Bil, while there's stuff like this being published in The Advocate without rebuttal, we have a long way to go.

It's not just a Loony fringe either, there are mainstream voices saying the same things, albeit with more "dog whistling" rather than explicit calls for moral extermination. That latter phrase is from Janice Raymond's "Transsexual Empire" which is still the only Lesbian Theory work on Transsexuality.

The book is not the most damaging writing that Raymond has penned. Far worse is a United States federal government commissioned study in the early 1980’s on the topic of federal aid for transsexual people seeking rehabilitation and health services. This paper, not well publicized, effectively eliminated federal and some states aid for indigent and imprisoned transsexuals. It had a further impact on private health insurance which followed the federal government’s lead in disallowing services to transsexual patients for any treatment remotely related to being transsexual, including breast cancer or genital cancer, as that was deemed to be a consequence of treatment for transsexuality.

- From Lynn Conway's site

Trans* people have died as the result. And it continues. Look at Wisconsin's Inmate Sex Change prevention Act

Kallas said patients who are taken off hormones typically need counseling, drugs and hospital stays instead, suicide treatments that are more expensive than the hormones, which cost $675 to $1,600 a year. Kallas said he did not know of any other medical treatment that the state Legislature has banned in prisons.

It would never occur to you that the main argument for giving you necessary medical treatment is that it's cheaper than the cost of a funeral. That's an example of Cis privilege, but I digress.

My point is... what GLB(t) groups have made a fuss about this? Wisconsin has had full civil rights for GLBs for what, 33 years? Trans* are still waiting for the GLB movement to "come back" for them.

There's a history here. Now sometimes you have to forgive and forget, and if it wasn't still going on, we could draw a line under it. But it is, and so we can't.

My note to Chris Chrain:

So naturally, you'd support an ENDA that didn't protect Lesbians, on the grounds that "They're the ones with the gall to suggest that we shouldn't be protected in the workplace until they can as well."

If that isn't your position - why not?

I'll support an ENDA with or without Trans provisions. It's a matter of Human Rights.

But your views are repugnant to me. Unless you can say that you will work just as hard after a non-trans ENDA is passed for a new trans-inclusive one, as you did before. Somehow, I don't think that's your intention.

Chris Crain's reply:

Zoe Brain, sorry my views are repugnant to you; yours are just nonsensical to me. ENDA covers protection on the basis of sexual orientation, not on the basis of "gay male," so you can't exclude any sexual orientation, whether it be lesbian, gay male, bisexual or straight

I also don't buy into the notion that we owe it to you to work as hard for trans-ENDA as our own. Where the hell does that come from? You certainly won't get there by trying to hold our ENDA hostage.

So much for "coming back".

We need to not just air these problems, painful though they may be, with lots of finger-pointing and guilty parties reacting with aggression so they don't feel guilty.

We need to fix them, take a leaf from the South African "Truth and Reconciliation Commission". Forget the Blame Game. The trouble is, rabid transphobia is still alive and well in the GLB movement.

How we overcome that is to remember that we are we.

Helping each other overcome is very difficult - more difficult than overcoming it ourselves. But overcoming it ourselves is the first step.

When I am able to look at the street hustler, lesbian separatist, occasional crossdresser, circuit partygoer, married bisexual, suburban lesbian couple, transgender sex worker, and all the other people as people like me, I can model that to others.

And yes, even though Janice Raymond sees me as a part of the patriarchy trying to destroy feminism, I have to care about her. Even though Barney Frank keeps talking about "men in women's bathrooms", I have to care about him. Even though HRC doesn't see my ability to hold a job or have a place to live as a priority, I have to care about the people in HRC. I don't have to agree with their ideas, but I have to recognize them as people in the same struggle I am in.

And, like it or not, I need to care about straight people - even those who attack me. I don't have to agree with them, but I have to care about them. Rick Santorum is a human being, just like me. James Hartline is a human being, just like me. Phyllis Schlafly is a human being, just like me.

In doing so, my hope is that others will stop seeing me as mentally ill, a freak, or confused. My hope is that others will stop being embarrassed or annoyed by my existence, or feeling that I somehow "hurt the cause".

Of course, I'm not perfect at this, and sometimes I lash out. More often I offer cynical and sarcastic comments. I'm a work in progress.

I happen to be working toward ordination in the United Church of Christ. My dream is of creating space for faith communities of people who do not feel safe in traditional churches. People often ask me why I would be a part of something (Christianity) that condemns me. Yet the condemnation is not from Jesus, it is from people who claim to follow Jesus. The actual Jesus of the Bible restored people to community, reaching out to those the religious leaders wouldn't touch. It is that message, the message or reuniting people and bridging those gaps between us, that calls me to ministry. There should be no one turned away from community - whether it is a community of faith or civil community.

Of course, Jesus got killed. And I don't expect to escape emotional - and perhaps physical - harm in trying to live out this idea that we ought to care for each other even when we don't like each other. I expect some will take what help I offer, then turn around and ignore - or take advantage of - me. But I'm not going to make any of our lives better by putting more negative energy into this mix of people.

