Slapping the “Progress” chevron on the Rainbow is like slapping the fleur de lys on the Maple Leaf. It creates resentment and division to the sole benefit of performative social climbers
Some excellent perspective here. As a friend to LGBTQ folks but rarely privvy to conversations like this one that go on inside the community, I often wonder how the shifting public presentation of the movement is being accepted by those who have been around for a while. How do you draw the line between performative and legitimate?How do you avoid being gatekeepers?
I was especially curious to hear what my gay friends thought of BLM basically holding the Toronto parade hostage some years back.Like,is that cool considering the common goal to be proud of your heritage/sexual orientation, or was that a bad case of interloping?
Loved hearing a perspective here that I'm not often privvy to.
If I myself were wondering what my friends thought, I'd ask them. There were many pieces and discussions about your question; describing it as "BLM basically holding the Toronto parade hostage" implies you've got your mind made up or have bought the mainstream line. As a starting point, do you think people can be in BLM and the LGBTQ communities?
Of course I don't think that the gay community is exclusive, but that's a good point about the language used and the mainstream line. My only information about the event was from mainstream coverage, and that *was* some time ago. Nonetheless, it sounds like the sit in was unplanned and intended to stop the event.
"The parade didn't re-start until after Pride Toronto executive director Mathieu Chantelois signed a document agreeing to the group's demands."
If this is the case, it sounds like a difference of opinion that I'm eager to learn more about. Are you LGBTQ and if so, what would your opinion be? If not, I'm still curious as it pertains to my question above. Despite the BLM position that Pride Toronto as an organization was anti-black, was BLM's sit-in a respectful way to make their message heard? There’s no doubt that a sit-in raised awareness, but did it ruffle more feathers in the process?
I'm not in either community, but found the incident very interesting. None of your description is wrong - it was disruptive and it did raise awareness and it did ruffle feathers. The coverage tended to split the two causes into two "sides", when the BLM faction was in fact part of the LGBTQ faction - I thought that was really fascinating. Intersectionality is complicated, clearly, shown in this, and in the Flag in question. Thanks for the back and forth. I really like this newsletter/discussion forum.
Yeah, back at you. Small communities can really make for quality back and forth conversations. I'm probably being overly sentimental, but it makes me miss the way that Facebook and news site comment sections used to be.
No, I meant gender. While sex and gender were used interchangeably in regular conversation until recently, the word 'transgender' was coined by Dr. John Oliven in 1965 and popularized by Virginia Price in as issue of her Transvestia Magazine in 1968.
By the mid-Seventies, it included femme gays and butch lesbians. And by the mid-Nineties, trans academic Susan Stryker had re-re-re-defined it as (deep breath) “all identities or practices that cross over, cut across, move between, or otherwise queer socially constructed sex/gender boundaries (including, but not limited to) transsexuality, heterosexual transvestism, gay drag, butch lesbianism, and such non-European identities as the Native American berdache (now 2 Spirit) or the Indian Hijra."
Marsha P. Norman and Sylvia Rivera, the two Black self-identified gay drag queens associated with Stonewall, as well as the self-identified butch drag king Stormé Delavere also associated with Stonewall, used gay/trans and lesbian/trans interchangably from the Seventies.
As per the article, gender identity and expression rights are now explicit but they were read in by human rights commissions earlier, along with sexual orientation; see link. (Of interest, the 2017 US Supreme Court's "R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission", which fell under the umbrella "Bostock versus Clayton County" that won freedom from employment discrimination for trans people, did so under Title VII sex protections of the Civil Rights Act.
P.S. Correction: Sylvia Rivera was of Puerto Rican and Venezualan descent.
But further on Rivera, and interesting in how variously we've identified ourselves over the years: The term 'transvestite', now a slur, was embraced in the 50s/60s by both Rivera and Norman (on the self-identified gay side): They co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). So, basically, they identified simultaneously as gay drag queens and transvestites and then added 'transgender'.
(It's similar to the way, Polynesians use the term "Faʻafafine" as an umbrella for gay men, trans women and men with feminine characteristics. For interest, google Jaiyah Saelua, the first trans woman to compete for a FIFA qualifying match, but on the men's team. Taika Watiti (Jojo Rabbit) is said to be making a movie about her.)
When I was growing up in the 1950s/60s, it was assumed that any man who cross dressed was gay. But Virginia Prince, founder and publisher of Transvestia Magazine, was quite homophobic. She insisted that "transvestites" were "exclusively heterosexual males" in order to separate herself from us gays, as we were considered the lowest of the low. As mentioned above, she popularized the term 'transgender' in 1968 and called herself 'transgenderal', and 'a transgenderist' at the same time as she was calling herself both 'transvestite' and 'heterosexual male'.
