Transgender

Terence, the famous Greco-Roman playwright, wrote the following quote: "Nothing human is foreign to me." I wonder if he was thinking of transgendered people?  I don't think I've ever met someone I knew to be trans, so to me I guess it is foreign.

A few years ago, some Democrats in the United States Congress introduced a bill banning discrimination against gays and lesbians, in much the same way as the Civil Rights Act banned racial discrimination.  The odd thing is that they ended up excluding the trans community from its protections.  Now it would be one thing if this exclusion tipped the balance in favour of passing the bill:  in that case I'd say, "Take this much now and get the rest tomorrow." But that clearly wasn't the case here:  President Bush announced that even if Congress passed the bill he'd veto it anyway.  This exclusion seemed to me more like compromising for the sake of compromising--Democrats compromising because that's the way they always do it--and it struck me as a lame excuse for strategy. (The bill didn't reach the president's desk.) But I think it won't be long before both groups get this protection.

The gay community uses the acronym GLBTQ, meaning gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer.  I'm not sure who exactly the Q community is:  I think it's people who don't want to be put in any category, and sometimes aren't sure where they fit in, but know they aren't straight.  If you ask me, the whole GLBTQ community should just use the term "non-straight," like "non-white."