WSR Transpersonal

Why

2012-02-07T17:44:00.000-08:00

Why do transsexuals, those in or after transition, always have to dress like women, preferably fashionable women? Why can't a transwoman who is comfortable in her old clothes or men's clothes continue to wear them and still be a woman? When women can wear men's clothes or women's clothes fashioned like men's clothes and still be a women, why can't transwomen?

The first thing almost all in-transition women proclaim is the day they heave all their male clothes into the dumpster or recycle bins? They proudly pronounce the day they expelled the maleness from their life and future. They claim all transwomen should love fashion, be fashionable and always love shopping for more clothes, makeup, etc.

But if a transwoman decides she likes some of her old, aka. male, clothes and loves men's clothes or women's clothes fashioned to be men's clothes, they're considered and called invalid, not a true transwoman. She can't be a transwoman. She can't be real or authentic. She's a fraud or a fake.

They refuse to see a woman is about the body and the mind and how she reflects that in her life through her public presentation, meaning her clothes is just her expression and behavior. And if a transwoman wants to live comfortable in whatever her clothes she likes, so be it. So why is it unacceptable?

That's what individual freedom is about and something every women in the transcommunity needs to respect, and not their personal view about their views on clothes for everyone. They argue for the right and freedom to be legally and physically but then argue against the right of invdividual expression as women.

In the end, clothes are just that, clothes. It's not the person, only an expression. Let's keep that in mind. Let's honor that and all transwomen however they dress.

Words Over Content

2012-01-28T09:34:00.000-08:00

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.

Why

2012-01-17T18:56:00.001-08:00

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.

Readers are clueless

2012-01-16T09:22:00.000-08:00

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.

RuPaul Is Clueless

2012-01-15T18:26:00.001-08:00

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.

Not Thinking

2012-01-05T13:38:00.001-08:00

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.

The T Word

2011-12-24T15:15:00.000-08:00

This is a response to recent columns and blogs about the new ABC comedy "Working It", such as this one from Lance Bass, to show how stupid people can be (regardless of their sexual orientation).

A lot has been written and said about the "T-word", aka, "Tranny" for transsexual, or really a demeaning or derogatory word for a transgender person or someone thought to be or have been a transgender person (post-transition men or women aren't trans-anything, just men or women, albeit with a different history). And many in the gay community have argued it's part of the lexicon with the LGBT community.

It's not and shouldn't be used at all except in private conversationa between friends, definitely not in public and more so said about someone they don't personally know, whether a celebrity, public figure or whomever. It's unnecessary and only opens the door to call gay men the F-word, you know faggot. It's the same thing for different people.

This has come up with the new ABC comedy "Working It" which has to be one of the worst comedies in ABC's history. At least in my book just judging the description, seeing the trailors and photos. I'm not sorry to say it should never be aired for it's portraying crossdressers as transpeople similar to what black-face comedy did to black people, similar to what the early depictions of gay people.

When the gays protested those portrayals the anger was loud, but they have long continued to call any transperson a tranny, whether or not it's abouty the drag queens, female impersonators or crossdressers or about transitioning men and women. They know the difference but the reality is gays don't really like real transpeople and especially post-transition women, so they use the word to denigrate them.

And they've never strayed from defending this stupid word, its meaning and its use, but it's time they were held accountable, change or face the music again being called what you hate and transpeople will be silent in your defense. It's the same effect. Hurts doesn't it? Now you know and understand. So change and defend transpeople or not. Your choice.

And sorry, apologies don't work anymore. After all these years you can't play stupid. You're arrogant and ignorant about it. Grow up. You've always put transpeople at the back of the line, back of the bus and back of the political platform. And now they've shown they don't need you to get respect and progres, and they've shown they will speak up and voice their anger at you.

As for your last comment Mr. Bass, "Again, to be clear, I have no problem apologizing.", that only shows me you don't think very far or very well the effect or impact of your words, and you speak faster than you think. I've met too many people who use those words to dismiss being caught and then continue to use them when the proverbial dust settles.

I's just a cursory statement to deflect the argument and justify yours and being caught saying something carelessly stupid. You've always known better and you didn't change. And we don't expect you to change now just because you got caught. It's obvious in the tone and tune of your words.

I've heard it all too often from f..., er gays, like you. Sorry, bad choice of words there? Oh, I apologize. Like, really, I mean it. Sound familar?

Says It All

2011-12-23T16:23:00.000-08:00

This photo of two Navy petty officers says it all about the repeal of DADT, just two people who love each other and are family. That's what our country is about, equality. Good luck to them and all our military personnel.

Say Goodnight Barney

2011-11-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

Say goodbye and goodnight Barney Franks. Sorry, I won't miss you or regret your absence in Congress. You're a political hypocrit who will and often have sacrificed others for your own views, agenda and career. You betrayed transgender people while you were lying to their faces. You used them for your own lesbian and gay gains, jettisoning transpeople quickly when it was politically expedient.

For that, and other issues, you haven't earned my respect for anything, and I while wish you good luck in life, don't expect praise from me. You never earned it. Just leave and let someone better get elected and get things done.

Would You

2011-10-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

Question for those women in transition. What if you discovered after starting, or maybe a few years in, that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) you're taking is crashing your mind and body, literally. The purpose of HRT (meaning for male to female transitions) is to lower male hormones (with Spironolactone) and to raise female hormones (estradoil or something similar).

Some people, however, are sensitive to changes in their hormones, namely lowering your testosterone level to where it's in the normal level of women, but that your body needs at least the minimum level of male hormones and reducing it induces major changes in the body, metabolism and brain

Not possible? Really possible because some people are that sensitive to changes. Your, and every, body needs all your hormones to work. They're not just there for sex or gender but your whole body and mind. Almost everyone is born with both, all males have some levels of female hormones and only a rare few females have no male hormones (like one in a million).

Back to the question. HRT is the second step in one's transition, right after therapy since all physicians require letters of recommendation before prescribing HRT to ensure the diagnosis is right to prescribe them. HRT changes the body, stopping the normal aging and changes of male traits and to some degree creating female physical traits, eg. breasts.

Most transitioning women usually take HRT for 2-5 years before getting their final Gender Confirmation Surgery (GCS) depending on your family, life career and finances. They often begin living as women from part-time and often fulltime before but always after starting HRT, but that also is a personal decision on the same factors.

All of this depends on HRT for its effects and changes. And if you can't take it? And if it means post-GCS you'll probaby have to take both some HRT to keep staying female but also take testosterone to keep your body normal, even as a woman?

Would you still transition? Or is the answer obvious because you know it's who you are and want to be? The question doesn't become if but how and when.

I ask this because it's like a fence when you start and are on HRT. Almost everyone finds the physical and mental changes for the good and are happy. But for some evidence (mostly anecdotal) shows some people get the physical changes but experience worsening effects and changes in their metabolism and mind.

The mind part is where the individual is susceptible to depression. HRT can, and often does, exacerbate their depression, and with the worsening health and/or fitness, the depression gets even worse, and the transition seems so distant and successful, the individual has to think about their goals with their transition.

If you continue your transition, how will you do it? Staying physically male but living as female? Trying to pass as a woman while being physically male? How long? What choices do you consider? Not getting GCS despite you want it to be a whole woman? Or getting GCS and taking both male and female hormones?

Just a question. But one many women in transition face with their body and mind.

Thought in passing

2011-09-23T14:42:00.000-07:00

About the new definition of Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS), which I prefer to call after someone mentioned it, Gender Confirmation Surgery (GCS), where a few states (Washington recently) will allow transwomen to become legally female with just a letter from a physician attesting to the fact the patient has completed the transition to the new sex (namely male to female). That's it. No surgery, and orchidectomy optional. Just live as a women and you're done.

And exactly why would a woman want to have a penis? Ok, beyond porn star she-males who make it financially worthwhile?

If there was a case where the traditional post-transition women have a case to make it a national standard for GCS to be the requirement to change birth certificates, and legalize the change in all states (two currently don't, Ohio and Tennessee), this is it. As the physicist noted, "There is nothing worse than a clear view of a fuzzy definition."

The State of Washington does not have a legal definition of the requirements to change the sex marker on birth certificates. It's a policy decision of the Department of Health Vital Records Office, and it's changed its policy as the Department of License has changed the same change for one's driver's license. It's all a matter of timing on your status and condition if you get the change.

Presently the DOH only requires a letter from the physician the individual has completed their transition to their new sex/gender. No surgery, but an orchidectomy is expected as a minimum, just living. That's the WPATH standard for the Real Life Experience (RLE) for 1-2 years before GCS. The state is pre-empting the medical community for now saying presentation trumps reality.

But this still doesn't answer the question, exactly why would a woman want a penis? Like she's going be treated as one once discovered? And we should be angry, or even outraged, when she's discovered about the treatment of a "woman" who is physically male (penis)? What's the answer about the double positive being a negative? Yeah, right.

Yes, I know the reality of many transpeople who can't afford to get GCS, but it doesn't change the reality of our society and laws governing the distinction between men and women. To many it is what's between the legs, and they don't care what or you think or feel you are. It's been our history and culture. Yes, it's changing, but still many fear and hate a woman with a penis.

So that's the thought and question. To all those woman with a penis, good luck and don't expect sympathy from me since you know the obvious and consequences of it. A better answer is to fight for change to get surgery affordable and available for transwomen. It's what I would do.

Stealing the Spotlight

2011-09-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

Update.--I have since learned that a few states have redefined the requirements for changes for Birth Certificate (BC) where SRS is not necessary, but only a letter from an appropriate physician or specialist (gender issues) certifying the individual has completed their transition to the new sex. This allows the BC to be amended to "Female" for the individual. This is how Autumn Sandeem can say what was said but it does not change my view.

One problem with the transgender community, and it has a lot of them, is that some individuals in the community like the spotlight, but unlike Chaz who is a reasonably good example for transmen, there are some who are not good examples of anyone let alone the community. One of those was written about in an article (found here) about DADT which includes a short description of Autumn Sandeem.

And that's the problem, or rather Autumn is the problem. Autumn has commented here on this blog about my opinion on transgender matters or issues. Autumn is without any doubt an opinionated person, which is not respected or liked by many in the transgender community because of Autumn's views, which the journalist in the article fails to mention. So I will.

Autumn served in the Navy for 20 years, which Autumn noted was as a closet cross-dresser. Nothing else, not transgender. After retiring Autumn chose to dress as a woman but start through the proceedure to transition to be physically and legally female and a woman for years. That's Autumn's choice, but Autumn claimed to speak for transgender women who have transitioned or are transitioning.

And that's the problem, something Autumn likely knows little about. When Autumn did start to transition, Autumn has tried, somewhat successfully, to get the VA to cover some of the transition expenses with hormone replacement therapy and other medical care. I'm ok with the medical care but I don't think the VA should cover post-retirement transition.

That's my opinion since it's a medical issue unrelated to the service or the military. And recently Autumn declared she had "completed" her transition to be legally a woman, except it wasn't complete. Autumn had an Orchiectomy, the removal of the testicles, and not a vaginaplasty which is the legal requirement for change the sex marker on birth certificates in the 48 of 50 states which allow the change.

An Orchiectomy does allow one to change the driver's license, their passport, their Social Security files, and all the other documents save two. One being the birth certificate and the other military records. The DOD does not change the sex marker on anyone's record even with the birth certificate change.

And now Autumn is whining what was lost, to serve as a woman. Sorry, give us a break. Many transgender women postpone their transition to finish their career and they haven't and don't whine about it. They may have wanted to transition on the job but knew it would be a disaster to their career and life. It's the choice many made and still will make. You're not alone there.

And since Autumn's retirement Autuumn has frequently been in the spotlight as a transgender woman despite the "M" on all of Autumn's documents, even crying foul when arrested and treated as a male. Sorry, join club of all those other who were physically and sexually abused in jail and/or prison, except you weren't abused.

Maybe mistreated, but something to cry about? No. You knew the risks when you protested and knew you could be arrested and jailed, which then included a strip search and document check. Did you really expect them to put you in a woman jail when you're legally male just because you're a crossdresser as you claim? Oh, yes as a woman, and we're supposed to have sympathy?

So the journalist, in my view, did a disservice to the readers by including Autumn, who is a publicity hound for the causes Autumn thinks respresents the view of transgender people, but I don't know that many who have expressed support for Autumn's work. Some have and that's fine, but many haven't, and many more would like Autumn to just get on with life and stop claiming rights you don't have as a representative of transgender people.

Sorry Chaz

2011-09-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

To Chaz Bono,

You speak for yourself. Fine that I respect as your right. And you say you don't speak for anyone else, for other transgender people or the transgender community. Fine, again. But the media isn't seeing it that way and you're not portraying yourself and speaking that way. You're doing what you said you won't do, speak for all transgender people.

So, my response to you is simple. Don't! Don't speak for transgender people or the transgender community anymore. We're not you and you're not us, or me for that matter. So don't expect me to be excited for you, to be supportive of you, and definitely not agree with you. Ok?

That's it, so sorry Chaz, why don't you just get on with your life in private and for all of us, just shut up to the media. Yeah, we know you won't. You said you didn't like the attention, but we all know you love it. It's why your standing in the spotlight, as the son of Cher and Sonny Bono. Anyone else, you would be history and definitely not on DWTS.

So, don't be surprised if we're angry at you and don't be surprised if we don't like you. That's our right and our right to express it.

Get the Facts Right

2011-09-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

The news stories about Polish model Michalina Manios are totally wrong and I wish they would get their facts rights. Ms. Manios admited she was born intersexed (hermaphrodite in her words), meaning with a mix of male and female characteristics, and often a mix of male and female gentalia, and if you research it you'll see each person responds differently to that condition which produces different appearances with each person.

She is not transgender as the news has reported. She admited she had corrective surgery four years ago to be completely female, so she was interesexed and no longer is intersexed. This is not the same as sex reassignment surgery, as distinguished by the transgender and intersexed communities and the medical community. The surgery has some overlap and common aspects but corrects for different differences in the individual.

They should note that as Ms. Manios did not have to go through the same process as a male-to-female transwomen, which includes physician oversight, endrochronologist, therapists, etal, but just the surgery and some other treatments to complete the process. The reason for the differences are in the genes and fetal development, something they should note and distinguish.

So please give Ms. Manios her due to recognize her as a women born intersexed and has had that corrected, and not a woman who transitioned from being male or a boy. They are different, and she deserves the truth be reported as she told it, and not for hype or whatever bullshit the media wants.

She's couragous for being public. Let acknowledge and applaud that, and nothing else.

Don't Argue With Activists

2011-09-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

Julia Serano wrote a followup to the essay (previous post), found here. I wanted to post a response but didn't, as I've learned it doesn't pay to argue with activists for any cause.

But not because Julia would react negatively, but the others posting responses would react negatively and even harshly. One of who on that essay (above) did reply to me once personally to GFY. Not that I said anything bad or wrong, only because of her view of people sending her e-mail she hasn't met or know.

Anyway, I kinda' liked Julia's followup essay and only wanted to comment on one point she made (point 9), which is as follows.

"I saw a couple commenters who actually said they didn’t feel that transsexuals needed to form alliances with anyone. I feel that those responses are naive, and I assume they were probably uttered by folks who have no experience doing grassroots activism of any sort. It is easy to be an “arm chair activist” who complains about alliances they dislike without having to do the heavy lifting required to change societal views about transsexuals and the various forms of sexism we face."

So if I were to post there, this would be my reply:

Reply.--
Thanks for the interesting (first) essay and replies. I have only one comment (point 9), which is about transwomen (in- and post-transition) needing alliances. Haven't many of the recent gains been accomplished by transgender groups than LGBT groups? Gains for changes to documents and health insurance coverage have come from transgender groups such as NCTE.

I'm not going to argue, because I agree, activism helps, but while many transwomen need activism to help, much due to their economic or social circumstances, many transwomen transition without the need of groups or activism. They transitioned within the existing laws and rules and then continued with life, only a few to become public afterward only to show transwomen are just normal women.

Why do activists seem to argue all transwomen must be out and proud and active for transwomen? Aren't there far more transwomen who transitioned and are more or less living quiet lives without being activists than all the public and activist transwomen? Why should they expose their lives to public scrutiny simply because other transwomen say they should? Don't they have rights not be to activists if they didn't need and don't need the help?

Just some thoughts and questions.
End of reply

So, at least now if anyone comments, which few have, I can moderate them instead of them moderating me. My rules versus their rules.

Julia Serano

2011-09-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

Julia Serano, who's books I recommend, has gotten back to some level of blogging again and wrote and interesting essay on the transgender versus transsexual umbrella, found here, to which would reply with the following.

Note.-- I don't post or reply on other blogs anymore because of recent and past conflicts with others who love to verbally pummel people for asking questions or thinking out loud, so I post my response here where I can moderate the responses. I don't really care if Julia reads and/or replies, it's just my thoughts and ideas free of others.

The Reply.-- Thanks for the most rational presentation of the pro-umbrella argument I've found to date (that I remember to date), but there are questions which always seems to occur to me when I read these arguments. Why dismiss the right of transwomen to simply decide the umbrella doesn't work for them, whether it's individually or as their own group(s) when those groups have had some successes on rights and the courts have decided many cases of discrimination against transwomen as cases against women without the trans.

So why should transwomen subject themselves to being a minority under a larger umbrella when they've achieved more as their own group than under the umbrella? One example where they haven't gained is all the work done in support of ENDA to be dropped without notice by the LGB groups to fight for their rights than try to add the transpeople groups? And transwomen are expected to jump again to help on the same promises of inclusion?

One area is health insurance coverage. Transwomen are the only group which under the DSM has requirements for medical care to transition, and they gained those rights, not under the umbrella but as a self-identified group with special needs separate from the umbrella identity.

Another area is legal identity where trans-specific groups have achieved rights for changing sex markers on documents which are required for LGB people. Why would LGB people fight that issue for transpeople?

Why should transwomen subject themselves to the identity of the umbrella, often as the whole range of other transpeople from DQ's to CD's when it doesn't fit and isn't wanted? What transwomen wants to be asked those questions when they're living as women? In some cases voter have included transwomen as the rest to reject or overturn discrimination laws?

And then there is the issue of gender identity and gender expression which, as noted, confuses many people, even those in the transgender community and larger LGBT community. Why should transwomen who transition and live as women, whether straight or lesbian, decide to identify with those who just dress as women for a variety of interests without changing their sex or identifying with gender identity issues?

Locally several times anti-discrimination laws were either overturned or rejected by voters when the LGBT and transgender umbrella groups tried to include gender expression with gender identity (transwomen) when it was the latter who needed it because they lived 24/7 as women and faced discrimination in housing, employment and other ways.

I'm not against the umbrella, it's only I've seen transwomen achieve more without the support and help of the umbrella LGBT or transgender groups or simply ignore it to transition and get on with their lives, never to identify with it. If they didn't identify as trans-anything, didn't need it, and never used it, why do they need the umbrella later only to be mislabelled?

Just some questions and thoughts, and thanks for all your work and writing.

Do Not Argue

2011-09-06T13:16:00.001-07:00

After an exchange of words with some people, ok, a gay man and a transman, on the previous post, I learned you do not argue with them about gay and trans issues and people, especially if you do not say you are gay or you're trans. They have views on the issues and about people which seems to exclude anybody else no matter who you are, all the knowledgeable friends you have, or all the resources you read and learn.

In short, if you're not gay, you don't know anything about them, and if you're not trans, which may mean transmen because I don't often hear this from transwomen, you don't know anything about them. It doesn't matter, you're just not right, and so you're obviously wrong. They shut their mind and then open their mouth to where you almost want to give them the middle finger and say, "...you too.", because that's what they're telling you over their words.

Ok, an exaggertion because it's really a few of them who loves to sit there and argue for their view, making assumptions about you, interpreting your words differently, and making their assertions of what's right and why you're not. In the end I just finally said with Snagglepuss always said, "Exit, stage left.", and left.

It just seems no matter what you want to say, and even give you latitude to make a mistake and correct yourself or change your thinking and words, they won't allow it, or some may but some will go back to your original words. They don't seem to enjoy conversations where people think out loud or enjoy playing with the ideas.

Yeah, I'm over reacting a little because I didn't expect to be pounced on for asking some questions. At least they could have said, "With respect to [insert quote], is that what you really meant?" Or, "Have you thought about ....?" In other words ask questions to clarify, learn and enjoy the conversation.

They prefer to just pounce and argue until someone thinks they should referree the thread and usually badly and not helping matters, but simply saying to everyone enough is enough. I've seen this on transgender forum when you like to engage in conversations about an issue or whatever to expand it to the larger world. And yes, I got booted by arguing with the moderator who was employing a double standard.

That's what I've found on these forum, common blogs, etc. They become very myopic about the gay or transgender community and they forget it resides inside the greater cultural and social community in this country, so it ends up being not unlike the old Bush logic, you're either for us and our view of things or you against us.

It doesn't matter if you're for them but disagree on some issues, it's an all or nothing deal. Take it or leave it. LGBT Texas mentality. And you're against us, according to them but not you, don't come in and especially don't speak up. And then they wonder why the straight and non-trans people who want to help and support them walk away shaking their heads?

Like piss us off and you then can say we're the enemy? Like then you can claim it's a fight for your rights against us? But then you want our help later for some issue to help you?

What's the answer? Yeah, right. They're a self-fulling prophecy for themselves. See, we don't get support from the rest of the world.

Like you keep pissing off the rest of the world? And that helps how? And by all means do not say anything with a smile on your face or your tongue in your cheek. Humor isn't something they understand from "outsiders", only them.

They forget the first rule, be a human being. And when they decide to be one, then I'll listen.

Michigan Womens Festival

2011-09-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

Alice Kalafarski, a post-transition women who attended the Michigan Women Music Festival recently, wrote about her experience there to which there are a lot of responses, one which I wrote below.

Response posted.-- Interesting and thank you. I don't consider post-transition (physically and legally female) trans anything, so why genetic women do is beyond me. There are some women who aren't physically 100% women (intersexed or lacking full reproductive system) but they're not excluded, so why post-transition women, calling them men? Ok, it's rhetorical before you answer.

But I would ask if they would reject a post-transition women who doesn't pass or pass enough for their standards? Or do they reject male-looking genetic women too? God knows there are some. How would they know the difference? While I'm glad you had a good time and note they do allow "passable" post-transition women, what does that say about them and maybe you? Does attending such an event mean you condone them, meaning the organizers, and the discrimination of non-passing post-transition women? Ok, again rhetorical, but it does smack of similar discrimination within the transcommunity about public acceptance. Aren't you and the others just adding to it? And then writing how cool it was? And folks wonder why the angry from the transcommunity about this event and post-transition women who attend?

Please note, these are questions not opinions. Personally I applaud you attending, for the fun and maybe change some hearts and minds(?), but I can't necessary applaud being privately vocal and publically silent. How are they going to see the stupidity of their discrimination if you and others don't speak out when you're there? If you fear being expelled, so what? Is that such a high price for showing the fallacy of their discrimination? What would they have done had you spoken out on stage? And that would hurt you how? Take away the fun? And what of the hurt from the names and insinuations about you and all post-transition women?

Further thoughts.-- I would only add more of the last paragraph in that I think changing things from the inside helps but those who do need to be mindful of being on the "inside" and the perspective of those outside about and to them. There are many "passable" (and some beautiful) post-transition women who wouldn't attend for the hate toward transwomen (being both in and post transition), for good reason.

To take it to the extreme, would a black person try to change the KKK by being passable for a "white" person and join them? And what would they accomplish? Yes, an obvious extreme example really not since passing is passing. Why do gay Republicans have problems working inside the Republican party for change and end up simply becoming outsiders when they're ignored, and often worse, exploited as the enemy?

Her article is appropriate to make the point of the festival organizers' discrimination. But I can't applaud she made it after she left and returned home, and not when she was there. You change the hearts and minds of people when you're standing in front of them, not when you're gone, back in the comfort of home to make the point you should have done then and there.

Words after the fact aren't heeded by those who most need them. They will not read your words or listen to your speeches later, for they know not to care.

Followup.-- Someone replied to my comment to which I replied to them to clarify any confusion in my post. I'll left it to readers to judge for themselves, but I do have one comment not including in that one, and that's the misunderstanding some younger ( under 30) transwomen have toward other transwomen.

Younger transwomen tend to transition quickly, often less than two years from start to finish including surgery (SRS), usually in Thailand because it's relatively cheap (<$8-10K including trip expenses) and good. Good luck if you have problems and some states now don't recognize these for birth certificate changes, requiring US-certified surgeons.

I can't argue against them as they want to change and get on with their life. Only those who can't afford the upfront cost of SRS delay the completion of their transition but they life as women. They can because the vast majority of them are moderately to easily passable with just hormones. Their face and body changes relatively quickly to be feminine, in part because the use and tolerate higher dosages, and they can get on with their life until they can complete the transition.

They often then treat all transwomen like them, meaning if you can't transition quickly and in effect almost effortlessly (not really but with far less social, professional and health problems) then you're not a true transwoman. And they often decide to simply leave the transcommunity to integrate into mainstream life. Some stay to become spokeswomen but, like Alice, they tend to be vocal for the wrong reasons.

They can't seem to understand a 40-year old and more so a 50-60-year old transwomen aren't like them and don't have it so easy. And why I applaud younger transwomen like Alice I can't applaud their attitude or judgements about other transwomen. They need to see the bigger picture for all transwomen, but sadly few do, which is why the division persist and will persist in the transcommunity.

Transition Early

2011-09-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

This entry is a thought into why you transition early in life. Yes, I know many couldn't and many still can't for a host of reasons from personal and professional to medical and financial, and for some it's the obviousness of their presence, or simply put, passing is so far from reality it's a dream they'll never see.

This is why you do it early in llife and don't worry about what happens. The truth is most kids do know who they are in early in their life, despite what parent think or want or despite what every adult wants to believe which isn't true. Some transgender kids know very their life, under 3, and some express it between about 6 and 8 years old.

And some aren't confused but are simply flexible about it, meaning they're in between, and while they know they're some to mostly a girl with a boy's body, or vice-versa, they're not for various reasons such as personality, temperament, etc., so insistent to express it all the time. They almost always do eventually from about age 10 to 12 if not later in their teens or twenties.

And some, which is what is often used to show kids don't know, aren't transgender and just love to play in the area in between and across defined gender boundaries. They love things which some adults think, or often feel, they're gay or worse in their mind transgender. They may be gay, they'll express it later, but it's not likely their transgender, only a few decide they are transgender later.

This is what confuses adults, not the children, just folks wanting the children to be something they're not, from specific expressions of themselves to just open to anything but certainly not, God forbid in their mind, gay or transgender. This is the group child psychologists hold up as examples why kids should not transition early in life.

But that's just crap as only a handful are transgender. Some are gay, but many just kids having fun and enjoying and exploring life. The child psychologists, as some have been doing for a decade or so, should focus on those who do identify as transgender and let them transition the best way available to give them the best chances later in life.

That said as some in the medical community recognize this fact and help kids explore and even transition. But that's not so much my point here. It's about those past their teens and realize they need to transition. The rule to do it early as possible still applies because after 25 or so, it only reduces the effectiveness of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and increases complications with your body and genes.

A transition is a fight with your own body, to redirect it from what is in your genes and life experience to something totally foreign. Some do well even after 30 but they're few and far between, and usually with some surgery to remedy small things, like the face or breasts. Most, however, don't do well enough to pass invisibly in society and face the reality of living with being somewhat to marginally passable, or get significant to extensive surgeries (face and body).

The reality, however, is that after each decade of age, the return on your investment in HRT is complicated by existing conditions and age, and after 50, there isn't much left to change by itself and surgeries are usually the answer if you want to be passable.

After 60, it's easy to find yourself in a physical and mental battle between your body and mind and HRT, and often neither wins, and the balance between them isn't pretty. You find you're fighting the effects and results of age where HRT doesn't work or will excerbate other problems or issues, like depression or body weight or size.

