This was triggered by seeing posts from gay guys and women in the "LGB without the T" crowd (which is ironic in so many ways). This is nothing new, but what is sad is people like this haven't learned from the past, and how the haters have used division to destroy things. I will say that this isn't the majority of lesbian and gays, but it is enough to be sad. That many of them are joining the religious reich and the GOP in going after trans people is even worse.
I am old enough to remember the eras before same sex marriage and general acceptance of gay people. I remember the war between lesbians and gay men, lesbians accusing the gay rights movement of being all about gay men, lesbian seperatism, you name it. Gay men who claimed that lesbians hid from the Stonewall riots or weren't actively fighting to achieve gay rights (they were of course). They were fighting each other, and it was stupid. It was only when they started talking about it as a community that things happened, as silly as it seems the original rainbow flag represented that. Obviously there were gay men and lesbians working together. Of course, though gender queer people were at the center of the Stonewall riots (what is little remembered is that the prime target of the cops at places like Stonewall was arresting people wearing the clothing on the opposite sex in public, which was still a crime in NY State at the time). It is one of the ironies of the LGB without T people; the other is for years gays and lesbians did not include bis, because they saw them as not really queer or whatnot; guess they have decided differently.
Then when gays started getting acceptance, we had what I call the corporate gays, the types in the business suits and whatnot, who proclaimed the problem with the gay community was that we had 'all these freaks', that people would accept gay people better if they showed the world "We are just as normal as you are", wanted the white picket fence, the SUV, whatever. It was so bad that at Stonewall 25, they did everything they could to keep it to friendly, smiling corporate gay types, trans people couldn't march in their own groups, they tried to keep out the Sirens (lesbian motorcycle group), leather people, you name it. Quite frankly it was offensive and stupid.
I guess knowing history it bothers me they can't see it, that the hatred wasn't against trans people or leather people or whatnot , the hatred was in being different, and they didn't care if it came in a ralph lauren skirt suit or in a leather harness, it was in being different. And history has shown that sidling up to the haters the way the corporate gays or the LGB without the T people are doesn't work, can't, because the hate is visceral.
In the early 30's when the Nazis came to power, upper class Jews, who had (they thought) successfully integrated into German society, blamed the anti semitism of Hitler and the Nazis on (mostly) lower class Jews in the socialist and trade unionist movements (which ironically mirrored a common trope that was used to justify anti semitic feelings, the idea that Jews were all Bolsheviks, that communism was created by Jews, you get the drift), and felt that they were safe because they, after all, were most assuredly not Socialists or trade unionists...and we know their fate. In the 19th century there were gang wars between Irish immigrants who had come here early (lot of them protestants) versus the Irish fleeing the Potato Famine. The earlier immigrants felt the later ones "gave them a bad name", was one of the justifications.
When Russian Jews came to the US in the late 19th century bc of Pogroms, earlier groups of Jews from Germany who came here in the 1840's due to anti semitism and political unrest back home, we often very negative about the newcomers, said they gave Jews a bad image with their crudeness.
And the list goes on.
The LGB but not T crowd sees themselves as fully accepted Americans on the surface, but I think deep down they understand the haters, understand the religious right, are scared shitless, so they come up with a reason for their fears, it is because of trans people, if we just eliminate them, everything will be great. There are even maga gays and lesbians out there, which to me is as stupid as "queers for Hamas" types.
The terf lesbians, the gay male haters, don't understand something like the haters, or Rod Serling, know very well (look up the Twilight Zone episode called the Monsters on Maple street), you turn a group against each other, they are easy pickings.
Franklin understood this when he said "we all have to hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang seperately". The divisions in the early 70s damn nearly killed the movement, and like today it was over ideology. Who was more gay? Feminist lesbians objecting to working with gay men because they were part of the patriarchy. Lesbians who see trans women as men who want to get into women's spaces to ogle them or molest them; back in the 70's you had some feminist lesbians arguing trans women were men realizing women were getting power and trying to steal it back *sigh*. People have to learn the lesson again that we are all we've got and fight back against the common enemy, the fear, ignorance and stupidity that has been dredged up by Trump, Maga and the religious reich. If people hate us, it isn't because the T is there or whatever , it is because we are different and make for wonderful whipping boys and girls for the right. Like with overt racism, overt signs of hatred of gays and lesbians they know wil turn most people against them, so they operate in stealth against lesbians and gays, while dumping all the vitriol on the trans community, which apparently is acceptable, sadly even to members of the lesbian and gay communities. Like watching your neighbor pouring gasoline over a tree that is on both your properties and not objecting, thinking since he is only immolating his half of the tree your half won't be affected........
