Subscribe to Breaking NewsRuby-Sachs: Some Visibility For the Trans Community
With Lindsay Lohan and Ellen and Rosie it’s starting to feel like becoming a lesbian isn’t quite as weird and rare as it used to be. But for an entirely different part of the LGBT community, the struggle is still in its early stages.
When I started dating women, it was far less controversial and scary to come out. The older lesbians I meet share their war stories and the histories I read make it clear to me how difficult the process could be, but it wasn’t part of my experience. Not to say things are perfect, but younger gay women in large cities – especially on the east coast – have to admit, things are a lot easier.
But, my generation also has seen a new visibility for the transgendered community. And that process – gaining access to hormone treatments, deciding on surgery or more than one surgery, coming out to parents and friends, navigating relationships when genders change – is one that is still very controversial and scary.
And there sure aren’t a lot of role models out there.
But tonight and tomorrow night Chaz Bono, the son of Cher, will be the subject of a two part interview on the trans experience in the U.S. He will talk about the process of recognizing his gender despite his physical appearance, the decision to begin the transition process and the effect of the drugs on his system. Mostly, he’s just a guy in a nice relationship going through something a lot of people in the U.S. experience or will experience. Except he’s doing it publicly.
I’m excited for this special. I’m excited that Chaz has chosen to share his experience. It’s not enough to have gay and lesbian visibility in the U.S. We need LGB and T visibility. Only then can we change the public perception to one of acceptance and support.
It has been demonstrated through research that the transsexual does indeed suffer from a dysgenesis of the central nervous system, forming the brain of the opposite sex. Further research has identified a set of 5 genes that was present in all 128 transsexuals and not one of the controls (cisgendered individuals) that participated in the study. Despite this. people like Zucker, et alia, still insist in our inclusion in the DSM as a psychological affliction that is not born out by any empirical research. The transsexual is, by this set of circumstances to be born intersexed. As there is no way to correct the central nervous system, we undergo a very expensive, out of pocket (at least here in the United States) set of medical procedures to give us a body we can simply tolerate.
http://joanieh.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/more-bad-news-for-old-cherished-misconceptions/
http://joanieh.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/comments-on-more-bad-news-for-old-cherished-misconceptions/
http://joanieh.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/in-the-name-of-healing-and-science/
As far as transphobia goes, I have dealt with some degree of this for many years, and it has only been over the last decade that I have began becoming comfortable with and around gay/lesbian individuals. The reason for this? I simply developed some friendships with gay and lesbian individuals and learned that they are not really different than anyone else except in a few, very narrow aspects of the human existence that, frankly, are no one elses business. Conversely, these individuals were somewhat transphobic, and by getting to know me, and a few other individuals dealing with the same issues, they may not understand exactly how I and others like me feel, or how intensely we are driven to transition (and I fervently hope they never do!) yet they can see what we are dealing with and generally come to understand that we are simply doing what we need to do to survive. I do not understand the cisgendered perspective of life, having never experienced it for myself. In many ways, this puts is on an parity basis, allowing us tremendous potential for individual growth as we work through getting to know the others on a personal, intimate basis, and suddenly come to realize that we have about 95% commonality and share the same basic needs in life, including the right to live as equally treated as the rest of society, being free of being relegated to subhuman status due to our needs, preferences, sexual orientations and simply being openly who and what we are.
Like many things that are different in life, xenophobia (fear of differences) plays a big part of any form of (you name the group)phobia. However, as people learn that we are not pedophiles, inherently insane and exactly what we are and how we are dealing with it, most people achieve some degree of acceptance. From this perspective coming out of the closet and being recognized tends to shatter the false stereotypes that we have been labeled and identified with in order to discriminate against us. Thus education of the general public become the key to the entire LBGTQI existence and will take several generations to complete. But we are making progress.
