an appropriate one to ask as well.
Before I get started trying to shed light on it, I need to point out in the name of journalistic integrity that I was the Lobby Chair for the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) from 1999-2002.
The roots of the animosity start after Stonewall. In an effort to appear more ‘mainstream’ to the straight community, Jim Fouratt and friends bounced Sylvia Rivera and other transpeople out of New York’s GLF (Gay Liberation Front). Jim Fouratt’s anti-transgender comments culminating in a 2000 one at a Stonewall observance in which he called transpeople ‘misguided gay men who’d undergone surgical mutilations’ also added insult to the injury.
In a pattern that persists to the present day, The GLF had protections for transpeople removed from a proposed 1971 New York GLBT rights anti-discrimination bill under the pretext that it wouldn’t pass with such ‘extreme’ language.
Ironically the bill failed anyway and the New York City GLB-only rights bill wouldn’t pass until 1986. Transgender inclusion was fought at that tome by Tom Stoddard, who would later head Lambda Legal. Transgender people didn’t get added in the New York City bill until after Sylvia Rivera’s death in 2002.
In 1979 Janice Raymond poured more gasoline on the fire with her virulently anti-transgender book The Transsexual Empire.
Raymond also took it a step further in 1981 and penned a quasi-scientific looking report that was responsible for not only ending federal and state aid for indigent transpeople, but led to the insurance company prohibitions on gender reassignment related claims. Germaine Greer’s anti-transgender writing combined with Raymond’s led to involuntary outing and harassment of transwomen in lesbian community settings. It also sowed the seeds for the anti-transgender attitudes in the lesbian community that persisted through the late 90’s.
So what does this have to do with HRC since it didn’t get founded until 1980?
The problem is that the senior gay leadership is still influenced by the Fouratt-Raymond-Greer negative attitudes towards transpeople. That sentiment is concentrated disproportionately in California and the Northeast Corridor. The early gay and lesbian leadership also sprang up from those areas as well.
The transgender community around the late 80’s renewed its organizing efforts to fight for its rights. The early leadership was also concentrated in the Northeast Corridor and California as well and regarded the gay community as natural allies.
One thing they didn’t take into account was how deeply entrenched the anti-transgender attitudes and doctrines were amongst gay and lesbian leaders. Barney Frank (D-MA) is a prominent example of it. They still persisted in holding the view that transgender people were ‘crazy queens’ who would cost them their rights. Gay leaders were still trying to use the 70’s assimilationist strategy to counter the Religious Right campaign against gay civil rights fueled by fear of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
In the 90’s the transgender leadership became more national in scope and more diverse by the end of the decade. In addition to the founding core leadership from California and the Northeast corridor, transleaders emerged in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois. The emergence of leaders from what was derisively called ‘flyover country’ by the peeps from Cali and the Northeast Corridor changed the dynamics of the transgender rights movement.
The addition of leaders from these states brought people into the movement who not only believed in the principles of Kingian inclusion and non-violence, they practiced those values. The rise of the Internet gave them efficient communications links to exchange information and tactics, coordinate strategy and inexpensively talk to each other.
They were also people of faith who had ringside seats to the Religious Right takeovers of the Republican parties in these regions. The Texans watched their state be used as a laboratory for the tactics that would be used in the South and later the rest of the country.
As people of faith who were mostly Southerners, the new transleaders correctly perceived that the Religious Right was the same coalition of 60’s racist anti-progressive forces masquerading in ‘family values’ drag and urged coordinated efforts to defeat them.
Unfortunately, while the Religious Right was using the 80’s and 90’s to organize for culture war and develop their Machiavellian playbook to power, transpeople were fighting a pitched battle with the gay and lesbian community just to be included. This civil war against the GLB transphobes sucked time, energy and money from the transgender community that could have been better spent combating the Religious Right.
