02/18/2008
Trans Groups Urging Williams and Menzel to Cancel HRC Appearance?
Ugly Betty's Vanessa Williams and Wicked's Idina Menzel are scheduled to appear at a Human Rights Campaign dinner on February 23rd at the New York Hilton, but transgender groups unhappy over the group's position on ENDA are reportedly trying to derail the appearances.
Via the New York Post: "Both are scheduled to appear at the Human Rights Campaign dinner Feb. 23 at the New York Hilton. The problem is that many homosexual organizations are upset with HRC because the group supported an effort to pass a gay-rights bill that left out the transgender community, which includes pre-op and post-op transsexuals. The pro-transgender activists promise a picket line of demonstrators at the event, and Menzel and Williams are being urged to cancel their appearances."
Williams, who stars opposite Rebecca Romijn's transgender character on Ugly Betty, is scheduled to receive HRC's 'Ally for Equality' award, and Menzel is scheduled to perform at the gala event.
Sphere: Related ContentPosted 12:30 PM EST by Andy in ENDA, Idina Menzel, Transgender, Vanessa Williams | Permalink
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I can't stand the Post. All the "homosexual organizations?" Didn't they get the memo? That's not good journalism. How about "Glbt rights groups," or even "glbt organizations."
Posted by: Ryan | Feb 18, 2008 1:06:51 PM
There they go again. The transgendered folks being counter-productive at the expense of gay people.
How are our allies supposed to support us when sub-groups (that shouldn't be in our gay rights organizations to begin with) muddy the waters to the outside for their own narrow focus.
Sexual orientation and sexual identity are very different things. People are born with sexual orientation. People CHOOSE sexual identity. The trans folks need to back off and get their own civil rights organizations. They've been nothing but a thorn in our sides ever since that became part of our civil rights organization. No one asked us gays if we wanted them.
Posted by: PacificHeights | Feb 18, 2008 1:56:24 PM
Divide and conquer, baby! Karl Rove must be laughing his ass off right now.
Posted by: Dan | Feb 18, 2008 2:00:55 PM
@PacificHeights "Sexual orientation and sexual identity are very different things. People are born with sexual orientation. People CHOOSE sexual identity."
Wow! You sound exactly like one of those right-wing christian nuts. People don't CHOOSE their "sexual identity" any more than we choose our sexual orientation. Transgendered people feel as if they are a man trapped in a woman's body or vice versa. They man elect to live life as their opposite born gender but their gender identity is how they are born. And btw, it's GENDER identity, not sexual identity - there is a difference.
Posted by: FernLaPlante | Feb 18, 2008 2:36:06 PM
Some people still are not getting it. It isn't divide and conquer. It's having a clear focus and now allowing every fringe group on the planet to hitch to our star. That takes away from our focus.
Sexual orientation is very different from sexual identity. They aren't the same issues at all. Gays are the people who are hurt directly when people with sex changes attach themselves onto our causes.
Posted by: PacificHeights | Feb 18, 2008 2:45:40 PM
"People choose sexual identity"
Oh, man, who would choose to be hated by most people you come in contact with from the time your four or five years old? And as I've said over and over and over again, there are too many gay men and gay women who could easily be regarded as transgendered, but they have no desire to have sex reassignment surgery. Remember Quintin Crisp?
This morning, on the train, there were two guys I notice talking to each other--think they may have brothers. They both had sort of thick body builds, both have facial hair. My point is they looked "very traditionally masculine." Then, I heard the voice of the shorter of the two as they stood in the row near me. Well, honey, he sounded like Beyonce Knowles. Now, I would never tell him that because I'm sure he does not regard himself as a "queen" (based on his clothing style and facial hair). My point is too many gays break gender role expectations every fucking day to think they are so distant from the WIDE RANGE of trans folk. And remember to straight folks who hate gays--all of us are just faggots to them from John Amechi to Alexis Arquette. Oh, and bulldykers too.
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Feb 18, 2008 2:50:14 PM
Stop hurting the privileged, white faggots, you selfish trannies!
Posted by: 24play | Feb 18, 2008 2:56:58 PM
Most transgendered people do not consider themselves gay or lesbian.
Most transgendered people consider their source of oppression to be based on their gender identity, not their sexual orientation.
So are transgender people part of the gay and lesbian rights movement?
While the queer theorists will trot out their esoteric theories and argue that gay men and lesbians are discriminated, in part, because they do not conform to traditional gender behavior (e.g., men are supposed to be attracted to women, not other men), few homophobic employers fire a gay man because "You're not acting like a man!" (e.g., "You are not conforming to the correct normative gender behavior!") they fire a gay man because "You're a fag" (e.g., "You suck dick and I think that's disgusting")
In other words, gender nonconformity and sexual nonconformity sometimes overlap but are also distinct.
