Commentary

Is this the true cause of the uptick in anti-trans laws?

Is this the true cause of the uptick in anti-trans laws?

Reminder: the success of gay marriage is not the counterpoint to the rise of legislative transphobia, it is part of the cause. The gay marriage movement systematically excluded anyone not deemed acceptable enough for Fox News, in order to win rights only for those willing and able to conform to straight white middle-class norms. The “LGBT” organizations that have focused exclusively on marriage, military access, and hate crime legislation over the past two decades (and the trans organizations that mimic them) are not part of the solution to transphobia, they are part of the problem. That some gay people (and a few trans people) now benefit from participation in institutions of oppression (willingly or unwillingly) doesn’t mean those institutions have changed, it means those institutions have changed us, depoliticizing an entire generation and leaving us all to suffer the consequences.”

–Author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore writing on Facebook. Sycamore was an early (and frequent) critic of the movement’s focus on marriage equality at the expense of nondiscrimination protections and other reforms that would benefit (and radically change) both the LGBT community and wider society.

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