(This is a repost of my Facebook Note posted yesterday, June 9, 2009. I believe the subject is important enough that it must be shared with those not on Facebook).

Among my endeavors is the title of Webmaster of the modern-day Gay Activists Alliance International website. (http://www.gayactivistsalliance.org). The GAAI have taken a stance along with other organizations to boycott London Pride for their lack of support of the trans-identified community. The GAAI is FULLY INCLUSIVE of trans-identified individuals.

I am a trans male. I was born female-bodied, but having the gender identity of a man. I have medically and socially adjusted my body to match my gender identity.

I’ve been around the GLBT community for 30+ years. I have seen many changes. I have seen the acronyms grow from just G to GL to GLB to GLBT and continuing on with the Q and the I ….

Forty years ago, we were ALL part of the “Gay” community. There were no separatists (*see Note below). Whether we were male, or female, nellie, flaming, butch, dyke, queen, crossdresser, transvestite, transsexual (a medical term, btw), liked men, liked women, liked both, or even were simply gender-variant – we ALL made up the Gay community.

Remembering Stonewall today requires knowing the TRUTH. The truth has been skewed and warped through the years, as our ONE community has split into its smaller fragments of acronyms.

The truth is, Stonewall was initiated by what we would NOW term the gender-variant people, or “TRANS”. There would be NO PRIDE if it weren’t for TRANS men and women.

Let me repeat this. THERE WOULD BE NO PRIDE IF IT WERE NOT FOR TRANS MEN AND WOMEN.

The truth is, the FIRST riot where we all protested has now become a forgotten piece of history – The Compton’s Cafeteria Riots”. These riots were initiated by TRANS people in San Francisco, three years BEFORE Stonewall, in 1966.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton%27s_Cafeteria_Riot and www.comptonscafeteriariot.

Pride – Freakish or Fun

I’ve always been a big one for gay pride marches, especially when there’s a bit of trans* pride in them as well, and although I’ve only been to one so far, I love the atmosphere, and I plan to get myself to two this year, so imagine my surprise when a transwoman said that she felt they were freakish.

I can sort of understand her perspective, taking a step back – it’s taking sexuality (or gender identity, but I’m focussing on sexuality right now) and running through a town absolutely parading it for everyone and anyone to see, and  I can understand why some people might prefer that it was kept private, “what you do in the bedroom is your own affair”, but calling it freakish did seem like a step too far, to say that to dress flamboyantly for a day, and parade in public for your equal rights was making yourself into a freak.

A freak, in this context, is somebody who is visibly different from the norm, but surely in this case a straight person at pride would be the ‘freak’ (I say, flippantly) because most people are there because they’re… guess what? Gay and Proud. I don’t think being gay is a particular achievement honestly, so I can see why people would be a bit leery of the idea of being proud of it, but for so long in Western culture it’s been presented as something to be ashamed of that maybe it’s right for one day to wear it proudly.

The other irritation was that this transwoman didn’t seem to realise that if being gay and wearing not-a-lot, or wearing bright colours or feathers in public was freakish, ebcause it wasn’t normal, what about being a male bodied person wearing female clothes? Surely, by her definition, that’s just as abnormal.

She went on to rant about activists. I am an activist, I don’t want to hide who I am, I want to pave the path for other people, that they might transition more easily. I’m only alive and sane now because other people have paved that path for me, and in turn I want to do it for others, I want to be a father figure to young transboys just finding their feet in the same way Michael has done for me.

To be a freak is to be abnormal. To be abnormal is deviating from the average. Surely transpeople do that in a way that few others do? And maybe it is something to be proud of, that we have the confidence and self assurance that we can walk through the streets saying “This is who I am, and you know what? I’m not going to change that”.

I was asked if I wanted to spend my life standing in the spotlight, or trying to be as normal as possible, and do you know what? I want to spotlight it, I want to do everything I can for the next generation of GBLTQ children to have it as easy as possible. If that means that my life is a level the harder, then so be it, I’ll do that, to ease it a bit more for the ones who come after.