WHY THE TIQA MUST NOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE LGB.

I remember, when I was in Year Twelve, proudly going home and telling my mother that I had learnt that men who sexually abuse young boys are not homosexuals, they are paedophiles. My mother looked at me and replied, “I know.” This was the same woman who, three years earlier, claimed that the male Year Five Teacher I had was gay and strange and mentioned that he liked to put his arm around the boys. The operative term here is that we were underaged boys, not consenting adults, so even if this teacher’s sexual orientation is towards men, what he did with boys was paedophilia.

The LGB Community claims that it has fought so long to stop being associated with deviants and perverts, to which I say, “No, you have always been different to perverts, you were fighting against ignorant people who didn’t want to understand the difference.” To show the difference, the male Year Three teacher we had was softer in that if we asked the female teacher if we could go to the toilet, she would refuse permission, but the male teacher would gruffly say, “Hurry up!” so you’d run off before the female teacher stopped you and asked you where you were going. That male teacher ALLEGEDLY used to loiter around a venue known for casual sex between males, but he didn’t ever put his arm around a boy. He used to smack boys’ backsides, and while I hated getting into trouble, if we ever got into trouble, not that we had a choice, we preferred the man because he used his hand while the female teacher used a 30cm ruler.

The trans community is fighting a bifrontal war against, on the one hand, conservatives, and on the other TERFs, some of whom are joined by the LGB. Bisexuals have had to fight against the LG community because of an inaccurate perception that they revert to heterosexuality when considered appropriate. If we consider Sir Elton John, while he identified as bisexual until 1988, he was a homosexual man who married a woman. Where things become complicated is, many homosexual men and women who enter heterosexual marriages genuinely love their heterosexual partners, they are masking. A bisexual may enter a heterosexual marriage, but that does not mean to say that they cheat on their partner, nor does it mean to say that they are always on the look out.

Similarly, some transwomen, prior to transitioning, may have entered heterosexual marriages and genuinely loved their wives. What the anti-trans lobby needs to understand is that you can be a cisgender same-sex attracted person and that is not the same as being a transgender person. And nor can you say to a transgender lesbian, “You need to live as a heterosexual man,” as there is a difference.

And let’s not forget that the transgender community has to fight against being lumped in and associated with perverts. Transwomen are accused of being drag queens or men in dresses, yet in reality, we are people assigned male at birth who act like women.