Right there with you. That initial thrill over the possibility of real connection, shortly followed by disappointment over how intensely normative it all is. And deeply invested in binaries and strict categorizations.
I guess Pride just isn’t *for* me, and while on the one hand that’s an indication of progress (a sort of mainstreaming of queerness), I can’t help but feel that it’s a huge disservice to those who most need that community. Maybe it’s just not sustainable to cater to all the outliers; the disenfranchised and the marginalized don’t tend to have access to the resources to throw a parade, after all.
Or maybe it’s more about power, a reactionary need to exclude in order to feel like one of the privileged. It’s easy to see how tempting it is to try to compensate for an injustice like that, but all it does is perpetuate the hierarchies on a smaller scale. And it’s every bit as wrong.
But I’m sure I’m just preaching to the choir here.
Rambling aside, as a fellow outsider among outsiders, I’ll stand with you, and anyone else who wants in. Only rule I’ve got is respect others’ agency.
(Ironically enough, I’m sitting here struggling to convince myself to post this comment, out of that same fear of not belonging.)
This sums up how I feel. I identify as gender queer or trans. But I am married to a straight, cis man and we have a baby who I gave birth to. My gender is a lot more complicated than a term or what I look like. I’ve gotten a lot of hate in the past from lgbt communities and it hurts.
Personally, I think we should be separate from the gay community. The T in LGBT really is tacked on. The amount of transphobia I’ve seen from the LGB community is overwhelming…and depressing.
At Safe Spaces (LGBT group) I never met with any, but at the same time there was this barrier that I could feel, and the only time I could get past it was when I met another transgender male or female. With anyone else, I felt like an outsider.
When I’m comfortable enough with myself I know I won’t need any groups, but for now when I do, it sucks.
Yeah this sums it up. I’m always excited for pride when it comes around, I always get dressed up and try to have a good time, but I usually end up feeling disappointed ultimately. Whether it’s catty cis gay men telling me “no dykes allowed” upon trying to enter a nightclub, or yet more cis gay men calling me fat, or the general erasure of my identity by pride events that barely have a grasp on what a transgender person is, let alone a non-T non-Op trans person, generally I end up feeling treated worse by people who are supposed to be “my community” then straight friends, co-workers or even strangers on the street.
Well done and congratulations on the book release and getting it all to print! I couldn’t make the release, being in Perth; but best wishes on the project’s continued success!
Right there with you. That initial thrill over the possibility of real connection, shortly followed by disappointment over how intensely normative it all is. And deeply invested in binaries and strict categorizations.
I guess Pride just isn’t *for* me, and while on the one hand that’s an indication of progress (a sort of mainstreaming of queerness), I can’t help but feel that it’s a huge disservice to those who most need that community. Maybe it’s just not sustainable to cater to all the outliers; the disenfranchised and the marginalized don’t tend to have access to the resources to throw a parade, after all.
Or maybe it’s more about power, a reactionary need to exclude in order to feel like one of the privileged. It’s easy to see how tempting it is to try to compensate for an injustice like that, but all it does is perpetuate the hierarchies on a smaller scale. And it’s every bit as wrong.
But I’m sure I’m just preaching to the choir here.
Rambling aside, as a fellow outsider among outsiders, I’ll stand with you, and anyone else who wants in. Only rule I’ve got is respect others’ agency.
(Ironically enough, I’m sitting here struggling to convince myself to post this comment, out of that same fear of not belonging.)
This sums up how I feel. I identify as gender queer or trans. But I am married to a straight, cis man and we have a baby who I gave birth to. My gender is a lot more complicated than a term or what I look like. I’ve gotten a lot of hate in the past from lgbt communities and it hurts.
Personally, I think we should be separate from the gay community. The T in LGBT really is tacked on. The amount of transphobia I’ve seen from the LGB community is overwhelming…and depressing.
At Safe Spaces (LGBT group) I never met with any, but at the same time there was this barrier that I could feel, and the only time I could get past it was when I met another transgender male or female. With anyone else, I felt like an outsider.
When I’m comfortable enough with myself I know I won’t need any groups, but for now when I do, it sucks.
This comic is me to a ‘T’, to the point that I skipped Pride in Melbourne this year because I just didn’t want to feel like I didn’t fit in again.
Yeah this sums it up. I’m always excited for pride when it comes around, I always get dressed up and try to have a good time, but I usually end up feeling disappointed ultimately. Whether it’s catty cis gay men telling me “no dykes allowed” upon trying to enter a nightclub, or yet more cis gay men calling me fat, or the general erasure of my identity by pride events that barely have a grasp on what a transgender person is, let alone a non-T non-Op trans person, generally I end up feeling treated worse by people who are supposed to be “my community” then straight friends, co-workers or even strangers on the street.
Well done and congratulations on the book release and getting it all to print! I couldn’t make the release, being in Perth; but best wishes on the project’s continued success!