Every organizer of TG events knows that it takes an enormous amount of work just to gather a few hundred such people together in one place. Contrast this to the gay liberation movement, where thousands gather weekly at party events, and tens of thousands gather each year in virtually every major city for Pride and other events. In Boston, the Pride transgender contingent has yet to turn out more than about 50 people. Major gay publications now regularly carry transgender content, and the transgender movement is being hailed by some as the leading edge of queer activism. And yet a gathering of 500 transgender people is still unheard of.
T here are at least two effects at work here.
One is that to be transgender is to be even more different, more challenging to conventional norms, than to be gay or lesbian or bisexual. Transgenderism is a potent catalyst, whether to upset or foster growth. The transgender person highlights an enormous blind spot in our culture, the presumption of a binary norm of sex and gender. Our very existence constitutes a potent critique of our system of gendered thought. So it doesn't take many TG folk to create quite a stir, as any such person can tell you.