closet-keys:

there is an idea that gender nonconforming people are targeted by violence (systemic and interpersonal) because so many gay people are gnc and therefore, the understanding goes, any gnc person is assumed to be gay, and thus targeted by homophobia.

but personally, I believe it’s completely the other way around. I think that gender is such an essential tool of oppression that its institution is rigidly enforced, and I also think that being gay is inherently gender non-conforming. Part of the cultural idea of being a man is being attracted to women. Part of the cultural idea of being a woman is being attracted to men. Gay people inherently fail one of the basic tenants of their assigned gender, and are punished for it in a myriad of ways. 

Initially there were just “inverts” who were essentially gender nonconforming people whose main gender nonconformity was ‘homosexuality’ with no explicit distinctions between trans and cis, no explicit distinctions between butch and femme, etc. You were gender conforming, or you weren’t.

The laws that caused the raids at Stonewall had to do with gender nonconformity. You needed to be wearing three articles of clothing of your assigned gender, or it was illegal. 

And in a lot of areas we can see gay people try to separate sexuality from gender conformity, because they know it’s advantageous. Femmes will seek out only other femmes and separate themselves from butch women completely, or try to push butches out of womanhood entirely. There are areas where gay men will only be considered truly gay if they are feminine, or if they take a bottom or submissive role in sex. Masculine gay and bi men will sometimes cling to straightness by virtue of being better able to conform. I just saw an article the other day about rural men having sexual and romantic relationships with each other, but still insisting they were straight because they were masculine. 

I personally think that the reason why trans women and cis gay men are so disproportionately affected by violent hate crimes isn’t because trans women are assumed to be gay men, but because visibly gay men are perceived as gender nonconforming in the same way that trans women are. That’s the element that’s punishable by death to cishet culture. 

I think the reason that wlw are disproportionately affected by sexual violence is tied to this too. In  “Paradoxes of Butchness: Lesbian Masculinities and Sexual
Violence in Contemporary South Africa” by Amanda Lock Swarr, there is a discussion of why butch lesbians are specific targets of corrective rapists. 

[Trigger Warning: Corrective Rape]

 During five hours of being raped, Millicent Gaika recounts, “I thought
he was going to kill me; he was like an animal. And he kept saying, ‘I
know you are a lesbian. You are not a man, you think you are, but I am
going to show you, you are a woman. I am going to make you pregnant.
I am going to kill you.’”

[End of Trigger Warning]

The part of that quote that is haunting to me is “You are not a man, you think you are, but I am going to show you, you are a woman.” It is so clear that the category of “woman” requires sex with men. (And honestly, this revelation, that the institutional category of woman requires this, that explains to me why so many lesbians have such an uncomfortable and confusing time figuring out how and to what extent we relate to our womanhood. The gender of woman doesn’t really include us, and yet the marginalized class of woman does.)

It is so, so clear that to these people, being a lesbian is seen as trying to be a man, that being gay is seen as trying to be a woman. And if you’re invested in enforcing gender as an institution, anyone who is trying to escape their assigned gender is a threat. 

All this to say– trans people led this movement historically for a reason. They face the brunt of the violence and discriminatory legislation and housing and employment discrimination for a reason. I think addressing transphobia should be the top priority of the LGBT movement, because the fear of gender nonconformity to every degree is what’s getting so many of us hurt and killed. I think cis people need to spend a lot more time listening to trans people about what gender is, what the institution of gender is, how it functions, and what challenges it.