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When gay and lesbian people embrace their identities, they typically have the option of being part of a community of similarly-identified people. Maybe there are gay bars, or eating establishments that cater so significantly to gay and lesbian patrons that it's thought of as a gay or lesbian dining spot. There may even be a "gay part of town" where people can go, places where gay and lesbian folks are sufficiently concentrated that they are not in the minority. There are gay cruises on cruise ships, dances for gay folks, and other such opportunities.
I'm sure it's not quite as available when one is a lesbian or gay guy in Miles City, Montana or Hahira, Georgia, and attending such venues can leave one vulnerable to attack, but still, the opportunity is there in a generic sort of way.
And for gay and lesbian folks it has the dual purpose of networking with your allies and mixing and mingling with your potential partners.
I think the ways in which this is different for other people of minority orientation, gender identity, and intersex identities is worth looking at, because it shapes what coming out is like, and because since gay and lesbian people's experiences are more socially established, it is likely that some people extrapolate from what they know about gay and lesbian people's experiences as "out" and assume it's the same for the rest of us, if only because they hadn't given it much thought.
I had some preformed ideas about what it was like to be a male-to-female or female-to-male transgender person — that they didn't particularly want to be a part of some kind of transgender community (except for political networking and activism), they wanted to blend in with the larger world of ordinary men and women; that they wanted to be seen and accepted as men and women, not as transgender men and women. But I didn't want to rely on these and end up making statements about people that weren't necessarily accurate, so I did some informal polling in some Facebook groups for trans people.
POLL for Traditionally Transitional (M2F and F2M) Transgender People
• Under ideal circumstances, would you wish to be a part of a community where you were known to be transgender? If there were trans-centric cruise ship vacations and transgender eating establishments and a transgender part of town and so forth, in the same sense that there are for gay and lesbian people, is that something you'd want to be a part of? Or would you mostly want to live your life as a man (if you're a trans man) or woman (for trans women) and not call attention to being transgender, that transgender isn't your identity, it's just your circumstance, etc?
• Mainstream impressions and media depictions portray trans people as not wanting to be perceived as "male to female" but simply as female, (or not as "female to male" but just as male for trans men) -- that a person's experience and history as a transgender individual is personal, no one's business; or, as some put it, to "pass". (A somewhat loaded term that some folks find laden with mainstream value judgments, but we've all heard it). Certainly some memoirs and coming-out stories have said this as well: "I don't want to be thought of as a transgender man, just as a man, period". Do you think this is a misrepresentation or out of date, or is it reasonably accurate and valid?
The answers partially confirmed what I thought: that it is important to most binary trans people to be perceived as men and women, not as transgender people. One respondent wrote "the whole point of transitioning is to no longer be associated with the gender I was assigned at birth", and to be seen as transgender is to be reminded of that. Or, as another person put it, "that would defeat the whole purpose".
And yet, at the same time, a significant number of respondents said that they enjoy having safe spaces, places to socialize with other transgender people where they can talk about experiences specific to being trans. Most of those spaces are formal support groups but some said "hey, if there were trans cruises or a trans part of town, I'd totally check it out... I pass and I like being part of mainstream society and accepted without question as a woman, but I am not ashamed of being trans and it is part of who I am".
Several transgender respondends stressed that they were proud of their identities and did not want to leave the impression that they were slinking around shamefully trying to hide it. Many said they needed to connect to other trans people even if only for political purposes, to provide or receive support, and others said they'd like more social opportunities to be with other transgender people as well. But this was "in addition to", not instead of having the opportunity to pursue their lives as non-differentiated men and women; they didn't want to be confined to a transgender ghetto, because being trans was not their gender identity, being a man or a woman was.
A couple people said they weren't sure what would happen in a hypothetical trans bar or trans part of town: "I can see the need for 'gay districts', since gay people need to find other people they are physically attracted to, but I don't think trans people have that same need".
I also polled people who identify as genderqueer and/or as nonbinary, in several Facebook groups that specifically include us:
• Are you now, or have you been, part of a genderqueer/nb community where you meet face to face and hang out in person?
• If you answered "Y" to question 1, was it an organized group with official meeting times and places, like a meetup group or a support group, or did you also have informal connections?
• Is there anything like a "genderqueer/nb part of town" you can go to and expect the people on the sidewalks and in the local businesses to be other genderqueer/enbies like you?
• Do you know of any genderqueer/enby bars, clubs, or places to eat where nonbinary or genderqueer people go to hang out?
• Do you interact in person face to face with other people who identify as you do? Or mostly only on the internet?