The predominately white and bicoastal-based gay and lesbian leadership didn’t see the Religious Right as a threat because they not only didn’t have fundies in their backyards, they let their anti-transgender biases color their perceptions. They dismissed the threat because it was transpeople who were sounding the warning bells about it. At the same thime they were cavalierly dismissing their concerns about GLBT unity and the Religious Right threat, they arrogantly demanded that transpeople work to pass gay-only rights bills.
According to legal scholar Kat Rose, such laws have the effect of creating a regime in which the same gays and lesbians who fought to prevent trans-inclusion have the de facto right under the resultant non-inclusive law to discriminate against trans people. It also allowed them to keep their leadership ranks and employee populations in these organizations transgender-free without fear of facing discrimination lawsuits.
When transgender leaders would balk at those demands or point out the hypocrisy of leaving us behind, they would state they would ‘come back for us’.
So far the only states in which the gay and lesbian community has ‘come back’ for transgender people are Rhode Island (2001), California (2003), New Jersey (2006) and Vermont (2007). In New York they are still having a difficult time passing GENDA after transgender people were cut out of SONDA by gay rights advocating the same ‘we’ll come back for you’ incremental rights spin.
The first gay only rights bill, passed in Wisconsin in 1982 has been that way for 25 years now. There’s no indication by the GLB leadership in that state if they’ll move to rectify the omission of their transgender brothers and sisters or if they’ll assign it a priority as high as the one they place on marriage equality.
We also heard the excuses during the 90’s to justify the gay and lesbian strategy that ranged from ‘the country needs more education on transgender issues’, we need ‘incremental progress’ to the mean-spirited ‘it’s not your turn to get rights yet’. Ironically there are now more transgender inclusive laws on the books than gay-only ones, and those numbers are increasing.
And where does HRC fit into this equation?
One of the people most responsible for excluding transpeople from an attempt to pass a gay rights law in Minnesota in 1975 was a gentleman by the name of Steve Endean, who in 1980 would leave Minnesota to help found the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the proto organization that later became HRC. Some Minnnesotans assert that it’s not a conicidence that the same year HRCF was born in DC, Minnnesota’s gay rights proposals became T-inclusive and eventually lead to the first T-inclusive law in 1993.
In 1995 Elizabeth Birch took over as Executive Director of HRC at atime when there was an epidemic of gays and lesbians cutting transpeople out of civil rights legislation.
In many cases gay people who sat on various HRC boards either nationally or regionally led the efforts. In 1999 Dianne Hardy-Garcia, who was the executive director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby (now Equality Texas) at the time and an HRC board member, led the succesesful effort to cut transpeople out of the James Byrd Hate Crime Bill (to mine and TGAIN”s vehement opposition). That bill was eventually killed in the GOP-controlled Texas Senate but passed in 2001 as a GLB only bill and was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry.
Elizabeth Birch for a while eclipsed Janice Raymond as Transgender Public Enemy Number One when she was quoted at a Chicago GLBT event as stating that transinclusion in ENDA (the Employment and Non Discrimination Act) a top legislative priority of transgender leaders would happen ‘over her dead body’.
That sowed the seeds to the growing perception amongst transpeople that HRC was ‘The Enemy’. It got worse when transgender lobbyists were told by sitting senators, congressmembers and various staffers that HRC Capitol Hill lobbyists Nancy Buermeyer and Winnie Stachelberg showed up on the Hill accompanied by GenderPac’s Riki Wilchins before transgender lobby events in 1997, 1998, and 1999. They asked those members and staffers to tell the transpeople coming to Washington that inclusion in ENDA wasn’t possible, but hate crimes was. That revelation so enraged the transgender community that a group of activists that included yours truly founded NTAC in 1999.
