Making the 'T' and 'I' in LGBTI visible

[Shana A]

Making the 'T' and 'I' in LGBTI visible
EUSEBIUS MCKAISER: BODY LANGUAGE - Dec 13 2010 17:08

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-12-13-making-the-t-and-i-in-lgbti-visible

I thought I knew all about prejudices against sexual minorities. After all, I have self-identified as gay for more than 10 years. But I was wrong. I had, in fact, never fully acknowledged the existence, and unique needs, of the transgender community.

It is a dark irony that many of my own friends, colleagues and relatives had, for a long time, rendered me similarly invisible as a gay man.

My toxic ignorance came to an important halt, fortunately, at a recent Trans Health and Research Conference organised by an energetic human rights organisation, Gender DynamiX, based in Cape Town.

[bearded]

You know, it's interesting.  I have allegedly been aware of the LGBT community since the late 80s (we only had the G and L back then, haha), but I was never really aware of the T in the forefront of my mind.  I mean, I knew what it was, or whatever, but I don't think I had any known exposure to trans people or trans issues or trans anything, other than talk shows.

It was only this past year that I finally started really being aware of the trans community and trans issues.  And after that, what a set of HUGE eye openers, one after another.

Now I see that there are a lot of trans people, a lot of trans issues, a lot of trans needs, and ever growing trans resources.  To the point now that I wonder, how could I have not been aware of all this before?? 

It wasn't because of willful ignorance, or being a callous person, or not paying attention to other people.....  I am a very kind and caring person.  But for some reason I just never 'saw' the trans community.

Now I feel like a movie where someone "shifted" my vision, and it's like whoaaaa......  and now you can't help but notice things all over the place.  To me it is almost as if the trans community was some sort of secret society that you don't see/know about unless someone inside shows you the way.

At any rate, I think the point I'm making is that there may be a lot of people to whom the T is invisible currently...people who might be supportive and/or understanding...that just haven't had the shift happen yet to where the T becomes meaningful to them.

If you had asked me 5 years ago to help out with some kind of T cause, I would have been like "sure", and thought there were maybe 5 people in this whole area who that would affect.  If you had asked me 6 months ago, after I had started being exposed to the community, I would have thought there were maybe 25 people in this area that this would affect. 

But at the TDOR that I just went to last month, I estimate there were  200 people at the event, and I am aware of a lot more people in this community who weren't in attendance.  I was blown away. 

This is one of the reasons it is important to me to raise visibility about trans people and trans causes.  Because people need to know just what is out there and what is going on before they can take into their hearts to do something about it. 

There is hope and love enough for everyone.