I wanted to rule out the possibility that, on the cusp of turning 60, my own experiences were not exemplary of what genderqueer / binary people go through, and that I was pretty isolated from the contemporary experience of coming out genderqueer, you know? Because for me, there's never been anything akin to a sense of community except in these online forums. And for most of my "out" life I have craved being in a space where my variation was normative, and not only for political / networking purposes but also for reasons akin to what gay and lesbian people get from it: to be in a space where I'd stand a better chance of meeting people who wanted to get romantically or sexually involved with someone like me.
In general, almost none of my genderqueer respondents said they were part of a face to face community aside from support groups, and only a few people had been in face-to-face support groups dedicated to genderqueer / nonbinary people. Several respondents reported having been in generic LGBT, LGBTQ, or LGBTQIA support groups where they felt accepted and could identify as part of the larger community.
That was likewise true for anything approximating a "genderqueer/nb part of town". People often gravitated towards the lesbian or gay clubs or areas, and were often made to feel welcome, but seldom felt recognized and understood as nonbinary or genderqueer — when people perceived them as having a variance from mainstream gender expression, their reaction was "oh you're gay like me, like the rest of us here". That was an improvement over "oh, you're one of those people" but it still meant not being perceived accurately.
Only one person mentioned anything akin to a genderqueer or enby bar, and that was to remonstrate against alcohol-based establishments as ideal places to flirt and date. When some other people inquired further to ask where this enby bar was, no specifics were given, and the reply may have been about generic gay/lesbian bars since the main focus of the reply was to advise people to not turn to drinking establishments for this purpose. Alcoholism and drug abuse are a concern for many people in the LGBTQIA world.
There was a lot of curiosity and interest in the possibility of such a thing, a genderqueer social scene. Apparently I'm not alone in feeling like this would be a wonderful thing, nor am I alone in the impression that we don't have it yet.
Gay and lesbian people, as I said, benefit from the existence of a gay/lesbian social environment because they can meet people they are physically attracted to who are attracted to them in turn. How is that similar or dissimilar for genderqueer / nonbinary folks? Well...
• It is reasonable to assume that the people that lesbian women are attracted to are other lesbian women, and that gay males's attraction is towards other gay males. It's a lot less inevitable that genderqueer people are primarily or exclusively attracted to — or are attractive to — other genderqueer people.
• But it isn't highly unusual either. Skoliosexuality is a neologistic term for people whose sexual orientation is to "transgender or nonbinary/genderqueer people". That's a complicated and problematic "or", insofar as many transgender people do not particularly want to be the target of someone's sexual interest on the basis of them being trans. The specific link I just referenced includes the additional bit "See also: transfan, tranny chaser, chaser". Be that as it may, genderqueer / nonbinary people are far less likely to oppose or resist the idea of people being specifically attracted to us for being the way we are. (Hence, it would be nice if a term were to evolve that pertains to being attracted to genderqueer folks without it simultaneously being tied to tranny chasing and objectifying trans people sexually).
• Genderqueer and nonbinary people are not a homogenous group with a single uniform preference. I know that, for myself, it was crucially important that I be perceived as a male very different from the typical generic males, specifically that I was a femme, a person with interests and tendencies and sexual nature and romantic inclinations akin to the girls and women... and that this not only be tolerated but found attractive, hot, that it be affirmatively found desirable. So for lack of a better term, I've always wanted to be surrounded by skoliosexual women.
• ...Or skoliosexual female people, at any rate. While I am not exclusively attracted to female people whose own gender identity is variant and atypical, it's an affirmative attraction for me if they are. I very much respond to women (no question about that); I haven't had anywhere near as much direct firsthand dating experience with female people whose gender identity is not "woman", but if there were opportunities to meet more such people and an appreciable number of them were at ease and comfortable with being female bodied and had a sexual attraction to the male body, and found the idea of being the boy to my girl, I've always sensed that the chemistry there would be powerful.
• Gay and lesbian people's variation from the typical is specifically defined as consisting of same-sex attraction. Genderqueer / nonbinary people are not defined in terms of sexual orientation at all. Some genderqueer people's sexual attraction is not anchored in a sexual preference for one body type or another; other genderqueer people do have a sexual orientation that takes that into account, for instance, as one nb wrote, "I am attracted to female people, women or people on the masculine spectrum as long as they are not AMAB (assigned male at birth)". So a community of genderqueer / nb people would not constitute in its entirety of people who fall into the general category of folks to whom genderqueer /nb people are sexually attracted. On the other hand, being a gay guy doesn't mean every gay guy is attractive to you (or vice versa) either.
• Reciprocally, meanwhile, it is rare to nonexistent that a genderqueer or nb person expresses a sexual orientation that disprefers other genderqueer or nb people. There is no equivalent to a (traditional binary) transgender person's preference to "pass" in the cis world and be accepted there.
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