If ENDA Doesn't Protect the Transgendered, It Doesn't Protect Me

The decision by the Democratic leadership in Congress to eliminate transgendered people from ENDA, the bill to ban discrimination against gays in the workplace, has ignited a genuine firestorm in gay political circles.

It's heartening to see that LGBT activists are coming out of the woodwork to insist that any meaningful bill that does not protect the transgendered isn't worth the paper it's written on.

But criticism that the bill is a betrayal of the most vulnerable among us, while well-intentioned, doesn't go anywhere near far enough.

A bill to protect gays from discrimination that excludes transgendered people isn't merely a betrayal of the transgendered -- it's a betrayal of all gay people. Because (as I wrote in an Advocate column a few years back, which I will quote from liberally here), in a very real sense, all gay people are transgendered.

And I believe that an emerging understanding of how all gay people are transgendered is the wave of the future, both politically and socially.

This idea stems in large part from the growing body of research into what sexual orientation actually is. The jury is still out on whether the roots of sexual orientation are biological or environmental or both or neither, but this much can be said: Researchers have found that the heterosexual majority and gay people differ in far more than just the most obvious sexual respect.

Most heterosexuals tend to feel and act and desire and respond and present themselves to the world in what researchers call a fairly "sex-typical" or "gender-typical" way: pretty much mostly male or mostly female.

Gay people, on the other hand, exhibit a whole range of "sex-atypical" characteristics, meaning characteristics that are commonly associated with the opposite sex, at least among the heterosexual majority.

These traits obviously, and perhaps most importantly, include our attraction to members of the same sex. But they also include our inner feelings of maleness or femaleness, our outward appearance as butch or femme, the unconscious way we speak and move, even the way we throw a ball or change a tire.

For reason yet to be understood, most gay people exhibit sex atypical traits most clearly when we are very young. Many gay boys -- the vast majority in some studies -- report that they identified strongly with girls when they were very small. Many even thought of themselves as more female than male. The opposite seems true for most lesbians.

As we grow older these feelings tend to subside for many of us, so that as adults the only major sex atypical trait that we retain is our sexual orientation.

But not for everybody. Some of us grow up to be mannish women or femme men. Some become occasional cross-dressers or drag kings or queens. Some become transgenderists (people who live full-time as the opposite gender without desiring surgery). And some become pre- or post-operative transsexuals.

Researchers now think that this is all connected, that all gay and transgendered people occupy places on a continuum between the two main genders.

At one extreme are masculine gay men and feminine lesbians who could easily pass as straight, and whose only obvious sex-atypical trait is their sexual orientation. At the other extreme are people who are so gender-atypical in so many ways that some choose to have an operation to bring the body in line with the soul. But what distinguishes us is that we all, to some degree or another, have major traits that place us somewhere between the two primary genders.

In that sense, all LGBT people are transgendered.

Not only does this idea offer a more expansive definition of what we really are, but it also better explains why we are oppressed.

Homophobes don't merely hate us because of how we make love. Rather, they hate how we make love because it violates our expected gender roles. Really, we are hated for gender transgression.

For example, when I was 10 and was taunted for throwing a ball "like a girl," I'm quite sure those school-yard bullies did not suspect me of actually sleeping with members of the same sex. They bashed me for not being boy enough.

That goes for almost all of us. Whether we face prejudice for being too butch or too femme, or for being cross-dressers or androgynes, or for simply being perceived as gay or lesbian, we are all ultimately disliked for the same basic reason: Transgressing our expected gender roles. Sexual transgression in the bedroom is just one aspect of that, although a very important one.

So just as all gays are in a basic sense transgendered, all homophobes are first and foremost "transphobes."

This new understanding is revolutionizing researchers' conception of sexual orientation as just one aspect of a larger kind of difference. And I believe that if we're smart, it could revolutionize the way LGBT people look at ourselves, both as individuals and as a movement.

The modem gay world was born out of a limited 19th-century psychological concept, namely that some people -- "homosexuals" -- are inherently attracted to members of the same sex.

We accepted that limited idea and built our identities and our movement around it. We thought of sexual desire as the basis of our identity, even though it's a basis that leads to endless fragmentation based upon what, exactly, you desire: Lesbian. Gay. Bi. Trans. Whatever.

