Standing Watch

Last week, The Bilerico Project welcomed their newest contributing writer, Ronald Gold, co-founder of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and a gay rights activist for decades.  What became clear, in his very first article, was that he had no concept as to just how inclusive Bilerico is.  The article, one of the most transphobic I have ever seen outside of the usual religious extremist sites and publications, was pulled shortly after it appeared, along with the hundreds of angry replies to it.

I was able to locate the main article here (Adobe Reader required, it’s free)

Normally, I would post a reply directly to the author on the site where the article appears (Bilerico).  Unfortunately, Bilerico did pull the article, offering an apology for having allowed it to appear.  So, as a result, I must respond to Mr. Gold here, rather than address the problem of bigotry towards transgender persons on one of the most frequented LGBT sites around.

Your comments to the original article, and/or my response to it, are very welcome.  It is about time we address the giant white elephant in the middle of the room that the LGBT population continues to ignore, and appropriate that it should be addressed here, a site that challenges not just hate, but the attempts to hide it.

Dear Mr. Gold;

While it is unfortunate that you chose as your first, and it appears last, article as contributor to Bilerico an unscientific attack on the transgender population, I do thank you for revealing your widely held views, regardless of how I may disagree with them or find them offensive. You have exposed the giant white elephant in the middle of the room, the one most would prefer not to see, but is none the less ever present. I’m not quite sure which I find more offensive, your attacks on transgender persons as a whole, or Bilerico’s attempt to deny such bigotry exists by quickly removing your article, and in doing so quelling the inevitable debate it sparked.

I understand you are one of the original founders of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and that your actions in particular were instrumental in removing sexuality from the list of mental illnesses and disorders, thereby removing much of the legal and social stigma attached to such a classification. I have never agreed, however, with your long held position that sexuality is a choice, preferring to believe the evidence I witness, and the science, that says otherwise, rather than an unproven opinion largely held by religious extremists who hold that the universe orbits Earth, that the total destruction of our planet is a necessary step in our spiritual evolution, etc.

Here’s a little about me…

I was born intersex, having the genitalia and internal reproductive structures of both male and female. In the time I was born in, this presented huge challenges, and the medical community in their ignorance exploited the fears and ignorance of my parents and forced them to choose which gender I should be surgically altered to. My parents chose poorly, and the doctors surgically altered me to be strictly male, in what can best be described as a botched job, leaving all the internal structures intact. This would have profound physical consequences later in life for me.

From my earliest memories, I knew I was female, and I can remember much further back than you may comprehend or are willing to believe. I may not have been able to articulate it early on, but I knew something was not “quite right” with who I believed myself to be, and the growing conflict of that with the perceptions of others. As I grew older, I would learn the consequences of “being different,” as my parents tried to beat the girl out of me. That both these individuals should never have been allowed to procreate, or even be allowed access to children ever, did not help the situation.

I would eventually be removed from the home, and placed in residential boys schools, with the label “emotionally disturbed” attached. I have no doubt I was by this point, after years of physical and emotional abuse so extreme that even at age three I knew it was wrong. But, the label wasn’t applied because of the resulting post traumatic stress disorder, or my terror whenever I was near adults. I earned the label because I looked, behaved, and self-identified as a girl. Again, this would lead to abuse, albeit it of a very different kind. Older boys would regularly sexually abuse me. The adults who were supposed to protect me? They would do everything they could to destroy me psychologically, and to make me into what they wanted.

At age 14, the consequences of our family’s dirty little secret, one never shared with anyone outside my parents and grandparents, would come home to roost in a very dangerous way. As I began puberty, the botched nature of the surgical gender assignment would prove potentially fatal, as I began menstruating, and the flow had nowhere to go. I was admitted to the hospital suffering from toxic shock syndrome, and nearly died. It would be three weeks in the hospital, to determine what caused my illness, and to recover.

As you can imagine, years of brainwashing by this time had taken its toll. I knew, from the physical, sexual, and emotional violence I had grown up with, along with media portrayals and exploitations of those who were gender variant, that I had to sink deep into “the closet” as it were. To do otherwise would have proven every bit as fatal as the new medical problems had the potential to be. I eventually submitted to male hormone therapy, both to suppress menstruation, and to prevent the possibility of asexual reproduction. Despite this medical intervention, who I was as a person never changed. The resulting social consequences, which began before you managed to at least get sexuality out of the DSM, grew. When word got out, as it always does, about what was really going on, I ran away from not just the consequences, but who I was.

I would spend the next 11 years in deep denial, trying to prove to the world I could be what others wanted me to be, to live their lie, to be the illusion they wanted. In the end, I fooled no one. In the end, my own sense of honesty, of decency, prevented me from being who others wanted me to be. In the end, after years of denial, depression, anxiety, and one miserable failure after another to be something I never was, I decided to be myself, and just flow with it.

And that’s who I’ve been since. Medically, I am intersex and transgender. Now, I understand this may be confusing to someone such as you, who has a fairly narrow view of what gender is or is not. But, since I still retain the internal anatomical structures of both genders, I am intersex. However, because I identify as female, and not with the male gender surgically assigned to when I was a week or so old, I am also considered transgender, for medical reasons as well. I personally see myself as just another human being, a woman trying to get through a life dominated by a patriarchal system.

