Tre Wentling is an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Ethnic Studies and the coordinator of the Gender and Sexualities Studies Undergraduate Certificate. Dr. Wentling is a co-editor of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality: The New Basics and some of his other publications can be found in Sexual and Gender Minority Health: Volume 21, Journal of Homosexuality; Trans People in Higher Education; and Transgender Studies Quarterly. When not teaching or writing, you can find him on the dance floor with other West Coast Swing enthusiasts!
Summary
This short, reflexive prose essay offers a series of “I” statements along with critical self-reflection and inquiries. These statements reflect the author’s process of learning, acknowledging, and disrupting taken-for-granted language. This contribution is meant for anyone who uses “LGBTQ+ community” in writing and everyday speech.
See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
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I am…
a white, temporarily able-bodied, first-generation Ph.D. achieving man of transgender experience with the great responsibility and privilege of teaching Women’s and Ethnic Studies courses to university students.
I was…
born in Germany as a child dependent of the U.S. Air Force, and I often heard many different languages as I moved between communities, customs, cultures, and nation-states.
I found…
sociology the first semester of my undergraduate degree, which served as a conduit, connecting critical, liberatory frameworks and social justice networks—even exposure to teacher-scholar activists.
I remember…
the first time I found a peer-reviewed academic article which had “LGBT” in the title, however the substance of the article did not include anything about “T.” It was a publication about minority stress and its unique impact. Ironic that the impact on me was precisely one of the vulnerabilities the concept intended to illuminate: exclusion. It marked the day that I began to question the liberal use of the acronym. Fifteen years later, I find published works with the same egregious misrepresentation. I am constantly reminded that language is a powerful system and the very words and acronyms popularized are effects of that power.
I work…
at unlearning on my journey to liberation. Growing up as a child dependent of the U.S. Air Force, the “we” and “us” was short for “Americans.” As a white child, I did not realize these words served as colorblind tools and that other words do similar work too. Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category, by David Valentine (2007), illustrates how “transgender” became institutionalized by various advocates and political activists alike. Yet, the term is neither used nor accepted by some of the very people it assumes in its deployment. Increasingly, critical trans studies scholars attend to how the term and its discourse emerged from whiteness and serves as a colonial tool when indigenous gender formations are named under its ‘umbrella’ (Singer, 2014; Vidal-Ortiz, 2014). If the popular “T” discourse misrepresents, flattens, and erases complex lived experiences according to race, gender, class, sexuality, age, nationality, among others, we must acknowledge that the LGBTQ+ acronym likely does the same.
I wonder…
what folks actually mean when they say: “The LGBTQ+ community.” I am curious if all the letters are deliberate, prioritized in its articulation, or just habit? I wonder if users of the acronym can adequately respond to why the “T” is included. Moreover, how often do “we” have intentional discussions about the whiteness rooted in each letter, term, and the entire acronym? Why do “we” not purposefully acknowledge the interlocking systems of oppression, like racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and others that create the everyday conditions and overall life chances among those of us who do not fit the normative gender and sexual scripts? Which histories are excavated, learned, and shared with nuance (Stryker, 2017)? Whose research is accessed and centered in the process? Where is that research published and who has access to it? Which advocacy organizations are well known, and who are the people of those organizations that lead these very initiatives (Spade, 2015)?
I acknowledge…
that as a teacher-scholar activist committed to unlearning, disrupting, and working as an accomplice, I have to actively reconsider taken-for-granted language, unsettle concepts, and question terms. About three-quarters into the “LGBTQ+: An Imagined Community” workshop that I led at the 2021 Educator Institute for Equity and Justice, a participant said to me, “So what are you saying? I just want to know what the right language is to use.” The participant was simultaneously vulnerable in admitting their uncertainty and seemingly irritated that my workshop had not offered prescriptive language and what to say.
I recognize…
the significance of this moment as one of expectancy. Allies attend workshops related to diversity and equity with anticipation of learning (and leaving) with more knowledge and promising practices. Although not inherently problematic, such an orientation challenges the process of reconsideration and suspending one’s sureness about language, concepts, and terms – and to do this thoughtfully in a one-hour workshop may very well be impossible.
I have…
no doubt that all who chose the “LGBTQ+: An Imagined Community” workshop were interested in its topic in general and that both cisgender and heterosexual participants wanted to know what to say. Indeed, the workshop’s description included the collective proposal to identify promising practices and resources.
I question…
what it means to arrive at the collective limit, the edge of the workshop group’s knowledge and experience? As disappointment generates frustration among well-intentioned allies who have committed to learning from diversity and equity workshops, what more arises when we leave workshops with even more work do to?
I hope…
the guided conversation at the 2021 Educator Institute for Equity and Justice is merely one of many that participants can name as integral on their path toward imagining expanded communities and reaching collective justice.
References
“New Name, New Plan for Nation’s Oldest National LGBTQ Advocacy Organization.” (October 2014). Retrieved from https://www.thetaskforce.org/new-name-new-plan-nations-oldest-national-lgbtq-advocacy-organization/
Singer, T. B. (2014). “Umbrella.” TSQ: Trans Studies Quarterly, 1, 259-261.
Spade, D. (2015). Normal life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Stryker, S. (2017). Transgender history: The roots of today’s revolution (2nd ed.). New York: Seal Press.
Vidal-Ortiz, S. (2014). “Whiteness.” TSQ: Trans Studies Quarterly, 1, 264-266.
Valentine, D. (2007). Imagining transgender: An ethnography of a category. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.