Sure, I can call out what I think is misguided policy or ideas that lack basis in fact. But I am still going to donate to HIV/AIDS and Breast Cancer research. I am still going to stand up for the rights of sex workers and guys who meet in public restrooms. I am still going to stand up for people to be recognized by their self-identified gender and for marriages to be recognized no matter with what genders (if any) the parties identify.

I do this because we are people. When I think of all of us as "we", there is no "them". And maybe, when I do this, someone will join me. And maybe, when that someone does this, someone else will join us. And maybe one day the Queer Community - including those of every religion and those of no religion - will teach people who call themselves Christians about how to live like Jesus: reaching out to all other human beings.

Integrated spaces are very important, we won't get the LGBTQ internal education we need without them. This blog, for example, is one of the most integrated LGBTQ online spaces I know of. I don't think I've ever seen so many trans folk and so many cis folk who haven't spent time in trans community all together.

But having some more isolated spaces can be important to. Spaces like this alone wouldn't be quite enough for me to get my trans community fix. A space doesn't need to be trans only, but trans focused spaces that is say, 80% or more trans people, have been very important to getting the support, connection, and sense of community presence that I don't usually get in LGBTQ spaces (even the integrated ones).

I think the real goal is to have more integrated spaces than we currently have, and to have everyone spend time in integrated spaces -- even if they also spend time in more isolated spaces.

Its certain they will.

When someone is right there, its a lot harder to depersonalize them.

And that's what is done to us. Its why those of us who choose to be out should also choose to be vocal.

Oh Yes, Bil. I am thinking of my neighbor, Kelly, in Provincetown. She was a great friend who just happened to be a lesbian. Our connection went far beyond sexual identity.

Hey, it could be worse. You could be visible like trans women:

* Romanticized autobiographies (Second Serve, Conundrum, Christine Jorgensen A Personal Autobiography, to name a few)

* Trashy documentaries that emphasize trans women's femininity as artificial and affected - lots of shots of putting on makeup, high heels, emphasis on talk about the trappings of womanhood, not so much on the realities of being a woman

* Movies that emphasize the above (TransAmerica)

* The stereotypes of the pitiable trans woman who "looks like a man in a dress" or the deceiver trans woman who "is indistinguishable from a cis woman," who is portrayed as a victimizer by tricking men into having sex with her...and is the basis for the defenses used when men kill us.

* Feminist polemics calling for the downfall of trans women everywhere, or at least mark us as evil and sinful in some way (The Transsexual Empire, Pantomime Dames)

* Porn, porn, and more porn based on sensationalism like "Look, a woman with a man's genitals!"

* Used as tokens in anti-civil rights campaigning: "Giving civil rights to transsexuals would mean letting rapists put on dresses and hide in the restrooms."

* Approximately one murdered a month, complete with news stories emphasizing birth names and using masculine pronouns.

Just being visible isn't a privilege, and it certainly hasn't done trans women any favors.

That said, Father Tony should've acknowledged trans men, too.

Thaniel, I apologize for snapping at you - I was mad about something related, but I didn't need to bring it here.

Cisgender means the sex lines up with what society would expect in terms of gender, so a male-bodied man is cisgender.

Cis-gender privilege :

The Non-Trans Privilege Checklist

1) Strangers don’t assume they can ask me what my genitals look like and how I have sex.

2) My validity as a man/woman/human is not based upon how much surgery I’ve had or how well I pass as a non-Trans person.

3) When initiating sex with someone, I do not have to worry that they won’t be able to deal with my parts or that having sex with me will cause my partner to question his or her own sexual orientation.

4) My politics are not questioned based on the choices I make with regard to my body.

5) I don’t have to hear so have you had THE surgery? or oh, so you’re REALLY a [incorrect sex or gender]? each time I come out to someone.

6) I am not expected to constantly defend my medical decisions.

7) Strangers do not ask me what my real name [birth name] is and then assume that they have a right to call me by that name.

8) People do not disrespect me by using incorrect pronouns even after they’ve been corrected.

9) I do not have to worry that someone wants to be my friend or have sex with me in order to prove his or her hipness or good politics.

10) I do not have to worry about whether I will be able to find a bathroom to use or whether I will be safe changing in a locker room.

11) When engaging in political action, I do not have to worry about the *gendered* repurcussions of being arrested. (i.e. what will happen to me if the cops find out that my genitals do not match my gendered appearance? Will I end up in a cell with people of my own gender?)

12) I do not have to defend my right to be a part of Queer and gays and lesbians will not try to exclude me from OUR movement in order to gain political legitimacy for themselves.

13) My experience of gender (or gendered spaces) is not viewed as baggage by others of the gender in which I live.

14) I do not have to choose between either invisibility (passing) or being consistently othered and/or tokenized based on my gender.

15) I am not told that my sexual orientation and gender identity are mutually exclusive.

16) When I go to the gym or a public pool, I can use the showers.

17) If I end up in the emergency room, I do not have to worry that my gender will keep me from receiving appropriate treatment nor will all of my medical issues be seen as a product of my gender. (Your nose is running and your throat hurts? Must be due to the hormones!)

