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Abstract
Recent geographical interventions have begun to question the power relations among lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people, challenging assumptions that LGBT communities have homogeneous needs or are not characterised by hierarchies of power. Such interventions have included examinations of LGBT scenes as sites of exclusion for trans people. This article augments academic explorations of trans lives by focusing on ‘the gay capital’ of the UK, Brighton & Hove, a city that is notably absent from academic discussions of gay urbanities in the UK, despite its wider acclaim. The article draws upon Count Me In Too (CMIT), a participatory action research project that seeks to progress social change for LGBT people in Brighton & Hove. Rather than focusing on LGBT scenes, the article addresses broader experiences of the city, including those relating to the city as a political entity that seeks to be ‘LGBT inclusive’ and those relating to the geographies of medical ‘treatment’ that relocate trans people outside the boundaries of the city, specifically to the gender identity clinic at Charing Cross Hospital in London. It argues that trans lives are both excluded from and inextricably linked to geographical imaginings of the ‘gay capital’, including LGBT spaces, scenes and activism, such that complex sexual and gender solidarities are simultaneously created and contested. In this way, the article recognises the paradoxes of the hopes and solidarities that co-exist – and should be held in tension – with experiences of marginalisation.
Las intervenciones geográficas recientes han comenzado a cuestionar las relaciones de poder entre personas lesbianas, gay y trans, desafiando las suposiciones de que las comunidades LGBT tienen necesidades homogéneas o que no están caracterizadas por jerarquías de poder. Tales intervenciones han incluido inspecciones de los ambientes LGBT como sitios de exclusión para las personas transexuales. Este artículo amplía los estudios académicos de las vidas transexuales por medio del enfoque sobre ‘la capital gay’ del Reino Unido, Brighton y Hove, una ciudad que es notablemente ausente de las discusiones académicas de las urbanidades gay en el Reino Unido, a pesar de su mayor fama. El artículo se basa en ‘Inclúyanme a mí también’ (CMIT, por sus siglas en inglés), un proyecto de investigación de acción participativa que busca el cambio social para las personas LGBT en Brighton y Hove. En vez de centrarse en los ambientes LGBT, el artículo aborda experiencias más amplias de la ciudad, incluyendo aquellas relacionadas con la ciudad como una entidad política que busca ser ‘inclusiva para LGTB’ y aquellas relacionadas con las geografías de ‘tratamientos’ médicos que reubican a las personas transexuales fuera de los límites de la ciudad, específicamente en la clínica de identidad de género en el Hospital de la Charing Cross en Londres. Argumenta que las vidas trans están excluidas de los imaginarios geográficos de la ‘capital gay’, y a la vez inextricablemente ligadas a los mismos, incluyendo los espacios, ambientes y activismo LGBT, de manera que complejas solidaridades sexuales y de género son simultáneamente creadas y desafiadas. De esta forma, el artículo reconoce las paradojas de las esperanzas y solidaridades que coexisten – y deberían ser mantenidas en tensión – con las experiencias de marginalización.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the many individuals, organisations and services that have helped make Count Me In Too such a success. Thank you to everyone who completed a questionnaire or attended a focus group for your time and trust. Particular thanks goes to those whose contribution forms the basis of this article. We hope your stories will make a lasting difference. This project, as a community–university partnership, was possible because of the amazing work undertaken by Spectrum and particular thanks is owed to Arthur Law and Leela Bakshi who have worked tirelessly for positive social change for LGBT people; we are proud that our work in Count Me In Too can be part of this effort. (Because the ‘trans aspects’ of this research were an intimate part of the entire process it is impossible to create ‘trans specific’ acknowledgements).
Thank you to everyone who volunteered with the project at each stage, including the Count Me In Too Community Steering Group; Action Group; Monitoring Group; and the Count Me In Too Analysis Groups, particularly the trans analysis group. The project could not have happened without you. Thank you to the local organisations that provided support in kind by making available staff and resources to work with the project. Your collaboration has enhanced the project's work immeasurably.
Thank you to the following organisations and services which provided financial support throughout the project: University of Brighton, Brighton & Sussex Community Knowledge Exchange, NHS Brighton & Hove (formerly Brighton & Hove City Teaching Primary Care Trust), Brighton & Hove City Council, CUPP, South East Coastal Communities (HEFCE), Brighton & Hove City Council Social Care and Housing, Partnership Community Safety Team, Sussex Police, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Drugs & Alcohol Action Team.
