Well, I guess I shouldn't be too hard on the Human Rights Campaign. Turns out, they're not the only gay-headed organization that's been throwing trans people under the bus. Nor are they the first to do so: Jim Fouratt and his cohort seemed to take the first possible opportunity to kick Sylvia Rivera out of the Gay Liberation Front, which she helped them found in the days after the Stonewall Rebellion.
Nor, for that matter, is the US the only country in which leaders of gay and lesbian organizations have ignored, or even openly disdained, transgender people. Ironically, a British organization called Stonewall--yes, after that Stonewall---has excluded trans people since its founding in 1989. Now Ruth Hunt, its chief executive, has announced that the organization will change its policies and start campaigning for transgender rights.
To be fair, Stonewall--an organization devoted to charity and education--has always billed itself as an LGB organization. Unlike HRC and other organizations in the US, it didn't hypocritically append a "T" to the other letters of the community it purported to serve. In other words, it neither solicited from, nor claimed to represent, transgender people. And, I might add, Stonewall wasn't a single-issue (i.e., same-sex marriage) organization that the HRC, in effect, became.
On another note: Wouldn't Jim Fouratt and Janice Raymond make a lovely couple?
Nor, for that matter, is the US the only country in which leaders of gay and lesbian organizations have ignored, or even openly disdained, transgender people. Ironically, a British organization called Stonewall--yes, after that Stonewall---has excluded trans people since its founding in 1989. Now Ruth Hunt, its chief executive, has announced that the organization will change its policies and start campaigning for transgender rights.
To be fair, Stonewall--an organization devoted to charity and education--has always billed itself as an LGB organization. Unlike HRC and other organizations in the US, it didn't hypocritically append a "T" to the other letters of the community it purported to serve. In other words, it neither solicited from, nor claimed to represent, transgender people. And, I might add, Stonewall wasn't a single-issue (i.e., same-sex marriage) organization that the HRC, in effect, became.
On another note: Wouldn't Jim Fouratt and Janice Raymond make a lovely couple?
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