In the 1970s and 80s, some gay and lesbian organizations distanced themselves from trans people, viewing them as “too radical” or fearing that gender nonconformity would hurt the cause for marriage equality and military service. This led to painful fractures. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force initially excluded trans issues from its platform, and some feminist lesbian spaces famously rejected trans women as “interlopers.”
LGBTQ culture is finally learning what trans people have always known: that the fight for sexual freedom is inseparable from the fight for gender freedom. The rainbow is not a hierarchy of letters. It is a spectrum. And on that spectrum, trans joy, trans struggle, and trans existence remain essential to the full color of queer life. shemaleexe
For many older trans activists, this created a lingering sense of betrayal: they had thrown the first bricks, only to be asked to stand at the back of the parade. While the mainstream LGBTQ culture has largely embraced trans rights in the last decade, a small but vocal fringe—often labeled "LGB drop the T"—has resurfaced. Arguing that sexual orientation (who you love) is fundamentally different from gender identity (who you are), these groups claim that trans inclusion dilutes their specific political goals. In the 1970s and 80s, some gay and