| |
|
Well, maybe not 
For myself, I don't really believe in the LGBTI thing, and I don't know that it's a great political model. But then, I don't belive in a LGB, or a LG, or even a G community. What I'm about to argue may be completely off the mark, and is mostly based on what I've read and what friends from the US have told me, so correct me if I'm wrong. But it seems that the conflicts between lesbian and gay activism around anti-discrimination or hate crimes bills and transpeople desiring inclusion aren't only about the gay and lesbian lobby's unwillingness to include transpeople, per se. That conflict's roots are based in the debates between, say Sylvia Rivera and the Stonewall March back in the late 80's, where Stonewall March orgnaisers asked Sylvia to stop speaking and leave the stage because radical feminists felt uncomfortable with a tranny speaking. I guess what I'm saying is that this community and politics problem is also about class and race and the shared, or disparate, political goals of various communities. There's a huge difference between a largely white, middle-class, relatively wealthy, assimilationist gay and lesbian political lobby and gender-variant people who are not only visible, but also visibly poor and visibly part of the lumpenproletariat (sex workers, homeless people, drug users, etc). That difference is capitalism and various people's relative needs -- do you need the right to marry, or just the right not to get harassed by the cops or kicked off the street where you've always lived by gentrifying yuppies, among whom number many gays and lesbians?
It seems likely to me, although I don't know the situation, that the only reason the hate crimes bill got up with gender identity is because of the emergence recently of a very 'professional', white, middle-class trans political machine. These people don't do so much grassroots organising; instead they seem to lobby politicians quietly with the HRC, and join with the HRC in arguing that transpeople and queers should be protected from discrimination because they contribute to protecting national security. Watch my ultra-leftist hackles rise! (Again, I'm not sure about the assumptions I'm making here, I could be wrong. But it seems likely, given my experience.)
In the same way, the really productive, amazing coalitions between trans and queer people I see happening, here in Australia and in the US, are where peole share a political focus, not only about their own identity, but about capitalism and particularly about the mode of organisastion they want to use. For instance, Mattilda (who I wouldn't want to pigeonhole as either trans or queer, exclusively) seems to bring people together who are queer or trans or both, as well as sharing an anti-capitalist, grass roots political vibe. I like that a lot, and I wish more of it was around. (This is kinda what some of us in Melbourne are trying to do, on a very small scale, with no publications yet.)
But then, I also agree with parts of Crain's editorial. There are large numbers of transpeople who are even more conservative than the middle-class, assimilationist gay and lesbian activists. They make rights claims by actively distancing themselves from queers. I think that strategy should be actively fought. Funnily enough, fighting conservatism often intersects with fighting capital... I wish I knew why that is!! |
|
|