This happens when some decide to postpone their transition for personal or professional reasons, namely to preserve their family or career. Some of these change their mind but mostly wait for a pivotal moment in life, such as a death of a spouse, a divorce, or retirement, to begin their transition to find plans and reality don't match, and everything changes, usually for the worse with themselves or life, meaning family, friends, etc.

And how prey tell do I know this? From knowledge, from friends and others, or from experience? All of the above. And I'll leave it at that for now.

How to be an Idiot

2011-05-23T08:37:00.001-07:00

Yes, how to be a real Idiot, with a capitol I. An on-line advice columnist, Michael Alvear, wrote this answer in response to a question someone asked who was interested in an apparently obvious transwoman working at a Starbucks. First, since he doesn't know for sure and assuming somethings which may or may not be true, he's putting himself in the wrong frame of mind.

But mostly the answer was really stupid. First, the jokes were cruel and making a post-joke apology doesn't take away the joke. They were better left unsaid than his bad attempt to make transwomen the butt of some jokes. Second, the assumptions were far from reality. Maybe it's his reality but it's not the world's reality.

The answer should have been very easy, "Treat her like she is, a woman, a person and maybe a friend, and never ask "those" questions unless she feels ready to tell you. She is no different than any other woman. They all have their stories, and they all tell them in their time. So just be casual and let things go where they go. She is and that's all you need to start.

In short, they're people first as we all are and should be treated the same as making any new friend. You'll be surprised that her character, temperment and personality will quickly overwhelm anything about her past that seems curious, so focus on that and you'll be fine."

The sad truth is that men, when they think you're a transwoman, even if you're long post-transistion, always want to know about it, about the changes, like asking any woman about her personal and most intimate secrets on the first date. And while transwomen have their unique history from most but not all genetic women - as some women have undergone changes and surgeries for reason related to their genes or body, that doesn't make it topic number one in the conversation.

So why didn't he say that? He did but later in the response, when it should have been his first response. He tried to describe what he thought transwomen are like, like they all conform to a stereotype as we all do as people and more so as men or women. He gave all the things everyone says about them to tell you to forget what you think, except reiterating it only reinforces it.

So in the end, it seems anyone with any common sense would think, "Gee, maybe I should assume he's an idiot? He certainly showed he has the talent for being one." And he certainly didn't show an sense of humanity about transwomen. Would he have described a gay man or lesbian the same way? Offered generic advice about talking about the sexuality and intimate sexual affairs?

Common sense and wisdom would say the opposite, treat them and people. So treating transwomen as a joke or some stereotype is fair and right. Or only an idiot would think it was, like him?

To borrow a song

2011-04-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about what it takes to transistion. Not someone who easily passes and goes through it to get on with her life never needing to look back, only forward. Not someone who has all the dynamic energy to go through it and live, and often fight, for acceptance by others and the public, surficially passing but not past the first moments.

But someone who wants to transistion but faces not just public embarrassment and even humiliation, overt if not subtle or covert, but more so personal fears about themselves, which often grows into self-hate. They want and always fear the worst because they don't see themselves as good enough.

This is often the case with many people, usually children and often teenagers. When you add all the problems and issues of being in the wrong body and being seen by others and expecting to act as someone you're not, just outwardly, it's only spirals into something and someone you hate, yourself.

Well, it's somewhat in a song, Crosby, Still, Nash & Young's song, "Everybody I Love You", in the lyrics:

Know you got to run,
Know you got to hide
Still there is a great life
Lingerin' deep within your eyes.

Open up, open up, baby let me in.

You expect for me to love you
When you hate yourself, my friend.

When you are the one you have to let in and the one who is your friend. Yourself. When you are the one you hate but want so much to love. When you are the one you fear, as a failure as you were and as you may be. When you just stand there and nothing feels good, only hate.

All the words of others don't and won't change it. You let youself in only to find someone you don't like, then, now and ahead. You let yourself in to find someone who wants so much for acceptance, not just of the world, but of you. It's not just about finding love, but overcoming hate. your own for yourself.

And it will never leave, never leave you alone, never let you have a life, never let you feel good. It will always be there in the corners and recesses of your mind, waiting for the moments when doubt and fear sneak into your consciousness, to become present and sometimes overwhelming.

And you need a friend, yourself. The question isn't when but if, as sometimes the weight of the hate becomes suicide. And that if often lingers through your life, never more than a thought triggered by unknown events to become real again, and it takes all your energy to survive through the if, in hope of it being a when.

And it's the when that starts the friendship, but never a guarrantee, just a hope for the possibility of a promise. A promise to yourself. That's when you are your best friend and everything else just becomes what happens, something you can live within yourself to know it won't become hate again.

But ah, that's what you stand there and wait for in your mind, with your body and for your life. To find your friend. Yourself.

Separate and Unequal

2011-04-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

I was reading the story of the law firm and lawyers who quit working for the supporters in Congress with the legal case to support the DOMA after the Justice Department, and really President Obama, decided not to support the DOMA in both the enforcement and legal challenges, currently going through the courts to eventually land in the Supreme Court.

It shows what the GLB community has gained since the first legal challenge to discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1961, and more so since the late 1960's following the Stonewall riots in New York City, which by the way wasn't about gays or lesbians but about transgender people who were the ones who fought back, far more than the gays and lesbians.

But this situation and the DOMA shows that the GLB community is separate and unequal, more in reality, than the T(rans) community. It's been that way since Stonewall and it will continue as long as gay discriminate against transpeople, treating them either as cross-dressers and drag queens, the former being mostly straight part-time men and the latter mostly gay men performing as women.

And often treating them as less than human. Gays don't really like transwomen, as many women and many lesbians don't like them either. But gays don't because it's about their penis and manhood. Gays don't mind and often like men who play at being women, they don't like them when they actually become women, physically and legally.

Overblown? Not really. Consider all the support the GLB community voiced for all-inclusive ENDA a few years ago to get the transcommunity support and work on the bill. But when it was clear it wouldn't pass, and they blamed the transpeople, they dropped the T in the bill faster than you picking up a hot skillet off the stove.

And in recent rounds to get it passed, they did the same thing again, but were suprised when the transcommunity wanted assurances of inclusion beyond words. Gee, like transpeople don't trust gay men anymore? Really they don't. I wouldn't and don't. At least on issues.

Gay men aren't really any different than other men, only their sexual preferences are different. Gay men are just men being men, and all the reason never to trust them farther than you can see them walking away from you in a crooked hallway, meaning about 10 seconds after they stop talking.

And that's the crux that the transcommunity has learned over the last decade and decided to forego help from the GLB community as seen in recent discussions with politicians and the White House. Stand alone and proud and do what you know is right, and if the GLB community wants to be there for you, great, but for your cause and issue, for your results to get fairness and equality, and not for anything or anyone else.

This is where the DOMA is interesting in that it never defined who was a man or a woman since that is the jurisdiction of the states, and where there is the full range of diversity of legal definitions. The DOMA never distinguished between a genetic man or woman and a legally defined (by surgery and birth certificate) man or woman, and the states differ.

Something the gay community never wanted to discuss to confuse the argument for their case, which was simple, recognition for gay men in marriages, and lesbians get a free ride if they join the fight. And transpeople? Well, that's another fight later. Or so said the gay community. Let's not confuse the politicians and public.

But the real issue to them was association with transpeople. They didn't want and don't want transpeople to have the same rights, have the equality in work, life, marriage, etc., and have the same protections from discrimination. At least not in the same deal as them. It's ok to covertly support transpeople, just don't make gay men be overt about it.

That pesky penis thing they deep-down don't like when transwomen have "that" surgery (SRS/GRS) to become women. It really it scares them that some women-born-male aren't men and want to transistion to be whole and complete women, physically and legally, and some men-born-female, keep their vagina as men. Alien concept to them and alien they think they are.

It's why the DADT policy never touched on transpeople and the DOMA hasn't. The gay community kept it out of the discussion. The seperate and unequal concept. The transcommunity can help the GLB causes and issues with nuggets of vocal support, but, in the end, not legal support. Some gays did help transpeople and the transcommunity, but they wouldn't and didn't stand up when the pressure was on passage of the bills.

And that's the lesson learned. The transcommunity has learned to be separate and equal, and then be inclusive as equals, not forgotten people.

If You Don't Understand

2011-04-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

If you don't understand transgender people, or don't understand the circumstances or situations of the lives of transgender people, then ask and learn. Don't speak up until you have not just some knowledge and maybe some experience, but some understanding, and more so, compassion. Otherwise, your words are simply showing how ignorant, how insensitive, or worse, how hateful you are.

Knowledge, as they say, is power, understanding is being human. Power doesn't make you better. Understanding does. And expressing your humanity makes you a human being.

Why the thought? An essay about late transistioners, found here. The writer who obviously transistioned early in life when she had the opportunity and support, doesn't seem to understand late transistioners and their families. So why is that reason to write something which is just "I don't understand" followed by a lot of bitching about them and their families?

And yes I don't understand why she even wrote it. It's one thing to write something to ask questions to understand, but it's another to write something with the intent of not understanding but complaining about them. Maybe should she consider what her transistion would have been like if she didn't have the support and opportunities she had.

She needs to imagine if she had to wait into her 50's or older to transistion and try to understand all the reasons someone would wait and all the issues someone would face making the decision to transistion and then transistion. She might find not just some understanding but some compassion and be less hateful toward others.

What's the old adage, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Why couldn't she have just kep quiet and kept her hate to herself? Or ask to first understand? I don't know, but as they say, I won't hold my breath waiting.

Jennifer Boylan's Testimony

2011-04-14T14:46:00.001-07:00

Jennifer Boylan posted her testimony on her Facebook page (FB login required), first video here, about a bill before the Maine legislature to repeal protections for transgender people, currently protected along with LGB (add T) people from discrimination.

She makes several excellent points but one which is prominent in the transcommunity, and one would say divides the community itself into several groups and is reason why many post-transistion women leave the community, not identifying as transgender, which they aren't in my book but just men and women where anything trans is their history but who they are now, and don't rarely if ever get involved again.

In short, it's often an argument within the community to divide those who pass and those who don't and the rest in the middle wanting to pass more and not be identified with those who don't anytime. Yeah, that argument, do you look like a women despite your past.

And those who don't pass in any sense of the word where they're clearly and obviously not entirely female, the problem almost all crossdressers have since they're still men underneath with no interest to transistion but merely present themselves as apparent women (often called playing dressup), become the poster children of those wanting laws against all in and post-transistion women.

Strange it's not a problem with the men's bathroom. Why? Because men don't care and aren't worried other weren't borm male. Just do your business and leave. But with the women's restroom, every anti-trans person is afraid of potential threats, even though there is no evidence of it and no case of anyone being arrested for anything they're worried about.

But it doesn't stop them from using non-passing (trans)women and more so crossdressers, who aren't transgender, as examples of "men in dresses" wanting to attact women and assault children. Yeah, right. But they can't prove there is a threat let alone a risk, realistically anyway.

It's an imaginary issue to excite and incite people against transpeople. And Jennifer Boylan puts the argument to rest. It's only a reality in the imagination of those who hate anyone different than them, by race, color, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity. A bunch of strait-laced, uptight people with their head somewhere other than on top of their neck.

Anyway, Jennfier Boylan is cool, smart and hard to argue against.

Really Cool Ad

2011-04-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

In wandering around the Internet I found an editorial criticizing the clothing company J Crew. I like some of their clothes, but the ad is really pretty cool, shown here. It shows a parent loving their child and letting them express themself as they know they are. How cool is that?

And of course, the right wing, conservative folks picked this up to write the typical crap about gender "confused" kids and promoting transgender children. Well, as the comment (below column) noted, transgender kids, if given a loving home and supportive parents, aren't confused, and kids are kids. If you let them explore, they're fine and they'll be fine.

This ad helps both parents, noting to be there for them and let them just be kids, and kids, to explore and express themselves. After all it's just polish and pink is just another color, one many men as well as women like. Look at all the men's pink golf shirts of past years' styles. And many amateur and professional athletes wear pink as symbols of support for women's causes, like breast cancer.

In short, to all the uptight (and tight ass) conservatives who want to define sex and gender for all of us, get a life. It's just a boy, just polish and just a color. Go express your anger at freedom and liberty for all somewhere else than at the toes of a boy who's mother loves and supports him.

A really Bad Argument

2011-04-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

One argument, as defined by the OED, is "a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong", is being the devil's advocate to put forth a position which is bad to begin with and then gets worse the longer the writer, or speaker, continues to propose it. Really? And here?

Or rather with transpeople. Roland Hulme wrote a piece, found here, which suggests transpeople, at the end of their transistion should not be able to get their birth certificates changed to reflect their innate gender from their birth sex.

He used the recent law suit in New York City brought to remove the necessity for surgery, the standard in 48 states (Ohio and Tennesse excludes that right) for transwomen to get their birth certificates changed from male to female. The laws in most states allow transmen to get the change without surgery as it's medically risky and too expensive.

The problem there is many, maybe almost all, transpeople oppose this lawsuit. The petitioners' case has merit as some transpeople can't get surgery for medical or financial reasons (the latter is the common rule for most transpeople as it's not covered by the majority of health insurance plans). But the case includes a transman who can get a judge's order for the change, something a transwoman can't get, necessitating surgery.

The reason they oppose the lawsuit is that it removes the dividing line between the in-transistion and post-transistion women, and some men (exception for them in most states) being surgery (sex/gender change surgery) and creates an indeterminate and indisguishable area defining sex and gender under the law.

This opens the door for early transistioners to get the change to be legally female while being mostly male, and it allows crossdressers and others who dress as women for personal or professonal reasons to find someone who'll agree to cerify their transistion when they're not in transistion or have any goals or plans to transistion.

And as we know, it opens the door to the proverbial media hype that even most transwomen oppose, the "men in dresses in women's bathrooms" idea or the disguse of the ultrafeminine dressup model idea. Neither of which are how transwomen want to be seen. They want to be, live and get on with their lives as women, real, ordinary women.

Transwomen, in-transistion but especially post-transistion, want to be women, and not seen or feared as crossdressers, transvestites or anything the media tries portray them for hype and ratings. And they want to be legally defined and identified as women. That's the law. Something Mr. Hulme doesn't understand.

Oh yeah, he's playing devil's advocate all right. But does he really, as he suggested, believe birth certificates are absolute documents and not fluid? We know can change your name, correct mistakes for parents and other information to get an updated or amended birth certificate. And we know intersexed people can get their sex marker changed from mistakes at birth (assigning the wrong sex) or after surgery to correct it.

I had three birth certificates issued for me for two name changes in two weeks. Is he suggesting my first one was absolute? And if I decide to change my name from what my parents decided three times, he would deny me that right? And all the transwomen and transmen the right to be who they are physically and mentally and not just defined by their genes?

The devil's advocate got his argument lost in his own details, which is mostly his own ignorance of the facts and his own inhumanity for others.

Crossdressers aren't trans

2011-04-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

I ran across, visually of course, an editorial by Brian McNaught suggesting crossdressers should be in the LGBT definiton as transgender, see article. Well, in his opinion, but not in reality. Crossdressers, as he rightfully says, outnumber transwomen and transmen, those in transistion, and probably by an order of magnitude.

After all, while the entertainers, often called female illusionists or impersonators now, are mostly gay men who like pretending and getting attention as women, the vast majority of the rest are heterosexual men, often married with families. They're not gay and while many do go through facial hair removal to help, they don't go through any medical care to transistion. They don't want to transistion.

In short, they like their dicks and they like to play dressup. That's not transgender. It's not in the DSM-IVTR or will be in the DSM-V, although there are some suggestions to find something there for them to be medical and therefore protected as a condition. Yeah, right. weekdays they're ordinary men and weekends, pretend women. Gee, that's a psychological disorder?

Not according to psychiatrists and psychologists who call crossdressing a hobby at best and a fetish, transvestism, at worst. But when they don't need or want therapy, don't need medical professional help tor transistion, don't want surgeries to become women and don't want to change their birth certificate and records, they don't face discrimination just being who they are in life and work.

Mr. McNaught missed the point that in many fights for equality for LGB and then LGBT folks, crossdressers have been the problem, allowing opponents to use them as an example for all, the proverbial "men in dresses in the bathroom" argument. And after LGB people are protected, transpeople get shuffled aside as something later for fear of being identified with crossdressers.

This happened in Tacoma when it took three votes of the council and the failure of the third voter referendum to reverse the council's vote to add transpeople to anti-discrimination in housing, jobs and other activities of life. And even then the third time almost passed allowing discrimination when they used crossdressers as the poster child for transpeople.

This has also happened in organizations where crossdressers formed their own organization from LGBT organizations because they (CD'ers) outnumbered and dominated the political agenda of the organization before the transpeople jettisoned them to get some real progress. The CD'ers only wanted protections for them and wasn't interested in transpeople.

Any wonder why the LGB people hate the T (transpeople) and the transpeople hate crossdressers? I won't argue some crossdressers eventually transistion, but the percentage is small (<~2%) and those leave the crossdressing community for the transcommunity and eventually as men and women.

In the end, crossdressers aren't anything like bisexual people, and aren't transgender by any stretch of the imagination, but that seems to escape his imagination for the sake of an arugment. Maybe he should ask the professionals, or better yet, ask some real transpeople.

Being Thoughtless

2011-02-11T08:34:00.001-08:00

There has been some recent jokes or skits about transgender people. It started with Saturday Night Live (SNL) and the skit portraying transgender women as men in dresses. It was clearly and obviously beyond even SNL's standards of taste, which isn't very high anyway (I stopped watching it years ago after watching it from the beginning).

They didn't just ridicule transgender people, they trashed them, needlessly. They should have apologized but I doubt any apology would change anything. They couldn't put all of their stupidity back in the tube and forget they even thought about the skit let alone write it and then perform it.

It's one thing to joke about a class or group of people, but the skit wasn't a joke. It was very bonehead of them from the idea. Transgender people have to struggle throughout their life to live as they know they are in the world today. It's full of all sorts of anger and hate from people, they don't need it from SNL or any TV show.

But SNL isn't the first to ridicule transgender people. It's been done for decades and almost always badly. Transgender people are just as normal and ordinary as everyone else. This seems to be lost on people, wanting to isolate them as abnormal and then ridicule them in extreme ways. It's not fair or right.

And following that David Letterman and Craig Ferguson not only made jokes about transgender people, they invited people on to further ridicule people. Craig Ferguson is known for pushing extreme without any sense of decency, and late night TV is known for this kind of abuse against classes or groups of people.

It's discrimination disguised as humor, really bad humor. David Letterman should have known and done better, but he hasn't in the past, so this new one with Adam Sandler isn't surprising. And Adam Sandler has no decency either, at least in the media and in his movies. Why would we expect anything different from him either?

In the end, it's time to stop attacking transgender people through the media. There are many successful post-transistion men and women and there are many more in transistion who deserve respect not ridicule. But considering the powers in the media support those who ridicule transgender people, why would I expect change?

I don't but then maybe we should turn the joke around to them to the extreme. How would they feel then?

John Muir Moments

2011-02-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

I've read a number of the books by John Muir, his walk to the Gulf, his travels in the Sierra Mountains of California, and other adventures. And while I have long forgotten much of his writings, one story sticks in my mind about moments we often face in life and have to decide whether the past, known as it is, or the future, the gamble it is, is better.

It's about being stuck. A moment when going forward or going back freezes the person. The story John Muir told was about a canyon he was exploring in the Sierra Mountains. He started up a creek following the bed to the headwaters where he stood before a cliff to the higher plateau above the basin.

He faced the choice to go back downstream and into another canyon or find a route up the cliff to the higher elevations which was he real goal. He choose the latter when he found a crack in the cliff face he could climb. So he started up the cliff face and then climbed into the crack and climbed higher.

The crack, however, slowly widened as he climbed until he was using he feet and back to slowly inch his way up. The crack appeared to widen more where it was clear he might not be tall enough to reach across it and still climb higher, and so he stopped and rested. He faced a moment he had to choose.

He had to choose to go back down, however dangerous that would be with the likelihood he would fall from being tired and sore. Or he could risk going up, and hope the crack didn't widen beyond hold and climbing with the top of his back and neck and the ball of his feet and toes. He stayed there quite a while until he didn't to go up.

And sure enough the crack didn't widen at all and he reached the top, climbed over the ledge and stood on the top of the plateau over looking the creek below with the Sierra mountains above him, an easier climb anywhere he wanted to go. And he did.

I call these John Muir moments when and where we're stuck. Sometimes the transistion of someone will reach a moment like this where you know going back isn't the answer but you don't like the immediate prospects of the future. You're stuck in time between who you were and who you want to become.

These often occur when events, circumstances or situations put us where there aren't any easy or good answers or directions. In a transistion, which could be from or about a host of things, people or whatever making us feel nothing will help, going back or forward and we feel standing still is worse than the choices.

Often it's one of those moments the whole world around us sucks and we're at the center of it, the vortex being spun around with nothing clear, just a whirl of things we can't decide where to go. Except we know going back isn't the answer and going forward holds nothing good. At least at the moment.

We know beyond the moment we'll be ok, or we hope, because that's the unknown, will things widen and we fall all the way down with no chance to go back to who we were and find it harder to go forward. That's the problem, the future holds not assurances, only our hope and our willingness to try.

And we know the reality of transistions of transgender people, the reality isn't all that good. The majority of transistions don't go well and many fail, and only some will succeed. The stories of the folks who succeed are always good to know, but all carry the one caveat we can't lose or erase, who we were.

We all carry that one thing we can never erase from our history, our birth. Everything else changes, except that and it's always that which allows people to add that one word we hate after the transistion, "transgender" or "transsexual." The undeniable reality. And facing that will also be a John Muir moment, to let it drift by as the wind or hate it with the label someone sticks on us.

It's unfair and not right, but it is reality of our times. All the other John Muir moments can be overcome, save the one we always have inside us. And all the freedom reaching the top won't change it. We can simply leave it as our history and get on with our life, knowing we succeeded even over this.

I Don't Agree

2011-01-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

I've been reading about the transgender veterans who are arguing for care for their transistion under the Veterans Administration. This is promoted by the Transgender Americans Veterans Association with their most vocal spokesperson Autumn Sandeem. I'd say spokesman since her legal documents, which she acknowledges, says she male.

I don't agree any care or treatments should be available to transgender veterans for their transisiton. It's not a condition that's releated to their service, not related to any injury they incurred or disease they acquired during their service, and it's not life threatening requiring medical interventon. It's not warranted.

Now, I won't say that being transgender people don't deserve care or treatment. I'm an advocate for it to be covered by the health insurance companies as it's an identified mental and physical condition treatable under the WPATH Standards of Care. All non-costmetic care should be covered, including physician's care, drugs, therapy, and sex reassignment surgery (SRS).

It's the right thing to do. While the APA's have "recommended" it be covered, since they identify it as a mental condition worthy of intervention and with a course of treatment, they haven't pushed for it as mandatory. This is because it's a moral issue to them, but the studies of the employer-funded treatment, including SRS, have shown it's cheap.

But it's not something which should be covered by the VA under veterans care. It's a waste of funds better suited to injured veterans. I can say this because I served and haven't used any VA care. I have health insurance which covers most of what I want in life for health or emergency care. And should I be transgendered, it's not covered under my health insurance, so I would expect to pay for it out of my own pocket.

And this is only fair for transgendered veterans. They should find an employer or health insurance which covers it with other health and emergency care, or as they say, get out your checkbook as the vast majority of those who are transistioning or have transistioned. I just don't agree it's a necessity of the VA to provide it at taxpayer expense.

I would support the TAVA's effort to expand DADT to transgendered veterans to serve openly, but I wouldn't necessarily support the military fund the care and treatment for their transistion. The military should allow their transistion, just not pay for it. I've expressed this view and I have had my issue with when Ms. Sandeem spoke out and even went so far to be one of those who chained themselves to the White House fence.

I thought her complaint about her treatment during her arrest was unwarranted as she presented her documents to show she was legally male (at least the news stories I read stated). As I've said before I don't consider presenting yourself as female in public mean your transgender and in transistion. If she was serious, why hasn't she had some of her documents changed? I would as all those in transistion do, when they make the decision to be full-time and public.

But that's outside the point here. While I agree with the transcommunity on most issues, I can't agree on this one, nor with those who express the right to it. I will continue to say it's a good way to provide ammunition against transpeople by asserting the expenditure of taxpayers', and especially VA, money for care better paid by private insurance.

Being Abandoned

2010-12-20T05:34:00.001-08:00

Now that the 17-year old Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) law has been replealed and will undergo an implementation period, it will be interesting if anything really changes in the military, for the "boots on the ground", for the officers supervising enlisted troops and more so for recruiters. Does the LGB community really think reality will change?

Or will they see a backlash within the forces against openly lesbian and gay troops? All the surveys supported repealing the law. And many of the survey said the troops don't mind, but none of that accommodates the reality of an an openly lesbian or gay person being near, or more so next to, you when not in combat and when and where many people react. It's human nature, something a law can't change or undo, only the person and that's not likely.

But that's not my point here. While I applaud the passage to repleal DADT, I wonder if the LGB community will see another reason to jettison the issues relating to transgender members in their organizations or the transgender community. The LGB community has seen a real major success, but nothing changes for transpeople in the military. They're still ostracised and discharged should they come out.

And we still have DOMA awaiting repeal and ENDA up for LGBT people awaiting passage. Will the LGB community, as we saw Representative Barney Franks did several times for ENDA, remove transpeople from the bill because it wasn't the right time for their incluson. In truth, he never meant to include transpeople.

And we know Joe Salmonese promised inclusion and then sponsored and supported exclusion of transpeople. The simple truth is that the LGB community as a whole doesn't have the interest for transpeople and many in the community are covertly and privately transphobic. And sometimes overtly and vocal.

This is the opportunity for them to jettison the transpeople from their political agenda and focus on what they've always wanted, just lesbian and gay rights. Some will express support and even demand support for transpeople, but they're in the minority and often politically shouted down and into silence.

And that will leave transpeople, where they are in many political and legal areas, standing alone with few supporters outside themselves. The recent change will only worsen that and increase the distance between the LGB and T parts of the community. It's a real possible reality that in a few years LGB people focusing on state marriage laws, DOMA and ENDA will not include transpeople.

Success breeds the interest for more where it's not, and the LGB people will see that, to them, the T is an anchor in the political and legal world for their rights. And the T will be more isolated than before, and have to continue what some have done for the last decade or so, stand and fight alone.

The question is if that will prompt cooperaton to be focused on all trangender people or only the subgroups, or as some use subclasses, of transpeople, meaning the transistion focused transwomen and men will do what they've wanted, and recent court cases have decided, focus on inclusion as women and men, exclusive of the "trans" identity.

And they too can leave the rest of the transgender community behind. That's been their goal and will be their goal as they are almost there for post-transistion women and men and will be there for in-transistion women and men. They will do what the LGB people did to them, leave the rest behind, left to their own political and legal devices.

And then, as many post-transistion women and men do private, sit on their hands when asked for a show of who's for the others. It's what they've done and will do. The question is if in-transistion women and men will do likewise in public as they do in private, become invisible.

Being abandoned teaches survival, which the transcommunity has long learned, but it also teaches success on your own terms, something the transcommunity has also long learned. And after being abadoned, they too will abandon those left who are not like them. That's their reality.

To whom it may concern

2010-10-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

To Whom It May Concern,

Meaning you who decide that gendervariant people aren't, and you fill in the rest according to your beliefs, values, whatever. You simply decide gendervariant people are less than human and don't deserve your understanding or acceptance. But that's what you don't get. You see, you think their being is about you. And it's not.

These people haven't done anything to you. They're not against you. They haven't hurt you physically or mentally. All they want to do is get through life just like you, without anyone bothering them, and especially anyone disliking them because they exist. Like you do and are doing. But they didn't do anything to deserve that anger or hatred.

They're just another person living with what they were given and trying to make the best of it. They not only face unreal personal trama and hurt from their family and friends who don't understand and often push them out of their home and lives, they face unreal hardship in life and world from people like you who for simply being.

