”It’s Time To Reshuffle This Acronym!”

An open letter to the greater queer community, haphazardly but passionately written by R.T. Ferent: a 40-something, married, gay, cisgender, white man with the absolute best of intentions in his heart. This is dedicated with all of my love to my fearless nephew, Remus, who is so much stronger than I ever was at his age (although I wish he didn’t have to be).

HISTORY AND CONTEXT

After the days long riots against police brutality and oppression at the Stonewall Inn in June of 1969, it was clear the time was now for the criminalization of our very existence to end, and that we all needed to unite to accomplish that shared goal. Many acronyms began to pop up as community leaders began to form the earliest organizations of the queer rights movement (“S.T.A.R.” comes to mind). Who knows exactly how, but somewhere along the line we ended up with “GLBT” to represent the community at large, standing for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transvestite/Transsexual (later changed to “Transgender” as a means to encompass all gender non-conforming members of the community).  That stuck for the better part of a decade, if not a little more.

When the 80s came, it brought with it heartless christian conservatism disguised as patriotism, and a new illness being reported as a “Gay Cancer”. This was HIV/AIDS, possibly the most devastating virus to plague humanity, and no one holding political office at the time seemed to care. Gay men were disproportionately affected by the virus and were dying at alarming rates. The damage done to our community cannot ever be understated. All the while, Reagan’s FDA did absolutely nothing. There exists evidence of people in the Reagan Administration virtually laughing at the HIV/AIDS death toll, brushing off the whole thing like it was pest control. They did care a little, though, when they were concerned they may contract the disease from their mistresses, or the sex workers they’d hire (but never respect).

In true form, this is where the Lesbian community stepped it way the fuck up. When the Gays couldn’t physically protest for themselves, the Lesbians were there, front and center, and louder than everyone else in the room. They helped propel groups like ACT UP, who gave us the rallying cry of “SILENCE = DEATH”, and even stormed the indifferent FDA to demand acknowledgment and action. 

When doctors and nurses wouldn’t even be in the same building as an AIDS patient, the Lesbians within those fields nurtured and treated the sick with all of the compassion they had, and with the extremely limited science/medical knowledge available to them at the time.

Remember, viable medication didn’t exist until the mid 90’s, after straight white children and sports superstars started being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Without the fearless devotion of the Lesbian community, who knows how many more would have died, and of those who did succumb to the virus, how many would have done so utterly alone. 

This brought the next acronym shake up. How do you repay a group within your community that you owe an impossible debt? You can start by putting them first. “GLBT” changed to “LGBT” in honor of our sisters who stood up for our brothers when no one else would. It was the very least the community could do.

As years passed on, and accurate information became more readily available, more people became aware of the truths of the community, and not the vicious lies spread by conservative media. We began to adopt better terminology to help ourselves, and others, navigate the full width of our spectrum. New letters began to be added to our acronym. “Q” made its way in, a reclamation of the word “Queer” (later also directly representing Gender Queer individuals). Then “I” for our Intersex family members, and “A” for our Asexual loved ones. Recently, “2S” for Two Spirit, in recognition of the rich traditions of our Indigenous members, has been incorporated. And lastly, at the end, we always add a “+” (except in hashtags for technical reasons) as a symbol of inclusion for anyone seeking acceptance and community.

All of that is truly wonderful. Personally, if the acronym gets to incorporate every letter of the alphabet, as well as all of our numerals, that’s fine with me. I know some people don’t particularly care for having to learn a series of letters and numbers, but oh well… fuck ‘em. If our flag ends up with hundreds or thousands of criss cross patterns with unique color combinations representing everyone in a Pollack-esque barrage of colors, I’ll love it. The idea here is inclusivity after all.

Maybe, eventually, we’ll get everybody in and all this discrimination, fear, violence, otherism, etc., will come to a long overdue end when people realize all those jumbled numbers and letters were trying to spell “HUMANITY”. Idealistic? Sure. Naive? Maybe, but it beats the endlessly looping doom and gloom.

CONTEMPLATION AND REFLECTION

So… I sit with all of this info, and the gears start to turn. The individual most often ceremoniously credited with “throwing the first brick” at Stonewall is the Transgender revolutionary and activist Marsha P. Johnson (The “P” stands for “Pay It No Mind”). Often mentioned in the same sentence is community leader Sylvia Rivera, co-founder of STAR, who helped push the gay rights movement forward, and worked tirelessly, and effectively, to tear down discriminatory NY laws used to oppress it’s queer citizens. If these women were the catalysts of the original movement… why wasn’t the “T” put first in the acronym?

Marsha & Sylvia put their faces everywhere (making themselves targets), gave interviews, did all of the ground work, and won, legally, many times for the rights of the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual communities. Yet, somehow, the Transgender community was left out of the anti-discrimination laws they worked so tirelessly to pass.

