So there was this guy.

He wanted to transition.  His wife was not supportive.  He wasn’t particularly stable. It didn’t go well.

The woman was murdered, killed with callous indifference and notable cruelty in a malevolent plot that was premeditated and wholly purposeful.

The man was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to spend the rest of his days in prison.  He would not have the option of parole, and would die there.

He still wanted to transition.  He sued the state. Several times. He needed to get a diagnosis, and that was allowed.  Then he needed hormones, and had to do it again.  Then he needed surgery, and had to sue yet again. He has, thus far, won each time.  With appeals even going in his favor.

You may note I use the pronoun “he”.  This isn’t to insult or demean, it has a purpose and a value and I am doing it to show the power of that term as it is used by those who are fighting her on this ongoing effort to obtain valid, critical, important medical treatment.

That’s what is done, and they use “he” for the specific purpose of pointing out that she is A Man, that vague and ill-defined concept that has, when associated with transness, become part and parcel of the idea that all men are soulless creatures bent on the destruction of other human beings.

They are UnTamed men, feral, wild, out of control, and they must be punished, this idea says, and most men are really like this, the idea supports, and it is reinforced in news accounts and reporting and stories by people who are incredibly transphobic to start with, such as Cathy Brennan or Lyndon Evans.

Are men responsible for most of the physical violence that happens int he world today?  Absolutely. But does that mean we should assign all men to that set of systems and issues?  I’m not so sure.  Then again, I am not a radical feminist and do not see the world through the lens as gender relations being the biggest problem, or even the root problem.

Generally speaking, I find that interrogative to be full of dreary fecal matter in place of reasoned and erudite thinking. But that’s me.

In any case, here we have one case.

Now let’s look at another.

A man who is, otherwise, not particularly stable in his approach to things in the world.  He isn’t very sharp, shall we say. He is insecure about his hairline — something that I’m quite familiar with, myself.  He isn’t doing well financially, so he decides to use a supplier for a drug that he is told will enable him to regrow his hair.

He ignores the warnings on this drug that are made very clear by the manufacturer. Among those warnings are things like “this will make you sterile”.  Also, it notes in there that some people may experience breast growth and other things. Because the drug works by blocking androgen receptors.

He hears, somewhere, about trans stuff.  About the chemical process and some odds and ends and he decides that 2 plus 2 equal 9. He didn’t want it to equal 9, however, so he sues a company that did not supply him with the drug and did not manufacture the drug.

He gets an interview with someone who is still trying to come to grips, still trying to come to an understanding, still seeking to figure out what the fuck it is that makes someone trans so that they can understand it and tell other people about it.

And that interview, over the objections of many, is broadcast.

And now, millions of people are starting to think that this drug is what makes trans people trans people.

So let’s say a few things, real quick.

First off, trans people come in all manner of flavors and varieties. That includes people who murder other people. That includes people who rescue other people.  That includes millionaires who support noble causes, and horrible people who entertain ideas of destroying good things.

That’s because being trans doesn’t equal any of those things.  It is simply in addition to them.

When we confine people to prisons, we, as a society, as a nation, adopt the idea that we need to take care of them.  We have done that since this nation was founded. One of the most important things that went into the founding of this nation was the idea that when a person is convicted of a crime, that they will be punished only for the crimes they commit, not the whole of their lives, and not be stripped of their humanity of rights otherwise.

That is part of what it means to be an American.  That is a key and fundamental truth of our nation, a part of our all too often rarely looked to national honor. It is one of the most noble things about this nation — a nation which incarcerates more of its population than any other.

And that means taking care of their health.  But even outside of that, robbing people of the justice — not the vengeance, but the justice — that this nation has provided them by allowing someone to die far earlier than they should have or would have otherwise — is just as wrong as mistreating and abusing prisoners when any of you could just as readily find yourselves in that same care.

Medical treatment for prisoners is not better than it is for those outside the prisons.  It is always the bare minimum that is medically  needed.  Quality of life is not a consideration. But keeping them so and doing the minimum is necessary.

Do not underestimate the power of that.

By the same token, taking a drug for hair loss does not make you a trans person.

Sorry, it doesn’t.  IF that person is trans, then they were already trans and simply are using this drug as an excuse, but I am absolutely certain that is not the case.

They aren’t trans. They are someone who is using the social prescription against trans people to further their greed and escape responsibility for a decision they made without stopping to consider all the facts, all the importance of what they were doing.

I happen to thoroughly support the idea of informed consent. I am also an absolute bitch about what it means to be informed — to me, it means not merely knowing all about what this stuff can do to you, it also means not holding on to strange ideas about what it can do to you.  It means casting aside the illusions and accepting the factual reality.

Which this person not only didn’t do, but works really hard at trying to justify why they didn’t do it.

And all of this stuff is fairly recently in the news, and yes, I have avoided speaking about much of it here, because there wasn’t tons to say.

And then I read a brief article by Lyndon.

Lyndon and I do not have a great relationship. He tends to favor the stuff said by Love that is the worst of the worst — and he favors that stuff because he is, personally, incredibly transphobic.

And seeing that stuff that he wrote seriously pisses me off, but it also shows exactly what it is that we are fighting for.

He made statements that basically mean we should mitigate the 8th Amendment.  Which, to me, means that he is actively opposing the constitutional rights of other human beings.

He has condemned trans organizations because they are standing up to the television show and saying “hey, that person isn’t trans”, while he has decided that they don’t know enough about being trans themselves because he thinks this person is such.

Well, Lyndon, you need to get over your sense of entitlement and personal affront, because you do not get to decide what rights other people get, and you do not get to tell other people when someone is trans or isn’t, when it is readily apparent that they are not trans.

You don’t like some activists.  Fine.  I get that.  Your animosity towards Autumn and Mara is shared by many within the trans community, but the people who you do favor — such as Ashley — are not exactly representative of the community and certainly are not working towards the best interests of all trans people.

You need to stop lying about trans people, lyndon.

It isn’t wise, and it reveals the depths of your own personal prejudices and your sense of entitlement and your desperation in preserving what little privilege you do have.

Get over it.  Michelle has a medical need. She proved it, in a court where the burden of proof is pretty fucking high already. This doofus wanting to not lose their hair got what they wanted, but their personal struggles do not, in and of themselves, make them trans people.

You don’t understand what makes trans people trans, then fine, say that.  Be blunt about it.  But remember that when you start talking about things you do not know a god damn thing about, you only are doing the one thing you yourself have condemned in the past: being a fucking asshole.

Stop it.

Go on with your Romney supporting Log Cabin self and sty the fuck out of wedge issues that will eat you alive.

Because you really don’t want to go up against me again.  It won’t end well for you.

 

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