Interview for Thesis
Questions in bold, my answers follow.
What is community?
When I talk about community I use the broadest of all terms: a group of people who interact based on a shared characteristic or trait. This characteristic can be rooted in place or proximity (such as a neighborhood), ethnic background (like Korean Americans), shared interest (perhaps stamp collecting), history (survivors of parental abuse), physical characteristic (Little People of America), personal identity (Butch/Femme), or any other characteristic. And interaction is key. Is the neighbor who never meets, socializes with, or speaks to anyone else on the block part of the neighborhood community? No, for those who share characteristic and never connect are not part of the same community.
What makes trans communities unique?
The people who are involved make this community unique, as do the unique intersections of other identities. Negotiation of community identities creates additional complications for trans people. One who identifies as a member of the trans community can nullify or complicate existence in other communities, such as transmasculine people who no longer are able to participate in lesbian spaces, despite lesbian history.
What makes trans communities necessary (are they)?
I believe trans communities are terribly vital to some people, and to a larger social justice movement for trans and gender-nonconforming people. Trans communities provide support in a way no therapy group can. Communities provide visibility for all trans people, and can establish and root individual identity. But I think it’s important to establish and encourage the right communities - communities that focus on shared history of oppression rather than identity. We need communities that don’t enforce a prescribed method of passing and belonging. We need communities that recognize differences and embrace experience over identity. We need communities that understand the intersection of multiple identities, and strive to learn from other people, other situations, and are guided by a common sense of mutual respect for all people.
How can a "community" account for the diverse needs of the body of people it represents?
It can’t encompass everything and everyone. Nothing can. That’s the nature of any community or group. The very act of defining excludes others. What must be understood is who is excluded and who included and ways to make it better while still serving the needs of the majority of people involved.
Communities carve out a road that some travel, some diverge from, and others avoid completely. The way for a particular community to serve a larger, more diverse population is to support others on their journey, even if their journey leads them from the community in question.
Are communities based on a backlash to marginalization?
Backlash? No. Response? Perhaps.
I think it’s important to realize that communities exist even in normative majority society. Just as there are white Christian male bowling leagues, there will be Asian/Pacific Islander gay youth groups. People like to associate on base levels of commonality, no matter if that commonality is associated with the majority or the marginalized.
But I do feel that some communities form as a response to visible marginalization. Trans and gender-nonconforming people have been around quite a long time, and established trans communities are a recent development. This is due to the ability to connect, medical innovations, media exploitation and technological communication advancements. People are now able to connect, share ideas, resources, and offer viewpoints different from majority society. Trans people are starting to learn that they aren’t freaks, that they have basic rights, and it is these developments that have made community more important.
People need to feel they’re worth something in order to want to connect to others.
And community feeds off itself. The larger it gets, the more visible it is. The more visible it is, the larger it gets. The larger the community gets the more it splinters, developing subsets of communities (remember the gay community of 1960s, the LGBT communities of the 90s and the emerging transgender, trans, genderqueer, FTM, MTF, etc communities) contained under larger umbrellas.
In New York, how have you seen the trans community grow/organize?
It’s hard to say. I’ve only been in New York for two years. I came expecting to find a community, but was unable to locate it. Groups convened and dissolved - a process that repeated with the regularity of meeting schedules. Most connected in a therapeutic, support context. Few (with the exception of youth groups) connected for the sheer purpose of connecting.
I can only speak for the transmasculine (TM) community, as I know little still of the emerging transfeminine community.
The TM community has begun to develop strong social networks that exist outside of organized contexts. Members of this community support each other as friends and extended family members. And people who have been stealth or closeted or removed for long periods of time are reemerging to connect to other TM people in ways they never have. It’s quite inspiring.
What’s also unique is the push to establish trans community not on shared identity but rather on a shared historical perspective. Since we define transmasculine as any person who was assigned female at birth but feels this is an incomplete or incorrect description of their gender, it allows community connection to those who may not (or may not yet) identify as male, but still understand the marginalization of being assigned female and displaying a different or more complex identity or expression. This allows a larger community of members to coalesce. Many TM people begin their gender exploration while still identifying as female, and later move to identifying as male. To provide support in gender exploration we embrace members into the community who may not identify as male, some of which may always identify as female, others who may move to identify as male. This is a profound and necessary development for trans communities.
Do you feel a sense of community?
Yes. I feel it strongly. It is sometimes overwhelming and always inspiring.
Is there any in-fighting? How have you worked to get over it?
There is in-fighting. I think the most comes from competing organizations fighting for the few small table scraps of funding and institutional and community support. Other in-fighting comes from lack of respect for people’s identities, something we’re trying to get away from, and from interpersonal conflicts. But interpersonal conflicts will arise no matter what the community.
Whats on the agenda? What's next? Idealistically? Realistically?
Good question. For the TransMasculine Community Network to grow in rank, connecting as many transmasculine people in New York as possible. I also hope to receive institutional support and recognition for the organization. Some funding would be fantastic, too.
Larger scale, I hope to expand the Network’s community concepts to a larger trans community, and establish the Trans Community Network which will encompass the TMCNetwork and a TransFeminine Community Network. Each can connect and be run by people who identify as the larger group, but both will work in coalition, side-by-side, and will progress the social movement of all trans people.
I believe ideals are realistic - believing anything else will inhibit success. I believe it’s important to work for the ideal in realistic, concrete ways.
What do you think the biggest hurdle in making a "trans" community?
Diverging from identity politics and recognizing that the oppression the trans and gender-nonconforming person experiences is part of a larger system of oppressions. Embracing difference and respecting others is not only a challenge of larger society, but also difficult for smaller societies.
But I think it’s possible, as long as we’re capable and willing to accept new challenges from others and from ourselves.