Gay Support

[noname]

As we all know many gays are quite open about it now. We see rainbow stickers and bumper stickers that say, celebrate diversity. What I'm wondering is do cd's have support of the gay community? Do they really accept diversity? I'm not gay or in the gay community, so I have no idea. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[Melanie R]

As we all know many gays are quite open about it now. We see rainbow stickers and bumper stickers that say, celebrate diversity. What I'm wondering is do cd's have support of the gay community? Do they really accept diversity? I'm not gay or in the gay community, so I have no idea. Can anyone shed some light on this?

I can't speak for the rest of the country but in Houston the TG community has the total support of the gay community. This past April at our 14th annual TG Unity Banquet the leaders of all gay and lesbian local groups were present. On our Houston Transgender Unity Committee two leaders of the local G & L community serve on our board of directors. This year Jennifer Pool, a TS, was elected by the local GLBT community as President of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus. She is the first TG person in the US elected to lead a GLBT Political Caucus organization. Everything we do in the Houston area TG community is reported on in the local GLBT newspapers and magazines. We have achieved this in Houston because our TG groups work in unity and work with all the GLBT groups. The G & L community knows what the T in GLBT stands for.

I hope that others on this board will speak out and say what is being done by the TG community in other areas of the country.

Hugs,

Melanie

[noname]

That's great to hear. Forgive me but what doe GLBT stand for?

[DeniseNY]

GLBT=Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered.

Some CDs also count as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Others do not.

[Dee 1062]

The answer to your question is YES !

[CDsWifey GG]

In my area they have banded together for support and advancement, though as a bisexual person who has never marched in a parade or participated much in the fight for the cause , I must admit, I never realized it before. I am ashamed to say as much as I was always for the "GLBT" cause, and as much as I complained about ppls rejection and misconceptions about what it meant to be bisexual or gay, until my husband told me he was a crossdresser, I paid little or no attention to the "T" part of the family. I don't know why, and it makes me ashamed of myself how little I knew about the whole gender identity issue. On the positive side tho, my eyes are opened now and now that we are going to start going to grp meetings, I will get support and education as well, for his situation as well as my own, as in my area the grp has speakers and support for all members of the GLBT community...as for the many gays being open bit....in my area, it is still very dangerous to be open and while there are a few brave souls who try, most are still closeted. As for my own experience as a bisexual woman, I have had some open hostility from ppl who knew, lost jobs because it became known, but mainly just had to deal with ignorance from those who believed bisexual translated into easy chick into 3somes (granted some bisexuals don't do much to dispel the myth) I personnally am open and out to those that matter in my life, but not to the ppl on the fringes, tho if asked or leaked I would never deny it I am past that. I only wish my husband could have that kind of freedom to tell those he chose to tell that he is a crossdresser. Sadly, as much as homosexuals and bisexuals are discriminated against, I do believe crossdressers have it much harder in a lot of ways.

[Julie York]

Get Laid By a Transvestite.

[noname]

Thanks for your post CDsWifey GGv.

Not that we all need labels, but I'm not sure what catigory I fall into with all these terms. I've only started wearing other clothes in the last couple of months, and well I'm not sure what label I fall under. I never try to pass or anything like that. Is there some faqs on all these terms? Lastly, you mentioned it being safe to be out, is it really that dangerous to go out wearing anything other than guy clothes?

One thing I've learned recently though, there sure are a lot of morons in the world.

[femboi (san diego)]

CD's do have the support of most of the gay community. In the Pride March we have in San Diego every year the "TG" section is where the Cd'ers march. Myself being a gay male, I see the support all the time. Some bars even have a "T-party" night for cd'ers. I've heard very few individuals speak negatively about Cders.

For the most part, the CD'ers, or Tgirls, whatever label you want to attach, have their own bars in the gay community. In San Diego there are two, SRO and Lips. I've been to SRO but I didn't feel welcome there, should I start a thread about gays being accepted by CDers?? LOL.

[Lissa Stevens]

In my area the gay community seems to ignore us. I tried to get information from the local group with the real possibility of joining and they acted like they didn't want us in their club.

[vbcdgrl]

My observation is the Gay community, for the most part, tolerates us CDers. It's true that many Gay bars are CD friendly, but the Gay guys and girls(lesbians) don't really want to get too involved with us CDers. On the other hand, they aren't hostile either. On time, at a Cd friendly Gay establishment, I did have a group of girls ask me to dance with them, one of them said"you look so nice".

Vikki

[loki_uk]

I've gone dressed a lot of gay bars and clubs, they used to tolerant us but not be overwhelming friendly but these days a lot of places seem to welcome us to liven the place up a bit and welcome us with open arms. Tolerence breeds tolerence I guess

Also theres the safety aspect, if you're ever threatened if any nillas come in and get abusive the bar staff always seem to be as hard as nails and wouldn't want to be the Chav causing trouble

[lahr]

I'm neither gay or homo phobic and have never been out of the house en femme. In my limited encounters with gay males at gay bars I have often admitted to being a CDer during casual conversation. Most were interested or at least accepting. I find this facinating. As for lesbians wow! Most were less than friendly and some were disgusted.

[Marlena Dahlstrom]

There's no single answer, since gays and lesbians (and the gay and lesbian communities) aren't monolithic.

My experience is that as individuals is that gays and lesbians don't "get" crossdressing and transness any better than straight folks do. (I find I do the same sort of explaining as I do with hetros.) But they're often more accepting -- needless to say, things like being in the closet, fears about the impacts of coming out, etc. are things that they can identify with.

If you're at a gay/lesbian club and don't feel embraced, it's probably more because like most people, they're there to meet people and you're not what you're looking for. Additionally, there's a fair number of gays who exhibit some sissyphobia so they're not fond of "effeminate" men, regardless of whether they're gay or straight. Likewise, there are some lesbians who can see crossdressers as intruding on "women's spaces" (nor may they be thrilled at seeing CDs who dress/behave in ways they consider reflect a sexist stereotype).

But there's also plenty of gays and lesbians who are perfectly friendly, if not supportive.

As organizations, relations have been a bit more mixed. While there has been support, there's also been instances when gay/lesbian advocacy groups have been willing to sacrifice trans issues -- such as in lobbying for anti-discrimination laws -- if they thought it hurt the success of gay and lesbian issues. Bisexuals have had similar complaints about being second-class citizens in the GLBT world.

But to be fair, this isn't entirely unsurprising. People are going to look after their own concerns first -- and if we're going to rely others to carry our fight, we shouldn't be surprised if it's not always their top priority. And haven't seen a lot of crossdressers and other trans folks doing a lot of lobbying on behalf of the other members of the GLBT communities -- if we'd do more of that, I'm sure we'd see GLB organizations make a greater effort on our behalf. (And you don't necessarily need to disclose you're a CD, you can always just say you're "straight but not narrow.")