I wish Karen Becovici, writer of the column, “LGBTQ and the erasure of true female identity” would embrace the concept expressed in my favorite bumper sticker: “You don’t have to believe everything you think.”
I’ll leave to others more knowledgeable than me to counter all the non-scientific, non-evidence-based claims she makes in her March 4 guest column. And I’m hoping others in our highly educated community will point out the many points she got just plain wrong (gender actually is not binary or immutable. Bathroom safety? Transgender people are in much more danger there than are cisgender people.)
What I feel compelled to name now is the column’s tragic lack of humanity. She writes as if this is purely a political issue devoid of real people, when these are friends, relatives, neighbors and colleagues being discussed.
It compels me to say to transgender and nonbinary members of the community: You are welcome here. The column suggests you don’t exist. That is awful. And it is false. Not only do you exist, you are integral to the fabric of this community. I, for one, am deeply sorry you were subjected to that tirade. I know others are, too.
As for erasure. The writer does the erasing. The gay rights movement added TQ to LGB because of the natural allyship in a struggle against discrimination based on who we are. The presence of transwomen doesn’t erase lesbians or any cisgender women. Their challenges may differ, but they are natural allies because discrimination is discrimination. (In fact, who can forget the uproar in Northampton two decades ago over the addition of bisexual to the name of the Lesbian and Gay Pride March?)
As for the claim that freedom of speech is curtailed: What? The Gazette ran the column on prime real estate on the editorial page. It is true that if you espouse bigotry and hatred and go off on a paranoid rant, you may be called out. It’s my fervent hope there will be loud pushback.
I suspect some will fault the Gazette for printing the column. I’d invite people to rethink that. Newspapers and other media both reflect and are limited by the times in which they are published. Generally speaking, they tend not to be early adopters of social change. But as the Rev. Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” So I believe we’ll get there.
Meanwhile, when it comes to bigotry, I think it’s important to know what people are thinking and feeling; otherwise, how do we know what work needs to be done?
The writer also pronounces she will not vote for a candidate who cannot “correctly define what a woman is.” Wow. It wasn’t too many years ago that women wearing pants, and most definitely, a butch lesbian, would be excluded from the “correct” definition of womanhood. It’s the ultimate sad irony when individual members of long-marginalized groups pull up the drawbridge after they’ve gained basic human rights they justly deserve.
Which brings me to another of my favorite bumper stickers: “Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It’s not pie.”
Laurie Loisel lives in Northampton.