It is the transgender people who are being absolutists, not gay and lesbian rights activists.
Posted by: LightningLad | Feb 18, 2008 3:24:12 PM
LIGHTNINGLAD,
I've had this "battle" with gay men since the 1960s in elementary school: gay boys/men who believed they didn't break gender role norms. Throughout my life most gay men that I've seen at the clubs, pride events, street festivals, interviewed for some TV news/information show have had traits, speech sound, mannerisms that told me they were "gay"; NOT ALL, but most. And those traits contained some level of effeminacy. There's nothing wrong with that except when they are prejudiced against those of us who celebrate our gender role non-conformity.
THere is some dispute about the definition of "transgender" Some gays consider themselves transfolk are what we've always called drag queens. Many never intend to have a sex change (many love to use their penises too much to get rid of it). Now, I found out on another thread the other day that some transfolk do challenge whether drag queens and drag kings (cross--dressing butch Lesbians) are really "trans". Oh, please, if you say that you are trans, then that's what you are. If you say that you are gay and trans, then that's what you are. You are whatever the fuck you tell me you are.
Your employer may not fire you because you "don't act like a man", but your fellow employees may put you through hell on the job. If you are a traditionally masculine acting gay man, the folks on your job may never know until you tell them you're gay--or some straight person that you won't give any couchee or dingdong to decides to "out" you.
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Feb 18, 2008 4:13:29 PM
It amazes me how ignorant and narrow-minded (marginalized) people can be when it comes to the marginalization other others. "There they go again" and that's "distinct" and they are just "hitch[ing] to our star." I agree with FernLaPlante (and 24PLAY), many of you sound like the right-wing freaks arguing against gays and lesbians rights. It’s a choice, right?!?!
(Middle-class White) women should have continued to marginalize Black and poor women in the feminist movement, right? Women (whatever that includes) would have had an easier time securing rights if it wasn't for "them". Leave them out. Let them form their own organizations. This is about us and our rights and privileges. Who cares about others!? It's all about ME!
It’s all about ignorance!
Who do you want to let into "our community"? Should the boundaries be drawn at the doors of HRC . . . (mainly) white, middle to upper-middle class, gender-conforming, assimilationist men? Should we separate ourselves from lesbians too? They are “distinct” from us too, right? They may have stepped up to the plate to fight AIDS, when it didn’t appear that AIDS was impacting “their” community at all, but that’s different. They were a “distinct” group helping us.
Posted by: GMT | Feb 18, 2008 4:15:53 PM
Here we go again!
It sickens me to see gay people throw transgender rights under the bus just so they can grab whatever scraps the majority will throw them for this. Sure it feels great to think you're all righteous and those uppity trans folk are trying to get a piece of our pie we worked so hard for, but they're really not us -- not as good as us, etc.
Fact is, it was often the gender-nonconformists who first came out and fought, and if they hadn't made the space for more (dare I say it?) assimilationist or conservative gay people, the latter would still be cowering in their closets. The marginal ones had less to lose in the first place, so they were out and proud when the rest of us didn't dare to be.
But now we've arrived, and we can just cut them loose, so I say, let's go for it!
"Every fringe group on the planet"? It's the transgender people, for god's sake! Not Jewish Lesbians for Alan Keyes!
Posted by: KevinVT | Feb 18, 2008 4:16:26 PM
As a Jewish Lesbian for Alan Keyes....
KIDDING!
But I do disagree with everyone to a degree so far, and it's based on years of studying the issues.
Homophobia BEGAN centuries ago entirely because sex with other men [regardless of how butch one was or not] was contrary to gender role expectations and THEN got the "God Stamp of Approval." More specifically, it was thought to threaten the survival of the tribe in terms of removing one from the baby generating pool and, therefore, like masturbation or coitus interruptus [depending on how one chooses to interpret the Biblical story of Onan who God put to death for "spilling his seed upon the ground"], in order to discourage it it was declared an abomination.
Centuries later, it would be the main thrust of punishment of gay men in Nazi Germany. Increasing the German population was paramount—a man accused of being gay who could copulate with a female prostitute could be let go because, in their simplistic stupidity, they thought he was still a sirer of children. For the reverse reason, there was far less oppression of lesbians because they could still reproduce regardless.
And, in 2008 we still hear gay legal equaility being denounced in terms of child rearing.
So, YES, absolutely, transgenders are basically being oppressed for the same reason gay men are.
BUT, as much as I hate HRC for other reasons, they were right to adjust their recommendation regarding last year's ENDA legislation when it became apparent that no legislation of any kind could pass then if it included transgenders. That set off a tiny group of emotionally and intellectually unstable transgenders and their similarly challenged allies who then infected a larger group with a kind of Mad Tranny Disease whose symptoms include hysteria, fascistic demonization of anyone who disagrees with them, misrepresentation and/or gross ignorance of the history of civil rights legislation [e.g., they forget or refuse to mention that black men were given the right to vote 50 years before women of any race—wrong, but a fact], and premeditated deceit about their numbers and the actual chain of events in the House of Representatives.
