Queer on queer action!
Gentle readers, if you've missed my normal outspoken tirades, then you're in for a treat today. I do wish that I could describe a steamy story of queer on queer physical action, akin to those Hustler stories of girl on girl action. But this action is rhetorical.
A recent post on postqueer hit a nerve with me. An excerpt from Steven Miller's reaction to TransAmerica, at Independent Gay Forum.It did drive home, however, just how different transgendered people are from gay people. Sorry, but the desire to obliterate your born-gender identity (and, specifically, your detested sexual equipment) in order to live, usually, as a heterosexual has little to do with the gay experience-or simply with same-sex attraction. But "LGBT" activism thrives on obscuring this difference as if it were merely one of degree, further confusing the public regarding the nature of homosexuality.
My reaction: In a very wrong way, Mr. Miller's division between those who accept their "born-gender identity" and those who reject it, with gays and heteros falling in the former and transgender falling in the latter, does represent a little victory in how (some) gays perceive their relationship to gendered society. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that gay men battled with internal feelings that they were betraying their gender by being gay.
That said, it's tragic how quickly Mr. Miller forgets this past and how little he's learned from it. His jump from including gays with the majority in appropriate gender performance to excluding transgenders from that sacred majority is just bigoted. At a fundamental level, Mr. Miller's claim to be an activist mixed with his bigotry toward transgenders "further confus[es] the public regarding the nature of homosexual[s]." We're not bigots, despite his example. (I hope.)
A recent post on postqueer hit a nerve with me. An excerpt from Steven Miller's reaction to TransAmerica, at Independent Gay Forum.It did drive home, however, just how different transgendered people are from gay people. Sorry, but the desire to obliterate your born-gender identity (and, specifically, your detested sexual equipment) in order to live, usually, as a heterosexual has little to do with the gay experience-or simply with same-sex attraction. But "LGBT" activism thrives on obscuring this difference as if it were merely one of degree, further confusing the public regarding the nature of homosexuality.
My reaction: In a very wrong way, Mr. Miller's division between those who accept their "born-gender identity" and those who reject it, with gays and heteros falling in the former and transgender falling in the latter, does represent a little victory in how (some) gays perceive their relationship to gendered society. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that gay men battled with internal feelings that they were betraying their gender by being gay.
That said, it's tragic how quickly Mr. Miller forgets this past and how little he's learned from it. His jump from including gays with the majority in appropriate gender performance to excluding transgenders from that sacred majority is just bigoted. At a fundamental level, Mr. Miller's claim to be an activist mixed with his bigotry toward transgenders "further confus[es] the public regarding the nature of homosexual[s]." We're not bigots, despite his example. (I hope.)