I’ve had a peer trans journalist who’s 1) been out as trans about a decade less than the twelve years I’ve been out, and 2) makes a hell of a lot more at our trade than I do, tell me this past week that she doesn’t believe that the trans community exists.
And, of course, she works at the publication that published a July op-ed by Jen Richards entitled What Trans Movement? The publication that published that piece is The Advocate.
“The trans movement isn’t just a convenient narrative, it is a dangerous lie,” Richards wrote. “There isn’t a trans movement, or a trans community, but rather multiple movements and communities, divided not only by race and class but also distinct histories, leaders, resources and needs.”
I’ve reached the point where I just want to rip my hair out and scream, “We’re a diverse community! Did you expect to enter into a homogenous community when you transitioned and came out?”
Seriously. Do we say there is no black community because there are black Republicans who decry the Black Lives Matter movement? Do we say there is no women’s community because the Concerned Women Of America want to defund and shut down every Planned Parenthood clinic in America?
Was the active duty and veterans community unified on repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Or are they now on open service for trans service members?
The word we’re ignoring is diversity. Not only is diversity an extra-community thing, but it’s an intra-community thing. We’re all individuals who have both commonalities and differences, and as individuals we tend to group with those with who we have commonalities.
So, within broad groups, we tend to associate with those we intersect with in other ways – such as in the trans community, trans veterans tend to clump together. So do trans people of color and trans people with similar disabilities.
The trans movement isn’t a dangerous lie. It instead is an opportunity to excel – an opportunity to step out of our natural comfort zones and create bonds across what Richards calls “multiple movements and communities, divided not only by race and class but also distinct histories, leaders, resources and needs” instead of decry that the bonds don’t naturally appear.
Well, the trans community exists. If I were only to see it in the proliferation of pink, white, and blue flags across the nation, I would know we fly under one flag.
But, I also see the community in the rallying behind the cause of ending the murders of trans women. I see it every Nov. 20 – the Transgender Day of Remembrance – when we name our dead and mourn them.
I see it too in the work of organizations such as the Transgender Law Center, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and SPARTA, as well as conferences such as Gender Odyssey and the Philadelphia Transgender Healthcare Conference. We organize; we plan; we achieve goals such as legislation and regulation.
Hell, I saw the community in the first four months I came out, way back in 2003. It was when here in San Diego trans people banded together to work to add gender identity to the Human Dignity Ordinance – the city’s civil rights ordinance.
Those who aren’t seeing the trans community aren’t looking for it, or are looking for a mythical homogenous community when no identity community is homogenous. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a singular community. I’ve hit the point where I’m calling bullshit on the idea that we’re not one community if we’re not homogenous.
