After some members of the Transgendered community we upset by m characterization of Laura Jane Grace as a not believable woman, the community got upset. Stephanie Elliott Lowther, a transgendered woman and sometime rock nyc contributor came to my defense but with the current controversy over Bradley Manning now being a woman named Chelsea Manning, better to spend the next 38 years in prison (they expect her out in eight years) I thought I’d return to the question.
My feelings, my prejudices, against Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender people is non-existent. I haze zero, none, nada. On a very personal line, if I was a woman who wanted to change genders I would have extreme doubts about self-mutilation, cutting off your penis, but it has nothing to do with me.
I have had transgender friends and colleagues all my life. Some 20 years ago I had an assistant who went from being a woman to being a man while he worked for me and, simply because show biz is what it is, certainly have had more friends who are gay or lesbian, drag queens, so on and so forth.
As a child I went to an all boy boarding school, and a little later, lived in the Middle East –both situations were heavily enforced with sexual segregation. Women were almost mythical creatures, like Unicorns, in some parts of Lebanon. Covered in black they drifted around and about us men, and who knew what species of what they were. Needless to say, homosexuality was not uncommon. Neither was lesbianism.
Back in world of pop Little Richard begat glam rock and disco and glam rock had everybody it seems gay, or nearly gay: Elton John, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Freddie Mercury, and it took AIDS to push everybody back in the closet for the 1980s. Mike Stipes was pan-sexual, Joanie Jett was non of the above.
But as the years went by and we reached the 21st Century, the lessons of ACT UP were taught and re-taught and slowly and essentially became accepted and the ignorant were those who acted up in Homophobia. They would lose elections.
Last week I wrote that, essentially, I wasn’t gonna defend transgendered people because it was like trying to buy a gun in Savannah: too easy. Needless to say, the point was lost on new bigots who think that pointing out that wanting to be a woman might include looking like one is transphobic. They might have said, as Stephanie mentioned, that some women are in transition, so it is a very very touchy subject.
I wonder what Jayne Country thinks?