Everyone, except GLAAD that is
[su_kellibusey2]
Rupauls contestants yucking it up after being told they will be using a transphobic slur in determining whether a person is a ‘real’ woman or a psycho case
Rupaul, the clown in pancake makeup has figured out a way to be even more obnoxious.
Perhaps he feels that he should fill the vacuum left by the passing of Fred Philps and become the country’s next most hated man? Maybe, but hardly anyone is enjoying his last promotional transphobic stunt, save TERFs, who are undoubtedly laughing up their sleeves right alongside other bigots, if they have heard of him that is.
Rafi D’Angelo from Slate said, “This week’s mini-challenge left a particularly bad taste in my mouth, and now that I’ve slept on the episode, I’m just going to say it: Ru, girl, it’s time for the transphobia to sashay away.”
Another fan Gregory Rosebrugh wrote on Indie wire it’s never too late to Rupologize for his transphobia before doing his weekly recap of the show.
Smriti Sinha observes on PolicyMic that “RuPaul Is Finally Being Taken to Task for Transphobia as Backlash Grows”
Parker Marie Molloy, noted transgender journalist with the Advocate wrote about how“RuPaul Stokes Anger With Use of Transphobic Slur” and wondered what GLAAD had to say about it given they pimp Drag Race weekly in ‘what to watch’.
“When asked for comment on last night’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, GLAAD vice president of communications Rich Ferraro responded, “While some drag queens may use the term to refer to themselves, ‘she-male’ is too often used by others as an offensive term to denigrate and hypersexualize transgender women. Unfortunately, most Americans are still unaware that there is a difference between gay men who perform in drag and transgender women. That’s why GLAAD will continue to tell the stories of trans women like CeCe McDonald, Carmen Carrera, and CrossFit athlete Chloie Jonsson.”
GLAAD’s list of transphobic utterances which begins with less offensive “problematic” terms and progresses to “Defamatory”
Defamatory: “she-male,” “he-she,” “it,” “trannie,” “tranny,” “shim,” “gender-bender”
These words only serve to dehumanize transgender people and should not be used.
Ferraro, where does your definition say “except Rupaul”? You sure did take Mike and Molly to task offering no quarter telling CBS:
Not only is the term “shemale” incredibly offensive, the clear implication of the scene is that being with a person who is trans is both traumatic and disgusting. Humor at the direct expense of a group of people, especially one so targeted for discrimination and violence, is not humor at all.
GLAAD has reached out to CBS, a network that has struggled to depict LGBT people fairly and that often uses trans people as the punchline for “jokes”:
This morning, GLAAD spoke with CBS’s Vice President of Diversity and Communications who is discussing the issues directly with the show. CBS has also committed to meeting with GLAAD staff to discuss the offensive scene, as well as a number of other incidents on CBS comedies and dramas in the past year that increasingly add up to a disturbing trend.
GLAAD is calling on CBS to put an end to anti-trans content for the sake of a laugh and to treat trans issues with greater sensitivity.
Rich Ferraro, this isn’t the first time I’ve called you out for your organization’s duplicity. We get it you have individuals to play anti transphobic champions with but that has NOTHING to do with Rupaul. It does not matter who says “shemale” to defame, cisgender or trans, it’s all the same. Don’t you see that? Everyone else does. Don’t you see how you have not only lost the respect of the trans community but are/have become a laughing stock? Borrowing Mr. Rosebrugh’s headline for a second I’d just like to say:
GlAAD its never to late to Transpologize and act like the organization that you portend to be.
[su_kellibusey]
[…] acquiescence to the Drag shows transphobic rhetoric and I said so here on the Transadvocate and the Daily Kos.. Using phrase ‘He-She’ promotes violence regardless of who […]
I am appalled at your failure to grasp the basic rules of subject-verb agreement. (Everyone is appalled… not everyone are. duh.)
Also, everyone is not appalled. I am not. Seriously, get a grip.
Rupaul has turned into a sad, sad passive-aggressive angry man who stands for nothing.
You are one ignorant bitch .Next time you are considering something trans for yourself consider a brain transplant.
Some people in the trans* community openly admit that they want RuPaul’s head. If the challenge had involved transwomen, I could understand why it can be seen as offensive. But it was biological women and drag queens so I don’t buy the whole transphobia thing. Soon, people will say that drag is misogynistic and should be banned. Get over yourselves people.
