GL Community, When Are You Coming Back For My Trans Brothers And Sisters In Wisconsin, New York, New Hampshire and Maryland?

Another subject that needs to be talked about that has been weighing on my mind lately has been the fact that the GL community has human rights protection in Wisconsin, New York, New Hampshire and Maryland and my transpeeps in those states don't.

In these four states the GL community gained sexual orientation non-discrimination protection while throwing transpeople under the human rights bus to do so.  Wisconsin passed a GL rights law in 1982.  Maryland did so in 2001.  New York and New Hampshire in 2002.

And did the GL community come back for us in those states much less even lift a finger or donate money to help their trans allies?   Nope.  They were busy passing marriage equality legislation and after it passed they felt their heavy civil rights lifting was done and started planning their weddings. 

In New Hampshire the marriage bill passed in 2008 but a trans rights bill winding its way to passage the same year inexplicably died n a Democratic female controlled Senate on a 24-0 vote.

The same pattern repeated itself in New York in 2011 and Maryland in 2012 in which marriage equality legislation passed, but trans rights legislation moving to passage ironically died in those states Senate chambers as well. 

You could make the argument the GL community has been a bigger impediment to trans human rights legislation passing than the Republican Party in all those states, especially since they focused on passing marriage in three of them and are still trying to do so in Wisconsin.

And as ENDAblog 2.0's Kat Rose would argue, the gay community still has the special right to discriminate against the trans community in all of those states they have 'full equality' in.   Judging by the publicly foul crap that happened to Allyson Robinson, they damned sure are exercising it, especially in the Gay, Inc organizational ranks.


In the meantime the trans community has been waiting 31 years for gender identity language to be added to the non-discrimination law in Wisconsin, 12 years in Maryland, and 11 years in New York and New Hampshire.  

For the folks in New York it has been even more aggravating as they have seen GENDA pass their assembly six straight times only to get bottled up in the New York Senate.   Meanwhile as they painfully watched GENDA get stalled again in a state whose governor ironically boasted it leads the way on human rights issues, the folks in Delaware took less than a month to show New York how it's done and become the 17th state to pass a trans rights law.

Prominent gay male blogger (and transphobe) John Aravosis recently stated in an Americablog comment thread that the gay community isn't obligated to come back for trans people and help them gain human rights coverage.  

It 's an opinion shared by elements of the white gay male and lesbian community and is probably is a factor in why the predominately white gay male run orgs have been glacially slow or outright refuse to engage in doing intersectional human rights work on behalf of the trans community. 

Aravosis was the same person when marriage equality failed in Illinois doing loud and wrong bigoted griping about it.   Can you say 'vanillacentric privileged white gay male hypocrite'?   Thought you could.

John, I and the Black community will keep that highlighted comment in mind the next time you and your like minded friends ever part your lips to complain about marriage equality failing in an area with a sizable African-American population.

I will also remind you of that comment the next time you ever open your mouth or write in a blog post the Black community has a responsibility to help you oppressed gay and lesbian people gain your marriage rights.

If you insist we African-Americans have a responsibility as your allies to help you on your issues, you and the GL community have the same responsibility and reciprocal obligation to help oppressed trans people do the same in addition to support other oppressed people who are part of the progressive coalition with their issue concerns..

It's called intersectionality, and it's something the gay community has historically sucked at.  It has led to the perception with non-white trans and SGL members of this liberal-progressive coalition that the gay rights movement is only concerned with pursuing policy stances and issues that help them get their lost white privilege back and frack everybody else.  

So I ask the question I posed at the beginning of this post.  When is the GL community coming back to help the trans community get their human rights coverage?

The trans community, the liberal-progressive coalition and the world is anxiously awaiting your answer to that question.