For example, author Janice Raymond published a book in 1979 titled “The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male” where she claims that trans women are men colonizing the female body and are reinforcing traditional, patriarchal gender roles. Transphobia directed at trans women sometimes originates from radical lesbian feminists. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, from the film about her life Major! I think if they could eradicate us, they would.”
It’s the stares, the noninclusion over decision-making, exclusion from events that would build this movement. She stated in an interview with Jessica Stern that, “I feel like we’ve been pushed to the outside and then prevented from looking in. In 1973, Rivera was scorned, booed, and hissed at when she attempted to speak at that year’s liberation march, as the lesbian women who had the stage at the time did not want to allow a drag queen to speak.Īnother perspective, from Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, prominent transgender activist and Stonewall veteran, further describes the mainstream gay rights movement as one that shuts out transgender folks and people of color. They felt that, as drag queens and transvestites, they were being ignored by a movement they helped get started. Pinpointing discrimination in the past between the groups would seem to be difficult, but in reality, Rivera and Johnson themselves remarked about how they felt they did not fit into the then-newly emerging gay rights movement. It is evident that the lines between the different identities today known as LGBTQ were blurred and not fixed. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera referred to themselves as gay, among a variety of other terms, indicating a fluidity and lack of focus on labels. Gay liberation activists such as Marsha P. In 1969, the year of the Stonewall Uprising, hardly anyone knew or identified with the term transgender. However, individuals who would come to identify as trans were already living their lives as their authentic selves, such as Christine Jorgensen, who became famous in the early 1950s for her reassignment surgery. Additionally, Roem and others in this count, such as Minneapolis city councilmembers Andrea Jenkins and Phillipe Cunningham, were elected just last year. Transgender men and women are thus severely underrepresented, with one trans woman in a state legislature, Danica Roem, and eight more in local positions, totaling 1.6 percent of all LGBTQ elected officials. Almost 80 percent of out officials are white, 57 percent are gay, and 59 percent are male. According to the Out for America Report that Victory Institute published in June, an LGBTQ elected official in the US today is most likely to be a white gay male.
This blog will focus on historical and ongoing prejudice towards transgender men and women by cisgender gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals.Īttitudes towards transgender folks from both queer and cishet 1 people are reflected in the lack of transgender elected officials. However, trans women and men are often neglected by those who set political priorities of our community, if not treated with outright hostility and prejudice. Both political organizing and the LGBTQ community began with people who today may identify as transgender. To fully serve the LGBTQ community and make America truly representative, we need to start by examining the prejudices within our community. Note: This blog contains language and terms that may have changed in meaning over time, as well as some now considered slurs they are used in their historical context in this blog.