Harvey Fierstein has a new play about to open on Broadway called Casa Valentina. You can read about it in last Sunday's New York Times and elsewhere. The play concerns itself with a Catskills resort for cross dressers, an historical place, where heterosexual and usually married men could come with their wives and dress as women. These guys were pillars of their community and closeted. The plot of the play concerns itself with an incident that actually did destroy the historical resort when one of the founders determined that homosexuals should be excluded from the resort on the basis that, in the future, when homosexuals are still skulking around in back alleyways furtively seeking sex, heterosexual cross dressers would be proudly out and accepted by the community as men who just like to wear women's clothes.

Of course it didn't work out that way. And the reason is obvious, isn't it? Gay men and lesbians stood up, out and proud, and demanded the same rights as heterosexuals, and, as society realizes that there is no argument for social and legal oppression of gay and lesbian minorities, more and more nations have accorded them the same rights as the heterosexual majority, to the extent that not only is marriage equality clearly moving towards national acceptance but there were more hate crimes against jews last year recorded thatnagainst gays and lesbians.

That's not true for transgender, and if any of you think that your protestations that you are not transgender but simply a cross dresser are persuasive just go out there in women's clothes (not passing) and see if society at large makes that distinction. It doesn't. As far as most people are concerned, transgender, the most visible sign of which is that you are wearing the clothes of another gender, is far less acceptable than being gay or lesbian. Transgender is a direct threat to social norms in just the way that being gay or lesbian used to be.

I'm not asking for people to be activist or even out as transgender. I'm not out to every one I know though I'm clearly not wearing men's clothes and I'm wearing make up and I'm quite femme. I do allow people to just let themselves think of me as odd or weird. I'm just asking every one of us to be honest. You want to stay in the closet, stay in the closet. Your reasons may be persuasive and necessary for you. But don't kid yourself that you are not participating in the very thing that has forced you to stay in the closet and that will continue to keep you there. The LG part of the movement has clearly shown that being out and open is the only way that civil rights can be achieved. The B and T need to do the same.