Oh. Ok. Let’s just be OK with the promotion of a word typically used to disparage trans persons on full public display and get over ourselves. After all TV viewers know the difference right?
This isn’t about a challenge and the players involved. It is strictly about promoting a word that de-legitimizes a sex/gender change. This isn’t about female impersonators or entertainment because drag shows deserve to be part of the gay scene as they always have been. RuPaul knows all of this, but is minimizing something that is anything but minor. He needs to drop the “she-m*le” label and just use drag queen. All will be right with the world again.
“Promoting a word” ? 5 Gs please : Good God Get a Grip Girl.
What else would you call it when there are winner’s bells and loser’s buzzers and cash prizes offered for using “the right word?” If the game was “He-Man or F***ot,” and there were grinning contestants winning prizes for yelling “F***OT!” maybe that might be more obvious as a slur to the people like you who are still acting, in the year 2014, as if trans* women just suddenly appeared on the Earth and are this new phenomenon that needs lots of education and discussion before people know how to not be total jerks to us.
Precisely the comparison I was thinkin’ about while typing my comment above. No matter how it is spun, “she-m*le” means one thing: a male pretending to be female….a fake…an imposter….a deceiver……..whether drag performing or transgender, we all are born male which makes “she-m*le” and “tr*nny” both horrible demeaning words.
only reason I gave it an up vote was for “5 Gs”………original and cute, although your premise is still as flawed as 3Ws………Wrong, Wrong, Wrong……..
And yet I’m still waiting for a proper rational demonstration of why this mini-challenge was offensive.
Who in the world gave you the terribly mistaken impression that you are somehow due a “rational” explanation of other people’s feelings? You either accept what people are telling you about their feelings or you are accusing them of lying to you about their feelings.
Feelings don’t REQUIRE a “rational” basis. Also, “rational” is a fallback position for trolling bigots who simply can’t be bothered to posit a “rational” explanation for why they are defending the use of slurs. No, all we get are emotional appeals to some nebulous concept of “free speech,” presented unironically in a meta-complaint about a complaint that they just can’t stand to let pass unchallenged.
offensive? You mean about using a word considered horribly disparaging?
as a joke made by males wearing dresses towards other males wearing dresses, yep that word.
If it needs further explanation then I’m sorry……..
Then I’m sorry, people are overreacting and need to get over it.
AConcernTrollsayswhat? Tone Argument much? GFY.
And yet, you still haven’t come up with a single argument.
An “argument” for why a transsexual woman would find the contest “Female or Sh**ale” offensive that YOU would accept as “rational?” No, I think I’ll stick with my “Go F*** Yourself, Henna” opinion. I have no desire to be persuaded through sophistry that it’s not transphobic to have a contest on Basic Cable TV called “Female or Sh**ale.” There are Utilitarian arguments for why women should stay out of politics and make men sandwiches instead, I have no desire to hear them, and I have just as little desire to hear your tedious false-consciousness transphobic version of “logic” as I do the sexist maunderings of privileged shallow-thinkers.
Wow, you know some big words. But I don’t think you quite know what they mean.
Oh look, the “you’re just too dumb to get what I’m saying here” argument. Yeah, that’s it, it’s not that you can;t tell the difference between logic and rationalization, or between open-mindedness and prejudice, no, it’s that you are certain that anyone who disagrees with you must not be very bright.
Narcissism, table for Henna….
Gurl, you’re making a transfer here. You’re the one who started using empty rhetorical tricks and now you’re blaming me for that ?
All you’ve got on offer is empty rhetorical tricks and an empty sack you’ve crudely labeled with “rational logic.”
Still on that transfer.
Last word!
Here’s an advice for next time : If you can’t handle a discussion, don’t take part in it.
Last word! (Ignoring anything you have to say because you’re toxic to human life, though)
Gurl, you came for me and now you can’t take it ? Bye Felicia.
Last word! (Nothing pisses off attention ho’s like you more than ignoring your “logical reasoning” as you holler it at us from underneath your bridge.)
Don’t worry for me, I understood a long time ago that you were not able to follow my reasoning.
Last word!
Last what ?
Last WORD.
What word ?
The LAST word.
Deplhi, you’re a fucking idiot. You are one of those idiotic people that BEGS to be offended, just so you can go off about how offended you are. Life sucks, get a fucking helmet.
