This was submitted to Between The Lines in April of 1997, and I know some version of it ran in the June Pride issue, with a photo, but I do not have a copy of what was printed. I also participated in an interview with Connie Linas that was published in the September 1997 issue.
The term "transgendered" is causing a lot of confusion right now. Some people think transgender is a movement or a group of people, some use the term as a personal identity label, and some even consider it to be a disease that needs to be diagnosed, treated, and cured. There are people who are afraid the term will be applied to them, people who are afraid it won't be applied to them, and lots of people who thought they had things figured out and don't really want to deal with this issue. But the issue isn't going to go away, because ultimately the issue is people in your life, and perhaps yourself.
Transgendered people bend, blur, transcend, or transgress the gender expectations attached to the 'F' or 'M' on their birth certificates. Societal gender expectations are rather broad and include such facile assertions as "men are attracted only to women." In this sense LGB people, in general, are transgendered; but this is not to say that all LGB people do claim, should claim, or feel a need to claim 'transgendered' as a personal identity. (No more than do the many LG people who have at some point had a relationship with an opposite-sex partner feel a need to claim 'bisexual' as an identity.)
I think there is some confusion that being transgendered means rejecting one's primary and/or secondary sexual characteristics: genitals, breasts, and body shape. Such feelings about one's body apply to only a small subset of transgendered folks, those people who usually choose to identify as 'transsexual'. (And there is a small but significant percentage of people who are 'intersexued'; born with anatomy or physiology that differs from cultural ideals of male and female.)
For me (a transsexual lesbian tomboy gender guerilla), being transgendered means not so much rejecting my body as it means rejecting the gendered behavior expected of a person who has my body's former physical characteristics. I have always strongly identified as lesbian tomboy, the transsexual bit is because having an 'M' on one's birth certificate is quite a hindrance with that identity. (The gender guerilla part is because dealing with all of this has made me realize just how socially constructed this all is, and how much an awful lot of people suffer for it.)
Many people are uncomfortable with me because I blur what they like to believe are rigid lines between male and female, and LGB people enforce those lines if anything more rigidly than does the rest of society. It is interesting to note that straight folks prefer that I 'pass' so they don't have to think about me being different, whereas LGB folks seem to prefer to know that I am transsexual so they don't have to deal with me being one of whatever they consider themselves to be.
Gender is something that most of us just do not want to confront. Perhaps it is seen as the one certain anchor in a sea of shifting values and identities. But our community has always included drag queens, female impersonators, nellie boys, drag kings, butches, femmes (who go against the gender norm of most lesbian communities), stone butches and femmes, and yes, not a few transsexual people. The queer community is where gender variant individuals collect, and anyone who does not follow social gender norms is suspected of being queer, whether or not they adopt that personal identity.
Do gay boys have trouble in school because of their budding sexual orientation or because they "act like girls"? Do the girls who don't grow out of their tomboy stage have trouble because of their sexual orientation, or because they "act like boys?" Do people see sexual orientation, or do they see gender expression? How is it that other people often can tell a person is queer before the person admits it to themselves? What is visible?
I know there is a set of people in the LGB community who say that anyone who 'looks queer' should be jettisoned as a liability by the 'gay' rights movement. These are the people who don't want the leather queers and the drag queens and the bulldaggers and the trannies marching in pride parades (or don't want pride parades at all, because such parades draw attention to the ways in which we are different). Well we are different, dammit, and I cannot see that hiding that is any part at all of queer rights!
Does the 'T' belong with 'LGB'? Of course it does! LGB is not simply sexual orientation and transgender is not simply gender identity. I personally would rather get rid of the alphabet soup and just call ourselves queer, but whatever the label is, the point is that we all are seen as different because of differences in what society calls 'gender'.
Calling this issue 'transgender inclusion' makes it sound like there is a group of transgendered people out there, distinct and separate from LGB people, who are asking to join 'your' movement. This is simply not the case. Those of us who have a queer identity are already part of the queer community, and have been forever.
There are many transgendered people who do not want to be thought of as queer. These are the heterosexual male crossdressers, their partners, and the transsexual people who want to blend into heterosexual society after their transitions. I am not talking about including these people in the queer rights movement. If they can overcome their homophobia, I welcome their support, and I do not regret that the gains we win in human rights will also serve to protect them, but they don't belong in our community.
Then why add the 'T'? For two reasons.
First, because although I and people like me are queer as the proverbial three dollar bill and bust our butts working on queer issues, we are misunderstood and discriminated against within the queer community. I have never received hate mail from straight folks, but I not infrequently receive hate mail from queer folks. (And I delete it immediately, so just don't bother, okay?)
Second, because focusing on sexual orientation, though nice and tidy, will not protect the way many LGB people actually behave and live their lives! Have we been fooled by our own "it's not a lifestyle" rhetoric into believing that there truly is no such thing as a queer lifestyle, that we are "just like everyone else" except that our partners are of the 'same sex'?
We, all of us, need the freedom of both sexual orientation and gender expression and identity. Either one alone is not enough. Either one alone forces the other part of our expression to remain in the closet.
Not including gender expression and identity in ENDA will write into law the debate between the "we're just like everyone else" people and the "we're queer, we're here, get used to it" people. If the visible portion of the queer community is left out of ENDA, we may be forced to break off from the current movement, and I believe that would be to everyone's detriment.
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Lisa Lees is a systems analyst at Michigan State University. She is active in the lesbigatr community on campus, helps facilitate a transgender support group, writes a regular column on transgender issues for Clique Magazine, and does some public speaking. Lisa can be reached via email as lisa at lisalees.com and has web pages at www.lisalees.com
Copyright © 1997 Lisa Lees / lisa at lisalees.com