How Inclusive Should We Be

[JonnieB]

well, it's been a little quiet around here lately...so here is something to chew over the weekend and post a response...

first, my experience and writing is from the perspective of a middle-aged gay man from the usa and my comments reflect that experience (any almost 10 years of living in LOS). I have little knowledge on how the issue i bring up here is thought of in other parts of the world. hopefully, the comments received will shed light on these feelings.

anyway, i was listeneing to a podcast from one of the San Francisco Bay Area radio stations this morning about the current effort to pass a law in the us congress that would outlaw discrimination in employment against gay men, lesbians, bi-sexuals, and "transgendered" individuals. currently, there are laws that prohibit such discrimination in 8 states. the proposed law would be a federal one and therefore, outlaw such discrimination in all 50 states. presently, the bill has been withdrawn from consideration by the congressional democratic leadership because of opposition by both republican and some democratic representatives to the inclusion of protection from employment discrimination for transgender people in the bill. their proposal is to amend the bill to take out protection against employment discrimination against transgenders. this, it is thought, would likely lead to passage of the bill. in any case, the whole effort to pass the bill would be a largely symbolic one as president bush has said he would veto any such bill (likely in either form) and the bill's supporters do not have votes to override such a veto.

now, the radio show had several guests from various gay rights, transgender, media, academic organizations to discuss the fundamental issues at stake in the bill, the amount and effect of discrimanation in employment of "gay" people, and the practical politics of the bill and the whole issue. the guests that were on to "represent" the "gay community" [said community in the usa, by default, is usually meant to include gay men, lesbians, bi-sexuals, and transgendered people] were uniform in the opinion that is was a bad idea (both morally and more or less practical point of view) to strip out the protection from transgenders, even if it might lead to passage of the bill. basically, they were against the argument that it was better to sacrifice the protections for transgenders if it would lead to protections for gays, lesbians, and bi's, and to work for said transgender protections at a later time. better to all hang together than to hang separately.

now, my question for this thread is whether or not transgender should even considered part of the "gay" community to begin with? callers to the show were split with some strongly of the opinion that transgenders were; but other callers were equally of the opinion that they were not. these callers resented their view of the gay aganda being sacrificed on the alter of including transgenders in it (not just in this bill's instance but more generally as well). my opinion is that transgender people ARE NOT part of the gay community. specifically, i refer to men/women who feel their identity as a person is the opposite of their birth sex and seek to live the lifestyle of said opposite sex and seek opposite sex partners of their chosen identy. they may also seek partial or full sex-reassignment surgery. it does not include men who may sometimes dress/act effeminate but still identify as men or more masculine women who still identify as women.

now, granted many such transgenders "hang" amongst gay people but i feel this is because as a community we are more relaxed about sexual mores and identity in general and many trangenders may initially feel they are gay but later discover that that is not the case and move-on to their transgendered lives. as just about any trans-sexual wil tell you, they are not attracted to "gay" men as sexual partners as this does not comport to their identity as women. they are attracted to straight men who are attracted to them as their identy as a woman. i assume the same would be true for female-to-male transexuals. basically, i think transexuals, if they think of themselves as "straight" need to find their own way in the community they have chosen, i.e. the straight world. they need to fight their own battles in that world (like racial and other minorities had to) and get their "own" to accept them. i don't feel they are part of the gay community and their issues are not "our" issues and frankly, don't like the gay community and agenda to be co-mingled with that of transgendered people.

over to you all...

[ProThaiExpat]

Are we not talking about "sexual discrimination" here. In its broadest view, trans genders are being discriminated against due to their sex as were/are women.

There are many strategies to accomplish a desired end in politics and opinions on which strategies to use abound. If discrimination in regard to sex is broad enough, it would cover gays, transgenders, women, lesbians, etc. How best to get there is the tough one.

Barnie Frank opined that now is not the time for marriage equality. Many have posted that the gay community is wrong in trying to get same sex marriage equality, as few in the gay community want marriage rights.

And yet, there is no question that civil partnerships is a poor second to equality in marriage rights. Just remove the word marriage and then all couplings legitimized by the state would be "civil unions". This will all be history after I am long gone and most of us have not been involved with the politics of the issue raised in the OP to be able to talk strategy, which is all this is about.

[endure]

It seems to me that this is a question that applies to the west and has much less relevance in Thailand where the third sex is simply accepted as part of life. I've always thought we ought to be careful when trying to import the mores and customs of the western gay world into Thailand. We might be successful and that would be a tragedy.

[FranklyNoMore]

Now im not going to be as presumptous as say someone who doesnt live here or visits Isaan, maybe twice a year, or has lived here 5 minutes and talks as if they know Thailand and Thai people and say what is accepted or not as the case maybe. However what I do know is that what maybe accepted by an Isaan family probably wont be so in a Bangkok family. I dont think im being presumptous by saying I dont think Trannies are simply accepted, just as being a Thai gay isnt. Maybe westerners think they are accepted because they dont see Trannie bashings but see them working in Tescos or Pattaya beer bars.

Trannies are not gay. As for being the 3rd sex, they are not. Being called the 3rd sex sounds like being called a freak. If I was straight or bi and into trannies, I would hate to think people thought I was with a freak. I once saw a westerner with a trannie in Starbucks. It was obvious she had been a boy. The looks they got as people passed. Now I cant read minds, so I have no idea what they were thinking, but it did look a bit like a freak show at the circus and not much like acceptance. To me they made a lovely couple. To me trannies are women and should be legally able to change their names when they have the chop. Did you know there is a Trannie working for Thai airways? She has her male name in her passport, how awful is that for her to carry. How did she get the job? She paid a lot of money, rich family and obviously accepted by it, in this case. A guaranteed job at Thai airways 500,000 baht for the connection. Yeah lets keep western mores out of Thailand.

[endure]

I don't see the connection between the wealthy using their power and influence to get what they want (a practice common the world over and certainly not confined to Thailand) and a legal system in Thailand that has always let homosexuals get on with their lives without interference compared to those in the west that as little as 40 years ago had life imprisonment as one of the options to deal with homosexuality.

[peter991]

Interesting topic, JonnieB. Thanks for starting it. Perhaps one of the reasons we all like Thailand so much comes down to one word: Acceptance.

Yes, there are things about the West I miss when I am in Thailand, such as fresh milk, western cigarettes and beef steaks - but I will gladly trade them all for being able to walk hand-in-hand with my Thai bf is Bangkok or Issan.

Thai people are very accepting of westerners and they make a lot of allowances for our westernness. What is interesting is that while Thai people generally have no problems with gay westerners, there seems to be a lot of stigma outside Issan to gay Thai people.

While I was readily accepted into my former bf's Issan village by his whole village (including mamma, pappa, sisters, brothers, uncles etc), my present BKK bf will not mention me to his parents.

Peter

[Scott]

What exactly do you mean? Should we include them--well, I guess maybe we should since they certainly are queer!

OK, I am joking, but this thread is just way too sensible.

[PeaceBlondie]

As long as transgenders are still being discriminated against, because they had the courage to question their orientation or their gender, they share many of our issues as gay, lesbian, or bi. If a former male has been transformed into a woman so completely that she is no longer discriminated against (even given an official ID as a female, etc.) then she's successfully made the transition and doesn't need us because she's almost universally accepted as what she wishes to be.

Scott's right; some of this is much too sensible!