Sacrificing Your Legal Rights, or, Why Robin Tyler is an Asshole

A little backstory first.

There's a big kerfuffle in the world of gay politics about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, now in front of Congress, that would ban job discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transpeople. Kerfuffle in a nutshell: Some politicos and gay-rights lobbyists are advocating for, or else not speaking very strongly against, stripping the bill of its protections for transpeople, and limiting it to the LGBs in the LGBT community. (To be more accurate, there are now two versions of ENDA, one with the language protecting transpeople and one without: the question is whether we should support both bills or just the stronger trans-inclusive one. To be even more accurate would require me to write a whole goddamn novel. Google "Employment Non-Discrimination Act," or visit the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, if you want to know more.)

Which brings me to what Robin Tyler, longtime lesbian activist, had to say about it:

I agree with Barney Frank. I support full transgender rights. However, when I have been invited to the legal weddings of some of my transgender friends, not one of them has said "we will not get married until Diane and you and other same gender couples can get married". They did not sacrifice their legal rights on the alter of political correctness, to give up the benefits of marriage. And yet the lesbian and gay community is expected to do so, leaving millions and millions of us in the majority of states, once again, unprotected.

There are so many things wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin. So I'm going to limit myself to three.

One: How exactly would this help?

In the absence of a well-publicized nationwide boycott on marriage, how would individual transgendered heterosexuals refusing to marry until same-sex couples can get married in any way help the cause of same-sex marriage?

I've had hetero friends nobly say that they won't get married until same-sex couples can get married. I think the sentiment is sweet, but I also think it's completely pointless. Their refusal to get married does me -- and the cause of same-sex marriage -- no good at all. It's a touching personal gesture, and if they feel that strongly about not wanting to participate in an injustice I won't argue with them... but as an effective political act, it's totally useless.

On the other hand, pushing for trans inclusion in ENDA -- and refusing to accept or endorse ENDA if it's not trans inclusive -- does help. As many people in this debate have pointed out, ENDA isn't going to become law while Bush is President anyway. It may not even pass the Senate, even in the watered-down version. It's going to take several practice runs until it gets passed by both houses and signed by the Pres. And if we insist that gender identity be included in this practice run along with sexual orientation, it familiarizes Congress with the issues and the language of trans rights, and makes it that much easier to get the gender identity language included when we actually do get the thing passed.

Two: For lesbians, gays, and bisexuals to ask transpeople to make "sacrifices" for us is laughable. T's have been getting the short end of the LGBT stick for years. The fact that heterosexual T's have one goddamn right that G's and L's and same-sex-oriented B's and T's don't have... this hardly balances the scales. It's hardly the injustice of the century. To present transpeople as a privileged class who should be willing to sacrifice some rights to be in solidarity with their oppressed gay/ lesbian/ bi siblings... it'd be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

Is Ms. Tyler prepared to give up the rights she has in cities and states where GLB's have legal protections but T's don't? Is she willing to not sue for discrimination, not file hate crime charges, etc., in cities and states that give these protections to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but not to transpeople? If not, then she absolutely does not have a point. Or rather, she has a point, but it's shaped like a corkscrew.

Three: She spelled "altar" wrong.

I'm just sayin', is all.

Comments

[Steve Caldwell]

If gender identity and gender expression are not protected, then it leaves a huge loophole for discriminating against gay, lesbian, and bisexual folks.

All an employer has to do is say "I didn't fire an employee because he was gay ... he just didn't act masculine enough" or "she didn't act feminine enough" in the case of lesbians.

[Lyssa]

I would take anything written in that paper with a large grain of salt. Bay Windows is a bastion of gay transphobia.

You can see them regurgitate it in their "25 years..." section, too.

I am, however, glad that you called them out on it.

[williemays]

Robin Tyler was very cruel to her
former partners 13 yr old daughter
back in Miami in 1968.The ex was Patty Harrison and her daughter was traumatized by the behavior of the two who didnt even bother to explain that they were lesbians
Patty later disowned her daughter
under that persons influence.Patty
abandonded her daughter at birth
to pursue a modelling career.Always selfish rarely a bride