After doing an investigative report during the summer of 1999 that determined the extent of HRC co-option of GenderPac leaders, NTAC decided to pursue a multi-pronged strategy to deal with it. They decided to explore partnerships with other GLBT organizations, made it clear that transinclusion in federal ENDA and Hate Crimes was non-negotiable and during my time there I helped author a legislative strategy designed to go around the congressional barriers set up to block transgender inclusion in ENDA
In 2000 NTAC also began the ‘Embarrass HRC’ campaign to call attention to the hypocritical nature of the relationship between HRC and the transgender community. Activists across the country began protesting HRC dinners and calling them out at GLBT community events about their resistance to adding transpeople to ENDA. The campaign got the attention of people to the point where they started asking HRC leadership tough questions and their contributions started taking hits.
Despite this success, the transgender community didn’t embrace NTAC. It was a multicultural organization whose early leadership was predominately Southern. NTAC was relentlessly savaged by people for fostering what they called ‘horizontal hostility’. A group of white northeastern activists that wanted to push accomodation with HRC formed the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2003 and named Mara Keisling as its executive director.
But NCTE to some transpeople had uncomfortably close HRC links that caused people to question not only NCTE’s effectiveness in lobbying for transpeople but its independence. Transgender historian and legal scholar Kat Rose bluntly said that “I simply do not trust NCTE or Mara Keisling”.
The interesting thing was the timing. NCTE came into existence after HRC loudly proclaimed that they didn’t want to talk to NTAC. There were unconfirmed rumors that some of NCTE’s startup money was provided by HRC supporters.
Not long after NCTE’s startup, the shift of the gay and lesbian rights priority from successfully passing inclusive rights laws on a state by state basis to marriage equality started. Transgender leaders such as NTAC’s Vanessa Edwards Foster warned that this was a mistake to push the issue a year before the 2004 elections, but once again transgender concerns were brushed aside.
When the Religious Right backlash resulted in gay marriage constitutional bans overwhelmingly passed in 18 states during that election year, the transgender community was proven correct once again.
This irritated the transgender community on multiple levels. The marriage-as-a-priority gays refused to acknowledge that not only did their actions cause the backlash to gay marriage and possibly generated enough conservative voters at the polls to help propel George W. Bush to a second term, despite the evidence of dozens of state DOMAs and anti-marriage constitutional amendments, they are in severe denial about it.
Transpeople are also miffed at the lack of HRC concern as to how this backlash specifically affects our lives. Transpeople were never consulted and had no input whatsoever regarding the push for gay marriage, but the Religious Right anti-gay marriage laws get interpreted by the courts in such a way that they had the negative affect in some cases of wiping out existing pro-trans marriage and even identity rights.
We’re also pissed that the same people who demanded (and still demand) that we accept ‘incremental progress’ when it comes to trans rights hypocritically have no intention of accepting ‘incremental progress’ when it comes to legal recognition of same-sex relationships.
In conclusion, the drama between the transgender community and HRC (which sadly flared up last week after Rep. Frank introduced a non-inclusive ENDA) is a forty-year-old stew flavored with historical hatred, arrogance, political miscalculations, communication failures, misunderstandings, mistrust, and Machiavellian duplicity.
HRC also has a pathetic history of refusing to deal with trans people as equals not only in terms of civil rights legislation but even in hiring talented transgender people for their organization. This historical negativity keeps transpeople from working with HRC in any capacity. (Don’t even get me started about the African-American community beefs with HRC, that’s another post.)
The sad part is that this animosity is preventing HRC and the transgender community from effectively working together to defeat their common enemy despite the desires of people on both sides to do precisely that.
The flare up this time may have not only burned the bridge that people like recently resigned HRC board member Donna Rose and others were trying to build towards a working partnership with HRC, but made any talk of doing that in the transgender community moot for years to come.
See Related: NATIONAL TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE - San Francisco November 20 2007
BILL WILSONSentinel PhotographerBill Wilson is a veteran freelance photographer whose work is published by San Francisco and Bay Area media. Bill embraced photography at the age of eight. In recent years, his photos capture historic record of the San Francisco LGBT community in the Bay Area Reporter (BAR). Bill has contributed to the Sentinel for the past three years.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Needs to be publicized more and more...
pam :: Sexual Hypocrisy: A Republican Retrospective
Thank you, thank you, and thank you. This needs to be said and ten thousand times too, to shine a light upon hypocrisy and break the back of the religious right, those holier than thou and the sanctimonious that are the enemies of freedom and America, to whom the Republican Party has fallen victim.
