Ah, Susan Stryker! How I adore thee. She has a scathing response to John Arovosis' piece attacking the inclusion of the "T" in "LGBT" organizing that I posted the other day. I didn't get around to responding to the piece, but I actually think it raised some compelling questions about the nature of the movement - and the nature of politics. Can, for instance, we afford to wait for trans inclusion in ENDA? Or should we pass it now without gender identitiy included, and hope to pass a more thorough bill later on? This is not as simple as it sounds, obviously.

Enter Susan. She doesn't mince any words or waste any time:

To hear Aravosis tell it, he and multitudes of like-minded gay souls have been sitting at the civil rights table for more than 30 years, waiting to be served. Now, after many years of blood, sweat, toil and tears, a feast in the form of federal protection against sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace has finally been prepared. Lips are being licked, chops smacked, saliva salivated, when -- WTF!?! -- a gaunt figure lurches through the door.

She argues that Aravosis' arguments are "homocentric," and that there's not particular reason that "G" should be the top priority in "LGBT." But her well-taken point here is crucial: "This full version of ENDA, rather than the nearly introduced one that stripped away previously agreed-upon protections against gender-based discrimination and would protect only sexual orientation, is the one that is of potential benefit to all Americans, and not just to a narrow demographic slice of straight-looking, straight-acting gays and lesbians." Stryker argues that gender is where trans and gay people come together, and that gender provisions in ENDA are the ones gays actually ought to be the most concerned about. In particular, she argues that "sucking cock" violates male gender norms, and thus creates all kinds of trouble for gay men. Gender and sexuality are interwoven and inseperable, then.

I'd like to extend Susan's argument further. I didn't get harassed in high school for who fucked me when I went home. My peers had no knowledge of my sexual proclivities. All they knew is I had a swishy walk and tight candy-apple red vinyl pants (they were fierce - trust). Thus, it was really my gender that got me in trouble, not my sexuality. Thus, gender is really where it's at for many of us - with or without sexuality.

As a historian, she of course goes on to make some historical claims. But I'm somewhat less interested - so I won't digest. But here's the money quote. Damn! She doesn't fuck around:

This coming from an ex-Republican, former congressional aide, Georgetown-educated, inside-the-Beltway lawyer who studied under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and who has spent the past decade working his political connections in order to hold corporate America's feet to the fire on gay rights? Puh. Leeze. John Aravosis is in the nosebleed section of the social hierarchy; if he gets any higher up the food chain he should be issued an oxygen mask. Where, pray tell, is this "above" whereof he speaks, peopled with radical transgender revolutionaries? Somewhere in the vicinity of the Jewish international bankers, or the Trilateral Commission?