focusing, as an activist, on what you personally think is the most important issue/population of the trans population is fine. everyone does. there are people who focus on youth issues, on young transitioner issues, partner issues, etc. as i’ve said before: there is a LOT of need in the trans community, & people tend to respond to what moves them the most emotionally, where they see the greatest need.

& there’s nothing wrong with that. to me, it’s natural for a partner to start providing partner resources, while kids of trans provide for others like them, while young transitioners raise funds for other young transitioners.

getting other people onboard usually requires finding others like you. believe me, i faced a lot of hostility for working on partners’ issues. it comes with the program.

so to me, the issue is: the trans community is at an interesting time, where, if you see a need that isn’t being met, you can step up & find a way to meet it. write blog articles, form groups. raise money. do whatever you need to do to get people to hear about the particular group you’re worried about.

or as Harvey Fierstein has said to the guys who complain that they’re not represented at pride parades: “then show up.” & to me, that’s all you can do. no one is going to do what you think the most important work is unless someone is willing to step into a leadership role viz that work.

I have encountered transphobic gays and homophobic transpeople (I wish we had better collective nouns), transsexuals who look down their noses at crossdressers while the crossdressers are returning the compliment (while either denying they are fetishists or celebrating the fact), amongst countless other internecine squabbles.

Last time I looked, the community which resides (whether they want to or not) beneath this “umbrella” were still pretty stigmatized outside it. Even amongst the sympathetic and accepting Goddess types I’ve been hanging with, I’ve had a LOT of explaining to do. And even among them there are the “womyn-born-womyn” types who would be less inclined than James Dobson to accept a transwoman as simply a woman. In short, to a still very large section of the general population, this argument as to who is and isn’t “under the umbrella” would seem simply ludicrous.

I don’t remember filling out any applications to become part of this community. Susan Stanton may have gotten a toaster, but I sure didn’t. (And last time I heard, because of yet more divisive talk on Ms. Stanton’s part, there were plenty of folks who would have gladly put that toaster in a more strategic spot than her hands.) The fact is we don’t have a single defining organization, but we sure do have a bunch of silly pecking orders. I wouldn’t want the former, but we certainly don’t need the latter.

I think the most important thing for anyone who wants to leave the “umbrella” to consider is this: those outside are still going to judge the rest of us by your actions and words. I don’t care a fig what you consider yourself, I just don’t want to bear the brunt of anything dumb which you might do or say.

And I’ll try to behave myself too.

BTW. Hi. I’m Gillian. I’ve been lurking around her for some time and I figured it was time I opened my big mouth.

Yes, without any conflict to any commentary herein, personal or otherwise, evaluative or narrative, the oscillation of what Betty well describes is dynamic. Yes, it has been possible to “shift” for about fifty years. Yet, can we ponder that April Ashley was subjected to electro shock therapy before she moved to Paris? She had to escape the medical profession or she would have been literally killed by those trying to “save her”!

Being gay was considered an affliction. Being TS was tantamount to ????

The psychological community too, has changed so much in its perception. Maybe it is not just about acceptance or inclusiveness. Even that changes in time and life. Maybe there is a hidden psychological convergence that has not yet appeared but unifies more than we think.

Why is it so hard for people to separate their personal story from a larger common narrative? Or, is the abstract “we” such an alien idea?

I don’t know.

I think Helen was getting at some of the more basic things groups of people have in common, not a defense of the “umbrella” as some kind of restrictive box.

The things people have in common are generally so tenuous and fragile that it’s no wonder that we yearn for threads that strengthen that fabric. There is nothing controversial in saying that there is a group of people on this planet who experience a gender identity in opposition to what was declared at birth.

Yes, we do it differently.

No, we’re not all the same.

Yes, we have different needs.

No, your experience is not actually universal within the group.

I dunno.

I guess it’s only an umbrella if you feel like being under it. People will be people and all that.

And as an aside: At what point can we kill the “scary crossdresser” meme? Jeebus, listening to some of you conjures up some less funny version of Shaun of the Dead’s zombies. It’s weak, people, and frankly is beginning to just sound ignorant.

Perhaps only in the last ten years a number of new developments have occurred. FFS has improved hugely. SRS has improved hugely. Political developments in the EU and in a number of states in the US as well as other countries, with a ‘Western’ culture, have brought increasing legal protection to transitioners. It is now possible for considerably more people to transition to a state which to all intents and purposes enables them to live undisputedly as the opposite to their assigned/apparent birth sex. The proviso of course is that they have the money or live in a country with a health service which will support such a transition.

I would like this information widely acknowledged because, if I had understood this as a child and even more so as a teenager, my life could have been very different. I am not so sure that others, with a different experience to mine, share my enthusiasm.

There is a dichotomy. Those, who feel a need for medical transition, are finding it increasingly possible and satisfactory. When it is universally possible, the story ends for people like this. I am one such. I have now no selfish reason to remain political. My transition is complete. My body feels good. In the UK I have all the legal rights I require. There are still some social problems from my pre-transtion life which affect those I love and by association me of course. I would like Trans kids, who share my experience, to be fully informed and supported so that they are able to transition as I have and these social problems never arise. I am not so sure that others, with a different experience to mine, share this enthusiasm.

Ah, Social problems …. yes, if you want to transition in a less binary way, there will still be social problems. I’m very sympathetic but like Natasha, Jane and others, I feel they were never, or only temporarily, my problems. I am however more than a little aware that many of us, who are over a certain age, do have social problems, which are not going to go away unless we and our loved ones suffer amnesia. So I think what I hope is that one day not too far off we can take down the umbrella and find the sky is blue for all. For the time being, I’m very grateful that some kind of tatty umbrella was there for me during the stage I needed it and I actually feel … from my [surprising to me] viewpoint of gender privilege … in a position to be gracious … if that doesn’t sound too patronising!

My argument goes like this.

I identify as female. I’m not delusional though – I recognise that my body was quite ordinarily male until I took the usual medical steps to change it, so I’m happy enough to add the transsexual prefix. But that doesn’t change that I identify as female. This is an important point. I changed my body to suit my self-identification. I didn’t change my self-identification.

Many other people who occupy positions under the trans umbrella do not identify as female. They identify as genderqueer, or male, or third-sex, or trans or whatever.

For me the issue isn’t so much what’s politically expedient, or of how outsiders view people under the umbrella, it’s one simply of self-identity, and my identity is a bright, clear dividing line for me.

I can accept that there are people who identify as male but want to wear women’s clothes. I can accept that there are people who want to queer gender, and people who feel they’re neither male nor female.

But that doesn’t mean that I have to count myself amongst them. I simply cannot, because to do so undermines my own self-identity as female.

Simply put, I’ve got no interest in trashing the binary, no interest in pushing the boundaries, no interest in queering gender.

The main issue I have with the umbrella is its all-encompassing nature. Being under it or not isn’t something that one is allowed to do for themselves. I find it just as constricting as the original expectation that I was male. Simply saying “you and I are not the same” isn’t allowed.

Also, I have to say I don’t ever see anything like 100-1 het CDs to TSs. I mean, no one has any real idea, and yes, there are an awful lot of closeted CDs, but even in a very TG-friendly place like Seattle, what I *encounter* is more like 5-1, with about another 5-1 that are TG, but not CD and not clearly surgery-tracked. So I really don’t see the kind of dilution of message that you are worrying about being reflected in the world. Enough so that it is communicated that it can be complicated, but the standard TS narrative is still the dominant meme that I see out there.