| > In some parts of the world, LGB acceptance is very high amongst the general population. Because of activism in the face of people who called gay orientation unnatural or dangerous -- activism that trans-exclusionists now want to see stopped just because they're worried about backlash and because they feel that they personally, individually no longer need that activism in order to be accepted in mainstream society. If you went back in time you would see the same conversation we're having now play out about both bisexual and asexual people who both have faced the same kind of "are they really gay" gatekeeping that's happening here. If you went back further, you would see another split among feminists about whether lesbians could be considered feminist or whether they were distracting from feminist goals. If you went back even further, you'd see the same splits in feminist circles about intersectionality and whether talking about racism made feminism unattractive to white people. At every step, these exclusions were justified by talking about how the "less proper" activists were holding the broader gay/feminist/whatever movement back from mainstream acceptance. It's the same story over and over again with each pushback characterizing the people they want to exclude as if they're uniquely controversial or dangerous to the movement. But they're not; it's just gatekeeping. Excusing bigotry that labels transgender people as pedophiles as if that bigotry is just reactionary pushback is really historically ignorant, given that literally the exact same "gays are pedophiles and groomers" rhetoric was used against LGB groups (and was especially used against bisexual people). There are parallels here that are impossible to ignore. > For example, in the UK, on a grassroots level it's been mostly left-wing feminist women pushing back against this, not homophobic conservatives. If trans-exclusionists want to talk strategy, then arguing that identity is the same as sexual deviancy, and aligning themselves with homophobic reactionaries is extremely short-sighted, foolish, and dangerous to the overall gay rights movement. From the beginning, transgender people have done just as much to fight for LGB rights as anyone else in the movement and they deserve acceptance and support. Transgender people helped these so-called feminists put up the ladder, you don't get to pull the ladder up behind you now. |