I, of course, could care less about medical designations, or other such labels. I’m a woman, a feminist, and a progressive liberal that makes Bill Clinton and Barack Obama look like conservative Republicans. I also happen to be a lesbian, which I imagine now has your brain in a complete spin. It’s not that I am incapable of sexual relations with men, they just don’t “do it” for me, beyond relieving some physical needs. My preference for women is centered on more than just the physical, and includes a spiritual and emotional centered need as well.

I know you will never believe this, but I did not choose to be intersex, nor transgender, nor lesbian. Just as those who are anatomically normal (as defined by what is most common), cisgender, and heterosexual, I simply am who I am, and am now completely content with that. It would take me decades to reach that point, a level of self-awareness and self-acceptance most enjoy far earlier in life.

Which brings me to your article on Bilerico…

First of all, to equate transsexual or transgender persons with drag performers is patently offensive. Trans-persons are those whose anatomical or surgically assigned sex does not conform with their gender identity, whereas drag performers are typically cisgender (their anatomical sex and gender identity are not in conflict). In fact, most transsexuals and transgender persons, particularly those like myself with a feminist bent, typically take offense with drag performers, both in the way women are portrayed in a disparaging way, and how such performances reflect on transsexuals and transgender persons themselves. For you to equate the two vastly different issues belies your complete lack of understanding or knowledge about those who are gender variant.

Second, I understand you are on some sort of a crusade of sorts, to deny the obvious and claim that sexuality is a matter of personal choice, a moral decision as you put it. That your hypothesis dovetails nicely with the claims of the position of religious extremists (who, like you, ignore and reject science that doesn’t fit their world view), and is widely held by the “restorative therapy” groups who think they can “cure” homosexuality seems to be lost on you. But, now, you want to erase the lines of gender, claiming that one can simply choose which gender to be on a whim? Using that logic, you should quite easily be able to live your life as a lesbian woman, or a heterosexual man, and have no regrets whatsoever. Your logic also shows your shallow and narrow minded views about human relationships, including what makes us who we are and how we relate that to society at large. Do you honestly believe, if this was just a matter of choice, like choosing which pair of socks to wear, that I would choose to place my very existence and risk, and that I would willingly choose isolation, humiliation, and the condemnation of those like yourself?

As for your suggestion that parents should not seek help in dealing with their child’s behavior when they themselves do not understand what is going on, especially if the child displays gender-related behaviors inconsistent with their anatomical sex, what exactly is your qualifications to make such a decision? Personally, I would recommend that they do, if nothing else than to rule out being transsexual or transgender (if that is the case), or to recommend a course of action that is best for the individual child.

I would ask the same about your qualifications to make decisions for others on seeking medical consultation or therapy to deal with gender issues that cannot be dealt with on one’s own. Whenever anyone is dealing with complicated emotional issues that causes them distress, whether depression, anxiety, or gender issues, they should seek the help of those they feel best qualified to help them deal with those issues. Failure to do so could lead to very tragic consequences, and not just for the individual involved, as we’ve seen lately in the news.

And, while in the early years of research and treatment of gender identity issues was ripe with patriarchal gender-role stereotypes (a transwoman wearing pants was considered unqualified for treatment, for instance), the medical community by and large has learned from those errors, and has learned to separate gender from sexuality, and has learned to apply more liberal interpretations of gender presentation using overall societal patterns, not just patriarchal expectations. While I have any number of issues as to how the medical community, particularly in the United States, addresses the needs of individual transpersons, the patriarchal bigotry is far less prevalent than it once was.

Also, I seriously doubt you read Jan Morris’ book Conundrum, given your off-handed and very misogynistic interpretation of the reasons behind her need for acceptance by others of her as who she was, rather than what others expected her to be. Your insistence on referring to her as a male clearly exposes your absolute intolerance and bigotry not just towards Morris, but towards all those who do not adhere to your interpretation of gender.

As for your claims that your article does not mean you do not support protections and equality for transgender persons, well, I don’t buy it. The ill-informed claims you make clearly dovetail nicely with those opposed not just to protections and rights for transgender persons, but for gays and lesbians as well.

And, while I agree that serious change is needed within the medical profession when it comes to dealing with those with gender identity issues, my reasons are quite different from yours, because you don’t believe in gender to begin with. I believe the “one-size-fits-all” modality for determining supportive and medical therapies and treatments, up to and including surgical intervention, needs to be dropped for one that considers the needs and experiences of the individual, just as all other medical decisions are made for all other patients. Personally, I consider the current model used more profit oriented than patient oriented.

Despite my criticism and anger towards your article, and the subsequent harm it will likely cause, not to mention the way the whole issue was swept under the rug, I would like to thank you for exposing your widely held bigotry (defined as ignorance combined with irrational fear). At the very least, you have provided us with a forum to educate those willing to see the world through someone else’s eyes. With any luck, most who hold to this bigotry will see it for what it is, and ultimately reject it in favor of the truth.

I do, however, feel sorry for you. I had a great deal of respect for the work you did with the NGLTF, despite disagreements I may have held towards your views on sexuality. But that respect is gone now, given the utter contempt you have demonstrated towards not just me, but those like me as well. It is my sincerest hope that what you have done will not harm others, but I know different. In the end, your one article on Bilerico will overshadow your life’s work, calling into question everything you have said and done. That one article will be exploited by those who seek to harm not just those like me, but those like you as well.

We can only hope that harm will not last long, as those of us you have attacked mobilize to it with actual facts you have clearly chosen to ignore.