Jul 30th, 1999
Learning about the Trans Community
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Article by Abigail Garner
A waitress comes to our table to take our order. She is six feet tall with a falsetto-sounding voice and very large hands. I am not fazed, but my friend clearly is, because she forgets what she planned to order. Finally she stammers her way through it.
After the waitress leaves our table, my friend leans forward and asks me “Is that a guy in drag, or what?!”
“I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing she’s a transwoman,” I say, testing out a vocabulary word I recently picked up at a PFLAG presentation.
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means her gender identity is female,” I say. (More new vocabulary.)
My friend is still not satisfied. “I just need to know: Is that person male or female?”
A few years ago, I would have been right there with my friend, trying to figure out this person’s biological sex. But these days I think less about that kind of gender identity, because learning about transgender people has meant letting go of my “need to know.”
During the “It’s Time, Minnesota” campaign in 1993, I bristled when I found out the proposed legislation to protect gay, lesbian, and bisexual people also included transgender people. My reaction is not an uncommon one among allies who support their friends and family who are gay, lesbian and bisexual, yet resist the inclusion of gender identity in their support of the community.
The root of this resistance is transphobia. Fear. Fear that transgender people are so far on the spectrum of acceptance that it will halt societal acceptance of LGBT people altogether. Having this fear in 1993, I believed that asking for trans rights would be asking Minnesota politicians to stretch their tolerance impossibly far, decreasing the chances of my two dads being assured basic rights because of their sexual orientation.
While talking recently among a handful of straight allies, we all agreed that our participation in gay and lesbian advocacy was highly influenced by knowing people who are gay and lesbian. We have put a face to the community. So it is for advocating for trans issues as well.
Carolyn Thomas is a longtime member of the open and affirming St. Luke Presbyterian Church in Wayzata. She encountered two transgender people while she and a friend staffed the church’s booth at Pride. At first she did not acknowledge the two people, describing them as “loud and flamboyant. Kind of in-your-face scary.” Her perception changed when her friend initiated a conversation with them. Carolyn explained, “It turns out one of them is a nuclear physicist. That kind of put a whole new slant on the subject for me. I felt myself crossing another invisible line I had set up for myself.”
I, too, will continue to be challenged by the invisible lines I have unknowingly set up for myself when it comes to the “T” in LGBT. I acknowledge that I have made progress, however, and I am grateful to transgender people and their family members who are willing to share their stories that help me put a face to the community. Meeting them has meant learning what that fourth letter really means instead of letting “G-L-B-T” roll off my tongue without thinking.
Last month a friend on the East Coast called and mentioned that her dad, who is transgender, had just moved to the Twin Cities. Thanks to all I have been taught over the past few years, I felt comfortable saying, “I look forward to meeting her.”
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Originally published in Lavender Magazine.
I really liked the latest article you wrote on the “T” in GLBT - I went to a seminar at Chrysalis where a transgender person spoke of her experiences - it was fascinating and heart-wrenching. . . I, too, never really thought about that “T” - I think because I’ve never known anyone who openly identified themselves as being transgender. It seems that the circle of inclusion is continuing to expand and I really appreciate your articles and their contribution to that blossoming! Thank you!
I can’t tell you how pleased I was to read your article. I’m transsexual - and I can’t adequately express how heartwarming it was to read a tale of someone coming to understand T issues.
You mentioned that trans inclusion was viewed by many as stretching the tolerance of the legislature [in 1993]. Yes, there are law makers who are pro-gay but anti-T, but, surprisingly, there are some who are pro-T but anti-gay. So, ultimately, it”s nothing short of insanity to not work together.”
Your July column in Lavender was wonderfully written and very meaningful to me as a transgendered person.
It is an excellent reminder of the responsibility the T community has to be present to the rest of the GLB world. My mantra has been we won’t gain understanding and advocacy until we become known to those we want to support us.
“As a transwoman, I struggle with the exclusion of transpeople when discussing human rights. And I am amazed that the very people who have been fighting to gain their own human rights resist including a group of people who must live on the fringe because of their transgender situation. I thank you for your compassionate writings and I hope and pray that more people will become allies to those of us out here on the fringes of society.”
Trying to locate Carolyn Thomas, alumnus of Fellowship Club. If the one referred to in these pages fits that description, and wishes to contact me, please provide my email address.
Aloha
[...] The gay community I knew as a child was transphobic. (To read my fortunately-now-very-outdated explanation about my internalized transphobia, read my archived column here.) [...]
[...] so much of the social change on behalf of transgender people emerged here. For example, in 1993, Minnesota was the only state to include gender identity and gender expression in the anti-discrimination [...]