MTD is such a strong virus, mostly because it is TREASURED by many infected, I expect a cure for HIV to be found long before one for it. The movie will, no doubt, be called "28 Trannies Later."
There are many reasons HRC is not among the many organizations I give money to, but this is not one of them.
Posted by: Michael Bedwell | Feb 18, 2008 5:00:20 PM
It amazes me how some people get so hysterical when a perfectly logical situation is suggested. It is not radical or mean-spirited to suggest that gay organizations exist for the benefit of gay people.
Trannies should get their own political organizations and stay out of ours.
Posted by: ADAM | Feb 18, 2008 5:32:12 PM
If you actually look at the mission statements of the HRC and the NGLTF - the two biggest "gay organizations" - you'll see that the HRC self-identifies as "America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality" and that "The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force works to eliminate prejudice, violence and injustice against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people at the local, state and national level."
And any book about "gay" history, or the history of the "gay" rights movement, quickly shows that we've all been working together every step of the way. And that it's only when one group (always, always gays) starts getting a lot of its demands met that the gay community starts saying "This is the GAY rights movement! Why are all you [trannies, sometimes bisexuals, sometimes even lesbians] jumping on our bandwagon? We can't afford to help you! We're too different!"
It's just like in the seventies, when gay rights started to make it onto the national radar and people in the gay community started attacking bisexual and transgendered members of their movement. Before that, the founders of what are now known as historical gay movements like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis were both bisexual, and even dated for a while.
It's always been an *LGBT* movement, because people used to understand that we were all being discriminated against for "being freaks," and because we knew we couldn't make it without working together. And as far as I can tell, there have always been people who thought they could be normal enough or straight-acting enough or whatever enough to avoid that discrimination themselves, who wanted to throw out whoever struck them as too different.
Giving just part of a group extra privilege is a classic divide and conquer strategy. They used it in the civil rights movement, decades ago, in an attempt to break up people fighting for their rights on plantations in Hawaii (among many many other examples). They're using it now, trying to throw trannies under the train and just give the "palatable" queers some employment rights. There's nothing more satisfying to a right-wing conservative than to get us to throw each other out of the movement. They don't have to look bad for denying trans people employment rights if they can get the mainstream gays to do it instead.
This is what happens when you don't learn your history: you do the right wing's work for them and encourage people to keep discriminating against every queer that violates gender norms (nelly queens and butch dykes too, maybe most of all).
Posted by: oakling | Feb 18, 2008 6:04:51 PM
Oakling, you couldn't be more wrong. The trans movement came under the gay rights organization umbrella (HRC and NGLTF)approximately nine years ago. No one asked us if we wanted them. They were "assigned" to us. It is not divide and conquer. It is clarity of intent. You're buying into theory politics at the expense of realism.
Posted by: PacificHeights | Feb 18, 2008 6:13:27 PM
I only wish Sylvia Rivera was still around to bitch-slap some sense into you people!
Posted by: Kevinvt | Feb 18, 2008 6:27:55 PM
Oakling, you might learn a little more yourself about LGBT history before you start lecturing others. Most particularly in relation to your absurd assertion,
"the founders of what are now known as historical gay movements like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis were both bisexual, and even dated for a while."
Harry Hay, the man who named Mattachine, was, in fact, married for several years. He and his wife adopted two children before divorcing. Del Martin, cofounder of the Daughters of Bilitis, had also been married, had a daughter before divorcing, and has grandchildren by her daughter Kendra.
While never married, I doubt that DOB cofounder [and still Del's life partner] Phyllis Lyon "dated" much if at all, but the primary point is that none of them would have considered themselves bisexual regardless of what "bi-sex" they might have had along the way.
[Anyone interested in learning more about their lives, and those of many other pioneers, should read "Before Stonewall" by Vern L. Bullough.]
"True bisexuals" are very rare, and, thus, few have been actively involved in the movement. While there have been transgender-identified people involved from early on, none that I am aware of have ever held positions of leadership in any combined LGBT group, including Sylvia Rivera.
Nevertheless, that does not change my belief that LGBs should support and fight for the rights of transgenders. The question, as it is for any group, is what makes sense when. The antics of "United ENDA" did very little to advance their cause and any empathy most LGBs had for them because they based their actions and demands on half-truths, lies, and character assassination.
Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail as we move forward.
Posted by: Michael Bedwell | Feb 18, 2008 8:25:12 PM
"Sexual orientation and sexual identity are very different things. People are born with sexual orientation. People CHOOSE sexual identity."