So why do you hate them? And isn't your hate only yours?

Making Distinctions

2010-09-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

Discrimination. What a word. It has a variety of definitions and applicatioins. It's almost only limited by our imagination for its use to describe some person, time, event, circumstance, situation, or whatever. And we discriminate by our words. Not just the acts but the distinctions.

The Oxford American Dictionary (copy sits by my desk besides on-line) defines it as:

discrimination |disˌkriməˈnā sh ən| noun
1 the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex : victims of racial discrimination | discrimination against homosexuals.

2 recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another : discrimination between right and wrong | young children have difficulties in making fine discriminations.

• the ability to discern what is of high quality; good judgment or taste : those who could afford to buy showed little taste or discrimination.

• Psychology the ability to distinguish between different stimuli : [as adj. ] discrimination learning.

And I'm no different. Take the words transgender and transsexual. Whenever you read someone's blog, article, column, etc, they almost invariably directly or indirectly define the terms and then make distinctions, which often end up as discriminations. And I have my definitions, applications and disinctions, and yes, discriminations.

It's one reason why the LGBT and especially transcommunity themselves can't get on the same page on issues. It's the old adage about the devil is in the details and for them, it's the words themselves.

Being blind

2010-08-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

I was reading the news about Caster Sememya to run again in women's international track events. She was the woman who swept several sprints in Berlin last summer, winning by more than 2 seconds in some races, dominating the competition. It was then the other women competitors voiced their view that "she" wasn't just a woman. You can search the news stories over the last year to see the various views athletes and the media have taken with her.

I haven't changed my view of the situation then, because the South African doctor who examined her before her departure from Berlin advised the South African Athletic Association not to send her as she wasn't the women she appeared to be and any gender test would show the truth about her. But she went and the controversy began.

But that's not my argument anymore. It's that the transcommunity has not changed their view that she had the right then and more so now to compete as she is and not have to undergo any medical treatments required of transgender athletes to compete fairly with the other athletes. They still keep arguing the other athletes, the atheletic community and the athletic organization simply have to accept her rights.

My argument is that for the sake of one, who clearly demonstrated some unusual advantage, everyone else has no right to contest her rights. The individual is more than the whole. They argue this applies to all transgender people, but more so in some cases where it's clearly and obviously misplaced at best and wrong at worst.

The are simply blind to the reality of the whole. They assume all transgender people have the disadvantage and deserve advantages wherever they can get them. Except that Caster wasn't wholy born female but, as some sources have reported, some form of intersexed, probably mild to moderate AIS, meaning a male with the appearance of female gentalia, but no female reproductive system.

She may think of yourself as a girl (gender identity), raised a girl and accepted as a girl, but it doesn't make her female, and enough to compete with other women. But that doesn't seem to bother the transcommunity. They prefer blindness to reality and understanding. They prefer to discriminate against other women than acknowledge they may be wrong. They prefer to simply deny the truth.

The truth other sports have proceedures for transgender athletes to compete on par with their other same gender athletes and all have complied to compete, taking the mandatory two-plus years to transistion. That's what Caster should have done and what the IAAF should have mandated, striping her of her medals, records, and rights to compete until she complies.

But she didn't and screamed discrimination. And the transcommunity screamed with her. And those who voiced support for the other women, they were verbally pummelled into silence. They not only didn't want to hear the truth, they wanted their truth to be right. Except it wasn't right or fair.

And now after nearly a year from the events in Berlin and Caster is allowed back, they're arguing they were right all along, except it's clear between the lines in the news, Caster did undergo some medical treatments and proceedures to comply with the IAAF's rules for transgender athletes. Something she should have done then.

Being blind has some advantages, as we know. We can deny the truth and reality and only see our view as right and fair. And in doing so with Caster and against everyone else the transcommunity showed their colors, or rather their inability to see the color, only their black and white world, except everything and everyone else is black.

And only then do we see the transcommunity's self-righteousness and self-serving blindness. Sadly too, because it only adds to those who do help and support transgender people and the transcommunity to winch and balk. And then walk away, in their forced silence. Being blind not only hurts yourself, it hurts others who want to care, only to be rejected by not being blind.

The Case of Caster Part II

2010-08-25T17:30:00.000-07:00

Well, she's back, and the controversy didn't go away and only is the rhetoric on both sides heating up. But what is added to the mix is more obvious the motive of the South African Athletic Association (SAA). According the news, she "completed" the regimen the IAAF prescribed, except it wasn't said what that was.

Going back to last year, what we know or really heard was that she had her undescended testes and no female reproductive system. Over this last year, according to the IAAF and the SAA, she had those removed and supposedly followed a regimen of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). And the SAA said, "trust us." And she didn't have to go through the two years of HRT transgender althletes are required to complete before competing again.

Except at her recent track event she blew the field away. Granted her time was considerably slower than last year and far from any world record, it was still evident that her (former?) male body is still there and the (HRT) didn't seem to work or maybe not even followed. At this point it's clear while she still thinks she's a woman (for her gender) and wants to compete as a woman, she is still mostly male.

Her advantage is that any male athlete who matures will be physically stronger (and probably faster and quicker) than comparable being and maturing female. And if she had undergone HRT, there would be significant physical changes, even for an extreme athlete. That's not evident in the video I saw of her recent races. She wasn't at her peak, and has a lot of room to improve before more imporatant events his year and next.

In other international sports, any male to female transistion for an athletes would undergo two years of HRT, so why was she allowed to return after a year? The reason is that two years would have probably wiped out her chance to be competitive. But what if she wasn't under HRT for the year? Then aside from natural reduction of testosterone, she wouldn't be much different which training could easily make up.

The is because HRT is part anti-androgen and at proper levels reduces testosterone to within the more normal range for genetic women, not at the high level bordering on low male levels. Those levels indicates the HRT was too low or not followed. Even Kristy Worley has it wrong saying Caster has congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) when she has no female reproductive system to have this condition, according the doctor who originally examined her and recommended she not go to Berlin last year.

But in reality, this isn't about her but winning. She wants to win no matter what, and if she has a physical advantage of her birth and maturity (as male), then so what. Her country wants to win. So, that's what it's really about, medals and records, and having South Africa get the recognition. She's not a pawn anymore and it's clear she doesn't care about honesty and fairness, other words she would set the record straight for all to know and prove us wrong.

But I haven't heard that, nor do I expect, except in the future when the truth is finally known and will be too late to retract the awards and records. I would like to be wrong, and the information isn't complete to know for sure, but what does exists from reliable sources tilts against her. She can let the world know, so what's the problem since it's already a public issue?

I think if she continues to win with significant margins over longtime women athletes, then the questions will continues with more fervor and the other female athletes will have a case to make to make her case public so everyone understands. As I said last year, she stepped into the spotlight, so silence isn't an answer. And as I said last year, the IAAF really screwed up, but they will have to face the music of her competition if she continues winning.

She came out of nowhere to win big and was obviously male. That hasn't changed, which means the controversy hasn't changed, along with everyone's opinion. Anyway, that's my opinion to date, and as always, subject to change with the truth and reality.

More Harm than Good

2010-06-14T09:03:00.001-07:00

I was reading the news about one individual transwoman (pre-op and some might suggest marginably passable at best) who likes the spotlight. She's also a veteran and is active the transgender veterans movement, which I don't understand the VA accepting transgender care as service or veteran related. Demanding transgender care by the VA seems odd at best.

I'm a strong advocate for veterans' care, being a veteran myself, but only for those whose injuries and disabilities are service-related, whether directly or indirectly. I'm for more money and resources for our two Iraq war and Afghanistan war veterans who have been long rejected or neglected by the VA, much due to arrogance of the Bush-Cheney attitude about throwaway soldiers.

Anything else, however, belongs to the individual, which includes transgender care. It's a waste of government resources. But that doesn't seem to matter to this person, and she loves to write and promote herself working for the movement of transgender veterans and people. But to me, she's actually doing more harm than good for several reasons.

First, and really foremost, she has long implied she was post-op and legally female, but when arrested at a protest at the White House recently, she had to identify as (legally) male, but then claimed discrimination when housed with male inmates during her brief time in jail. This has been an issue in the transcommunity, which I agree transpeople need separate and safe places in jail and prison. But in her case, all her identification, according to the news stories, listed her as male, but dressed as female.

Being a cross-dresser doesn't, in my view, means she's transgender. I suspect she's in transistion, but she could just be living as man presenting as a woman. That's what fulltime cross-dressers do. Some even go through electrolysis and take some hormones, but they don't have the interest to change the sex or legal identification as male. This woman hasn't really said one way or the other which she is or going through except how she presents herself.

Harsh? Maybe, but when now she admits she's also bipolar. Ok, there are treatments for this, but I'm not sure it's cause for announcing it as without additional information, like what treatments she is getting and what she is doing about it. She served 20 years in the military and is just now coming out with this news?

My point here? Well, I've always had problems with transwoman who go fulltime as woman, adopting the whole thing about being women, except their face and voice. And add to some their body, and I just don't understand someone yelling at the world to accept them as a woman but nothing other than clothes appears normal for women. I know it's my own subtle discrimination and many of transwoman try hard to get by and through life quietly despite all the physical issues they carry.

But as several more famous (trans)women (meaning the trans is former as they're legally female) have stated in their opinion of any transwoman's transistion, consider facial surgery first among your surgical needs, A passing face gets you through 90% of the initial impressions people have. That's simple psychology. But a vast majority of in-transistion women, mostly older transwomen, don't and think it's their right to just be and we have to accept it.

I won't argue there are many natal women who have non-feminine faces, but all of the rest of the outward signals are there not to question their sex or gender. But these transwomen don't have those innate advantages, and all the makeup and smiles won't hide a masculine face. Add the voice, which doesn't change in transistion, and you have instant recognition of something other than a woman. All the clothes, behavior and expression won't overcome that.

And so the question is if transwomen like this one is doing more harm than good to the transgender cause and movement? When many transwomen transistion quietly and simply move on in their life as women, the vast majority easily or mostly passable, then why should they identify with transgender people like this woman? They don't and won't. It's the problem with the transcommunity promoting women like this one who loves the attention.

In the end I have say, I see and understand both sides, but that said, I side against this woman who is doing more harm than good as all the noise she makes is focused on herself in the name of the cause and not just being the messenger for the cause. She is the poster woman for why so many transwomen don't get involved in the community and movement and distance themselves after their transistion, and why transpeople aren't always accepted as normal, the proverbial "man in a dress" syndrome.

The reality is that this woman isn't going away, and probably why she hasn't finished the medical and legal process to be legally female, except maybe if the VA paid for her surgeries. And don't get me started there, as so many have begged, borrowed and worked hard for the money for their surgeries. And while some have had insurance coverage (rare but improving), having the VA pay for it is beyond common sense.

And the reality is the transcommunity will use her because they believe being visible is the key. But they forget being visibly good and accepted is more important than just being visible. They'll take people like her and accept the price of losing many other port and in-transistion women to silence and distance. They mistake the messenger for the message.

Becoming Invisible

2010-04-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

The goal of many, and some say most, in and post-transistion women is to become invisible in their life and work, as women, and to let the label of their past and transistion fade into the distance of time. This is accomplished by many when they're recognized as women, and nothing is in the words, and any public announcements or notices, about their former sex (not gender as they've always self-identified as female).

As they say, they arrived, if only for a moment, but it's like cresting a hill and on the way down you lose all sight of the valley you left behind. It's simply becomes a memory, always there and ready to become visible if the situation or circumstances happen. But then you'll be long over any stress of the, "What if they find out.", and will simply say, "Ok, and?"

It's also the bane of the transcommunity when this happens. Not just when the vast majority escape the transcommunity shortly after finishing their transistion, meaning getting their documents changed, but when your past isn't even in the discussion in your life and work. They simply are women.

The transcommunity sells this as the goal of transistioning women, but also harbor the silent, and sometimes not so silent, wish, post-transistion women hang around the transcommunity. Some do because they have little choice, it's their public identity, not by choice but circumstances. And some do by choice.

And some really less by choice than reality. For a variety of reasons some simply find it hard to assimilate into the world of women, usually they don't pass well enough to become physically invisible. It's the sad reality of social standards of presentation, expression and behavior. Try as they do, becoming invisible just doesn't happen.

Some ignore the signs and simply plow ahead in their life, and many find acceptance and support, but it almost always comes with a cost and a price. It's always work convincing people you're real and really who you know you are. And some just forget even trying and just try to live quietly without the hassles.

What's even sadder is that the transcommunity doesn't help them outside of using them. While facing the world with all the problems of being visible, the transcommunity uses them to show the problems of being visible, adding insult to injury. When they need the help to become invisible, they get used for being visible.

And the transcommunity wonders why post-transistion women become invisible and walk, if not run, away from the words and even the community, and criticizes those who do for being invisible. They expect them to become visible and be used. Like that helps their life and work? To relive what they want to forget?

It's why becoming invisible is so important in the lives of post-transistion women. Just to be themselves as we all are and do. And without the fear of what Satchel Page said, "Don't look back, something may be gaining on you." Or in their case, someone in the form of the transcommunity.

Transgender activists

2010-04-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

They come in all flavors. They espouse the whole gamut of views and opinions. And they say they represent the "transgender community." All different, except in one aspect they're all the same. They're all overly sensitive to criticism, intolerant of alternative or opposing ideas and especially opinions, loud and demanding not just to be heard but to be heard over the crowd and by everyone.

And worst of all, they won't listen in return, they only talk or write louder to overwhelm other voices. They simply want you to listen and agree, silently. No words, or even a peep from you. Just nod in agreement to show them they're right and they're smarter than anyone else in the room.

What's the beef here then? Well, in one recent court case a Wisconsin judge overruled a law prohibiting Sex Reasignment Surgery (SRS) for inmates diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, meaning transsexual inmates can't get this surgery paid by the Department of Corrections, or really the taxpayers. I don't have a problem with the law but with the judge and his decision.

Why, especially when it's a treatable condition and the surgery is one, and usually the final, step in the process to transistion from male to female? Because SRS isn't covered by any other state program there, not covered by the health insurance companies there, and only covered by a very few employers there. Why should it be a freebie at taxpayers' expense when they don't pay for SRS for ordinary people?

I'm for SRS being covered by health insurance. And a few do, but it's not mandatory by the federal or any state government in their healthcare insurance regulations. And if anyone needs SRS which is the transistioning women to complete the process to live as whole and complete women and be legally female, they deserve it first and foremost and well before felons and inmates.

You see all the ordinary transwomen struggle to live and work, and finding ways to pay for the cost of SRS. We're not talking a cheap surgery here. It's $15-20K in the US, not including travel and other expenses outside the clinic or hospital. It's more in Europe but cheaper in Asia, usually Thailand, but then the travel and other expenses are far higher offsetting the total cost to be about the same.

But you can't make this argument to transgender activists. They only believe anything is better, even when it's not right or fair. Just progress is ok with them, even when it's ethically and morally wrong, let alone financially unwise. There are far better ways to spend money on inmates than SRS for the handful of transgender women in prisons.

Why should the many transwomen who can't afford it not be able to access program to help pay for something identified in the DSM as a mental condition when inmates can get it free, and then avail themselves to the other free services to change their birth certificates for their sex. They could go in man and come out women, all paid by the taxpayers.

And people are supposed to say it's ok? And they'll write the checks?

Sorry, I'm for the surgery for those wanting or needing it but there has to be some sense of priority who gets it and who pays for it. But I'm not sorry or am I for what ever advances the progress for transgender people at any price or cost, especially when it's paid by others not in the transgender community.

This is one of the many views I differ with members of the transgender community, and especially the activists. They lose touch of the greater world which we all live in and must abide by for the beterment of all. The common good as they say. Transgender activists seem to lose that view.

And worse when you voice your view, as an alternative, in opposition, as questions, or however, you get verbally pummelled into submission. And if you don't submit, your ignored or worse removed from the discussion, as I have been excommunicated from forums and my responses not approved or removed.

But it doesn't or won't silence me. As in my rules for this blog, it's mine, not yours. Censor me on yours and I'll do likewise here. I want civil conversation with open ears, mind and voices, especially with humor and a smile. That's what's missing from transactivists, realism and humor. And I'll keep poking at that too.

Susan Stanton

2010-03-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

I've been reading the reviews, blogs and columns on the recent documentary CNN about Susan Stantion and her transistion from the time she came out when she was the city manager for a small city in Florida to her recent job as the city manager of another city in Florida. I'll be honest to say I didn't watch the documentary, for several reasons.

First, much of these documentaries are the same, with the same life story and same career story. Susan's isn't significantly different except she chose to come out in a public forum (city council meeting) without privately consulting the members to know how they would react, let alone vote to retain then him as the city manager through her transistion. In short, she screwed herself by not doing her homework behind closed doors.

Second, she villified the transgender community during the months following her outing and then firing. Despite all the best advice from many leaders in the transcommunity, she let loose a litany of demeaning and denigrating comments in interviews separating herself as a woman from the rest of the transwomen, either in or post transistion. And yet she had just started her transistion.

Third, she sought out the publicity for her plight and transistion. She gave interviews whenever and wherever she could to tell her story of her situation as a real woman (not trans anything) and her firing. She wanted the spotlight and when she was criticized, even by the transcommunity, she continued to criticize transpeople, including calling many of them, "men in dresses". This despite the reality she was marginally passing herself.

Fourth, when she wasd fired, her contract guarranteed her a full year salary and health insurance. While trying to make the public believe she lost her job and wasn't making money anymore, and was looking for another city manager job, she was financially fine. We're talking low six figure salary with benefits too.

In addition, shortly after her firing she set herself up as a consultant for transgender issues and programs. For a modest fee, of course, she would travel to the place, give talks and promote transgender rights. All like she was suddenly an expert about and on transgender issues and people. Yes, while criticizing the very same community and people in interviews.

So it showed she was in it for the money. But then poor she wasn't. Nor humble.

And lastly, she sold her story to CNN for the price of her sex reassignment surgery. While many transwomen go in debt for their surgery - it's not commonly covered by health insurance but is covered by some employers now, she was handed a check in return for the rights to the most intimate details of her life and transistion.

Others have done this with or for documentaries, most in exchange for partial or full payment for the $15-20K surgery. But Susan had the nerve to deny the fact after she confirmed the fact. She simply lied about it to make the documentary in progress look like an honest one and her volunteering for it. As they say, yeah right.

Susan Stanton doesn't represent the ten of thousands of post-transistion women. She doesn't have the right to claim her story as one, only one as a greed, publicity seeking bitch. Yes, transwomen can be bitches too, she's a shining example. She was lucky to find a new job in the same career at about the same salary and benefits as her old one.

Except for a year of missing salary, using her savings, retirement and other investments to live, she really didn't lose when the vast majority of transwomen lose their jobs, usually their career and almost all their savings during and after their transistion. Yes, she lost her wife and children. That's the reality, very few transistion and keep them in marriage.

Some transwomen fair better with supporting employers, some resurrect their career years later, and some find new careers where they end up personally and professional better. But they're not the majority of transwomen. Susan kept her career with only a slight lose of money, with her major bills in her transistion costs paid by CNN.

She's not the example but the exception. And not by herself, but by luck she sold herself for the documentary and lucked out with getting a new job. Her story isn't the norm, but one created by her for her self-presevation defining herself as a woman and not transgender. Don't mistake her sympathies for the transcommunity or her empathies for other transwomen, it's not real.

It's all a show for the show. And she can seperate herself of the rest of transwomen and not one of them. Yeah, right. And they don't claim her either. Not unlike a bottle of wine gone bad. No one wants it and it can't disguise itself. She's not the hero, or heroine, and she's more the evil queen who can't stand the people other attribute her to in their reviews, columns and blogs on her and the documentary.

Your time is better spent with the young transwomen and their stories. They're the future, they're more honest and really need the help. People and life stories like Kimberely Reed and others. Or better yet, those in college or starting their careers trying to find acceptance to just get on with their life and career. They're worth our attention and support. Not Susan.

It's not about fairness

2010-03-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

I was reading the column by someone with the Organisation Internationale des Intersexués (OII, an Intersex organization) about the International Olympic Committe (IOC) and how the IOC has never treated intersexed athletes with respect and fairness, including the recent events with Caster Semenaya of South Africa. I've expressed my view of her and noted she's not by definition intersexed, just an under developed male, and has no right to compete as female.

But the OII seems that all intersexed people should be able to compete in the sex and gender of their choice, despite any obvious or less than obvious advantages they have over non-intersexed atheletes, as the Caster case also showed (3 times the level of testosterone as female athletes). They think somehow people can just show up, announce their sex and gender, and compete accordingly.

And they expect the IOC to agree to allow it. It's about fairness in their mind. Except the OII fails to understand it's not about fairness for a small group of people and less so athletes, but the whole of the athletic community. It's a relative fairness, and as much as you want to complain about the binary sex and gender system, and intersex and transgender atheletes are discriminated against, it's what is.

And the OII fails to understand many professional organizations have rules and proceedures for transgender athletes to compete in the new sex and gender, Marianne Bagger and others have demonstrated this quite professionally by following them to compete openly and fairly. That's what the Athletic Association of South Africa should have done with Caster, make her transistion first, then compete.

That would be fair. But I suspect, when she does transistion, she won't be as dominate as she was in the Berlin competition in 2009 when the complaints were lodged against her. I won't argue the IOC mishandled her case, badly in fact. That's obvious, and they're simply trying to fixing their own problems. And they even botched that. But at least they issued rules for her for future competitions.

In the end the OII needs to take a step back, take deep breath, and see the larger picture, and then put themselves in that instead of trying to make their own picture of the world, and their view of fairness no one else agrees with. They need to get real about themselves and more understanding of others. Now that's fairness for all of us.

Enough already

2010-03-13T09:31:00.000-08:00

Update.-- I'll forgive the new MTV show "Transform Me", or at least from the first episode. I watched it later (rerun) and thought it wasn't all that bad. Some younger transwomen, as some older ones have, want to just be like other women and it's fair for them to try and improve their looks, makeup and wardrobe. I still think it's kinda' hype, but I guess ok hype. I just wish there was a way to lose the trans label for post-transistion women, it's unnecessary and unfair.

Ok, this is rant about several things, which means you can really ignore the rest if you're not into reading my personal rants or vents at the world around, about, with transgender people and the transgender community. It's really boring, except of course as an exercise for me to yell from my corner of the world standing on my soapbox. Ok, enough explanation. Onward.

First, enough of the documentaries about people's transistions. I won't argue the recent film, "Prodigol Son", is excellent and worth seeing once. This is about the TV documentaries of individuals from childhood to post-transistion, such as the recent one by Steven/Susan Stanton. She wasn't liked by the transcommunity when she transistioned and no one wants her see or hear her again.

One reason people do this, invite the cameras into the life like that, is simple. It's to pay for the sex reassignment surgery, in part of more often entirely, as with Susan Stanton. Selling yourself to get the surgery doesn't do justice to the many who need it more and can't get insurnance which covers it (rare anyway) or pay for it out of pocket, or at least not without going in debt for $15-20K.

The other reason is the life stories doesn't change. There's too many common threads running through the life of those who transistion. There's already a wealth of books and documentaries of self-destructive people who finally got through their transistion with some sense of being. It's the sad reality of the discrimination, but also for the bad decisions by the individuals.

And lastly, with this one, Susan Stanton not just criticized the transcommunity and other transwomen, she distanced herself from it by calling herself "a woman" as opposed to "those" transwomen. In short she pissed everyone in the community off enough no one had any sympathy for her when she found herself of need of it, especially from the very community she villified.

What we need of stories of successful post-transistion women, and there are far more of them and their stories. That's what's needed, not another see where I've been through story.

Second, Logo TV channel. Enough RuPaul and his dumbass drag show. And I'll add the new "Transform Me" show looking for transwomen to become beautiful women. What happened to just being ordinary and human? Why do we have to expect transwomen be stereotypical women who only want to look pretty?

It's stupid. It's ok to look good, and some of these shows are ok to see people transformed, but it's not the norm of women. Just sit at a local mall and watch women. How many dress up with clothes and makeup in public? Let's get real. Some shows do and are real about their transformation, but most push wanting to look beautiful.

Third, stop the confusing ideas of what's transgender and who's transgender. It's not right or fair to the many post-transistion and the many in transistion to be thought in the same way as drag queens, cross-dressers and other pseudo-transgender (neither of these are in the truest sense of the DSM) people.

There are significant and clear differences between those transistioning and especially those who have transistioned. They don't need or deserve the label the pseudo-transpeople claim as transgender and forget to distinguish. There is a clear and obvious difference and distinction between those being and living as women and those pretending to be women.

Clothes don't make you a woman, being does. Pretending and playing dressup doesn't make you a woman, living as one does. Dressup is fine when it's for the occasion as women do, but not when men want to wear the clothes for fun. The former take the clothes off and they're still women, the latter resume their life as men. Big difference.

It's the very reason the vast majority of post-transistion women walk away from the transcommunity and forget their past. It's not them and not what they want to go back to. And it's not what we need to see, especially in the life documentaries and in the shows. It's about being real and human versus pretending. Don't confuse the latter with the former.

Ok, I feel better.

Transistion Advice

2010-03-03T09:22:00.000-08:00

I read a non-public forum (can't directly link to the post) where someone posted their advice for a transistion, and unfortunately, after reading it, I couldn't disagree more. Their advice is well-founded and good, but my criticism is that it is entirely based on the individual in the transcommunity. To which I responded with the following.

I would only counter having one or two close friends who are trans or understand transpeople, and then avoid the transcommunity altogether. The peole in the transcommunity generally are either be dismissive (the cliquish attitude) or overly positive (unrealistic). Develop your friends and contacts among the rest of the world because that's where you'll live post-transistion, not with the commuity - unless you're a public figure who wants to be there or has little choice.

There a many transpeople who transistion without the transcommunity and use the wealth of professional and personal resources to get through and beyond their transistion. Many of the medical and other professionals provide the complete suite of services you need (physicians, surgeons, therapists, appearance, etc.) outside of community. They may support the community but they work with the clients individually, and not through the community.

I would say to find a good physician, therapist, and appearance specialists (face, wardrobe, etc.). They'll be more honest, understanding and supportive of you and your transistion to succeed than other transpeople being cheerleaders, or the opposite.

Don't think you need other transpeople or the transcommunity, and only support it, if you want, for the issues you care about. This is important if you don't want to develop the thick skin approach or don't want to live with the inbred attitudes often found in the community.

And realize most importantly, you can't put yourself back in the closet. So be very careful not only how you come out, but when. Coming out early has its pitfalls and puts undue stress on you and your appearance to meet expectations. You can actually get most of the way through your transistion to coming out just before going fulltime, and after you've learned what it takes and are ready.

I would go so far as to say, only do so when it's clearly obvious to others what you're doing, and even then do it cautiously and carefully. Waiting helps the understanding and acceptance by others as they've seen you change and are less surprised. This is important with your professional life and career where you want to stay without any significant impact. This is unlikely but less so when they value you and your work.

Anyway, that's what I wrote.

The Mobius Strip

2010-03-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

I've read over and over people describing gender as a spectrum. I've even used it myself. But since then, I've come to the idea that gender is more a Mobius Strip with male on one side and female on the other where any point on the strip has both and any direction leads to the other. To show this I use a demonstration.

Take a strip of paper, say a half-inch wide and 8-9 inches long. Write male on one side and female on the other side. In the middle on each side draw a line and 50%. On each end write 99% on each side (since no sex is 100% except a few rare girls) and 1% on both sides of the other end. Then twist the strip and connect the ends where the 1% on one side overlaps the 99% on the other. That's my idea of the Mobius strip of gender. It's the continuous spectrum and show anywhere you are you're both male and female.

If you follow the strip from one 99%/1% side around through the 50%/50% point, you'll end up at the other 99%/1% side. It's an endless, continuous spectrum. We're somewhere on the strip, and free and fluid to move any direction we are and want to be. We're fluid in our journey on the gender spectrum.

