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GLB and T – do we really all belong together? Katrina Fox reports.
In the US last year the introduction of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) drew back the curtain to reveal what some in the queer community called the gay/trans divide.
The federal Bill proposed that sexual orientation should be covered but not gender identity, meaning that employers could not discriminate against gays and lesbians but they could fire someone for being trans or sex/gender diverse.
More than 300 ‘GLBT’ organisations came together to oppose the Bill, but it was eventually passed and became law in November.
A similar situation occurred in Australia with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) 2007 report, which found more than 58 areas of federal law where same-sex couples suffer financial discrimination.
While the commission’s motives were noble and served the gay and lesbian population well, many in the trans and sex/gender diverse community argued that by its very emphasis on ‘same sex’, it left those who did not identify as strictly male or female out in the cold.
So, is there a gay/trans divide? Should both communities work together? Does the ‘T’ (and for that matter the ‘I’ for intersex) really belong with the GLB in the acronym?
“The relationship between the GBL community and people who are sex and gender diverse is like siblings in a queer family where we all bear the surname ‘Otherthannormal’, and sometimes our needs coincide and sometimes they don’t,” says Tracie O’Keefe, spokesperson for Sex And Gender Education (SAGE), which campaigns for the rights of sex- and gender-diverse people in Australia.
“The GBL community often tags ‘TI’ onto its GLB for political kudos but they don’t always understand many of the legal hurdles facing sex and gender diverse people, such as birth certificates and passports, and do not fight for them. We do, however, need to remember that divided we fall.”
Author and trans woman Katherine Cummings believes the two communities share many common issues.
“The gay and lesbian community, which clearly overlaps with the trans community since a trans person can be gay, lesbian, hetero, bisexual or asexual, shares some problems of marginalisation and even victimisation, based on past history of homophobia, religious bigotry and the need to find a sub-community ‘lower’ in the pecking order than one’s own,” she argues.
“The fact that many people see the trans phenomenon as a sub-group of the gay world suggests a commonalty of interest for that reason alone.”
Not everyone agrees with the addition of the ‘T’ or ‘I’ to the GLB acronym. Some trans men have been greeted with transphobia or outright hostility from gay men when their trans status has been revealed, while some in the lesbian and feminist sectors – including well-known academics such as Germaine Greer – are quick to deride and exclude trans women from their circles.
And for their part, some heterosexual trans people have no wish whatsoever to be associated with the gay and lesbian community.
On a personal level, one can choose to have an eclectic set of friends, such as Cummings, who identifies as a lesbian but does not “function in the lesbian community”, but politically it would seem there are good reasons to unite.
While the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby of NSW (GLRL) has “no plans at this stage” to add the ‘T’ to its name, Co-Convenor Peter Johnson says the organisation is considerate and inclusive of trans and sex/gender-diverse issues in the development of its policies.
“The GLRL’s mission statement is to work towards equality for lesbians and gay men and to this end has membership and governance structure designed to represent the gay and lesbian community,” he says.
“We believe in the importance of oppressed groups being able to speak for themselves and would never want to speak for members of the trans and other sex/gender-diverse community. Instead, the GLRL seeks to support efforts by the trans and other sex/gender diverse community to overcome discrimination.”
In the case of the ENDA in the US, gay Congressman Barney Frank was among those who argued that passing an imperfect Bill was better than none at all. Cummings has “mixed feelings” on the issue of compromise.
“In an ideal world we would refuse to take any amelioration of social conditions unless all wrongs were simultaneously amended,” she says. “In the real world you sometimes have to compromise and move step by step. We have seen this in action in the progress of the Gender Recognition Bill [GRB] in Britain, which had and still has significant flaws in the detail but is a great deal better for most, not all, trans people than before the GRB was passed.
“We must sometimes compromise, but having compromised we should then return to the arena and make further improvements to the system. If G, L and B gain new rights while T and I are left behind, this in itself provides an argument for raising the standard to eliminate unfair discrimination.”
At the end of the day perhaps we should remember that in the eyes of bigots and thugs GLBTI people are one: freaks who don’t deserve the same rights as everyone else and are asking for a bashing. Surely this alone is motive for closing the gay/trans divide?
“I’ve never believed in ‘them and us’, having lived a large part of my life in both camps,” says O’Keefe. “All people who suffer harassment and discrimination are linked by the very nature of their oppression and share a common campaign for equal rights for all human beings.”
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