I am old enough to remember the eras before same sex marriage and general acceptance of gay people. I remember the war between lesbians and gay men, lesbians accusing the gay rights movement of being all about gay men, lesbian seperatism, you name it. Gay men who claimed that lesbians hid from the Stonewall riots or weren't actively fighting to achieve gay rights (they were of course). They were fighting each other, and it was stupid. It was only when they started talking about it as a community that things happened, as silly as it seems the original rainbow flag represented that. Obviously there were gay men and lesbians working together. Of course, though gender queer people were at the center of the Stonewall riots (what is little remembered is that the prime target of the cops at places like Stonewall was arresting people wearing the clothing on the opposite sex in public, which was still a crime in NY State at the time). It is one of the ironies of the LGB without T people; the other is for years gays and lesbians did not include bis, because they saw them as not really queer or whatnot; guess they have decided differently.
Then when gays started getting acceptance, we had what I call the corporate gays, the types in the business suits and whatnot, who proclaimed the problem with the gay community was that we had 'all these freaks', that people would accept gay people better if they showed the world "We are just as normal as you are", wanted the white picket fence, the SUV, whatever. It was so bad that at Stonewall 25, they did everything they could to keep it to friendly, smiling corporate gay types, trans people couldn't march in their own groups, they tried to keep out the Sirens (lesbian motorcycle group), leather people, you name it. Quite frankly it was offensive and stupid.
I guess knowing history it bothers me they can't see it, that the hatred wasn't against trans people or leather people or whatnot , the hatred was in being different, and they didn't care if it came in a ralph lauren skirt suit or in a leather harness, it was in being different. And history has shown that sidling up to the haters the way the corporate gays or the LGB without the T people are doesn't work, can't, because the hate is visceral.
In the early 30's when the Nazis came to power, upper class Jews, who had (they thought) successfully integrated into German society, blamed the anti semitism of Hitler and the Nazis on (mostly) lower class Jews in the socialist and trade unionist movements (which ironically mirrored a common trope that was used to justify anti semitic feelings, the idea that Jews were all Bolsheviks, that communism was created by Jews, you get the drift), and felt that they were safe because they, after all, were most assuredly not Socialists or trade unionists...and we know their fate. In the 19th century there were gang wars between Irish immigrants who had come here early (lot of them protestants) versus the Irish fleeing the Potato Famine. The earlier immigrants felt the later ones "gave them a bad name", was one of the justifications.
When Russian Jews came to the US in the late 19th century bc of Pogroms, earlier groups of Jews from Germany who came here in the 1840's due to anti semitism and political unrest back home, we often very negative about the newcomers, said they gave Jews a bad image with their crudeness.
And the list goes on.
The LGB but not T crowd sees themselves as fully accepted Americans on the surface, but I think deep down they understand the haters, understand the religious right, are scared shitless, so they come up with a reason for their fears, it is because of trans people, if we just eliminate them, everything will be great. There are even maga gays and lesbians out there, which to me is as stupid as "queers for Hamas" types.
The terf lesbians, the gay male haters, don't understand something like the haters, or Rod Serling, know very well (look up the Twilight Zone episode called the Monsters on Maple street), you turn a group against each other, they are easy pickings.
Franklin understood this when he said "we all have to hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang seperately". The divisions in the early 70s damn nearly killed the movement, and like today it was over ideology. Who was more gay? Feminist lesbians objecting to working with gay men because they were part of the patriarchy. Lesbians who see trans women as men who want to get into women's spaces to ogle them or molest them; back in the 70's you had some feminist lesbians arguing trans women were men realizing women were getting power and trying to steal it back *sigh*. People have to learn the lesson again that we are all we've got and fight back against the common enemy, the fear, ignorance and stupidity that has been dredged up by Trump, Maga and the religious reich. If people hate us, it isn't because the T is there or whatever , it is because we are different and make for wonderful whipping boys and girls for the right. Like with overt racism, overt signs of hatred of gays and lesbians they know wil turn most people against them, so they operate in stealth against lesbians and gays, while dumping all the vitriol on the trans community, which apparently is acceptable, sadly even to members of the lesbian and gay communities. Like watching your neighbor pouring gasoline over a tree that is on both your properties and not objecting, thinking since he is only immolating his half of the tree your half won't be affected........
