Fortunately enough of us have their number to know not to fall for their crap.

- Karen

Regarding same-sex marriage, “equal marriage” as the PR geniuses–and I use this to point out the architects of this campaign understood the motivation Suzan speaks of–put it, I for one, tried to emphasize that the Canadian law–the Civil Marriage Law–did not say “a man and a woman, two men, or two women” but simply “two people.”

The radicalness of this, not simply making sex irrelevant but also gender, remains invisible to the gay and lesbian people who ran this campaign and most who benefit.

The beliefs of those few who do not primarily identify in terms of sexual orientation who contributed to this campaign do not appear, then OR now. Nor were our concerns that this great achievement be used as a foundation for future, and as yet unrealized commitments, even given a hearing.

After passage it was declared “all lesbian, gay, bi and trans people are first class members of society, without caveats or exception.” This on the website of Canadian for Equal Marriage.

Maybe it will be different where you live.

In recent national political action, “gender non-conformity,” which I had always assumed to be a synonym for “transgender” has been claimed as part of “all things associated” with homosexuality.

A human rights complaint against Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada on behalf of gay, lesbian and bisexual people, and two spirit people (arbitrarily defined as aboriginal gay, lesbian and bisexual people) uses this definition of “gender non-conformity” as simply an aspect of being gay, lesbian or bisexual.

The executive director of the Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition leads this complaint not as an official of the Coalition–which would require him to include those with “gender identities not assigned at birth,” his organization’s mandate, presumably including those who transition to fixed identities–but as a private citizen with five other private citizens. One wonders how many Coalition resources were used for this complaint.

I often feel like one of those cartoon characters who has been painted into a corner and cannot leave without stepping on someone else’s brilliant paint job.

Compromise is certainly the way for somewhat disparate, minority–compared to mainstream–populations to work together for common goals, even for some goals which are not common but for each separate population–what some have called alliance or coalition. But it doesn’t work if dominant populations refuse to recognize how minority populations differ and EXPLICITLY open space.

For myself, I simply cannot identify with the majority population, whether it is gay/lesbian, whether it is transgender–regardless of how some, in their nearsightedness see no or no significant difference between these populations.

Even if, in some/many respects it would make my life easier.

The more I endure the more clear it becomes that the very principles espoused for equality, for working together are simply suspended when it comes to transsexual people, particularly transsexual women/WBT.