Family feud: GLB v. T

[BenL]

A long and somewhat angry look at the politics and history of the split between the GLB and T communities that emerged recently in the ENDA fight. It also points out the inherent problems in the "incremental" notion of gaining rights.

WHY THE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY HATES THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN
San Francisco Sentinel
24 Nov 2007

BY MONICA ROBERTS

Why does the transgender community hate the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)? It’s a question I get frequently asked in GLBT settings. Considering the recent GLBT family feud erupting over ENDA, it’s an appropriate one to ask as well.

Before I get started trying to shed light on it, I need to point out in the name of journalistic integrity that I was the Lobby Chair for the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) from 1999-2002.

The roots of the animosity start after Stonewall. In an effort to appear more ‘mainstream’ to the straight community, Jim Fouratt and friends bounced Sylvia Rivera and other transpeople out of New York’s GLF (Gay Liberation Front). Jim Fouratt’s anti-transgender comments culminating in a 2000 one at a Stonewall observance in which he called transpeople ‘misguided gay men who’d undergone surgical mutilations’ also added insult to the injury.

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=7291

[Zerbie]

sigh.

Thanks Ben for letting us in on this. I wish the author had included a lot more dates in the summary, but even so, it gives an idea of the kind of split that is out there between members of the community. Personally, these rifts leave me dismayed.

Incrementalism is one thing - if the choice is between a crumb or nothing, I'll take the crumb. But the recent ENDA dispute is wrongly painted as an issue of incrementalism when it is not. It is an issue of exclusion. The gay community cannot afford to alienate allies. I was glad to see so many gay organizations speaking out against excluding transpeople from ENDA, and I'm become pretty frustrated with HRC lately. I stopped giving them money, and will funnel my donations to my local groups from now on.