Uneasy allies: Trans women and Cis gay men

Controversy erupted in Toronto’s queer community recently as Danny Glenwright, a cissexual editor at Xtra, Canada’s largest gay and lesbian newspaper, publicly posted a trans woman‘s birth name on his personal Facebook. After at first agreeing to remove her information, he instead posted a non-apology to Xtra‘s website, sparking further outrage by trans people and their allies. In response, Xtra has promised to engage in efforts to increase trans awareness and inclusivity at the paper, though details of the plan are unclear.

The tragedy here for me isn’t just the incredible disrespect shown to the trans woman by a member of the LGBT media, but that it seems part of a larger pattern of backlash to trans women by cissexual gay men. Whether it is in response to the transphobic actions or words of a Ronald Gold, or Dan Savage, or exploiting our deaths for camp, or even arguing against use of the word ‘cis’, there is a significant minority of cis gay men who make no effort to restrain their vitriol for trans women who demand equality.

This is by no means to suggest all cis gay men are transphobic. Far from it, I myself have many cis gay men who are incredible friends, allies, and community, and many prominent gay men are vocal supporters of trans rights. Still, whenever conflict arises between cis gay men and trans people (trans women specifically), there is inevitably a core of gay voices who respond with anger and hatred. The tactics of belittling, derailing, and dehumanizing occur again and again.

This isn’t limited to trolling commenters on websites, either. Some gay men in positions of real power – politicians and the media, among others – hold at best regressive ideas about trans women, and at worst engage in actively anti-trans behaviour. These men directly affect the quality of life for trans people in their ability to influence laws and culture. Whether it is excluding trans people from legislation designed to protect other LGB people or normalizing our culture’s transphobia, the outcome is the same: trans people are marginalized and dehumanized.

Now, the point of writing this isn’t simply to point out that some gay men can say and do transphobic things, or to engage those men in a flame war. Though it is an uncomfortable pattern to point to, and the conversations to begin addressing this issue will not be easy, they nonetheless need to happen. One of the common derailing arguments of those internet commenters is to suggest that the ‘real enemy’ is elsewhere, and that trans people are misguided in their criticism of transphobia within the gay community. I flatly reject this. We cannot move forward to seek social justice for all if we have rot in our foundation. Allowing transphobia, racism, ableism, misogyny, classism, and other oppressions to go unchecked only undermines our efforts. Only by addressing them will our movements be stronger.