This is the second part of a multiple part series about the term gender. Conservative religious organizations and ex-gay organizations use the term gender — and variants on the term gender — to group together GLB & T people in a manner that GLB & T people don’t group themselves together. This series will explore groupings around the term gender, and the term’s variants.
–Autumn
It’s not quite yet common knowledge in western society that there are significant differences between being a gay man and being transgender woman, but more and more people are becoming aware that being gay and being transgender are pretty far from the same thing.
However, it appears that in the collective minds of NARTH, there’s barely a line between gay men and transwomen. Here’s my educated guess as to why:
NARTH’s tie-in of gay and transgender people utilizes the medical community’s Gender Identity Disorder (GID) diagnoses. Specifically, GID in Children is considered a pre-homosexual/pre-transsexual diagnosis {from the link: Zucker and Bradley (1995, p. 53) noted that “homosexuality is the most common postpubertal psychosexual outcome for children [with GID].”}, while GID in Adults is the diagnoses for transsexuals.
Dr. Joseph and Linda Ames Nicolosi’s A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality is largely about explaining the GID in Children diagnosis to religious parents of effeminate male or emasculate female children, and then what explaining what they believe one should do if a child is diagnosed with GID in Children. NARTH’s website, in a reprinted paper from its 2002 Conference {The Treatment Of Childhood Gender Identity Disorder (GID), Dillworth, Marc S., Ph.D.}, affirms the GID in Children diagnosis, and affirms a treatment model which is “…the same as Drs. Rekers and Nicolosi.”
NARTH, Exodus International, the Illinois Family Institute, Focus On the Family, Americans For Truth, and the Concerned Women For America have made use of the term gender confusion. Sometimes the context of gender confusion is related to transgender or transsexual people, sometimes it’s related to homosexual people.
Looking at ex-gay ministries’ and conservative religious organizations’ gender component for both gay and transgender people, they likely view both gay and transgender people as rejecting God’s plan for the sexes. They believe God has set an ideal for man and woman which is a marriage between one man and one woman — the man is the head of the household and the woman is his complementary helpmeet. Together they make a whole, as modeled by Christ and the Bride of Christ (the Church). The assumption by many in ex-gay ministry and conservative religious organizations is that homosexual relationships, and by extension transexual persons even outside of relationships, are Satan’s counterfeit versions of what God has created or ordained.
The homosexual seeks to violate this divine Plan by rejecting his role as husband, father, and head of the family. He seeks instead to take the role of the woman and in sexual brokenness looks for a man to fulfill what should be his God-given role.
Similarly the transsexual also seek to violate this divine Plan by rejecting the role as husband, father, and head of the household. He too seeks to take the role of the woman and in sexual brokenness looks for a man to fulfill what should be his God-given role. Except he is even more lost in his depravity because he seeks to surgically alter his body to reject even the appearance of living in his God-given role.
And, much as how ex-gay ministries and conservative religious organizations tend to focus on gay men, and not tend to focus on lesbian women, ex-gay ministries and conservative religious organizations tend to focus on M2F transsexuals that are sexually attracted to men, and tend not to focus on M2F transsexuals that are sexually attracted to women — and they tend to ignore F2M transsexuals altogether.
To sum up, call the reason gender, gender confusion, or call the reason Gender Identity Disorder — on a path to sexual brokenness — however NARTH and other conservative religious organizations/ex-gay ministries identify this gender component, I believe it’s at the heart of why gay men and trans women are lumped together. Gender Identity Disorder is just the means by which they see a key tool to medicalize gay and transgender people; I don’t think it’s by accident that gender is one of the NARTH’s, conservative religious organizations’, and ex-gay ministries’ watchwords.
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Timothy Kincaid And David Roberts contributed significantly to this piece.
Previous:
Part 1: Transgender / Ex-Transgender Glossary
Next Sunday:
Part 3. Who Does (Or Could Possibly) Identify As “Ex-Trans”
I’d say you’re right on track with this. One should consider, too, how ex-gay therapies sometimes coach people in the “proper” behavior of the sexes, as though that had anything at all to do with homosexuality.
Those individuals and organized groups that believe being gay, lesbian are the same as individuals who are transgender are unable to comprehend or accept the differences and separation between sexual orientation, physical genitalia and gender identity. Many studies over the years have been done on gay men with the idea men who express a feminine bent are gay.
These beliefs also fit the Freudian model that many psychologists have been trained and educated in. These individuals appear to project their feelings and beliefs upon all whom they are in contact with as being the only correct way of being. Those who are most likely gay, lesbian Bi, or trans are in denial of this truth of themselves and express this fear and denial as anger and hatred towards individuals who have embraced this truth of themselves. There has been little discussion of individuals who are born intersex among those how believe only men and women are possible. Intersexed individuals are born with physical traits that put them between male or female, men or women, XY or XX. Fact is, there are over 16 variations of human sex chromosome variations beyond XY or XX and this does not include sex hormone differences. Intersex births happen at approximately 1 in 1000 to 1 in 300 live births.
Some folks have observed that there has often been less resistance to women taking on stereotypically masculine traits than vice versa, noting the historical link between masculinity and power. A butch woman is perceived to have violated social norms, but is less disruptive because she has taken on some of the trappings of power (fierceness, competitiveness, etc.), but a feminine man is perceived to have given up power.
(The first I heard the concept mentioned was in the 1993 documentary, One Nation Under God.)
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head in pointing out the parallels between social conservatives’ responses to gay men and transwomen. Both groups violate the traditional masculine model for establishing and asserting power, which is competitive, hierarchical, and more prone to win/lose dynamics than power-sharing.
It seems to me that it’s not always about gay men being more explicitly feminine than their straight peers. Two tough, traditionally masculine men in love mess up the social order by modeling a collaborative relationship (a traditionally feminine approach) instead of a hierarchical one.
The contradiction which fascinates me is the diversity of marital relationship dynamics that is obvious in every conservative church and religious community. Every group that I’ve been a part of has had a wide range of respected marriages — some with folks expressing their masculinity/feminity in traditional fashion, and primary leadership in the hands of the man, but also many variations and exceptions. Respect seemed to be afforded to distinctive relationships, as well as to the scrappy, cantankerous widow who was brash and argumentative, as well as to the expressive, softer male (especially if he was the choir director).
It’s as if some fluidity in gender expression could be accepted, but to formalize that in recognizing lgbtiq folks or their relationships was more difficult.
The talk I heard at Love Won Out in May was certainly heavy on preventing and fixing homosexuality via encouraging traditional gender development and expression, apparently applicable to transfolk as well as gays and lesbians. Explicit mention of transgender people and issues was limited, as was anything related to bisexuality.
Thanks for all the great work on this, folks!
It seems to me that it’s not always about gay men being more explicitly feminine than their straight peers. Two tough, traditionally masculine men in love mess up the social order by modeling a collaborative relationship (a traditionally feminine approach) instead of a hierarchical one.
A lot of it also seems to be fear of male penetration. If you’ve got two traditionally masculine men together, at least one of them is being penetrated, which in the average straight guy’s mind makes him the “woman.” Recall on the Sopranos when one character came out, they were almost going to let it slide until they found out he was a bottom, then they killed him. It was fiction, but I’d bet it’s a pretty real dynamic.