Standing Watch

In part one of this series, I explored the reasons for writing this series to begin with, mainly the resurgence of transphobia amongst gays and lesbians, primarily by those who began that process decades ago.  I was also quite upset at the brutal murder of yet another human being, and the way that human being was treated by media and government officials, trivializing her death for no other reason than she was a transwoman.

In part two, I went into the historical pattern of transphobia by gays and lesbians, which is often more insidious and overt than what is seen amongst heterosexuals, save for the treatment of transgender persons by radical extremists within the gay and lesbian population.

The most obvious consequences were obvious in the second part, political consequences.  The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is perhaps the best known example of how transphobia amongst gay and lesbian political leaders has negatively impacted the LGBT movement as a whole.  In the effort to pass legislation known as the Employment Non Discrimination Act, HRC has repeatedly worked against the equality of LGBT persons within the workplace by repeatedly injecting their transphobia.  Early on, HRC openly objected to any workplace protections for transgender persons.  That has morphed into “political expediency,” the last minute dropping of transgender persons in 2007, claiming they couldn’t get ENDA passed with such protections.  The result has been no progress at all on equality in the workplace at the federal level.

At the state level, while roughly half of all states have protections in the workplace for gays and lesbians, only about ten percent have protections for transgender persons.  This has left a giant loophole in the laws, which allow employers to discriminate against workers who are gay or lesbian, by claiming that their gender presentation was inconsistent with community norms (males too effeminate, females too masculine).  This becomes obvious when one looks at unemployment figures, though such statistics are hard to come by and largely ignored by legal and political authorities.  In states where all LGBT persons are protected in the workplace, unemployment is consistent with the overall population.  In states where gays and lesbians are protected, but not the transgender, unemployment amongst gays and lesbians is significantly higher.  Of course, in states where there are no protections for and LGBT persons, LGBT population is 4 to twelve times higher than the state average.

The unfortunate consequence of such political failures, however, has not translated into changes of political leadership.  Instead, it has led to a further scapegoating, at the behest of those leaders, of transgender persons.  Transgender persons in the last few years have found themselves banned from certain businesses across the nation that cater to gays and lesbians, which in turn leads to protests and boycotts that hurt those same businesses, negatively impacting all LGBT persons at a time when the economy demands we all work together.  This in turn starts the whole cycle over again, deepening the divisions that keep LGBT persons from working together for the original goal from that fateful summer in 1969, equality for all persons.

One simple fact throughout history is this: not one oppressed group ever gain equality by oppressing another group.

One can apply the above example to any other segment of life, be it housing, education, health care, marriage, etc, and I’m sure those reading this can come up with their own examples as to how this vicious cycle plays out.  41 years after Stonewall, those who sought to play leadership roles to promote their own self interests, mainly remaining well paid leaders or popular authority figures, continue to promote an agenda of transphoba that has accomplished nothing beyond increasing their wealth and popularity.

Doing what is right is hard work, and rarely popular at first.  I will go into how to break out of this cycle in the next, and likely final, part to this sub-series.  Until then, keep this in mind…

We must each treat others with the respect and dignity we demand for ourselves.  The Golden Rule applies more now than anywhere else, for others will indeed to to us what we do to them.  Oppress others, and you will live in oppression yourself.