Being Alone

2010-03-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

Boy, do I feel alone. Not alone in the physical sense, but the political sense. Since the International Olympic Committee released it's recommendations and guidelines on suspected intersexed athletes, they've been verbally pummelled almost into oblivion, by every sports analysist and pundit alive. But not by the female atheles, only the retired ones.

Strange we're not hearing the women athletes disagree, after the case of Caster Semenaya. And this is where I feel alone because I agree with them. She should have never left South Africa (SA) to compete. The SA doctors suggested it to the ASA (SA's sports organization) there.

By all the public accounts, while Caster Semenaya was raised female, possibly due to some condition which prevented her from becoming fully male which is her genetic sex, they reported (or leaked) she has (maybe had as reports now suggest she had surgery) less than fully developed male gentalia and undescended testes, and a partial vagina, but no female sex or reproductive system.

Can someone still claim she is female? And when the testes kicked in during puberty which propelled her athletic abilities to the top of "female" athletes in South Africa, no one wondered why a girl was physically developing into a boy? But they did, tested and examined her, and knew. But the ASA still choose to let her compete.

And they wonder why the other female athletes said something?

No one doubts the IOC screwed it up, but only for politcal purposes and none did the right thing for the other athletes. They were lost in the discussion and decisions. Caster should have been disqualified and her times and wins removed from the record book. And then she could prove her case to have everything reinstated.

But the IOC didn't decide but waited, balked and then hedged their bets. And now they're hedging them again, but at least they're looking at the larger picture of women athletics and athletes. It's not about individuals but the sport. It's sad it's a binary system for competition, but it's what it is.

If you want to compete, chose one or the other but compete fairly, not with some predisposition for being the opposite sex disguised as the other gender. It's been tried and caught. Caster's case is no different. It's not about her life, her race or her abilities, and not her perceived gender. It's about her sex.

And that's what I disagree with the rest of the intersex and transgender communities. So I stand alone there. And there's very little which will change my mind. You can't be a boy, however undeveloped, raised as a girl and still be female. And the little will be the evidence proving me wrong, which is sadly lacking in the arguments on the other side.

They consistently argue around the issue and discuss generalities, and then overlook Caster's actual condition as reported. They seem to want to lump into a class of people she doesn't qualify, only if you stretch some definitions or characteristics, a lot too. They have yet to prove where she is actually genetically and physicall female.

Which they argue is prove she's intersexed. Only in that she was raised a girl. But where were her parents, her doctors and others who knew she wasn't quite, or really, female? She's not alone when they hide things from children, which she can say was part of her believe she's a girl.

Except she didn't change physically into a woman at puberty, but became more a boy. And she didn't wonder? I hope she wasn't and isn't that naive. We don't and likely won't know, but she sure knows now. And I don't see why she can't follow the procedures transsexuals follow to compete, where you can compete.

And to that end, until shown differently, I'll stand here, alone. Not against her or transwomen, but for women athletes. They deserved fairness too, which the IOC needs give them, which they seem to be doing now, and Caster needs to give them as a competitor.

There is a limit

2010-02-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

There is a limit to tolerating jokes about transpeople, or worse non-transpeople who people try to make into transpeople. Daniel Tosh on Comedy Central did just that when the network ran a 1:20 (min:sec) segment by him on the worldest tallest model. She is 6'8" among other measurements he cites, but more so, he tries to make her into a him.

There is a point where tasteless becomes offensive, and this segment passed it at great speed into the area that not just Mr. Tosh should apologize, which wouldn't be serious or accepted anyway, but Comedy Central should apologize to viewers but more importantly to the model and to transgender people. It's beyond comedy.

Apparently Mr. Tosh hasn't spent any time around tall women. Maybe he should visit a WNBA game and make similar comments about the women players. How long do you think he would last against them? How long would you think they'd take before they (verbally) cut his dick and balls off and stuff them down his throat?

And apparently Mr. Tosh thinks height equates to sex or gender. Obviously he hasn't spent much time observing the diversity of people. They come in all shapes and sizes. They come in all heights too. Maybe a group of tall(er) women should corral him and have a short conversation about his size as a man. Obviously Mr. Tosh isn't very tall. And mabye Mr. Tosh is hiding something too which isn't appropriate for his sex?

Mr. Tosh deserves whatever crap people can give him. Maybe someone should do a segment on him, the world's most tasteless gay man, who despite appearing to be of normal height, weight and physical size has his brain is in his dick, and is so small it took a microscope to find it. You could do a whole line of jokes about him similar to those he made about the model.

He only goes to show there is a limit to being totally tasteless, insensitive and offensive. Sometimes we see examples of the extremes well past the limit to remember where the limit is when being human, and leave it to Comedy Central to ignore the limits of decency to show the extreme. All the more reason I don't watch the channel.

Don't confuse the two

2010-02-14T13:30:00.000-08:00

Under the transgender (trans)community umbrella exist quite a few divergent and diverse groups, some people living in more than one and some moving between during their life, but most just sit in one. This is where the public gets confused and mixes one or more together or uses characteristics of one for another. They're all really vastly different and almost exclusive of the other groups.

And this is where the community at large and many of the groups confuse the public, sometimes intentionally and sometimes inadvertently to define the larger umbrella than the different groups. This is where some groups and members of those groups get misunderstood and face discrimination and often hate or anger. They're not what the people think but only what the community has presented.

Harsh? Maybe, but I was reading a column by a pair of transvestites or crosse-dressers, they didn't say which but they're two gay men who love to play dressup and go out as caricatures of women. Women they think women should be and they love to pretend to be. But they're not transgender, which they claim they are.

I say this because transgender means possessing characteristics signifcantly more of the opposite sex or gender than their birth sex. This means men who are women in their mind, and usually want to be and live as women, some to the extent they transistion into becoming physically female as much as medically possilbe.

Some call these people transsexuals to distinguish between transgender people. But the truth is that either way, men who only like to present themselves as women because it's fun, a hobby or other reasons aren't transgender in any sense of the definition, but they like to claim it for the purposes of discrimination laws.

And this is where the transcommunity shoots itself in the political foot. By wanting laws for the rights and protections of everyone under the umbrella, they hurt the ones who really want to be women, not occasionally, but 24/7, complete with changes to their birth certificate and all documents. They want to be women and leave their male history behind, far behind.

This is a divisive issue in the transcommunity and people who espouse separation between groups and especially independence from groups and the community are most often treated as traitors and enemies of the community, but this is the prevailing view of many in and post transistion women. The don't see themselves as trans anything and have little interest in the transcommunity.

And this is where they look at other groups in the transcommunity as hurting them and their efforts for acceptance and integration into mainstream life. When people keep identifying them as or with other groups, they feel they have to start all over explaining themselves. It's the never-ending cycle of misunderstanding.

It's why the vast majority simply walk away from the transcommunity, and since they are legally women, where the others aren't, they can and usually decide it's not their world or issues. It's why the transcommunity has a hard time keeping post-transistion women, they walk away and never look back.

Why should they? They were betrayed by the other groups in the transcommunity who confuse the distinction, claim they're like them, and then demand the same rights and protections. And then the "trannies", like those in the column, wonder why they're not liked? Where are gay men playing dressup the same as in or post-transistion women?

And the same applies to cross-dressers, only less so for the small percentage who do transistion, who are men who just want to dress as women. They're no different than drag queens or transvestites, only the reasons are different. They live and work as men, identify as men, usually married with families, and don't want to transistion to be or live as women.

So what's transgender about them? There's no overwhelming self-identity as women to want to be women, only to wear the makeup and clothes. That's not different, just their clothes, which often are similar as they like to dressup for parties, events or weekends, but not just simply living.

Still harsh? Yes, but I know some in and post-transisition women who feel that way, only those who stay with the community, as some are public or media people, have to or choose to keep their personal views to themselves, but most just walk away and forget the transcommunity exists. I don't and won't blame them. I agree with them. It's their life and right, not to be confused or misrepresented.

These two gay men aren't the transcommunity and should not decide or speak everyone in the community, and definitely should not think they're transgender. Don't confuse real differences, don't confuse the truth and reality, and above all else, don't consider you're the same as (trans)women. Clothes don't make you one, being and living does.

Being Touchy

2010-02-08T16:22:00.001-08:00

I'm a fan of the NPR show, "Wait, wait, don't tell me." with Peter Sagal, Carl Castle and the 3-panel guests. It's irrevelently funny, not just pushing the boundaries of satire, but often going beyond into bad reactions even from the audience long known for being understanding and tolerant of the show. But apparently they touched a raw nerve making fun of the term hermaphrodite, used by a Representative Duncan Hunter about the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

The truth is the show routinely does this in the obvious way. It's the nature of the show, so listeners must learn to leave their sentiments and sensitivities outside the theater when listening. And this was just one of those jokes. It wasn't meant to discriminate or hurt anyone. It was to make fun of Rep. Hunter's remark and not toward intersexed people.

And yes, I heard the show, as I try to do every week (and not on a podcast). And yes, I heard the remarks and cringed a little. But then I've cringed a little listening to many shows in the past. This is one of NPR's most popular programs, and maybe they give them a little more latitude than others, but it is the show's format and style too, and has won many listeners and supporters.

The issue with the show with the transcommunity and the intersex community is the use of the term hermaphrodite, used by Rep. Hunter and not the show. But, let's be clear here, the intersex community is not the one and sole judge of word usage. They're not the word czar with the word hermaphrodite or intersexed. And that's what seems to bothers both communities, the term offended both because they saw it as offensive.

And true to form, Ms. Autumn Sandeem, on Pam's Houseblend Website (trans issue blog of several contributors), took issue with the show over the term and remarks, apparently not understanding the show. She needs to step back and get a view of the larger picture. She's not the NPR's censor or guardian of taste or senstivity, just a listener, and apparently not one who undestands the show's premise.

She seems to have forgotten the content and context of the piece in the show. As Foghorn Leghorn would have said, "Relax, son, it's a joke." Maybe a bad one to you, but not to many who are just as sensitive to bad seemingly off-hand remarks, which these weren't if you know how the show is produced and presented. In short, she and others need to lighten up.

And yes, Ms. Sandeem, the show had mocked and satrized blacks, disabled and other people and groups, but always in a way it's obviously not hateful or mean. Tasteless maybe, but that's their style. The whole show is done with their tongues in their cheeks and sometimes sticking out.

The Double-edge sword

2010-02-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

It was announced this week a woman in Massachusetts won her case with the IRS in the US Tax Court. She filed her income tax statement deducting $5,000 for her sex reassignment surgery and other related expenses associated with her treatment for "Gender Identity Disorder", the term used in the DSM-IVTR for treating patient who are diagnosed with the identity opposite their birth sex.

The medical procedures are well defined in the Standard of Care under WPATH's oversight formerly the HBIGDA and endorsed by both APA's (psychological and psychiatric associations) in the DSM. Ok, seem straight-forward, except the IRS has routinely denied anyone the deductions on the patients taxes, even though the majority of health insurance companies refuse to cover the costs (considered cosmetic or elective surgery, depsite the medical evidence to the contrary).

This time the person one. The surgery, almost always paid out of the person's pocket (except those who sell their stories for TV news documentaries where the TV station usually picks up most if not all of the cost, which runs $20-25K). A few employers now pay some to most of the expenses for permanent employees under their health coverage (after the health insurance coverage).

That's cool, huh? Well, sorta', as someone may say. While many transpeople advocate for removal of GID from the DSM, called the depatholization, and some called for a new name as a condition, both of these would provide the avenue to deny or reject coverage for the therapy, hormones and surgeries necessary for a sex change (often called sex transformation now in the insurance handbooks).

That's the double edge sword. This decision opens the door to mandate coverage by insurance companies to cover a disorder defined in the DSM. Almost every other disorder or disease is covered to some extent. GID isn't to any extent. But to push for coverage, the name and label would persist. The patient would be diagnosed with a recognized disorder and open to a treatment plan with a "cure" including SRS.

The problem is that few, if any, transpeople call or consider themselves "sick" in need of a cure. It's a simply birth defect (wrong physical sex) than a mental disorder. This is in part what Alice Kalafarski makes in her essay at Bilerco. Unfortunately I think she misses a point.

While I agree with her view on the matter of being trans or having GID, I think she misses the point about the tax dedcution. It's easy for those who can afford SRS or those young enough to go in debt ot pay it off later. But the vast majority do need the tax deduction as the cost is prohibitively expensive, causing great financial sacrifice to the woman.

And for that, having a disorder and be "cured" is only temporary to getting the tax deduction. You can forget the label in time, but you may not be able to recoup the lost money. It's a trade-off each transwoman should have the right to choose than facing no choice.

And I don't agree it's about rights of transpeople over the rights of the individual transperson. I'll take the individual's rights any day. It's easy for those who have the freedom, and usually have finished their transistion, to forget others and their rights and often their problems to transistion, where money is almost always the overriding issue.

We shouldn't forget to fight for the medical community and especially the insurance companies to do what is best for the patient, provide the treatment for transpeople so they can affordably transistion and get on with their life and work as they know themselves to be. That's the priority, the everything else is later.

Misperceptions

2010-02-01T05:56:00.000-08:00

As much as the "transgender" community, called transcommunity here, strives for unity, and the much-sought but never realized commonality, it suffers from that very idea in the media and with the public, and feels totally frustrated with what's going on in and around it, bite their tongue and ego, not to create dissenstion and criticism at themselves, or simply become silent. Unfortunately, that's not solving the problem.

And the problem very simple, the very thing they promote, which is diversity. But unlike other diverse groups, who have some measure of commonality among the member or the goals of the group, the transcommunity doesn't have that because all the different subgroups don't have anything in common with other groups and don't have common goals.

It's due to the people in the subgroups, which is why they have the diversity and not the commonality. Don't believe me? I say this for several reasons.

Look at any pride parade. How many different types of groups of people do you see? Look at the LGBT community and support groups. How many different types of them are there and how many different types of people are in each of them? The reality is there is very little overlap between the types and groups, and it's usually only at public events where they can present unity. Except it's not there once the event is over.

Read the different media stories on "transgender people" or "transsexuals."

Look at all the subgroups. There are drag queens, often called female impersonators or illusionists, transvestities, cross-dressers, gender-queer, pre/in-transistion people and post-transistion, or legally recognized, people. Look at how the media often lumps them together or under common terms, so the reader can't tell if the person in the story is in what type and group.

Notice how the media overlaps the characteristics of one type into the other, even when describing individuals. Usually only in longer documentaries do you get to see the distinction and differences between the person in the story and the rest of the transcommunity.

Aake a look at the LGB community (without the T). They don't need, and often don't seek or want help from the transcommunity to advance their goals. They will more often than not forget if not exclude the transpeople in their work, discussion, publicity, events, etc, unless of course there are some drag queens for the media to call transpeople.

And they will drop the T when it suits their personal or political agenda. Look how long it took to get transpeople in the hate crimes laws. Look at the efforts to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). It wouldn't and won't pass with transpeople, but they promised to include it, except in the final version, it wasn't there. No thanks to Representative Barney Franks himself.

Take a look at cross-dressers' organization. They're independent of any other groups in the transcommunity and only get involved in "transgender" events or groups to put themselves under that umberella name, when in fact they aren't transgenders, but just men who like to play dressup (ok, a few transistion but 95+% don't).

Take a look at the trans-only groups. The run the gamut in their life, views and presentations, from the totally, and often long, stealth, to the totally non-passable. They disagree about every issue relevant to the members and community, and they're often the most unwavering people in their views, because in the end, it's about identity and being trans or not.

Take a look at post-transistion men and women. Where are they? Nowhere because they're legally recognized as men and women and don't need or want the transgender label or the help of the transcommunity. They have the Civil Rights Act to protect them as men and women.

In the end, it's really about six different ingredients when mixed together produce a worse result. It's not the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, but quite the opposite, the parts are better being parts and not being in the whole. And as much as the transcommunity strives for unity and commonality, it's time they woke up and realized it's not working for everyone.

Not true you say? Like many cities, counties and states have laws protecting LGBT people now.

True, but the LGB got that on their own effort and the transpeople got their recogniztion on their own effort. I won't argue the LGBT community has achieved a lot over their history, but it hasn't come with unity and commonality in mind but political expediency in mind. Many in the LGB community supprt transpeople and vice-versa, but rarely has it worked to achieve goals for both in one effort, but in separate efforts.

But I'm not at my point, the post-transistion men and mostly women who have long left the transcommunity and only stay in the LGBT community because they are LGB people now. They're not trans-anything, which is why they don't want the label, which is because they're not seen as men and women, at the fault of the transcommunity, as well as the media.

Really? Read any story about a post-transistion woman. How many times are they described as "transgender" and not transgendered (past tense), or worse they're described as a "transsexual." This is because it sells the story. But in doing that, often with the transcommunity's help and endorsement, it's keeps them under the umbrella, to the detriment of the individual.

Ask anyone about a post-transistion woman and they'll more often thiink of any of the other groups, but not just as men and women. The Amanda Simpson stories are good examples of a woman who transistioned 10 years ago but is still considered transgender. Why? It's not who or what she is now. So why does she recognize as transgender?

Do we call ex-addicts addicts in the present tense? Do we call ex-alcoholics alcoholics in the present tense? And other ex-something the same now as they were then? We don't. So why do we call them transgender when it's their past or history and not their present and future?

And many in the public confuse them with cross-dressers, transvestites, etal, because that's their perception of the whole group of people under the umbrella. They lump their view into a one-fits-all single description, when nothing could be farther from the truth. And worse, they confuse them with gays or lesbians, confusing sexual identity and orientation with gender identity.

Any wonder the vast majority of post-transistion women leave the transcommunity and don't look back.

Closet and Stealth

2010-02-01T05:52:00.000-08:00

I was wandering around the Internet, like we all do, and stumbled on an essay by Autumn Sandeen entitled, "The Closet Kills and a response by Helen Boyd, the author of books about her spouse. And I have some arguements with Autumn (who posted a comment here on one of my posts about Amanda Simpson).

She points out, but not in her writing but in her existence and identity, that she is a transwoman, or a transgender women, which ever fits your definition. This is exactly what she demonstrates is wrong with the transcommunity, and it's why the vast majority of post-transitions (legally recognized) women leave the community, if they ever were involved. They don't subscribe to that perspective about being.

The are as stealth as possible today, which isn't entirely possible and not guarranteed in the future, and they simply live their life as women in the world of women and the larger world of family, life, work, etc. They have earned and deserved that stealthness to ensure their privacy, security and safety, much of which Autumn seems to argue against and which she is wrong. Which is why I wrote the essay just before this one about transactivists.

They espouse a view that they think fits, or should fit, everyone, and in many cases, they do it out of choice or necessity. Choice because they could be stealth and for some situation(s) or circumstance(s) they chose to be out. Necessity because they had no choice as their looks or presentation doesn't pass for what many people think of women. So they're obvious and open to the pitfalls of human nature.

This is in part what some in the transcommunity argue about presentation. Namely the face. It's the first thing people look at when seeing, greeting or meeting you and it's the first thing they use to determine your gender. All in a few seconds. And from their own set of clues learned from their experience. Nothing we can change, and nothing we can undo. It's human nature.

It's why some in the transcommunity are baffled why some go through their transistion to get SRS (vaginoplasty) and be legally recognized as female but then have difficulty integrating into the world as women because they're not seen as women. Not as men, but obviously different. And then some wonder why they're not readily accepted and why their life is as hard or harder than before or even duing their transistion.

Stealth and closet isn't their public life. And often these are the ones espousing and sometimes shouting what others should be, like them, not stealth or in the closet, but out and even proud to be different. And they wonder why the message isn't followed except by those similar to them. All the ones who could be stealth are stealth, minus the few public ones where work, life or circumstances outed them.

But even then, they espouse a different view, one of being women. And the world doesn't seem to worry because they appear and present themselves as women, forgetting they're mentally, emotionally and spiritually women, only their past is different. They get through life as women because they fall in the range of normal women we recognize.

And in return, those, like Autumn, who are out and I'm assuming proud, argue their view against stealth and closet. To all the (trans)women who don't want to listen because it's not their life and world, they say they're not true to the greater community of transwomen, except they don't see themselves as transwomen, just women. Something Autumn seems to intentionally be blind or ignorant with in her view.

And in the end, she only goes to confirm in those who are stealth, and many in the closet, why they are stealth and not like her. While Autumn stands on her soapbox to espouse her view to the world, they just walk quietly getting on with their life.

The case of Caster

2010-01-25T06:37:00.000-08:00

I was reading an essay on The Bilerico Project by Patricia Warren entitled, "Olympics and the Coming Gender Inquistion". And the comments seemed to agree with her. I started to post my commnet but decided to post it here instead, mostly because I'm tired of being verbally pummelled when I disagree with the transcommunity. So here would be my response to here essay.

I'm curious, what will the lbgt, and especially the trans, commnity would say if, and maybe when, it is confirmed that Caster was born male and is physically male, with no female reproductive system and probably with some form of androgen insensitivity? Will you still argue Caster should still be allowed to compete as a female athlete?

Simply believing your a girl/woman is enough? And what about other similar male-born athletes who decide they're really women and want to compete too? And what if a female athele decides to transistion to being a man, taking testosterone, but still wants to compete as a female, her birth sex? Where is the line between male and female athletes? Isn't that what they established the standards for transatheletes in some sports (eg. golf, mountain biking)?

You criticize the IOC and IAAF, which deserves some for their ineptness with the case of Caster Semenya, but if they have to develop some rules for all female athletes, where do you suggest they draw the line, set the standards and require treatment for variations?

I think folks in the community need to take a step back and look at the large picture. It's not about one athlete who has a special condition, it's about fairness for all the athletes. Let's also not forget Caster chose to compete, she chose to step in to the sports arena and spotlight, and despite the way she's been treated by the IAAF, she doesn't necessarily have the right to cry foul when questions were raised. Like any athlete under investigation, she has the responsibility to prove her case, which she didn't even try.

I don't like arguing, even in the debate style, with diehard activists. They're deaf and blind to opposing views and often change the argument from the subject to the greater topic or the individual, as Andrea James did in her essay, "Caster Semenya and the Apartheid of Sex." She wandered around the question, and title of the essay, but never addressed it.

The end. This is what the transcommunity has argued with this case, either her right to be and compete, or about non-typical sex conditions in people, trying to fit Caster's into the larger scheme which needs protection from discrimination. But she and the others don't address the discrimination to the other female athletes.

And when someone does take them to task on this issue, they simply verbally pummel the person. And they wonder why many people, even current and former transgender people, don't like them? Talk about clueless.

Tough audience

2010-01-21T17:49:00.000-08:00

Why is the transcommunity so obstinate, and often arrogant, when people disagree with them, and worse, dissent from their opinion? It's like the whole community has this attitude you have to agree with everything and everyone about al transpeople and transgender issues, or you're not one of them, and maybe not a real transgender person. It baffles me.

I got kicked off of one forum for disagreeing with the owner/moderators in a discussion, especially asking why someone else was booted off the forum for her views. They then imposed a rule that I found unacceptable, but only wanted to ask about it, and the next thing I realized I was gone from the member roles, as was another person before me (and I agreed with her).

They are really touchy people. But they don't seem to see the differcence between a simple opposing opinion and an opponent. They lump all opposing views into opponents forgetting to separate the discussion from the person. Ok, why the post here?

Well, someone posted the lasted news about Caster Semenya and I responded saying I thought she shouldn't have competed with the women because she didn't fit the definition under the rules of being a woman. The problem is that the rules aren't very clear and the IOC and IAAF decides on individual cases. And Caster's sex/gender fell between the cracks in the words, except Caster didn't.

The issue is that even if Caster is physically an underdeveloped boy (possibly a vagina but no female reproductive system) but raised female, should she be allowed to compete with female athletes. The transcommunity shouts yes and I said no. I agreed with the female athletes who filed the complaint which started the whole mess where everyone screwed up, including Caster.

And now it's an ugly mess. But the transcommunity argues that being raised female was enough to make her female and qualified to compete. And everyone thinks her privacy has been violated. But I disagreed arguing she wanted to compete, and she chose to step into the arena and spolight to compete. And so, she can't cry foul when questions are raised.

But my point here is the sensitivity of the transcommunity and the many members. It's why many don't get involved and the majority of post-transistion women don't identify as trans, walk away from the community if they ever were a part, and don't for the most part, even care. They've living as women, or men.

And I managed to put myself in their proverbial doghouse, like I'm supposed to apologize for my opinion? Sorry, that's not going to happen, unless the obvious where I'm proven wrong or stupid, like that hasn't happened before. But hey, I'm human. But it's only part and parcel with many issues in the transcommunity.

For example, those who express the view of the binary gender structure as it exists in society are criticized for not challenging it. Why? Many local and state government have laws protections lgbt people, but they still enforce a sex/gender binary. The experts have long exposed the binary sex/gender structure as false, but it hasn't changed it. And who would want to be in a third sex/gender umbrella type anyway?

Like the transcommunity thinks that's better? Or more so, challenge the sex/gender standards by being out and different. usually done by the young genderqueer as they're called now, and my apologies if that's not what you like, but it's what's you're called. Like they expect everyone out and proud. For what? You don't gain anything and you likely will lose a lot.

What don't they understand? They bitch about thinking people should be out and proud then speak out about it when those same people are outed. This is shown in the case of Chinese model Alicia Liu. But who cares if she's transistioned, and why doesn't it matter she never said anything so far? Because of the publicity she's getting now?

And the list goes on, but it's not universal. I've noticed occasionally longtime members have criticized people in the community and expressed opposition to majority opinions, many not that different than mine, and they're allowed to speak with freedom and often with respect. But others, like myself, get verbally pummelled. Except not into submission or agreement, just verbally black and blue.

So why stay on the fringes of the transcommunity? Well, for friends and others in the community, because it is a human rights issue, and I like to challenge norms, whether it's society's or the transcommunity. I think they need fringe people to remind them their world isn't the whole world, and their reality isn't the reality of the rest of the world.

Many in the community know that and express that, but more often they're more diplomatic or eloquent where the criticism isn't obvious. The dance of words, except I'm more like Harrison Ford's character said in his movie "Clear and Present Danger" when he replied, "I don't dance." I didn't with my life and career, so why stop now?

Assumptions

2010-01-17T05:38:00.000-08:00

The one problem people who transistion from one gender to the other have when talking with people, usually because the other person(s) are curious, mystified, angry, and so on through the gamut of emotions known in reactions to transpeople, isn't their knowledge and experience, although some aren't fully aware let alone knowledgeable about being transgender, but the assumptions of the other person(s).

It's why there are so many misperceptions about transpeople, many of which are perpetuated by opponents with blatant lies and misinformation (and why just because it came from a "Dr", usually of religion or theology, and sometimes from a mail-order "university", it must be right escapes me). But everyone has a view of transpeople which they put on anyone they see as transgender or occasionally meet.

It's why transpeople can't get their individual story through to most people, they don't want to listen except to fit the story into their assumptions about transpeople. In most cases, they've already lost the person(s) to understand the truth about transpeople and the reality of their story. And they lost the person(s) to accepting them, unless those people have experience and a postitive view of transgender people.

And try as they have, the transcommunity hasn't overcome these assumptions because in many cases they actually perpetuate those assumptions. It's because many in the transcommunity use the umbrella explanation of transgender people, from drag queens to post-transistion people, without qualifying the subgroups or the individuals. And especially the differences, in ways people see and understand.

The transcommunity loves the umbrella idea while sacrificing the individuals. And it's the individuals who suffer the most. The transcommunity argues against transphobia but can't see how they perpetuate it. When people look at post-transistion women but think of gay drag queens, or heterosexual cross-dresser, it's no wonder they can't accept them as women. And it's no wonder those women can't seem to get accepted.

And the media, sometimes with the transcommunity's help or involvement, perpetuates this problem with their rhetoric and news about "transgender" women, trying to show them as normal women, except any normal woman wouldn't do what the media has transwomen do for the story, but then reinforcing the idea they're not real women, but transgender women.

