Did you know that this week is Transgender Awareness Week?...It is! From The 12th through the 19th you can expect to see articles and videos geared to help raise awareness about the Transgender community, culminating with the Transgender Day of Remembrance on the 20th. For those not familiar with the day of remembrance, it is a day set aside to talk about and remember our friends and family in the Transgender community who have been lost to transphobia, suicide, and violence.
In my opinion, these holidays are just as important as any rainbow festooned pride event, largely because the transgender community is so misunderstood...not only by the general public...but often also by the LGB community to whom their "T" is a part of. Coming out as a gay and being a member of the LGBT community does not automatically make you an expert on all it's facets and when a friend came out to me as trans I discovered that I had a lot of learning to do. Unfortunately, it wasn't long after my friend Carina came out to me that I lost her to suicide because the rejection of her family was too much for her to bear. And just like that, transgender issues stopped being abstract issues peripherally attached to a community I consider myself a part of and became a very personal part of my life. My education on trans life began with my friend Carina but it continues to evolve today...
For example...It was in a discussion with a Trans friend about raising awareness that a comment was made that challenged what I believe to be an important, if not critical feature of gay life....coming out, and then living your life out of the closet....
Gay brothers and sisters,... You must come out. Come out... to your parents... I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives... come out to your friends... if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors... to your fellow workers... to the people who work where you eat and shop... come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared by the votes from Dade to Eugene.---Harvey Milk
I believed in coming out as a path to not only personal freedom, but also a critical action toward fostering equality for all of us in the LGBT community. It is so central to what my family does with our Youtube channel and why we do it. Because I believe that the more the world personally knows a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or Transgender person, the more they will see that person as just like them. It is when a person makes that connection that real change happens and that translates out not only to being treated equally on a personal level, but also in the work place and at the ballot box. It is that growing awareness of our common humanity that has helped to create a massive shift in public opinion on issues like military service and marriage equality. The more we come out, live out, and let people see our lives for what they are...the more that people understand that we are not shadowy people with a secret agenda and just people with loves and dreams just like them. It can at times be a difficult undertaking but the results seem to speak for themselves as we just celebrated the passage of marriage equality in four states this last election....that would have been impossible just ten years ago. The only exception I have ever thought possible to the notion that living out equals changing the world, is for cases were being out could lead to physical harm, like LGBT teens who commonly face homelessness after coming out. But barring those circumstances, I view coming out as a necessary step to full equality. The problem I ran into was in applying this rule to the trans community.
But "where the hell are you going with this?", you may ask....
I have recently had the benefit of spending some time with a friend who happens to be a trans woman and the topic of conversation came around to her wanting to create a YouTube channel like ours to show the life of a trans person. "Great! That's a wonderful idea!" was my response and promptly launched into my speech about the importance of telling our stories to help people in the straight and gay community understand what it means to be trans and how vital that view into a trans persons life can be. However, her response surprised me. She let me know that there are some that just want to live as the gender they feel themselves to be and NOT be recognized or known as a transperson.
My response was, "Huh?...How can you get away from that?" After all, Isn't your trans identity always going to be with you?
I have recently had the benefit of spending some time with a friend who happens to be a trans woman and the topic of conversation came around to her wanting to create a YouTube channel like ours to show the life of a trans person. "Great! That's a wonderful idea!" was my response and promptly launched into my speech about the importance of telling our stories to help people in the straight and gay community understand what it means to be trans and how vital that view into a trans persons life can be. However, her response surprised me. She let me know that there are some that just want to live as the gender they feel themselves to be and NOT be recognized or known as a transperson.
My response was, "Huh?...How can you get away from that?" After all, Isn't your trans identity always going to be with you?
Now, I had known about the concept of living in stealth for some time and anyone who has ever been in the closet can relate to the desire to pass unseen...and hopeful unharmed, through life. However, her comment had caught me off guard. While on the one hand I could totally understand the desire to be regarded as completely the gender they identify and live as...but....I also could not understand disowning being transgender. I felt that way mostly because of all I have written above. So the wheels in my head began to turn....You are born one gender but feel like another...Perhaps you go through some turmoil to come out to yourself...then comes the equally hard task of coming out to others...and then whatever steps you can afford or feel necessary in order to transition. To me that's a lot of work, a lot of discrimination to overcome...only to then attempt to bury it and fade into everyday society.
