I just finished taking a bit of time to update my blog roll, which is broken into a few different sections. I added a couple blogs (including one that’s going to be a surprise to many, I’m sure) and some odds and ends. I’m *really* slow at this, and still trying to get caught up on it. I’ve got a lot of blogs and things to add to it and may even have to reorganize how I have them set up.
I’m still in the midst of getting ready for my trip. I leave in about 7 hours as I write this sentence, and my arrangements fro staying someplace have changed from three guys half my age as roomies to one woman about my age (and, um, ahem, that age is 35 in public, no matter what my birth cert says, lol), and that’s actually a pretty big relief.
Sorry Phil and guys. It’s really not you, its being around all that testosterone for 5 days…
I’ve got enough money, I think. It’ll be very tight the rest of the month, so I’m hoping to get the most out of this trip.
My hair did not come in time for the trip. So I will be steaming the ones I do have tonight, and sleep is something I’ll do on the plane. Maybe.
I will blog my experiences as I go, good bad and indifferent, and write about what I see and think and feel and hear and learn and unlearn and decide is asinine and puzzle my way through.
I do want to mention something in specific though. I’ve never done this, or at least I don’t recall having done it. But in my blogroll is a new link called sugar and slugs. This is a new blog by a gal who’s been posting for a short while, and is wanting to express herself rather than having others do it for her. She’s smart, and very new to blogging.
Go check her stuff out. She’s got a good voice, and she’s a thinker, not a proselytizer.
Through an error on my part, my post at Bilerico got sidetracked slightly in a discussion about the separatist gals. That wasn’t my goal, nor my intent, but I erred in any case and approved a comment that I shouldn’t have, because it shifted the conversation from what I wrote about back the very problem I was trying to point out shouldn’t be discussed.
I apologize for that error, but, as I’ve made it and won’t unmake it, that’s how its going to be. The only thing in life you ever have to do is face the consequences. Well, this was an unforeseen consequence, and I’m going to let it be anyway.
Below the fold, a personal note to the Independence Fighters.
Leigh, et al — if you guys want to see my videos of this trip so you can poke fun at me, you’ll have to “friend me” on facebook. With my desktop down, I don’t have the software to convert them for putting up on the blog here.
As a note to Cassandra and Leigh: you guys have strong views. Cassandra’s post that I just approved and responded to while writing this on my posting over there highlights the biggest issue, and part of why it is that I have a hard time seeing the difference between you guys and the asswipes I fight with all over the net who comprise, at best, about 25% of the population.
You want people who you think are not transsexuals to stop claiming to be one. I will not stop, and the group of you have, over the last year, stated that I am not a transsexual. There are exceptions to that, but the bulk of you have called me a man, essentially.
I am not a man. And while I may enjoy the little barbs we throw at each other, that is not one I enjoy. That is not one I like to see, and you know damn well that it hurts, every time. It may only be the equivalent of a metaphorical mosquito bite, but it’s still there, and it still really pisses me off each and every time I see it.
That’s not pushing a button. That’s declaring war on my existence, when you have not met me in person in order to test your “transdar”, solely on the basis of my being really damned good at disagreeing with you. You use it an excuse to justify the fact that, well, you don’t like my ideas very much. Cathryn is, at least, direct about it, and that’s why I still have at least some respect for her — that and she tends to be one of the two or three of you least likely to misgender someone, which, for me (and in most of the wider “t” or whatever the hell you want to call it community online) is about the gravest crime you can do.
I know for a fact that most of you have no clue what I am saying. Most of you do not understand the stuff I write — you get parts of it, and you leap to conclusions about other parts, and then you go off half cocked and partially armed. I don’t say that as a dig. I’m not *after you* here, right now, in this one point in time.
I mean that literally you do not comprehend what I am talking about most of the time.
Not that you are dumb or stupid or anything like that — just that I often forget that most of you don’t have the foundations I do. Call it a cop out if you want to, but I can tell this because I read your comments and arguments and dismissive stuff about me, about what I write, and the rest, but if you *did* understand it, if you were up on it, you’d be able to step in and point out stuff that would actually *help your cause*.
Not a little, not a smidgen, but really, quite a bit.
But you don’t.
