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New Orleans is often called "The Big Easy." While that nickname might depict life--at least some aspects of it--in the Crescent City, it doesn't apply to the state--Louisiana--of which it is a part.
Interestingly, New Orleans extended its anti-discrimination laws to protect gender identity and expression in 1998, four years before New York City managed to do the same. And, of course, New Orleans was known to have a lively gay culture and "scene"--even if much of it was underground--long before it held its first "official" Pride event in 1978.
Even with such an environment, there were reminders--some of them truly awful--that the "N'awlins" is indeed located in Dixie. On 24 June 1973, the UpStairs Lounge, club that provided meeting space for the city's first LGBT-affirming congregation, was set ablaze in an arson attack. Thirty-two people died as a result. Rodger Dale Nunez, the only suspect arrested for the attack, escaped from psychiatric custody and was never again picked up by the police, even though he spent a lot of time hanging around in the French Quarter neighborhood surrounding the UpStairs Lounge. He committed suicide in November 1974. Six years later, the state fire marshal's office. lacking other leads, closed the case.
I mention this to give you an idea of what a formidable task some folks in Baton Rouge, the state's capital, are trying to do: pass a "Fairness Ordinance" banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in their city. Not surprisingly, it's meeting with fierce opposition from people who claim that passing such an ordinance will inhibit their religious freedom?
How many times have we heard that argument? How many more times must we hear it before everyone realizes how bogus it is?
The moment you talk about a "culture", you're not part of it.
Perhaps it's trite to say that. But, like so many other statements that become cliches, it is so trivialized, not because it's not true--if anything, it's cliched because it's so true--but because it's uttered so often and so glibly by people who feel smart or wise for using it.
Anyway, the first sentence of this post sums up the problem I've always had with the use of the term "transgender culture."
Now, there are cultures--like the Hijra of South Asia--consisting of trans people. They indeed have their own customs, rituals, mores and, some might say, language. And their culture can be said to be a function of the symbiotic relationship the cultures surrounding them (i.e., those of India) have with them. Returning to the example of Hijra: They are treated as a separate caste and have suffered increasing discrimination as India has become more Westernized and Christianized. But people still call on them to officiate at weddings and funerals, to offer blessings for other occasions and to ward off evil spirits.
But, as Kat Callahan points out, almost anyone who speaks of a "transgender culture" is talking about a Western or American idea of what it--or culture generally--is. And, as Ms. Callahan points out, the speaker is almost always cisgender.
What she doesn't say, but probably thinks, is that most Americans, to the extent that they think about "trans culture," define it in much the same way people used to talk about "gay culture" or "queer culture": bars, clubs, balls and such. There used to be talk about "queer spaces" where lesbians and/or gays--particularly young ones--could meet. While such things still exist, I think they are dying out, as lesbians and gays have less of a need to simultaneously assert their identities and integrate themselves into their schools, workplaces and such because of the wider acceptance--or, at least acknowledgment--that your favorite aunt or uncle or most talented co-worker might be gay.
As Ms. Callahan points out, we, as trans people, are taking our place in that world. That gives us less of a need to create insular identities and customs; of "trans culture", whatever it means, she writes, "It is unnecessary before it even has come to exist."
Most poignantly, she says, "I am not part of it." I feel the same way. Perhaps that is the reason why I have had so little involvement with trans, or even LGBT-related "culture" or events: I don't know of any secret handshakes or kisses, or have any particular habits, beliefs or customs that are emblematic of trans people. We don't have particular foods, ways of dressing, a language, a body of artistic expression or geographic locations that define us. Certainly, we don't have anything resembling a common religion: I've met trans people who are atheists, devout practitioners of mainstream religions, Wiccans and everything in between. For that matter, I even wonder whether we have a common history, as the current definitions of trans people didn't exist through most of human history.
In other words, we can be nothing more or less than trans people in the culture(s) of which we are a part. No one else can define what that means for us.
Getting one's image on a postage stamp is, I reckon, a bit like the Nobel Prize. Whenever I hear about someone being honored with one or the other, I have one of two responses: "What were they thinking?" or
"What took them so long?"
I had the first response when Obama got the Peace Prize. (For that matter, I was even more perplexed when Henry Kissinger got it.) But I had the latter reaction today, upon finding out that the US Postal Service is issuing a stamp with Harvey Milk's image.
As many of you know, he was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. His career was tragically cut short--along with that of his boss, then-San Francisco Mayor George Moscone-- by Dan White, who had recently resigned from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, on which Milk served at the time White shot him.
A number of motives have been ascribed to White. The one with the most empirical evidence is that White, a former San Francisco police officer and firefighter and a Vietnam veteran, represented a conservative district on the southeastern edge of the city. Residents there were said to be resentful toward the city's growing homosexual community whom, of course, they--and probably White himself--saw embodied in Milk.
Another plausible explanation--implied in the 2008 film in which Sean Penn played Milk--is that White was a closeted homosexual who was jealous and resentful of the accomplishments and accolades that came Milk's way.
Whatever the explanation, I'm glad to see Harvey Milk so honored. Even though his political career spanned only a few years, his work gained a lot of momentum. I wish that he could have lived to see--and perhaps partake--of some of the fruit it is just starting to bear.
I have not forsaken my promise to write more about the Lost Generation of Transgenders. Sooner or later, though, I think it will turn into a project that will extend well beyond the boundaries of this blog.
With LGT in mind, I thought I'd post this Transgender Visibility Timeline:
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