What “Transgendered Community”?

by Susan

When I created this website, I gave it the subtitle “for Cambridge's transgendered community” because I felt that expressed what we were trying to do. At the same, I felt uncomfortable with it as a title, because I was well aware that there really is no such thing as the “transgendered community”. Many postoperative transsexuals are living as their assigned gender and have little or no contact with groups specifically for the transgendered. You could perhaps say that they are members of the “male community” or “female community”, but that just makes it obvious how absurd it is to use the word “community” in this way. Female-to-male t-people tend to have very different interests from male-to-female t-people, much as men and women often tend to be interested in different things, so F-to-M groups and M-to-F groups don't interact very much. Heterosexual t-people and gay t-people don't always get well along together - “I'm not gay” as a statement of one person's own sexuality is fine, but “We're not gay” is sometimes said in a way that makes those of us who are gay feel unwelcome.

Having said all that. I think that there really is a local community, with ties of friendship and mutual support - and it includes not only transgendered people, but also their spouses, partners, relatives and friends. We know that there are many isolated t-people out there: with this website we're seeking to let them know of events they might be interested in going to, and provide information they might find helpful.

We meet regularly on Wednesday evening, in a local pub, “The Bird in Hand”. It's a generally welcoming an all-inclusive venue. It's a gay bar, but both gay and straight are welcome. Both M-to-F and F-to-M t-people go there regularly - it so happens that they tend to congregate in different groups, but there's no official segregation here and anyone is welcome.