December 12, 2014 | By Jim Toy
Our celebration of Transgender Awareness Week reminds me how humbled I am to have been a part of our liberation. The first time a community member came to Spectrum--then called the Lesbian Gay Male Programs Office--to ask about resources for transgender people, I was limited to offering contact information for a therapist. LGBPO had barely begun to address the concerns of bisexual students, let alone to become aware and supportive of the concerns of transgender people.
The University of Michigan added protection of sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy in 1993 after BLT people and our allies had advocated for the change for 21 years since 1972. After 14 more years of advocacy, the inclusion of protection for gender identity and expression was added in 2007. Increasing numbers of discussion groups and support groups and dedicated events for the diversity of gender identity and expression have been part of Spectrum's outreach since Ronni Sanlo's term (1994-1997) as Director of the then-titled Office of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Affairs. And I am so glad that transgender leadership is now a star in Spectrum's crown.
Yet we have much more to do. We continue to challenge the discrimination, harassment, and violent assault directed at transgender and genderqueer people of all ages, and particularly the bullying of transgender and genderqueer K-12 students. Transgender women of color are at particular risk. Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Act does not include protection for gender identity and gender expression or sexual orientation, nor are these "classes" of identity included in Michigan's "hate crimes" policy.
Because of this, I would like to suggest that we re-order our naming of the various components of human sexuality. It took the entire decade of the 70's, in the face of sexism, for us to decide to use the order "Lesbian and Gay" instead of "Gay and Lesbian". Now, after 35 years, let's promote the use of "Transgender Bisexual Lesbian Gay Queer and Questioning"--and "Intersex" deserves to be named first.
Our birth sex leads to our birth gender assignment and the gender-role enactment that we are expected to perform. In my experience, awareness of my "gender identity" and of the "Rules of Gender" long preceded my awareness of my sexual orientation. Transgender and bisexual people are by far the most at risk of harassment and discrimination in our TBLGQ community, whether these actions are perpetrated by people outside the community or by members of the community itself. So let's name the last first. Let's use the order "TBLGQ" instead of "LGBTQ". I have advocated for this order for several years. A committee of the Field Instruction Office at the University of Michigan School of Social Work uses this order of naming, as does the Oasis TBLG Outreach Ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. People object that the order "TBLGQ" is confusing. So let's offer a verbal explanation--it's of little cost to us and some small recompense to our comrades who are discounted and ignored, harassed and assaulted. As a united community, let's continue to transform our world:
Hey hey, ho ho! Transphobia's got to go!