5:18pm December 6, 2013

How out of touch the LGBT community is about disability.

At an LGBT community center, I talked about how many developmentally disabled men, in particular those living in institutions with no say over their lives, have been forcibly castrated for showing sexuality, especially gay sexuality, and/or for cross-dressing.

The first question out of someone’s mouth (a nondisabled trans gay man):

“Did they ask to be castrated?”

He wasn’t being sarcastic.  He was actually equating forcible castration with voluntary sex reassignment surgery.  And there was an undertone that maybe I hadn’t thought of that, maybe I didn’t know enough about the situation to be condemning the practice.

I had no words, I couldn’t even respond.  Like… it shouldn’t even take explanation how wrong he was, and I couldn’t find words to explain the gulf between us.  Still barely can.  But:

HAVING YOUR GENITALS FORCIBLY CUT OFF FOR BEING SEXUAL, OR FOR BEING LGBT, IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING TRANS AND HAVING YOUR GENITALS VOLUNTARILY MODIFIED BY SURGERY.

I don’t know how that can be confusing.

Why is there no short, easy-to-remember phrase for this level and kind of assault on a person’s body?  Like abuse, sexual abuse, and forced surgery don’t even cut it.

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