Not All Are TERF

Not all lesbians are Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists; I believe that they are just small in number but very outspoken. Case in point,

A Cisgender Lesbian's TDOR Message to Trans Women
Beverly Tillery of the New York City Anti-Violence Project wants her trans sisters to know she has their backs.The Advocate
By Beverly Tilery
November 20, 2015

Ty Underwood. Kandis Capri. Jessie Hernandez. Elisha Walker. Amber Monroe. Tamara Dominguez. Penny Proud. London Chanel. Yazmin Vash Payne.

These names may be unfamiliar to you. They are the names of some of the transgender people we honor this Transgender Day of Remembrance. They are just a few of the transgender and gender non-conforming people who were shot, stabbed, beaten, or killed in some other manner as a result of anti-transgender hate and violence in 2015.

They were from large and small places all across this country. Places like Tyler, Texas; Phoenix; Denver; Smithfield, N.C.; Detroit; Kansas City, Mo.; New Orleans; Philadelphia; and Los Angeles.

They were students, workers, unemployed, mothers, daughters, partners, friends, and so much more.

And even though I never met them, they were my sisters.

As I looked around the TDoR on Friday most of the people there were not trans but cis they were there in solidarity with us.

I don’t choose this word, “sister,” lightly. As I grew up up in a household with four cisgender female siblings, “sister” has been a powerful word from the day I was born. It means family, unconditional love, and support even during the hardest times. For me, as a black woman, sisterhood is my link to generations of women of color who have cleared paths for me to walk along as well as the many women of color who will come behind me and go farther than I will ever travel. As an adult, finding my own way in the world, I find sisterhood has come to represent the powerful, unbreakable bond that connects me to other women who I know always have my back, and I theirs. In sisterhood, we are stronger, smarter, more compassionate, resourceful, and creative than the sum of our parts. And in sisterhood we can and do change the world.

So it is in this most awe-inspiring spirit of sisterhood that I send out this message to my transgender sisters across this country.

I see you. And I stand with and beside you.

I hear over and over members of our community lumping all lesbians and gays but just like our community there are all sorts of subcultures. Some do hate us, many don’t understand us but don’t hate us, and many are out there fighting for us.

We find so much easier to group people together and think they all share the same traits, whether it is lesbians and gays, blacks, or religions but they all are different. Episcopalians are different from Baptists and not all Episcopalian are the same and not all Muslims are the same

Last night at the big fundraising for the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective called One Big Event there were a number of lesbians that I knew there, many of them through the LGBT Moveable Senior Center (monthly meeting at area senior centers that program for LGBT seniors centers), many of them through the advocacy that I do, and other through my volunteer work at the health collective. Just once have I had a lesbian say anything about my being trans, one lesbian told me that her wife is down on trans people but she also said that she was working on her wife to change her feelings.

So please, please don’t lump everyone together, look at the individual and don’t judge everyone by just one person or act.