Being Gay and Keeping That Identity is Not Transphobic


                                                                            
                                                                         

There are reasons that a number of lesbians and gay men find the embracing of transsexuals within gay charities troubling (Bring in our trans brothers and sisters from the cold, 18 February), but these are rarely mentioned for the fear of being accused of transphobia. Pressure groups are usually single-issue institutions, and this is true of Stonewall and other gay and bisexual charities: the issue being the acceptance of same sex attraction as not being a disease of body nor an illness of the mind. This has been the central platform for the acceptance of all gay rights.
Transsexualism is defined as the disjunction between a mind of one sex and the body of another, a physical or a mental dysmorphia between gender and physical sex, requiring a cure – surgery. This is the opposite of everything that LGB groups, and feminist groups, have been fighting for, and the cause of much of the unease that is dismissed as transphobia. There are many things that gay people suffer that we share with transsexuals, and in such cases we should work together, as we should, and do, with other minority and persecuted groups. But that does not mean our identities should be merged.
Another thing. The Stonewall riots were a violent reaction by gay men and lesbians to the constant raiding of gay clubs and bars, and the violence perpetrated by the police and others. The patrons were a mixed bag but mostly drag queens (the antithesis of transsexualism) and other gay men. They were not led by representatives of the transsexual community. Trans issues may well have been “neglected by progressives for far too long” but they are not always the same issues that apply to gay and bisexual men and lesbians. It is not transphobic to recognise difference.
Simon-Peter Trimarco
Kings Langley, Hertfordshire
• The TUC and the wider trade union movement are happy that Stonewall has recognised the need to include trans people (Stonewall to back transgender equality, 17 February), and that your columnist Owen Jones has woken up to the issue. At the TUC, at the urging of our own members, we have been including trans people since 2002, ensuring their representation in our structures and campaigning vigorously with trans organizations on the issues that affect them at work and more broadly in society.

Peter Purton
Disability and LGBT rights officer, TUC
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