Questions about the T

TNG is taking a much needed break from Dec 19-Jan 4. TNG will return with new content on Jan 5. Until then, please enjoy this post from the past year. Original publish date: 10/7/08.

One of the reasons we started this site was to give people from all corners of the queer community a forum for getting to know one another better. We all learned a lot last week from the experiences and opinions shared in the comments on Ms. Cavanaugh's post about whether gay men and lesbians want to hang out with each other. Recently, a post by Jon that briefly mentioned the recent HRC dinner inspired a series of comments stating that we shouldn't support HRC and help them raise funds until they support including transgendered individuals in ENDA. These comments got me thinking about my relationship with trans-folk. Or lack there-of.

Do I support equal rights for all queers including transgendered people? Yes.

Do I understand the trans-experience? No.

Would I like to? Yes.

Do I know how to go about it? Not in the least.

One question I have about trans issues is this: does "trans" have a destination, or is it a life-long journey? "Trans" means "across, through, over, beyond" but do folks who transition ever arrive at the other side? Or once you begin your transition, are you always considered to be in transition even if there is no destination? It would be helpful for me to understand this. How can someone be so brave as to begin a journey with no destination? With no end in sight? To me, that's a very scary prospect.

The thing that makes trans issues so hard for me to wrap my brain around is that, really, the gender variable is completely different from the sexual orientation variable. They are like the X and Y axes on a high-school geometry graph. The value of one isn't necessarily correlated with the other. You can have trans-men who are attracted to men, and trans-women who identify as lesbian. Do same-sex-attracted trans folk start off as gay people and, while changing their gender identity, maintain their gay identity and change who they're attracted to?

What about socializing? What community do trans-folk want to belong to? Do trans-men feel comfortable in straight "meat-markets" looking for potential sexual partners? (Does anyone, really?) Or do they find more success and understanding at lesbian venues? Wouldn't a trans-man dating a lesbian present identity issues for both parties involved?

Perhaps the reason that the HRC is neglecting to support trans issues is because their core membership doesn't understand trans-folk and the type of support they need. I have only had a small series of interactions with trans people. Perhaps trans people need to be more visible and vocal about the rights they are striving to achieve? Or maybe that's antithetical to what they are trying to do: to simply gain acceptance for who they are without having to draw too much attention to what's going on underneath their clothes or their skin.

I, for one, would love to know more about trans-people and their issues. I would love to put some faces and names behind the T in GLBT: faces that many of the Ls and probably most of the Gs out there have never seen. I would love for us to have a trans contributor to TNG who can help bridge the divide between those of us who feel comfortable with the gender we're born into and those of us who don't.

I'm sure that someone out there may be offended by my lack of understanding of trans issues. But honestly, how can I learn about these issues if we can't have a dialog on this topic without getting pissed off? Please consider this my first humble step in getting to know more about the T.