Of Course – It All Depends On How the Question is Framed

From Amptoons:

I don’t think that transgendered people universally share a single view on the SSM question.

Provide all the facts underlying the issue about which the question is posed, and see how that works out, eh?

I don’t agree with lesbian or gay activists who suggest that we should exclude trans people from hate crimes legislation so that lesbians and gays can get their rights faster. And I don’t agree with trans people who suggest we should oppose SSM so that trans people can get their rights faster.

Notice the wonderful sleight of hand there?

Neither of those sentences applied to New York on the eve of the final fuckover of the trans community by the New York Marriage Derangement Syndrome-ists.

The first of those two sentences describes New York in 2002, on the verge of – and immediately after – the proto-Marriage Derangement Syndrome-ists screwing over trans people by manufacturing for themselves the special statutory right to discriminate against trans people.  Translation: marriage wasn’t there yet.

The second one technically could be read to apply to New York on the eve of the final fuckover of the trans community by the Marriage Derangement Syndrome-ists – except that, naturally, it doesn’t take into account that Gay, Inc. had already fucked us over in 2002, and then not only lied to us about having any real desire to make things right under any circumstances but also concocted another gay want to take priority over making things right.

See the sleight of hand now?

It is posed as a comparison between equals: trans rights intentionally being pushed aside once in favor of gay rights vs. gay rights intentionally being pushed aside in favor of trans rights for the first time ever in the history of this or any other universe.

The reality of what happened yesterday?

Trans rights in New York were pushed aside a second time (third if NYC in 1986 is factored in, but I won’t pile on here) in favor of something that wasn’t even officially on the table when trans rights were pushed aside in 2002.

Remember Robin Tyler from 2007 and the rationalization of the lesbianic equivalent of gay friends of right-wingnuts:

I support full transgender rights. However, when I have been invited to legal weddings of some of my transgender friends, not one of them has said “we will not get married until Diane and you and other same gender couples can get married”. They did not sacrifice their legal rights on the alter of political correctness to give up the State and Federal benefits of marriage.

Naturally, neither Tyler nor her scrivener – The John – made any effort to find any instance of recognition of transsexuals’ change of sex actually preventing any gay person or couple from doing anything (good thing, too; because there aren’t any.)  But, of course, there are plenty of instances of heterosexuals refusing to get married until gay couples can do so legally and I’ve seen instances of churches refusing to do any marriage at all until both same and opposite-sex couples can get married legally.

And pushing the gay want of marriage ahead of the trans need of basic anti-discrimination protections does harm trans people in New York – not simply via the substantive legal reality of the continuation of the gay-trans aparthied signed off on by Matt Foreman and ESPA in 2002 but by sucking out all of the civil rights oxygen from the New York legislature for the remainder of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s current term (if not beyond.)

How many gays and lesbians in New York will abstain from utilizing the gay marriage law until trans people in New York are legally equal to them?

If you can be honest with yourselves, you know what the answer is.

But as for the ‘question’ that we started off with?  Next time, ask it thusly:

Should trans people have to bend over and take it twice – or more – in order to be equal to gays?

Sure, 100% agreement is hard to come by, but you’ll get pretty damn close if you frame the question properly and provide all of the historical context.