I remember the first time I openly acknowledged that I was likely transsexual (or at least would like to be) in the late 60s. (At that time the term transgender did not exist.) I was in the midst of my sophomore year in high school and Christine Jorgensen had just released her autobiography. I found it electrifying. After completing it, I remember thinking, “I always wanted to be a woman. Maybe someday I can be.” She was quite the phenomenon and much admired by the political and Hollywood elite.
For decades after that, trans people receded to the background. There were questions during the 1972 Olympics about the east German women’s team as to whether some of them might be male. A decade later, there was the brief focus on Renée Richards as a transgender professional women’s tennis player. But for the most part, transgender people were a non-issue. Most of the public were virtually unaware of them, even when they encountered them in their day-to-day lives. It required a certain sensitivity to be able to identify them that most people did not have.
The author should not mistake invisibility with some sort of recent social contagion, the idea of which has created the almost mass hysteria we see today. As you have noted, we have always existed and always will. Awareness of our existence or lack there of has nothing to do with our rights and the continued efficient functioning of society.
It strikes me that Gareth Roberts’ real problem is that the greater visibility of transgender people and the multitude of forms they can take has caused portions of the LGB community to question or re-examine their gender identity as well as their sexuality. This does not mean that any of them should change or need to change, merely that questions may have been raised that have created discomfort and caused some to re-examine their identities more carefully. Ultimately, this is healthy for any human being. We grow as we learn and change our attitudes and behavior to more closely comport with the realities we discover.
If someone is now and has always been homosexual (I use the term in the broadest, most inclusive sense), this greater awareness of transgender people should cause no issue. On the other hand, if someone who thought they were gay begins to wonder if they might be trans instead, I can understand how they might find this disorienting. We all feel a bit threatened when our comfortable understanding of reality is challenged.
On the other hand, I think you would agree that someone who started out thinking they were gay, but who later comes to the realization that they are actually transgender, will grow to be a happier and more complete person once they work their way through the process of understanding their identity better and addressing it. Viewing the T as somehow a threat to the LGB is to create a problem with being transgender that does not exist.
None of us in the community are a threat to those who are LGB. I am happy that they are comfortable with who they are and view them as brothers and sisters in a common cause. My existence and identity do not negate them. I make no demands that they change anything. I make no accusation that they are mistaken about who they are. We each have our own legitimate place on the spectrum of gender identity and sexuality. There is room for us all. It is not a competition.
