What I Learned At Netroots Nation
The Bilerico Project
Filed by: Dr. Jillian T. Weiss
July 27, 2010 5:00 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2010/07/what_i_learned_at_netroots_nation.php (http://www.bilerico.com/2010/07/what_i_learned_at_netroots_nation.php)
There were many lessons for me at Netroots Nation, few of them learned in a seminar room.
As a transgender woman, who grew up in a very straight environment, and not attuned to gay life by virtue of any early knowledge about my sexual orientation, and moving rather abruptly into trans life in my 30s, I have not spent much time with openly gay or lesbian people. I learned as a new transperson to distrust gay people, based on my own difficult personal experiences with a relatively few individuals, as well as absorbing the negative view more common among older transpeople who were my mentors.