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Today I woke up phenomenally early. For some reason my irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) was in play while I slept — which is all I’ll say about that. I was oddly having a vivid dream as well about coming out as trans in my teens instead of my forties, and forgetting my High School class schedule.
So, an interesting way to wake up.
So I turned on MSNBC to Morning Joe to follow the news. One of the first things I heard about this morning was President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I had the same thoughts as the hosts as the hosts even before they expressed their thoughts: 1.) What exactly has the President done to merit that award at this point in his Presidency? — and 2.) this raises the foreign policy expectations of the President for the future to fairly high heights. Of course too, NASA shot the Moon too. All I can say is I’m glad we didn’t use Marvin-The-Martian’s Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
I also heard, at the top of the 4:00 AM PDT hour, how the House had passed hate crime legislation for “gays and lesbians.” Shortly thereafter, I watched the CNN video attached to Pam’s diary How I ended up videotaped for AC360 today, and listened to both Anderson Cooper and the reporter in the segment’s header — Randi Kaye — repeatedly use of the phrase “gays and lesbians.” No “bisexual”; no “transgender” — No B or T in the opening reporting header for the segment.
As we’ve pointed out frequently here at Pam’s House Blend, the federal hate crime legislation covers sexual orientation and gender identity. That means the bill covers the entire broad spectrum of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
I won’t speak for the Bisexual Subcommunity, but I will say the Transgender Subcommunity has worked hard for full inclusion in federal civil rights legislation; we’ve worked very hard over the years to make sure that language that includes the broad spectrum of the LGBT community.
Words matter. If media doesn’t include bisexual and transgender people as part of the LGBT issue constituency, then part of the broad spectrum of people who are actually impacted by the current swath of federal civil rights legislation are improperly erased from public discussion.
I left this comment on AC360 Blog entry entitled Sound Off: Your comments 10/8/09:
I’m one of Pam Spaulding’s “baristas” — I’m one of the front page bloggers who regularly posts to the blog “Pam’s House Blend.” I’m a transsexual; I identify as transgender.It really irritated me when I saw the segment on “gay and lesbian” disappointment with Obama Administration progress on “gay and lesbian” civil rights issues. The community is the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. The phrase “gender identity” — which in definition in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) includes gender expression — is included in both the federal hate crime legislation and ENDA.
My trans peers and my existence within the broader LGBT community is being erased by how CNN and other news organizations are covering LGBT issues; is being erased from public discussion of LGBT civil rights legislation.
Please do my trans peers and I the favor of not scripting us out of the LGBT civil rights movement. We exist as part of the broader LGBT community, and it’s somewhat erroneous to report on “gay and lesbian” issues without including “bisexual and transgender” as part of the issue constituency that’s also impacted by federal legislation.
Maybe it’s partially the IBS speaking, but there is something irritating about too frequently watching my peers and I being erased from the public discussion of broad LGBT issues.
~~~~~~
Part 2 will be a piece on erasure of subcommunity concerns regarding ENDA.
7 Comments
Trans inclusivenessis definately an issue. Its one that the mainstream media does not think about because most LG spokespeople do not focus on it either.
As for not talking about “bisexuals,” techically bisexuals are irrelevant in political and legal discourse since one way or another they fall within the spectrum of straight, L,G or T.
The media (and government for that matter) likes to reduce things to their simplest form. Thus bisexuals get folded into one of the other categories.
They just don’t see any differenceWhen I was a kid, during the last Ice Age, the “common wisdom” was that gay men all “want to be women.” As I’ve mentioned here before, I even heard that same crap from the priest who tried to molest me.
Unfortunately, that attitude is still alive–in the media as well as in society at large. It may not be quite an active meme, but it’s still there on a subliminal level. Despite the presence on the national scene of such “butch” gay men as Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, the perception persists that there is something inherently “feminine” about gay men.
What I’m suggesting here is that these reporters and commentators think they are including trans people, because in their minds MTF gender reassignment is the logical consequence of gayness. (This attitude leaves lesbians out of the picture entirely, as well as FTM men, but we all know that women “don’t count” in the public/media mindset.)
They’re learning, and things are getting better, but it’s happening with agonizing slowness. As my old friend Billy Hileman, co-chair of the ’93 MOW, says, “Mainstream media always get our issues wrong, no matter how well-meaning they are.” We all have to keep correcting them, or they’ll never get it right.
The true meaning of stealth?I hate this, we get bashed the most often and violently yet we are the first to be thrown out of the life raft.
Yes, it is a life raft if you are trans.
As if on cueWithin the last 10 minutes, MSNBC did a bit about the upcoming speech – including Obama’s record thus far and mentioning the House passage of the hate crime bill.
Of course DADT was mentioned, as was DOMA.
ENDA?
HopeNope.Number of times that T was mentioned???
Zero*
* This footnote involves the one indirect mention of ‘T’: In a chyron. And what did the chyron say?
Insult to injury: substantive absence; token mention in the context of a lie.
What a Friday, eh?
Both a blessing and a curseOn the one hand, transsexuals make up %0.03 of the population. Even if you go an order of magnitude higher to %0.3, we just aren’t that common. Funny then, that more communities and companies promote transsexual equality than do sexuality equality (see Bilerico’s “incrementalists’ dirty little secret”). It seems that we walk a fine line due to our history in the late 20th century, between becoming Jerry Springer fodder and becoming invisible. Best tactic? Education. Educate the politicians, educate the congregations, educate everyone you know. Parallel tactic is to “ride along” with the GLB’s since the aspect which sets them apart does so because they transgress gender norms (who then is driving whom, I ask?). The “T” in this context stands for trans-gender and truly includes anyone that does not subscribe to the center of the bell curve.
Question: Would you still be able to drink your coffee if the barista informed you about her IBS while handing it to you? ;)
I got more and more angry . . .yesterday as I saw more and more gays and lesbians retweetng the AP headline that the House had passed a bill to expand hate crimes to cover “gays,” with nary a mention of the true scope of the bill. Even when I pointed out this omission to one person, I got no response. I believe that some people erase us intentionally, but most probably just don’t have a clue what they’re doing. As sarasnavel said, education is the only solution. We have to speak up when we see these omissions and make sure that the world, and especially the LGB community, knows that we’re here and we will no longer just sit in a corner and say “thank you” for whatever protections they care to give us.
And thanks again, Autumn, for all that you do to make sure we can’t be ignored any longer.
Understand something *very clearly*Saying just gay and lesbian is misgendering transfolks, and conflating sexual orientation with gender identity.
IT’s the sort of thing that, intentionally or not, creates mistrust, enflames anger, and get’s peeps like me to forget to write part five of a story.
That grumbling in AZ is likely me…