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Loading ...Corvino: Why we need the Transgender Day of Visibility
March 31 is Transgender Day of Visibility. I’m supposed to participate in a panel that day. I’m a bit apprehensive.
Like many gay people, I tend to tiptoe around transgender issues. This surprises some straight people I know. They say, “But as a GLBT person yourself…”But I’m not a GLBT person. I’m a G person. (Nobody is a GLBT person. You get two letters at most, and that’s only if one of them is T.)
One of my earliest experiences with the transgender community involved an angry trans woman standing up after one of my lectures in the mid-90’s.
“You’ve talked for an hour about gay and lesbian issues,” she griped, “but you’ve said nothing about ME. An hour-long lecture and not a word about me.”
I remember at the time not knowing quite how to respond. I figured she was referring to transgender issues, because I was pretty sure she was trans. She was about 6’2”, and to put it bluntly, she had man-hands.
But I didn’t want to say, “Oh, you’re transgender.” Because if I said, “Oh, you’re transgender,” I might come across as saying, “Oh, you’re transgender…
“…and not very convincing at it.”
Isn’t it rude to guess? To me, it’s like trying to figure out if someone you know is pregnant, or just getting fat. Better to wait until she brings it up.
Of course, sometimes waiting is not an option, such as when a person’s gender presentation is ambiguous and you need to refer to “him” or “her.” You can only switch to the plural “they” for so long before it becomes obvious that you’re avoiding gendered pronouns. I actually had this problem once with a student, whose name was as gender-ambiguous as [his? her? their?] clothing. Turns out she was a MTF who deliberately skated the line as “genderqueer”—something I discovered only when other students filled me in. But absent such informants, how does one politely ask?
Regarding my angry questioner, though, I had no such doubts—just doubts about how to respond to her “nothing about me” complaint.
At the time, I think I said something like “I don’t know you, so how can I talk about you?” That was a reasonable answer then. But what about now?
The truth is I still hardly ever talk or write about transgender issues. That’s partly because I’m no expert on them. There are only so many minutes in an hour (or lines in a column), and you can’t cover everything.
But to be frank, it’s also partly because I’m nervous about offending people whom society has already hurt enough. It’s a touchy subject, and like many touchy subjects, it’s often easier for those of us without a direct stake in it simply to avoid it.
And that’s probably as good a reason for Transgender Day of Visibility as any. Our discomfort around the issue—I know I’m not alone in this—means that we’ve got some learning to do. Bravo to those trans people willing to come out and teach us.
Some gay people wonder why we get lumped with the transgender community at all. Sexual orientation is one thing, they say, and gender identity is another.
That’s true as far as it goes, and perhaps it’s better to talk about our overlapping communities than about a single GLBT community.
Still, the alliance makes sense insofar as both (overlapping) groups suffer from rigid social expectations about sex and gender. Compare “If you’re born biologically male, you should grow up to be a man” with “If you’re born biologically male, you should grow up to love a woman.” The similarities between the two inferences seem to outweigh the differences.
Then there are those who question whether linking GLB to T might slow down GLB political progress, insofar as society has a harder time with trans issues than sexual- orientation issues.
Even if you find those who raise such questions insensitive, it’s hard to argue that they’re being irrational. In general, society does have a harder time with trans people than gay, lesbian, or bisexual people, which is one reason why the trans community needs and deserves our support.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of us who could benefit from frank and open dialogue about all of these issues. Transgender Day of Visibility is an important step in that direction, and gays—and everyone else—should support it.
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John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.
His upcoming speaking appearances include:
Transgender Day of Visibility Panel: 7 pm on 3/31 at Five15 in Royal Oak, MI.
Same-Sex Marriage Debate with Glenn Stanton of FOTF: 6 pm on 4/2 in Rigge 120 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE.
Homosexuality and Morality Lecture: 7 pm on 4/14 in HCC-Alum Hall at College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University in St. Joseph, MN.
For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.
This is the same thing that happened to feminism. All the small groups that make up the larger one want/need/deserve their own attention, but the larger groups seem to make things happen. I guess this is what’s happen to Americans, humans… It’s an excellent point though. In my writing I often refuse to add the B in the rainbow alphabet. I think the umbrella of “Queer” is a nice way to put things but it has bad wrap in general.
I completely agree with you in terms of the “GLBT” being put together as a political movement, and in terms of support and understanding. However, people like the person who stood up at your lecture and wanted to know why you weren’t talking about her miss a very important point. We are not one cultural community. Anyone who thinks we are obviously hasn’t spent a lot of time around lesbians and gay men. I have been to Trans only events, and no one would ever presume to complain that they weren’t talking about gay men, or lesbians. They might complain if they didn’t address bisexuality, but that’s only because bisexuality is so common among trans individuals. The issues we face politically are very similar, the issues we face socially are very similar, the issues that define who we are as individuals are really not all that similar. That isn’t a trans homosexual divide, that is a divide between each letter. The bisexuals I know tackle a very different set of development patters, and personal needs and desires than the gay men I know, and the lesbians I know tackle a very different set of internal social issues than the bisexuals, transgender, or gay men I know.
It is important to understand these differences if you are going to be involved in the community. It is important to accept these differences because every human being deserves to be who they are without being harassed for it. At the same time we need to understand that it is the distinct textures and uniqueness of the parts of the alphabet soup that make it wonderful, and we can’t homogenize into one pureed slop. It doesn’t work.
@Victor,
Well put. I myself am a “T” but my first label is the “L”. The “T” part for me is way back in the past and not much a part at all of my life. Currently I serve as a trustee at the GLBT center in my state and we don’t have any active “T” groups at the center so I am not self-serving in that respect. Also I would say that half of “T’s” are Gay or Lesbian from my experiences.