(disclaimer)!!!...I know not every trans person does this, wishes to do this, nor is every person necessarily capable of fading into the background and hiding their trans status so easily. My intention is not to restereotype the trans community. It is just my attempt to discuss the issue as it has been presented to me. While there are a lot of different points of view within the Trans community, it was indicated to me that theis was an ongoing conversation within the trans community as a whole and that the people who do feel this way have a significant voice within that conversation.
I don't judge anyone for wanting to put it all back in a closet as if it's all behind them, but it still seems such a loss to me. That loss is to the trans community as a whole. It is a loss to those newly coming out who could be inspired by your story and within it find the tools to face their own challenges...it is a loss to your neighbor who will not get to know trans people as just like anyone else and not as evil incarnate....and finally, it is a loss to you because as long as the public at large continues to think from a place of ignorance because they don't know any trans people, the lives of all trans people remain in jeopardy. I am gay, but I used to be one of those people...one person changed my mind and my life. I wish I could have changed hers.
I think anyone singled out for difference understands the relief you feel when that difference is no longer an issue. I can't fault anyone for wanting to just get on with their lives and not continuously be reminded of being trans. But, the only way to change your life isn't to go deeper into a closet in my opinion...even willingly. We have to take the leap out and change how the world thinks of a trans individual. That change is sorely needed as trans people suffer incredibly high rates of violence, depression, and suicide...largely because people have the same uneasy, squeamish attitude to trans people today that they use to have for gay people twenty years ago. And sadly, those that think that way includes a few gay people too. There is a lot of work to do and a lot of fear and misunderstanding to be over come and only one way to make that happen....through courage, honesty, and owning who we are.
I say these things not to point fingers or find fault, but because this is what I believe is the only way to move forward in a permanent and lasting way for all of us....and because I see the trans community as being so vulnerable to the effects of fear and discrimination. I have already lost one friend and I don't want to lose anymore. I don't want to light another candle.
maybe you don't agree with me. Maybe you think I'm full of B.S. Fine...take me to task. Tell me what you think about it....tell me how I am wrong. But for Pete's sake talk about it, don't let it die in silence.
maybe you don't agree with me. Maybe you think I'm full of B.S. Fine...take me to task. Tell me what you think about it....tell me how I am wrong. But for Pete's sake talk about it, don't let it die in silence.
as i have commented before, i am the gay son of a trans woman. trans issues, while still very abstract in some ways, are very close to home for me. my mom did not understand it when i was growing up and she tried to shield us from my biological father's cross dressing-which is what it was at the time. i remember once my bd(bio-dad;entirely for brevity 'dad' is not a term i use for this woman) came to visit wearing massive shades, i did not see it but bd was wearing eyeliner. looking back i dont think it would have been a real issue for me because of the punk movement and the big hair bands and all that stuff none of which has ever really been mom's thing anyway.
ReplyDeleteit was years later, after i had come out to my siblings that my brother's then wife arranged for me to have a conversation with my bd. i was really angry over it but it really worked out to be for the better. i was generally angry at everyone and everything at that time. i have realized that anger is easy for me, that is what was taught to me by my bd. knowing where hers came from now does not change the lessons i got as a kid. i do cognitively understand it better but rage is such an easy thing for me, for reasons beyond the abuse we received by the unhealthy person my bd was and still kind of is.
i needed to understand more than i did so i sought trans information. i found what i needed in a number of fairly obscure to everryone else places, transamerica, medical stuff, and a very few movies. one of which is still a favorite(i cant remember the name-it involved motorcycles and a man waving his penis).
to quote bryan, i am attached to that part of my anatomy, so in that sense my sex and gender have always been the same though i was a bit atypical growing up. but i am atypical on a lot of things- its part of my charm lol
the movie im talking about here is 'its better for girls' its available on netflix
DeleteI agree on balance it does societal harm for trans people to closet themselves. Gays not coming out and showing who they really are and their similarities to the public at large is what allows bigoted gay stereotypes to fester like a cancer. It’s easy to oppress a caricature and an abstraction, but harder to do to someone who know you personally and see face-to-face. I would think that would be similarly true for trans people.
