Why The Y?

Why is it, some people ask, that the YWCA Berrien County would have a program to serve the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community of Southwest Michigan? Given that the organization's mission statement boils down to two simple phrases "Empowering Women, Eliminating Racism," I would agree that some explanation is a reasonable request.

I think the answer has three parts, and the first one is very simple. When we are talking about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, we are talking about a service population that is roughly half female to begin with. And the empowerment of those women is directly dependent upon changing how sexual orientation and gender identity are understood and incorporated by our community at large. As lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women, their lives are inextricably connected to the well being of our entire "gay" community, and positive change in their lives can only come as a result of addressing the abuse and mistreatment of that whole community. Whether that abuse is physical, social, psychological, or spiritual, we can't guarantee its resolution for just one portion of the community.

On a social and cultural level, however, the second point that I would like to make is that the dis-empowerment of all women is deeply resonant with the way in which gay men are perceived and treated by the society around them. Homophobia and sexism are no different than any two branches of the same tree. We know that young boys are watched closely by adults and peers for any signs of feminine "tendencies." When discovered, these young boys are ridiculed for being sissies, for being too soft and weak, and for gravitating to the interests and playthings most often associated with girls. They are faulted, in effect, for being girls.

And what, I would like to ask, is so terrible about being a girl?

Simply put, if society were to truly recognize, value, and respect the powerful traits that are found in girls and the women they grow up to be, and to do so to a degree equal to how we revere masculinity, encountering "feminine tendencies" in young men would not seem at all the tragedy that people make it out to be. Young homosexual boys with feminine traits would not have to repress their natural selves in order to survive, and would not have to fear the same abuse throughout their adulthood. Meanwhile, adult homosexual men who don't exhibit feminine traits (or learned to suppress them) would not have to fear being perceived in such a way, and could avoid the all too common experience of hiding and repressing their natural selves until their "heterosexual" lives collapse around them like a house of cards.

And, I would argue, if things changed that much, we would also find that sexism and misogyny would have disappeared at the same time.

Beneath it all, the truth is that equality and the empowerment of all women requires the exact same structural changes in society as the empowerment of gay and bisexual men. The elimination of misogyny, sexism, and homophobia are at heart the same thing.

And although it is a discussion for another time, I believe that it is equally true that the elimination of racism and homophobia are, at a deep level, one and the same thing. They are not connected in the same way or at the same level as gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity, but both phenomena are ways in which individuals are categorized and then perceived and treated through the "filter" of that category rather than as a fully capable and respected individual.

For my third point, I would simply argue that empowered women are people who simply choose to do powerful things. The women of the YWCA Berrien County chose to take on this program of service to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Southwest Michigan. They have done this at a time and in a place where many supposedly powerful people, however much they may agree with the mission of the Center, would decline to take this stand, would continue to make choices based on fear, and weakly decline to do what is right and good because they perceive the costs to be too high to themselves.

Empowered is what empowered does.

The women of the YWCA Berrien County are empowering themselves, as do all women, by taking powerful action on behalf of others.