I can only go by what the media says, people who generally equate "lgbt" rights to white cisgender middle class gay marriage rights sprinkled in with some anti-discrimination and anti-bullying campaigns. There is a massive ignorance in society of anyone who is not gay, those who are bi, pan, trans, intersex, etc. For trans people there is a large ignorance which has lead to very very casual transphobia. I see it all the time and not just from the right but from really wonderful people who will make jokes or misunderstand us because of western civilizations grip on the gender binary and transphobia. When I saw Jon Stewart, who I think is a wonderful comedian news pundit, interview Jared Leto on his character in Dallas Buyers Club I was rather annoyed. Not once did either of them mentioned or talked about Letos character who is a transwoman. Rather he spoke at length on some incredibly inane thing about how Leto had to lose weight for the role. Not even once did the terms "transgender" "transwoman" "male to female", etc come up. It could have been an excellent stage to talk and educate people about us since Jon Stewart is extremely influential in todays politics. Colbert some times makes transphobic jokes which are very offhanded, such as in the Word talking about the size of "her adams apple". Then you have TV shows like South Park who have equated us trans people to trans ethnic or trans species people and end the episode with Mr. Garrison saying he's just really a man and would rather be a woman who can't have a period than a ->-bleeped-<-. Or perhaps various movies in which trans women are bad guys such as Hannibal Lector or Ace Ventura. Is it a wonder that so many people are ignorant and/or harbor transphobic tfeelings because society constantly bombards us with the ideas that it is wrong and shameful to be transgender, that somehow we are wrong for who we are, that people are only the gender they were born with and that we transition so that we wouldn't be gay. I can even go into transphobia within the "LGB" community with the likes of Kathy Brennan. It honestly angers me that because of society I and many, many other trans people harbored so many transphobic thoughts which have actively prevented us from becoming who we are and most importantly happy about ourselves. It's prevented many of us from getting the medical care we need and having to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to be happy. We are under so many threats just because we go beyond the gender binary and norms that I could write a whole volume of books. We need to fight this, gain allies and take back the LGBT movement, make it all inclusive and not just for middle class to rich white cisgender gay people.... Yeah so many feels here about our rights...
