"the gays" are pissing me off

originally posted on LJ on 10-14-07

"The gays" are really pissing me off! And when I say "the gays," I'm not referring to people who engage in same-sex or otherwise queer relationships (a group which obviously includes myself). Rather, I am talking about the people who identify as gay or lesbian *only* and whose homocentric mindset leads them to think nothing of marginalizing and demonizing the countless gender-variant, bisexual, sex radical, economically disadvantaged and unapologetically feminine folks in their own community.

The most recent of many such incidents is attempts by mainstream gay groups (and, in particular, well-off gay men like Barney Frank) to remove gender identity from upcoming ENDA legislation. Such legislation would only cover straight-acting gays, but that’s OK because *they* are straight-acting.

And of course they always frame it as though the trannies are the big mad monster that’s is determined to destroy their otherwise “pure” sexual-orientation-only movement. I’ve heard such myths before: whether it’s the lesbians who claim that trans women will oppress them by supposedly “whipping our penises out” if we were allowed in Michigan Women’s Music Festival, the lesbian filmmakers who claim that trans activists are censoring them when we complain about transphobic films being shown at Frameline, or A-gays who claim that trans activists are “trans-jacking” ENDA. The gay and lesbian movements have marginalized trans folks for decades, and now they act as though they’re the oppressed minority.

...smallest violin in the world...

Anyway, since I’ve been too busy with other writing projects to rant about the ENDA situation more, here are a couple of links to folks who have written eloquently and forcibly about this matter:

On the Trans Group Blog (where I sometimes post), Helen Boyd compiled numerous ENDA-related links and wrote an excellent speech about the issue. Also, Lena Dahlstrom wrote about how legal defense groups are opposing the sexual-orientation-only version of ENDA. And I linked to Christine Simone's blog post in which she discusses how the most vocal critics against including gender identity in ENDA tend to be gay men, and how the rhetoric they use is often steeped in misogyny/trans-misogyny/femiphobia.

Susan Stryker wrote an excellent response to John Aravosis's naive and arrogant Salon.com piece "How Did the T Get in LGBT."

And here's Gwen Smith's Transmissions piece on the subject.

That's it for now...-j.