An Ethic of Inclusiveness A Special Guest Commentary

by Katy Stewart | Published Online on July 07, 2011

What is the “calling” for those of us who are engaged in leadership within the LGBT community in general and the transgender community in particular? Do we serve just to meet the immediate needs of the transgender community, or does advocacy call for looking to our cisgender community family and engaging in communication and education about those of us who call ourselves transgender? Do we turn inwards or do we try to reach outwards to others? I ask myself, “Why can we not do both?”

Internally, within the transgender community there is much healing that needs to be done. There have always been hierarchal schisms in our community. There has always been tension between members of our diverse family.

We cannot, at times, see beyond the family squabbles to see that those who preach hate against us don’t care about the differences between us - they hate all the same. They are going to lump us all together with our L, G, and B brothers and call us deviant and they are going to continue to insist on misgendering our community collectively. We have to embrace each other and embrace community with our cisgender family if we are going to get anywhere on the path to equality.

Wisdom is a partnership, or said another way, wisdom is a two-way street. I fully believe there are lessons we can learn about ourselves and lessons we can learn in regard to relating to others from persons who may not be “traditional” members of the transgender community, but are part of our family nevertheless.

At another level, I believe the question at the very heart of this issue is “Who do we serve as we fight for equality?” I hope for a way of expressing a more fully empowering essence of a spectrum of individuals from masculine men to feminine women and all the gender queer and interesting beauty in-between and outside of those labels.

The fact is that we are not alone. We are in community with one another. If we ever hope as individuals and as organizations to destroy the wall of hatred and oppression that our community has faced for so long, we cannot do it by throwing individual divided identities at the wall and hoping we make a dent. Instead, we have to bind together to create a dynamic force that can literally decimate this wall of hatred.

For that reason, I am striving to adhere to an ethic of inclusiveness in all that I do personally and in how I lead Transgender Education Network of Texas, when I say, “If you have a gender (and even if you don’t) you have a home with Transgender Education Network of Texas.” I am stating my promise. I am stating my hope. Please join us at www.transtexas.org.

Katy Stewart is the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Transgender Education Network of Texas.

This article appeared in the July 2011 of ignite Magazine.