And I normally just tease you because let’s face it — we are in a battle for hearts and minds of a sort. I want people to think for themselves, and to base their stuff on solid research, and to use good sound reasoning and logic. I don’t care if they agree with me or not — I care that when they disagree they are able to do so in a manner that has merit and validity beyond just the personal feel good that all of us do in our daily lives — even me.
You don’t understand Authority structures in social groups. You personalize everything. You selectively see some things and not others — like our little comment exchange, Leigh, about the atmosphere in the late 70′s. You do realize that Anita Bryant used the bathroom issue and spoke about sex changing faggots, don’t you? That it was printed in hundreds of newspapers and magazines. That the year after you came out, one of the best selling and most influential books of the day was Raymond’s Menace — it was quoted in Time Magazine, Leigh. You read it?
It wasn’t just hard core feminists and ERA fighters. That was way beyond them.
But no. I can sit here and tell you all of that and know *very well* that that was the situation, and I can sit here and say why I know that, and what it did to me as a result, but you will almost certainly just rationalize all of that away because it doesn’t match your experience, your narrative.
And because it doesn’t — to a great deal because you won’t let it — I get crap all over again.
You all include me with your list of “top enemies”, mentioning me in the same breath as Sandeen and Helms and Roberts. Heck, some of you can’t even spell my damn name right,m but I can forgive ya, since I always screw up yours and have to go back and fix it later.
I say all of this because what *I* am fighting for is important to me. And what you are doing is directly oppositional to what I fight for. I say this because I’m tired of you saying that someone isn’t a transsexual just because you don’t like their politics or their personalities. Yeah, there are some folks out there with egos as big as Texas, and maybe I’m even one of them — lord knows I have a high enough opinion of myself as it is.
I’ve seen what your words can do to transsexuals who are just starting, gals. Seen it up close and in my face and very, very personal.
And its destructive. It hurts them. Leigh, you once said that if someone was just going to look like a man in a dress then they shouldn’t transition. Cassandra, you once told someone they will never be woman enough. Sara, you call women men when you say they are transvestites (and you too, Cassandra, when you decide a woman can’t possibly be transsexual because of what she writes).
And look at what you got for your efforts — a long term post op does the same stuff to all of you that anoldfriend and just jennifer have been doing to Autumn and the Monicas and others.
You say that “the TG’s” support CAMH, when the only one’s that support it, period, are the AGP’s. And they are even more ostracized than you are, since they cling to something that isn’t even a diagnosis yet.
None of the mainstream transsexuals support that. Your convoluted misunderstandings of what people talk about are so utterly and incredibly wrong that I sit here stunned to think that you actually believe that.
You argue that “the big lie” is being told by the “TeeGees” and yet you pull a burgeoning research report out that deals on a self selected sample basis to ask a series of response controlled questions in order to determine the *degree to which* a certain barely understood phenomenon is effected in transsexuals, from which you ignore the fact that its admittedly already had merely a high correlation, not an absolute one.
So, what — the post operative transsexuals in the study who didn’t experience that suddenly aren’t transsexual anymore?
Yeah, I’m talking at you from a position of privilege afforded me by my education. Big freaking whoop. None of you are dim. Well, at least, most of you aren’t.
You want anonymity, then go out and get it. Its not hard. Its not going to suddenly vanish from you unless you let it be taken. For crying out loud, there are engineers among you.
One dig, just because Igotta, though. Not too long ago, Susan spoke about how those TeeGee’s always seem to find a way to talk about their credentials.
Just like she’s managed to find ways to talk about hers. Guess that makes her…
Maybe one day you will get around to asking me about how I define who is and who isn’t a transsexual, or why it is that I fight for transsexuals, but speak about the entirety of Trans people.
Don’t do it now, because it’ll just be your asking because I pointed out you haven’t. You won’t be acting out of your own genuine curiosity, but an influenced decision.
Just do your usual and say rude things about me.
At least then you won’t be doing it to others you don’t know, and putting them into a hospital after they decide to walk in front of a bus, figuring that if another transsexual can’t accept them, who the hell will?
Because while I’ve said sometimes all you need is one person to believe in you, that’s only sometimes.
Sometimes all it takes is one to not believe in you, as well.