I always believed and still do, that it was a travesty for all of America that the "republican" American justice system chose to rake Bill Clinton through the coals over his little tryst with Monica, the dirtiest of dirty tricks of American politics. But worse, to broadcast someone’s personal and private affairs to the public is stench and it was the Republicans with the stir stick. Now, after that communistic approach to politicizim, it seems we have no privacy rights. It was this that ENDA was to put to rest, by sexual orientation, (our private affairs, who we're sleeping with, "who we love", what we do off the job in our personal lives, etc.), and more importantly, gender identity (how someone's mannerisms manifest publicly, the perceptions and judgments by others and the civil rights guaranteed to all citizens and the limitations on what others can do to or against people in a free America). ENDA would have had far reaching effects for America and for civil rights guaranteed to "all" citizens that the Republican Party has attempted to trample at every corner. Certain human rights must be protected, even by force if necessary, which the federal government did when they posted the National Guard to protect citizen’s rights for equal rights in Little Rock, Arkansas. Some in the Republican Party don't understand the word equal and now neither does the HRC and Mr. Barney Frank.
ENDA was about more than LGBT rights, which the Republicans want to call "creating a special status" of some sort. Excuse me Mr. Republican, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was and is not about any "special status". It was and is and always will be about protecting civil rights guaranteed to all Americans, of which ENDA was and is about, if we continue to include gender inclusion and the phrase pertaining to "perceptions". It was and is about rights in the work place for all Americans, no matter what an evil little mind can perceive of someone subordinate and subject to another’s perceptions and actions. It is about privacy for all Americans, which now, unfortunate for the whole of America with the surgical amputations of ENDA, we all bleed, along with the red strips on our flag, which symbolizes the blood shed by those who have fought for those rights.
It is sad that a law had to be created, to force (take note of this word, it is an example through out American history) force humans to behave in a civil manner towards one another or even to conform to the beliefs of their faith ("In God We Trust") with people of different color. Unfortunate, but worse than that which was, will be if we don't learn from history. Religion hasn't done it, can't do it, (because of their infinite divisions of beliefs), didn't do it for a hundred years in this country while they walked in their "whitewashed" churches weekly praising the deity and professing a discipleship as they do today. This hypocrisy of the religious politicalist must be revealed using their own sin against them as they try to do to us, slandering the LGBT folks and civil rights proponents. Their hypocracy must be broadcast continually and publicly, using their own dirty tactics against them, lest they forget their own human state in their pious mind.
Had it not been for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Brown vs. Board of Education we would have entire sectors of our cities in squallier reminiscent of Soweto, S. Africa, and worse than anything we see today. Please don't tell me I'm exerating. I was born in 1950, and have seen with mine own eyes, fascinated and bewildered of this situation, of black and white, rich and poor, those with and those without, those who can and those couldn't walk freely where I could walk freely. I couldn't understand the why as I looked through the invisible fence which had been impressed upon my young mind while passing tar papered shacks in Louisiana and Mississippi. Bobby Kennedy came down and saw the same thing and went back home with an agenda, Civil Rights for all. This is about civil rights more than LGBT rights per se; all America will suffer with a sept backwards if we don't pass this bill with gender inclusion and "perceptions". Restore the original ENDA bill and tell all those who ask for surrender, "NUTS"!
We must protect those children who will follow us, with protections from slander and libelous treatment by nepotism and cronyism in the work place, being perceived "gay" or too feminine or not feminine enough. Push for the original ENDA.
Thank you, thank you, and thank you. This needs to be said and ten thousand times too, to shine a light upon hypocrisy and break the back of the religious right, those holier than thou and the sanctimonious that are the enemies of freedom and America, to whom the Republican Party has fallen victim.