Now, however, 21st-century research has produced a new concept: That the root of our difference is not merely how we make love, but the larger fact that we exist between the two genders in a variety of gender-atypical ways, some sexual and some not.

This idea has immense implications, because if the ultimate cause of our oppression is gender transgression, then shouldn't it also be the focus of our identities and our movement? Shouldn't we stop being the les-bi-gay-trans-whatever movement, with a new syllable added every few years, and simply become the trans movement?

I think we should. And ultimately, I believe we will. Once we stop thinking of ourselves as oppressed by what we do in bed and start thinking of ourselves as oppressed because we occupy a space between the socially-expected norms of the two genders, the sexual differences between us will fade into unimportance, and our common humanity will emerge into the light. If that's not a higher form of liberation. I don't know what is.

So in light of that, the decision to remove what we currently call transgendered people from a bill to ban anti-gay discrimination in the workplace couldn't be more misguided.

Yes, sure, all the other arguments against the removal of transgendered people from ENDA are valid, foremost among them that we are sacrificing the most vulnerable among us for the political expediency of getting a bill passed.

But if you look at LGBT people as all, in a sense, transgendered, such a bill is not merely sacrificing the rights of one sexual minority within our movement. It's betraying and denying the strange, wonderful, mysterious and very human thing that makes us what we are.

Comments

[cognitorex]

To Gabriel, you're article and reasoning are brilliant. If one was seeking a scientific solution you would win top honors. However, although I agree with you that what legislation gets passed and when is actuarially evident today, narccisistic clamoring for more than the four basic sex types feeds into the GOP's 'dog marries turtle' mentality. T's should be protected within the four sex types not as a special category.
If people are about the business of making a fifth sex type and a sixth sex type then the actuarial tables for when the younger, less fearing-of-gay voters become a dominant majority skew negatively for all sorts of gay (and t) rights and protections.

[DANIELLECLARKE]

I was at the HRC dinner saturday night at the convention center in Wash DC protesting for our support. I was interviewed by a local fox news station. I never mentioned transgender. I told the reporter the same thing you mentioned. I said that the problem is that gender not being included will still give a reason for employers to fire people because they are not masculine of feminine enough. I had to leave and head back to Philadelphia for my OBAMA event i was holding at the "Phila outfest". I hope everyone appreciated my words because as you say employers will say a gay many who dates a gay man is not abiding by proper gender stereotypes and will fire them for gender not sexual orientation.

Thank you for your truth and i hope and pray we unite.

[CHGORUNR]

Gabriel: Your argument ignores the fact that approximately 30 million lesbians and gay mean are still without federal work place protections because alleged “gay rights organizations" lobbied against them this past week (the very majority they claim to represent).

How many millions of lesbians and gay men disagree with your position and that of the militant transgender community?

How many lesbian and gay youth commit suicide or are clinically depressed and remain in the closet because of lame arguments like yours that “all gay people are transgendered.”

The distillation of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals into being all "trangendered" is not only wrong politically and legally, but scientifically as well. Sexual identity does NOT equal gender identity.

I think it’s a travesty (not to mention the dissemination of bad science) that it has been the political strategy of some within the transgender community, along with the elitist Board of Directors of so-called “LGBT rights organizations”--- that their ultimate goal is to force upon all lesbians and gay men, along with everyone else, the notion that all gay people are transgender people.

There is NOT ONE published article of empirical research in any highly reputable scientific journal to support your hypothesis that “all gay people are transgendered.”

Further, there is a dearth of published articles of empirical research in any highly reputable scientific journal on the subject of transgenderism. Period.

If you have any such research from a well-respected scientific journal, please include your references cites at The Huffington Post. I’d love to have them.

What is known through empirical research is that MOST TRANSGENDER PEOPLE CONSIDER THEMSELVES HETEROSEXUALS. A fact you neglected to make.

The vast majority of transgender people adopt gender-conforming behavior and choose gender-conforming surgery... to be "complete" heterosexuals.

Simply because you and a very small percentage of an even smaller percentage of overall transgender people dislike the binary gender system (we all live with through human genetics), does not mean “all gay people are transgendered.”

Where’s the transgender community’s alleged solidarity and legislative support for a lesbians and gays-only ENDA?

