“I need to watch things die from a good, safe distance. You all feel the same way so why can’t you just admit it? You all need it, too - don’t lie.” – Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan
The only thing more captivating to consumerist culture than seeing someone succeed is watching someone fail. We thrive on someone else’s undoing - and we’re drama gluttons. Britney Spears’ tragic unraveling was like Sunday brunch at Golden Corral and, at one point, Lindsay Lohan threatened to corner the Unforgettable Struggles market. Amanda Bynes’ situation has become so reminiscent of Randy Quaid’s performance in Independence Day that we seem to have collectively swept it under the rug altogether. It’s not glamorous anymore; it’s just sad.
Despite our obsession with success, struggling is rarely rewarded in modern America. We are a people who only value hardship retroactively and only on condition that the overarching story is deemed a success. You can be fat, but only if, at some point - and hopefully soon, you commit to shaping yourself up and slimming yourself down. If you’re good enough at it we’ll even put you on television. Prime time. We’ll congratulate you on your ability and desire to conform to standards of beauty that become increasingly more narrowly defined and more obsessively restrictive.
We are fearmongers. We like to feel like we’re the last line of defense between sacred civilization and total destruction. Ebola is only the latest scourge to capture the public’s ongoing fascination with the next End of the American Way. But let us not forget how transgender people using the restroom is still going to rock civilization to its very core and marriage equality will inevitably degenerate into interspecies wedlock. Or how sharing buildings and public accommodations with black people has wrought untold havoc on the very fabric of society.
We don’t like change. We don’t do different very well. We defend the status quo as if it were our divine charge, our sole purpose for existence. We cheer for the underdog but hedge our bets on the favorite. We romanticize the past and we glamorize the future. We promote unattainable ideals of youth and beauty while hiding our elderly and making disease and affliction as sexy as possible under the guise of charity and altruism. We like our men built like the tanks they drive - and in a perfectly fitted pinstripe suit, no doubt. We want our women sexed up, beat down, and hanging on her tank-driving man as if her very existence depends on it. Our entertainment industry is a frantic contest of who can come up with the most badass, witty way of delivering our apple pie and straight pride American way of life to the citizens of the world, en masse.
“Give us stereotypes or give them death!” we shout from the safety of our furiously clacking keyboards.
And far too often, that’s exactly what happens. From Harvey Milk to Brandon Teena to Matthew Shephard and so many others whose lives were tragically ended by fury and blind hatred, our American LGBT history is all too full of violence and death. From cowardly assassinations to countless grisly midnight rendezvous, our story is fraught with hatred, discrimination, heartache, and disappointment. Considering all of this, one would hope we could stand united in our cause to be recognized as people who deserve to be treated the same as everyone else, not because we are different or special or extra deserving, but because we are human beings. One would hope that we would understand, as a community, that we face more than enough hatred and bullying from our straight pride and White Jesus counterparts and that we would recognize that there is no need to add to it. Sadly, this is not the case. When people are maligned, mistreated, cheated, and generally discarded so completely, the lengths to which they're willing to go to feel anything good about themselves is astounding. I understand it but I cannot ascribe to it. The ends never justify the means. Infighting and jockeying for position on the Oppression Olympics medal podium only lends credence to misguided stereotypes and bullshit lies.
One internet user, Jacob23, had this to say in response to a recent episode of public infighting within the transgender community. He writes:
“Trans activists are insane. They use politics as a way of distracting themselves from their many emotional and mental problems. As long as they are constantly on the attack against an endless roster of enemies, they never have to look at themselves. If that is how they want to spend their lives, I have no problem with it. But it is a disaster for LGB people to identify ourselves with this loony bin. Acquiescing to the fiction of “LGBT” is the worst mistake that LGBs ever made.”
Another contributor courteously stated, “the gay community needs to kick these Ts to the curb. Let them form their own organizations and movement before the damage they are doing to ours becomes irreparable.”
Sylvia Rivera, along with many other trans individuals who were on the frontlines when the LGBT rights movement kicked the closet door in like the proverbial shot heard around the world, would probably have a few things to say to this idea that the transgender community somehow appropriated a strictly LGB movement, how we don’t belong, how we’re little more than a hindrance and a burden to the advancement of the LGB community. It’s easy to forget what the bottom feels like once you’ve finally made it to the top. The tallest buildings and the biggest problems all look trivial and inconsequential from the safety and comfort of a penthouse perch.
The transgender movement is today where the gay and lesbian movement was thirty years ago. And in those thirty years we, as a society, have failed ourselves. We’ve raised two generations on a steady diet of historical whitewashing and spoon-fed entitlement and we’re beginning to reap the consequences of their ignorance and apathy. Coupled with the corruption run rampant amongst Wall Street and corporate America, we’ve given way to a disenfranchised society that doesn’t fully grasp the power of their voice. Everyone in America knows someone who is gay, lesbian, or bisexual. It’s just a fact of life. And whether or not you agree with it is really a moot point anymore. Such is not the case with the transgender community. We are the perverts and pedophiles that gay men were at the height of the AIDS epidemic - and we are treated as such.
Sure, we don’t have all the same struggles. “Coming out” is a ready example of both the commonality and the differences in our struggles. The transgender community is subjected to a level of scrutiny the LGB community will never have the pleasure of experiencing. Our coming out is more than an “I’m a lesbian!” cake left on the counter for mom to see or finally telling grandma at the family reunion that you’re best friend, John, is also your husband. We face the same kinds of discrimination and shunning from family, friends, and society, but our coming out compared to that of LGB people is more gradual, more involved, more expensive, and more encompassing. Many things about us and our lives, outside of our sexuality, intrinsically change and it can be a brutal learning curve for some, especially those of us who transition in middle or late adulthood.
We have so many similar struggles - far more in common than not. Much of America still discriminates against LGB people, making it difficult, if not altogether impossible, to find adequate housing, steady employment, medical access, or even justice for hate crimes. The transgender community experiences these very same obstacles and oftentimes at much higher rates. Families still disown and turn out LGB children in tragically startling numbers, resulting in extremely high rates of depression, homelessness, human trafficking, and even suicide. Trans people also fall prey to these same epidemics and for the very same reason - for being honest about who we are. Until recently, it was unlawful to be an LGB person in the American military. Many people don’t realize that the repeal of DADT did not include gender identity, only sexual orientation. Some don’t yet understand that gender identity and sexual orientation are separate concepts entirely.
Collectively, we’ve queered the traditional and oppressive views on gender and sexuality - what it looks like, what it feels like, what it is to live this life as a person who is simply seeking acceptance for being the person they were born to be. The tapestry of American culture is richer, more colorful if you will, because of this and for that we deserve recognition. Since the Stonewall and Compton Cafeteria riots we’ve been in this fight together. It’d be a shame for our brothers and sisters in the LGB community to cut and run now that their principal interests are largely taking root across the nation, admittedly to varying degrees of success. I have your back until the end and I hope that you would have mine just as long, not just until it becomes inconvenient for you.
The transgender community is a diverse community, as diverse - if not more so - than any other demographic and community in America. Just as many Christians do not wish to be identified with those ministers who would advocate for the rounding up and slaughtering of homosexuals, many trans people do not wish to be represented by some of the more destructive voices that come from within the community. Again, the ends never justify the means. As a whole, we are a rich and resilient part of society with unique perspectives and stories and when we are seen for who we truly are, instead of caricatures of boogeymen, it’s clear that many of us are not only an intrinsic part of the LGB community but that transgender and gender nonconforming people are a part of society everywhere. And the only way we, as a society, are ever going to be able to move forward is through solidarity, acceptance, and cooperation.
