It was about 2-3 years ago that I had a bit of a revelation regarding my own identity as a cis gay man, what trans and non-binary people go through, and the limits of liberal “acceptance,” or at least the limits that some liberals place on their acceptance of others. Embarrassingly, this revelation came during a Facebook argument. Some of the origins of it are hazy in my mind but, suffice it to say, I ended up in a heated exchange with some guy I knew from college. He was a self-proclaimed “liberal, but…” This is a type of person who is constantly ready to throw in their lot with reactionaries (the unkind might almost think they’re looking for a reason) if “certain people” keep pushing their buttons. In this case, the button-pushers were trans people. At one point during the back and forth, this person asked me a question, one which I remember astonishingly well. Referring to trans people, he said (and while this might not be verbatim, it’s quite close): “Do you honestly expect normal, everyday people to accept something like this right away?” I responded with my best faux heroics, something along the lines of “Yeah, I do,” and some additional attempts at retorts.
The fighting went on. Later in the argument, the guy was going on about how basically minority groups like trans people need to wait and stop pushing the envelope so much. To be fair to him, it wasn’t as if he felt the lack of acceptance of trans people was good. Rather he believed it was wrong for “them” to be too shrill and alienate “normal” people. I argued that there was precedent for oppressed minorities sticking up for themselves in a mass movement, against the express wishes of the majority. He hit the roof. How dare I invoke the civil rights movement! That was totally unique, not to be compared to anything, ever, for any reason whatsoever, and doing so was outrageous. African Americans he argued, (just for the record, both this person and I are white) could not do anything about the bigotry against their skin complexion, so they had a legitimate excuse for mass action. As for LGBT+ people, we could always just hide if we wanted to.
Before I discuss my response and what happened afterwards, I want to do a bit of “bothsideism,” something I usually detest but which is warranted here. On the one hand, I have heard some gay people make it sound like there’s essentially no difference between the struggle for queer rights and visibility and the African American civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. I’ve also seen people, black and white, do what this guy did: largely dismiss LGBT+ equality, saying things like “Sure, it’s fine but don’t compare it to real struggles.” I find both of these attitudes incredibly insensitive and wrongheaded. On the one hand, white LGBT+ people should always remember that capitalism and imperialism weren’t built on the backs of their ancestors’ enslaved labor. On the other hand, no one should be shrugging off the experiences of LGBT+ people (among whom are many people of color), whose oppression is often uniquely socially isolating. And this was kind of the basis of my response to my sparring partner; I was not directly comparing the fight for LGBT+ equality to the African American civil rights movement. What I was doing was refuting the notion that marginalized groups should feel required to wait for approval from the majority when seeking their rights as human beings. For all the crucial, not to be ignored differences between these movements, all struggles for expanding human rights are indeed the same when it comes to their moral foundation: the conviction that all types of people are entitled to equality by virtue of their humanity, and have the right to demand it of their society. On that front, I was polite. When it came to the idea that LGBT+ people could “just hide,” I let loose a little regarding this poisonous version of “tolerance” that would “accept” us, conditional to our not pushing too far on the idea that something intrinsic to our existence is just that: a core part of who we are as human beings.
Around this time, the person messaged me privately and we had a perfectly pleasant conversation. He insisted he was not a bigot. The talk ended amicably.
But something that came up in the public spat continues to needle me. The use of the word “normal” was not at all limited to the moments I’ve quoted or paraphrased. Constantly during this debate, both with me and with others who joined in, this person would exclaim things like “Look, I’m just a normal guy!,” “Jeez, I’m a normal guy!,” “Man, I’m just normal! This is all too much for a normal guy like me!”
The word “normal” is, of course, rather fraught. There is a perspective within the LGBT+ community (and beyond) that “normal” is not the positive thing society claims it is, and that queer people (and all people, for that matter) should abandon the urge for conformity in favor of more free-spirited individualism. Personally, I’m usually sympathetic to this point of view. To be sure, there are times when the critique of “normal” turns into a contemptuous “more radical than thou” posturing. No one dedicated to human liberation should have any patience for this. The goal is for every individual to be capable of pursuing their own happiness, not to swap one type of conformity for another. For the most part however, I totally agree that “normality” often means a drab soullessness that is frequently sexist, heteronormative and corporatist to boot.
The thing is though, I don’t think my debate partner was invoking normalcy in the spirit of urging others to straighten up and fly right. Rather I think he took “normal” to mean “someone whose life I can understand,” and trans people just don’t make the cut. He can imagine an African American being bored at work, falling in love, and so on. But a person who doesn’t identify as their birth gender? A person who doesn’t identify as any gender? No way. They’re to be treated charitably, sure, but they’re outside, exotic. In short, they’re freaks. You shouldn’t be mean to a freak, but they’re definitely not like you. They don’t live the way we do. You can and should pity them, but there’s no hope of understanding and there’s certainly no chance they’re not so different from you.
Many will jump up and argue that the 1950s version of this person would be saying things like “I mean, sure these people have been treated badly but disrupting the buses is just outrageous.” I can’t know that for sure about him but, as for the general mindset, absolutely. And that’s what this all boils down to. The 1990s version would be saying “I don’t have a problem with gay people but it’s really out of line to think they can get married and raise kids.” While I’ve been unbelievably blessed by not experiencing much homophobia in my life, I can certainly recall some of this tone from people in the early 2000s. They liked me, they liked lots of gay people. But…I mean, you’re not really normal. You can’t be like us. This wouldn’t be said, but the nervous laughter, the quick change of subject the one time out of a hundred you reference finding another guy attractive, those tell you everything you need to know. And this would come just as often from “rebels” as it would from “normies.”
Most of those same people would never behave that way now. For the liberal-minded (using the term very broadly), homophobia is now totally out of bounds. That is not something I consider hollow. Rather it’s a wonderful example of social progress. So many people now understand that gay people are, when you get right down to it, just people, people they can easily see living life as they do themselves, day in and day out. But many of these enlightened people are positively infuriating when it comes to their lack of memory. They now often speak of trans people in a manner they would rightly call out as bigotry if they heard it directed at gay people. “I mean, it’s fine but they’re not really…,” “I don’t have a problem with it, but…” Or it’s more subtle. Try recommending something by a trans writer or commentator to a standard liberal and watch the little smirk that tells you “I’m not listening to one of those.” In short, these types don’t hate trans and non-binary people but they will not accept that they can be normal. That is, they cannot imagine them living lives that would be in any way familiar. They will not grant that a person’s gender identity doesn’t alter their need for love, shelter, and bread.
It’s a shame but I think I know how this ends: a trans kid will get a tire iron through the head and, for a variety of reasons, that particular case will blow up as a news story. Then people will start backing away. You’ll hear the murmurs: “I mean, I never wanted that.” Within ten years or so, libertarians (who were previously yapping about natural gender roles) will be claiming credit for trans liberation, conservatives (who had been pushing anti-trans bills) will be arguing that lower taxes help the trans community, and liberals’ lower lips will be quivering as they describe their discovery, through a trans sibling or cousin, that trans and non-binary people are “really just like everyone else”…and hoping you don’t remember how they used to have “questions” about “the children.” This will be progress but I find it pretty sickening that we have to travel this path to it…again.
BABOUK FOREVER! 