They isolate them from the rest and the transcommunity not only encourages it but emphasizes it themselves, identifying them as transgender, forgetting to add the explanation where under the umbrella they are, leaving it to the assumption of the people reading, watching or listening to the story. They actually make it worse. Really?

Yes. Look at the press releases about Amanda Simpson, the second political appointee to the government (not one of the firsts in government, just for appointees). It was the transgender community who identified her as transgender, even though she had transistion 10 years earlier. She has a transgender past or history, but she isn't currently transgender, but simply female and a woman.

But the transcommunity did the damage, feeding the opponents to call her every transphonic and degrading description in the book about transgender people. Leaving it to their assumptions than making sure the properly identified Ms. Simpson. And then they argued against those people, except the damage was done to all post-transistion women. They created the fire and were angry when people added more wood to it?

And the transcommunity wonders why the vast majority of post-transistion women, and many in-transistion, don't come out or become public, but simply live quietly as women? Would you help someone who stabs you in the back? Would you want to keep expaining why all the assumptions about transgender women aren't true because the transcommunity won't fight for you?

Anyway, my point is simply that if you meet a transperson, wherever they are in the transistion, don't assume anything unless they tell you, and then remember it only applies to them, and not other transpeople. Every transperson's story and view is different, and many don't fit under the transgender umbrella or in people's assumptions.

So ask with a clear open mind and heart as you would anyone else. You might just meet a really cool person, and maybe a new friend.

Invisibility is ok

2010-01-15T06:19:00.001-08:00

With all the press releases about and public interviews by post-transistion women, but especially the recent appointment of Amanda Simpson to the Department of Commerce, obviously more than qualified for the job but overshadowed by the supposed "first" transgender person in the federal government, and then corrected to be the second, a Congressional staffer took the honor of the first appointment.

Or so we know. And that's my point, the cloak of invisibility, or as some in the transcommunity like to call it, living stealth (which isn't really stealth but that's another and contentuous subject in the transcommunity). All of a sudden, again, the transcommunity wants all the "invisible" transpeople, assuming they want to be identified as transgender after their transistion, to come out into the public spotlight.

And, to me, that's the worst thing they could do, destroy what peace and quiet they had after probably a very tumultuous transistion. To relive all the pain and sorry again, but in the public arena. And it's the dumbest thing the transcommunity can do, to ask them and if necessary, to expose them as (former) transgender people. That's the best way to create hate within the community from in or post-transistion people.

I won't argue invisibility hurts the transcommunity to show present and former transpeople are normal within the population, likely tens of thousands living and working without the knowledge of their history, except by the necessary small group of family, friends, co-workers (often none), professionals (medical, therapists, legal, etc.), and others (past friends, lovers, etal.). The numbers are large, probably on the order of 8-10 stealth persons to each public transperson.

But I will argue they have the right to stay stealth and not to follow the transcommunity. The transcommunity all too often creates more problems for people for their political agenda and goals than they solve for them. I won't argue some public (trans)people (meaning if they identify or not, the media and community identifies them as transgender) are terrific and wonderful advancing the public view of former transpeople.

And I will argue however, those who are public, should rememeber they don't have the right to speak for or represent the invisible ones, nor do they have the right to describe them as transgender for the transcommunity or for public acceptance. None of those people want to find their past becoming their future, and any words by public (trans)people should express that, as a few do very well.

They left the word and world behind, let's honor that decision and only speak for yourself. And only represent yourself.

Dear Ms Simpson

2010-01-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

Update.--- After an e-mail exchange with Ms. Simpson, I'm satisfied she'll do well in the job, as she earned and deserved it, and will put the matter of her former transgender identity behind her. I will take her at her word for now and expect she will do as she said. While the transgender community will continue to promote her and probably encourage her activisim, I hope, and will hold her accountable by her words, that she will not engage in activites for the transcommunity or transgender employees in the federal government unless it is part of her official duties.

And so to that end, I will keep this post to hold it as a record. The original is below.

Dear Ms. Simpson,

I applaud your appointment by President Obama to the Department of Commerce. I have no doubt you will do well and serve this country well. You more than earned and deserved the offer to accept to serve the American people. And I appluad your efforts to work with the LGBT, and especially transgender, community to advance public awareness of transgender people and people like yourself to transistion and live legally recognized in the sex and gender they know they are.

After reading a public statement you made about your appointment, you said you hoped this opened the door to many more (transgender and post-transistion) people in government, I do, however, have some words in response. First, not all post-transistion people want to be recognized as transgender. It may be your choice of words, it's not theirs, so please don't label them when they don't want it.

Second, surprising as it may seem, there already are transgender and post-transistion people in government service, in the administration, the military and even Congress. You're not the first, so please don't assume you're the only one. The others have long preferred to live and work quietly without the public label you identify with. Again, don't hurt their life and work for your agenda and cause.

And third, don't think you speak or represent them. And you certainly don't speak for me. Keep your tune and tone, and especially your opinion, to yourself about other transgender or post-transistion employees and people. They just might not like or appreciate the consequences of your words.

Anyway, that's it. Enjoy government service. And remember you're appointed, not a permanent employee, so understand the latter are great people having worked for the American people in government service. Don't abuse or misuse them for political purposes or gain. They definitely won't like that.

Take care.

Being Oversensitive

2010-01-05T06:13:00.000-08:00

After sitting on the sidelines watching the transcommunity for a number years, researching the history of the community, organizations, people, events, issues, and so on, and occasionally participating in discussions, I've come to the conclusion, really from my first group meeting, the transcommunity and especially the transgender part of the community, meaning mostly cross-dressers and transistioning women, are over sensitive and don't know when someone is making a point to poke fun, spark discussion, lighten the discussion or is making a tongue-in-cheek comment.

Not surprisingly few trans men join transgroups because historically they have a built-in support group in lesbian groups. Since they are female to male, most are or were butch lesbian (some use dykes), they don't need the transcommunity. For now anyway. Some lesbian groups are kicking transmen out because they want lesbians, not former lesbians turned straight guys. And they're not liking the testosterone effect on their former lesbians.

But that's off the point. Anyway, my point is that most of the people in the transcommunity haven't learned to lighten up in discussion and they take almost everything too seriously, especially internal opposition. And that's when it's worse. Question views or expresss alternative opinions or ideas and you will be verbally pummelled, if not expelled. As I have learned. Up to that point, you'll get criticized by the diehard transpeople (again mostly transwomen).

Extreme view? Maybe, but look at the recent situation with the appointment of Amanda Simpson to the Department of Commerce. I wrote as the first she will be the "token" women with a transgender past at such levels of government and she maybe (note maybe) a puppet for both sides, the administration to promote LGBT people and the transcommunity to promote one of them.

Except as I noted she's not one of them. She transistioned long ago and is legally female, not trans of any flavor, that's her past or history, not her present or future. And yes, she did work on LGBT boards and with LGBT groups as a transrepresentative. She even used it in her polticial campaign years ago. But now she's just a woman in a job.

It was the transcommunity who promoted the news release of a "transgender appointment" to the administration. And then they whined with the flak began. I kidding the "whining" part, but it was to be expected by the conservative and religious groups. What didn't the transcommunity not understand or see. They fired the first volley and didn't expect return fire, often as usually happens, very insulting and degrading?

It's why I walked away from the transcommunity and other than continue to watch from the sidelines, I don't get involved. There are many outsanding people and groups in the community, but like every larger issue, there are the often loud but always serious voices who don't tolerate opposition and especially dissent. And worst of all, they don't tolerate humor.

Don't poke fun at them in jest, least you want a verbal beating from members. I've always subscribe to the idea to take your issues serioulsy but not yourself seriously. But then always discuss any issue with an open mind and heart, to listen, understand and talk with honesty, fairness and always with some humor. There's humor in everything, it's makes life easier to swallow.

Unfortunately, in spite of all the good people in and good work of the transcommunity, they haven't learned to just smile at life. After all, it's funny it's in own right, just open your eyes and see. You'll feel better and learn to be more understanding and accepting, and yes, of opposition within and anger from outside.

Please Remember

2010-01-04T12:12:00.000-08:00

Please remember folks, the essays here are simply observations and thoughts on life from my perspective. My eyes and mind. Nothing more. And just my opinion from my knowledge, understanding and experience. As I knew then or know now. Nothing more. The essays don't necessarily mean anything beyond that, except occasionally some may have some general relevance.

While I'm not active in the LGBT community and through its organizations, far from it for personal reasons, I like to wander around a lot of areas of life looking in from the fringes and see what's there. And true that misses a lot of the details from being there, looking longer, or seeing more things, I've found most people inside aren't much different. It's being human with our own bias.

For all the words, just remember they're simply mine, open to discussion (through your comments), and always open to change when presented with good arguments, information and experience. I learn before, during and after writing, and often review and rewrite some of the essays. And I always quote the old adage you grandmother taught you.

What you don't know it or forgot it? It's the old adage, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.", to which I've always added some rules. First, if you can't express a negative in a positive way, then don't say it. If you can't add suggestions for improvement or change, then don't say it. And if you can't say it with humor, meaning, say it with glint in your eye, your tongue in your cheek, or a smile on your face, then don't say it.

So, that's it. What I write is all said with an open, light-hearted intent to think out loud, and right or wrong, no verbal pummellig allowed. The positive will stay the negative gets trashed. And both will show me more about yourself than your words.

Looking in the mirror

2010-01-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

It's what all transwomen do, look at the face in the mirror, to see if the face they've known all those years is the new face they want to be and live with. Some who are comfortable with makeup, namely drag queens, transvestities and cross-dressers, and some who transistion who use it for life, rely on the face in the mirror for confirmation.

And if you notice, it's how the media portrays transwomen in stories, dressed nicely with makeup and jewelry. It's what's expected of women, to want to be pretty with makeup and want to always worry about their looks. In the transcommunity, there are those transwomen, usually self-described as "girly girls." To them, it's often all about looks, especially the face.

But there also are also those who do it because it's part of life as a woman. It's not the reason, the need or the want, but the expected. This is true in many professions and jobs where clothes and presentations are standards, whether it's saleswomen in stores, managers in public roles, senior managers and executives with government, organizations and corporations.

In all those cases, it's about the face in the mirror, and how best to make it pretty for the day or situation. But it's not the way they normally live outside those situations. The majority of women today wear little if any makeup. A much smaller percentage wear it outside the workplace. And it's mostly two types.

The young women who wear it because it's part of their life. And the older women who wear it because it's part of their looks, and often necessary to get by. For themit's their face which isn't there without out it. It's what they want to see in the mirror, not liking what they see without it or wanting to look like someone else with it.

These are the transwomen who swear makeup, and the rest of the typical woman's world of clothes, fashion, jewelry, shopping, etc. is what women do because it's what women are. The criticize women who don't wear it and condemn transwomen who don't want to wear it. To them, it's often more about playing dressup than being a woman.

That's because very few make any real effort to be physically women, and it's why all the clothes, make and jewelry are necessary. It's a play to get away from being male and men than being women. The largest group under the transgender umbrella are cross-dressers when and where these standards apply.

But it's those who transistion who ignore those standards because it's not about playing women but about being women and the normal life of one. It's not the occasional day/night excurion, weekends, or even conferences to dress as a woman for awhile, but return to being male and a man who they are and live. It's the 24/7 life as all women live.

And that is where the face in the mirror is important. It's the one without makeup. It's about losing the face of their past and seeing the face they've always wanted. And makeup is optional as part of life, used when it fits, and not as a necessity when it doesn't. It's about being ordinary as a woman, and yes, it's all the plain and ordinary being of women.

It's also raises the question about transistions. The problem I've noticed with many post-transistion women is that they focused their transistion on their public presentation to get through the initial experience, often called the real-life experience and get to the sex reassignment surgery (or gender reassignment surgery in many countries). They want the vagina to be whole.

But they forget the face. Their face. Hormones make a lot of changes, obviously to body, and the less obviously to the face. This is where women split in their transistion. Some decide, either naively, blindly or intentionally, to see a face they want than the face they have. And despite all the information that the first thing people use to judge others is the face, especially for gender, they find themselves "clocked", and then angry.

They're angry they weren't seen as women and forgot their male-like face. And even with all the makeup in the world, you can't hide those features. The very face they saw in the mirror is the one which betrays them in public. And they didn't notice or want to notice. And they get angry at the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

It's also why many in transistion focus to get facial feminization surgery for a female face, often spending $25-30K for the work, including extensive bone work. And even then, it's a gamble. The resulting face may pass but won't pass their view of what they wanted to see. Realistic expectations often gets lost in the hope and wishes.

This is where the two groups divide. In their thinking, their transistions and their life after their transistion. The face in the mirror. To see what it is or what you want. To see it with reality or imagination. To see it without and then with makeup to be a woman in heart and mind reflected in the mirror, than hiding what you don't want to see.

In the end, the face others see is reflected in the mirror, and we can choose which we see.

Trans Puppets

2010-01-04T08:28:00.000-08:00

Reading about the appointment of Amanda Simpson to the Department of Commerce. No one doubts her creditials, but all the pundits are taking one of two sides. The first is that she is setting a trend for trangender employees to find jobs or careers with the federal government, except she's not the first, only the first political appointment. This is fine except for two things.

First, she's not transgender, but a post-transistion or legally-recognized woman. She transistioned years ago and long left the label and identity. Second, by using the term to describe her, she's becoming a puppet for both sides, or really all sides. She's used by the transcommunity as a shining example of a (trans)woman - they add the prefix trans. She's used by the LGBT community for equal opportunity. And she's used by the government to show they're trans-friendly.

All except she was appointed for her creditials, or maybe only mostly so, and I suspect partly because she's repesentative of "transgender" women. Meaning all post-transistion women aren't really women, despite all their effort to be physically (as medically possible) women and legally female. The world will still treat them as transgender. And that's the sad part.

Amanda accomplished a lot before she transistioned, and more afterward. And although she, like almost all transwomen, who transistioned on the job with the same company, she didn't advance during and after her transistion. Companies advertise support and protection for transgender people, but they always find a way to redirect their work and career out of the public eye and away from their career path as a man.

It's why all post-transistion women have big valleys in their career from the start of their transition to several years after they finish. Almost all never reclaim the same professional level after as before. If they do, it's usually outside the company they started with and more often in other careers or work. Generally only artist tend to stay in same profession because it's what they do and are known.

A few do go on to bigger and better things. But only after years of little or no work for years, sometimes near a decades, and after reinventing themselves. We are still a society that allows people to transistion, but we haven't allowed them their work and careers without professional and personal discrimination.

Until of course, it's happens to fit a political agenda. Like Amanda Simpson. I wish her well and know she will do well, but she's now stuck being the token transgender women during her career with the Department of Commerce. Something she likely didn't want but has, and will have to work harder to prove herself both as a manager and a woman. That's not different as any other woman, but she has an extra burden too, her transgender past.

Political puppets are that, and try as they do and as much as they succeed, in the end, they're still puppets. No different than other polticial puppets, only a different flavor one.

The space in between

2010-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

It seems most people consider sex and gender to be binary, the either or thing with male-female and man-woman, and some people consider it to be both but usually distinctly either or, namely in the definition of transgender or transsexual people. But as the transcommunity has seen, some people live in between, often labelled the gender-queer, because even the transcommunity treats them differently.

We also know that transpeople aren't mutually exclusive of the opposite between their birth sex and mind gender, meaning they're not all distinctly trans, but somewhere between balanced and slightly on the other side. They're not comfortable being who they were but they're also not comfortable with the expectation of the other side and especially the trans-side.

In short, they live and are in the space in between sexes and genders. It's where they're comfortable, if only society, and even the transcommunity, would let them be and live. But that rarely happens as people want to know which they are and which they want to be. Like it matters? It doesn't to anyone. They're not hurting anyone, but people don't like them challenging that imaginary binary.

So, the pressure and stress on them isn't as people think, their confusion to decide, but from people pushing them from both directions, when all they want to do is live as they are and see themselves. It's hard when it's an either or world and you're an "and" person. The signs don't fit. You don't fit. And everyone makes assumptions about the way you dress, speak, behave, and everything else you.

And sadly, this is also prevalent in the transcommunity. They like little boxes to describe and fit people. They tolerate people moving between boxes or living in several boxes, but not people living outside their boxes, and living in their own space and only a box if there are others doing and being the same. The transcommunity is often as harsh or cruel as the public, except it's inside the community where people can't see.

Why this idea? Well, I've always been a non-box person, besides an out-of-the-box thinker. I've don't like being in or put in boxes. I don't fit in them. I like walking around and peeking over the tops of boxes to see who and what's inside. I like living in the space in between boxes. And I'm not much different with gender.

To be honest, I've never really fit inside any model of what to expect of being a boy or man. I've always just been myself and almost always by myself. I'm very comfortable being alone (and note not lonely or a loner, just being alone). And I'm the same with gender. When I was told it's what a man does, I wouldn't do it unless there was no other choice.

I didn't like doing it. But I also knew it's what family, friends, work, and so on up the scale of our life and world, expected men do. So I tried, but many times, I simply decided not to or walked away. It's my personality, character and temperament. But I also know that all of me would fit better inside a woman and than a man. And that's the conundrum in my life.

I don't consider or see myself as transgender or trans-anything, just me, and just trying to fit into an "or" world with an "and" mind, and living in the space in between.

What's with the word

2010-01-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

What's with the word trans and add your own suffix, such as transgender, transsexual, etc.? I don't get why people want to use the term to describe themselves. I guess I can understand using gender identity condition, since it's not a disease or disorder, much against the American Psychiatrist Association (and the other American Psychological Association), but even then, that's just a medical description.

Gender Identity is not a personal one and not one I would use to describe myself, albeit I'm not far from it by some measures, but then we all have gender identity issues about ourselves. Well, most of us do, and those who don't, don't know they have issues about their identity. Sometimes blindness or ignorance is helpful if you don't want to challenge yourself.

But trans-anything when it comes to sex or gender baffles me. I read these blogs and the vast majority of the individuals call themselves transgender or transsexual. Like it's a button you're required to wear? They don't go through life wearing it, so why do it on their blog? So the reader won't find out and feel betrayed or worse?

Yes, I understand it to some degree. It gives someone identity to establish who they are by standards set by the medical community, society, media, etal, and to show people it's who they are, maybe different but still normal among all of us. And truthfully, there really isn't a good word to describe the places on the spectrum or myriad of humans.

Our language isn't like others which have different words for nuances of definitions, like the Inuits have for snow or the Japanese for rain. We're a lumping language instead of a splitting language. It simpliifies things with a word for a broad stroke but then requires either adjectives or supporting phrases to provide the details or finese.

But it's hard when you want to describe something so clear and subtle, but then find you need a sentence or a paragraph to explain something which could be said in a word. Simplicity has value, but not at the expense of the lack for it. We cherish great literary writers, for the great prose and use of words. But if they didn't need so many?

I find it somewhat sad our language is so difficult to describe the human heart and mind. And trans-sex/gender isn't a bad word, only often a misused, an abused or a derogatory word used to demean or condenmn people for being themselves, but different from others. And the truth is we're all trans to some degree. We're not immune from our own language. Only some people more so than others.

But what baffles me even more is when people use it to describe themselves even after their transistion to become legally recognized, or post-transtion, men and women. It's your past and not your present or future. It, however, gives the media something to key a story about you. But it's why I wouldn't use it and would hate someone describing me with it.

I write this after I read the public announcement of Amanda Simpson appointment to the Department of Commerce by President Obama. After the details of her career, it ended with an afterthought that she was a transgender person. LIke it mattered about her skills, intelligence, professional experience for the job? It didn't but it mattered to the LGBT community for one of their own.

Except she isn't having transistioned years earlier while working for Raytheon. I doubt she recognizes or identifies herself as a transwomen, only a woman. So why make it important? For one, they pushed her as a "transgender" woman to show they're supportive of the LGBT community and people. And for another, the LGBT community pushed her as "one of them."

Except she's not. Maybe was, but only if she wanted to use the word. Otherwise, it's irrelevant. And it does, would, and will, for me too.

The silent majority

2010-01-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

I follow the transgender community, along with many other issues, subjects and groups. I do this for a number of reasons which I won't say much beyond the fact the reasons are there. But following and participating are two vastly different matters, which is always intriquing to me because the transgender community assumes transpeople agree with them, or at least publically, but far too often not privately or personally, to avoid showing the deep divisions in the community amongst the different subgroups of people.

And this is what is interesting, because the smallest active group in the transcommunity are the legally recognized, or post-transistion, men and women, those who have finished the medical process and legal avenues to be physically their (target) sex or gender and to have all, or all those possible, legal documents changed, starting with the name change and birth certificate.

And this group has long been claimed by the transcommunity and long labelled by the media as transgender or transsexual. But they're not. The courts are more and more recognizing they're legally male or female, without any qualifier, especially trans-anythng. They're just one of the many men and women in life and the world.

But the interesing point is the numbers of those who after their transistion, silently leave the community if they ever were a part of it, whch sprisingly most do not because the resources available today allows them to simply go through their transistion without ever belonging to let alone being a member of any support group.

In earlier years the support groups were the only resource for transpeople, especially transistioning ones. Wth the Internet, some moved to and found the resources on Website and forums. It's all there, the information and the people, without ever really meeting other transpoeple let alone going or belonging to a group. It's the new indedepence of transpeople, and now the largest way people transistion.

The membership of transgroup is fairly stable at best and decling at worst, mostly becuase they depended on member for money. Without it, and the continued longterm membership getting tired of more and more costs for less return, groups are struggling in many places. And they're attracting fewer new people while the number of new people increases. Which leads to the new reality.

When you do the back of the envelope (or napkin wherever you are) calculations with the number of new legally recognized men and mostly women, simply using the statistics from the current number of surgeons performing sex reassignment surgery, required for women but not men, adding an estimate for the latter, and the number of active or public legally recognized men and women, you discover the reality.

The number of legally recognized men and women not active or public outnumbers the public or active, out of choice or circumstance such as career, life, etc., by a factor of greater than 10 to 1. The percentage of silent legally recognized men and women is about 95% of the total men and women. And this is a conservative estimate and possibly in the 98% range.

They're leaving because they don't see or identify themselves as transgender or transsexual, but simply men and women. The genes are different, and their anatomy is obviously slightly different, after all medical science and technology can only do so much to change the body between the sexes, but the mind isn't different. Even brain research is more and more showing the brain is physically more similar to their non-birth (transistion) sex than the norm.

That's why being transgender is a physical condition and not a mental one, and definitely not a mental disease or disorder, as currently catagorized in the DSM-IVTR. And it's why they think, act, and behave as their identified gender and not their birth gender. And why, once finished with their transistion, they are simply men and women.

Just like everyone else. Just normal like everyone else. Granted the differences, but let's remember we're all different, and we're all a mix of male and female, it's what makes us human. We're not exclusively male or female but some proportion, only transpeople are more the other. But that's a tanget point.

The point is that the transcommunity has no right to call legally recognized men and women transgender and claim them as one of them. They are exclusive of the community once they finish their medical and leagal transistion. And it's why 95+% walk away and never come back.

And it's why their silent. To speak out means coming out. And coming out means becoming public, the last thing they want if they can help it. They don't want to be one of "them" which people associate with drag queens, transvestites, cross-dressers and pre/in-transistion transpeople. They're not and don't want to be.

And it's why the silent majority will never be seen, let alone known. The sad reality of coming out. So silence is better than the alternative.

Why transistion

2009-12-29T05:42:00.000-08:00

This is the often one of the more debated, or argued, subjects with transpeople, who don't know how to explain why they transistion, and the non-transpeople who think they're nutcases who don't accept their birth sex and body. You can talk all you want about it, but it boils down to the understanding the question, "What if you were born in the body of the other sex?"

What would you do? And to a person, the answer is always the same, in different words, "I'd transistion, such as when Jennifer Boylan asked Oprah, "What would you do if you were born with a penis and testicles?" She instantly responded, "I'd cut them off!" That's the crux of the issue non-transpeople don't get until faced with the reality of being in the body of the other sex.

And in the end a transistion isn't really about all the clothes, makeup, etc., the stuff of life we use to get through the world and life, which the media likes to focus on to show transwomen are "real" women by the standards of normal society. They don't get all transwomen want to do is fit in and be accepted, and then get on with their life as women. Nothing more.

I won't argue some like the clothes, makeup, shopping, etc. Many women and many men, although they won't say so, like shopping. It's just all relative to the products. But then many women don't like shopping and don't care about clothes and makeup. If you don't belive that, watch women for awhile and you'll see the greater precentage wear little or no makeup and most wear everyday clothes for convenience, like jeans, t-shirts, etc. Just like men.

But the real reason people transistion is simple. To be physically whole and right. That's it. Nothing more. Once there, they're happy to be who they know they are and wanted to be, just a woman, like any other women, minus the obvious genetic differences which can't be added, not that they wouldn't want that too, only medical science hasn't gotten there yet.

That's not hard to understand. Where transpeople have long wanted, often dreamed and some prayed, to wake up with the right body, the rest don't realize how lucky they are they already have the right body. But then think if you didn't. You wouldn't feel whole or right, and you would want to do everything to change matters? It's the same thoughts, feelings and emotions transpeople have.

Not hard to understand then is it?

Suing for what

2009-12-28T09:13:00.000-08:00

Update 12/29/09).--Apparently this may be a hoax. Or so says the attorneys representing Caster Semenya. They're in discussioin with the ASA and IAAF over her status and publicity, but they say a lawsuit isn't in the plans. So, I sit corrected about the story, but not my view if it happens. That won't change, only if the lawsuit is real or not.

Original Post.--I read today (12/28/09) that Caster Semenya is suing the International Associations of Athletics (IAAF) and Athletics South Africa (ASA) for a combined value of $138 Million. Yup, that's a lot of money. It seems, according to the news story, the IAAF and ASA mishandled her tests and public release of the results that she is a hermaphrodite. Like professional (even the "amatuer" ones are professional when the train 24/7) athletes have any right to privacy when they compete?

It's interesting to see almost everyone in the transgender community supported her when she competed in the summer games, and won so handlity it raised obvious flags something was right with this girl. Recently both the IAAF announced she could keep her medals and title from the summer games, but they didn't mention if she would be allowed to compete in future games, or at least not without some changes.

I for one sided with the other women athletes who were wronged. Caster is a unique person, no doubt, but she's far from being female on the same level as, to use a phrase, "normal" athletic women. I felt the complete test results should have been made public so everyone knew who she was. That's no different than any other athletes who assumes test to confirm their sex or drug compliance isn't private.

The problem know is we won't know exactly what she is, what form of hermaphrodite to better understand the situation. All we know is what has been released, which was she was born male with internal testes and possibly an external vagina, and no female reproductive system, not something women have. And the testosterone when the testes worked clearly effected her body and abilities, and unfairly as the other women athletes maintain. And I agree.

What the transcommunity fails to understand is that this isn't about one person alone, but one person in context. The international athletics organization have established rules for transpeple to compete, and Ms. Semenya didn't meet the critieria to compete in women's events as a woman or a (trans)woman. It's that simple.

And now she's suing. I'm sorry for her but, as I've said before, she stepped into the spotlight to compete, and winning, as she clearly did, put her being and history into the spotlight. She can't say now she was damaged and wants compensation for the embarassment and mental damages. She wanted to run and even if she knew the consequences or not, she knew she would get attention.

That doesn't merit suing the organizers. She has a legitimate complaint against some people in South Africa who let her compete despite knowing the truth, which we'll never know, yet anyway. The trial may open those pages. But she doesn't have a complaint beyond that. She should have known about herself and her condition, and she still wanted to compete.

No doubt she was a victim of gender politics. No doubt she was used by the ASA for their agenda. And for that she deserves some compensation. But she doesn't deserve to add to the gender politics herself by making her the issue. And I expect the ASA and IAAF will settle the matter for considerably less to avoid the publicity of a trial.

