Some cogent remarks from Rex Wockner on ENDA, LGBTPQRST . . ., etc.
I'm also not convinced that homosexuality and transsexuality are the same thing, and I really don't think there is such a thing as "the LGBT community." Gay men and lesbians are the same thing (homosexuals) -- and bisexuals, when they're not exercising their heterosexual option, are then exercising their gay or lesbian option. Many transsexuals I've known have had surgery and then partnered with someone of the opposite sex, at which point they are, I'd imagine, heterosexual. But, of course, in reality, it's all much more nuanced than that, and NGLTF head Matt Foreman is a very eloquent spokesman for T inclusion in ENDA. There's all sorts of good stuff at NGLTF's Web site.
A final word about "community." Whether you're talking about "the gay community" or "the LGBT community," I think these phrases are bandied about way too much. Gay men span all the same spectrums as straight Americans. Lesbians run the same gamut as all Americans. Ditto for the B and T folks. Is there really a gay-male community, let alone an LGBT community? Or are there, in reality, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who are as varied in myriad ways as the American population itself.
I've broached this subject myself. Homosexuality and transexualism are not the same thing. Never were. Never will be. Nor is there a true "LGBT community." We have the tenuous connection of being sexual outlaws, and as the country becomes more and more accepting, it's falling apart because our interests and concerrns are not the same. It's been a political alliance, pure and simple, dominated by the PC, include-everyone and their relatives left wing, which has become a serious problem with movement politics. HRC, NGLTF, GLAAD, the whole crew don't really represent me any more -- they represent a construct that simply doesn't exist in this country. I'm of an age when I remember the major gay groups coming out in support of itinerant farm workers and any other oppressed minority they could find, all in the name of alliance-building. Fine. Look at the attitudes about us in the black community, and the latino community. That's what happens when you have a bunch of college sophomores running things. (My own feeling is that Urvashi Vaid, who for some reason symbolizes the whole gay left and the movement politics of the '70s and 80s for me, did more damage to our casue than Jesse Helms in his wildest fantasies.)
On "community" I think he has it basically right: it's an intersecting group of subcultures that have, as they develop, less and less in common. That seems to be a good, solid, basic reason why the movement is so fractious -- its composition is completely artificial, the way the alliance of the neocons and theocons, which is also on the verge of tearing itself apart, has been.
Wockner includes a statment from Shannon Minter that includes one sentence that I can't swallow:
But I bet that many of them would feel differently if they truly understood the whole picture -- that a gay-only bill will actually harm transgender people, that any delay in passing a viable bill that includes everyone likely will not even be that significant in this case, and that other [non-gay] groups have stood by us [gays] even when it meant their own protections were delayed.
Aside from the condescending tone -- I think I have a fairly firm grasp of the whole picture, and I don't think I'm alone in that -- the last part gets my back up: Please point out to my one non-gay group that has stood by us when it meant delaying their own protections. One. Just one.
Wockner also links to a post from Gabriel Rotello that on first reading strikes me as nothing more than politically-correct cant. Sorry, but this is a miserable example of one thing I've been bitching about: shallow, sloppy terminology, conflating several distinct phenomena, and driven more by ideology than any real understanding of the psychology involved. I may come back to this later for a closer critique, because it's an overall statement that has to be challenged.
(Thanks to John Aravosis)
5 comments:
My name is Joe Solmonese and I represent the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender organization in the country. Am I am here -- we are all here from the Human Rights Campaign -- because this injustice cannot stand.
We are here because we know about bigotry. We know about hate. We know the pain in high school of standing apart. Of being taunted. Of standing up, only too often, to be shut down.
I am here -- we are here -- because you have stood with us. Because all of us know that one injustice against any of us is an injustice against all of us.
And I am here because I remember. I remember James Byrd. James was a gentle soul, a special soul. Someone who struggled his whole life with challenges, but was filled with love and was deeply loved in Jasper, Texas.
But James Byrd -- at 49 -- was savagely beaten, then chained to a pickup truck and literally dragged to his death. He was brutally murdered because he was black.
And then something really profound happened. Remember when George Bush was governor of Texas? Well, Governor Bush had a hate crimes bill on his desk. There was a lot of pressure to sign the bill because of what they did to James Byrd. So, George Bush said he'd sign that bill, but they had to take the gays out.
And here's what happened. Stella Byrd, who has just buried her beaten, broken, gentle James said, If some of us are left out, then all of us are. Valuing one life and not valuing another is not right. And the Byrd family said No. They said No. And they walked away.
So, I stand here today with solidarity. I stand here for social justice. I stand here to free those young men. To say this will not stand. It cannot stand. I stand here for the Jena 6. I stand here today for James Byrd.
We will not forget. We will never walk away.
Thank you very much.
http://www.hrcbackstory.org/2007/09/human-rights-ca.html
First time I've ever gotten a press release in my comments.
Being a press release, of course, it doesn't address anything I've written. Of course, it's not even a press release on ENDA -- it looks to be more about the Jena 6.
Now that's really digging right into my fight for equal rights, isn't it?
OK -- I'm figuring a troll.
"Please point out to my one non-gay group that has stood by us when it meant delaying their own protections. One. Just one."
==============================
"OK -- I'm figuring a troll."
No - it as a serious response to your question above. By the people you respect on the enda question. You didn't say show me one group that that ever delayed their rights till enda passsed. You said show me "one group who ever".
BTW - many of the hard won family rights and adoption rights LGB (and T) people enjoy came directly out of the work of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and their lead attorney - Shannon Minter. So - you owe many of those rights to a female to male transsexual.
"LGBT community" is on a par of vacuousness with "straight community." Once upon a time, there was a "gay community," though many who were seraching for communion (bund rather than gemeinschaft) moaned about not feeling included then. Gay men are now only cash cows for financing groups focused on gender IMO.
Anonymous --
How can it be a serious response when you didn't address anything I said?
First of all, calling it a serious response "by the people [I] respect on the ENDA question" is a complete misrepresentation. Who said I respected HRC on this (or much of anything else)? It certainly wasn't me?
I stand by my original statement -- what civil rights organization for any other "community" ever waited on their rights until gays were included? Why do you think we have ENDA to begin with -- because we weren't included when the civil rights laws were written in the first place. Blacks didn't wait around for gays to be written in -- and now there's a significant portion of the Black community who are vocally and viciously anti-gay.
As for Shannon Minter, we probably owe as much or more to straight lawyers working for the ACLU -- what's your point?
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