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13 Responses to “Clearing things up before I head out…”
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My biggest pet peeve is people dictating to others what a “true” transsexual is. The only authority any of us have in dictating the “One True Path” as the absolute truth of transdom is when we talk about our own experiences. I’ve seen this time and again, people in our very own community who rightfully rail against gatekeepers yet fail to see how their attempts to define what is a “real” transsexual has made them the very gatekeepers that they denounce.
Two things here:
Just curious about something, you wrote about Sugar and Slugs: “This is a new blog by a gal who’s been post for a while, and is wanting to express herself rather than having others do it for her.”
By “post” did you mean to write “posting”, or are you meaning “post-op” in which case why would you share that fact when she doesn’t mention her genitals in her own “About” page?
Secondly, as far as allowing Leigh, Cathryn, et. al. to post their tripe (both here and on Bilerico):
In allowing them to post their comments and links to their own blogs, it only goes to show how bigoted and self-righteous they are, and most people will see their absurdities and realize just how warped their thinking is.
In the same token, you are perpetuating their small-minded beliefs by allowing their posts, and feeding/baiting them, as well as when vulnerable trans men and women who come seeking answers see this poisoned belief system, some choose to follow not realizing the liabilities.
Let them have their blogs. Let them rant and rave and talk about the injustices done to them. They have every right to post their thoughts in their own spaces. But why encourage it in your blogs and articles by pointing the rest of us to their drivel?
Of course, to the same respect, it *is* your blogs and your articles. You have a right to post and allow whatever you feel appropriate.
It’s true that if you call me a “post-op”, or even just “a transsexual woman”, I feel objectified, and reminded of things that in many ways I’d rather not think about. Certainly, if a random person from my day-to-day life characterized me that way, it would be bizarre and probably very uncomfortable for me.
But on the other hand, I created the blog Sugar and Slugs as a place to explore aspects of my experience as a transsexual woman. By choice, I have excluded almost all other aspects of my life, but that choice limits how others perceive me; what I allow you to see is an objectified view.
In that context, it isn’t unreasonable for people to wonder what kind of transsexual woman I am, or for other people to try to spell it out. Arguably I should spell things out more clearly on my about page, but despite the goals I have for my blog, my sense of myself from who I am in real life leaks in, and makes me reluctant to wear things so blatantly on my sleeve. The truth is there to read in my writings, but I do have a tendency to be a little oblique about it at times.
Nebulous, you’re right, it’s not unreasonable for people to wonder what kind of transsexual woman you are. But that in itself indicates there are different “classes” or “levels” of transsexual. We only have to have our self-identity. If someone doesn’t “identify” with your writings, then your blog is not for them. Likewise, if someone sees beauty and sense in your writing, then they can “identify” with you and your experiences.
If you were to share whether you are pre-op or post-op only serves two purposes that I can see. First, it does “objectify” you, and immediately puts you in one of the “levels” or “classes” in the readers mind, in their “opinion” of you. It gives a foothold to those in the “opposite” state to scrutinize your words, perhaps debate with you, rather than read with an open mind and allow themselves to feel the power in them.
Secondly, it immediately focuses on the state of your genitals.
I hear and see on occasion (too often, really) transwomen introducing themselves “I’m so-and-so, a pre-op transwoman” or “Hi, I’m a post-op transsexual woman”.
So where does the average person’s mind go to when they hear this? Right to the crotch. Sorry to be blunt, but it’s factual. That becomes the very first thought about this woman you’ve only just met – one either envisions a penis or a vagina, because that’s where we’re taken.
I don’t personally want to know the state of affairs in anyone’s pants/dress. I want to know a person by their mind and their heart. I know I’m not the only person who feels this way.
I am glad that you don’t (at this point) have your genital status in your about page. In fact, the only emphasis you put on the fact that you are a trans woman is “But I am not a cissexual woman.”
That’s really all anyone needs to know. Your writings can delve further into the experience, and that’s where the reader can learn.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, opinions and experiences through your blog.
I edited the post for clarity about what I was talking about, and apologize for the confusion and my habit of not proofreading what I write before I hit “publish”.
Her surgical status is irrelevant to me, personally.
