Drop the T from LGBT: Why The Gay Rights Movement and the Trans Rights Movement Need a Divorce (Pt. II)

At the end of Pride Month last month, I began presenting my case for why the trans rights movement should be separated from the gay rights movement. I started by questioning the justification for grouping LGB with T in the first place. I then explained how sexual orientation is different from the concept of gender identity. Afterwards, I showed how that the difference between gay people and trans people translates into each group having different needs and concerns. After all, why put everyone in the same category if the aims and goals of each group are different? 

Now I will get into an even more vital reason that the two groups should go their separate ways.  The reason for dropping the T from LGBT is more than a mere misalignment in goals or objectives. There are three ways in which the trans rights movement is actually causing harm to LGB individuals and the gay rights movement.  

1) This mash-up of LGBT is sowing confusion in mainstream culture. The encroachment of "gender ideology" was such a concern that gay conservative writer Andrew Sullivan brought it up as early as January 2018. People are getting annoyed with trans activists to the point having a spillover effect of waning support of gay rights, particularly with marriage equality and parental rights. Last year, a Gallup poll found acceptance of gay couples to fall from 71 percent to 64 percent in a single year. As of late last month, support for same-sex marriage still remains at that 64 percent. Whether two gay individuals should be allowed to enter a marriage contract or the call for gay acceptance are separate from the less popular topics of gender-reassignment surgery for minors (Pew Research) or allowing for MTF transgender individuals to play in women's sports (Gallup). The longer the gay rights movement stays with the trans rights movement, the more likely that gay acceptance goes down with a sinking ship. 

2) Trans issues have become such a litmus test for the Far Left that it has resulted in a path towards gay erasure. Here are some examples: 

• Last year, Johns Hopkins University defined lesbian as "non-men attracted to non-men." It was summarily removed because such an inane definition attempts to overlook the fact that being a lesbian means being a biological woman who has a same-sex attraction towards other biological women. Gay men are biological men who are attracted to other men. This was common knowledge until a few years ago. In its misguided path towards inclusion, Johns Hopkins was erasing lesbianism because being gay or lesbian means nothing in a de-gendered world. 
• In the United Kingdom, the LGB Alliance recently had to spend £250,000 in legal fees against the trans-youth charity called Mermaids. LGB Alliance had to defend the notion that lesbianism meant women (a.k.a. biological women) are only attracted to other biological women. 
• As a matter of fact, the trans rights movement suppresses the question of "what is a man" or "what is a woman" because that would have to define the terms without the circular logic of stating that being a woman is a "strong feeling of being a woman." To erroneously define biological sex as a social construct instead of the biological reality that it is ends up being implicitly homophobic because again, homosexuality is about same-sex attraction. 
• Last year, I wrote a blog entry about the increasingly popular argument on the Far Left that not dating trans people is transphobic. I had to remind people that being homosexual means being attracted to the same sex (hence same-sex attraction), not the same gender identity. The Woke World has put trans people on such a pedestal that addressing perceived slights against trans people comes above all else. It is how trans people can perturbingly tell gay people that they must date trans people lest they are a transphobic bigot. 

This strong-arming forgets that the initial purpose of the gay rights movement is that one's sexual attraction and orientation are not beholden to anyone, including trans people. Trans people and gay people should be able to co-exist. The fact that there cannot be co-existence without trying to make gay people feel like bigots for their sexual orientation shows us how exclusionary and zero-sum the trans activists and gender ideology movement really are. 

3) There is more than societal pressure on gay people or attempts to minimize, invalidate, or even erase the gay experience because same-sex attraction does not conform with gender ideology. There are those who are trying to turn homosexuals into something they are not. We do not need to go to the extreme example of Iran forcing gender reassignment surgery onto its gay citizens. 

I have a legitimate concern that the social contagion effect will take LGB adolescents down an inaccurate and irreversible path. This phenomenon is starting to foment with de-transitioners in the United States. However, such European countries as Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have been providing gender-reassignment surgery and puberty blockers before it became increasingly popular in the United States. As a matter of fact, we have already seen this concern unfold on the other side of the pond in the United Kingdom. 

The National Health Service (NHS), which is the United Kingdom's equivalent of the U.S.' HHS, shut down the Tavistock Clinic. The Cass Review scrutinized gender-affirming care in the United Kingdom, including the Tavistock Clinic. Not only did the Cass Review show the harms of gender-affirming care (not to the mention the lack of benefits thereof), but such media outlets as The Times and The Telegraph conducted investigations of Tavistock. 

The investigations found them to be like conversion therapy centers for gay adolescents convincing them that their confusion was over their gender identity instead of their sexuality. As these investigations found, over 80 percent of those admitted to Tavistock were either gay or bisexual. The Cass Review, specifically on pages 118-120, show how a disproportionately large amount of gay and bisexual adolescents are pressured into transitioning. I would argue this has more plausibility given that most adolescents who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria grow out of the dysphoria without any medical or surgical intervention by the time they become adults. 

Postscript

To recap, it does not make sense to group LGB with the T. Sexual orientation is different from gender identity. As such, the needs and concerns of gay people is different from those of trans people. The overlap between what gay people are fighting for and what trans people are fighting for is relatively small. 

On top of that, the trans rights movement is fighting a fight that has a spillover effect of invalidating the cause of gay people in a zero-sum fashion while in some cases causing physical and psychological harm to gay people. How in the world has this reached the point where trans activists and their allies see gay people standing up for their rights and their same-sex attraction as a form of bigotry? The concept of "gender identity" goes on path of trying to erase homosexuality, thereby being homophobic. That is far from being the behavior of an ally. 

Gay people already fought against conversion "therapy" once. It seems inconceivable that this phenomenon is still happening in 2024, even if under a different guise. Yet here we are seeing history rhyme. Chiding gay people for having same-sex attraction and telling them they should be ashamed is what the gay rights movement was fighting all those years ago. 

This time, the anti-gay discrimination is not coming from the Religious Right. It is coming from gender ideology adherents who pretend to be allies of the LGB community. Advising LGB individuals to stick it out with the trans rights movement is like telling a domestic abuse victim that he or she should stay in a dysfunctional marriage and telling said victim to try to work it out. There are so many marriages that last longer than they should. A divorce between the gay rights movement and the trans rights movement is long overdue. I strongly predict that there is an eventual divorce between the gay rights movement and the trans rights movement. When and how that happens remains the mystery.