Now down to my situation. I too, very much like Zoe, am still with my wife of 23 years and we do not even consider the possibility of divorce. Even so, sex is out with us for the simple reason that we are both heterosexual females. However, we are not going to give up a supportive and nurturing relationship, even if it is entirely agape and has no true Eros. In public we are frequently the targets of quips and snide comments for being a lesbian couple, and like Zoe, we keep our true relationship in the closet. Who and what we are is not anyone’s business, just as their sexuality, genitalia, and sexual preferences are no one elses concern except themselves and their partner(s). We are supposed to have freedom of religion or religious beliefs here in the United States, with a Constitutional mandate, via the Second Amendment. However, to date, one group, that arrogantly claims to hold the one and only truth, has been inflicting their beliefs onto the rest of society. In short, we need to maintain and strengthen the separation between church and state. We have to allow them their beliefs, as a matter of necessity, least we become as bad as they are, yet we can not allow them to control our behaviors and beliefs, as long as we do not do them any tangible harm. The tenet that violation of God’s laws does harm to the Christian community is not valid as we do them no physical harm nor has it been effectively demonstrated that the resistance to allowing them to have their way politically in any way disallows them to practice their religion freely. I will state that slamming the door on a house-to-house evangelist is simply a case of one exercising their right to practice and protect themselves from religious tenets they do not subscribe to, doing them no demonstrable harm. However their infliction of their beliefs has continually been shown to inflict tangible harm to many groups of individuals throughout the history of the U.S. This comes in the form of denial of basic human rights and necessities. To quote M.K Gandhi, “Poverty is the worse form of violence.” This is how they harm others, by declaring them pariahs and then refusing to allow them any way to make a living or acquire the necessities of life.
In conclusion I think we need to state that the LBGTQI community needs to hang together or eventually hang separately. Divided, we do not have the numbers in our culture to maintain the one thing that every group in the world require: Basic Human Rights. How do we do this? Simple, by educating, taking ourselves out of the realms of the unknown and into the world of the familiar.
MelissaG is the genuine article, and represents a significant percentage of trans women. Over 10%.
I’m homophobic too, just not to the same extent. I had no connection with the GLBT community until I transitioned, and have had precious little since then. I’m straight, and cisgendered. Boringly binary and conventional in everything but my body.
Three differences from her view – the first is that while it’s unfortunate that neither my partner nor I are lesbian, she didn’t abandon me, nor I her. Neither of us are attracted to each other, nor other women, we’re both straight. But love each other just as much as the day we married. Otherwise I’m one of the right-wing “secondaries” she despises.
The second difference is that having been dragooned into a “GLBT” camp against my will, I consider this a blessing, despite my homophobia. I’ve met so many good, courageous people who I never would have met otherwise. Yes, there’s the transphobic gays and lesbians like Julie Bindel, but there’s just as much homophobia in trans circles too, as exemplified by MelissaG. Just as some gays get riled by people who assume they’re “breeders”, so she gets riled by people who assume she’s gay, when she’s a straight female. Given HRC’s betrayal of trans people last year over ENDA, I can’t blame her overmuch, despite disagreeing strongly. The fact is, that as seen in New Hampshire recently, where Trans people were denied the rights that gays have had for a decade on the same day that the senate approved gay marriage, we’re often expended to further a gay-only agenda. Traded off for the greater good.
The third difference is that I see my homophobia as a personal failing to be overcome, not embraced.
You know, my partner and I pretend to be a standard lesbian couple in public? We’re closeted in that regard. Think of what that implies when it comes to how trans people are treated.
Ironically, technically I’m not even trans, but intersexed. I used to look male. I now look female. But I’m a protandrous dichogamous pseudohermaphrodite, one of the few humans who get a “natural sex change”. Not that it’s complete in most cases, some degree of medical intervention is usually required to clean up the ambiguous mess that can result.
If you think that trans people are marginalised, othered, and rendered invisible, just see how IS people are treated.
@MelissaG. ROFL. I laughed for an hour after reading your post. I have come to believe you are one of two things…. Either a fictitious post by a conservative trying to get a laugh out of watching us (attempt to) respond your insanities. Or you are a 15 year old boy impersonating Mrs. Garrison from the television show South Park. Either way its absolutely the funniest thing I’ve read all day. And its not like I go around laughing all the time.
@Mavs Fan:
Complaints are NOT creative writing exercises. They are not supposed to be imaginative! Think of my frequent use of the word “CONFLATION” as a repetitive drill like what is done in the military. Maybe it will sink into your head.
I did not distance myself from the LGBT community. I was never in my life a part of it for me to distance myself from it. I never had LGBT friends. Neither has my fiancé. The few times I’ve been around LGBT people and places left me with a sense of foreignness and were nothing but trouble.
You not comprehending 90% of what I have to say is selective comprehension. I am providing you with a hyperlink to a website that will show you 147 people so far that do fully understand what I am saying. They are demanding from the queer community what my fiancé and I are demanding.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/transgender-is-not-an-umbrella
@Katherine Helms: You are obviously a staffer or hard core activist trying to save a blog that backfired in the comments section. It is a bit too late for your propaganda piece as the story is several days old and no new readers will see it.
