unholy alliances

[fingertrouble]

Interesting article by Julie Bindel in today's Guardian (which I'll link when I get out of the rain away from Surbiton and into civilisation) about her struggles with the Trans community as a Lesbian.

Initially my PC self balked; the slightly prudish and Daily Mail-esque comments about "'odd' sexual practices" not sure I agree on and showing a united front in these 'unholy alliances' as she called them is an important strategy. But as I read on I remembered I've had similar interactions with people from trans and bi communities, politically we get lumped together, but Lesbian and Gay (already has some differences but a lot of similarities) differ a lot from bisexual and hell of a lot from the trans community as far as I can see.

And the argument with me has come when people from those communities expect Lesbian and Gays to fight for their rights (even the ones that differ a lot from ours) without the right of comment, criticism, or even being asked if I want to fight for them. Sorry must've missed that meeting...

I too have been told I cannot criticise or comment on Trans people unless I am one, but I'm supposed to fight for their rights also, quietly, without a peep. Hmm. That does not sound like a democratic political process to me. And told by bi men that I should support their criticisms of the gay community apparently not supporting bisexuals (which may be true or not, but that community has it's own battles to fight) and their politically deluded and totally bi-specific 'bi manifesto', and then shouted me down when I said maybe they should progress it themselves and stop expecting other communities to fight all their battles for them. It's not like bisexuals are somehow powerless?

It reminds me if the storm over Prop 8. My FL was filled with churlish slightly PC grumblings from people saying don't blame one community or another - strange I didn't see blame but disapointment from people. And I can see why. There have been many unholy alliances which are necessary in a political sense - but sadly that sense of unity dissapates when you leave the protest.

It'd be nice if people remembered who their friends were, but they don't and people go back to their usual sense of warped self-entitlement in their little holes and separate. I wish that unity could last, those who have been discriminated learn not to discriminate, but as we've seen from history - it doesn't happen. In our own community and others.

So I just sigh and it probably makes me feel less warm and cuddly and less likely to fight for anyone's rights except my own. Sad but true. Again that will also fade, but I don't understand why anyone thinks they have an automatic right to take my or others rights away when it doesn't affect them; and comment on my community, then ironically expect me to fight for theirs without comment.

Something is seriously fucked in that logic.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why anyone thinks they have an automatic right to take my or others rights away when it doesn't affect them

I think that's what many trans people have been saying with regard to Bindel for years! It's she who's argued in public that trans people should be denied surgery. No one asked her to.

You're right that the interests of L, G, B and T are not the same, but surely they overlap to a greater extent than you're suggesting here. For one thing, many trans people (a far higher proportion than the general public) are gay or lesbian. But also, both suffer prejudice from a heterosexist society that tends not to make the same distinctions between them that you or I might. (Many's the trans child who's been beaten up by homophobic bullies as a 'fag'.) And finally, when someone like Bindel calls for reparative therapy for transsexuals, as she did last year, or expresses disgust at the "odd" sexual practices of bisexuals, as she did today, she is simply providing ammunition that will be fired right back at her by, for example, the Christian right, who have used exactly the same arguments with respect to the lesbian and gay community. Own goal or what?

I'm not one of those, by the way, who thinks that only transsexuals should be able to talk about transsexuality. Bindel picked one unrepresentative comment out of a very lengthy Facebook group discussion that she was trolling at the time, and used it to tar all transsexual people with the same brush. Standard practice, really.

[timbearcub.livejournal.com]

Yes I have my doubts about Bindel (hence commenting about them) and I guessed the Trans folk might have a good reason to hate her. Her comments about 'kink' or other sexual practices did seem prudish - and yes could provide ammo.

Doesn't mean she didn't in part have a point though.

But just because a community gets tarred with another's brush does not mean they share a common base. Arguably bisexuals do partly; but my world isn't the same as someone who is Trans and I can't even imagine to start to understand that. I'm happy being male, and like men, gender issues seems like another world to me - and may foster that whole 'gay men really want to be women' thing - I'm sure a few do, but IMO I like men and the men I like love their masculinity, and the necessary feminine part of every male - but don't want to be women.

To lump groups just because they aren't part of heteronormativity is a mistake I think - and it's pushing it too far into disparate groups under one banner - that way unhappiness lies. I've also been discussing the whole Respect thing recently, which collapsed in part because the groups had one unifying factor (the War in Iraq & Afghanistan) but a load of very destructive differences - one being sexuality. There were other reasons, but politically I think it's a mistake to try and fit all of these in the same box.

Better to have an alliance of groups, rather than one group trying to please everyone and ending up pleasing no-one.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with you on any major score. At a pragmatic level, a flexible alliance that can both show a united front when necessary, while also recognizing and respecting the real differences between (and within) L, G, B and T, would be the ideal. How that's reflected at an institutional level is a matter of fine tuning, and personally I'm not that bothered whether, for example, Stonewall is LGB (as in England and Wales) or LGBT (as in Scotland).

However it's done, though, it can only work on the basis of mutual respect. The trouble with the Stonewall nomination was not that they're an LGB but not a T organization, it was that by endorsing someone with notoriously transphobic views they made clear their indifference to the trans people both within and beyond their own consituency. Similarly in her article today, Bindel was not only pointing out her difference from trans people, bi-sexuals, gay males, and her alphabet zoo of sexual oddities, she was doing so in a way that made clear her disdain for pretty much all of them. It's hard to build any kind of alliance on that basis. Luckily there are many more people of goodwill than there are Bindels; but unluckily she gets to write her views for a national newspaper, where it would be wrong to leave them unchallenged.

[shaggycub.livejournal.com]

I've commented in the past on the BML about this topic. To me, the concept of LGBT unity is a myth. We are more like a pointillist painting, each group and subgroup have different political needs and quite frequently are at cross purposes with other communities. Yes, there are some common denominators and we can all pull together to put forth a united front, but look closer, there are cracks. This was very much evident in the recent political battle over the federal anti discrimination bill before congress. It originally included gender expression as one of the protections, but when the bill's prospects looked bleak, it was decided to jettison that portion, leaving the trans community unprotected. This revision was supported by none other than the HRC. The logic was, lets pass the L & G portion first, and worry about the Ts later. Needless to say, the T's were not happy. There's an aspect of self preservation to the infighting. Again, each group has their own issues that are unique to them, and of less concern to the others-feminism, gender expression, adoption-to name a few. I support feminist causes, but not at the expense of AIDS which affects the gay male community in larger numbers than the lesbian community. I support the right to free gender expression, but I consort with gay men who pride themselves on being as archetypically male as humanly possible-so it's of less a pressing need to me than the right for me not to be fired merely because I am gay. Gay marriage is a more pressing issue to me than the bisexual who is a Kinsey 2 and is unlikely to ever marry a person of their gender. I'm always sympathetic to the other groups, but I need to channel my time and money to the causes that have a more immediate impact on me. I hate that it's a zero sum game, but my time, money and energy are finite.