In the same vein trans people don't aspire to be like Les Dawson, Danny LaRue or Lilly Savage. Most in the community do not try to be flamboyant and would rather blend into the background and live their lives with dignity and respect.
We must remember that it its only 45 years ago , that anyone who I identified as LBGT could ( and often was) imprisoned , subjected to chemical castration (most famously Alan Turing), and Electroconvulsive therapy . This was used predominately on trans-people.
Sometimes stereotyping and the image of a group and organisation gets it wrong even the macho heavy metal band Judas Priest boasts the first openly gay heavy metal singer and the band have a massive LBGT following!
I remember in my teens I used to hang around with a well known 1 % biker gang , one of the gang , a very big guy and a good friend with a nasty reputation to boot , all of a sudden disappeared only to show up some years later , gone were the long hair and beard , gone was the leather jacket and denim cut and gone was almost 10st in weight. This was replace by a rather slim smart guy who i seemed to recognise , but couldn't be sure , then as he approached the jukebox , I thought he would give himself away by his obligatory "born to be wild" instead we were treated to soft cell , divine ,and the pet shop boys. Yes it was my old biker friend and yes he had come out as gay and it goes to prove you never know.
The Rainbow flag which has been adopted by the LBGT community worldwide symbolises an ebracement of the differences that make up our society , and that all from whichever end of the spectrum you come from is accepted, respected and valued.
However this sometimes is not the case , I myself have suffered verbal abuse from gay men and lesbian women who do not believe that trans people belong under the same banner. Its can be like the the scene in Blazing saddles where the Indians attack the waggon train and the only Black family are not allowed into the circle and have to form there own!
The media do not help with constant hounding of LBGT people who are unfortunate to get even two minutes of fame. Trans people tend to get hounded even more as we don't even need to have any fame its just we appear to be societies last taboo. Channel 4 have recently been the first UK broadcaster to sign up to the trans media watch code of practise to ensure trans people are portrayed in a fair and positive light in future programmes.
Alan Turing Electroconvulsive therapy
Rob Halford
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