ReplyDeleteTo have such profound gender dysphoria and feel trapped in the wrong body is such a bizarre predicament to be in that, to me, it couldn’t possibly be chosen or decided upon any more than a gay person choses or decides what his orientation is. There has to be a strong biological component to it somehow and that means, although it’s a rare occurrence, it COULD happen to anyone. So what a non-trans hyper-judgmental prick of a bigot, more likely Republican than not, might look down his slimy nose with perceived moral superiority to that trans person is really about having the more fortunate birth outcome.
The segment of the trans community I tend to feel more sorry for are guys attempting to transition to trans women, but that transition is botched or can’t be completed so they can’t achieve a natural feminine look and are reduced to still looking like a guy with a very artificial made up look, such as cheesey Lou Reed “Walk on the Wild Side” eye shadow, overly-glossy lip stick and poofy wig. The more fake they look, the greater the likelihood they’ll get picked on. RuPaul can get away with his appearance because he’s an entertainer, but what aspiring trans women yearning for some peace, comfort and normality in their lives would want to look like RuPaul? They want to look like real women and that’s perfectly understandable.
Sometime ago, I saw some trans video about some insensitive questions trans people face and the one which stuck out the most is this: DON’T ask to be shown a picture of what he or she looked like pre-transition. Many want to be recognized in their current transitioned appearance as the real them and to show you a picture is just taking them back to a painful place and a former self they wish to abandon. Should such a trans person WANT to show you a picture of his or her former self, that’s different but still be really careful about your comments in response. But PLEASE don’t actually ask to see such pictures.
Many seasons ago on the gay bear collab channel, 5AwesomeBears, there was a trans male bear in the cast. I think Lokituck was his screenname. Hilarious guy and his trannie humor in stand-up comedy could have made him a big star except that kind of humor left him feeling too exposed, too revealed and weirded-out to continue. What a shame…. He could have a trans male bear Gabriel Iglesias. He had the transition surgery and, for the most part, they did a very good job on him. They left him with rather large feminine-like hips and rather feminine-looking hands but the rest of him came out very masculine and hairy, so he easily passes as a bear. With his tinted wireframe glasses added to his beard, he looks like a really cool hippie-bear but, with those glasses off, you see eyes and a smile so beautiful—and in a manly way—that it would just make you melt. Very hot....
Hmmm. It's hard to explain. I've said before "transgendered" is a title no one wants. If "gay" is a destination. Transgendered" is a road. "transgender" is the moment just before you came out except we live in that time, never able to move forward. I hate the phrase trans-man or trans-woman it implies I'm not a woman, not really, I'm a pretend woman. I don't want to live as a someone who doesn't quite make the gender they should belong to. Think about a woman who is unable to have children having to see other woman having children, raising children and one of these woman say "you not a real woman if you can't have children". That's the feeling, it's like a knife in my heart every time. You remember the transgender toilet sign on your Facebook page?. That says "we've build a toilet escpecially for you, because you not a real woman". So the options are say I'm not a real woman and defend the transgendered community or live the life you should lead.
ReplyDeleteThe notion of not being a real woman or a real man unless you’ve brought a child into the world is complete and utter bullshit because it’s a myopic world view assuming everyone wants children in the first place, which just isn’t true. If you don’t want any, that concept is completely irrelevant for you. As for the labels “trans-man” and “trans-woman”, I don’t how else we correct misplace stereotypes without being able to identify transgendered people for who they really are. Maybe we should think in terms of trans-women, “organic” as opposed to “real” women and then reserve any designations like “pretend-LOOKING women” to someone like RuPaul. This is a semantic minefield for me and I definitely feel over my head here. I just don’t understand how the trans community gains understanding and acceptance if all its members stay underground and undetectable. With no visible role models who might end up seeming a lot more ordinary than the general public expects, I don’t know how they would achieve equality. Just as with the gay community, a key pathway to equality is to market a human and non-threatening image of us which does NOT conform to bigoted stereotypes.
Deletei disagree, i dont think your options are that limited in the right environment.
