Is trans gay?
COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTOR
Sky Gilbert / National / Wednesday, February 01, 2012
http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Is_trans_gay-11452.aspxWho cares? Why talk about identity categories at all? When people ask me why I am interested in terms like gay, straight or transgendered, I speak of Brandon Teena, who was murdered in 1993 in Lincoln, Nebraska, or Jamie Hubley, the Canadian gay teen who committed suicide due to depression over bullying on Oct 15, 2011. In such cases words like dyke, ->-bleeped-<- and ->-bleeped-<- are hurled at people as terms of abuse. In other words, I would – like the founders of the gay liberation movement – be pleased when we all become one. Unfortunately, the time has not arrived. Until it does, we must own the terms of abuse that are so often hurled against us and be proud queers, dykes and trannies.
[...]
I should begin by stating that I consider myself a transgendered person. I do not live 24 hours a day representing myself as belonging to the gender that I was not assigned at birth. Many people consider this to be the working definition of transgendered. But I am a proud drag queen and an effeminate gay male, one who makes others uncomfortable with his often-unintended flamboyance, and is often denied basic human respect, because of that.
