“Pat, The Whole LGBTQI Spectrum of People Are Important In Society!”

Transgender people ain’t necessarily homosexual people By Autumn Sandeen Today I read an article in the Argus (A California bay area newspaper) entitled “Homosexuals Important In Society,” by PFLAG’s Pat Skillen. As a transgender person, I was frustrated a bit by the title and the message of the article; the writer used the acronym GLBT throughout the piece, referenced murdered transgender teen Gwen Araujo, but associated the term GLBT only with being homosexual. For example, one quote from the article was “Why do we need to remind everyone homosexuals always have been and remain an important part of our society?” Well, I and many other people don’t primarily identify as a homosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual–or heterosexual for that matter–we primarily identify as transsexual, genderqueer, intersexed, intergender, etc. Many trans people embrace the term “transgender” as our community descriptor, using transgender as an umbrella term to describe us folk who don’t

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