Today, October 11th, is National Coming Out Day in the USA, so the weekend has been full of LGBT related news. Here’s a quick round-up of things that caught my attention.

Actually I would like to start by saying that while it is great that we can have events like this, we should also spend a bit of time remembering all of those people who cannot have a coming out day because coming out would be disastrous for themselves and/or their loved ones. That’s just as important as celebrating the progress we have made.

And talking of progress, last night President Obama addressed a gala HRC dinner in Washington as part of the National Equality March (NEM). Video of his entire speech found its way onto YouTube. Monica Roberts has the whole thing. As with most Obama speeches, it is very inspiring. Here’s hoping he can actually deliver on those promises. I can imagine how difficult it is going to be.

Meanwhile there are grumblings in my Twitter feed about how Bi and Trans people are being erased from the whole NEM process. Mara Keisling, who is in Washington, says this is something of an illusion created by the media and the reality on the ground is rather different. Nevertheless, while Obama did say “LGBT” a few times, and “gender identity” once, his speech concentrated pretty much exclusively on gay and lesbian issues. The only good news is that he spent much of the time talking generally about civil rights and equality issues.

I’m trying not to be picky here, but this weekend in the UK (where we celebrate National Coming Out Day on the 12th instead) there was a fairly serious row in the LGBT community over one gay man’s attempt to run a protest on behalf of trans people. Unfortunately he managed to offend much of the trans community in the process. Roz has the sorry details.

This reminds me of something that happened while I was living in Melbourne. A local LG activist group decided to set up an operation to fight for trans rights. Any trans people who came along to the initial meeting were presented with a pledge that they were required to sign in return for help from the lesbian and gay community. That pledge asserted that gender dysphoria was a myth, that there was no biological basis to being trans, and that as trans people they were simply making a choice to adopt gendered behavior that was different from that normally expected of people of their actual biological sex. Needless to say, the group didn’t get very far.

Thankfully by no means all “LGBT” groups are so unwilling to listen to their members. I’ve been very impressed with the Outer Alliance folks so far. They are running a blogging festival in conjunction with National Coming Out Day. When there’s a link list available I’ll point you at it.

And finally, a quick reminder of the LGBT issue of Crossed Genres which is due out on Nov. 1st. It has an article by me in it, and the nice CG folks have kindly listed me above Kate Bornstein in their list of star contributors, which is a bit scary.