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" But there is this weird kind of erasure in the gay community around gender. When a gay kid is attacked, it's a "gay hate crime." Somehow gayness is never really about gender, unless it's transgender, and then of course it's not gay.
Well, this young generation is about to trample the carefully manicured hedges we've grown between orientation and gender. They neither see nor observe the bright-line distinctions between L, G, B, and T -- forever discrete and distinct -- that we have worked so hard to maintain.
Our assailants are enraged by how we look, act, and dress -- our gender. We camp it up; we wear high-heeled boots or even mascara. Like frail, blond Matthew Shepard, we fail to be paragons of masculinity, or like 15-year-old Sakia Gunn, we go out at night dressed like boys. "
Wilchins is executive director of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition. To read the GenderPAC report "50 Under 30: Masculinity and the War on America's Youth," go to http://www.gpac.org/50under30/