On July 6th 1992, not long after NY’s PRIDE celebration, our beloved Marsha was found dead; her body floating in the Hudson River. Police ruled her death a suicide, despite the blunt force trauma to her head (I can only speculate, but perhaps the willingness to write her off was in response to her fierce advocacy at Stonewall and beyond). Witnesses gave accounts of people harassing her around the same area before she was killed. Those who were close to her said there was absolutely no way she would have committed suicide. Her remains were cremated and scattered across the same river she was found in. Marsha P. Johnson, “the hand that threw the first brick”, has still not received justice for her murder.

Sylvia Rivera passed in February 2002 after a battle with liver cancer. She was poverty stricken and homeless, choosing to take up company with the other outcast queers at the Manhattan Piers. Even with virtually no resources, she continued to organize, and ferociously fight for the rights of the homeless. All her life, she fought for the dignity and respect of all mankind, and in the end got very little of it in return. To quote her from her fearless 1973 speech at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally, where she was incomprehensibly booed by the predominantly white, cisgender crowd:

”You all tell me, go and hide my tail between my legs. I will no longer put up with this shit. I have been beaten, I have had my nose broken, I have been thrown in jail, I have lost my job, I have lost my apartment for gay liberation, and you all treat me this way? What the fuck’s wrong with you all?”

Sylvia Rivera

There have been hundreds of targeted killings of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming individuals in the last year alone. Statistics suggest that violence against the Transgender community is well on the rise. Right now, conservative lawmakers across the country push harmful bills targeting anything remotely related to gender or identity, vilifying anything beyond the status quo with baseless nonsense, complete lies, and boogeyman rhetoric. They’re even trying to paint Drag performers as pedophiles who want to groom children and “turn” them. Not only is it clear that they have no idea what they’re talking about, but they also clearly have never actually met a Drag Queen… and these people want to “regulate” them.

The same question just keeps ruminating in my head; endlessly looping over and over. “Why isn’t the “T” first?”

CALL TO ACTION

Well? Why isn’t it? But more importantly, who gets to decide, and what more do they need to see to be convinced? Right now, all over the world, the “T” needs us more than ever. The era of pushing the “T” to the side because the politics are too complicated, or people aren’t ready, or whatever other bullshit excuse some cisgendered white man came up with to ensure his own agenda came to pass, is fucking over. Not one more day of this cowardice. It’s time to put the “T” first.

I know it’s a small gesture. I know it doesn’t roll off the tongue as aesthetically pleasing as some may like. I know it’s going to take quite some time for people to adopt. And yes, I know there are going to be capitalists upset that they have to trash and update their stock of generic, passionless PRIDE merch. Nevertheless, I think it’s important and must be done.

Just think of the potential open dialogue this could create. Imagine people logging into their social media of choice and seeing trending hashtags like #TLGBQIA, #TLGBQIA2S,  #WhyIsntTheTFirst, and #PutTheTFirst. You’ll have people commenting and correcting the order of the letters, which then presents the opportunity to explain to an engaged individual why you’ve decided to put the “T” first. You’ll also have people who have no idea what this “T” is and why it needs to be put first, and before what exactly. Another perfect opportunity to have a discussion and educate others. Fear and hate are just products of ignorance, and through education and conversation, one on one or otherwise, we can overcome.

That being said, regardless of how others feel about all of it in the end, you’ve created a positive dialogue to encourage progress. On the internet, those can be fairly permanent, meaning they’ll be there for others to discover, read, and learn from for years to come. Imagine a world where people are better educated on what it is to be Transgender and nobody buys into the child mutilation propaganda sold by snake oil salesmen holding lower case ts and threatening you with eternal damnation carried out by their imaginary friends that they’ve plagiarized from the countless cultures they’ve stolen from and stomped out for centuries (phew!). Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I’m not alone.

Alright… I don’t know that it’ll do all that. But, it might lead to a parent learning more about, and ultimately accepting, their child for who they are. It might be that small, “dumb” thing that signals to some of the most marginalized of voices within our community that we hear them, we see what’s being done to them, and we have their backs as they have had ours since the very start.

I implore you, starting this very minute, PUT THE “T” FIRST. Start asking others “Why Isn’t The “T” First?” Put those aforementioned hashtags in your social media profiles, in your tweets, in your emails, in everything. Start putting some equity back into the Transgender community who have given everything of themselves to benefit all of us. It’s literally the absolute least we can do.

#TLGB
#TLGBQ
#TLGBQIA
#TLGBQIA2S
#PutTheTFirst
#WhyIsntTheTFirst
#FixYourHeartsOrDie
#TransRightsAreHumanRights

____________________________

Looking for some resources? Here are a few that come recommended to us from fellow readers.

Point of Pride | pointofpride.org
– Provides financial AID to Transgender individuals in need of health/wellness care.

G.L.I.T.S Inc. | glitsinc.org
– Provides support to Transgender individuals, especially those from the BIPOC community.

Transgender Law Center | transgenderlawcenter.org
– The largest national Trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people.