Deletethat caveat is huge i know.
it is the same journey as finding the place you belong at; the place where you thrive.
Your so not getting it Dave and I kind of need you to. I don't want to be a trans woman, I don't want to be known as a non-organic femail. I want, I need to be regarded as female. That's it. The woman not being able to have children is a mataphor, it has nothing to do with wanting children or not wanting children. It has to do with the feeling a woman may have at not being regarded as a proper woman. Those are the same feelings I have at not bing regarded as a full woman. To call me a trans-woman is like saying. You'll never be a proper woman and we'll never accept you as one. It hurts me so much. At work the girls get together and chat about girls stuff and the men talk sports. I sit alone, not accepted by either group. Imagine living a life where you are rejected by both genders when all you want is to be accepted as the gender you were born to be. The problems for transgender people is not bullying or violence it's ostrisation and rejection. Hollyxx
ReplyDeleteHi Holly,
DeleteMy use of the “trans-woman” terminology is merely a reflection of what I hear and a way to describe people who actually exist. I think nothing less of you for you coming to your womanhood by surgery or whatever form of transition as opposed to having simply been born that way originally. I meant no offense and regret if I nonetheless caused some in my semantic clumsiness and my somewhat weak familiarity with the issue. Unless I were heterosexual, interested in you as a potential life partner or spouse AND wanted to have children with you the conventional way, how you arrived at your present womanhood, be it through an original birth outcome or the result of medical transition, is largely irrelevant to me. Simply put, the origin of your womanhood doesn’t matter to me. Isn’t this the level of pure acceptance you seek from others?
It seems to me the issue remains that if no one in the trans community will show themselves for who they REALLY are and demonstrate that they AREN’T a walking, talking rightwing-inspired stereotype, how does that community overcome the ostrisation and rejection which personally hurts you so much? You’ve been quite clear here that struggle is something you personally don’t want to be involved in and, instead, much prefer to be regarded as the gender you were meant to be and never mind whether that came about by original birth outcome or some other means. You prefer not to have others around you even aware there’s any such difference. You much rather be perceived as always having been a woman even though you know that wasn’t always true anatomically. That’s a perfectly defensible position to take FOR YOURSELF.
My point is what would happen if most people in your circumstances handled it the same way? Awareness of transgenderism would still exist and there would be no one stepping up to educate a bigoted public, so their condemnation, ostracization and rejection of such people would continue. And I would think the trans community faces at least some dangers of bullying and violence as well. As an analogy, what if gay people never showed their real faces and tried to educate the public what we’re really like and that we’re more similar to the general public than it realizes? What if Jay and Bryan never stepped up through their Depfox channel to demonstrate how a gay family really functions, that gay people can value marriage and commitment just as much as their straight counterparts? With no information out there to rebut the hateful stereotypes that WE are subject to, what’s to stop the perception that we’re a bunch of feminized, emaciated, hairless, gyrating degenerate ravers at a giant fisting party all made up in our black spandex and pink fuzzy tennis shoes? Doesn’t sound like much of a pathway to equality to me….
"a bunch of feminized, emaciated, hairless, gyrating degenerate ravers at a giant fisting party all made up in our black spandex and pink fuzzy tennis shoes?...."
DeleteWow Dave that was quite a vivid and detailed image you gave there...
Bryan
I forgot to mention our rainbow-colored pasties with little dancing slinkies hanging from them. Sorry about that…. :-D :-D
Deleteits a gift ive noticed...sometimes it trolls far more than i think is intended but hey, dudes wouldnt be dudes if we did not occasionally troll ourselves and one another.