I always believed and still do, that it was a travesty for all of America that the "republican" American justice system chose to rake Bill Clinton through the coals over his little tryst with Monica, the dirtiest of dirty tricks of American politics. But worse, to broadcast someone’s personal and private affairs to the public is stench and it was the Republicans with the stir stick. Now, after that communistic approach to politicizim, it seems we have no privacy rights. It was this that ENDA was to put to rest, by sexual orientation, (our private affairs, who we're sleeping with, "who we love", what we do off the job in our personal lives, etc.), and more importantly, gender identity (how someone's mannerisms manifest publicly, the perceptions and judgments by others and the civil rights guaranteed to all citizens and the limitations on what others can do to or against people in a free America). ENDA would have had far reaching effects for America and for civil rights guaranteed to "all" citizens that the Republican Party has attempted to trample at every corner. Certain human rights must be protected, even by force if necessary, which the federal government did when they posted the National Guard to protect citizen’s rights for equal rights in Little Rock, Arkansas. Some in the Republican Party don't understand the word equal and now neither does the HRC and Mr. Barney Frank.
ENDA was about more than LGBT rights, which the Republicans want to call "creating a special status" of some sort. Excuse me Mr. Republican, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was and is not about any "special status". It was and is and always will be about protecting civil rights guaranteed to all Americans, of which ENDA was and is about, if we continue to include gender inclusion and the phrase pertaining to "perceptions". It was and is about rights in the work place for all Americans, no matter what an evil little mind can perceive of someone subordinate and subject to another’s perceptions and actions. It is about privacy for all Americans, which now, unfortunate for the whole of America with the surgical amputations of ENDA, we all bleed, along with the red strips on our flag, which symbolizes the blood shed by those who have fought for those rights.
It is sad that a law had to be created, to force (take note of this word, it is an example through out American history) force humans to behave in a civil manner towards one another or even to conform to the beliefs of their faith ("In God We Trust") with people of different color. Unfortunate, but worse than that which was, will be if we don't learn from history. Religion hasn't done it, can't do it, (because of their infinite divisions of beliefs), didn't do it for a hundred years in this country while they walked in their "whitewashed" churches weekly praising the deity and professing a discipleship as they do today. This hypocrisy of the religious politicalist must be revealed using their own sin against them as they try to do to us, slandering the LGBT folks and civil rights proponents. Their hypocracy must be broadcast continually and publicly, using their own dirty tactics against them, lest they forget their own human state in their pious mind.
Had it not been for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Brown vs. Board of Education we would have entire sectors of our cities in squallier reminiscent of Soweto, S. Africa, and worse than anything we see today. Please don't tell me I'm exerating. I was born in 1950, and have seen with mine own eyes, fascinated and bewildered of this situation, of black and white, rich and poor, those with and those without, those who can and those couldn't walk freely where I could walk freely. I couldn't understand the why as I looked through the invisible fence which had been impressed upon my young mind while passing tar papered shacks in Louisiana and Mississippi. Bobby Kennedy came down and saw the same thing and went back home with an agenda, Civil Rights for all. This is about civil rights more than LGBT rights per se; all America will suffer with a sept backwards if we don't pass this bill with gender inclusion and "perceptions". Restore the original ENDA bill and tell all those who ask for surrender, "NUTS"!
We must protect those children who will follow us, with protections from slander and libelous treatment by nepotism and cronyism in the work place, being perceived "gay" or too feminine or not feminine enough. Push for the original ENDA.
Friday, November 16, 2007
I'm not one of those...