This is my last comment to this blog as a consequence of that.
Like most of the above posters (aside from MelissaG…not sure what she’s saying, but I digress), I applaud Chaz Bono’s refusal to hide his identity from a culture that does – as Cat Bass said – too often forget the T in LGBT. Transgendered people are brushed aside as being sick or confused, even as the world grows slowly more accepting of lesbians and gays. The more “mainstream” members and allies of the LGBT community have never met one of them, or don’t understand them, or don’t want to jeapordize the acceptance they are winning by associating with those who are lower on that totem pole. They are much less visible in society as a whole, and almost invisible in the media. But as difficult as it is for some people to believe, there are thousands of transgender teens out there who are going to need positive role models in life, people who are recognized in the mainstream, in the media, in the public eye as being unapologetically transgendered. People who have been and can be successful in the world at large, and who are seen not as anomalies, but as normal human beings. In my opinion, it’s too early right now to know who they will be – but hopefully, Chaz Bono will be one of them.
The only thing that worries me about all this is that, before coming out as transgendered, Chastity Bono was well-known as a lesbian. Well-known enough to write books about her experience as a lesbian; well-known enough to advocate for the gay and lesbian community in a number of forums, among them as a writer for The Advocate and a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign. This concerns me because already, there are too many people who believe that all lesbians are butch and manly, that they look and behave like men and that they aspire to be men – that lesbians are just men in female bodies, who would like nothing better than to wake up one day and find themselves with penises. And while this stereotype is completely true for some lesbians (that is, for people like Chaz Bono) and partially true for others (”butch” or “stud” lesbians who act and dress like men), it is by no means applicable for all of us. I, for one, very much enjoy being female. I don’t want to date a man, look like a man, or be a man. And while, on the whole, I do support the emergence of transgendered role models in any form, this is the one thing that gives me pause; it makes me wonder if perhaps some people, hearing of a woman who first came out as a lesbian and then as a man entirely, might not take that as proof that all lesbians really want is to be men. I know it isn’t true, and I’m pretty sure that most lesbians and trans-men know that too. But as with many issues in the LGBT community, the problem lies with those fans of broadly-applied stereotypes, who populate much more of this world than we might guess.
You’re crazy Mel. I can’t make heads or tails out of about 90% of what you have written, but I did notice that you use the word “conflation” alot. Was this the word of the day or something, or are you just so unimaginative that you couldn’t think of any synonems? I don’t think you’ve been alienated from the LGBT community, I think you have voluntarily distanced yourself. I hope you find some peace in this crazy world because you sure seem pissed off.
I am very enthusiastic about Chaz’s decision to transition publicly. The visibility of his transition will send the message that this is something which happens. It is real, and it is hard. I cannot imagine the feeling of being a stranger to my own body, and I congratulate those people who are brave enough to transition and actually be who they are.
And I agree that often the T is forgotten in LGBT. The gay community, though more accepting than the public, does tend to still discriminate against transgender people. Why isn’t the gay community more accepting of transgender people? What threat do they make which leads to this devide?
I will agree with Susan on the point that issues based coalitions work better than identity based communities, especially for trans issues.
I do however find her implied viewpoint that transsexual lesbians are more likely to have liberal parents and be liberals themselves. If anything, the opposite seems true. Most so called transsexual lesbians are self absorbed, narcissistic, heterosexual cross dressers who abandon their wives and children (at least emotionally) for their own indulgence and are or were life long Conservative Republicans Ex: Steven Stanton (AKA: Susan)- The poster boy for the Di**less Fatherhood. The DF may despise Steven but that’s because he represents what they are really all about more than anyone else in society.
Most straight women born with transsexualism (Not effeminate ex-gays or she-males) on the other hand I have met tend to be mostly apolitical with a few Liberals. I have yet to meet or even see a profile online of a true straight woman born with transsexualism that is or was conservative.
It is amazing that you would think you know my political beliefs based on an unaffiliated political issue never mind my parent’s political affiliations. Prejudice is defined as re judging. That is what you did! My mom is from Ireland and sympathizes with the IRA. They are a socialist leftist organization. The president of their political arm Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams supports gay rights in Northern Ireland. My dad was apolitical and apparently somewhat agnostic. This goes to show that I was hardly raised by very religious conservative bigots!
My fiancé and I are mostly liberal but registered as Independents on our voter registration cards. I used to support gays and even transgenders until they showed such disrespect with their conflation ideology towards me that they endanger the lives of my boyfriend and me.
