(no subject)

[rozk]

Hard to say who I am more annoyed with about this. Hillary Clinton for her remarks, or Sullivan for his ghastly fanboyism about Thatcher. I really really ought to stop reading Sullivan for the duration, because every time he rants about how wonderful Obama is and how dreadful the Clintons are, I find myself drifting Clintonwards, which heaven forfend!

Seriously, I do find myself wondering whether he would be as totally in favour of Obama were he not so darn cute...And yet I am aware that that is an offensive stereotype of gay men, being men, thinking with their dicks. Only, there too I observed recently during the breakup of a straight couple we knew, some of my gay male friends being indulgent to the quite egregious behaviour of the (actually quite gorgeous and also very camp for a straight man) husband. On the other hand, how much of my own ease in resolving the conflict of loyalties has to do with the good looks and bi premarital history of the wife, and how much with feminist solidarity? Ultimately, I guess, I dunno. Which is probably as it should be.

This brings me to a broader topic which is that you don't always get to pick who is on your team.

What sparked this was not the broader question of the LGBT community, or women, but the parochial concerns of the trans community. As many people will know, Susan Stanton is a US city manager who transitioned, lost her job and fought a big anti-discrimination case; she is also quite conservative and has made some unfortunate remarks about her lack of feelings of solidarity with the trans community as a whole, and her unpreparedness to work for equality for people who are not ready for it.

Now, of course everything she has said - even when she disavowed some of the remarks attributed to her - is pretty dumb and I quite understand why so many people in the community are rightly reading her the riot act. I also understand the concern of US transfolk that she might get co-opted to be the trans spokesperson for all the HRC's crap about ENDA.

Yet here's the thing. I remember what a twit I was for a couple of years in the aftermath of my surgery's eventually being over, how I went through a dumb second adolescence in my mid-30s and luckily only have to live with bad choices in relationships and the private sphere. I was over all that before I got seriously involved with political stuff.

Stanton is a royal pain, but she is not The Great Traitor or The Worst Transperson Ever. She is someone who transitioned without a community to support her and who will quite possibly get over herself and be rightly embarassed. She is my sister, even if I am furious with her, and she does not want to be.

The thing is, I remember so much. I remember straight identified trans people wanting us transqueers to shut the frak up; I remember those of us who criticised sexist shrinks working in the field to be told not to rock the boat. And somehow we stayed a community.

Because you don't get to pick who is on your team any more than you get to pick your team.

Which is why when LGB people behave crappily to trans people, or right wing gay men sell the rest of us out, or a section of radical feminist lesbians talk as if they were a saving fragment and the rest of us are scum, I bite my lip a lot of the time and say harsh things some of the time, but try never to forget that I am in solidarity even with a bully like Julie Bindel or a privilege intoxicated smug rightwing idiot like Sullie.

Because when the Watchers on the Walls, or the Huckabites, come for us, we will all be in the same air-proofed van. We won't be able to say 'Can't I go in some other van, which is only the bits of my people that I like...'

Comments

[resolute.livejournal.com]

My ex used to say that her great-grandparents didn't get to choose to leave Russia any more than they got to choose who helped them along the way to America. When the falaballahs [apologies to Neal Stephenson] came for her, she didn't want to have burned any bridges or shut out anyone who might now give her aid and succor. It's a dire and gloomy way of thinking. Sadly, it's realistic . . .

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Because when the Watchers on the Walls, or the Huckabites, come for us, we will all be in the same air-proofed van. We won't be able to say 'Can't I go in some other van, which is only the bits of my people that I like...'

Very well put, and something we would all do well to remember at times.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Great post.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I'd say the point is better applied in the other direction, to those who refuse to identify with the endangered community to which they belong. It's not likely to save them when the repression comes. What's puzzling about conservative gays, for instance, is that they show a political weakness for the very politicians who will take away their rights.

One can say the same thing about right-wing Jews sucking up to fundamentalist ministers who love Jews only for the prospect of converting them. "How doth the little crocodile ..."

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I saw the teaser for that article on the front page of the Atlantic and thought, "Nothing good can come of this."

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

I guess the question is, what does it mean to be in solidarity with Sullivan and Bindel? Obviously, it means supporting their rights to live their lives in an open manner, and just as obviously, it doesn't mean not saying anything when they, as they so frequently do, shill for the right-wing and sell everyone else out. But I have to think that you must mean something more, because it would never occur to you to support denying Sullivan and Bindel their rights.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I think that a part of what I mean is this. After years of being told by e.g. Bindel that I have no right to be regarded as a woman, or a lesbian, because of being trans, I am very very chary of reading anyone out of movements we both belong to.

[galamb-borong.livejournal.com]

I must respectfully disagree here. LGBT people are only my brothers and sisters through whatever quirk of fate brought them into existence, and I owe them no more than the rest of humanity. Who I owe are the people who've pursued LBGT rights, whatever their sexual and gender orientations happen to be. I feel little different about whether an opponent of gay marriage is gay or straight, other than the somewhat mild irritation of watching someone cutting their own throat ( that said, I'm not a woman and I have the same feeling about certain "anti-feminist" women I've run across ).
If people change their minds in later life, that's fine; everyone makes mistakes. Until then, I feel no need to look upon them charitably.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

My feeling is that one should criticize the likes of Sullivan and Bindel as hard as one can, but one should be aware and self-critical enough to remember that some of the forces which made them what they are, are forces which could have affected me in some of the same ways. I am too aware of the randomness of experience to be complacent in what virtue I possess.

[cleverthylacine]

That's a very good way of putting it.

[parallelgirl.livejournal.com]

I don't comment here much, but I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your posts. They always give me lots of food for thought.

[crowleycrow.livejournal.com]

It is a shame the way gay men think with their dicks, unlike us straight men. Of course our dick-thinking is sometimes less notable in that it is so rarely needed when approving/disapproving people in power. It never once came into play (for me, anyway) when thinking about Margaret Thatcher OR Hillary Clinton. Benazir Bhutto? Maybe.

[cleverthylacine]

She is gorgeous. Or the last time I saw a picture she was. I don't know how kind the years have been to her, whether age has made her lovelier or whether her beauty is now mostly of the inner sort, but I can't fault anyone for being attracted to her!

[rozk.livejournal.com]

The really worrying one is Alessandra Mussolini - her grandfather's politics, only if possible worse, and her aunt's looks. (Her aunt being Sophia Loren.)

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

But the point is that you are not attempting to write anyone out of any community. You might criticise and disagree, but the issue of who is in the same air-proofed van with you is not one *you* are arguing. What the people you talk of here are losing sight of when they attempt to keep themselves distinct from other parts of the LGBT population is that the van drivers will never see the difference.