Saturday, January 28, 2012

Words Over Content

As some of you may know of the recent events to "glitter bomb" Dan Savage for his transphobic remarks, namely his choice of words to describe transpeople. Note it's about transpeople, those who are in transition or have transitioned to be the gender of their mind and not their body. They're legally their new gender.

And while Dan has been verbally supportive of transpeople on occasion over the years, it's all the same rhetoric anyone would give about being understanding and accepting of transpeople and making them part of the human experience. But it's all just rhetoric from him and not much more as he has continued to use degrading and denigrating words to describe transpeople, making them just like drag queens and cross-dressers.

And while he has recognized the change in attitudes about his word, he has not changed his mouth to still use them, and all he has done is become politically correct to apologize and promise to do better, but he hasn't. And now the gay (men) community is standing up for him calling out transpeople and trans advocating not just those glitter bombiing him at events but more so against those calling Dan out as transphobic.

Well, the reality is that he probably is transphobic and just doesn't want to admit it. He's not that different from the vast majority of gay men who, deep in their hearts and minds, don't like, and even hate, transpeople. Yes, it's that pervasive and intense, they don't publically express it. It's what some have called the penis effect.

They don't like transowmen because they want and get a vagina like real women. They don't like transmen because they either don't get a penis to be a man (law doesn't require it to be legally male) or get a pseudo one from their own tissue or a implant (very expensive and risky). And worse, some stay internally female to become or be pregnant.

And so it's been their history to accept them as step-children of the greater LGBT community and movement but then as with all step-children, constantly deride and ridicule them publically to feel superior. The "I can be prick because I love my penis and you don't."

And Dan is one of those voices which the media and straight community adopted into the mainstream because he bashes and trashes groups and people they also hate, the transcommunity and transpeople. The truth is gay men, including Dan, think transwomen are always just "men in dresses", and should have stayed men to be transvestities or cross-dressers.

So he uses words to describe them which he says are "acceptable" to the younger generation. Except the younger, genderqueer, generation hate the same words he uses, because he includes them. So he and RuPual and the rest of them are simply what they criticized and fought to prevent others for calling them, you know the fag.." word, for calling transpeople similar hateful words. They are what they call others, their enemy.

And all the apologies doesn't help anymore because you haven't changed in your heart and mind. Disguising hate in new words is still hate. It's still from the same person who said it then and says it now. That doesn't change.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Why

Why do news Websites which create special section(s) for "transgender" to focus on the issues of transwomen and transmen continue to add stories, columns, editorials, etc. on lesbian, gay and bisexual issues along with other non-transgender issues such as transvestites, drag queens, cross-dressers, etal?

Yes I know, but it still escapes they want to continue to confuse the gender identity with sexual orientation and fetishes. It's easy to define transgender as everything under the umbrella of transgender, from those (trans)women and men who transition to become physically and legally the gender of their identity to straight men who like to play dressup and gay men doing female impersonation, but it's not true or correct.

This is the definition from the New Oxford American Dictionary.

transgender |tranzˈjendər, trans-|(also transgendered )
adjective
identified with a gender other than the biological one: a transgender activist and author.

Can someone show me where this includes anyone but transsexual women and men? Gay and straight men dressing like women, whether it's for shows, dressup, recreation or fun, aren't transgender by definition. You can add drag kings too, but society gives women more latitude on cross-dressing than men dressing like women.

Can someone describe to me how anyone of those above mentioned non-transgender people can understand and the express ideas about what it's like to be transgender? They can't because they don't know and don't have the experience.

Any they wonder why transwomen and men are upset with the media confusing the issue for publicity and bring "celerbrities", eg. RuPaul, into the discussion as experts. Well, there is a reason beside celebrities like the attention and will speak on anything beyond their knowledge and experience.

Another reason is that most transwomen and men just shrug and don't want to get involved in these issues. They have families, friends, jobs, lives, etc. to be bothered with stupid issues of confusion, much in part because it adds credibility to an issue that has none.

Some will get involved, mostly out of anger, but a few will express well presented arguments, but those people don't get the phone call from the media. There's no hype in their answer, only facts and reality, which often isn't in line with the story the media wants to push, which is hype and confusion.

Ok, enuf said for now and my rant against the media and all those non-transgender people pretending to be transgender.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Readers are clueless

Well, some of them are. Ok, most of them are when it comes to understanding transwomen, meaning those who are medically identified with Gender Identity Disphoria (GID) and transition from male to female to be physically, as much as possible, and legally female. Their mind is mostly if not completely female and their body is mostly male.

In short it's a physical (body) disorder than a mental one, but the DSM can't control body issues, only mental and emotional ones. But that's not the point here. The point is reading through the comments from the Huffington Post article interview with RuPaul on ABC's show "Working It", the readers themselves confuse the issue, no thanks in part to RuPaul, and the Logo channel which aires his drag show.

The reason is that female impersonators or drag queens along with transvestites and cross-dressers do not have GID. They're all men who are either straight, gay or bisexual and don't want to be women. They like playing dress-up and having fun glamorizing women's appearance and behavior. Not one of them actually wants to live as women 24/7.

The point is that the public has confused the two and think all transwomen are just another flavor of drag queens. They're completely different. Transwomen was normal lives as women as all women do and have. That's normal and ordinary. They have jobs, have families and friends, travel, and everything else as women.