And that's the sad part of the whole thing. She's adding to the calamity, putting herself in the spotlight again. And maybe this time we'll get more information about her and the situation, which is exactly the opposite of what she wants, the public release of the truth. But she did flip the light switch on herself, and for that, she has no one else to blame.

And in the end, she proved she's as normal as everyone else. It's not about what happened. It's about the money.

A must read

2009-12-26T07:30:00.000-08:00

Recently I found a blog about a mother with a young girl in transistion (ok, meaning born physically a boy and mentally a girl, and if you can't grasp that, then think of a girl born with a physical condition different than most girls). It's about Jen and her daughter Hope, found here. I can't begin to imagine all the issues being a mother and mom with someone like Hope, just trying to provide a safe environment for her to grow up surrounded by the world we live in today.

She does it with character and courage, for both Hope and herself. The number of families with transchildren isn't really known, and really shouldn't be known so the families can simply be families and not live in fear of public disclosure or being ostracized by friends and neighbor, because in the end, children are who they are. They don't hide themselves, only the truth occasionally when it's not on their side (haven't we all done that?).

It's only the transchildren who are pressured by their parents and siblings into not being themselves. These children learn to hide their innate sense of being in the clothes and behavior of their birth sex because it's expected. The will do this until they can open and express themselves as they've always known and felt. It's the sad reality parents don't see their children to help them than suppress, and some even oppress, them.

Rather than teaching love to their children, they're teaching the opposite, which will be expressed as angry, hate, and so on as they know and fear being discovered and the consequences. Worse so, they're teaching self-hate, which turns into other outlets to hide themselves. And this often leads to depression and all to often suicide, which is several times higher then non-trans children and teens.

But here we find a woman believing in her child to be themselves, and support that as best she knows, and facing all the problems of raising a daughter, an exceptional one at that. Thanks Jen for sharing.

Don't speak for me

2009-12-23T06:30:00.000-08:00

I am tired of theses article and columns on "What is..." this or that type of sexual or gender identity. Like everyone has to inform the reader what sex and gender is all about. Kinda' like Sex and Gender 101. Well, it's just your opinion, as is mine on the same issue, but I don't speak for you and you don't speak for me. So stop trying to provide the definitive view of it because you think your understanding is right or better.

Yes, I know there are some obvious common language that fits the definition of sex and gender, but that's not the issue here. It's the definition of the terms, such as transgender and transsexual. There are as many definitions as Baskin-Robbins has had flavors in their history, and all are variations of many used before. Not even the medical community has common definitions outside of official books on standards such as the DSM.

And yes, I know I also define and use the terms and other words in the same idea, but it's always for the discussion and not meant for anything beyond that or for anyone else, just to ensure points and ideas in the essay are understandable. After that, the terms don't apply to anything or anyone else, not even me. Nothing more and nothing less. Not better or right, just mine then.

And yes, I have a fundamental definition I believe is fair and right for me, but that's it, just me. I don't expect anyone to accept my definitions, as I don't accept other people's definition. It's how I see myself, but I don't see others or think others should see themselves or see me. So, in the end, speak only for yourself. And don't speak for me.

Backward thinking

2009-12-17T05:50:00.000-08:00

After President Obama signed the Hate Crime bill Wednesday (10/28/09) adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of people protecting, the religious and conservative "family values" organization came out of the woodwork to market the idea that this is wrong, somehow against America and "normal" values. Oh, how backward thinking they are and how they never will understand, and that's because they don't want to, see the truth to their own false arguments.

What they preach is that these are additional values on top of the rest of the rights and protections we have as citizens, and it creates special rights and protections. Well, it does protect gay people and transpeople, no doubt, but those people are not identitifed in the Civil Rights Act for protections which the rest of us have. They're excluded by definition and therefore excluded from rights and protections based on who they are.

The religious and conservatives need to refresh their understanding of the law, because they have it backwards. They have been denying rights and protections to gay people and transpeople under any law, and specifically excluding them from any rights and protections we have based on being homosexual or transgender. That's not what faith is about, and certainly not what God and Jesus would preach, and it's not American.

It's pure and simple discrimination on their part. And their arguments are the stuff of cow pasture material, and not worth much else. It's based on falsehoods and misunderstandings, all intentional to confuse people from the truth. And lying in the name of God isn't good, right or fair. They know that and should apologize to the transpeople of this country for their bigotry and hatred.

They know God accepts everyone, whatever their faith or religion, whatever your values and views, and whatever your sense of being. They know God does understand human diversity and while maybe not liking the violence and injustices done by people, he will accept them to see they understand the errors of the ways and life.

And they know Jesus would sit down and cherish transpeople as he would everyone else, to speak of love and kindness, and to speak against the words of hate. They know it's about acceptance. They know that, and still they speak against other human beings who have done nothing wrong or anything against the word of God or the teachings of Jesus.

In the end when they die and meet God, God will admonish them for the hatred and will remind them how wrong they were to treat people like they did and how backwards thinking they were when the preached of hatred and bigotry. And all the transpeople will still be admitted to heaven in spite of all their misguided rants.

Body Consciousness

2009-12-17T04:42:00.000-08:00

I was struck the thought, which isn't rare but none to date have been really new, or news for that matter, that we all have a consciousness about our body, from really very little to the extreme, which isn't the vast majority of transpeople who want to be and live as the other sex and gender, with the exception of course of some like Amanda Lepore. But then she's extreme like many women who have undergone extensive and numerous cosmetic surgeries to change their body, face, and whatever else they don't like about themselves to be better accepted or beautiful.

What struck me was the consciousness of transpeople that makes their experience unique and separate from everyone else's experience. We all have some physical aspect of ourself we don't like, even hate, and wouldn't mind changing it. I'm no exception there as I was frequently reminded of what I wasn't when I was young. Being self-conscious about my body then would be an understatement. And it hasn't changed as I've aged, only the body getting older.

But what differentiates transpeople is the one thing about themselves no else experiences and can't understand why they want to change it. Simply their gentalia. It's what Jennifer Boylan described on the Oprah show once about the sex reassignment surgery all transwomen go through to become physicall (as medically possible) and legally female. All states require it to change your birth certificate, minus only two states to date which don't, Tennessee and Ohio.

Anyway, Jennifer Boylan explained why transwomen want a vagina to become as whole for themselves as women and female as possible, and to rid their body of the last vestage of maleness. When Oprah questioned why, Jennfer replied, "What would you do if you were born a boy with a penis?"

As you can imagine, Oprah said, "I'd cut it off!" All the explanation in the world about why won't match that one question, to translate their body consciousness to someone else in a way they can begin to understand. And that is the crux of the issue, if you can understand being born and living with your identity in the body of the opposite sex, then you know what's it like to be a transperson.

That's the defining part because the vast majority of men and women take their gentalia for granted. It's simply their innate sense of themselves and their body. They match. They may worry about other features but very rarely that, although some men and women have cosmetic surgery there too, but to fix or enhance the existing gentalia, not to change sex, but they don't know the feeling of hating being another sex.

And that's only that which makes transpeople different. Everything else is the same and why in the end we're all the same in just wanting to be comfortable in our own skin and with our own body. All they want is to be like everyone else where the body and mind are innately the same. That's not hard to understand, just being human and being yourself.

It escapes me

2009-12-16T05:39:00.000-08:00

It escapes about marriages when one of the partners transistions. I was reading a forum where a women in transistion announced her (formerly his) wife was leaving her. And she was devasted. Like what didn't she see? This (in transistion) woman was dismayed her wife wan'ts as loving anymore and wasn't in love with her anymore. Like that's new or news?

I don't mean to be hard with these women but I'd baffled what they missed in understanding who and what their partner married and what they expected during their marriage. It wasn't a post-transistion lesbian marriage. Heterosexual women want to be married to men. To love and be loved by a man, not a post-transistion woman. What's not to understand?

And the transcommunity is always sorry about it. But no one wants to talk about the elephant in their marriage, like were you consciously blind or ignorant of the reality it's more than likely than not (like 90% or better) your marriage will end and your family disingrated into angry people, feeling betrayed by their husband and father. And it will take many years to resolve that, if ever.

I've been through a divorce, a very amicable one, but not for any transistion, just our lives and ourselves were so radically different we decided to let the other one find someone they would want to love and be loved. We've still been friends over the years after the divorce, and her second marriage. And we know we did the right thing.

But had either of us decided to transistion, it would simply be the choice of the other one to accept and make the decision to leave the marriage or stay with the new person. As much as transistioning women think it's only their body changes, everything changes, and everything between them and about them changes. What's not to see there?

But apparently it's easier to hope than see reality. It's easier to avoid the question to their partner, "What is best for you?" It's easier to just continue to think everyone will understand and everyone will adjust or adapt to what you want and who you become. Except it doesn't happen.

Then the truth and reality is standing there immediately in front of you as they turn the heads away and then turn their backs to you. And you are feel betrayed and unloved. Ok, that's understandable and lamentable. But it's not a fairy tale where everything works out and everyone lives happy ever after.

That's overstating the scenario because I know in-transistion women see and know what's going on. They have those conversations with their partner. But almost all of them subconsciously seem to think it will work out and their partner will be there through and after their transistion, and to want to stay married to them. It's about love, and it's always blind.

That's a sad reality but a true one. Transistions involve families, something often or frequently lost on those transistioning because the transistion takes so much time, energy and focus on it and everything around it, loved ones are just another factor in it. Important, but still not fully supported by those transistioning, which leads to the surprises by their partner and family.

This is all too often true across the lifestories of those transistioning and usually only seen in hindsight, when it should always be there, even above the transistion. It's why some don't transistion, despite the overwhelming feelings to transistion. They fear the loss of loved ones more. But this isn't commonly known because these people aren't visible or vocal.

And so we hear or read about another marriage dissolving from a transistion. Sympathy and empathy are helpful, but honesty would be better.

transistion or die

2009-12-02T05:47:00.000-08:00

Reading the blogs and forums over Mike Penner - Christine Daniels' suicide, I keep reading about the (trans)people who faced the choice to "transistion or die." It's always interesting to read because they always say it in hindsight. I say always because those who succeed can't speak for themselves. But those who transistioned never talked about suicide, let alone attempt it, before or during their transistion.

So, it becomes a handy excuse or reason to transistion. I had to transistion because I would die. Really? I mean you lived to the moment you decided to transistion. You lived through your transistion. And you lived after your transistion. So, exactly where was this sense of suicide?

In truth it wasn't there. They may have talked about thoughts or feelings of suciide - note it's now a major aspect of anti-depressant warnings, but suicide is about a sense of failure. It's about being so depressed about yourself, and in your world and life, that you sense it's an answer. You can argue the rightness or wrongness of it, it's real at the time.

But it's only real in those who succeeded and the few who survived an attempt. And I suspect, it's less about their transistion, than fitting it into their life and world. They knew who they were, but they couldn't reconcile that with the rest of the world and everyone else in their life. There was no place for them.

Many argue transpeople fit into the suicide potential model, and it's true for some. But it's not true it fits into suicide, only those who attempt it and sadly those who succeed. Making suicide a reason doesn't make it right or make any decision you think is based on it right. Only handy to believe you made the right decision.

Understand, I'm not condeming those who use the term. It's helps knowing the decision to transistion was right. Only, it wasn't a reason to transistion. We choose to live and then we choose to transistion. It's disingenuous to use suicide as a reason when it was the choice we made than the excuse we use.

Gender politics

2009-11-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

Why is it a sad day for women's international track and field sports? It was announced that the test resutls for Caster Sememya won't be released to the public, but she will get to keep the title to the races and title she won in Berlin in August. Why does this smell of politics between the South African sports union and the international sports federation? And under the table deal to keep from going public with the obvious?

So, what about all those tests, some of which were leaked and some of which prompted the doctors in South Africa to recommend she not go and compete in Berlin? Did they lie? Hardly. And what if in time, it is proven she is not female by birth and has not gone through a transistion required of transathletes, and in truth is an underdeveloped boy? And maybe the testes woke up to start working, which may explain the sudden burst in her times in less than two years.

I'm sorry for her, but being raised female doesn't make you physically female if the genes and resultant developement isn't there. The earlier repots cited she didn't have a female reproductive system - meaning no ovaries or uterus, she had undedescended testes, and she had elevated level of testosterone, even higher than normal female athletes. A girl she may be, but a female she is not.

I'm sorry for all the women athletes who were cheated of the truth and cheated of fair competition. In order to save face, organizers decided one person was above the rest. That's discrimination at best, and whatever you want to call it at worse. I think, all apologies aside to Caster, the truth should be revealed. It has in the past for female athletes, so why is this case different?

Everyone should have been up front about this. She put herself on center stage in Berlin. She should accept the consequences of that and the decisions what's fair for the sport, not herself, which seems what is happening. And the leaders are simply exercising gender politics as usual.

It escapes me

2009-11-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

The studies show the first thing people look at and check when meeting someone new, or just watchiing people for that matter, is the face, followed by their facial expressions. The second, if they can, is the voice. And the rest are the overall person or body, their presentation, their expressions and behavior, and so on down the line.

It's human nature, and in spite of what we eventually like about them, we all follow this general pattern when we look at people. And as the studies have shown, it's down quickly and almost conclusively where it's difficult to change their initial impression. Hard as we may try, it's already done and the best we can do is make them rethink it.

So, do transwomen (I'll use this to dentote those in transistion), and post-transistion women (for legally recognized women who have finished and have had SRS and their documents changed) not know this? How many times have you seen one (either) and knew instantly they weren't female (by birth)? And how long did it take you to then identify them as former trans or post-trans (since you can't tell the difference from the outside)?

This is the argument the transcommunity makes about passing and the old issue, those who pass disappear into society away from the transcommunity, except those publically out or known. Those who don't are stuck. But they don't have to be stuck in some ways. It's called cosmetic facial surgery and there are quite a number of surgeons who will change the masculine facial feature to feminine features.

It's why some in the transcommunity will tell any transwoman and especially all post-transistion women, to get the facial surgery first if you can afford. It's about the impression and passing. You can and will get SRS later. Pretty straight-forward and good advice. So why do so many don't heed it when they can afford it?

This is what escapes me. When you're obvious, all the makeup, hair and clothes won't hide it. You can't do much about the voice, only good voice therapy works if at all, but you can do a lot about the face. I'm not talking pretty or better, but at least something plain or ordinary.

I know the answer. All transwomen want to get to their SRS and get their documents changed to be officiallly "female" and get on with their life. Except when they don't pass enough to get past the first impression, what good is it? Yes, I know they want to be and live as women, and they get there. But if it makes life harder because people see you differently as you present yourself, what's so good about it?

Even some of famous post-transistion women will tell you about your transistion, "Get facial surgery!" It overcomes 90% of the initial problems in life. If they see the face, they'll pretty much be more receptive and accepting of you as a woman than seeing a male face in female attire. That's the proverbial "man in a dress" they constantly argue about and what the public sees.

And that hurts other transwomen and post-transition women who don't pass enough. And it's why 90% of the post-transistion women, those who pass, run away from the term trans-anything and the transcommunity as fast as they can. They are and live as women, nothing else. They've long earned and deserve it.

So, it's always a "Duh?" moment when I see a transwoman and especially a post-transistion woman with a male or male-like face. They were rich enough to get through their transistion (since few health insurance plans cover much if anything with one), why didn't they spend $10-15K for facial surgery to help? It escapes me.

It's almost like they want to be separate from women, they don't want to disappear from the identity, and they want the label transwoman. I know it's not true, but it certainly appears either that way to me, that they're not being honest with themselves about their looks or their being blind about it. Overly critical, yes, I know, but I just don't see it.

And it's why it always escapes me.

Not even on-line

2009-11-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

China has started to ban people in on-line games to be different. I don't mean a different characters, but a different gender. This was reported (article) that they've hired a company to use facial recognition software of the person Webcam image to determine if they're male or female.

And then you're allowed to create only names and characters under that gender. The commens are interesting, but the whole thing misses the real issue. Not only are they forciing the gender binary, they're forcing people into only those of the birth sex. Talk about killing the interest and creativity.

And this isn't not for what they say, the safety of women, but to actual make it worse for women, but establishing themselves as women so everyone will know. They can't play being male characters, so they're already at a disadvantage when the boys know they're girls.

Talk about a really bad idea. And if a boy is mistaken for a girl or a girl for a boy? What then? They have to provide a birth certificate they're really who they say they are? Yes, Mr. Chinese leader, there are people who want to be other people, even other genders on-line, just for fun.

It's just fun folks, don't make it worse.

Sorta being out

2009-11-06T06:01:00.000-08:00

I was wandering the Internet, looking at Websites with alternative views of issues (not all alternative, some are too much or too extreme to bother with trying to understand them or worse have a discussion with the). Anyway I ran across the Feministing blog site. I won't argue that I'm more a (male) feminist than not. I hate all the rules, laws, and crap men, society, employers, etal. give women.

Anyway, on the blog is a post by a sorta, or pseudo, stealth transwoman, which is a contradiction in itself. As much as transwomen try to live stealth and completely deny or hide their past identity and status, it's impossible. That's an issue in the transcommunity argued to no end, especially by transwomen saying they're stealth, but really not because some people know and some of their past records haven't been changed.

But that's not the point here, which by the way a simple blood test will out any transperson and you're faced with the question by the doctor, "So, there's seems to be a difference between your blood results (genetic sex) and your documents, can you explain?" And so that argument goes. But it's another issues that confusing.

It's these transwomen who are sorta' out because the Internet allows you to hide your identity through pseudoname(s) and identities, which is excactly what at least one on this blog site (that I read and probably more) said she is, in between being stealth and being public. The latter through her on-line name.

But what bothers me the me the most is their hypocracy. They argue for a position or view on some issue, they stand up and speak, but then hide behind a false name and no identity. If you believe what you say, and you want people to believe what you say, then stand up for yourself as yourself. I do that here and will always do that. That doesn't make me better or smarter, just there.

More importantly, it does make me honest. If we want to believe you then put a name and face to the voice and words. Otherwise, you're no worse than a false prophet, because we don't know who you are. And you are what this writer wrote in the entry, you're dishonest at best and I don't know yet at worst. I may agree with your words but until I know who you are, I won't agree with you.

That takes a real name and face. And sorry, using being a transwoman and stealth a necessity isn't a reason, it's a cope-out. I know transwomen are the victims of many people who hate them, want to deny them rights and protections, or simply don't want to know they're living and working in this country. Transphobia against several hundred thousand people is discrimination.

That's why it's understandable maybe as much as 90% of legally recognized (post-transistion) women live pseudo-stealth life and world where only a few people know and most of their documents are correct. It's their safety and security to be stealth. But then you can't be publically vocal, that's dishonest and lying. I won't say anything with my Website or blogs that I wouldn't say in a public place.

And I am there name, face and voice. Anything less is dishonest.

Female and male

2009-10-25T05:42:00.000-07:00

Why does everyone, and especially researchers in gender issues, make sex and gender an "or" thing, and mutually exclusive? Some psychologists have long argued there are no characteristics, expressions or behaviors which are universally inclusive to and mutually excluse of either gender. There are simply human characteristics where cultures and societies have establish general norms for each. And all have overlaps within those norms.

So why are researchers trying to prove this or that about human development as male or female when it's male and female. With the exception of a few very rare girls with no testosterone, we al were born with andl have throughout our life male and female hormones in our body and mind, which are necessary for the full operation and phyisiology of our body and mind.

We all have expressions and behaviors which cross sex and gender lines. Yes, everyone. We're all on the gender continuum from nearly all female and women to the nearly all male and men. It's simply the range of human beings. The median for each gender isn't that far from the center. And there is far more differences and a wider range of differences within one sex or gender than there are between the sexes and genders.

The only real difference is the reality of our genes, but even there, we're still a mix. We may have XX or XY chromosome but it's the genes inside and the epigenomes which determine matters, not the just the type of the pair. And some people have extra genes, some with conditions were the genes and hormones don't work, and so on down the line of people. Simply the normal and natural variation of people.

So, why do we persist in the binary rule of sex and gender? It never existed in evolution and nature and only exists as percieved social norm.

So, in the end, it's not about the "or" but the "and" between male and female. We're simply both and I find the continued work to define us as different absurb and ignores the commomality between the sexes and genders, all of them and not just two. We are simply people, living with what we're given and expressing and behaving as we know ourselves, just being.

If societies want to differentiate because of legal necessities and other reasons, ok, I'm cool with that. After all there are no good and valid reasons to differentiate,. And worse, to formalize the binary outside those needs isn't necessary when it discriminates people who don't fit the binary.

I've never understood it, why people must make that identity if something is male or female under the assumption it's mutually exclusive. Guys try hard not to be seen as feminine in any way or manner, forgetting they're already there to some degree, along every other guy. It's our society to make guys "male", even if it's dumb, stupid and wrong.

And even the self-help psychologists - and the pseudo one with fake degrees - reinforce it with the books on the differences between the genders, forgetting we're 98+% alike. Focusing on the small differences, which aren't universally inclusive or exclusive, doesn't help.

I'm not arguing evolution gave each sex and gender differences, and it's part of our brain and physiology. It was necessary for survival and becoming a thinking species. And many difference, experiments in nature, fell by the wayside as individuals didn't survive or pass on the traits. As animals, we're no different than the rest of the animal kingdom.

It's only our higher socialization and thinking which separates us now. But imposing social norms from that evolution is false, when you can find other cultures or societies which don't follow it or do the opposite. Norm is relative, not absolute and not scientifically based in our genes. And it also evolves with time and changes.

So, can we quit the male or female thing and try the male and female thing? It's far closer to reality and the truth. It's about the vastness of humanness we share that matters than the few and small degree of differences.

No thinking out loud

2009-10-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

Why is that many people on forums don't allow just thinking out loud? Why are they so touchy that if you ask questions you get verbally pummelled? And if you ask questions just to open the discussion to more than just a us-versus-them mentality, you really get verbally pummelled?

As I've long told folks, I'm a tavern conversationalist. It's about just being in a place where people relax and enjoy the company and the converation in an open, light but still serious, humorous, and everything else you know and expect mode in a tavern on a Friday night. Just people talking and thinking out loud. Sometimes challenging, but always in jest. And always with a smile.

But in forums, if you don't agree, they rail at you like you're the enemy of their group. And then they wonder why people stop posting, stop responding and sometimes just leave. Open discussions aren't the allowed. And above all, don't play devil's advocate or express sarcasm. But it's also the case where some longtime members are allowed to do that, even play devil's advocate to provoke or prod or say worse things than you, but they're excused because they part of the group.

The rest of us, whether asking innocent or reasonable questions or just expressing our opinion, where everyone's opinion is equal and equally important, however, don't get the same response or treatment, even just being courteous or fair to all sides and views, but get treated like shit. That's not an exageration. They forget the discussion and go after the person.

And that's where they wonder why people get angry, and at them for being inconsiderate, unaccepting and hypocritical. They just don't seem to get what they have done and are doing. And when the owners and moderators support them, you begin to realize, it's never about being a forum. It's about a clique and club. A members-only club where others aren't allowed to participate at their level.

But then I've never been someone who just goes along. I've always asked the obvious question in opposition, always just to wake people up, make a point the discussion, or expresss alternative ideas. I like see all sides of an argument, even if I don't agree and even become angry. It's the right of people to express themselves and ours to listen. And it you aren't one of them, you become one of "them", the enemy. And I've been warned if not booted off forums for that (see past entries).

Anyway, it's just an observation. And I'll likely never stop being the one who asking those question and speaking from outside the box, but always tongue-in-cheek or with a smile. I'm only sad they just don't see that, take themselves too seriously and don't see their narrowness and attitude toward others.

What women assume

2009-10-24T05:59:00.000-07:00

What women assume about their bodies, male to female transwomen must learn. That's probably the hardest thing for (genetic) women to understand what transwomen (in and post transistion women) have to relearn about their bodies and mind. During a transistion, hormone replacement therapy (hrt) and sex reassignment surgery - vaginoplasty (srs) changes everything. It's like going through puberty and menopause simultaneously in 2-3 years.

Women know what that would do physically and mentally and fortunately find 40 years between them to be their saving grace. But transwomen don't have that luxury, they already recognize and identify as female and women and want to transistion to physically be and live as women. It's who they are and what they go through to get congruence between the mind and body.

But many women just don't see and often wonder, some criticizing, transwomen for the whole array of issues, from just being trans to going through some periods which they knew years ago as girls. When you're older, becoming a girl and a meneopausal woman at the same time isn't often fun. Sometimes, you're a mental and emotional mess, but you plod through and get on with life.

And once you're through, you can be who you are, simply a woman and as female as medically possible today. You're not trans anything. You're still yourself of old, we all have histories. But they're now just one of many women in the world. And why that's hard to understand escapes me as transwomen aren't trying to change anything or stand up to force some issue.

They're just tryiing to get through life and work. And while women can and usually are gracious (ok, most women) with other women about what they go through, why can't they find the same graciousness with transwomen? And post-transistion women face many of the same health issues and risks, their bodies adapt to some of their family's history with women.

Even though women assume what they've learned over their life physically as girls and then women, it's all brand new to transwomen. While it's not the same, it's very similar. Female hormones have the same effect on the body and mind of both, one only has a different starting point from and with their genes.

The sad gift of being born with a body which conflicts with their mind and identity. That's all. And fixable. But with a huge learning curve not just to compress the physical and mental changes of puberty, often on an older (male) body, but also the social changes of living, just being in the world with the rest of us.

I won't ague that all transwomen pass what we normally expect of women, especially physically, but it doesn't change their heart and mind. They have to live with it and try. The rest, those who does pass, seems to escape the same judgement and criticism because we don't know. So what's the difference with just accepting all of them?

Even though we accept women who aren't the norm, but being born women, we give them the grace to be different. We don't condemn all women when we don't like a few. But some, and even women, do for the obvious transwomen. They assume the few are the all, and nothing could be further from the truth as the vast majority of transwomen pass and never discovered.

But they all go through the same process, the transistion, with all it's issues and problems. Ones women assume as normal and natural. But to transwomen, it's all brand new and need of help and support from women to understand and live with. Is it so hard you can't share and be a friend?

Both learn, the transwomen to just be women and women to have a new friend and renew what they already know. And you might even be surprised to learn something new about yourself too.

Stupid Media

2009-09-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

I know this has been discussed, cussed and argued to death, but you would think the media would get it right when describing post-transistion women and now girls. And get it right when presenting the history and the perspective of themselves and their transistin. But I also know the media is about the story and more often the sensationalism than the truth and reality.

But there are times you have to shout at them, "What don't you understand?"

My case in point is an article about an interview with Kim Petras, article. The headlines reads, "Gender reassignment: 'I always wanted to be a girl...'", except she, as all transwomen and girls, don't want to "be" a girl, but as in the article, "I always wanted to live as a little girl." Semantics, but big difference.

Transwomen already know they're girls and women, they just want to able to transistion and live as one, to be legally and medically recognized as female. The article fails to convey that point, especially since they've written about other transwomen. But then what can you expect from some male journalist? Ok, kidding, but they're lack of professionalism and understanding is obvious.

The same applies to transmen (female to male transpeople). It's not about what you want to be, that's given. It's about how you want to life. And that's what the transisiton is for, to get through and get on with your life as you know yourself to be. You don't become the other sex/gender, because you already are, you just want to body to match.

While it appears a semantic argument, it's the essential argument in the description because this is where people ask, "So, you were a man (or boy in her case) and you wanted to be a woman (or girl in her case)?" No, not even close because they don't see themselves as a man or a boy, they're simply posing as one to get through life.

It's not about the body as the determining factor, but the mind, how and what it sees the person. It's documented transpeople self-identify as the opposite sex or gender somewhere between 3 and 6 from their interactions with other children. They don't see themselves as their birth sex and gender, but the opposite, and they see the contradiction with their body, and why they want to change the body.

So, if they can get it, why can't the media? Almost every time the media still confuses this issue about the person. And every time they get verbally pummelled by the transcommunity for misidentifying the person and misunderstanding the issue. And every time the media doesn't change except on rare occasion, usually by a journalist writing a different story.

