The freedom of gender expression is not just a trans issue.
This was originally published on The Huffington Post.
When I was bullied as a child, called names, chased home from school, and sometimes physically attacked, it was because of my gender expression. The way I acted was way more feminine than how most of the people around me thought a boy “should” act. Though I was often told I acted like a girl as a child, I was also usually called anti-gay slurs, like “sissy” or “faggot.” I was bullied because of my gender expression, but everyone called it “gay” years before I knew I liked boys, years before I understood I was trans.
I can’t even count how many times I have been interviewed and had to explain that “gay” and “trans” aren’t the same thing, that being gay is about whom you’re attracted to whereas being trans, transgender, or transsexual is about how you see yourself and how you identify your gender and is separate from whom you’re attracted to. They aren’t the same thing. But even though “gay” and “trans” are distinctly different and separate concepts and identities, we can’t fully eradicate homophobia without eradicating transphobia, as well. I was reminded of this last Wednesday, when I sat on a panel, organized by the Stonewall Democrats and the Manhattan Young Democrats, called “Now What: An Activist Life After Gay Marriage.” It’s a fact that trans folks’ issues are often subjugated to those of gays and lesbians. This is evidenced by how trans and gender-nonconforming folks were basically axed from the gay and lesbian civil rights movement in the 1970s, despite the fact that it was mostly trans and gender-nonconforming folks who started the movement with the Stonewall riots in 1969. This tradition was continued when trans folks were dropped from inclusion in the New York bill that would become SONDA (the Sexual-Orientation Nondiscrimination Act), which added sexual orientation to the protected classes in the state’s human rights laws. This bill was passed in 2001 without trans inclusion. The leadership at the time said that they would get back to trans folks. Eleven years later we’re still waiting for gender expression to be added to protected classes in New York. The bill that would do that is called GENDA (the Gender-Expression Nondiscrimination Act).
Speaking at last week’s “Now What” panel, I was reminded that we do ourselves a disservice when we think of fighting for our civil rights piecemeal. In a patriarchal culture, we can’t really fully talk about eradicating sexism without talking about eradicating homophobia, as well. So much systemic male domination has occurred because the patriarch doesn’t want to appear “soft,” which in the homophobic, sexist imagination means “gay,” which, within that oppressive logic, also means “like a woman.” Historically, many patriarchal men have oppressed women so as to not seem “gay,” which, for the patriarch, means, in part, having his masculinity called into question. The patriarch has also oppressed gay folks for the same reason. Based on this oppressive logic, the patriarch has to not only embrace but enforce very rigid gender constructs regarding what it means to be a man or a woman. We can see the links between sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, and at the heart of it all gender oppression.
In a gender-binary world, a world that is set up based on two distinct genders, if one is perceived to be outside the binary (whether that person actually identifies outside that binary or not), the possibility of gender oppression exists. For many trans folks, the discrimination we often experience has to do with how someone else might perceive our gender, but people who don’t identify as trans but who express their gender in ways that don’t conform to the sex they were assigned at birth often experience discrimination, as well. On the “Now What” panel, I cited the case of Khadijah Farmer, who, while using a women’s room in a West Village restaurant in New York City in 2007, was asked by a bouncer to leave because he perceived her to be male even though she was assigned female at birth and identified as female. Basically, she is not transgender, but she still experienced gender discrimination based on her gender expression. Farmer is a lesbian woman with a butch presentation and is protected against such discrimination by the GENDA law in place in New York. A statewide bill can protect other folks like Farmer who may not be transgender but who experience gender discrimination based on their perceived gender.
Also, we can begin to spread the word that trans issues are gay and lesbian issues and carry this issue to non-LGBT allies, as well. Trans issues are men’s and women’s issues, too. Many of us are constantly putting ourselves and others in gender boxes that we just don’t fit into, whether or not we identify as trans. This is not to negate the specific discrimination that trans-identified people experience daily and systemically, but gender oppression affects everyone. By truly embracing transgender equality, I believe we can all begin to define what it means to be a man or a woman on our own terms and liberate ourselves from the gender oppression we impose on ourselves and each other.
Folks in New York can urge our state senators to pass GENDA (the Gender-Expression Nondiscrimination Act) now. The state assembly has passed the bill for the fifth year in a row, but the senate has yet to bring the bill to the floor. Time is running out. This current session ends Thursday, but you can call or write your senators and urge them to support GENDA. Find your senator here.
Read more Gay Pride stories on The Good Life.
—Photo credit: WeNews/Flickr
site seems to have glitched and put my posts in wrong order.
BTW I have no requirement of law to say anything, offence counts for nothing in law,
I never said anything about whether someone had XY chromosomes or not, though I was mistaken in saying men and women have genetic difference, but man and woman are defined as human beings with certain reproductive systems, it’s in every sex ED, it’s in Wikipedia, it’s in every dictionary that doesn’t pander to such supernatural concepts .