We must be doing something right or you wouldn’t keep addressing us by name
“You do realize that Anita Bryant used the bathroom issue and spoke about sex changing faggots, don’t you? That it was printed in hundreds of newspapers and magazines. That the year after you came out, one of the best selling and most influential books of the day was Raymond’s Menace — it was quoted in Time Magazine, Leigh. You read it?”
actually ….. no
I really don’t read those things because they don’t pertain to me. Maybe it’s because I was never homosexual which is the basis of those sort of articles. It’s sorta like an uncle of mine, by marriage, a total shit kicking redneck of the worst kind. I tell you if that man had been given a badge there woulda been lynchings. He was a card carrying KKK bigot of the first order, and for all I know he probably wore the sheets.
Anywho, I asked him once, over a beer and a smoke on his trailers patio down there in the deep south, overlooking Alabama, I asked him how come he could take to me when he had such disdain for others, and he told me that he didn’t see me that way.
Now I know that don’t mean much to anyone, because we were after all sorta kin and bigotry tends to never extend to kin, and racism is racism and I abhor it as much as the next person. But that’s the whole point of the matter, what Anita Bryant said, and what Raymond said, I mean who cares? I was dealing with who I was. I had no need for their’s or anyone else’s permission or approval. Some are not going to like it but most don’t give a damn if it don’t effect them.
And that brings me to fake transsexuals. Those that claim transsexuality when it’s clear to see that their transsexuality is all about the clothes, the gay lifestyle, the benefits of inclusion. I do give a damn because it doe’s effect me. In the same way as an American Serviceman goes and shoots up a whole village in iraq or afghanistan, the end result is that all Americans are then fair game for reprisals. Yep I know you don’t see it that way, but I do. And in the end analysis, I care how it effects me personally, and those around me.
Leigh,
You have valid experiences. It’s great that in your family, bigotry didn’t extend to others in the family. As for me, bigotry does extend to other family members, more so on my father’s side. Everyone has a different experience.
Your analogy about American serviceman shooting up someone across the pond to make your point I think lacks real life perspective. Let me explain before you fire your guns at me.
I traveled to India, Nepal and Indonesia as an American Buddhist monk at the height of the terrorist tensions surrounding 9/11 in which the American media hyped up how dangerous it was for Americans overseas ect.
In reality, with the exception of 1 person, no one blamed me as an American for the things our government and military personal did. The 1 person in question was moderately hostile at best and quizzed me extensively on my thoughts about “W” Other than that, everyone had their own problems in life they had to focus on – like finding work, paying bills ect. What was done elsewhere only mattered ever so slightly.
In the same way, your argument about how someone expresses their transsexuality is likewise weak. I mean really, for those you have strongest issue, say for example, Dyssonance here, does how she lives her daily life really affect your daily life that much that it is disabling you and preventing you to being happy? Does what Jasper, Sandeen et al in their daily lives really really affect you so much that you cannot function? I can take a stab and assume none of them live close enough to you that you see them on a daily basis. If there were no internet, how would their lives affect you?
I just do not see how all these people keep you from being the best you – that you can be.
Well Zoe, I honestly think the analogy stands. India, Nepal and Indonesia is hardly Iraq or Afghanistan, north Korea or Vietnam for that matter, and you went as you say, as a buddhist monk.You also went at a time when international opinion on later bush era policies had not yet had time to fester in the minds of the people.
I am also not speaking of one on one to even one to many conversations that one might encounter on such a trip. Does everyone in a particular region feel the same way? well of course not. Do many feel that way and would rather not discuss it in person, probably yes.
In the same way this particular subject matter is rarely discussed unless someone brings the subject up in conversation. The fact is hardly anyone ever discuss matters pertaining to sex outside of their immediate family and loved ones. That doesn’t mean though that people have not formed an opinion on the matter,
As for the rest of your comment, ‘expresses’ their transsexuality? What does that mean? What is to be expressed? Since you mention Jasper and Sandeen .. well that speaks for itself.
Nobody keeps me from being me. None of this actually effects me. It does effect those that follow in the footsteps of those like me though. When a straight forward medical issue becomes mired in gender theory and bogged down in agp and ultimately rejected by physicians and the general public due to transgender all inclusive policy, then I have a problem with that and those that promote it.
Well Leigh,
I’m not going to get in a protracted debate with you. However, your original argument only stated Iraq and Afghanistan and did not include North Korea nor Vietnam.