Anyway, it's just a rant at the media. Kim Petras just wants a life and future as a girl and woman, and even if she knows she's the darling of the media for transpeople and doing an excellent job, she deserves that life and future. And without the media keep reminding her of the past and keep screwing it up.

Posing

2009-09-18T12:05:00.001-07:00

I'm often reading bits and pieces of people's life story, usually post in a blog, articles, chapters in book, wherever, and like to find interesting nuggets of ideas, for me anyway, to think and write about. I was struck by one recently about a woman who born, raised and lived male for a long time before transistioning.

That's not new as there are more late (post-40) transpeople transistioning than ever, as the publicity about them eases and the medical community is more understanding to help those going through a transistion. There is a higher proportion today for young, even children and teenagers, transistiong as it's better for them then and in their future, and because the medical community finally got smart enough to treat them.

But that's not the point here. I was struck with the biography of one who said she "posed as a man" throughout her adult life. And that's probably the best word to describe it, posing. Because that's what transpeople do in the life before their transistion. They live a lie and they transistion to be true and truthful. True to themselves and truthful to the world.

And all the time before was just posing as their birth sex and gender. They simply passed to get through life. Sometimes they tried hard to live as that sex and gender, as you read in some of the biographies, but always in the end found it too much to live a lie. They transistioned into themselves.

And that is what's often not understood. Many ask a transwoman, "So you were a man and you switched sex (or gender) to live as a woman?" Well, that's the wrong question because they never really were a man, but only posed as one. It's the wrong question because they never saw themselves let alone believed themselves to be a man.

They simply posed as one. They acted it out, maybe partly to try to convince themselves they're not a transperson, but mostly to hide themselves from the world. They didn't want the world to see and know, so they posed. Until it overwhelmed them. The posing, the charade becomes a weight so much if crushes them mentally and emotionally.

The posing slowly kills their heart, soul and spirit. And when they shed the identity under the posing, they find their freedom, to be themselves, no posing, no acts, nothing but themselves. So don't judge a transperson from their past, judge by their present, because before it was all just posing.

Double Standard

2009-09-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

I was reading the case in Australia where two transmen (men born female) won the right for legal recognition as male despite not complying with the law to have hysterectomies, see article. The Gender Reassignment Act requires transwomen (male to female) to have sex reassignment surgery and transmen to have a hysterectomy to ensure they don't have the reproductive organs of their birth sex.

The judge granted their legal recognition in violation of the law and the Attorney General there is fighting the court order. While that seems a fair standard, here in the United States, we have a double standard. Transwomen have the same requirements for legal recogntion, meaning getting your birth certificate changed, which is sex reassignment surgery, rarely covered by insurance and costs $15-20K.

The difference here is transmen only have to have hrt and "therapy" for one year to certify they're being and living as men. No surgery required even though almost all have a double mastectomy to get the male feeling of their chest without breasts. Only a very few have hysterectomies, and mostly to remove the possible of cancer later in life. And even fewer transmen go for sex reassignment surgery, which is problematic and expensive.

This means transwomen take 3-5 years to transision, although it can be done in a year or so if you pass, have money and very motivated with a good therapist and physician, while transmen usually transistion in 1-2 years, often about a year as male hrt is quick and very effective after a few months. Transmen usually fully assimilate into life as men before the one year period.

Transistions for transwomen often costs $30-50K with minimal surgeries and other expenses and can cost $50-100K with the suite of surgeries. Younger transwomen transistion for $20-25K because they easily pass and integrate easier into society. Ah, the advantages of youth and the reason the rate of young transwomen is growing. Do it young and have a life as a woman.

Transistion for transmen often only costs about half the common costs for transwomen since surgery isn't a necessity and sometimes mastectomies can be covered by insurance for health reasons. This means it's cheaper and quicker to transistion from female to male than the reverse.

So the problem? The standard. As we saw in the case of the Oregon transman who kept his female reproductive organs to have a baby when his wife couldn't, there's a disconnect between what's male and being a man than what's female and being a woman. The double standard for women apply more so to transwomen, a double standard on an already existing double standard.

But my point is about the surgeries. And while the transcommunity will argue it's not about the surgery because being a man or a woman is more mental than physical, it is about both. And it's unfair to make transwomen go down a different legal path than transmen. You can't give a woman a penis, although surgeons have made strides through grafts and/or artificial means, but you can give a man a vagina sans the reproductiive parts.

And so the standard sits for legal recognition, transmen can keep their female anatomy as men, but transwomen can't keep the male anatomy. I can understand the latter because no woman wants a penis and testicles. I can't understand the former, why a man wants to keep his ovaries and womb to get and be pregnant. While these will atrophy with hrt (Oregon man stopped hrt to become pregnant), it's the logic of it.

I agree with the Gender Reassignment Act in Australia. It clearly and fairly levels the standards between and for transpeople. It's fair and reasonable. And I hope he wins the day. I'm sorry for the two transmen, but they knew the standards and they decided not to comply. They should be held accountable and do what the rest of transpeople have to do. That's also a fair standard.

Update to letter

2009-09-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

I wrote a "Dear President" letter, here, and I need to update it from additional information. I read that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is obligated to defend all lawsuits against the government, no matter how much they think the lawsuit is right and the law wrong. It's the law and their agency responsibility. And I ragged on the President about doing this.

And I later learned what the DOJ did to defend the law which, while still making me question the President's real view on this issue, makes it more acceptable. I learned the DOJ only challenged the law on some absurb aspect of the law which any good judge will throw out and allow the lawsuit to continue. I also learned, however, that the LGBT community, specifically the gay (men) community, want the judge to throw the lawsuit out.

It seems the challenge itself doesn't really challenge DOMA but the application of it to the couple in California where the application of DOMA doesn't apply to their case. In their view, it's a bad case to challenge DOMA. So while the President and the Attorney General are trying to put a good face and spin on a no win situation for them, the other side is hoping the case loses.

Kinda' reverse logic at work. So why not drop the lawsuit and find a better case? Or better yet, the President do what he promised, ask Congress to repeal DOMA? But that we know he won't because Congress won't, not with 2010 elections a year away and many of them up for re-election and facing the voters over marriage issues.

But still Congress should repleal DOMA. It's a dumb, politically minded and intented law, and has no value for real human rights.

Reparative Therapy

2009-08-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday (8/5/09) the American Psychological Association issued a press release about a report which repudiates reparative therapy, or so you would think if you read the summary (you can get their statement and link to full report. They call reparative therapy "sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE)", like a fancy name makes it different, scientific or more important.

Anyway, the APA clearly states that homosexuality is not a mental disorder and can't not be changed. But then they hedge their bets saying one's personal faith and religions, especially when practiced as part of an organized church or group, can create conflicts in the individual, and thus should be treated.

Not for their homosexuality, but for the conflicts with their sexual orientation and their faith, religion or church. The APA has long removed homosexuality from the DSM standards and have long criticized reparative therapy, and you would think this would put the final nail in the coffin for reapartive therapy.

Or so you would think. So why hedge over religion and give the homophobic religious groups the right to continue to pursue reparative therapy disguised as religious or faith healing? This isn't going to change their practice, and may in fact cement it with the APA subtle blessing, meaning calling their efforts scientific.

After all they're only trying to help the person with their faith to rid them of their homosexuality. I doubt this will stop the religious folks from saying it's clear then that homosexuality can be healed through religion or faith. It's the person who has lost or misunderstand what God is saying to them. Or so they can say.

All that despite the evidence show reparative therapy has not and does not work, and they give the religous community an out, and to continue, even if they misunderstand and misuse the APA report and recommendations. All this is like the APA saying. "We're absolutely certain about homosexuality, but we could be wrong about their faith and their homosexuality."

Yeah right. The status quo officially rolls on.

Cool Interview

2009-07-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Update 10/12/09.--The video has been removed by YouTube due to copyrights, so you'll have to find it elsewhere or snippets. So much for a cool interview. But it doesn't change the substance of the essay.

This is a cool interview with Kim Petras. I still think she shows how stupid psychologists and psychiatrists who believe in reparative therapy for young transgender people or believe children don't or can't understand let alone know their gender identity. There are many who believe the opposite and supporting changes in the DSM-IVTR and upcoming DSM-V. The APA would do well to just listen.

Also found on YouTube

I think her story shows just how far off therapists are who deny a child or teen's gender identity, expression and behavior are with their theories and rules regarding medical help to transistion when it's clearly diagnosed. She also show the professionals who are helping young transgender children and teens are working. The greatest harm with the transistion for any young person when it's clearly identified, is to delay it, especially past purberty. You can't undo puberty and transistioning begining at and during puberty, as Kim demonstrates, proves it works.

And while I realize Kim now is a very public (young) spokeswoman for transpeople, especially transchildren/teens, which she seems to be doing very well, she deserves a life, especially where her past was something long ago. We see her as she is, a terrific young woman, and it's time now to give her that, a life.

Thank you Kim and your loving parents and family.

Change and surgery

2009-06-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

I was reading some of the news about Chaz (formerly Chasity) Bono's transistion from a woman to a man, and noticed almost all the news media got it wrong, very wrong. And when Mara Keisling, NCTE director, conducted an interview with CNN, she tried to correct the information but really dug a deeper whole for many in the transcommunity. While she was close to factually correct (some facts were underreported), she didn't seem to convey the message.

The point she seemed to want and did make was that when someone transistions from either gender to the other, surgery are options for them, and it totally depends on them, the necessity for surgery, their medical approval for surgery, their healthcare insurance and finances - especially the latter since many insurance companies don't cover the surgery, and their personal interest to be whole and complete, and fully legally recognized, in their life in the other gender.

This is one of the contradictions with transistions. To legally change one's birth certificate in the US from one sex to the other, all states require sex reassignment surgery (SRS) for male-to-female but not female-to-male. I've never found a good explanation for this except that the latter is extensive and invasive surgery and expensive, clearly off the radar for many transmen. The law only requires the letters proving living for a minimum period as male with the history of hormones.

But for transwomen, surgery is a legal necessity and for most it's what they want, the problem is affording it. When it costs $8-10K for overseas surgeries and twice that in the US and Canada, it's not hard to understand why Ms. Kiesling's comment was off. The numbers support that while most don't have surgery, the numbers who do is large, which means there are far more transpeople than people think.

And this last point is one of the issues in the transcommunity, is surgery necessary to be be a complete and whole woman? And the responses are always interesting and often self-contradictory. That's because most transwomen will swear the surgery isn't necessary to be a whole and complete woman, but then after their surgery will say it's all about the surgery, meaning having a vagina is part of the experience of being a whole and complete woman.

There are many, some say most, that surgery isn't necessary even if it was available and/or affordable. But they find it difficult to argue against the question, how many genetically-born female women would want a penis and testicles in place of their vagina. It's the rhetorical question in the room and puts the non-surgery transwomen left being and feeling different from those who want the surgery. And while many of those can't afford it or it isn't available, it doesn't change the contradiction in the comment about non-surgical tranwomen.

What's also interesting with the media about Chaz is the wholesale acceptance of him by the media. The media will degrade, demean and dehumanize almost all the other transpeople. That's ok in their eyes and normal. That's what angering about the events over Chaz. She's now between the proverbial rock and a hard place because if she wants, as she says, her privacy with the transistion, she'll anger the community for not being a good public spokesperson.

And if she becomes a spokesperson, she'll lose her privacy, time and really her life. It's the catch-22 that many public profile transpeople have to deal with, be out and public or be criticized by the transcommunity. Those who have been through it eventually fade into a low level of public participation, but it never goes away. It becomes their public identity that's never lost or forgotten.

It will be interesting over the months to a few years how much Chaz does and how much he can change the public perception of transpeople. It's hope she does what a few have done and not what many transmen in the past have done, which is become men and disavow the transcommunity, especially transwomen. Some simply decide to join the mainstream and disappear, often not even recognizing or identifying their history.

This is the usual goal of transwomen, to mainstream and become invisible. Many do and chose to walk away from the community. That's the normal reaction, but for many it's impossible and they're obviousness can't be hidden. It's the reality of many transwomen. Almost all transmen, however, can transistion to become invisible, and seen as just men. The transistion with hormones changes everything imaginable about their bodies and their minds. It's like they were born male.

And while many transmen become invisible, most simply decide not just to stay invisible, but simply not even speak up, even in the face of criticism and worse words about transpeople. They decide to just watch and allow it to happen. Chaz, as other transmen have, can change that, even in the smallest way. To show both transmen and transwomen are normal people with the same normal issues and struggles in life.

So, I raise a glass to him and what he can do. Now, will he do that?

Dear President

2009-06-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

Dear President Obama,

After reading the latest news from the Justice Department supporting the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996 in a lawsuit trying to overturn it, and after hearing you espouse a political view that the DOMA should be repealed, I find your hypocrisy on the issue not just troublesome, meaning you were simply politically posturing about your view during the campaign and then said the marriage is between a man and a woman, but appalling.

You courted the LGBT voters for your expressed view against DOMA, and now you sit silently letting others do your bidding for what you really believe and mean, and the LGBT community is left holding the empty poliitical promise bag. No November 11th president-elect treats for them, just the trick of hiding the truth. At best you were less than truthful, and at worst, you lied. Which is it?

Yes, we know the political game during campaigns. You've managed to lose a lot of promises in your term as president, but this one sticks in the throat more than any. You don't really believe in equal rights and protections for all Americans when it comes to marriage, and you certainly don't believe in gender neutral marriage you said was ok with you. But that was then and this is now.

So you let the Department of Justice to leak the truth. All you have to do is say you won't seek to block the lawsuit and you won't oppose if it goes forward. Let the justice system work. But you know you won't because you'll lose the center-right votes supporting unequal marriage.

And you certainly won't ask Congress for a bill to repeal DOMA, only that you would support one and just maybe sign one. Yeah, right. we've heard that promise from you before. And now we know it's political bullshit. You know DOMA nullifies any equal rights marriage law any state has or is proposing. This gives you the out to say it's a state's issue while leaving DOMA in tact to protect your political ass.

Now we know the truth and reality of you and about you. You're anti-LGBT rights and protections unless the overwhelming wave of Congress threatens to inundate you, and you'll suddenly turn the boat and go with it than turn to go against it. You're no different than any other politician who's occupied your chair there.

And we thought you were different. But now we know better. And once lost, trust is harder to rebuild. Trust me, I know. Mine in you has long burned to the ground and won't be rebuilt anytime soon.

Back of the Bus

2009-06-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

Welcome transpeople. And by the way, please use the rear entrance and exit and move to the back of the bus. The LGB movement really doesn't want the "t" people interfering with their fight for legal protections and rights. To them "t" people just impede the progress and interfer with the process for turning legislation into law.

I mean just transpeople. Not the other transpeople often described as transgender under the umbrella term, but those who transistion to be physicially and legally the sex and gender they identify as, meaning (trans)women and (trans)men. These people go follow the medically prescribed proceedures and the legally defined process to become legall female or male from their opposite birth sex.

The rest of the transgroup, the drag queens, transvestities, cross-dresser, transsexuals (ie. non-op), and gender queer people, don't want the other transpeople messing up their world, so they push them to the back of the bus, and if they could, out the back door, to leave them at the bus stop standing alone.

Too tough? Ok, maybe, but reading the last few years of news about adding protections for transpeople, it's clear the LGB folks and the elected reprsentatives, like Barney Frank, don't really want to touch the issue of adding transpeople to the hate crime legislation and especially to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Those bills failed before because of opposition to adding protections for transpeople.

Transpeople are often considered the step-child of LGB's because they're not the same. LGB is about sexual orientation. Trans is about gender identification. And while real transpeople transistion to live as their identified gender, more non-transpeople have use the transgender umbrella term to attach themselves to being "one of them" for the medical protection when it doesn't apply (read the DSM, cross-dressing isn't a mental health issue).

They're not really transgender. Ok, my opinion. But there is a signficantly distinct difference between a transvestite a cross-dresser and others who identiify as their birth sex but just like to play dressup as the other gender. To them it's fun. They can't identify, and often cringe, at the notion of the medical proceedures to become the other gender. But they like to use the term when they dressup for the medical protection.

There is a big difference to a man playing dressup on weekends calling himself a woman when he's dressed up but doesn't want to be one and a transwoman who does transistion, including the sex/gender change surgery (srs) and legal documents, to live fulltime as one. And while the LGB movement recognizes both, they will support the former because many gay men are drag queens, transvestites and cross-dressers for work or pleasure.

But gay men don't want to recognize those born male but identify as female (it's becoming a known biological condition of birth) and transistion, especially giving up the one thing gay men love the most, their penis. Transwomen want a vagina to be complete and whole as women. While some don't have or elect not to have srs for various reasons, they're can't be legally recognized as female, they're still legally male and men.

But the gay men will still accept them because it's ok they keep their penis. And it's why the LGB folks will not really support or pursue adding transpeople to "their" legislation. And it's also why the transpeople are better off getting rights and protection under the Civil Rights Act as happened in the Diane Schoer case.

Simply put the trans folks should do what happened to them, jettison the rest of the transgender folks and follow their own course. Build, drive and carry their own bus to and for their freedom. This is what former Senator Bill Bradley recommended yes ago. Simply put all the LGB and T rights and protections in the Civil Rights Act.

Then everyone rides the same bus and sits anywhere they want, just like everyone else in this country. And the LGB community can't discriminate against transpeople without facing legal action. Transpeople can't simply walk away into the real world of people.

The old adage

2009-05-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

You know the one that says, "Do as I say, not as I do"? So applicable almost everywhere with everyone. And mostly from everyone. And why it's interesting listening to the life stories of post-transistion women, especially those long transistioned and living as women, invisible as the rest of us. And why, you ask?

Because they will all advise transwomen comtemplating let alone beginning their transistion with one phrase, "Don't!" Simply don't transistion. They will argue that a transistion is the worst thing you can do and go through and then have to live with and as. You see, as a transperson, and especially a transwomen, you become visible, not lost in the crowd of your birth sex and gender.

You become different and obvious. You're, in a sense, as a person you become mutt, someone accommodates but never have to accept as real, and certainly not one of them, men or women. They will tell you think again, and again, and don't transistion. Stay as you are and accept yourself.

But when you ask them if they could have stayed, to a woman, they'll tell you they couldn't. They had to transistion. It was their only choice in life and with life. They did it and survived. But then they'll say don't do it. Not even know if you're no different than them about yourself.

I've heard this over and over from them about transwomen just starting. So hypocritical. Harsh? Yes, but honest too. They don't see they're the old adage which everyone knows is only said to lie. It's not about the positives you'll know and feel, it's always about the negatives, the pain, the hurt, the anger, the abuse, even the violence, and more so the discrimination.

Yet they did it for their own sanity and being. And they advise everyone else not to, like the others have choices like they didn't or did and chose then. I'm doubting or questioning the wisdom there for many people. A transistion isn't fun and isn't always successful. In fact quite the opposite.

Most women who transistion end in being worse off than when they started, only now as women. What's not said in the life stories are the failures, not just with that person, but the many who haven't written. Not all the don't write life stories are failures, many are successes. But far more are failures.

And that's what these women are saying. Not about themselves so much, but of those they know or saw. What they're really saying is, "Get real first.", and not "Don't!" That's not being hypocritical, just pragmatic, from experience and knowledge. That's fair to a point. But it's not fair making it universal as they do.

That's what hypocritical. Saying one size fits all. It didn't for them, or at least they survived and came through relatively ok, some even better. But they assume failure fits everyone else. As one might say today, "Not!" But then understand the odds aren't with you and are stacked against you. Understand that and you'll be ok, or at least mindful of the reality.

So maybe they're not saying "Do as I say, not as I do.", but "Don't do as I did, but find your own way."

LGB and T

2009-04-25T07:42:00.001-07:00

I read an interesting column this last week by Sonia Horan about the myths of inclusion of transpeople in the LGB community. While she focuses on the highlight moment of betrayal by the LGB community with transpeople, she does present an excellent, in my view, perspective of what's wrong with the inclusion.

I'm not against the inclusion of transpeople in the LGB community, they've been there since the beginning in the late 1960's (and what many gay people quickly forget many of the folks at the Stonewall event were transpeople of the whole flavor) and they've been there throughout the history of the LGB issues, along with getting much support from members of the LGB community for the issues and causes of transpeople.

But the world of LGB and transpeople are fundamentally different by the very nature of the identity. Homosexuality, in its many flavors, is just another being, expression and behavior of human sexuality, as is heterosexuality. Gender identity, on the other hand, isn't about sexual identity, but gender identity. It's about how people see themselves and how the body reaffirms that identity or not.

Transpeople have a degree of mismatch between the mind and body, from the slight to the extreme, and that being expressed in the whole range of expression and behavior, including cross-dressers, female illusionists, androgynous, and transsexuals. They simply want to be and live as they see themselves. It's not hard to understand, but it's not about sex as many psychologists like to describe.

The last group has been a whole issue by itself as seen in the latest fight in and with the APA over gender identity in the DSM-V due out in 2012. People described as transsexuals, meaning gender identity, want to live fulltime, and some physically transistion, as the gender they are. This requires being obvious in public and being obvious for transphobia in the range of reactions, from violence and death (recent Angie Zapata case) through public humulitaion and to discrimination in employment, housing, health insurance, etc.

In addition the transgender community has the whole range of importance with issues. Those who identify as the other gender but life primarily as their birth gender, eg. cross-dressers, who want the freedom to express their alternative lifestyle in public without fear of retaliation and discrimination, often expressed as the "Bathroom issue" allowing men who dress as women use the public women's bathroom.

Transsexuals believe themselves to be the other gender and want everything it takes to live as that gender. Their issues are health insurance, employment rights and protections, legal documents, and so on. Male-to-female transsexuals simply want to be women, no less and everything more. To them their transistion is a means to an end and once completed, meaning surgeries and documents, they're not trans-anything, just women.

Homosexuals don't have to be obvious or public. They can simply dress as everyone else and no one will every know. Their gender identity isn't a conflict, they're as straight as the rest of the world. To them, it's about sexual attraction, something expressed in the privacy of their home, and only by choice in public at events.

This is where homosexuals have the advantage. They don't have problems near on par with transistioning transpeople. They don't want to change their sex. Few want to dress and go in public as the other gender. Few face the obviousness of simple standing in a public place being seen as different. They're free to be invisible.

This is where the worlds, issues and causes diverge and never meet, and where the two sides have different agendas. The LGB community doesn't have much need to be concerned with the same issues facing transpeople. It's not their experience, and this is where the transpeople have often been forgotten, usually intentionally by simply not including language in communications about LGB issues and causes.

In short, it was always easy for the LGB community to forget and only when the transcommunity raise their voices did they get inclusion in LGB issues and causes. But they always have to remind the LGB community of their existence even when their voices are ignored, such as in the ENDA bill in 2008 when gender identity and expression was removed by Representative Barney Frank, Congress' most openly gay member. He was supported by the HRC who jettisoned trans identity in support of the bill.

History has shown that when the transcommunity goes on their own they have more and better success in acceptance in every aspect of their lives, issues and causes. They succeed when they simply don't put LGB in their communications. And history has shown that they also get more success when they focus on the issues of in and pre-transistion and post-transistion transpeople.

The transcommunity has discovered they don't need the LGB community, and can use them when it's convenient or they have shared interests. Something they had done to them, except now being treated as the unwanted stepchild by the LGB community, they've found their own identity and voice. And they're building a choir, while facing the simple reality of their people.

But it comes with a catch. When a transperson transistions, meaning completing the medical surgeries and legal process to become their target gender, then don't identify as transsexuals anymore. They're simply men and women, just like everyone else. And to avoid all the problems and discrimination associated with the trans identity, they leave. The estimates are upwards of 90 percent and more.

This leaves the remaining 10% to fill the void. These are the ones who either out of fate, meaning their identity became a public issue due to their career, life, work or events, or out of choice. Few transpeople come out as trans out of choice and do to work in and for the community, most of them were visible and active in the community before and during their transistion. They simply continued the work.

But even that small group of activists have done more by themselves for transpeople without the LGB community than has been done with then over the last 3 decades. They discovered not only their individuality, but their community identity. And while some transgroups still align themselves with LGB groups for the larger issues and causes, they've also discovered more success by themselves.

And that's the point. Uniting despite difference is important, but uniting for your own uniqueness is more important. Shared needs, interests, experience and values bring its own unity. It's not a guarrantee of success, that takes dedication, discipline and vision, but it removes the divisiveness of differences.

This is where the T without the LGB will succeed. It could use the LGB's help but history now has shown it's not essential or necessary, and not even helpful at times. Stepping out of the shadow into your own light has its own rewards. Transpeople, working for their own identity, has seen and found that. And discovered it works.

And just maybe a few post-transistion people won't leave or will return to the community to help. There's always hope, especially when success is clearer and brighter standing equal and alone.

When BS is just that

2009-04-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, sometimes bullshit is just that, pure, simple, unadulterated bullshit. Ok, you're game for what? Well, I was reading about autogynephilia which some therapist use to describe transsexuals and why they want to transistion and become women, the imagination of being and having sex as a women. So what's the problem?

Well, a researcher at the Institue of Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, which is a think-tank for a bunch of quack psychologists who want to label people than treating them and labelling with their own terms which in reality is degrading and demeaning, did a study of 29 women at a hospital to find women have autogynphilia. Huh?

Autogynphilia is a term used to describe people, except they restrict it to women and transwomen, who imagine having sex as women. Like that's new or news? But a term restricted to women and transwomen?

This is because they focus their research on women and transwomen forgetting one simple fact of human nature. It's called masturbation. Everyone does it and everyone imagines themselves in both roles during their imaginary sex. That's human nature and human imagination.

But these folks decide to focus this label toward one class, transwomen, and now they're focusing on women, to compare them to transwomen and therefore put all women in the class of people. Except they forgot one thing. Even men imagine having sex as women. Studies at universities have shown at least 50% of the male respondents admited this and many of the rest fudged their answers.

What they're trying to do is establish the reason transwomen transistion is for sex, either as gay men wanting to be women for sex with men or as suffering autogynphilia and wanting to be and feel like women for sex with men. It's a self-fulfilling idea about people just enjoying sex, whether with someone or by themselves.

Now they want to add women too. And yet, they don't put this label on men or female-to-male transsexuals (transmen). What, men don't like to masturbate? Men don't wonder what it's like to be a woman during sex? Get real, men masturbate more often than women and every man wonders what sex is like as a woman.

This very small study is pure bullshit. But it's not just bullshit, it's sexism at its worst, to all women.

It really isn't

2009-04-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

Why does everyone make a big issue over Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS, also called Gender Reassgnment Surgery or GRS)? I've read too many descriptions, personal, scientific and medical about the importance of this sugery to the individual, and how much the person has to look into their heart, mind and soul to know this is the right answer for them. What don't they understand?

When someone wants to transistion to the other gender complete with the sex change to have the body match the mind, they've already gone down that road and there isn't anything left to discuss or ponder. It's innate and intuitive to them to be which requires the surgery. It's the old adage, "It's a no-brainer."

That's not hard to understand. But why does everyone want to stick a lot mental roadblocks and garbage in the way? Like they know what other people want, and they really know what transpeople want? How can they possibly really know? Like we know them and all their deepest inner thoughts and feelings about who they are?

This is one of the most tiring questions people in transistion frequently get, "So, why do you want the surgery?" Like to be a whole person that I know I am? There's nothing more to say except that. There are times when I hear this question I want to ask the other person (male because they're all those who ask the question), "So why do you want to keep your dick?"

I loved the response Jennifer Boylan gave to Oprah on her show when Oprah asked Jennifer, "So why do you want the surgery?" Jennifer responded to Oprah's question with, "What would you do if you were born with a penis?"

It's that simple folks, so get over your own fears, they're not those who want the surgery. We don't put mental roadblocks in your way of change, or ask you dumb questions about why you want to do something. So let these people get on with the life and accept them as they are.

