Yesterday, a poster, who is a trans woman, sorrowfully said that she wished gays and lesbians were more supportive of her.
Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune of knowing some wonderful gay and lesbian people. A very dear friend of mine, whom I trust implicitly is a gay man.
But for the most part, gay and lesbians have not been terribly supportive of me. Some have been hostile, nasty and insulting. In the writing workshop where I’m a student and openly trans, there is a gay man, who sucks up to straight (or he’s assuming they’re straight) people, but totally ignores me. I don't care, but I notice it.
In the past, a number of gay men joined forces with straights and sabotaged me. Now, how ignorant is such a gay person?
Years ago, I was networking and I met a super cool lesbian, who gave me some advice on bringing attention to my self-published books. I really liked this girl. Like me, she was nuts about food. But largely, she got her fix from restaurants. She said she had at least twenty menus from various eateries atop her refrigerator. If she lived nearby, I would have whipped her up a few meals.
She praised my writing and more than once, even suggested I try my hand at writing a book about lesbians. She also bluntly told me not to expect much support from gays and lesbians while I tried to make it as a novelist. “You’re a transsexual and most of them wouldn’t lift a hand to help you. GLBT groups should be pushing your books because they are a positive portrait of transsexuals. And that positive information should be promoted. And if you make it, they’re gonna try and claim you as one of their own.”
She said as a black lesbian, who penned a novel and wrote essays about womyn like her, she contacted some of the organizations which are run by whites and they showed no interest in what she had to say or made no attempt to help her. She said they tried to claim the late novelist E Lynn Harris as one of them because he was a New York Times bestselling author and they wanted him in their camp and felt he could be used to promote their agenda.
I wonder what their agenda is.
It is unfortunate, but SOME (a large number) of gay and lesbians aren’t supportive of trans women. Admittedly, I get funky vibes when I’m around some of them. Now that is something I’d love to discuss if I were a successful writer who had the clout to set up interviews. I’d publicly ask why do gays and lesbians dislike trans women. When the sad truth is, those who hate us don't discriminate. Gay, lesbian, trans (pre and post-op), bisexual. Our haters don't like none of us.