Furthermore, I did not clarify specifically when I was over in on the countries mentions except it was after 9/11 and the tensions perspective were much higher after Iraq invasion #2. There are strong similarities In all thr3e countries mentioned – especially Indonesia (predominately Muslim country) – out in the remote sections – where I traveled. My travels spanned aver a 2 year period so Bush’s policies were having world wide effect by that point. As a result, I did get to experience the overall mood of the people and did openly discuss Buh’s BS policies.
Moving past world politics – you contradict yourself. First you state (and this related to how it effects you and how aforementioned persons express their perceived transsexuality):
“Those that claim transsexuality when it’s clear to see that their transsexuality is all about the clothes, the gay lifestyle, the benefits of inclusion. I do give a damn because it doe’s effect me.”
In your last comment you state: “Nobody keeps me from being me. None of this actually effects me.”
So, it either does effect you or it does not… which is it?
If it really does not effect you and you are trying to make the world a better place for those who will come after us, then I applaud your efforts.
However, I feel you and Dyssonace really enjoy baiting and arguing with each other and I wonder of the benefit in the overall picture for those who will come after us.
Zoe,
On the political front I could have mentioned Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Bosnia, Granada, Nicaragua, or a dozen other places where being american might be hazardous to your health. I think you get the point.
As for the catch you said ….
“Dyssonance here, does how she lives her daily life really affect your daily life that much that it is disabling you and preventing you to being happy? Does what Jasper, Sandeen et al in their daily lives really really affect you so much that you cannot function?”
………….. and the answer to that is…. NO!
However, I am not an island and in some cases I do have to reveal my past as others have had to do. Being post op presents some issues that most pre-ops have not even had to deal with. One such case was when I met my future husband. After dating for a while he declared his love for me. He had not a clue of my history. My rules are simple, I don’t disclose until I have to. When I did I can tell you it was something I agonized over for days. Long story short and all went well, but it was not without question in his mind as to whether or not he should believe what knowledge he had aquired through the media, or to give me an even break and let the relationship continue. As you may know, this is usually the time when most men run for the hills. So yes he did some research and 24 hours later as I requested, he was satisfied that he was not getting into something that went against his grain.
In other cases, I have to deal with govt entities that have access to my previous history. I will not go into details on this blog, suffice to say that perception of who or what we are can be detrimental to ones financial well being.
So no, what an individual does on a daily basis, as long as they dont do something that puts them and ALL transsexuals under public scrutiny, doesn’t effect my day to day life in the slightest. However the BIGGER picture, and that is what we should be looking at, is that gender crap that directly effect the public opinion of ALL of us as a class, does effect ME.
As for Dyss, well I like dyss. Many of my group do not.
Thanks for the kind words about Sugar and Slugs. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed what I’ve written so far, and I hope that I don’t disappoint you (too much) with whatever I write in the future.
My therapist explained a social theory she believes quite strongly in.
20% of the population is, by definition, not only bigoted but openly proud of it. And short of catastrophic psychological events on a personal level, nothing will change them.
20% are tolerant of all views that don’t harm anyone (by their definition). Short of catastrophic psychological events on a personal level, nothing will change them.
And 60% can be swayed into accepting the beliefs in either direction. i suppose that’s the definition of the battleground.
i used to be appalled at the behavior of some women with things like misgendering. Then i saw all the deliberate silencing and mockery of operatives. Their vaginas, their minds, their heterosexuality…everything.
In places where no misgendering took place. They were just baffled transvestite, crossdresser and non-operative thoughts on operative women in general.
Now when i see that type of behavior, i numbly shake my head and think, ‘Yup. That’s the reaction of an abused and cornered animal, all right. Bite back and bite hard’.
And you don’t even have to commit the crime to have the transgender machine try to destroy you. i’ve never misgendered anyone, Toni. You and i talked over IM about the videos you posted. Did i mock you?
Chicken? Egg? Who knows. Who cares. i can only work with what i know.
And i’ve seen a lot of hypocrisy and self-righteousness in the transgender community. More than a belly full.
i love how seemingly zero effort is made to get surgery covered by insurance. That it takes a court ruling to get progress on it, unrelated to a largely indifferent transgender political construct. Because provocative image of the bus suicide aside, you know as well as i do that suicide is largely driven by operative-minded T.
Like you and i, Toni. We do it or we die.
But no.
Let’s keep fighting for the right of fetish-wear exhibitionists and the Jaspers to win women’s spaces.
And public image, backlash legislation, operative suicides and society at large be damned.