What a self-important pompous ignorant fool you are. Learn a little history.
Since the invention of time itself, hard-wired into man is the insatiable appetite for power. As the pages of history are turned, the players change but the need for personal power remains unquenchable—lines are drawn to determine friend from foe. Since not all can be friends, history shows that every possible excuse is used to “other” people so that war can easily be waged against “foes”. What Ru Paul has dared to do is “other” transgender women as being neither male nor female, but as humans condemned to live a lifetime of neither—souls worthy of extreme pity engaged in a gender exercise of ultimate futility. Once again, we are at the receiving end of mockery, the cause of grimacing faces pointed in our direction. Perhaps he finds humor at our misery. I don’t—-not when such a public display of trans mockery violates us once more, but on a mass scale.
Having no transgender experience, he has projected his own same-sexual experience as a female impostor as being equivalent to ours—not unlike an actor with many stage performances in black-face speaking up for black persons. Ru Paul has used his ubiquitous media footprint to discredit our transgender journey by sending the message that we are neither “she” nor “he”, but deceitful “female” hybrids. A rose by any other name is still a rose, and so is the face of transphobia. Yes, Ru Paul, your very actions show you to be transphobic, whether or not you were in the past.
Without reading a single word or deep analysis the photo above speaks for itself. In fact, it speaks so clearly that it would be an excellent poster for the advocacy of transphobia. It simply would. Once we discover that the person behind the poster is but a gay man profiting from appearing female part-time, no excuse for such overt transphobia is acceptable. None. Zero. Nada—given the horrific barriers that must be overcome to successfully complete a post-puberty sex change, so horrific that many of our trans sisters have lost their lives. It serves to embolden those who disenfranchise us from participating in a free society by refusing to see us as truly being our target gender no matter the medical procedure (hello Cross Fit!). It also adds credence to those who feel justified for murdering trans females, after having been “deceived” by females that turn out to have male parts.
Some words need no explanation: love, hate, hungry, sex, car, truck, and “she-m*le*” are some. Slice it or dice it any way you like, the moment you tell me that “she-m*le” is OK to use in everyday talk or worse in a public show you are no friend or ally. Let me say this one more time: the moment you tell me that using the word “she-m*le” so publicly is fine, you are not a friend or ally of the trans community. You can say otherwise until you become hoarse but it will be but a lie. What Ru Paul just accomplished single-handedly is create a brick wall between the LGB and the T. Only he can tear down this wall by stopping LGB-sponsored transphobia and by issuing a just-as-visible public apology. Because he never will, I will never consider the LGB as a group to be trans-friendly. Better yet, maybe he has just done us a favor and shown us why only we can speak up for ourselves.
True story.
While at lunch the other day a straight cisgender friend sat down across from me. She asked me ‘guess where I went the other day?’ So I asked asking her where.. She said ‘S2’.
Shrugging I told her that I didn’t know where S2 was thinking it was a department at work.
She said we went to a drag show at the S2 in Dallas with her brother and his significant other. Oh, that S2 I said. I told her it was a gay bar and I didn’t really like going to gay bars. Then she started telling me about the show and how she admired the transgender people and how some of them fooled her into believing they were real woman.
You should have seen the surprised look on her face when I told her those people weren’t transgender, not in the sense that I am transgender. I told her that they were men who occasionally enjoyed wearing womens clothes for a laugh. I told her that they don’t share the same life experiences that I do. That I live everyday, 24/7 in my correct gender but because it wasn’t assigned to me at birth physically, I appear different and that makes me susceptible to discrimination.
This was all news to her. So was the revelation that calling me a ‘She Male’ was offensive. Seems those drag queens and probably most around the country watch and emulate RuPaul. Now I don’t have anything against drag. In fact I was the primary media defender of a drag queen who was denied in entrance to the Denver Wrangler a while back.
http://planetransgender.blogspot.com/2013/09/watch-denver-wrangler-gay-bar-deny.html
I will fight for every persons right to express there authentic gender but when people like RuPaul uses drag as a vehicle to monetize, stigmatize and dehumnize trans people like myself I take exception.
And GLAAD? They chose to publish a media guide. They are beholden to trans people not to make exception to Rupauls problematic behaviour. If they want to be allies they must call him out for it.