18) My health insurance provider (or public health system) does not specifically exclude me from receiving benefits or treatments available to others because of my gender.

19) When I express my internal identities in my daily life, I am not considered mentally ill by the medical establishment.

20) I am not required to undergo extensive psychological evaluation in order to receive basic medical care.

21) People do not use me as a scapegoat for their own unresolved gender issues.

Bil wrote:

Is this the "cis" privilege others are talking about? And can someone please give a description of the term for those who don't know what it means?

Cis Privilege illustrated:

Christie Lee can go to Houston, Texas and legally marry a man, but if she moves back to San Antonio, Texas, her legal marriage in Houston is now illegal. She could legally marry another woman in San Antonio though, and it would be a same-gender marriage because the State of Texas administratively recognizes her current gender as female. Harris County only accepts current gender for marriage licenses, and Bexar County only accepts original birth certificate gender for marriage licenses, not current gender.

The Christie Lee Littleton Story.

I have dual UK/Australian nationality. I'm in a situation where in the UK I could only marry a woman, and in Australia, I could only marry a man. Neither country recognises same-sex marriages.

To those who are Trans*, such legal idiocies are only to be expected. We have to cope with them every day, in matters great and small.

Cis Privilege means that the idea that such absurdities could happen in this day and age would never occur to you.

It means it never enters your head that you could be refused a driver's license, or a passport. It means that travelling over an international border, you don't face a genuine and quantifiable risk of being denied entry, and incarcerated in a holding facility where you *will* be abused and *will* be exposed to HIV. If you survive. It means you don't get issued travel documents good for leaving your country of citizenship, but not returning. It means that if mugged, it never occurs to you that if you go to the police about it, you'll likely be arrested. It means if you lose your job, there is not a 50/50 chance you'll never work again, not even at minimum wage. It means you don't have to travel hundreds of miles just to find a medic who will treat you.

These are all possibilities for us, some unlikely, some all but certain, depending on where you are. I'm lucky, I've had it easier than anyone else I know. But three of those things on that list have happened to me.

Cis Privilege means you don't know what Cis Privilege is, and are understandably dubious that it could exist.

A bit late, but I missed this until I saw Zoe quoting it.

Here's a fairly long cis privilege checklist. If you're familiar with Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, this is similar, just...longer.

What in the world does that even mean?

I get it Cindi, but it may be a bit too "Eastern Philosophy" a presentation for some. :)

Actually, it's a grreat line of logic, something I usually avoid at all costs.

That's the challenge, isn't it? The shared belief in equal rights and safety should be enough. The knowledge that any time civil rights laws have been won at the Federal level, it's been done by a broad coalition, should also be enough. That's the true shame in what happened last year: it not only exposed the divisions of so many people, all across the GLBT spectrum, it flat drove the wedge in, and only now is it truly obvious to all what has been wrought. It exposed not just the divisions of the GLBT, but the internal divisions of each letter. And, ultimately, it happened because we just don't know enough of each other, not the issues or philosophy, but the actual people.

I doubt Barney Frank or Joe Solmonese (and those who tell him what to do) would have done what they did last year, if they had T people as important parts of their lives, not just as political activists, but as friends and acquaintances and co-workers. I don't mean in the Sarah Palin-istic sense of "I have gay friends, I'm not prejudiced", but in each of us knowing each other to the point that we don't discuss GLBT matters as the only conversation point, but that we instead talk about how badly the Bengals suck again this year, the great movie we saw over the weekend, and so forth, around the water cooler. I wonder if Barney or Joe have ever discussed the book they've just finished, or the Red Sox, or maybe how great the concert they attended the night before was, with a T person, That goes both ways, at this point, many T people are resentful and distrust gay and lesbian people in general, and aren't having that conversation, either. In fact, an unwritten rule of workplace gender transition is that the first person who'll cause you problems at work will be the gay man or lesbian woman. That needs to end, too. Hell, the "I have black friends" is still heard, and people still look suspiciously at a man and woman being close platonic friends with no sex involved.

So, the solution is.......every T taking a lesbian and a gay man to lunch? Where're you bi folks at, anyway, we really ought to know each other better, to. Certainly, we need to get to know each other better as people, as groups. And when many subtypes of T don't go to lunch with each other (when's the last time a pageant girl, clubkid, or drag queen/king was up in time for the lunch buffet, and the HBS types aren't about to sit across a table from a mere crossdresser, they're not "like us, dear"), that might be hard to arrange. More food for discussion, I guess.

A sci-fi writer! I'm sort of a huge sci-fi "geek" so I'm a fan. I loved your post, it was observative and really accurate I thought, but that ending just sort of threw me. And I understand your frustration with the HRC. To be fair though, there's so much apathy it can be difficult to get people to support moving off the sofa let alone commit time and energy to a group even if that group has their best interests at heart.
One of the things that can make me really crazy is the apathy thing among many gay people. I mean, how much time to we spend at the gym on treadmills to nowhere when we could be actively exercising in the real world? (Don't look at me, I am so not a gym bunny.)