Transitions

Please no one take this the wrong way, because I'm all for transgendered rights. But I think it's silly that it's not just part of the whole gay rights struggle. I almost feel like this article is saying transgendered people are now not part of the LGBT community and separate. But maybe I'm way off. I know there are like bills for transgendered on their own...but I dunno, to me that just makes them all secluded and shit...

 

No disrespect, but the Trans people are giving a bad rep because of some crossdressers, transvestites, etc. which I know has nothing to do with it. But as long as people keep portraying and perceiving these people as individuals who "dress up" for sexual encounters, nothing is going to change.

 

Okay, forewarning. I read the article, but I honestly don't know a ton about this. I am, however, extremely curious.

Does anybody know where to find information on how mainstream America feels about trans people? (If so, can you please link it?) There are a bunch of surveys done on how Americans feel about gay/lesbian rights/marriage/etc, but what do we know about the national climate for trans people? I'm really curious to find out.

The thing is, depending on how the results of similar surveys for trans rights would wind up, the fight for rights might be harder and longer than the one for LGB people alone.

Like I said, I don't know that much about it, regrettably. But what the article said about LGB people not wanting to wait until America is on board with T to get equal rights...that struck me. I mean, it's LGBT, guys. We should all be in this together, and I think it's a shame if the LGB drops the T just to get equal rights sooner. This is a fight we've started together as a community of people looking for what's just and fair, and giving up before we have what is just and what is fair for everyone in that community seems wrong to me.

Maybe I'm not understanding what I'm reading, but that's how that bit struck me, and it feels wrong.

I just can't imagine myself saying "well, I guess it's fine if *I* get equal rights now, even if transgendered people don't."

But anyway, I'm going to do a little research and see what's really going on here.

 

This often comes up in my transgender support group. The T in LGBT is often silent. There is an obvious resentment LGB people have toward transgenders. They often feel that we are "holding them back." Transsexuals do not like being put together with crossdressers and drag queens because they feel like they hurt their struggle too.

When people think "transsexual" they often think of the over-the-top drag queen shows, but those people are not transsexuals. Don't get me wrong, I believe they have the right to dress however they want, but we just shouldn't be grouped with them. Legally, when people say "transgender" they mean "transsexual." But because people rarely know the difference, they think that transgender bills that allow people to use specific facilities are for drag queens and stuff--not people who are transitioning.

People need some education in this matter. Most LGB people seem to be confused about what transgender really means. Transgender is an umbrella term that groups crossdressers, gender queer, drag queens, intersexed, and transsexuals together. Gender queer people, if I remember right, have already removed themselves from the T. Transsexuals might be the next to leave T because many feel that drag queens specifically are holding back their plight.

 

I think that a lot of the reason behind the way people treat transsexuals is just ignorance; in my school at least, we don't learn about it for a couple years yet. The fact that it is taught so much after homosexuality (they showed us "The Homophobia Project" in January; it started me questioning) means people have time to form misconceptions that might not be addressed. I had never heard of transgenders before I started researching LGBT things, and wondered what the T was. I guess people might find it odd that a gender identity is put right after the sexualities.

 

It is a different thing from gay rights, but looking at it from a political standpoint the numbers are better if you keep them together. The only reason splitting them works is because it's straight people voting on it. In terms of lobbying you want the greatest number of voting adults possible. There's so much crossover between issues and people that we're often fighting the same fight anyway. The reality of things is that none of us can get enough votes behind our cause to scare people into action unless we include people from outside our own group. I don't see the sense in kicking people out.....

 

Wasn't the correct term transgender and not transsexual? And wasn't the people who go drag, dress up and stuff something totally different and is not included within the T? That is how I understood it.

Transgender can be pre-op and post-op. Transsexual is specifically someone who changes their sexual orientation, something that is extremely rare. Then all the drag queens, crossdressers, etc. are people who are not included within the transgender community since they don't do those things because of who they are, they do it because they like to dress up or drag on or whatever.

 

Don't quote me on this, but isn't a transgendered person someone who identifies as the other gender but hasn't had surgery, and a transsexual person is someone who has altered their gender through surgery? I don't think being transsexual has to do with sexual orientation, but I could be wrong.

 

As far as I know, nope... both pre-op and post-op are transgender. But as you said, don't quote me on that. I might be wrong.

 

I can't speak to the American issues here, but I do know that as a transgirl, I am not protected under the Canadian Charter Of Human Rights & Freedoms. I felt very upset when I found that out yesterday because suddenly I was no longer deemed worth protecting by my own gov't. It feels really lousy going from protected one day to kicked to the curb the next...

 

It's ridiculous, and should never have happened. America keeps disappointing me everyday, every time something like this happens, or I learn about things like the interment camps the japanese were kept in during ww2.

 

No, a transsexual is someone who has Gender Identity Disorder. You pretty much illustrated my point about there being confusion within the community itself about what a transgender is. If the LGBT community doesn't know what transgender and transsexual is, how is anyone is supposed to?