Maybe part of the problem is there are too many people who are transgender in the same and different ways than you and it is impossible for an outsider to understand when insiders don’t get it?
And there are gay guys who deny having anything to do with drag – and say that gender variance has nothing to do with them. They’ve opposed drag even being associated with Pride events, saying it denigrates gay identity having it being associated with them.
How are outsiders to understand gay men?
We need more education on them and their
Issues.
I think what really bothers you is the show is not about you, your need to label everyone on earth, and your insistence that IF everyone on earth doesn’t use your definitions and labels, they are the enemy.
Just saw Ru Pauls drag race I am not sure I see what all the fuss is about. People will always find offense in things. Honestly, I am aware of the many gender identifications but at the end of the day I do not see why people jump on the offensive when a broad term generalizes them when in fact these classifications are just another way to separate us which could be a good or bad thing. I’ve been told I have masculine features most of my life. Hell, I’ve even been told I look like a drag queen. No matter the differences between us we are all human. I am not offended when I hear that I resemble a man, instead I nod and agree that we all posses feminine and masculine traits, and that each contributes to our unique, individual beauty…
If you’d had a slur leveled at you in a way that made you fear for your life, you might begin to understand it. When you are of the majority, it’s easy to shrug off offensive words because those words don’t indicate that you’re going to be physically assaulted, denied equal treatment under law, or discriminated against by businesses just for being who you are. Words like tr*nny and shem*le are used to belittle, demean, and reduce trans women to less, to other, to sub-humans who do not deserve basic human rights and decency. THAT is why they are offensive words.
[…] “Given the cultural legacy of the terms “tranny” and “shemale,” it would seem neither should have any place in a show ostensibly celebrating drag culture. At best they would seem to be in bad taste, but at worst joking about “shemales” may encourage damaging stereotypes about the trans community and signal that it’s fun and acceptable to call out women for “masculine” looks. The trans community deserves better, RuPaul.” – See more at: http://www.transadvocate.com/everyone-even-fans-are-appalled-with-rupauls-shemale-contest-everyone-e… […]
Why must there always be labels? I’m not hetero-Paul, my cousin isn’t gay-Tim. We need to stop the labeling. Positive or negative, labels put people in categories. Labels segregate. I could care less who you sleep with, what gender you were born as or currently are. Maybe Ru’s deal is like Black people who constantly use the “N” word. Anyone else is demonized but it is acceptable within their subculture to them. More importantly, words of any sort only have power if you give them power. I personally give two leaping f#@ks what anyone calls me. I don’t need validation from anyone. Is it nice? Sure. Do words hurt? They can. The question is, how much power are you willing to give someone else over you and who you are?
Because without the labels everybody assumes a default group identity that vanishes the things that make us different. People assume that everybody is straight and cis, and gay and lesbian and trans culture disappears. Sexual orientation and gender dysphoria are unlike race and sex in that they generally don’t have visible markers, so a group identity requires the trappings of jargon, labels, group-specific signals and communication modes (hankie codes and GrindR, for examples), or that group identity is swallowed whole by the dominant social identity.
Gay people have to be able to find each other in order to gay it up, in simpler terms.
This article makes a good point, but you’re contradicting yourself. You’re advocating respect for the trans-community, while talking about Rupaul disrespectfully. He’s accomplished so much for the LGBT community and because he made one mistake doesn’t mean we have to ripe him apart. The LGBT community’s still fighting for recognition and shouldn’t be attacking each other. People make mistakes because NO ONE IS PERFECT.
merp please. Rupaul has made a cottage industry out of outraging the transgender community, defaming us and delighting transphobic people.
Why I Can’t Stand RuPaul
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-i-cant-stand-rupaul.html
If you honestly believe that why would you do the thing you criticise RuPaul for by being obviously insensitive. It’s silly and immature.
30 years of respectful dialog haven’t worked out so well with Mr. Charles. Perhaps a bit of his own is due.
What does disrespectful dialog offer? An issue is better addressed with communication, so you can open your opponents eyes. The LGB and T community has slowly been opening the world’s eyes. Why stop spreading a positive message that the LGB and T community doesn’t want war, but peace to be ourselves. Everyone knows that fighting only contributes to more problems and doesn’t resolve anything.
Well, you’ve never addressed the issue before – and it got your attention.
And a few others here as well.