[DANIELLECLARKE]

I happen to be a transsexual who only is attracted to others like myself. I know many many who are the same and if they do like men many times its a trans man. If they do like genetic men they still live in a private world from mainstream society.

PS: Gay men dating gay men is breaking gender stereotyping and can be used as a way to fire them and so they are transgendered in their sexual orientation.

They have transcended expected gender stereotyping

[PamInDurham]

gregnsf (See profile | I'm a fan of gregnsf)
I'm surprised that so many gay bloggers (eg Americablog, Pam's House Blend, etc.) are all for ditching the transgendered.

***
From Pam Spaulding: Wait a minute -- and you're gravely mistaken. I'm for an inclusive ENDA, and I have no idea where you got the idea I was not. It's clear that you've not read the ton of posts on ENDA on my blog.

In fact I explicitly stated my position in this post:
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3108

"As Autumn documented quite well in her post, the saga of what will become of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act over the inclusion of transgender protection is roiling within the advocacy community and on the Hill.

My two cents: trans inclusion should not be dropped from ENDA.

That said, I certainly understand that this position represents the "purist activism" point of view -- the principle is that if one falls, we all fall. The pragmatic view is that incremental gains can and should be taken to move the civil rights bar forward. As Barney Frank's office noted, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 failed to address voting (added in ’65) and housing (added in ’68)..."

[gregnsf]

Sorry Pam, my bad. I was looking over all the posts on Americablog about this topic and hitting all the links to other blogs. I mistook another's post for yours.

[blues]

You've been going strong with this for over 30 years! As I recall. Keep up the good work, Gabriel!

[nicho]

What nonsense.

There are "masculine" acting women who aren't lesbians and there are "feminine" acting men who aren't gay.

Drag queens, cross-dressers, and transgender cross-dressers are not equivalent in any way shape or form.

Most gay men I know, including myself, are not wannabe women. I am attracted to men and our relationships are always in the context of two men relating. The idea that one of the two men "plays the woman's role" is a heterosexual fantasy. If I wanted to have a relationship with a woman, I would find a woman -- not a woman with a stubbly beard.

[UffdaGreg]

I agree 100 percent. I have no desire to be a woman and never have had that desire. I'm a man who desires men.

We need to pass ENDA, now. And then move forward with the trans inclusion, later.

I'm not a transgender. I never will be transgender. I wouldn't count on the movement evolving into a "trans movement."

Not in my lifetime, anyway.

[Qbear]

Republicans ...for whom the bell tolls?

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1210139/CraigRomney.jpg

Homes and Employment aren't a political game

[Qbear]

Barry Winchell was BASHED with baseball bats by two COWARDLY fellow soldiers as he rested on his bunk....because he dated a transgender woman.

OUR community (lgbT)is intertwined...and it's not the DEMOCRATS busisness to rip us apart.
Should a couple like Barry and his partner get half an apartment, half a job?

[Qbear]

I'm SO F*CKIN ANGRY at Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
Their ONLY transgender woman (Donna) on the BOARD resigned, if any one should GO it's Joe Solomnese!

The LGBT community moves forward as ONE, or we wait until we can.

[slim]

"but the larger fact that we exist between the two genders in a variety of gender-atypical ways, some sexual and some not."

This argument assumes that the two genders are on opposite sides of a continuum. Who proved that? You need to read up on your feminism pal. Let's call a spade a spade. Discrimination is all about power. Whenever anyone discriminates, the ultimate end is power. So all groups that are discriminated against need to get rid of their own discrimination and work together to end all discrimination.

[Overd0g]

Not so. To discriminate, you must already have power.

[UffdaGreg]

Not so to you. Everyone discriminates. It's a human characteristic... power or no power. Stop being a victim.

[perturbation]

Rotello's framing of gender characteristics continues in a long-standing error. It considers stereotypical hetero gender roles as the defining norm from which others vary, as if all these homosexuals suddenly have arrived from a different planet with their alien and confused approximations of 'normal' behavior. Homosexuals have always been here, in our species as well as in many many others, and are members of the norm. The rigidity of stereotypical hetero gender roles does not go very deeply into the matter.

