Olympic freeskier Gus Kenworthy and
transgender activist Laith Ashley cover the October issue of UK LGBT
glossy Attitude.
In the issue, Kenworthy, who came out
gay in 2015, and Ashley, a model, discuss violence against the
transgender community.
(Related: Gus
Kenworthy: My time spent in the closet is a blur of depression and
anxiety.)
“I feel 'gay' and 'gay Pride' have
sort of become this umbrella term for everyone in the community,”
said
Kenworthy, 25.
“But when you think back to what
happened at Stonewall and even before that in San Francisco, there
were trans people at the forefront, trans people fighting for our
liberation... and they didn't get that recognition.”
"It’s sometimes difficult to
comprehend other people’s struggles. You think about your own
struggle and if the people you are hanging out with are also people
who are similar in the way they identify, and even though the
community is this incredible, beautiful, melting pot of people, it
can also be segregated in a way where gay people don’t hang out
with lesbians and trans people,” he said.
Ashley, 29, said that he has
experienced being misgendered by “people both within and outside
our community.”
“There was one situation about 18
months ago in West Hollywood where a guy was just really
disrespectful. I was with a friend, waiting for an Uber and I looked
over and noticed a group of three gay men talking and they kept
whispering to each other, looking over at me,” Ashley said.
"One of the guys gets up and I
notice him coming towards me and he says, 'Oh, so those guys over
there said that you’re a woman. Is that true?' I thought: 'What did
you say to me?' And he was like, 'Oh, it is true. Yeah, that's a
woman.'”
"I was enraged but I knew I
couldn’t react. However, violence does happen and because there is,
at times, a need to be viewed as hypermasculine, as male, and to be
respected as a man, a lot of trans men tend to stay silent when they
do experience violence from a partner, because it’s something that
is expected to happen only to women. And if it does happen to a man,
they 'should be able to handle it.' That way of thinking is a product
of toxic masculinity,” he said.