"Why are gay white men so threatened by lifting up transgender women?
Don’t get me wrong, older lesbians get worked up over trans men. But the dudes are especially vicious in their seeming insecurity, and, for some reason, they’re almost always white.
I recently posted about Sylvia Rivera’s speech at New York’s Christopher Street Liberation Day rally in 1973. If you don’t know the tale, the gist is that Rivera, a trans Latina woman, took the mic and berated the crowd for abandoning the people still paying the highest price. While middle-class gays focused on winning acceptance, trans people were still being arrested simply for wearing the wrong clothes. Queer kids were still sleeping on the streets.
“Today, Rivera’s speech is remembered as one of the defining moments in LGBTQ history because it exposed a tension that never really disappeared,” I wrote. “Every generation has arguments about who gets centered, who gets left behind, and whether the fastest path to equality requires making some people less visible.”
And good God, do the white gay men want to be centered. Queer history isn’t zero-sum, but they treat it like it is because their identity depends on being the star of the show. They want to be seen as respectable, good boys, and they regularly take to the comments section to let that be known on any post about a trans woman. The same people who are offended by the word “queer” feel as if their self-worth is diminished.
“Leftists always rewrite history to whatever narrative suits them,” Russell Howard replied. “The fact remains that the gay rights movement was largely a middle-class white male movement. There was drag, but that had nothing to do with the trans insanity going on today.”
Actually, most pre-Stonewall protests were organized by gender-nonconforming people, youth, people of color, and drag queens. Yes, there were also protests led by white men and women in suits and dresses, but, as in every movement, those with the most to lose are the first to protest.
“She was an interesting, noteworthy historical figure. But stop with the ignorant, absurd, desperate claims that her history somehow overshadows the single most powerful force for equality: millions of ordinary, everyday people coming out as gay or lesbian,” boasted Steve Sanders.
Somehow, lifting Sylvia up diminished “ordinary” people. What an interesting way of phrasing that. For some reason, he sees it as a competition despite no one losing. His identity is challenged by honoring a Latina trans woman who did sex work to survive.
“What got sodomy laws overturned?” Dan Avery asked in a full-throated defense of respectability politics. “There’s a time and a place for in-your-face activism, but even as ACT UP was staging die-ins, the ‘respectable’ crowd was there to talk to the pharmaceutical companies and HHS.”
Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court case that got sodomy laws overturned, was brought by two Black men. Neither were “respectable” plaintiffs; they were just everyday Americans, part of the makeup of our country. And the people who went to talk to the pharmaceutical companies and HHS were the very activists who had protested outside government buildings and corporate offices; they weren’t some outside mediators in business suits.
I built my reputation on fiery, populist writing that centered fly-over country queers over the richer, more respectable crowd. What a gay man needs in Topeka is different from what he needs in San Francisco. Not entirely, of course, but big-city queers have more protections, generally a more liberal public perception, and more resources. When I advocated for employment and housing protections, coastal queers downplayed the need because they already had it; marriage equality needed undivided attention, they said.
When I led the effort to pass an inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance in Indianapolis, we had to fight tooth and nail to ensure that transgender people were included. But the fight wasn’t with politicians; it was with our own community. The white gay men were willing to sell out trans people, blaming them for the lack of support when it was actually religious beliefs and partisan politics that had to be overcome. In the end, the ordinance passed with full support from all Democrats, including a Black Muslim who had struggled with his religious beliefs, and two Republicans.
It took a Supreme Court case, Bostock v. Clayton County, to ultimately give LGBTQ people nationwide protections. Gay men from New York and Georgia, plus a transgender woman from Michigan, brought those cases before the court. An East Coaster and two folks from fly-over country won us those protections together. Yes, white gay men were part of the struggle, but so was a trans person.
Marsha P. Johnson was not at Stonewall on the first night of the riots, as she said herself, and, therefore, didn’t throw “the first brick,” no matter how many times people repeat the inaccuracy. Transgender people did not singlehandedly build the LGBTQ movement, as some misguided activists have claimed. Sometimes people blow things out of proportion - especially when they feel under attack and that they have to prove their worth.
The real issue isn’t historical accuracy. It’s that some gay men, most frequently white men, have decided their identity requires being the center of the story. LGBTQ rights aren’t an either/or proposition.
It’s a “yes, and…” movement. It was built on equality, not respectability. In the beginning, none of us were seen as respectable.
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