Rupert Everett complains that the transgender rights movement has ‘completely overshadowed’ gay issues
Rupert Everett has complained that the movement for trans rights has “completely overshadowed” gay issues.
Pink News UK
By Emma Powys Maurice
October 3, 2020
Speaking to The Times, the 61-year-old Shakespeare in Love actor bemoaned that he now feels like “the wrong type of queen” and that the gay community has “completely lost our profile”.
He criticised what he sees as an overly reproachful outlook among young people, and spoke of his fears of being “cancelled” for speaking about transgender issues.
“This might be the first time that the older generation has felt that they have to tiptoe around the younger generation and turn everything off,” he said.
Well first off, the older generation always feel like they have to tiptoe around the younger generation and not just in the LGBTQ+ community.
Well we the trans community feel that we were “canceled” during the quest for marriage equality and how many time were we thrown under the bus. The Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) was passed in New York state in 2002 and the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) was passed 2019. In 2002 gender identity and expression was included back in 2002 but in a backroom deal we were thrown under the bus and dropped from the bill. The Empire State Pride Agenda worked to pass the bill but in 2015 they threw up their hands when the governor signed an executive order granting us protection. Slate magazine wrote…
Although it’s true that Empire State Pride Agenda, the state of New York, and the LGBTQ movement as a whole have come a very long way, we’re frankly shocked by the organization’s declaration of “mission accomplished.” This announcement exacerbates the perception that once same-sex marriage became legal nationally, there was no LGBTQ equality work left to do. This perception is both wrong and dangerous.But last year they did pass GENDA.
Let’s start with the state of New York and look at how well it protects (or doesn’t protect) its transgender residents from discrimination. Although the state has an anti-discrimination law that protects lesbian, gay, and bisexual people (SONDA, the Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act), that law was passed in 2002 without protections for transgender New Yorkers. That was due in large part to strategic decisions made by—you guessed it—Empire State Pride Agenda, which decided to jettison pushing for trans protections in the law in exchange for more expedient passage of the bill. This decision drew furious criticism from many in the LGBTQ community, and it is one that a former ESPA executive director has said publicly that he regrets.
Fast-forward to today, and there are still no statutory protections for trans New Yorkers. After 15 years of advocates trying in vain to return to the legislature to fix SONDA, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has put a Band-Aid on the problem by issuing an executive order extending protections to trans folks. The problem with that solution is that an executive order can be rescinded following regime change in Albany, so the protections extended to trans New Yorkers are far flimsier than those extended to gays and lesbians. In other words, after failing transgender New Yorkers in the first instance, Empire State is doing it again—even though transgender people face discrimination at astounding rates.
Now we have this gay man crying crocodile tears over not being the center of attention in Britain. But in Britain there is a strong effort by the conservative right to strip us of our protections and healthcare.
We are way more likely to be a victim of violence or discrimination than gay men, while gay men can hide in their anonymity we are always “out”.
There are so many more LGBQ people who support us then stood in our way.
Wrong roads, wrong roads can I say it again wrong roads, taken since the split from the Gay Liberation Front by the Gay Activist Alliance. Suddenly it became all about white gay men and their needs and desires. Suddenly it became a one issue movement in more ways than one. The exact same thing happened in Connecticut prior to the passage of the 1991 Lesbian and Gay civil rights bill. Some of us remember it very well, and if we do not, we have the archives to give us the facts. We heard every excuse in the book on why trans folks could not be included in the bill. Every excuse that drove some of us from the movement. I remember telling one of the big gay activists that if everyone could not be included and get their rights then I do not want mine. Oh, we will be back for “them”, (how many times have we heard that Diana?) Yeah back for “them” right! Oh yes, they came back for “them” ok, but it took Trans folks to lead the charge a decade later. Flash to NY and you see some of the same players on the Empire Pride Committee, comfortable class gay men and comfortable class lesbians wanting so much to buy into the system.
ReplyDeleteEverett can cry all he wants, the “straight” gays and lesbians can flood the room with their tears, “gay issues overshadowed”, My word! I must be mistaken as I thought it was a LGBT movement. Queers and all that fall under that + sign umbrella know this and we know that for too long the issues of the Trans community have been pushed aside because it won’t play so good behind the white picket fence, and the lure of Mommy and Daddy-ism. The just like you except what we do, folks be damned. There is a war going on and the shots have been fired at the Trans community, either these folks join in the struggle or go back to where you came from. But let us never forget the reception, the struggle within the movement, the remembrance of being sent to the bumper of the bus as Sylvia said, the broken promises, and the grabbing for their own rights at the expense of everyone else. Mr. Everett must have missed the class where the great Black, Lesbian, Poet, Philosopher, warrior, and mother Audre Lorde said, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle as we do not lead a single-issue life.” Let us apply that to all we do.