We are the T in LGBTetc, but are we really?
Obviously, we have benefitted from the Gay Rights movement, legally. But do we really benefit from the association, as a whole?
Our worst problem, as a group, is that too many people view as breaking a substantial sexual taboo. When we partner with gays, are we not feeding that wrong perception, that we are is about sexual preference?
Might we not be better served to break from Gays, and educate people that we change genders because of something intrinsic to us, that has little if anything to do with who we want to have sex with?
Because I am a woman attracted to women, I consider myself a lesbian. But there are plenty of people, lesbians amongst them, who don't consider me lesbian. I actually had friends who asked me if, now that I am living with a woman, am I "going to change back?".
Actually, when I was a solo act, I had a certain set of problems. Now that I am a member of a couple, I have a whole different set of problems. Our pastor explained it to us this way. "When you are by yourself, your sexuality is an abstract concept to most people, and it is only irritating to them at a certain level. But when you are out as a couple, now it's concrete. People who don't approve, they feel like you are confronting them, shoving your sexuality in their faces."
So, this leaves me wondering. Others in our community, how gay do you feel? Do you feel an affinity with gay people, community, fraternity...? Or not so much?
Do you feel that gay people accept you, embrace you, support you...? Or not so much?
Personally, I feel like the unwanted step-sister at the Gay Cinderella Ball. I get the feeling that gay people like/accept/support me LESS than the average straight person. I'd estimate that a gay person is three times more likely to make a rude remark to me, than a straight person. The straight person (or cisgender/cissexual) is probably more likely to be thinking rude thoughts, but the gay person more likely to say something rude. I get the sense that most gay people feel we hold back their progress by being too different, that we make them uncomfortable, and that we hurt their image/reputation, by being so public with our differentness, while they confine theirs to the privacy of home and gay establishments.
I also get "you're not a woman" (explicitly and implicitly) more from lesbians. I think it's kind of an internal logic. I am sexually attracted to women. I am not sexually attracted to you. You must be not a woman.
The other way to look it, for me, is to say: We are not straight, so we are gay. Kinda defining gayness as the absence of straightness.
I think that, for us to make progress, we are eventually going to have to split from the Gay-Rights Movement. Is that time upon us?