DeleteHi Dave. Please don't take this as offensive or that you have offended. I'm merely attempting to put into words a very complex issue and I want you and anyone reading this to understand. Jay and Bryan do a wonderful job, they are great advocates for the gay community. Ask yourself though if either would be advocates if the price was to remain celibate and single?. If the price of their advocacy was that they remain in the closet?. True happiness for a transexual is to be regarded as fully female, as fully female as a natural born female. Anything else is a "pretend female", a 95% female is not a female. I've personally known a transexual lie about her born gender because she just wanted to be treated as a whole female. I mean, that's the deal with every natural born female a total acceptance of her gender as female and that's what a transexual wants. So to come out and say "I'm transexual". Is a huge price to pay for someone who wants to be regarded as a full 100% woman. The price is to stand up and say I'm prepared to sacrifice my own happiness to join the transgender voice of protest. Would Jay or Bryan make an equivalent sacrifice?. Sacrifice there own happiness, sacrifice their position as fathers, as partners ans a married couple for the cause?. For a transexual to stand up and allow herself to be regarded as a "not really a female", female is a huge sacrifice and the end of a dream of being what they feel they should have been. Holly xx
ReplyDeleteWow! That’s quite a problem and I don’t know how to fix it other than the approach you’re using. It’s seems the pathway to freedom and happiness for GLB and then T is entirely opposite. For us, the closet is a lonely, loveless, dark hole where we’re throwing our lives and our happiness away just to go either undetected or to appease ignorant, bigoted pondscum around us. Most of us who have successful coming out experiences feel we’re free as never before and our lives turn from black and white to high-def color. But, as you have described it, the sacrifice trans people experience coming out just for a political cause is simply too great for many to bear. Assuming a successful surgical or medical transition that’s visually believable, only by staying closeted on that issue do you retain the ability to be perceived as a natural born whatever you transitioned into, in your case female. As you have explained it, all coming out will get you and others in similar circumstances is being dismissed as a pretend whatever and then shunned. Perhaps reasonable minds within your peer group might differ on whether or not to come out, but I think I DO finally understand where YOU are coming from. This took a while, but I think I finally have arrived….
DeleteHolly...I know this reply may come out of my ignorance, because I have not walked a mile in your shoes. And I don't mean to offend at all because I hear what your saying and it would be utterly heartless of me to suggest that someone give up a shot at happiness in order to raise awareness of the Trans community.
DeleteBut there is a huge problem there in that the Trans community places itself in a catch 22? How does the world learn to regard a trans woman as a "real woman" if they don't first have their eyes opened that they were making that person feel less than.
Some one does have to make that sacrifice. Some one does have to be the Harvey Milk or nothing changes.
We need to call bullshit on the thinking that being a woman by virtue of transition is less valid than being born that way. Being a "trans-woman" should not be regarded as being any less a "real woman" than a gay man should be regarded as not being a "real man". Thats the kind of bullshit we have to call out.....we get a lot of hatred back for doing it...but we also find a lot of good people who will stand beside us.
I think we all want to get to the day when there is no words like "trans" or "gay" before our status as just another man or woman, the same as any other....but to get to that point we are going to have to own it first.
Like I said....not trying to ruffle anyones feathers...I cant ask anyone to give up the possibility of love or family to end the horid discrimination that gay and trans people can endure.
But if we don't...who will?
Bryan
Bryan,
DeleteI’m really torn. While my inclinations prior to this conversation are more in line with you, I now understand Holly and Biki’s view point just as well. If EVERY member of the trans community make the same personal decisions Holly and Biki have made, they WILL remain an oppressed people and there will be little or no help for people less far along in their transition or for those experiencing stumbling blocks along the way. Harvey Milk-like figures ARE needed in that community. But the personal sacrifice for someone who has completed transition to out him or herself is simply too great to bear UNLESS that sacrifice is made willingly. Holly and Biki just want simple, uncomplicated lives just being natural women and they’re just not up to this job. No one should force them.
who doesn't want just simple natural lives?.....just sayin. Isn't that what we are all working toward? The ability to live without being treated as different either socially or legally? That doesn't just happen by itself and the work of a man like Harvey Milk does not stop at the end of his own sacrifices but lives on in the encouragement he gave others to follow his lead.
DeleteBryan
I think you are looking at this subject the wrong way around. If you are lbg you are so until the moment you draw your last breath. You. Are. Gay. While that isnt your only modifier, nor should it be, its different when one is trans. Trans is what our diagnoses is, not who we actually are. To us? we are males or females, and thats it really. Ok yeah totally trapped within the wrong bodies to be sure, but we dont see ourselves with a trans heading. I see myself as a gay man, who lives within a girl meat suit. When we are at long last comfortable within our bodies, and with our reflection in the mirror, after learning how to actually LOOK at ourselves in the mirror, most of us wont ever think of ourselves as trans. On a day to day basis, I dont think of myself as trans, but do use it to explain myself when the need arises.
