Transgender Myths...#1 Association with the LGBT Has Not Hurt Transsexuals

I am starting a new series of articles that will look at various "myths" perpetuated by the transgender community. By "myths" I mean those false beliefs that they cling to desperately, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

I'm going to start with a common one. Many will claim that being associated with lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people has not caused harm to those who are HBS, true transsexuals, or classic transsexuals. This is based on the argument that "transphobia" existed before the "T" (which they insist includes transsexuals) was added to the LG and B. The oft cited example is Janice Raymond's nasty book, The Transsexual Empire.

Now. there are several problems with this argument. First, it is simply a straw argument. No one would deny that what they term "transphobia" (a silly term that will be dealt with at another time) existed before the rise of the modern transgender movement. That is not the point. The issue is whether or not being associated with transgender, and thus the LGBT has mad things worse for transsexuals.

And the answer to this is a quite resounding yes!

The ways in which transsexuals have been harmed are numerous. First off, the nature of transsexualism has become distorted by association with both homosexuality and with the various factions that comprise the "transgender." Transsexualism, or preferably HBS, is not about sexual orientation. A person with HBS might well be straight, lesbian, gay, or bisexual. But, because of the association with the LGBT, many see transsexualism as just an advanced form of homosexuality.

The next way that the association has harmed us, is the fact that we become connected to behaviors that have nothing at all to do with true transsexualism or HBS, such as transvestism, crossdressing, drag queens, genderqueer, etc. These share nothing in common with transsexualism.

We are also harmed by often being associated with political and social views that we may strongly disagree with. For example, transgender is increasingly associated with ideas like gender deconstruction and that gender can be changed at will. These are not only false, but are harmful to transsexual seeking their rights. If gender is meaningless, and can be changed at will, then it can be argued that transsexuals should either just express their gender without seeking surgery (thus countering the argument that the surgery should be covered by insurance) or that we should simply just choose to go back to being the gender associate with our birth sex. One has to wonder if people even think before they spout off some of this silliness?

Finally, transsexuals are harmed by the forcible denial of their identities by many transgender activists, or by having their experiences co-opted by those who wish to falsely claim to be "the same as transsexuals," or who even make such silly claims as being "non-op" transsexuals, which is basically an oxymoron.

So, yes, in spite of the claims of transgender mythology, those who are transsexual, or who have HBS, are harmed by being associate with the LGBT.