The Fraternity of Males
Maybe I feel resentful they want to claim to be as I, yet they hide. Why do they feel they must hide when I feel I must be "out", seen by everyone everyday, at all times dressed "feminine", living as female? I can't help it, I had to do it even at the risk of losing my job and I did. They're just playing around but living as males, but usually I say, practicing life as males, but if they are transsexual their practicing is for naught and is not practicing at all, but portraying as male. I do not believe they ever will come "out" in public, because they don't want to or can't live with the fact their personal peers [business associates, business contacts, employers, fellow employees, their straight friends, and here I will say their's of macho braggadocio, of the persuasion and personification that males are above women, and I've wonder if they get this notion from the fact they stab women with their shaft and in the traditional sense they mount women from above her, will perceive them as " a "faggot" or a "queer" or a "homo", as we "transsexuals" suffer the discriminatory from the straight male fraternity. We live with that stigma, whatever others want to think of us, we live with that and as women on a daily basis. But cross dressers? They'll lose their "masculine" status and that swagger that goes with it, that "machismo", that essence of maleness, that proud status of being virile, that strength, that vigor, that force we use to portray so we could hide our femininity, all the things I hated about me, because I used to believe it was the feminine I hated about me, but it wasn't, it was the portrayal of masculinity vexing my true spirit. As transsexuals we live in truth and hide not. I must think they want to make claims they cannot substantiate with their hiding, with their clubs these cross dressers. I've have yet to have someone identify with me in a public setting save a suitor seeking sexual rewards and a male married friend cross dresser from out of state who felt "safe". I've never had a male or female step up to me in public and introduce themselves and say anything like "Hi, I'm a closeted cross dresser and my name is" etc, etc., or any that profess gay, lesbian, f2m who made my acquaintance by introducing themselves in public. I walk alone out here, in the daytime, in a dress. No, I am made to feel by every one as some sort of "outcast", only the "general public' treats me as others and "out" here in public is where I'll stay. Why do they ask that I come into their realm and accept it, these who claim "transgender"? I ask them to come "out" and into my realm, "out" here in public but they do not, they stay in secret and hide and I am not one of those. I always find something sinister about secrecy. I felt it too when I was 10 years old putting on girls clothes in the woods in 1960, but, I was compelled and it felt so wonderful, it was then when I really felt I was me, as now. In these times of LGBT awareness, the legislation we have, the laws we have supporting us, why still live hiding? Why still live in secrecy and fear? It is these cross dressers, "transgender" that perpetuate this and hinder, in my opinion, "our" progress into societal acceptance. We've got to make a stand, but if they won't stand with me in public, I'm not going to stand with them in secrecy. No, I'm not one of those, and for others to start name calling is derogatory, discriminatory. I'm not a cross dresser and I'm not transgender, I don't go back a forth between the two, I'm transsexual, my sex identity and my gender identity is female and always has been. I made many an audition for the other role (male) and would have been the star of the show but I lost my billing because I was "one of those" (queer). No matter I out played, out worked, and out performed the "perceived" straights. I lost all rewards because I was a "queer", a "faggot". Maybe that’s why I feel as I do, because I know in public to keep their "male status" in the "male fraternity", they must deny us, they must discriminate or suffer a "faggot" status, they must slander "LGBT's" or be castigated with the stigma as one of them, "he must be a "homo too", so I know that's what the secrecy is about.. That's what hurts too, they won't stand with us "transsexuals" or gays publicly and will, if the situation would "out" them to the public or at their employment, discriminate, in the secret fraternity of the straights males, and they will speak of you disdainful to shirk any association with LGBT's.
This is the cause of the dead end road of the inclusive ENDA, association. I read one blog comment by a gay male saying, he didn’t know any trans individuals, doesn’t identify with trans in any way, doesn’t understand trans folks and there weren’t any trans people working on Lesbian and Gay rights with them back in the 1980’s, (so why shouldn’t Gay celebrate the passing of ENDA?) This is very sad, because the given perception that a great majority of straight society has been saying the same thing about the Gay community for decades.