All this said, I agree that it is a stupid mistake to exclude transgender protection from ENDA

[freddie]

Thanks so much for writing this. I'm a reasonably butch homo and have actually had to think hard about this. If we get absolutist -- ie, no trans, no ENDA -- are we letting the perfect get in the way of the good? Are we preventing the passage of a bill that might actually help someone, albeit not someone who doesn't present "properly?"

Then I read the Uncle Tom comments by those who say we're completely different from those "others," and I know my heart is right. The hell with this compromise. I'd rather be without a right to sue than throw the transgendered under the bus.

[Overd0g]

Don't worry. You have the same rights as anybody else.

[spunkster]

To further illustrate, Robin Tyler, a long time Gay/Lesbian activist and close friend of John Avarosis of Americablog, wrote John today the following, which he has posted at Americablog. http://www.americablog.com

"I support full transgender rights. However, when I have been invited to legal weddings of some of my transgender friends, not one of them has said "we will not get married until Diane and you and other same gender couples can get married". They did not sacrifice their legal rights on the alter of political correctness to give up the State and Federal benefits of marriage.

And yet, with regard to ENDA, the lesbian and gay community is expected to do so, leaving millions and millions of us in the majority of States, once again, unprotected".

Robin Tyler

With props to John at Americablog - and to Ms. Tyler of course, I think this speaks well to the feelings of millions of gay men and lesbian women on this militantly stubborn, politically awkward, and intellectually dishonest position of all or nothing.

[Twichell]

Gabriel, this is to me a wonderfully researched and extremely "thoughtful" article, in every sense of the word. Your comprehension of the enormous confusions and difficulties and sorrows of "the indefinite, limited state of transgender" is rarely coupled with such apropos writing style.

For what it's worth (nothing), I do feel that up to forty percent of the general population could successfully "live in the other gender" if they chose to, and that as many as possibly ten percent might conceivably be viable candidates for sex-reassignment surgery.

There are many, many, many people who are still utterly clueless about "gender identity" and "transgender" and "ts" and "trannies" and so forth. And here's one of the small positives about not self-isolating in a gay neighborhood: I know, for myself that in some situations, a simple "ma'am works for me" or even "I"m not a sir!" can very easily make an enormous cloud of confusion just go away.

There's just not that much difference between "male" and "female", or rather a range of differences that may be as obvious as ring-finger/middle-finger length ratio or as subtle as neuro-endocrinal interactions under extreme stress.

I just frankly have never hung out with guys that much in my life except as "just another guy" (and as soft-eyed and charming as EVER you'd find, Peter Lorre in the flesh).

Nowadays, I'll just say it out, because someone needs to, and it's "safe" for me: guys, it's you who have to take the lead in helping support the persuasion of your guy-peers.

Don't wear to work something delicate or beautiful or "offbeat" or otherwise "unmistakeably girlish" for the attention, no, nor for the sheer fun of annoying people. Don't wear just EXACTLY what you'd like simply because it fits the job rather than a manager's watchful expectations (for once).

And don't do it for "a cause." Do it for yourselves, so you can do it EVERY DAY!!!

[gregnsf]

I'm surprised that so many gay bloggers (eg Americablog, Pam's House Blend, etc.) are all for ditching the transgendered. I've heard their arguments that tg people aren't the same thing as gay people and how did we all get lumped together anyway and we'll try to help them some other time after we get what we want...blah blah blah. Well, what matters is that people likely to discriminate against one are also likely to discriminate against the other -- they won't see the difference. Gay and tg people are lumped together because both gay and tg people, by their very existence, challenge the orthodox sexual roles and so both are thought of as "queer" in one way or another. Gay people who are ready to throw the tg's under the bus remind me of the old closet queens who would disdain the "out" gays because they make the general public say "ick". You know, "We act straight and people don't hate us." (I can't help thinking of those nasty old queens in that bar in "The Naked Civil Servant" who chucked Quentin Crisp out because he was just toooo gay.) What a bunch of cowards and sell-outs!
What if Martin Luther King said, "I want protection for Black people but the Mexicans and the Asians can fight there own battles because they're not the same as us after all. And, oh yeah, we'll get back to helping them...uh...someday."?
And by the way, Americablog, Pam, who said that gay men should be lumped together with the lesbians? WE are not the same, after all. Really, how often do gay men and lesbians hang out together? It's a phony and contrived alliance, but it's worked for the benefit of both groups. Go ahead let us be divided...and fall.