I’ve personally addressed this topic many times. As of this second, I’m addressing this article and the author’s choice of words. I’m suggesting that there’s more effective methods to handling issues, such as respectively and intelligently getting a point across (NEVER said be QUIET). I’m not arguing, I’m only trying to understand why you think confrontation is the best option. Grasping someone’s attention doesn’t mean you’ve accomplished anything. For example, you grasped my attention and I don’t agree with you.
What confrontation? Am I at the studio with a picket sign? Glitter bombing? Starting a boycott?
All tactics gay folks engage in with with alacrity – these are some pixels on a page. A page with a much, much shorter reach than say a TV show. Yet – even a few of those pixels are considered outre’ from the unwashed?
But – justified from the anointed?
So, what is your point? I’ll state my point again for you. I’m addressing this articles choice of words and how they could be more effective in providing a message. If you don’t agree with my approach than that’s fine. The only reason I’m continuing to write to you is to reach a mutual understanding. However, I give up because you’re failing to listening (read).
Perhaps you should write your own article on the subject? What you’re engaging in is the “tone” argument. It’s a backhand way of undermining the actual point of contention. Or, you would have merely stated your objection once and moved on.
Please post a link to your article on the subject when you finish polishing it. I look forward to seeing how effective it is with Mr. Charles.
Please read my statements more clearly, stop putting words in my mouth, and going to extremes. My comment is definitely dealing with the context of the LGB and T community. Why can’t the article’s comments be a place to have respectful conversations and why do I need published work? I don’t own you credentials and I’d enjoy reading your published work. Also, I have been consistently stating my point and now we are having a discussion regarding your comment on my comment chain.
Is this guest the same person as merp?
I haven’t responded to the person on this page signed in as guest, so my comments were not addressed to that screen name.
So, what’s YOUR point again because I’ve been consistently stating my point? You’re a very argumentative person that isn’t respectful of other’s opinions. This topic clearly angers you, but you should allow others to express themselves. It’s not right to think that your opinion is the only right one. All I want to do is be respectful to each other. Don’t fight hate with hate, let’s have a Martin Luther King Jr. day not a Malcolm X day.
No one is instructing you how you should respond. And saying that doing so is the only way that is has value. But you seem very invested in controlling others expression.
And……seriously……Cloaking yourself in MLK and casting others as adherents of Malcolm? What are you implying people are advocating? Any means necessary?
What you want is for people to agree with you when they don’t. No amount of calling them unreasonable is likely to be persuasive.
People are allowed to be offended and express that strongly.
Even trans people.
And really, gay people are always so quiet and well behaved when they air a grievance?
Girl – what ARE you smoking?
I never stated that I agree with Rupaul’s actions. I mostly agree with you, but you could convey your point more respectively. Go back to the basics, “two wrongs don’t make a right”. If Rupaul is sending a hateful message than why respond hatefully. I believe that the LGB and T community is better than insensitive insults. You’re probably very intelligent and can provide a stronger message.
Tone policing helps nobody. Seriously! When an oppressed group is quiet, are they given rights? No, they’re ignored. When we’re polite, trying to raise a point, we’re ignored and brushed aside (whether that we is the trans movement, feminism, whatever). We have to be loud and, yes, sometimes quite harsh, to get our opinions, our lived experiences, heard so that change might be effected in our society.
I hear GLAAD has brought in Jerry Springer to to help stage an intervention for Mr. Charles.
Q: What’s the difference between RuPaul and a transsexual?
A: A lifetime of internalized transphobia…….. and the desire to profit from it.
Here here, well said. The inception of this show is nothing more than making people with extremely low self-esteem humiliate themselves and perform as court-jesters and buffoons for the amusement of the lowest Common Denominator. And then pple around the world watch clips of this cheap, bottom-feeder garbage..and think this refelcts the actual LGBT community. It’s exactly the same as pple around the world watching Jerry Springer or Maury Povich[?], and thinking that’s a reflection of pple in North America. It most certainly isn’t.
I’m not advocating the show, but drag culture actually is an important and rich part of LGB history and culture (though it’s not as ‘big’ as it used to be). And the characters on the show do represent drag culture accurately to some extent (of course, sensationalized, as is ANYTHING on television).
But this is true for everything ever. This is just how the entertainment industry works. The problem is not with any particular programs or genres, but with the fact that people honestly believe television programs are an accurate representation of real life. That’s the problem — not any show.