In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me...By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone. Niemöller, Martin (1892 - 1984) German pastor. Concise Dictionary of Religious Quotations (W. Neil)
Maybe I feel resentful they want to claim to be as I, yet they hide. Why do they feel they must hide when I feel I must be "out", seen by everyone everyday, at all times dressed "feminine", living as female? I can't help it, I had to do it even at the risk of losing my job and I did. They're just playing around but living as males, but usually I say, practicing life as males, but if they are transsexual their practicing is for naught and is not practicing at all, but portraying as male. I do not believe they ever will come "out" in public, because they don't want to or can't live with the fact their personal peers [business associates, business contacts, employers, fellow employees, their straight friends, and here I will say their's of macho braggadocio, of the persuasion and personification that males are above women, and I've wonder if they get this notion from the fact they stab women with their shaft and in the traditional sense they mount women from above her, will perceive them as " a "faggot" or a "queer" or a "homo", as we "transsexuals" suffer the discriminatory from the straight male fraternity. We live with that stigma, whatever others want to think of us, we live with that and as women on a daily basis. But cross dressers? They'll lose their "masculine" status and that swagger that goes with it, that "machismo", that essence of maleness, that proud status of being virile, that strength, that vigor, that force we use to portray so we could hide our femininity, all the things I hated about me, because I used to believe it was the feminine I hated about me, but it wasn't, it was the portrayal of masculinity vexing my true spirit. As transsexuals we live in truth and hide not. I must think they want to make claims they cannot substantiate with their hiding, with their clubs these cross dressers. I've have yet to have someone identify with me in a public setting save a suitor seeking sexual rewards and a male married friend cross dresser from out of state who felt "safe". I've never had a male or female step up to me in public and introduce themselves and say anything like "Hi, I'm a closeted cross dresser and my name is" etc, etc., or any that profess gay, lesbian, f2m who made my acquaintance by introducing themselves in public. I walk alone out here, in the daytime, in a dress. No, I am made to feel by every one as some sort of "outcast", only the "general public' treats me as others and "out" here in public is where I'll stay. Why do they ask that I come into their realm and accept it, these who claim "transgender"? I ask them to come "out" and into my realm, "out" here in public but they do not, they stay in secret and hide and I am not one of those. I always find something sinister about secrecy. I felt it too when I was 10 years old putting on girls clothes in the woods in 1960, but, I was compelled and it felt so wonderful, it was then when I really felt I was me, as now. In these times of LGBT awareness, the legislation we have, the laws we have supporting us, why still live hiding? Why still live in secrecy and fear? It is these cross dressers, "transgender" that perpetuate this and hinder, in my opinion, "our" progress into societal acceptance. We've got to make a stand, but if they won't stand with me in public, I'm not going to stand with them in secrecy. No, I'm not one of those, and for others to start name calling is derogatory, discriminatory. I'm not a cross dresser and I'm not transgender, I don't go back a forth between the two, I'm transsexual, my sex identity and my gender identity is female and always has been. I made many an audition for the other role (male) and would have been the star of the show but I lost my billing because I was "one of those" (queer). No matter I out played, out worked, and out performed the "perceived" straights. I lost all rewards because I was a "queer", a "faggot". Maybe that’s why I feel as I do, because I know in public to keep their "male status" in the "male fraternity", they must deny us, they must discriminate or suffer a "faggot" status, they must slander "LGBT's" or be castigated with the stigma as one of them, "he must be a "homo too", so I know that's what the secrecy is about.. That's what hurts too, they won't stand with us "transsexuals" or gays publicly and will, if the situation would "out" them to the public or at their employment, discriminate, in the secret fraternity of the straights males, and they will speak of you disdainful to shirk any association with LGBT's.
This is the cause of the dead end road of the inclusive ENDA, association. I read one blog comment by a gay male saying, he didn’t know any trans individuals, doesn’t identify with trans in any way, doesn’t understand trans folks and there weren’t any trans people working on Lesbian and Gay rights with them back in the 1980’s, (so why shouldn’t Gay celebrate the passing of ENDA?) This is very sad, because the given perception that a great majority of straight society has been saying the same thing about the Gay community for decades.
In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me...By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone. Niemöller, Martin (1892 - 1984) German pastor. Concise Dictionary of Religious Quotations (W. Neil)
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