I am lucky though as I pass without any problem but a lot of the more visible “T’s” don’t.
Being a “T” is hard as most of society tries to flush your life down a toilet and getting a job that pays well can be almost impossible if you don’t pass easily. All this at a time when you are the most vulnerable and the need to have an enormous amount of money. I easily spent $130,000 and it was money well spent but it could have been a house in much of the USA.
One of the most important things to know is that when we get bashed, and it happens so much more often to us that are visible, the assailants are yelling Die fag die, and Homo this and Homo that. They do not see us as trans they see us as Gay, Lesbian or part of the queer spectrum.
Us getting equal rights also help protect everyone else and also it gets rid of the “I fired you because you look gay not because you are gay” advantage that employers will have if the law only specifies that you can’t fire for being gay.
Just as The Menstruator said, the same thing happens to me as a woman. Somehow I’m supposed to be an expert on all problems women face across the globe. That’s not possible. It’s not fair for you to be expected to be an expert on issues you might not have any direct experience with. The way around that problem is to listen to the next person who brings up your lack of knowledge and go from there. Sometimes a good ear is all it takes. Good luck.
Bravo and thankyou for being willing to admit that you’re uncomfortable & don’t know all that much about transd people, it takes courage to admit you don’t know something. As a Trans person who openly affirms her trans identity it heartens me to see someone say they want to learn about the Trans community AND about the connections between the GLB & T communities. A good book on that is Julia Serano’s “Whipping Girl”.
This is the first I have heard of transgender day. I am 70.5 years old, and I have been transgender all my life. But only since the 1990’s have I been open about it. I have just said “gay” all my life. But in fact I am really a woman trapped in a man’s body. When I was in my mid-late 50’s a psychiatrist tried to direct me into having a sex-change operation. I thought it was way to late in life to attempt such a change. Thanks for alerting people that we are out here and I am G and T…I get to letters.
Gender reassignment surgery does not cure gender identity disorder as so stated by the pioneers of gender reassignment surgery, Johns Hopkins University. May we suggest long term psychiatric care?
There is a great lack of understanding in our whole society, even among LGB people about what it means to be transgendered. A person who has made the difficult decision to change gender and has gone through the steps of gender change has changed gender. For example, a person who was born as a woman and has transitioned is a man. Furthermore, that person is no less a man or male than someone like me who has been born a man and gladly remains a man.
I hear remarks from people who do not understand transgendered people, including other Gay men that when one can not really change gender. For example: There is still support for laws to deny trans people the right to use the public washroom of their chosen gender. An example in our own community: A few clubs for Gay men still deny membership and rights to transmen. It is sad that some of us fighting for equality then turn around and deny it to others in our own LGBT community.
To those who make remarks such as, “Gender reassignment surgery does not cure gender identity disorder as so stated by the pioneers of gender reassignment surgery”, you are wrong. Being transgendered or trans-identified is not a disorder. Being transphobic is a disorder.
Let us keep in mind that the acronym LGBT stands for “Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexual Persons and Trans-identified persons”– NOT “Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexual Persons and, oh yes, Trans-identified persons if you insist on it”.
Of course one can have more than two letters. Why not?
It would depend on the gender to whom the T is attracted when they present as a man or a woman. They could be BBS, BTS*, GBT, GTS, LBT, LGT, LTS or TSS.
*We need another letter because there are two possibilities that could be BTS.
DANG IT! I completely left out the Q community – those who are questioning. I’ll have to redo the whole spread sheet!
Up to now, this post as been very much tongue in cheek. But it does represent a place I had been for a lot of years and a place from where I still hear too many LGBTQS folks speaking today.
We spend far too much time trying to identify our differences in order to exclude rather than seeing our similarities in order to include.
Neil
Thank you John for writing this. I remember the first time that I learned what it meant to be transgender. It was after I asked about the term at my first Gay Straight Alliance meeting a couple of years ago. Then I met my first openly trans friend a few weeks later and continued to learn about the trans community.
Good thing too. Two years after starting to educate myself, my best friend surprised me by coming out as trans himself and started his transition. Couldn’t be more proud of him.
I’m no fan of political correctness, but words do matter. As a “G” who recently crept out of his closet, I bristle when someone talks about my “lifestyle choice.” If they are referring to my choice to stop lying about my sexual orientation, that’s one thing. If they are referring to my orientation itself, then they need to be educated.
When I read a reference to “using the washroom of their chosen gender,” I can imagine “T” people bristling in a similar manner. Perhaps some of the confusion is that many people associate transgendered individuals with “campy casual” transvestites who sometimes choose to appear as women but do not identify as women. There is a great deal of difference between a “campy casual” and someone who has struggled for years – or decades – to come to terms with the disconnect between their gender identity and their physiology.
I imagine that process is a “choice” as much as my understanding my orientation was a “choice.”
What is the preferred way to refer to the gender to which someone has transitioned? If “chosen gender” sounds arbitrary or capricious, would “identified gender” be more accurate? Help me.
Thank you Dr Corvino. That is an insightful and accurate post. Now it falls upon me to be brave enough to stand up and be visible on the 31st.
Thank you Mr. Covino. I walked into a store and a lady asked the salesperson – is that a man or a woman? And I wasn’t even that dressed up. We of the Q part of LGBTQ just don’t get any respect. Sometimes not even here on a supposetly friendly site of GBLTs. We sometimes feel left out. Gs and Ls are such conformist and pushy. Do this, be that, say this script or else get out. Nice to see someone cares about the other letters. Like it or not, some of us are out every day. Not this and not that either. Bravo for the T day. It is a good start. It is good to talk about it.
IM gay what sold i do about it go on with it are what ps wright back see jesse werner+
how can i find me a man are a boyfriend i need help im 17 year old going on 18 year.