What are you talking about? Are you saying that trans=sexual identity and that this is a choice? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but if you believe this, you're mistaken.
Certainly, not all trans people consider themselves gay. Some do, some don't. And not all gay people feel that, personally, their sexual orientation is linked to gender. BUT to imply that they're unrelated is complete nonsense. In fact, many gay people are discriminated against precisely because their gender is not perceived to conform to societal i.e. heterosexual norms. Gay children are bullied in schools because they are perceived as too effeminate or too butch. (Lawrence King's murder, for instance!)
While I strongly disagree with the HRC's tactics re: ENDA, I understand the so-called practical arguments for dropping the T at this time. What I don't understand is how people can claim gay and trans rights are not linked. The transphobia within the gay community continues to astonish me. Trans people are getting killed out there! How can we turn a blind eye to that? And, make no mistake, the people hating the transfolk are hating and killing us, too.
Posted by: Ernie | Feb 18, 2008 8:48:28 PM
>>Fact is, it was often the gender-nonconformists who first came out and fought, and if they hadn't made the space for more (dare I say it?) assimilationist or conservative gay people, the latter would still be cowering in their closets. The marginal ones had less to lose in the first place, so they were out and proud when the rest of us didn't dare to be.
The above statement is factually inaccurate. If you read any reputable history of the gay rights movement in the United States (John D'Emilio's "Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities" would be a good start) it was, in fact, the "conservative" gender-conforming men and women of the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis who were at the forefront in the 1950s and early to mid 1960s of agitating for non-discrimination towards gays and lesbians.
These brave men and women risked a lot by coming out and picketing in public and being the "voice" of the movement long before any drunk drag queen (read: NOT transgender person as we understand it today) at Stonewall dared to break a nail throwing bottles at the police.
Learn your gay history, folks, learn your gay history.
Posted by: LightningLad | Feb 18, 2008 9:52:07 PM
I think Ernie's got the message right.
As I understand the way things used to be, and perhaps still are, lighter skinned African Americans were generally treated better than those with darker skin. Perhaps because they were "closer in color" to the whites, or deemed to have white blood in them. No matter the reason. African Americans knew they had a common fight and they stuck together, regardless of hue.
I am a pragmatist and understand the need to work to achieve the most good for the most people, and so I can accept certain tradeoffs made for the sake of expediency. But we cannot leave our tranny relatives at the curb. The question really is, if we can get ENDA passed, however we do it, can we make sure that anybody left on the outside won't be forgotten? That we'll still fight for them?
Just because a butch gay man or a lady-like lesbian may be more palatable to the sensibilities of the straight world, do not forget the rivers of discrimination are deep enough to drown us all. Don't ever forget that.
Posted by: Ted | Feb 19, 2008 12:34:10 AM
Ted, I don't know where you are from but I suspect it is heavily white. Darker-skinned African Americans are constantly trashing lighter-skinned AMs. And God forbid you "look white." I could tell you some good stories.
Bottom line with ENDA is that we all got screwed because the trannies were impatient. The law could have been amended to include them, but they were happy that none of us were protected! Thanks a bunch!!
I understand the arguments for gender identity, but sexual orientation is not the same as gender identity. Who I choose to love is not the same as what gender I identify with.
Posted by: Shane | Feb 19, 2008 7:41:57 AM
Lightlinglad, darling, I read d"Emilio for the first time in the 80s, and I've taught it. It is well-known that early gay rights organizations also practiced gender-policing in order to make their point more palatable. Suits for the men, dresses for the women. If gender-nonconformity weren't connected with gay identity (by both gay people and the public) they wouldn't have had to worry about it.
My point is that even for those people, it was often social space created by more gender-nonconformist people that allowed them to come out to themselves in the first place. And when things got messy (see Stonewall), the drag queens were right there. Jim Fouratt may have been at Stonewall, but so was Sylvia Rivera. I seriously doubt the drag queens felt more confident because Frank Kameny had been having his yearly reminders in Philadelphia -- they probably had no idea about that.
There has always been a dynamic between gender-nonconformists and gender-conformists in the gay population. There has also always been a dynamic between radical leftists and more assimilationist minority politics. It's the claim that gender has nothing to do with gayness that is a distortion.
Posted by: Kevinvt | Feb 19, 2008 10:58:28 AM
To the people here that are saying being Transgendered is a choice, and being gay is something you were born with heres my reply...
PROVE IT, show me the biological factor that proves being gay is something you are born with... In fact it is more plausible that being transgendered is biological than it is for being GLB as a born with condtion.
Point put, TG deserve to sttach to the same "star" as do, period.
As a gay man myself, I will always support the TG people and thier rights, and it wrong that they ever be left out.
Posted by: Mark | Feb 19, 2008 7:34:41 PM