Why are our panties in a bunch over Abe Lincoln in drag?

Dear Editor,

The published responses to the Robert Grossman cartoon display a troubling eagerness on the part of some gays and lesbians to disown the figure of the gender transgressor. (I am grateful to Greg Smith for eloquently sharing sentiments close to my own.)

Yes, the cartoon was illogical and its spirit of mockery problematic, and the writer who complained of its "adolescent vulgarity" hit the nail on the head. But since the inception of the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s, some gays have accused drag queens, trans folks, and other gender-nonconforming queers of perpetuating "old stereotypes," which apparently makes it harder for more mainstream gays to explain "the difference between gender and sexuality" (as the letter writers put it).

While not all queers are gender-nonconforming, gender inevitably shapes both our experience of biological "sex" and others' perceptions of our deviant desires. For this reason, gender transgression has been central to queer culture for decades. Drag queens and other nonconformists have long played a key role in carving out safe spaces for more conventional gays, even though the latter have sometimes reproduced the dominant culture's hostility toward them.

The eagerness to repudiate the figure of the gender transgressor can have profoundly destructive consequences. Drag queen and Stonewall veteran Sylvia Rivera was expelled from the rally platform at one of New York's earliest pride parades, and just ten years ago the organizers of New York's "Stonewall 25" march refused to include the word "transgender" in its name. Until just five months ago, Human Rights Campaign lobbied for the inclusion of only sexual orientation, and not gender identity, in the Employment Nondiscrimination Act.

We will never get where we need to be by demonizing some of the most vulnerable, and often the bravest, members of our own community.

Timothy ***