Anyway, it's a fascinating history. (You can see one of the 1950s/60s resorts for straight "cross dressers" like Price in a late season-one episode of Transparent; google for photos of the period.)
You're welcome. What you mention (along with biological sports divisions) is an outgrowth of a larger social question: Should people be defined by sex or by gender.
It used to be that, as you say, sex and gender were used interchangeably, and then we learned to separate the two. Now there is a re-conflation, with some arguing that what used to be a division by "sex" should be a division by "gender". That why you see "sex" being swapped out for "gender" in some government and other forms, and why you see words like "mother" being swapped out in some hospitals for "parent who gives birth".
(Note: Transgender (adjective) is an umbrella term that includes transsexuals as well as anyone who doesn't align with stereotypical gender roles. Many transsexuals don't like to be included; for them, the transition from birth sex to opposite sex is foundational to their experience of their lives.)
Current trans female activists tend to be non-dysmorphic (i.e., they are happy with their male bodies) and want to be considered fully women. This is causing divisions not only in the women's movement but within the Alphabet alliance, especially with lesbians who are told they are transphobic if they won't consider what's called "lady dick". But, naturally, lesbians consider this *homophobic*, because, as in the 1950s, male-bodied people are telling them they're not really attracted to female-sexed bodies and should be open to penis.
The rights movements of the last century and until now were for sex-based rights; the idea was that we should break down sex stereotypes so that people could be free to live and present however they wish: a boy could be John Wayne or RuPaul; a woman could be Beyonce or Fran Liebowitz. The current trans movement, by contrast, wants us identified by gender. So if you're interested in female gendered activities you're a girl/woman, and if you're interested in male gendered activities you're a boy/man.
That's why there's tension between LGBs and Ts. We say we're same-sex attracted, not same-gendered attracted, and that sex is the basis for attacks against us. We also see the problem of kids who would otherwise have grown up as gay and lesbian being told they're boys if they're butch and girls if they're femme.
Anlother way of looking at the difference between then and now: Virginia Price saw herself as a heterosexual man; today, someone like Price would call herself a lesbian. (She'd be a trans woman attracted to women.) I think a lot of people still think trans means someone who has changed, or wants to change, their body. Not true anymore.
Some excellent perspective here. As a friend to LGBTQ folks but rarely privvy to conversations like this one that go on inside the community, I often wonder how the shifting public presentation of the movement is being accepted by those who have been around for a while. How do you draw the line between performative and legitimate?How do you avoid being gatekeepers?
I was especially curious to hear what my gay friends thought of BLM basically holding the Toronto parade hostage some years back.Like,is that cool considering the common goal to be proud of your heritage/sexual orientation, or was that a bad case of interloping?
Loved hearing a perspective here that I'm not often privvy to.
If I myself were wondering what my friends thought, I'd ask them. There were many pieces and discussions about your question; describing it as "BLM basically holding the Toronto parade hostage" implies you've got your mind made up or have bought the mainstream line. As a starting point, do you think people can be in BLM and the LGBTQ communities?
Of course I don't think that the gay community is exclusive, but that's a good point about the language used and the mainstream line. My only information about the event was from mainstream coverage, and that *was* some time ago. Nonetheless, it sounds like the sit in was unplanned and intended to stop the event.
"The parade didn't re-start until after Pride Toronto executive director Mathieu Chantelois signed a document agreeing to the group's demands."
If this is the case, it sounds like a difference of opinion that I'm eager to learn more about. Are you LGBTQ and if so, what would your opinion be? If not, I'm still curious as it pertains to my question above. Despite the BLM position that Pride Toronto as an organization was anti-black, was BLM's sit-in a respectful way to make their message heard? There’s no doubt that a sit-in raised awareness, but did it ruffle more feathers in the process?
What do you think?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pride-parade-toronto-1.3662823
I'm not in either community, but found the incident very interesting. None of your description is wrong - it was disruptive and it did raise awareness and it did ruffle feathers. The coverage tended to split the two causes into two "sides", when the BLM faction was in fact part of the LGBTQ faction - I thought that was really fascinating. Intersectionality is complicated, clearly, shown in this, and in the Flag in question. Thanks for the back and forth. I really like this newsletter/discussion forum.
Yeah, back at you. Small communities can really make for quality back and forth conversations. I'm probably being overly sentimental, but it makes me miss the way that Facebook and news site comment sections used to be.
One comment regarding the 1995 charter of rights comment, I'm assuming by gender he meant sex. Back then gender and sex were interchangeable terms.
No, I meant gender. While sex and gender were used interchangeably in regular conversation until recently, the word 'transgender' was coined by Dr. John Oliven in 1965 and popularized by Virginia Price in as issue of her Transvestia Magazine in 1968.