Having other straight people conflating me with a she-male and my boyfriend with either a Buck Angel – FTM Porn Star or Pregnant Man Thomas Bettie puts us in danger! Men talk to me like a cheap and eager whore at best to a lascivious cross-dressing fag at worst thanks to your peoples’ conflation. My fiancé has to work in redneck type environments to put food on the table and a roof over our heads since he did not grow up with upper-middle class liberal parents that can even pay for his college education never mind provide him with a pompous and classist outlook on life like you queers have!
The identity assault you people put on us severely damages our ability to have relationships with other people to a greater extent than the Christian Right’s conflation of transsexualism with mental illnesses identity assaults. The Christians used to be sympathetic to indifferent before transsexuals were associated with the queer community and queer politics. Lack of acceptance translates to lack of protection. Conflation with transvestite queers trying to fool straight people while living in our natural heterosexual environment invites rage from others!
You queers (including queer community trannies) have a lot of angry true transsexuals and even secondary transsexuals like Susan who feel sexual orientation is their only affiliation with the queer community angry at you people. You people are asking to get hurt and will for sure someday! I expect you queers (especially Baby Boomers) to continue anyway. The queer agenda mentality combined with Baby Boomer, “the end justifies the means” arrogance guarantees that.
Baby Boomers in general could never get it with Gen-Xers in that they don’t usually hate Baby Boomers for their ideology like most boomers think but rather for their means and methods. Hope you people get that. But you won’t because a Boomer is always right, especially when dealing with other generations: older or younger!
By the way, my fiancé is a Millennial. I am a few years older and we our near the generational border. He feels the same way as me, but to a lesser extent with Boomers and a greater extent with queers (especially dykes).
Some of us with left wing/ liberal parents learned humanity and connection to the oppressions of others as a result of having been born with transsexualism.
Especially those of us who became lesbian feminists as well as staying lefties after we had our sex reassignment surgery.
Others had right wing conservative Christin bigots as parents and as a result of poor socialization never related to themselves as part of humanity and they found only reasons to be bigoted after they had their SRS.
This shows thew fallacy of trying to lump everyone together as some community or other based on one particular shared trait or even worse imagined shared trait.
It is why issues based coalitions often work better than identity based communities.
@ MelissaG
What? That made no sense in English. Lots of missing referents. Are you simply saying Transvestite and Transsexual have two different meanings? Any specific points you hope to express are completely obscured by your rage.
Transsexualism is nothing more than a brain physiological birth defect and not an identity like transgender or sexuality like homosexuality is; which is a social identity in addition to being a sexual “PREFERENCE” as self-defined by the queer community and rather proudly to boot!
Successful treatment of this medical condition is complete, bodily and societal integration. The consequence is INVISIBILITY to the public. Rarely does a woman like to share medical information about her genitalia the way you narcissistic queers love sharing your AIDS sob stories to anyone who will listen and forcing those to listen who would rather not!
You people, via your organizations, (Primarily GLAAD) have some nerve to assault the psychosexual sex of true transsexuals such as my boyfriend and me by publicly conflating them with your transvestites! You then have the gall to attack heterosexuals with accusations of homophobia when they see your community’s transvestites like she-male porn stars, Pregnant Man Thomas Bettie and of course, Chastity Bono (ALIAS: CHAZ) and take the conflation a step further by conflating all homosexuals with transsexuals. You queers (transvestite and non-transvestite alike) all look and act like the same queers to the straight majority community. You people are bringing on your own gender identity assaults when you assault ours. You people are getting what you deserve for this!
If you people would stop conflating us with your transvestites and recognize us as a different psychosexual sex born with a body designed for the opposite sex rather than just a self-proclaimed, internalized, gender identity conflict, than I wouldn’t care less if Chastity Bono (as well as others like her) demand that the world label her as a men but treat her as a butch lesbian.
Take your visibility agenda elsewhere and stop assaulting our genders!
deep suzan, very deep.
A lot of post sex reassignment surgery people do not consider ourselves trans anything much less transgender.
Transsexualism is something we are treated for not an identity. We are visible only during the period of transition.
If I were asked where I fit in the LGBT/T spectrum it would be as a lesbian and not as transsexual although I had sex reassignment surgery many years ago.
Wow. Thanks, Ms. Ruby-Sachs, for acknowledging the value of trans people. The anti-trans sentiment that exists and is sometimes rather prevalent among GLB and other people is disheartening. Thanks for keeping the umbrella open.
Cheers.
de todo punto concuerde, Ruby.