I agree that Drag Culture is an important part of the LGBT Community [since the 20’s], but this show does not represent it with any Intelligence, Value, or Dignity. This show parodies it, degrades it and humiliates it, in order to turn a profit for the producers and Network. The individuals on there are further damaged and made laughing stocks of, their reputations are lampooned, and the Respect of the community itself is damaged by this embarrassing, cheap, garbage. Sad.
Stage Irish accurate represented the culture of that entertainment history (but not Irish people) , minstrel shows accurately represented that entertainment history (but not African American people), – drag accurately represents the history of that entertainment culture (but not women or trans people).
The others died because they were offensive, degrading, dis-empowering humor directed towards those less valued in society. They perpetuated stereotypes. If drag is to survive as a counter example – it needs to find a different way to grow. A Jimmy James comes to mind.
Objectifying trans women’s and cis women’s bodies? Not so much.
Perhaps the show should be renamed – Mr. Charles and the Dinosaurs or Drag? It shows a distinct lack of imagination and creativity that he falls back of these tired tropes.
Old. The dog whistles of the trans world. Stir the pot for sweeps week. Seriously – he’s making Jerry Springer look creative.
Sad, really. Maybe it’s time to hang up his tiarra and get a day job.
Thank goodness I live in Britian, and don’t get the joy of seeing this “humour.”
Straight people are learning that gay people are completely full of it. They know how Barney Frank sanctioned hate by writing two ENDA bills. They see how Ellen DeGeneres rolls drag queens under the bus. And they see RuPaul put down transgender people for laughs. Perhaps its time for those who stand with the letter T to remind the world of the ridiculous things that gay people do. Remind the world so much that NO rights bill including the G passes anywhere in this nation. If the T cannot have equal rights, then the G, the L and the B shouldn’t either.
I completely understand your frustration… I honestly do not understand why in the year 2014 the human race has not become more compassionate and accepting of all human beings… We certainly have the technology, information, education, etc… at our fingertips, and have had… as Rah has stated, the Transgender Community really should depart the LGBT Alliance and represent themselves… as being Transgender isn’t any where near being homosexual… I actually know a gender reassigned individual who is homosexual… which should educate people that yes… these are two totally different issues…
Yeah but if you think about it, Stonewall was only 45 years ago and segregation only ended about 5 years before that.
This is backward. Taking away rights from others isn’t progress. People in general, even the gay community, are still too ignorant to understand trans* people and issues. But that doesn’t mean we should try to oppress them. That gets us nowhere. That just works backwards. That will make it even harder for trans* people to eventually become understood and accepted and gain rights. Imagine if instead of fighting for women’s rights, women just tried to attack men. Our country would still not have women’s rights… and definitely no one would even be thinking of gay or trans* rights because they still wouldn’t even view women as equals! We’d probably still have negro slave plantations, too, if this kind of logic was the driving force in equality.
Equality is equality. We’re not going to be able to get everyone equality at the same time. Just because some of us don’t have it doesn’t mean we should take away the rights of others. If we wanted to make equality by taking away, we should just kill everyone or everyone should do nothing at all and just rot in a basement from the moment they are born. It is pointless to act or feel that way. If you honestly want equality for trans* people, you need to advocate equality for ALL people. If you just want to be selective about it, then the majority will rule, and cis het white people will have all the rights and no one else will.
Ah – the old “more education is needed” canard. Really – just stop.
People alive now have been seeing trans people on their TV’s – pardon – people’s great grandparents saw trans people on their TV’s.
Mr. Charles is fully aware of the issues involved – he understands them intellectually. He just doesn’t give a crap.
Giving a crap makes less money. Besing sensationalistic puts them in the seats. And he’s never really cared for people who transition – and for some reason feels entitled to speak for transsexuals.
He has weird issues in this area. It’s a shame he can’t afford therapy………
This is one more reason I say LGB don’t really get us and T needs make its own cultural mark.Rather then being cross represented by these people who rather advocate for ignorance,themselves, before even understanding us.
