Rachel Pollack — Declare Your Sex
I’ve been reading Stuart Feather’s Blowing the Lid, a history of the Gay Liberation Front in the UK. Chapter 12 is an exploration of “Transvestites and Transsexuals” in the GLF, and it is a fairly biased attempt at representing the complexity of the views of the Transvestite, Transsexual and Drag Queen Group within the GLF, with frequent misgendering, an overt focus on the bodies of trans people in the group, and needless speculation about trans intentions.
Nonetheless, Feather reproduces an interesting article by the acclaimed tarot master, and SF / comic book writer, Rachel Pollack on pp.325–328. I’ve not been able to find a copy online, and it looks like this is being held by the Hall-Carpenter Archives, so I thought I would reproduce it in full here, so that other trans people can find connections with the words of a tireless activist from 1972 (I think!).
Declare Your Sex. Transvestites and Transsexuals Come Out.
Transsexual and transvestite oppression, like all gay oppression, exists on two levels: one, the legal and physical dangers, and two, the mindfuck of isolation, guilt, and shame. Transvestitism is against the law, no matter what age you are. A transvestite faces arrest every time he or she leaves the house. At demos the pigs always grab the people in drag first and hit them the hardest. It is no coincidence that of all the people arrested at the Festival of Light the only person facing a prison term was dressed as a cigarette girl. And think a moment what the pigs would do to a transsexual if they undressed her in the precinct house.
And still the mindfuck is worse. Transsexuals and transvestites who strive to come out have nowhere to turn, no one to meet. There are almost no drag pubs, no drag magazines. The entire bibliography on transvestitism and transsexualism together can be counted on your hands with fingers left over for obscene gestures. If a transsexual or transvestite tries to be open and proud, and isn’t lucky enough to have the equipment to pass on the street, she or he can expect ridicule and possible assault just for going to the grocers.
And yet — whenever we bring up the subject at a Gay Lib meeting people complain we’re wasting their valuable time.
This oppression must end now.
Gay men have finally begun to recognize that they are responsible for smashing the oppression of women. It is equally the responsibility of all gay people to help transsexuals and transvestites come out. A transvestite or transsexual woman should not have to demonstrate or prove to lesbians, individually or collectively, that she’s a sister. On the contrary, they must say to her, ‘Come out. You belong here with us.’
In New York City the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries sought to join the Radicalesbians as sisters. They were denied membership on the grounds that they were ‘genital males’.
This oppression must end now.
Some revolutionaries, very proud of their advance thinking, tell us we’re reactionary is we identify with a particular sex, even though it’s the one opposite from that of our birth certificates. Drag queens and butch lesbians are put down for supposedly clinging to stereotyped gay roles. People refuse to recognize that they are expressing a strong transvestite component in their personalities. In fact, the isolation of rtransvestites and transsexuals is so strong that many women who dress in men’s clothes, take men’s names, and think of themselves as male will be angered by anyone calling them transvestites, because they feel they shouldn’t be associated with ‘limp-wristed queens’.
Further, when a drag queen tries to adopt a more simple style she will be put down for not being good enough as a woman. People who would consider it barbaric sexism to expect a man to prove his masculinity will demand that a drag queen prove her femininity.
We are told, ‘Why do you care if you’re he or she? Break down gender roles.’ But just as a woman must fight sexism as a woman in order to win full expression of her male and female elements, so must transsexuals and transvestites fight oppression as themselves. The entire gender argument is a lie, as a transsexual’s very existence destroys gender roles far more effectively than all the speeches put together. Many transvestites dream all their lives of passing as women. In fact, because they are not allowed to be women they spend their whole lives passing as men.
This oppression must end now.
Many gay people are confused by the separation between ‘gay transvestites’ and ‘straight transvestites’. But this is an artificial split, imposed on us by those people who seek to isolate us and deny our identities. A transsexual or transvestite is gay because she or he is transsexual or transvestite. Some of us are into men and some of us are into women. Some of us are homosexual, some of us are heterosexual, some of us are lesbians. But we are all transsexual or transvestites and it’s these identities that must be recognized and encouraged. To be gay means to break the rules of your official sex, to cross over the guidelines set up by the family, the schools, and the church. Some of us cross over by sleeping with the wrong person. Some of us dress the wrong way. Some of us do both. We are all gay.
Very few people, if any, would argue that because homosexuals and lesbians have slightly different experiences women don’t belong in GLF. On the contrary, most would argue that it’s GLF’s responsibility to actively seek out gay women and encourage them to join. It is equally GLF’s responsibility to encourage transsexuals and transvestites. We are all fighting the same oppression. Read what David Reuben says about transvestites. And what distinctions does a skinhead make?
No we are all fighting the same guilt. The words, ‘queer, bull’ we all have to shrug them off.
Most important we are all breaching the same barriers, the same rules: a man is this, a woman is that, and don’t you dare cross over.
‘ALL OPPRESSION MUST END NOW!
DECLARE YOUR SEX.
TRANSSEXUALS TRANSVESTITES COME OUT’
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