Dropping The “T” From LGBT. Here’s What Someone Has To Say About It
“With marriage equality a reality and gay folks enjoying increased rights, social progressives are looking for the next cause du jour,” openly gay lawyer and author Joseph R. Murray II writes in a new op-ed for USAToday.
That case, Murray says, is a proposed bill in South Dakota that bans trans students from using any school bathrooms and locker rooms that don’t correspond with their “chromosomes and anatomy as identified at birth.” The bill passed and is currently sitting on Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s desk.
“Seeking to halt any momentum that might develop in the states, trans activists are trying to rally the LGBT community and hinting at federal lawsuits if Daugaard signs the South Dakota bill,” Murray writes. “The aim is to build on the major victories gays and lesbians won last year with the Supreme Court.”
But, Murray argues, this isn’t the right strategy.
“Is the plight of the trans person the same as the gay or lesbian person?” he ponders. “Are gay and transgender folks one and the same, or is there a good cause to argue that ‘L’ & ‘G’ should drop the ‘T’ from their movement?”
“Make no mistake,” he continues, “the gay community needs to file for divorce with the trans community. They are no longer working toward the same goals, and South Dakota is Exhibit A. The issues facing the transgender community today are wholly different and separate from those facing the gay community.”
Gay people, Murray says, “are not seeking surgery or hormone treatments. They love the same gender; they don’t want to be a different gender.”
And then there are trans celebrities, who Murray suggests are doing no favors for the gay community.
“Can it be said that the drama surrounding Chaz Bono and Caitlyn Jenner will help sustain gay equality?” he asks. “Or would they embolden opponents of gay rights and undercut our progress?”
“It is one thing to seek acceptance of two men saying ‘I do,’” Murray concludes. “It is another to ask Americans to accept boys sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with their daughters at school.”
“Trans folks should no longer be grouped with the larger cause of gay rights … If the gay community allows the trans community to co-opt its success and redefine the movement as one seeking to upend the human experience, it does so at its own peril.”
What do you think? Is it time to drop the “T” from LGBTQ? Why or why not? Sound off in the comments section below.
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21 Comments
Absalom
March 01, 05:55People can be so annoying and insensitive.
How different from LGB problems really are trans problems when a person can be harassed, mocked and even killed for being trans?
Mtschew.
wealth
March 01, 06:28Not all about being trans,his point is what is the trans helping the gay community with? It is only replenishing the image and the progress of the gay equality. We all have right to be equal,we are all equal but I don’t think the trans will bring more acceptance to the gay communities. Like he said we don’t need surgery and hormone treatments to like a guy. Well nothing else to say but I think the T word should be cut out.
ambivalentone
March 01, 07:39I really don’t know. While it isn’t actually saying we shouldnt support Women’s rights because we aren’t women, it is saying that very same thing. Oh the headache. Biko, leave them the way dey are jare
Delle
March 01, 07:39Why the trans community cant be left alone is baffling. Leave the trans people alone…I for one is already used to LGBT, LGB doesnt sound as sexy
#justsaying
Eboniorchid
March 01, 08:44After the Trans* community has stood and fought beside the LGBQ community for decades, the idea that we should now toss them out of “our” movement is bullshit. What have they done for us? Often been the most identifiable and, therefore, most vulnerable icons of the LGBTQ community. Often leading the resistance against bigoted policies and practices. Often putting their lives on the line to fight for social change that would benefit all of us. Indeed, while some of us celebrated victories in certain parts of the world (“I do” and all that), trans* folks pretty much everywhere were still bleeding in the streets just for existing. So many of the “chosen families” built by youth and others thrown out of their blood families and home communities were and are a mix of L, G, B and T. These are our sisters and our brothers. To slice them off like something unsightly just because LGB folks are starting to become more accepted in mainstream society is despicable. If anything, we should be using our new leverage to help and fight alongside them. It’s really the only right thing to do.
Mr. Big
March 01, 09:11I think it’s most unfair. Equality for sexual minorities is the fight, and whether we like it or not transsexuals are a sexual minority. And why does everyone jump on Caitlyn Jenner and Chas Bono…. Personally, I think Chas does a lot for the LGBT community. People need to put things in perspective and seek out unity instead of a division.
KingBey
March 01, 10:06Trannies !
Pink Panther
March 01, 12:21You do know that is an offensive word, right?
Max 2.1
March 01, 16:37You’re despicable
coconut juice
March 01, 11:49So drop the T and let them fend for themselves bah?
One word. Selfish!
Khaleesi
March 01, 12:34Other than the fact that we both belong to minority groups; i honestly dont feel too much of an affinity with the trans community. Perhaps our struggles are different in flavour other than the fact that we are both minority groups, but then i might be wrong, seeing as i’ve never met or talked to any trans … #HonestOpinion
Pink Panther
March 01, 12:34I somehow expected this apathetic opinion from you.
Max 2.1
March 01, 16:39You and me both @Pinkie ??
Frankie
March 01, 13:50If i were to critically analyse this situation, i would say that the T is nothing like the L, G or B. But one thing we all have in common is that we’re the sexual minorities, yet to be fully accepted in society. For that reason alone, i stand with the trans! The community is incomplete and biased without the T. LGBT it shall remain!
pete
March 02, 06:03Are transsexuals sexual minorities?
JArch
March 01, 14:22First of all I will like to say this man has raised some points, but they aren’t valid nor concrete enough to make us see reason to drop the “T” in LGBT.
Very few of us would say we have never been able to come across a trans person, which is agreeable and true considering where we live. But let’s take a trip back in time shall we, when some of us used to wear our mum’s dress and shoes and make up. Do you remember how you felt. I felt beautiful and powerful whenever I did that.
That is -in my opinion- how a trans person feels. They feel powerful and beautiful and strong. But many don’t understand what it is like to be them.
I identify as a gay man who loves to be with a fellow man. Most of us here would understand that. Because we have gone the whole 9 yards of what it takes to be a gay man. However some straight persons would look at us to be sick and we should be purged from the face of this earth, because they don’t understand what is to be gay.
This, my friends, is what this lawyer is also inciting us to do. We should get rid of trans people simply because we cannot comprehend why a guy should want to switch gender or why a girl wants to have a dick and a beard. Also it makes us look “bad” infront of straight folks.
He is quick to forget that the trans community did that own bit to secure the victory at the supreme court. EVERYONE contributed in one way or another to secure that supreme court ruling. So to ask that we should severe tie with our allies, after some recognition of gay rights, is downright callous and disrespectful.
My two cents on this piece summarized thus: We all fear that which we cannot understand.
However, We should all rise to occasion whenever we can in our own small way to ensure that our trans brothers and sister are happy and secure just as much as we are.
Max 2.1
March 01, 16:41I think you’re confusing crossdressing(transvestism), drag and transgender…
JArch
March 01, 17:00No Max am not, am well aware of the difference. Am only trying to take your mind and emotions to a certain place.
It’s all about changing your sexuality, transverstite change just clothes, but transsexual changes their anatomy.
But nonetheless there’s a change taking place and there’s a feeling that oozes out when this change takes place.. So my point was to channel how it feel to change sexes. It’s not a case of semantics, but rather that of something on the inside
Max 2.1
March 01, 19:19Ok
Francis
March 02, 14:03My thoughts exactly when I think of the trans community ??
Quest
March 01, 17:35?????