By the mid-Seventies, it included femme gays and butch lesbians. And by the mid-Nineties, trans academic Susan Stryker had re-re-re-defined it as (deep breath) “all identities or practices that cross over, cut across, move between, or otherwise queer socially constructed sex/gender boundaries (including, but not limited to) transsexuality, heterosexual transvestism, gay drag, butch lesbianism, and such non-European identities as the Native American berdache (now 2 Spirit) or the Indian Hijra."
Marsha P. Norman and Sylvia Rivera, the two Black self-identified gay drag queens associated with Stonewall, as well as the self-identified butch drag king Stormé Delavere also associated with Stonewall, used gay/trans and lesbian/trans interchangably from the Seventies.
As per the article, gender identity and expression rights are now explicit but they were read in by human rights commissions earlier, along with sexual orientation; see link. (Of interest, the 2017 US Supreme Court's "R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission", which fell under the umbrella "Bostock versus Clayton County" that won freedom from employment discrimination for trans people, did so under Title VII sex protections of the Civil Rights Act.
P.S. Correction: Sylvia Rivera was of Puerto Rican and Venezualan descent.
But further on Rivera, and interesting in how variously we've identified ourselves over the years: The term 'transvestite', now a slur, was embraced in the 50s/60s by both Rivera and Norman (on the self-identified gay side): They co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). So, basically, they identified simultaneously as gay drag queens and transvestites and then added 'transgender'.
(It's similar to the way, Polynesians use the term "Faʻafafine" as an umbrella for gay men, trans women and men with feminine characteristics. For interest, google Jaiyah Saelua, the first trans woman to compete for a FIFA qualifying match, but on the men's team. Taika Watiti (Jojo Rabbit) is said to be making a movie about her.)
When I was growing up in the 1950s/60s, it was assumed that any man who cross dressed was gay. But Virginia Prince, founder and publisher of Transvestia Magazine, was quite homophobic. She insisted that "transvestites" were "exclusively heterosexual males" in order to separate herself from us gays, as we were considered the lowest of the low. As mentioned above, she popularized the term 'transgender' in 1968 and called herself 'transgenderal', and 'a transgenderist' at the same time as she was calling herself both 'transvestite' and 'heterosexual male'.
Anyway, it's a fascinating history. (You can see one of the 1950s/60s resorts for straight "cross dressers" like Price in a late season-one episode of Transparent; google for photos of the period.)
Obviously, I've had too much coffee.
I’m glad you did that was very informative!
My point, I think, that it’s only become an issue now in the debate over sex separate (?) spaces.
You're welcome. What you mention (along with biological sports divisions) is an outgrowth of a larger social question: Should people be defined by sex or by gender.
It used to be that, as you say, sex and gender were used interchangeably, and then we learned to separate the two. Now there is a re-conflation, with some arguing that what used to be a division by "sex" should be a division by "gender". That why you see "sex" being swapped out for "gender" in some government and other forms, and why you see words like "mother" being swapped out in some hospitals for "parent who gives birth".
(Note: Transgender (adjective) is an umbrella term that includes transsexuals as well as anyone who doesn't align with stereotypical gender roles. Many transsexuals don't like to be included; for them, the transition from birth sex to opposite sex is foundational to their experience of their lives.)
Current trans female activists tend to be non-dysmorphic (i.e., they are happy with their male bodies) and want to be considered fully women. This is causing divisions not only in the women's movement but within the Alphabet alliance, especially with lesbians who are told they are transphobic if they won't consider what's called "lady dick". But, naturally, lesbians consider this *homophobic*, because, as in the 1950s, male-bodied people are telling them they're not really attracted to female-sexed bodies and should be open to penis.
The rights movements of the last century and until now were for sex-based rights; the idea was that we should break down sex stereotypes so that people could be free to live and present however they wish: a boy could be John Wayne or RuPaul; a woman could be Beyonce or Fran Liebowitz. The current trans movement, by contrast, wants us identified by gender. So if you're interested in female gendered activities you're a girl/woman, and if you're interested in male gendered activities you're a boy/man.
That's why there's tension between LGBs and Ts. We say we're same-sex attracted, not same-gendered attracted, and that sex is the basis for attacks against us. We also see the problem of kids who would otherwise have grown up as gay and lesbian being told they're boys if they're butch and girls if they're femme.
Anlother way of looking at the difference between then and now: Virginia Price saw herself as a heterosexual man; today, someone like Price would call herself a lesbian. (She'd be a trans woman attracted to women.) I think a lot of people still think trans means someone who has changed, or wants to change, their body. Not true anymore.