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Reading “Transgender History” – Susan Stryker

In the week following Pride month, I’ve found myself reflecting on the meaning and purpose of LGBTQI solidarity. As part of a book group, I recently read Transgender History by Susan Stryker, a powerful and often confronting account of trans lives and politics in the United States. Stryker charts not only the struggle for recognition and rights, but also the painful truth that trans people have often been excluded from the very movements they helped to ignite.

Our discussions frequently circled around the recurring theme of marginalisation within our own ranks. We talked about the rifts between gay and trans communities, the exclusion of trans women by some strands of feminism, and the uneasy place of kink, fetish, and leather subcultures in today’s more sanitised queer politics (I had to bring this up :)). These were not abstract debates. They raised urgent questions about how our community defines itself, who gets to speak, and who remains outside the frame.

Pride month may be over, but the tensions it reveals persist. In an era of increasing backlash and culture-war targeting, the need for unity feels more pressing than ever. And yet, unity cannot be built on silence or selective inclusion. If we are to move forward as a community, we need to confront these fault lines — and choose solidarity over division.

Reflections…

Each summer, we paint the streets in rainbow colours, hoist banners of celebration, and tell ourselves the LGBTQI community is unified. But look closer and you will find the cracks: whispered exclusions, internal gatekeeping, and increasingly loud arguments about who really belongs. Trans people, fetish communities, drag performers, non-binary youth, leathermen, we are often more fragmented than we appear. Yet if we continue to treat our differences as threats rather than strengths, we may find ourselves fighting not only the outside world, but each other.

The fetish and Leatherman community is a case in point. Born out of post-war hypermasculine subcultures, leather has long been part of gay history. These were the folk who built early infrastructures of care during the AIDS crisis, who carved out spaces of radical erotic freedom, and who used ritual, performance and physicality as tools of resistance. And yet today, leathermen and kinksters are frequently told they are embarrassing, unsafe, or out of step with modern queer politics. Some Pride organisers have even debated whether they should be allowed to march in gear, fearing public backlash or corporate disapproval.

This is not a new pattern. The LGBTQI community has always made internal bargains with respectability. In pursuit of legal reforms or social acceptance, more “palatable” identities are brought forward while the messy, the deviant, and the marginal are asked to wait their turn, or disappear altogether. The cost of assimilation is often invisibility for those who cannot or will not conform.

Nowhere is this bargain more painfully evident than in the treatment of trans people, particularly trans women of colour. While media visibility has increased, so too has political violence. In the UK, trans lives are now front-page culture-war fodder. Access to healthcare is under attack, young people are being targeted, and a growing chorus of gender-critical voices claim to be feminists while calling for the exclusion of trans women from spaces, services and safety. Misogyny plays a central role in this backlash. The very existence of trans women is portrayed as a threat to womanhood, a distortion of biology, or a form of deception. These narratives do not just harm trans people; they prop up rigid, patriarchal ideas of gender that harm everyone.

Still, it would be a mistake to flatten all experiences of marginalisation. The leatherman in full gear and the teenage trans girl navigating hostile media are not subject to the same forms of risk. Kink communities, while often stigmatised, are not typically legislated out of existence. Many leathermen benefit from whiteness, maleness, and economic privilege. Their marginalisation is real, but it is often cultural rather than systemic.

The point is not to create a hierarchy of suffering. It is to recognise that when we focus on who belongs and who does not, we play into the very logic that seeks to undo us all. Collective action has always been our best defence. The victories we claim today (marriage equality, anti-discrimination protections, and cultural visibility) were not handed down from above. They were won by coalitions of people who refused to leave the most vulnerable behind.

Pride began as a riot, led by trans women, drag queens, homeless youth and people who were criminalised simply for existing. It was never meant to be a performance of perfection. It was a demand for safety, dignity and freedom. That demand still matters. It matters in courtrooms where trans rights are being debated. It matters on parade routes where leathermen are told to cover up. And it matters in every LGBTQI space where difference is seen as division rather than strength.

We cannot afford to let respectability politics divide us. The backlash is already here. To survive it, we must build a movement that centres solidarity over sanitisation, visibility over assimilation, and safety for all over comfort for some. Our pride must be political again; not just a celebration, but a coalition of the defiant.