ReplyDeleteIf one is lucky enough to transition into the correct body, then one is no longer trans, right? We are now living within the correct meat suit, well as good as surgery and hormones can remake us. But no matter what occurs in your life, where you go, what job you take, where you vacation, you will still be gay. Do you ever foresee the day where you will turn your head to watch a hot woman walk by? No? Why not? Oh, yeah your gay, will be, are gay.
Yes, its sad that there isnt really a vibrant trans community, but once we transition, we aren't trans really any longer. See? And until we arrive at that nirvana harbor of actually beginning the wonderful metamorphis into our proper gender, most of us are honestly walking wounded, and suffer daily by having to live a lie. Did you know that many of us suffer from PTSD? Many of us are past masters of burying who we are due to parental displeasure when we were little, and learn how to push all those feelings down deep, and ignore what our brains and hearts are telling us.
And as dangerous as it is to be a femme gay, its much more deadly to be a trans woman. We are murdered, assulted more than any other minority, and grossly out of per portion to our numbers.
People who are lucky to be born within the correct meat suit, have no idea what its like to be born with a foot in both genders and a life in the crack between. Trying to describe to someone what it is like to grow up so conflicted is tricky due to a nearly total absence of common ground. Sex is a easy box to open and show others what we are talking about. Who doesnt understand lust and desire, well if they are honest that is. While they might not want to think of two same sexed humans enjoying sex, they get it, its sex! But to explain the difference between gender and physical sex can be nearly impossible at times.
Great post, as usual!
Biki,
DeleteI assume you’re talking to Bryan more than to me. I’ve been freshly tutored by Holly, as you might have read and I think I get it now. Transgenderism is more a diagnosis and a medical journey some people need to take to get to who they really are. Once they’ve successfully arrived, they are either male or female, period and further qualifiers are quite unwanted. Once you let those qualifiers slip your lips, you catapult yourself into a world of being perceived a fake whatever, and that’s a place you don’t want to go.
I hear what you AND Holly are say. Transitioning is a road, not a destination.
DeleteBut using that same analogy, suppose you are not the only traveler on that road. As you finally, triumphantly look at the mirror and just see a man you can say to yourself, "That's it. I've arrived. I am finally complelely me, inside and out."
Thats a fantastic moment that I wish for everyone to come to but, that fact of the matter is that we don't live in a world that will permanently allow you to remove the Trans label...yet. They will remember, and they will remind you. As they did to the poor woman who married a firefighter who died in the line of duty. Her trans status became known and the family of the firefighter fought her in court on the grounds that their marriage was not valid in the first place. ...She lost. It was horrible to read about.
And secondly...as people who are transitioning complete that journey does that mean that they can't turn around and help their fellow travelers who are not as far along as they...who are suffering in loneliness and an utter vacuum of knowledge and experience that could give them to tools to make it to the end and thrive.
So transitioning is a process and a journey...not an identity...but does that negate the fact that there are a lot of fellow travelers and a lot of people who want to make dam sure you never reach the end of that journey?
I am a gay man...that is a part of my identity, but that does not mean that I WANT other people to regard me as gay all the time....at my kids school for instance, I just want to be a father there, not a GAY father...but I am. Most people do not treat me differently or make me feel as if my gayness has any impact on my status as a parent. But it took a whole lot of people making a whole lot of sacrifices before me to be able to do that. Not the least of which were the first gay parents who had to endure the anger and accusations of of parents and teachers for being different.
Sometimes we have to wear our labels so the world can see what utter bullshit they really are.
Just my two cents...and hopefully I am not coming across as combative because I would never want you or Holly to feel that way. YOu are entitled to feel that way that you do..I just have a differnt perspective on it...but that doesn't mean I have walked a mile in your shoes either.
