LGBT Stronger Together

The Scottish Transgender Alliance believes that transgender people (of all sexual orientations including straight/heterosexual transgender people) can have a stronger voice when we join together with non-transgender lesbian, gay and bisexual allies to campaign for the rights of all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and communities.  We also believe that the inclusion of transgender people significantly enriches lesbian, gay and bisexual communities and strengthens sexual orientation equality and rights activism.

Although there are some specific gender identity equality strand issues which can significantly differ from the concerns of the sexual orientation equality strand, we believe that for many equality and rights issues there are very strong similarities between the needs of transgender people and lesbian, gay or bisexual people.  These are best addressed as part of an integrated LGBT equality agenda.  To facilitate this, the Scottish Transgender Alliance seeks to help Scottish LGBT organisations and groups to ensure that transgender issues are an integral, rather than an additional, part of their general LGBT work.  We are pleased that so many Scottish LGBT organisations understand the need to demonstrate genuine transgender inclusion and diversity in all their core activities.   

Although the causes of LGBT discrimination are varied and complex, historically lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender people have all faced oppression because our existence challenges rigid and repressive notions of appropriate gender behaviour.  Frequently, the prejudice against and stereotyping of transgender people has been virtually  indistinguishable from that directed against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals and has been supported by similar narratives of morality, naturalness and normalcy. Transgender people, like lesbian, gay and bisexual people, also go through a process of self identification, self acceptance and decisions about “coming out” which can make our experience of discrimination distinctive from other oppressed groups.  To ignore these strong parallels in our experiences would deprive all our communities of the opportunities for shared activism, learning and support.  

That is not to say that the Scottish Transgender Alliance believes that transphobia should only be challenged through LGBT activism.  The Scottish Transgender Alliance recognises that transphobia is a form of gender discrimination which should be addressed by gender equality organisations.  We also obviously support the development of trans-specific activism and dedicated organisations like our own.  It is not unusual for specific forms of discrimination to be understood from a multiplicity of perspectives and addressed by parallel approaches.  Anti-Semitism, for example, is both a form of racism and of religious discrimination.  Similarly, LGBT activism has not stopped many lesbians addressing their discrimination though the women’s movement or through lesbian only organisations.  We believe that parallel and complementary approaches can be mutually supportive and enriching; therefore dedicated transgender activism, as well as challenging transphobia as a gender inequality, are enhanced and strengthened by LGBT activism.

We believe a strong and united LGBT approach benefits all the communities it represents.  On a number of issues in Scotland, such as health inclusion, hate crime, the needs of older LGBT people etc, we believe that the adoption of an LGBT approach has led to richer and more effective work.  The Scottish Government and Parliament have endorsed and adopted the LGBT approach, as well as many organisations across Scotland, and we strongly welcome this.