I absolutely agree with you… I honestly do not feel that being Transgender has any relation to homosexuality in any form… to my understanding being Transgender is a spiritual misplacement… gender identity is not about homosexuality… The Transgender Community is really the only people that can offer the information, support, education, etc… to the world about gender identity issues and about gender reassignment… I have felt this way for a long time… The Transgender Community is getting sold short, and over shadowed by the LGBT merging… You make a valid point… Hopefully someone will listen…
Your right Christopher. I really hope at least some one does listen and think about it to. Unfortunately not many people see a reason to change the slogan.It’s sad and I think this might be a better world if we directly advocated ourselves or at the least be able to handle our own information. But unfortunately we’re very far from that happening. But it really has to start with people like us, spreading that message , posting it every where that it needs to be separated and why.Some how I hope we can organize and do it.
It’s not so much that the LG community (or any community) is “organized.” There’s not like… elections to adopt the next gay leader, and they don’t have a gay council that decides the rules. The community exists because it has people within it. People realized this and started to call it a community. The community came first, not the name.
The trans* community does in fact exist. Just people tend to lump it together with the LG community because they don’t understand it. If you want trans* community to be recognized as its own thing, just always talk about it as such. Make a point that trans* has nothing to do with orientation and is not necessarily a part of LG community. Talk about the trans* community and don’t mention LG community. Make trans* community stand out as its own community when you talk about it. Encourage other trans* people to do the same. That’s all you need to do. You don’t need to move for an official board to say “T is not part of LGBTQ” or something. Because the term is by no means official. It exists simply because people use it, and people use it because they feel it represents themselves. If you feel it doesn’t, just don’t use it. And advocate viewing T as its own community.
Spot on! Being 1/4 part of group has benefits derived from strength in unity, but also has disadvantages in that dilution of strength often results in a “small return of investment”. Also, being part of a group naturally results in one part serving a role as “sacrificial lamb” for the greater good. Lacking strength in numbers, LGB equality advances that have left us behind demonstrate that we who are Trans are the underrepresented bunch.
We are at a junction. We tag along pulling on LGB coattails, or we walk a parallel but separate path, maintaining amicable contact. This begs for Trans leadership that seeks no personal gain, favor, or aggrandizement. Every cause must set aside “leaders” that embrace self over others, or the cause is doomed to fail almost immediately. I am not sure how to proceed from here, but somehow we must have some sort of unofficial pow wow to determine our future.
The first thing is to get out the message and the best way, at first is to spread the word that we are Trans only, no longer part of the LGBT. For my part, I will conclude every comment with TnLGB—means “trans not LGB”. I think it would be a good start if everyone got onboard and did the same to spread the word that the T is on its own. Whatever we do, doing nothing is no longer an option because otherwise it will be business as usual.
TnLGB
Except, of course, that transgender people and LGB people are both forms of gender variance. Both are proof that there is no pure sex & gender binary. If anything, as transgender is the larger more general term that describes people who don’t fit into said assumed-but-false pure sex & gender binary, gays really should be classified as a very specific form of transgender. They are attracted to people opposite that expected based on a quick 2-second peek by a doctor at birth.
From a somewhat different angle, in our current culture, both being gay and trans are forms of misogyny, since just about all modern misogyny in Western Culture is based on a Judeo-Christian tradition of male superiority.
Agree. I feel like despite we use terms like “LGBTQ” or whatever, I feel like there is a clear “LG” community, but within that, there is no real place for B, T, Q, etc. I can’t even tell you how many gays and lesbians are biphobic (in fact, every single one I know irl is!), and they can’t even begin to understand or accept transgender. All the LG people I know IRL not only misunderstand trans* people, but propagate transphobia and transhate, all while claiming to represent them because they are supposed to be a part of the “LGBTQ” community. I can’t tell you how difficult it is for me even as a genderfluid person whose physical expression/fashion matches my bio sex to interact with the LG community here (and Indianapolis is claimed to be a very lgbt-friendly place, despite being in a rather conservative and backward state overall). I can’t imagine what it must be for people who feel more trapped within their body or have a non-standard appearance (as they would be easy targets of hate). I more just pass by it without drawing attention to myself and that’s bad enough.
And yeah, like others said, I don’t even understand what homosexuality and transgender have to do with each other. Trans* is not a sexual orientation and is not linked to it, either. So I don’t see why it needs to be the same community. I guess because most people really don’t understand trans at all.
I believe that lesbians, bisexuals, and trans * people should separate from gay men, just so that we can have BLT as our acronym. Because I love me a good BLT!
I think I love you, lol. <3
Allow me to compliment you on your discerning taste!