Bryan
(P.S....and a meat suit?...ew :P )
I understand what Biki means by the meat suit, but it does generate some pretty grizzly imagery. The imagery it creates for me is I’ve stepped into a JosBank store and got outfitted with a European cut meat suit of butcher-trimmed rotting carcasses, bonded by staples to the front and back of me like Roman gladiator armor and an asteroid belt of flies swarming all over me. :-D This is the one instance I’m thankful to have completely lost my sense of smell due to my illness! :-D :-D With that imagery in mind, all I want to do is run out of that store screaming and find someone with a crowbar who can pry those miserable carcasses off of me, so I can rip my underlying clothing off and burn them, spray myself head-to-toe with Raid and then dunk myself in a hot tub of Purell! :-D :-D Next, Bryan, I need to borrow some of your Brainbleach you normally use to purge your brain of the thought your dad might actually read your blog to erase any meat suit images from my own head! :-D
Deletei love the invader zim reference, even if it was unintentional.
Deletesome of us understand the between status because of our own dysmorphia. i cant recall the other term but add that one too. by definition they are kind of the same but they refer specifically to slightly disparate things (one is the perception itself, dysmorphia is the faulty body issue if only seen by the person with the dysmorphia.)
it is not an easy path regardless of how you choose to walk it.
Thing is some transgendered people do stand up. I stand up for transgendered rights. I make that sacrifice because I don't really have a choice, I simply have too many male characteristics to convince people I'm female. I feel the pain of being identified as male every single time. Every time some one accidentally says he instead of she, I get hurt, every time I go out I risk embarrassment, harassment, humiliation. I wouldn't wish that on anyone else, I wouldn't encourage anyone who does pass as female to come out. You cannot tell, encourage or pressure someone into that role it's too much to ask. The emotional load is already too heavy for many to bear.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind. Few things... The transgender community is much smaller than the gay community. There is no "getting home" for a transgendered person, it's a continual struggle that never ends for international acceptance and society acceptance. An obvious transgendered person cannot hide in a crowd, their vulnerability is on display 24/7. Bryan, as you yourself has pointed out, transgendered people don't even have the full support of gay people or the gay community. I wonder how many of those negative comments on your vblog with Jubilee where from gay people.
It is as Bryan and Dave have pointed out a situation of if no one stands up nothing will change but be careful and be aware of the cost you may be asking others to pay.
bryan...
ReplyDeletei want to sincerely thank you for all you have done. and i dont even know the depth of it myself.
today 1 year ago i said 'i love you' which is for me the death knell of everything. all that i have loved has left me and that trend continues. my self was given back to me and i was shown the portion of a life i was living and all things became more..
i was unable to breathe and had no solid foundation. it was gone from me. magickally your videos showed me something i have never known and will never have. the man i love is amazing but he is not mine, i accept that. i do not pine woefully after him...i am not that guy. today i remember and i am drunk both on alcohol and on the memory of where i was. thank you from the deepest well of my being, words cannot express my emotion. you have no idea what you have done for me and i dont either. thank you, always, may you and yours blessed be in love forever. may you be uplifted beyond your imaginings and may you have all the joy that i know i will not. thank you bryan for allowing me a glimpse of the smallest portion of what i will never have. thank you jay for being the man to make bryan do it, thank you daniel and selena for making your dads want a better world for you to live in. thank you all and much love from this drunken corner of the interwebs.
Steeldrago,
DeleteI hope this is the alcohol talking more than anything, but very early 30’s is still young and it’s way too early to give up on love yet. Someone’s still out there with your name on his heart. Having heard how you seek people out, maybe you would have better luck and better weed out the flakes if you spent video chat time with whoever before actually meeting in person. This works well for Sam and I, though we have ridiculously huge geographic separation issues. But, for someone you’re interested in who lives a lot closer to you, using video chat could really improve your prospects.
lol...yes and no. there are a few things that i know for certain, perhaps it no longer applies but i have not seen any evidence of that yet.
DeleteWell...giving that Holly and Biki have given up contributing to the conversation, I guess I had better just let it go. I hope I didn't piss them off...but I do hope we both gave each other something to think about.
ReplyDeleteBryan
maybe they just need time to process?
DeleteBryan,
DeleteYou can always tell us what would be the most frightening "meat suit" nightmare for you. Try to outdo me. Could be great fun.... :-D Try tapping into a bit of the dark side and Gabriel Iglesias--the not fat but "fluffy" stand-up comic--and you might come up with something pretty hysterical.