A thread on the alleged divorce between the LGB and the T. One of the most frequent questions anyone who's involved in @AllianceLGB gets asked is what happened to the letter T? The question's often accusatory, or even accompanied by a claim we're a hate group. We're really not.
2./ We've loads of trans supporters and welcome them with open arms. They share our understanding that while sometimes our needs and rights overlap they're not the same. They also share our exasperation at the way 'trans' has now been redefined by lobby groups.
3./ When the LGBT acronym was first coined T meant transsexuals. They had specific needs, many of them related to healthcare. But Stonewall's most recent re definition of 'trans' includes a multiplicity of vague terms such as "agender" and "neutrois". stonewall.org.uk/help-advice/gl…
4./ I don't know anyone that has an iota of 'hate' for neutrois. Whoever they are. Good luck to you if that's your tribe. Genuinely. But it's not the job of LGB people to defend the rights of neutrois any more than those of twitchers or philatelists.
5./ There's only so much time in the day (or so much lobbying time an LGB group will ever get with decision-makers) to be spending it trying to capture the richly nuanced tapestry of differences between, say, the stance of neutrois and that of, say, the gender-fluid.
6./ And anyway who said LGBT was the default term we all had to use? Stop me if 2014 sounds surprisingly recent, but it was only then that Stonewall's new CEO announced she was reaching out to the transgender community. Here she is looking visionary. theguardian.com/world/2014/jul…
7./ She made the announcement because she said Stonewall currently "does not campaign or lobby on transgender issues". If you believe today's angry LGBTQ+ activists this must have been a catastrophe. Yet in fact up to then Stonewall had been notably successful - as an LGB group.
8./ Just 4 years before it had managed to achieve a singular achievement, enshrining in law the rights of lesbians, gays and bisexuals in the Equality Act (2010). And guess what? When Stonewall itself produced a 40 page Guide to that Act there wasn't a single reference to LGBT.
9./ Nor does Stonewall's guide have a single reference to trans, transsexual, transgender, or queer. As for 'neutrois' the word was but a glint in some gender-fluid academic's eye. Read the guide here if you don't believe me. stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/…
10./ It's important to remember the Equality Act was also a triumph for trans people whose rights (or those of transsexuals whom the Act alone mentions) were separately enshrined. And who managed to achieve that triumph? It certainly wasn't LGB people or Stonewall.
11./ It was trans people and well done them. So there we have it: two different groups achieving great things separately while cheering each other on. But surely the acronym LGBTQ existed before 2014? Of course, it did. But it was much more marginal than is now made out.
12./ During the devastation of AIDS in the late 80s and 90s gay activists embraced a new angrier stance; entirely understandably given friends were dying in droves. The label 'Queer' spoke to that anger and 'Outrage' with its creative emphasis on direct action was the result.
13. / Nowadays, Outrage is constantly called an LGBT organisation but go onto its own archived site updated in 2011 and there's only one reference to LGBT. Dive deeper and go onto the pages written before the 2011 update and there isn't one. outrage.org.uk/about/
14./ If you trawl through its wonderful photo archive of the 90s there are loads of references to Queer but not one in around 50 photographs that I can see to ..LGBT. Instead it's just those fuddy duddy lesbians and gay men; again and yet again. flickr.com/photos/outrage… 
15./ Outrage co-founder Peter Tatchell's own website is now festooned with the acronym LGBTQi. But here's his own verbatim interview he gave in 1997 about the philosophy of Outrage. Not a reference to LGBT or trans. It's on his website. Naughty, Peter! petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/ou…
16./ Why does this rewriting of history matter? The struggle for gay rights has been spectacularly successful but if you rewrite its history you'll misunderstand its lessons. We didn't succeed by bullying. Misogyny was a flaw of the gay movement. It wasn't our calling card.
17./ And there's something psychologically insidious about this rewriting too. It chips away at our collective memory and begins to make lesbians and gays marginal to our own history (and yep...herstory). Stonewall, the event, is just the most obvious example.
18./ I've lost count of the number of people who rail against @AllianceLGB then wield what they think is their trump card: "it was a trans person who threw the first stone at the Stonewall riots". This is perhaps the best demolition of that claim. tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-an…
19./ The fabulous drag diva Marsha P Johnson is on the record as saying she didn't turn up until 2am so she couldn't have thrown the 'first' stone. But what underlies this rewriting of history? Isn't it the suggestion gays were just too entitled to fight for their own rights?
20./ Doesn't it imply that gays in 1969 just weren't oppressed badly enough to riot and doesn't that smell a lot like self-loathing? The rewiriting doesn't stop there. There's hardly an iconic figures that hasn't been spruced up and the gayness removed. Take ...Stormé Delaverie
21./ A recent article in Harper's magazine claimed she wasn't a gorgeous butch lesbian...but a transman. Here's a takedown of that by a woman who bothered to speak to lesbians who'd known Stormé for most of HER life. As you were, Stormé. thevelvetchronicle.com/harpers-bazaar…
22./ And so it goes on. Our artists, historical figures, organisations, & history are all being wiped clean of the taint of mere gayness. And as we're written out of history we begin to be written out of society. Campaigning for our rights now makes us a hate group. Allegedly.
23./ And now they've come for the kids. Homophobic parents or teachers presented with a camp boy or a tomboy reinvent themselves as progressives by claiming the kid was born in the wrong body. Young gays or lesbians are being told they're not actually gay any more.
24./ Is this the fault of trans people? No not at all. Their rights and reputations are being trashed by the gender identity lobby too. When hundreds of kids who were fast-tracked to transition realise it was a mistake this will be a disaster for trans people.
25./ We stand in solidarity with genuine trans people. But we have an urgent priority to defend our own embattled rights. The gender lobby began by erasing us from our history. Now they're trying to erase us. So keep in touch. Stay friends. We hope you understand.
