Okay, I'm mad now.
I'm really tired of that portion of the LGBT community (mostly made up of white conservative gay-males, it appears to me,) who are 'blaming the victim' in order to justify an orientation-only ENDA.
Their specious argument is; "Like Chicken Little, we've been tirelessly educating straight society and congress on our issues for the 30 years since Stonewall, and now that we're about to finally get our due, here come these transsexuals, expecting 'their half' of the rights we've tirelessly labored to create."
The argument goes that TG is the new problem, only created by the very recent advances in surgery and hormone therapy, and so the TGs necessarily need to get in line and wait their turn to get theirs. Or, why weren't the TGs there side by side with the gays, fighting for this issue? And thus it's their (TGs) fault for not being recognized.
Well, I'm just sick of seeing these attacks in blogs and print articles.
The TG community was 'absent' for the past 30 years for very good reason. Unlike a white gay male who has no gender identity issues or they are so minor (compared to TG individuals) that he can project an air of normality while enjoying a meal at a restaurant or while at work, and whose 'issue' (same-sex orientation) does not 'leap out at you' and in fact can relatively easily remain hidden, until recently Transgender individuals, and especially male-to-female transgender individuals, have had to engage in 'deep stealth' for the past 30 years, hiding in plain sight, as it were, in order to achieve a similar level of normalcy in their daily lives -- or risk being a lightning-rod for hatred, with the attendant loss of access to basic necessities such as a decent job, housing, and safety.
Shame on them! Shame on those who suggest we deserve what we get - being left out in the cold - because we did not come out as fully as they could to pave the way so that we, too, may share in the civil-rights-for-queers loaf that the brave gay-males created all by themselves.
This specious argument, and the others that have been used by Rep. Franks and others to justify the I-got-mine-jack attitude must be analyzed and countered, pronto, before they become 'gospel' and solidify, and it does really take the TG community to get our due in civil rights.
Karen
P.S., If you like the argument or the piece, please spread it around. Rewrite it to suit you, if you wish, but please, if you pass it on unchanged, credit me.
