Incremental Approach To Nondiscrimination Laws Leaves Part Of Community Behind
It’s 2016 and the leaders of some of the top national LGBTQ movements — and, more importantly, their funders — are arguing about whether to throw transgender people under the bus. Again.Â
The conversation was reported as Part 2 of an outstanding three-part series on transgender rights in America today from Buzzfeed’s Dominic Holden and Chris Geidner (Parts 1 and 3). All three parts are worth a read, but I want to focus on Part 2 here.Â
To break it down to its most basic level: One group of LGBTQ leaders, including funding powerhouse the Gill Foundation, want to advance an incrementalist strategy. In other words, when it comes to enacting civil rights protections, they want to focus only on banning workplace and housing discrimination in the immediate future. They fear that going for public accommodations protections will be a losing battle because of the ongoing bathroom debate. They’re joined by a few other national groups.Â
On the other side, groups like the ACLU, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign argue that such a compromise would leave transgender Americans out in the cold, yet again (it will).Â
So once again, because we’re too afraid to talk about bathrooms, we’re willing to leave trans people out of the fight for equality. The most ironic thing of this all? Bathroom access is poised to become a landmark decision at the Supreme Court this year. The conversation is happening — it’s been happening for years now — but too many of us are burying our heads in the sand because we’re afraid to talk about the reality of trans bodies and the wide spectrum of diversity.Â
It’s hard for us to call ourselves allies if we’re not willing to stand up for folks’ most basic rights. I mean that literally. If we’re not willing to speak up and say that we think all people should be able to use a public bathroom, how can we call ourselves allies? It’s more than a little bit backwards for us to claim we’re there for someone’s equal rights — as long as they never have to pee.Â
We’ve never shied away from a good fight as the LGBTQ community. We’ve never been afraid to go for things that seemed absurd just a few years ago. We’ve got marriage rights, we brought down Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, we fought accusations of pedophilia and attempts to keep gay men ot of the classroom, and so much more. Some fights may have taken longer than others, but we’ve never backed down and we’ve always eventually won. (And let’s not ignore that the modern push for LGBTQ rights was started by trans folks at Stonewall.)
But now, because cis folks are uncomfortable talking about the reality of trans people and their bodies, we’re backing down and trying to take the easy way out? It’s offensive, frankly. It’s one thing for the discrimination and poor treatment to come from the Radical Right. That’s to be expected. But for it to come from within the LGBTQ community? From the very groups charged with protecting every letter of our alphabet? It’s reprehensible. Â
ACLU Lawyer/Superhero Chase Strangio reminds us:
Protecting transgender people from discrimination threatens the privacy and safety of no one. And it is not really about restrooms or locker rooms or nudity but about fear and disgust of trans people. It is about whether transgender people can engage in public life and exist in public space.
This fight to expel trans people from societal structures might be invigorated but it is not new. The bodies and lives of transgender people — particularly women and femmes of color — have long been targeted and criminalized through anti-crossing dressing laws, police profiling, and antiloitering laws.
Unless and until we push back against the very idea that the existence and bodies of trans people are the problem, fragmented legal gains won’t protect the most vulnerable among us.
Robbie Medwed is an Atlanta-based LGBTQ activist, educator, and writer. His column appears here weekly. Follow him on Twitter: @rjmedwed