Transphobia in the GLBT "Community"

Many people think of the GLBT community as just that - a community. Even people who identify as part of said "community" make this mistake repeatedly.

In truth, the GLBT community is divided. Gays and lesbians often band together, but even they can get weirded out or totally transphobic when it comes to interacting with transgendered people. Drag queens are one thing, but actual oh my god transpeople throw off their groove.

There's a boy at my school who is very flamboyantly gay. A few weeks ago, I heard him describe something as a "hot tranny mess" and I was a little appalled. That same week, I'd heard him get very offended when someone made a slightly racist remark. So racism is totally offensive, but saying "hot tranny mess" is totally acceptable? Wow.

You'd think that gay and lesbian people would be among the first to accept transgendered people. You'd be wrong.

At the beginning of the year, I went to the Gay-Straight Alliance meeting at my college. I figured that was the best place to begin to look for acceptance. Boy, was I wrong!

During the course of that meeting, I was told that I am heterosexual because I like boys, even "if I become male."

There is so much wrong with that statement. With that outlook.

I am not going to become male. Why? Because I am already male, regardless of the fact that I have breasts. Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not a girl and I never have been!

Secondly, I am a boy that likes boys. That makes me homosexual. And I've had a long hard road, here, so let's not label me something else that I'm not, okay? Okay.

I was also told that, instead of performing in drag as a woman, that I should be a drag king!

I was shocked into speechlessness. These people, who were supposed to be part of some imagined community, just did not understand. I can't be a drag king. Boys are not drag kings. I had mentioned that I've performed in shows as a girl, effectively making me a drag queen, and this is the response that I get?

I've found that the gay community is just as uneducated and transphobic as the straight community. It seems to me that there is something so inherently wrong about this. I honestly thought those of us who are looked down upon for our sexualities and gender identities were supposed to stick together.

I look forward to the day when there really is a community, and we can all at least try to understand each other. I hope such a day can really exist.

Some days it's hard to keep the faith.

"Equal" rights

I've been thinking, lately, that there is a difference between demanding equal rights and just demanding attention. So many people out there - myself included - are constantly lobbying for equal rights. Equal rights for minorities. Equal rights for women. Equal rights for gays, lesbians, transgendered people, and everyone in-between.

It gets messy when you start thinking of "equal rights" as "special treatment."

This year, I came out as transgendered. I've known for a long time, although the discovery and beginning of what people refer to as "transitioning" are for another time, and possibly another place.

Coming out was a huge ordeal, but before I actually did it, I kept telling myself the same things over and over again.

I don't want special treatment. I just want to be recognized as male, and allowed the same things as other boys.

This involves a standard within music performance expectations that all but requires women to wear skirts or dresses and pantyhose. Nevermind that I seriously think that pantyhose are the single most uncomfortable clothing article ever invented. I kept thinking, again and again, that "the other boys don't have to wear skirts. Why should I?"

In all fairness, why should a woman be forced to wear a skirt if they don't want to? Men get to wear pants and ties, and women have to wear dresses and heels and makeup and pantyhose. Yeah, talk about unfair.

I didn't think I was asking for a whole lot. The ability to dress like the other guys seems like a tiny thing to anyone who hasn't been in a situation like mine, I'm sure. But it was everything. Nevermind that I don't bind my chest every day (again, another story). Nevermind that only my close friends have been calling me Tim for the past five years. Everyone else has had a different name - and I've gone through several - that they know me as. Hardly anyone had any idea what my real gender identity was.

But all I could think about was how much I hated myself every time I put on a motherfucking pair of heels.

Once I came out, the director of the program I'm in (I'm going to refer to her as Ursula for reasons known to me and irrelevant to you) and I reached an arrangement. I got pants and a tie like all the other men, except in one number where the character I was playing was distinctly female. But I also got eyeshadow and painted nails.

Does this count as special treatment? It's hard to say, isn't it.

I look at it as "not being any different from a gay man that dresses in drag." Which, you know, is what I am anyway - a gay man that sometimes pretends to be a woman on a stage.

I'm at a point where I no longer want to play women on stage, but I will if it's the only way to be on a stage.

There's an argument here about crossdressing, invalidation, and general ignorance that I've encountered, but it's late and I've said most of what I set out to say.

Coherence in writing these kinds of things used to be a stronger suit.

Everything changes.