Visible Man: Who Loves Ya, Baby?

Jamison Green offers a man's POV on life in the trans lane. Opinion, advice and information from an internationally respected leader of the FTM community.

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The marriage between G, L, B and T interests has not always been a happy one, but trans activists have been working very hard for over a decade now to ensure that relations between our camps are constructive and mutually supportive. So I was quite surprised and dismayed to see Riki Ann Wilchins' opinion piece in the September 2 issue of The Advocate magazine. I can't imagine that Riki would consciously work to undermine the long-standing efforts of transsexual activists to establish ordinances and statutes that protect and enhance the rights of all gender-variant people. I know she was mistaken in her statement that the laws transsexual activists have passed in recent years do nothing to protect gender expression, somehow ignoring gay and lesbian people. She can't have meant to say that, because it's simply not true.

While she doesn't explicitly say that GenderPAC is the only national organization fighting for the gender rights of nontranssexual people, the implication is there. I know Riki gets excited, and she's a passionate worker for the cause, so I can't really blame her for trying to position her own group as the flagship organization working for everyone's gender rights. She must have just gotten carried away, forgetting how much work transsexual activists have done over the past decade to pass laws that benefit everyone, laying the groundwork for GenderPAC and the transgender rights efforts of most of the largest LGB (and now T) organizations in the U.S.

From the beginning of my own political trans activism, I've been extremely conscious of the need to achieve protections for woman-identified women who have masculine characteristics and male-identified men who have feminine characteristics, regardless of whether they are gay or straight. Just as it is a common misunderstanding that the word "transgender" is the new, politically correct way of saying that a person is transsexual or that they are considering changing their sex, Riki's statement implies that legislation that uses only the words "gender identity" and not "gender identity and expression" is inherently narrow in scope and won't protect nontranssexual people. Well, that's not true. It depends on how gender identity is defined, and while certainly some of the pieces passed over recent years were more carefully crafted than others, almost every gender-identity ordinance passed in U.S. cities and states since 1994 has included gender expression or "actual or perceived gender" in the definitions of gender identity.

Everyone has their own interests at heart when they describe their experience of gender oppression, or gender nonconformity. Riki says, "We usually think of the 'bathroom issue' as a problem for transgendered women who have changed sexes," but transsexual activists who have been working to pass local ordinances are very well aware of the problems faced by some pretransition or early-transition FTMs, and of butch (or otherwise masculine-appearing) women -- whether or not they are transidentified or even lesbian-identified -- who are harassed just for trying to use a public women's restroom (or men's, when their gender identity encourages them to open that door). These activists are also well aware of the complications of trying to protect crossdressers' gender expression and bathroom access and safety. Crossdressers often make legislators and the general public much more anxious than even gays or transsexuals because they seem unpredictable. Consistency of expression is one of the common compromise points in many statutes, leaving it up to local Human Rights Commissions or other agencies to finesse negotiations when complaints occur, as they try to educate about the difference between gender expression and criminality. It would be much easier, in many cases, for transsexual activists to seek protections only for transsexual people, but we don't because we don't think that's fair.

So it felt like a low blow to many activists around the country when Riki's statement seemed to tell The Advocate's readers that they should distrust transsexual activists. It's a shame that GenderPAC works so hard to distance itself from its transsexual origins, but in these days of homogenizing spin I guess it's to be expected. We are not living in a very liberal climate, after all. ...

I also have a vision of a world in which identity politics matter less, and respect for individuals matters more, in which people can be seen and accepted by including and acknowledging their differences and uniqueness rather than by pretending we are all alike. I agree with Riki that gender expression is a great crossover issue. But I don't think it is the great crossover issue. Everyone has a sex, everyone has a sexual orientation, everyone has a gender identity and some kind(s) of gender expression. Everyone has social needs, physical/material/economic needs, emotional needs. There are millions of touch points between people that can be turned into great crossover issues. What we are looking for in our lives is integrity -- our own particular sense of wholeness and well-being. We want to see integrity in our leaders because we want to trust and respect them. Their integrity reflects on us and gives us hope. I think most transsexual activists want to see GenderPAC succeed because they believe in the principles of gender freedom GPAC is working for, as I do. But when Riki wrongly disparages transsexual activists, she alienates many talented and successful would-be allies.

So to the gay and lesbian readers of The Advocate who are wondering why they ever bothered to add T to LGB, I say, "Who loves ya, baby?" Who is standing up for your rights? Take a good look at the legislative history. It isn't too difficult to identify the real champions who have worked in the trenches to create positive social change for queer and gender-variant people. Most of them are not well-known individuals, and very few of them have become leaders of organizations, though some have been instrumental in furthering the work of many different groups. Building the integrity of the movement for freedom from gender oppression requires building coalitions with others, not falsely characterizing the work that others have done.