That's the difference many of the readers didn't seem to understand. The majority sided with RuPaul thinking all transwomen are similar as those on his show. And RuPaul has done nothing to correct the idea, and not only has perpetuated it but encouraged it with his performances, his show and his arrogant stupidity as demonstrated in the interview.

And this is why discrimination continues against transwomen, the public's perception of transwomen is biased against them and they're confused with gay people, or others who don't deserve to be considered, let alone treated, as normal and ordinary like everyone else, and especially not them.

The public considers them less than themselves. And then they shrug and wonder when transwomen get upset? Like how stupid can the you (public) be? Or is it just easier to think of them as freaks than actually bother to understand them and find they're just like everyone else.

The freaks are RuPaul. They're the stage show, the performance artists. Transwomen aren't and live as normal women. To equate drag performance and women's performance is an absurb thought, but it doesn't stop the public from making the connection, equating women to just being concerned with beauty.

Our society perpetuates it, the media hypes it with shows like "Worrking it", and the drag perfomers sensationalize it for personal reward and attention. All to the detriment of real transwomen who have to live with the misconceptions and discrimination. And the gay leaders and community don't care enough to help. They love their drag queens. Transwomen are the enemy to them.

And then they feign ignorance when caught or criticized, or worse as with RuPaul, who tells everyone when criticized about the "tranny" word, "F... you!" Ok, if that's you're response I won't step to your defense when you and gay men are called names you don't like or want to hear.

I won't even feign sympathy, but laugh and say what you say, "Get over it!" It's just part of the lexicon of American words. And if it's demeaning or denigrating, I'll just remind you of your advice.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

RuPaul Is Clueless

Really, reading his interview with the Huffington Post, he really is insensitive and clueless when it comes to transwomen. He's a gay black man who has made a career being a draq queen. And that makes him an expert on transwomen?

Like when and what? I didn't watch his series on Logo long ago and stopped watching Logo long ago when they stopped addressing transgender issues from other than the aspect of gay men's arrogant view of them, meaning thinking and calling all of them trannies like it's ok to make it a joke because it's only a joke to him. He doesn't understand other people disagree.

Anyway, he's just another person mindlessly pretending to know the issues and problems real transwomen face during and after their transition and the discrimination every day of their life and that gives him the right to express an opinion where everyone else has to accept it even if it's a bad joke, one really bad, demeaning joke.

ABC cancealled the new show "Working It" because it wasn't funny beyond being just another arrogant view of transwomen. Even the producer said he didn't understand all the criticism since he thought "Bosom Buddies" was funny. But that was then and this is now. Something RuPaul hasn't bothered to learn except bitching when caught making arrogant, stupid remarks, like this interview.

The truth is ABC wouldn't have run a show that depicted other groups, such as gay men or lesbians, the way they depicted the two men in the show pretending to be women, like they would get one block in public before being ridiculed and never even offered an interview. They were so badly obvious it was obscene. Any personnel manager wouldn't even schedule an interview with them.

And RuPaul thinks the transcommunity and transwomen over reacted? Maybe he should listen to Vandy Beth Glenn who had to fight for her job after being fired three years ago for transitioning on the job. Does he have any idea of that? Ok, rhetorical question. Does he have any idea this is the history of transwomen? Ditto for the answer.

I won't argue RuPaul has helped the LGB community with his portrayal of drag queen into mainstream media, but he shouldn't think for a minute he's and his show reflects or has helped transwomen. Quite the opposite, he's only added to the common misconception transwomen are drag queens, or worse, trannies. And he thinks transwomen shouldn't be offended?

Lance Bass was stupid with his remarks and RuPaul has only shown he's even stupider defending him and his remarks. All the more reason to just ignore him. Wait, I've already been doing that, except for now, but that's only to remind him of this arrogant stupidity and cluelessness on the reality of transwomen.

So my advice to him, just stay on gay issues, it's the only thing you seem to know.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Not Thinking

After seeing the ad for Libra tampons (Australian company) where a drag queen is playing a transwoman (presumably post-transition) in the women's restroom with a (genetic) woman get into a "war" fixing their makeup and adjusting their clothes when the (genetic) woman pulls out a tampon and the other "woman" says she won, it's not hard to understand the reaction.

What person thought up putting a drag queen in place of a transwoman in the ad? It's clear from the ad which woman is which, mostly because many post-transition women are very normal looking and not caricatures of women as drag queens portray women. And many (trans)women do carry sanitary products, in part because they do have vaginas with some similar personal issues as (genetic) women.

But what's stupidier is the drag queen is unapologetic over her protrayal of the "woman", saying she didn't play it as a transwomen, but as (gay man) drag queen. She didn't realize the ad was to portray a post-transition woman? Why? Because maybe, as we know the ad was meant to distinguish "real" women from transwomen, and simply put, the ad is, or was now, transphobic, to depict transwomen and less than women because of one characteristic.

Never mind there are intersex other women who don't need or use tampons for a variety of reasons. If they wanted a woman realistic for the ad, why not look at Harisu who has done ads for women's products? Or any beautiful transwoman? But they wouldn't do that because there wouldn't be the obvious difference the audience could easily see. What a concept, just women, some who use tampons and some who don't.

Gee, that would make a better ad. The woman pulls out a tampon and the other woman pulls out a panty liner. Just personal choice.