Fran Drescher wrote an article for the Huffington Post, The Time for Equal Rights for LGBT Americans is Now!
I added the following comment:
There are six "read more" categories pertaining to gays, plus one that adds "T" to the mix. And this article could have been about "Equal Rights for LGB Americans" and the story only would have been more accurate.
Transgendered individuals such as myself, and many more up and down the spectrum from "occasional dresser" to "girl, you'll be a woman soon" are ignored by that 24-hour news cycle except when one kills or gets killed.
I'd like to see stories about how we're accepted by people such as Fran and the rest of my friends on the left.
Equal rights needs to include us too. We're more than a letter at the end of the LGB label.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
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I'm noticing this pattern of exclusion more and more. I posted an article on my blog today about how inappropriate gender-expression (as measured against social norms) is the real trigger in bullying and name-calling.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid whose gender expression deviated from mean, I was bullied and called a faggot. I even considered suicide because of the bullying and name calling.
But I was not gay, I'm Trans. The bullying and teasing don't hurt any less because one is not actually gay. And if it goes on to long, suicide can start to seem like a good idea.
Gender expression not sexual preference gets you bullied. This stark reality gets drowned out by all of the attention payed to sexual preference alone.
Meg
ReplyDeleteI needed to give a bit of thought to this post. I agree that the 'T' at the end of LGBT is little more than an add-on to make the concept seem a bit more inclusive. For that matter the 'B' does not serve much more purpose than the 'T'.
To the extent that general societal acceptance has evolved over the past few decades that general evolution has helped everyone. I do not think that the 'in your face' approach did much good. In fact I think that excessive pressure to accept LGBT has done more to slow things down. What has helped has been the slow assimilation of people who differ from the norm and the slow acceptance that people who are different are neither evil nor dangerous.
I did not find much of merit in Drescher's article. What I did find eye-opening was a related article by Amanda Terkel that Voter Support for Republicans had Doubled from 2008 to 2010 Elections.
It seems that an underlying premise of the article is that the Democrat party has given mere 'lip service' to the gay community. It seems that there is a parallel drawn that because the Democrat Party has had the overwhelming support of the gay community, as they have had with the black community, that they can take the support of gays and blacks for granted.
When conservative attorney Ted Olsen, representing the Log Cabin Republicans won the the case in California that held that DADT was not consitutional, the fact that this victory was achieved by a conservative attorney representing a group of Republicans was virtually ignored in the main stream media. I heard Olsen (who represented Bush in the 2000 election mess and whose wife died on 9/11 in the plane that hit the Pentagon) talk about the case on Fox and it seems that both he and the Log Cabin crew are fully committed to the repeal of DADT while the Obama administration has appealed to stay the ruling of the judge.
In addition to fighting to eliminate DADT the Log Cabin Republicans have made considerable headway in moving ENDA forward. It is noted that the concept of non-discrimination in employment is a basic conservative/libertarian concept. The conservative talking point that no one should be denied access to employment contrasts with the forced concepts of affirmative action or a closed union shop.
While Ken Mehlman only recently publically announced his sexual orientation it was a fairly well known public secret that he was gay during the four years that he headed the RNC.
As such I thought that Amanda Terkel's article was both timely and a well reasoned piece indicating that neither political party had a strangle hold on any particular voting bloc.
The conservative/libertarian/republican side has been constantly demonized and demeaned by unneeded comparisons to the so-called 'religious right'. I think that the recent election may have marked a small change in political definitions.
To get back on point, I agree with your basic premise, and the comments of Christy that there is really no one carrying water for the "T" crowd. What needs to happen is that more and more of us need to get out into the general public. That is why your participation in the rally was so meaningful.
Pat