Transphobic gay men are betraying us.
Not because gay men are somehow required to agree with every political position held by everyone under the rainbow. Disagreement is perfectly fine.
What is not fine is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with people who want to strip another queer minority of their rights, dignity, history, and humanity.
And that is exactly what some transphobic gay men are doing.
They rewrite Stonewall as though trans people weren't there. They erase trans women and gender-nonconforming people from queer history. They suddenly treat people who have been fighting alongside queer communities for decades as dangerous interlopers who somehow wandered into their movement.
And then there is the language.
“Biological males.”
“Men in dresses.”
“Groomers.”
“Predators.”
“Degenerates.”
“An ideology.”
“An invasion.”
“Protect the children.”
Sometimes they even start borrowing the vocabulary of outright fascists: talking about “purging” people, “cleansing” movements, “defending society” from supposedly dangerous minorities, or portraying trans people as some sinister ideological conspiracy infiltrating queer communities.
And when you point out what they are doing, there comes the inevitable:
“But I'm gay!”
Yes.
And?
Being a member of a persecuted minority does not grant you a magical certificate of moral superiority. A gay man can be transphobic. He can be racist. He can be misogynistic. He can support fascists. He can participate in the persecution of another minority.
Queer history has never been a morality play in which everyone wearing a rainbow automatically becomes a good person.
And that is precisely why this makes me so angry.
Because gay men know what it feels like when society decides that you are disgusting. They know what it means to be called unnatural, diseased, dangerous, corrupting, perverted. They know what it is like when politicians turn your existence into a public debate and strangers feel entitled to tell you that you shouldn't exist.
And yet some have apparently decided that the correct response to surviving that experience is to help inflict it on someone else.
That isn't courage.
It isn't “critical thinking.”
It isn't “protecting gay rights.”
And it certainly isn't solidarity.
It is the oldest trick in the fascist playbook:
First, decide who belongs.
Then decide who belongs less.
Then decide who doesn't belong at all.
And I have absolutely no intention of helping anyone build that staircase.
Trans people are part of queer history.
We fought at Stonewall.
We cared and nursed during the AIDS crisis.
We marched alongside other queer people.
We loved, protected, cared, and fought with and for our connunity.
We are not an embarrassing footnote to queer history that can be edited out because somebody suddenly discovered respectability politics.
We are part of the family.
And when someone tries to erase us from queer history while simultaneously describing us with the language of fascists, I am not impressed by their rainbow credentials.
I'm looking at what they do.
What they do tells me what they stand for.
And I will stand with the people being thrown under the bus.
Every. Single. Time. 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
#TransRightsAreHumanRights #QueerSolidarity #LGBTQIA #NoTransphobia #NoFascism #QueerHistory #Stonewall #Pride #TransLiberation #SolidarityForever