And to everyone else who in various ways has helped to make this research happen: including all who designed, debated and contributed questions to the questionnaire, all who offered comments and help on the process, all who attended stakeholder and community meetings and feedback events.
Notes
1. Spectrum is Brighton & Hove's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Forum, established in 2002 to provide infrastructure and community development support to LGBT communities and to promote partnership work and community engagement in the planning of services and policy. http://www.spectrum-lgbt.org.
2. It should also be noted that the possibilities of living beyond ‘recognition’ and ‘outside’ of gender binaries in ways that are often celebrated by queer academics may not be possible or even desired by many trans people.
3. The full history and development of geographies of sexualities is well documented and will not be repeated here (see Bell and Valentine Citation1995; Binnie and Valentine Citation1999; Browne, Lim, and Brown Citation2007).
4. Accurate figures are impossible. For some, this is because the census does not count LGBT people; however, as Browne (Citation2010) argues elsewhere, the assertion that it is possible to ‘find’ a sexuality figure through census data collection needs to be critically interrogated, recognising that this process of data collection and categorisation will create as well as ‘discover’.
5. Statutory services are those required by statute to be provided by the state and include a range of welfare, health and social services. They are often delivered at a local or regional level. The obligation to provide such services is usually accompanied by an obligation to monitor the effectiveness of their delivery. As Brighton & Hove is believed (no ‘accurate’ figures are available) to have a ‘significant’ LGBT population, there is a requirement for such services to provide for this sector of the population (see Cooper Citation2006 for a more critical discussion).
6. The contention that bi people can be included with lesbians and gay men is problematic given that the CMIT findings showed bi people on a number of indicators and with regard to personal experiences were much less likely to be included within the ‘mainstream’ (see Browne and Lim Citation2008a). Indeed, there is evidence in this research and elsewhere that trans and bi people can create important solidarities in the face of marginalisation by lesbians and gay men. The CMIT findings show considerable commonalities between bi and trans experiences of Brighton & Hove, and point to: how the labels ‘bi’ and ‘trans’ are useful but limiting; how rigid boundaries between gender and sexuality are contested; how being ‘lumped in’ with lesbian and gay without proper recognition and support is questioned by several bi and trans respondents; and how bi and trans people are often ignored when subsumed within the category LGBT. Recognising these similarities in Brighton & Hove, the bi and trans working group operates to enable bi and trans voices and experiences to be heard. Nonetheless, it should be noted that bi and trans cannot be collapsed into one another. For example, for some trans people, there is no link or attachment to LGB people or communities. Consequently, in recognising similarities and solidarities, we must also be attentive to differences, enabling both bi and trans voices to be heard and to come together when and where this is appropriate.
7. It should, of course, be added that this is not to set up a lesbian and gay versus bi and trans people binary. Rather, Count Me In Too found, as many other studies have shown, that multiple marginalisation and exclusions affect lesbians and gay men. In addition, it is problematic to set up a ‘homonormative’ figure of privilege as Brown (Citation2009) and others have shown.
8. Although ‘treatment’ implies some form of illness, disease and/or something being ‘wrong’, it is used here more loosely to refer to engagements with medical services that were both sought out and desired by participants in this research. There is an important discussion to be had regarding how such desires are narrated, and it is envisaged that this article will open up avenues of further investigation. In addition, the article specifically focuses on the perspective of trans people in the ‘gay capital’ and, in this way, focuses on one specific form of analysis. Further work might take account of recent geographical and other research that has examined patient activism and deconstructions of the biomedical gaze. Such work might also explore the growing trans literatures that critically consider medical interventions and needs.
9. Queer is not a word commonly used in Brighton & Hove, exceptions being its use among very specific groups, for example, academics, Queer Mutiny, and Club Wotever. The term is not added on to the end of acronyms, and it is not commonly used as an umbrella term in the LGBT press or among organisations. Rather, queer events often mark themselves as distinct from lesbian and gay venues and events, offering alternative, often non-commercial spaces that can afford other forms of acceptance for gender and sexual identities, expressions and ‘hirstories’ (The spelling of the word ‘hirstories’ demonstrates resistance to the gendering within male/female categories of his/herstories)