Is that so hard to understand? LIke compassion, understanding, acceptance and peace with your fellow human beings? So don't make the judgement, expess the statement or ask the question. They've long left that at the station years, if not a lifetime, ago.

When something isn't

2009-04-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's another conumdrum. And it's in the transgender community, like that's new or news, but really more in the medical community. I watched the recent eposide of "In the Life" about "Revising Gender" with Linda Hinton. It's an excellent nutshell description of the conumdrum minus one element, the health insurance companies.

The American Psychological Association (APA and not to be confused with the American Psychiatric Association, also APA) writes the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual, DSM and often called the Diagnostic Standards Manual. It define all the mental health conditiions, disorders and diseases mental health experts can diagnose, and everything outside the DSM is consider normal or a nonpathological condition.

According to the medical community, anything described in the DSM is considered worthy of medical intervention and help and is usually covered by some type of health insurance or by a state or federal program. In short, you're considered mentally abnormal (their words not mine, just google "abnormal psychology") and should be treated, and that treatment should be partly, mostly or wholly paid by someone other than yourself.

In the DSM-IVTR (latest revision), Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is described along with treatment. But since GID was inlcuded in the DSM in 1980, shortly after homosexuality was removed, the APA has not pushed for insurance coverage, until this year (as short as it is so far), except they only "recommend" insurance coverage. And most health insurers have explicity exclusivity clauses in their coverage for GID treatment, specifically identify sex-change transistions.

Ok, but that's not the issue here. GID didn't exist before 1980 and to and for many people doesn't belong in the DSM in any form, manner or description. Yet the APA is currently revising the DSM for DSM-V to be released in 2012 to not only be more inclusive of GID but to expand and almost make it a pathology, meaning if you are diagnosed, you're one sick person.

Yet, while the APA lists treatment which "cures" GID, and along with the WPATH, has the complete procedures a patient goes through to become "normal", aka "cured", they still don't identity it sufficiently to require insurance coverage. Meaning you're sick but not sick enough.

Many in the transgender community argue that GID is a bogus condition which shouldn't be in the DSM, but is simply another expression of human being and covered under WPATH (formerly HBIGDA). The reality is that we're all transgender to some degree, just that most have characteristics of their birth sex so it's not an mental issue. Some, however, have more characteristics of the opposite sex to the point of wanting to be and live as one of the opposite sex.

That's not a crime, or a mental health condition, it's a problem with the body. The scienfitic evidence is starting to show GID is a neurobiological condition introduced in the fetus and reinforced in early life. But the APA fails or doesn't want to recognize those facts, and most important one which hits them in the face.

The APA is exercising their morality over the definition of "normal". GID isn't real but a group of white men imposing their opinions and morality on the rest of society and the few who want to be who they know they are. And imposing the DSM only excerbates their anxiety, fear and stress about themselves. The APA is creating a problem than solving one with their morality.

Because GID isn't. It isn't anything beyond being human. But that's only half the story.

If GID were removed from the DSM, as many want, then people lose the right for health insurance coverage, if it were covered. Since the APA doesn't require coverage, then everyone wanting to transistion faces the $25-50,000+ cost for it. So the person is left writing checks for something that will stigmatize them for life, having a mental health condition.

So the transgender community is stuck, and the APA knows this and does nothing, or very little (not to ignore the efforts of some in the APA to get change) to help beyond stigmatizing a class of people because of the APA's morality of "normal". If it's removed, as it should, then all bets (coverage) are off and the medical communtiy can simply forget it, like homosexuality.

Except people need help to get the therapy, drugs, and sugery to change from what they are to who they are, It's that simply. A simple solution to a personal issue. It's not rocket science but the APA refuses to see the light and the people for their own morality. In the end GID isn't but not being is worse than being, and being is worse having to live with the DSM which doesn't do much except tag them as abnormal.

And almost nowhere is GID covered by insurance. This is changing but only slowly and with employers than health insurance companies. The latter is like the APA, we don't like you and therefore won't help you, but don't forget those premiums to cover any sickness you have, except GID. One might get the idea there's a collusion between the APA and health insurance industry to impose their morality?

Ok, I've rambled around the issue, kinda like the In the Life show did because the issue is broad and deep, and historic and current. And the new DSM only looks to make matter worse for those with GID. What happened to the ethic, "First do no harm"? This seems to me that the APA should be doing. Looking a helping people (sorry to use their classification) GID. If you define them, shouldn't you be helping them?

So, to the APA where is your help? I don't want to hear your morality, I want to hear your help. That's the least you can do. The next is demand health insurance coverage. It's good science, good medicine and good humanity. Or did you forget that?

The catch-22

2009-04-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

I was reading a column by Amber Crowder about the catch-22 women in transistion face. And while I could have just as easily added my comments about the essay and the other comments, I decided to post my own column, because I find a lot of the younger women in transistion have and see it correctly.

Why they see it better is open to discussion, but I think it's simply they don't have the history of the transgender community to deal with. They can make their own clean, fresh start with their own perspective. And in many cases, like Amber and her column, they get it right. And that's why the community should be letting them be in leadership roles in the community than many of the pundits and curmudgeons who have been there for decades.

And what does she have right, beside that essay?

Easy, and it's what some of those adding comments miss. It's not about "classic" or "traditional" transsexual, it's about being and women in transistion want to be complete women. And that's means sex/gender reassignment surgery (SRS or GRS depends on your country). As much as those transgender women who don't have or don't want surgery make the case it's not necessary "to be a woman", it's about being a whole woman, complete with the body.

Every post-transistion, or legally recognized, woman will tell you that before their SRS they felt it wasn't about the surgery, and having a vagina, and that after the surgery, they will tell you, "It's all about the surgery." It's that simple. Nothing overwhelming or earth shaking, just their wholeness of being.

And it's not about what type of (trans)woman you are or what others think, it's about the full recognition in the law, since all states minus two, require it to amend birth certificates and change the rest of your documents, and it's about recognition with women. You have nothing to hide, ok maybe your history a little, but afterward you can just be and live in the world as a woman.

All of the pre-SRS or non-SRS transwomen can argue all they want about being, they don't and won't know the truth and reality of being the whole woman with mind and body. It's not an agrument against their living and being, that's ok if it fits their lifestyle. But it's not what the argument is about. It's about personal acceptance and recognition.

Amber is right about the the catch-22 of healthcare costs. While only a few insurance plans cover transistion costs and a few government and company plans cover the costs, most women in transistion have exclusions in their healthcare coverage if they have any healthcare plan. And that's the catch-22.

While the medical community defines Gender Identity Disorder a condition, down from a disorder, they don't require medical intervention let alone require the health insurance plans to cover treatment. It's all treatable with medical care, namely therapy, hormones, and surgeries, and the patient becomes whole. And only this year has the medical community changed its view to "recommend" coverage.

That's the real tragedy. A curable condition which isn't covered and isn't affordable by 90% of the patients with it. What other condition would we call that insane? What about their oath about first do no harm? What don't they understand denying coverage is the harm, and denying coverage is the cause of many suicides and deaths among those in transistion.

And the cure is easy. Remove the exclusions and add acceptance and inclusion. It's not rocket science and it's cheap. That's helping people. And Amber has it right.

Conundrum

2009-03-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

The transgender community has a conumdrum. Like that's new or news to or about them? No, it's not, they're always the stereotuypical walking conumdrum with all their diverse members and issues. But that's another issue. This one is about visibility or really invisibility. I was reading the call by some in the community instead of a Day of Rememberance they hold for all the (trans)people who have been killed by violence against them they proposed a Day of Visibility.

They want all transpeople to become visible for a day. It's about being out and proud versus being stealth and invisible. The reality is, when I do a back of the envelope calculation on the numbers of post-transistion women, the number of public post-transistion women is about 5% of the total number of post-transistion women who aren't. It's the reality that they prefer being invisible and simply going about their lives as women.

And that's the conumdrum facing the transgender community. Post-transistion women aren't transgender, but simply legally recognized females and women, meaning those who have completed the medical process, under the Standards of Care, to be physical women (as much as possible) and the legal proceedures to be legally female (birth certificate and all necessary docments). The last thing they want is to become visible.

So, the conumdrum is that only those who are out and proud become visible. When faced with the potential problems and lack of rights and protections, why would a post-transistion woman become visible? Now the vast majority live with just a handful of friends, family and co-workers knowing their history. So, why step out of the shadow into the light for a day? It doesn't make sense except to those who are out and proud and want more to be like them.

I know or have met post-transistion women in the course of my life. We all have, it's just that we likely didn't know it, because they're not obvious. They're just like any other women you meet, only their past is different. They identify as women and are legally recognized as women, so why would they want to become visible as transgender?

The problem is that the transgender community is a diverse group, which many see ranging from the female impersonators thorugh transvestites, cross-dressers, transexuals, and in-transistion women and men. So why would any woman who has gone through their transistion to life silently and quietly as women want to be recognized as one of them?

It's not that they don't support transgender people, they do. It's just that they don't see reasons to go back in their life, something they left and went through a lot of pain and hurt to get through it. They don't see the need to be visible again, and face all the realities that entails in today's society. They're done and have gone on with their life.

I don't think anyone disagrees with the importance a Day of visibility would do for the transgender community. It would be important. But that said the transgender community hasn't recognized the damage it would do to those who are post-transistion women. The last next they need or want is to be portrayed again as less than women, not because the transgender community won't respect them, but society won't.

Just look at the news stories about transgender people and transsexuals. It's neither pretty or nice. It's why the media mistakenly uses the term transgender to describe post-transistion women, because in their minds and what they think is the readers' minds they want to distinguish genetic women from legally recognized women. It, to them, is about their view of morality of being "normal".

And that's why the vast majority of post-transistion women leave the community and never again identify as trans-anything once they've completed their transistion. They're said, done and gone. And becoming visible again? That's not who they are. They're simply women, and deserve the same in return, only visible as women, nothing more.

And that's the conumdrum the transgender community has, but more importantly it's also the totally mistaken perception they give society about all post-transistion women. So why would these women want to come back to the community and become visible. Some of them didn't have a choice. Their life and work circumstances required being out or they were outed in the press.

And if you listen to them, they don't deny the transgender label, they simply ignore it or use it to describe who they were than who they are. It's about the past. They accept the label from the media, and many do an outstanding job presenting the whole positive side of being formerly transgender men or women. That's the visibily which helps.

And no one doubts if all post-transistion women stood up in America, they would amaze everyone as to the diversity and postive role models they have been as women. But we know that visibility would be lost on the media because it's not a story. The media wants the label as the story, not the people. And that's why they're invisible and will likely remain so.

Being Hypocritical

2009-03-17T05:03:00.001-07:00

When someone owns and runs a member forum on their Website, the hardest thing to practice is fairness. The easiest thing is being hypocritical. In two ways. First, to members, treating members differently, and second, about yourself, being hypocritical about your policies and decisions.

When you run the forum, you establish the basic rules and policies. That's normal and expected. And those rules and policies evolve, you change and adapt them over time as events, circumstances and situations arise. That's also normal and expected. But what isn't is when you're hypocritical with those very rules and policies.

I wrote how my account was deleted when I challenged the application of a rule on one forum. Notice I didn't challenge the rule but the application of the rule by the owner. She decided that no one challenges her on the rules and policies. But then when I pointed out that quite a few members had challenged those very rules and policies, I was bannished.

It's the old adage, kill the messenger and the problem disappears. A very strong, "Not!" And that's because you, the owner, are the problem, being hypocritical with yourself. You can't be fickle with members, decide who's ok to allow to be rude or insulting and who gets booted for the least infraction of you choosing.

In my case I challenged her decision on a rule when it clearly wasn't being enforced fairly and evenly. The day before she booted someone for something I would simply send an advisory e-mail to "please don't do that.", but she deleted the person's account. And sure as the next day I made a similar comment, I was gone too.

Yet, in an e-mail exchange I pointed out she own contradictions in her words and actions, she simply stood pat saying that's her right. It is since it's her forum, but it's not when it obviously so blatantly hypocritical.

What's funny is that she has made changes to the moderators on the forum, she changed those who were posting news and blog entries saying the same thing we did. They no longer post those entries. But they still allows members to make statements which contradict her rules and policies. Yet they're still there.

And my point besides just ranting about a person?

No much except it's just another example of people being people. But I've noticed in the transgender community this attitude and perspective is often pervasive. In part it has to do with the nature of the community as a whole and the many divergent membership and members. It's worse than the Democratic party membership and members.

And that's saying a lot. The reason is that the only thing holding the transcommunity together is everyone's identity as transgender, everything else is different, including the flavor, expression, behavior of their identity. Kinda' like soup with a little of every spice in the world mixed into it. It just doesn't work and always ends up tasting bad.

It's doesn't work because beyond the umbrella term, which many don't agree with anyway and don't identify as, there isn't any commonality except wanting to be and expressing themselves as victims. Never mind the source or cause, they always consider themselves victims. And as such often think the rules of fairness don't apply.

And that's where they're wrong. It's actually the opposite. But they're sometimes no different in feeling being the victims a people who become some flavor of terrorists, from vocal advocates to religious extremists. They become defiant about their identity, with the world and especially with and within the community. The transcommunity, as many have said, is its own worst enemy.

But it doesn't change the responsibility to be fair about yourself and with other people. As many have also said, it's more reason to be vigilent about fairness, both yourself and everyone else. But I rarely find that in the transcommunity. I'm not talking nice here, almost everyone is nice. I'm talking after the initial nice is worn off and the real people begin to show.

And that's when fairness gets lost because they go back to their own self-identity and commonality with that. Everything else and everyone else becomes someone else outside their world, and sometime their own perspective, and fairness is usually the first victim. And being hypocritical becomes the only common expression.

And, as I learned, just don't be the one to point that out to them, especially about themselves. I know this is a one-sided view. The transcommunity can be and often is very fair and all the rest of the "good" adjectives in the dictionary. They often are a great group of people, as I have seen photographing events. And I, all too often, only see the negative side of things, whether it's work, life, issues, circumstances, situations, event, whatever.

It's part of my nature and personality, having lifelong Dysthymia. But this also allows and affords me the ability to focus on the negative side when everyone else is playing happy. And after being bannished I had two choices, apologize or walk away. Well, I didn't to the former, and only did the latter after making her aware of her hypocrisy.

And I've vented on my blog, not about being the victim, here, but about the hypocrisy. I know I'm not the good person here. No one really is, but I opened my mouth, as I often have in my life, to point out a contradiction, and got verbally pummelled and then banished. And doing so I've discovered how self-centered and self-absorbed many transpeople are, living in their world and the world.

And when you prick their identity and world, expressed as rules and policies, they get defensive and then get offensive, the latter disgused as reality but really is hypocrisy. And in the end I haven't minded being dismissed from that forum. The ownder didn't do anything I haven't seen before and haven't experienced first hand. I'll just move on to leave her in her own little world in the greater world. And that is my choice.

The lesson was learned, again.

Outside the box

2009-03-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

I've always lived outside the box, any box anyone wants to put me in. I've never fit inside any box anyway, so standing outside a room full of identity boxes is ok with me. I'm not confined to any one and free to wander and wonder, and walk up to any box, look over the edge and see what's inside. And sometimes see how it fits inside.

But then I usually either jump out or get kicked out (see post about being deleted). That's also ok with me. I don't strive in life to be a socially accepted person by any one group's view of members or people. I do strive for a common sense perspective and approach to almost anything.

Note, almost. Everyone has personal issues they're passionate about. I have quite a few issues I'm passionate about, but I've also found that often my perspective is either extreme or out of the normal (box) of the group. And expressing my view also often gets me kicked out of the group, which is what I don't understand.

Why groups discriminate against members seems illogical, despite someone's extreme view with the issues. These people often bring a different thinking and set of ideas, where most of the groups becomes so inbred with their thinking. And it always surprises me when the groups begin some self-analysis after a major setback or failure. What don't they understand the old adage about repeating the same experiment expecting a different result.

I've seen this in the dwindling newspaper business, trying to reinvent itself like all the other failing newspapers, the American auto industry, trying to sell new cars when they haven't improved their reputation, conservative-religious groups, every answer is in the Bible, and so on.

Even the minority groups who feel burdened as victims and have been discriminated against follow their traditional perspective, it's their comfort zone and changing would be seen as heresy, often condeming or expelling members who challenge the status quo, let alone propose new ideas or directions. i've been there myself a few times in my life. Those times had their price and cost.

And during those times I had to decide which was more important, following my own values and beliefs or sacrificing them for being a "team player." I almost always choose the former, and only the latter when the issue was worth negotiating and compromising, even if it hurt a little. The key is your core values and beliefs.

But I'm not talking dogma for those values and beliefs, as is often found in religions. I'm talking basic human values and being a good human being with yourself and others, being honest, trustworthy, respectful, and the rest of the best of being human. That's unverisal and doesn't take anything outside of yourself.

I've wandered a bit, and wondered a bit more, as I often do, just following the stream of consciousness I am. And this post is like a box, I'm both inside writing and outside peeking. And always really outside the box, even looking at myself.

Semantics

2009-03-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

I was reading about the transgender community. Some of my friends are or were, meaning self-identify as, transgender. And you can read the many Websites with all the terminology and definitions and get overloaded who's all under the transgender umbrella or in the transgender community, often shorten to transcommunity.

Anyway, I got into an e-mail exchange with the owner of a forum for transpeople. And she described all the flavors or classes of transpeople, but the ones that interested me were as follows:

"Pre-ops: Transsexuals who desire to to make their body as congruent as possible with their preferred sex, but have not yet had the surgical procedures for whatever reason.

Post-Ops: Transsexuals who have had surgical procedures to make their body as congruent as possible with their preferred sex. For MTF transsexuals this is generally considered to be after Genital surgery (GRS, orchiectomy, and/or penectomy), for FTM transsexuals it is generally considered to be after top surgery."

Except Non-op is missing and Post-Op is incomplete.

A Non-op is someone who elects not to go through genital surgery and lives with the birth genitalia but as a member of the opposite gender, usually a male-to-female since female-to-males are not required to have the surgery for their legal documents (it's medically not recommended and very expensive). Many lesbians who identify as f2m's do everything else.

But some m2f transwomen never get GRS but live as women the rest of their life. This doesn't allow them to get their legal documents, only a Driver's LIcense in some states - not all are consistent with standards, changed to reflect their female (living) gender. Some illegally get their documents changed, but this has risk of discovery later in life and possible civil and/or criminal actions.

After all who wants to know a woman has male genitallia? Yeah, the thing most men freak over, some get angry with, and some love them (that "she-male" thing). Personally I don't understand any of these views. But I do expect that a woman was either born with or has surgery to create a vagina. It's part of a woman's experience in and with life. I haven't met any woman who trade their vagina for a penis and testicles, and everything else it entails.

That's the view of our binary society. And like it or not, it's the reality here.

So why a transwoman pronounces here womanhood without a vagina is beyond me. And even is she illegally obtained her documents saying she's female - remember issuing legal documents under less than legal or fraudulant circumstance doesn't make the documents legal, they're invalid on their face, it's just a matter of time when she'll be required to present the documents supporting her status, take a physical or provide the name of her OB/GYN to certify her status. In short, she'll eventually find justice.

Anyway, there is a last group, Post-transistion.

These are Post-ops (above) who have had their documents legally updated and are fully recognized as female. This starts the the first necessary one, the birth certificate, allowable in every state save two (OH and TN), and then proceeds with the other local, state and federal records and any employment and credit records, and so on down the line. Rarely do all records get changed because they're either too long ago or a changed is not allowed, eg. DOD records.

This is important because you may be physically female with GRS (often called Sex Reassignment Surgery or SRS), but you're not legally female. SRS is the final medical step but not the final step you a (trans)woman's life, just the beginning of the end of her transistion. The rest is the mechanics of the paperwork.

This is also important because it then gives the woman the right to say she's not transgender anymore, but legally female. This is a small semantic difference but a significant one between the transcommunity and the individual. She is now free and independent of the term and community, so the community often likes to avoid that step by stopping at Post-op.

It's also why at least 80%, some estimates 90-95%, of post-transistion women leave the transcommunity, never to be recognized with it again. It's not their present or future life, only their history and past. And the community doesn't like or appreciate these women doing this.

The remaining ones were either publically outed for some circumstance or situation, outed themselves or didn't really have a choice to due their life, work or career. They may dislike the term and label, but it's the one the media sticks on them. It's the media's way of describing them for the story, to isolate and identify them as "not one of us but a transgender person."

It's unfair and not right. The media doesn't use adjectives with other people in the same way, only to highlight their difference between "normal" people and "transgender" people." But it's what the transcommunity loves, post-transistion women claimed and under the umbrella, which they can then call all transgender.

That's neither fair or right either. Post-transistion people are simply male or female, men or women, take your pick, but they're not transgender in any respect anymore. That's the right they earned and deserve when they finished their transistion. We owe them that, nothing less and nothing else.

Tavern conversations

2009-03-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

I'm basically a tavern conversationalist. I like the spirit and openness of a good Friday night conversation at a tavern with rounds of good microbews, stout ale for me thanks, and great food. I like the hearty openness, honesty and freedom of these conversations. And the humor and tolerance for diversity and divergent views.

I like people who are passionate about their views, like wandering ideas, and listen well to understand and debate the subjects beyond saying, "I think..." I like people who take their issues seriously but don't take themselves seriously. I certainly don't. I often hold extreme view on issues, but I rarely speak them. I prefer offering views that open the door to dialog and debate.

Only when pressured or I want to say what I truly feel will I express my deeply held and strongly felt views on an issue. But even then it's just my view of the world, from my experience, knowledge and understanding. Nothing more, but certainly not less than anyone else's view. It's just mine.

And even as I age, I still feel the same way. The only people I avoid anymore are those who are clearly so intransigent in the views they won't change, they won't even listen. And they will keep twisting the topic or issue to their view or to denigrate the opposing view, or worse other people. At that point, when I used to try to talk to them, now I simply shut up and often walk away.

They won't change. But that's also issue dependent. I've known some very interesting, and staunchly opininated, people in my life, and I like being in their company for conversations, because they see the humor in life, and even their own life and view. They're often a hoot to be around and talk with. They laugh at themselves more than they laugh as life.

And I can kid them about life and their views. That's my style. Always with a smile and a humorous idea or perspective on things. The little kid in me never left and sometimes likes to make people smile. It's all in the value we have as people with each other. If we didn't respect each other and learned to appreciate and respect our differences and different views. what else would there be in the world?

I know somtimes friendship is best, and why maybe diplomacy is often better done, on a Friday night at the local pub over good beer and food.

Being Deleted

2009-03-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

You said something about interpersonal communications?
Like many people, I'm a member of many Internet commuities and forums. Many are the predecessors to Websites like Facebook and Twitter where you can communicate with many people of similar lives or with similar interests. They were a godsend to many who felt isolated or for many who didn't have access to larger avenues for sharing. And as the Internet grew the number of forums for many topics have increased.

I belong to about half a dozen or so, some I visit daily, some routinely during the week, and some just a few times per month. It's understood that the owner has the right to set the rules and the owner and moderators have the right to set the tone. You're the visitor or guest, you behave for face eviction. That's obvious, but what's less obvious is the subtle bias and discrimination that creeps into them.

Recently on one the topic turned to inclusion or exclusion, both within the community and to the community by society at large. The community is a pretty big umbrella group covering a vast range of human identity, expression, and behavoir. And yes, it's been a group which has been discriminated against for decades and even today (and no it's not the lgb community). Yet, while they profess to be inclusive for its members, it actually is quite exclusive, and worse, discriminating against its own members.

So, why do owners of forum profess inclusion but then practice exlcusion when the topic wanders into areas they're uncomfortable or with views expressed by members they disagree? I don't know, but recently some of my posts were removed and then my account was removed. Without giving notice and reasons. And then the owner changed the rules to ban talk on the topic and views expressed by quite a few members.

The problem with the decision, which they're right to do because they own the forum, is that they and the moderators routinely post news stories and editiorials about the same topic and people write posts expressing the same view they banned and then deleted members. And the owners and moderators routinely criticize the opposing view.

It was a total suprise to me, as I have never criticized individuals. From my years in senior management I have always practiced focusing on the subject of the discussion and the ideas, views, opinions, issues, etc. under discussion. Never have I criticized an individual, only what they said. And never in the spirit of hate, because I like these conversations, and am always smiling for one good reason.

As the saying goes, I take my work and/or issues seriously but I never take myself seriously. I know my view or opinion is just one of many, Not better or worse, just different. Not more or less important, all are equal. While some people have more experience, knowledge or understanding, and can express more intelligent views and opinions, it still doesn't lessen the views and opinions of others.

And that is what floored me seeing my "username does not exist" when I tried to log in today. I sent the owner an e-mail (you can still read the forum except the member-only topics) explaining my position and her failure to understand. I doubt anything will change. For one reason.

She professes that everyone with this identity should be in the community whether or not they want to, whether or not they care to, and whether or not they changed and moved on with their lives. She believes once in your always in. That's her tragedy of understanding and compassion. And her bias to both discriminate against those who disagree with her and to remove anyone who expresses it.

So, it's one forum now I read for the same reasons I did before, I just can't post anymore. And my view is that I would recommend this forum for the many excellent and terrific members, they're great at providing the information and support you want and need. I won't, however, recommend anyone become members because the owner discriminates against members of her own community, just over words.

So to her, as much as I would like to tell her, "GFY.", I won't. You see I don't criticize people, just their decisions, actions and views, and always with a smile out of enjoyment for conversation. And yes, I'd like to be the sheepdog holding the wolf (her).

Definitions

2009-03-05T17:57:00.000-08:00

The word transpersonal, according to the Oxford American Dictionary, means, "of, denoting, or dealing with states or areas of consciousness beyond the limits of personal identity." What exactly this means, personally (ok, bad pun), I really don't have a clue. I just like the word and description, except to me the word means, "the consciousness about crossing divides of human thinking, feeling, expressions and behaviors."

It's not necessary to me what the literal definition means according to the various groups or organizations which use the term. I may use their definitions and usage, but apply it to the here and now in the context of the human experience, from my favorite tavern absorbing all the experiences of the senses sitting at a table against the window, to my photography, especially where I'm hiking in Mt. Rainier NP, just putting one foot, or really hiking boot, in front of another looking, and to my life, just going about the world in the things I do.

It's about life and the moment, and what, where, when, how and why it all fits into our existence. I'm not sure where it goes, or even if it leads anywhere. Sometimes it's just a wandering and wondering about what's around me, the like adage, "Stand in your space and know you are there.", but more so about the interactions, interconnections and interrelationships between the person, me, the world, where I'm at, the universe, and the unknown, whether a belief, faith, or in my case Taoism.

Well, that's it for an introduction, which is about as clear as a glacier fed stream flowing of Mt. Rainier, kinda' a chunky, milk chocolate drink of everything past, present and future. But then that's the beauty of it. It's open to everything and anything which my senses experience, my mind thinks, my heart feels, my soul experiences, and my spirit absorbs.

To stand and be. Nothing and everything.

Merging and going forward

2009-03-01T20:13:00.000-08:00

I decided to move all the gender related posta from my main blog to its own blog (here) and merged all those past essays with the new essays I'll write about the various and different aspects of gender, from personal experience to opinion and onward to ideas. As for the opinion ones, they're just my opinon.

I've always been someone who doesn't fit into nor wants to fit into any box people want to label me. And I've also always been an alone person, never a group or crowd person. That doesn't mean I'm anti-social, just the opposite. I can be quite social, but I'm just one of those who prefer socializing with smaller groups, and really only a few people. Both of those facets of me makes me more of an outside observer of anything.

I like to just peer into things, get the basic ideas, logic and reasoning and some experience, but then go my own way. And the essays here, past and future ones, will be in that vein, kinda' just reporting what I see and think. Not much else except throw in some experience, knowledge and understanding when and where necessary or helpful, and you get the picture.

Anway, there they are now in one place. I hope you enjoy them.