The burden of proof lays on you, BTW, you are the one contradicting science, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, some people contradict science,win, then change science forever, they get a nobel prize and get rich.
If you want to prove it, get a nobel prize.
Though personally I don’t see the offence, if the statement was untrue, it would be like someone saying you had blue eyes when you had brown.
As long as maleness and femaleness is associated with anything other than reproductive parts it will cause pain, it causes people to be trans because they think if they act that way they must be man or woman.
Thank you Laverne.
I’m relatively new to the gender discourse, and I appreciate the information you gave.
Here in Italy trans stuff is practically never spoken out, so I need to know.
I hope for a world where everyone is just h**self, regardless of biology and gender, and nobody cares anymore about what’s “normal” or not. I hope for the freedom to be whatever anybody want to be.
In the meantime, I agree with you that we’re all in this together, and ANY discrimination is damaging to the whole society.
Also, we can begin to spread the word that trans issues are gay and lesbian issues and carry this issue to non-LGBT allies, as well. Trans issues are men’s and women’s issues, too.
I dig.
The key is going to be to free up everyone so that they can be a man/woman/etc… on their own terms rather than just abiding by a script that is forced upon them.
I happen to be one of those people who is a heterosexual, white male, but I am on the androgynous side. I was born with delicate features and a feminine appearance, and I cannot change that basic fact. Unfortunately, I ran into serious issues growing up because I was effeminate in appearance. It didn’t matter that I was a year-round athlete playing “manly” sports like basketball because I had almost no body hair, a slim figure, and soft features I was called all those names you mentioned and then some. People shouldn’t be made to feel guilty, ashamed, and depressed… Read more »
Collin, thanks so much for sharing your story here. Of course, I wrote this piece for all the trans folks out there who experience discrimination, ignorance and oppression but I also wrote it for guys like you who are not trans, or even gay or bi. Your comment illustrates my point that gender oppression is an issue which reaches far beyond transgender communities.
Stay in the love,
Laverne
Happy to see trans content.
Good work!
People should be allowed to call themselves what they want, and have a right to believe what they want, and if they need some kind of special protection to keep them safe from the hate people have, so be it, but I warn you not to support them changing legal definitions of man and woman, we have no legal obligation to call otherkin by their preferred species.
And with regard to “e’s” comment: Sorry, you’re wrong. Transsexuals are legally their target gender when they complete their transition, and you do have an obligation to deal with them in their target gender. They are legally and hormonally men and women at the end of their transition. It has nothing to do with “calling them what they want,” it has everything to do with them being what they are: male and female in the eyes of society and the law.
Fuck you, I’m a floating metal sphere.
It seems to me that transgendered people are no different to otherkin in their behaviour in that they ascribe a term which describes purely anatomical, genetic features (like whether some one is a human, or cat, or a man, or a woman) to something abstract and intangible- you are a man if you feel like one, and shouldn’t even be questioned for identifying as one even if you have a vulva, you are a cat if you feel like one,and shouldn’t be criticised for identifying one regardless of biped motion and opposable thumbs, the claim is exactly the same.
It seems to me that transgendered people are no different to otherkin in their behaviour in that they ascribe a term which describes purely anatomical, genetic features (like whether some one is a human, or cat, or a man, or a woman) ‘anatomy’ , ‘genetic features’ Then in your thinking what are these people are? Patients: A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis. http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/93/1/182.abstract [people reference the above abstract, but never this letter below] I read… Read more »
Your post did not counter my argument in the slightest, I said nothing about whether the chromosomes where XY or not. I was, though, mistaken that men and women differ genetically, in fact, the similarity between men and women does make transsexualism moot, the only inherent difference between men and women is the reproductive organs, that is how man and woman are defined, a human with certain reproductive organs is a man, another is a woman, it’s in every single sex ED, it’s on Wikipedia and on every dictionary anyone ever takes seriously,that is not a viable concept of identity,… Read more »
YESSS!!!! You know, the shit thing? I’ve seen so much transphobia from the mouths of gays, too… it’s SO disheartening! Not only because of everything said here, but also because – hello! All we’re doing is ostracizing anew when we do that. We’re buying in to the idea that there has to be some “other”. We’re hoping to be accepted by making clear how much we’re “normal” in comparison to someone else. NOT. HELPFUL. Also – pretty hateful, and can we pay a little closer attention?? I also can’t stress enough how the LGBTQ+ movement needs to move beyond same-sex… Read more »
Same-sex marriage is a domino issue that is essential to LGBTQ liberation, as was the fight for gays in the military. As long as society has pillars of normalcy that LGBTQ people are not allowed to participate in, they will never achieve full equality, and as long as those basic human rights are denied, there will e room for everything from discrimination, to bullying, to murder. This constant carping from otherwise intelligent LGBTQ activists who really ought to know better about how we need to “move beyond same-sex marriage as the poster child for our rights” is not only short-sighted… Read more »