LGB HistoryJennifer Bilek asks and I want formerly LGB orgs to answer.

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[–]PatsyStoneMaverique 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think given the abuse the Transgender Movement has heaped on gays and bisexuals, there's a temptation to rewrite history to make them exclusively villains. That's not what happened, though, and all of us should be old enough to remember.

Gender theory had widespread acceptance from the gay community in the 90s and early '00s. It was subversive and cool, and almost universally supported. It made intuitive sense, like, yeah- your gender expression shouldn't be dictated by your body man! I think no one bothered to think these ideas through and take them to their logical conclusion.

I think this is a case of unintended and unanticipated consequences rather than malicious outsiders tricking us. This is especially true for the lesbian community. Y'all don't seem to want to acknowledge the lesbians who helped bring this situation about, as obvious as their role might be. Judith Butler is your sister.

[–]JulienMayfair 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Gender theory had widespread acceptance from the gay community in the 90s and early '00s.

I have to disagree with your timeline. I was teaching at a major California university up until 2004, and gender theory definitely did not have widespread acceptance. It was the purview of a relatively small group of queer theorists. At that point, there was still a big difference between Gay & Lesbian Studies (which has since been eclipsed) and Queer Theory.

I taught at universities until 2010, and I never had a single transgender or nonbinary student in any of my classes. I'd never even heard of nonbinary -- and I attended two lectures by Judith Butler herself (who is, by the way, very abrasive and dismisses anyone who challenges her ideas without answering their challenges).

Then the website Tumblr launched in 2007 and eventually became the distribution center for all this crap. Between 2007 and 2014 was when it went viral.

Still, before these ideas went viral, I'd say most "everyday" gay men and lesbians didn't give a shit about gender theory. Lesbians got an early taste of it with the MichFest protests in 1994, but that was still relatively isolated and involved what was still a small core group of gender fanatics like Leslie Feinberg and Riki Wilchins.

And I hope I don't step on too many toes here, but one movement that did get coopted by Team Trans was academic feminism. I remember when Women's Studies departments caved and changed their names to Gender Studies. The gay "community" (such as there actually is one unified thing by that name) certainly bears some responsibility for spreading gender theory, but I'd maintain that gender theory really found its Trojan Horse in the merging of academic feminism and queer theory (or hijacking of academic feminism by queer theory). And those queer/feminist academics lent their credibility to it, leading to the split between pro-trans feminists and gender critical feminists.

[–]Rag3 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Your assessment matches what I’ve heard coming from feminists. They don’t admit to the schism but they were well aware of queer theory before it ever hit the gay mainstream in later years.