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17 December 2010 by kathleen.
When I set up GenderSong a year or so ago, I had intended to create an honor roll of transmen and transwomen whose non-transgender accomplishments have come to my attention. Then I thought: hey, wait! I would be outting anyone I put on the list. How could putting their names in a list hurt? I don’t know but I have asked them first before adding their names.
In the coming year I will attempt to contact more transgendered people and bring them to your attention. I do so because you need to know — and your loved ones need to know — that we are real people, with real accomplishments, and that we make positive contributions to the society in which we live.
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9 December 2010 by kathleen.
December 10 is International Human Rights Day, a day to speak up to stop discrimination. Organizers around the world speak up for prisoners’ rights, for women’s rights, for the rights of gays and lesbians, for the rights of indigenous peoples, and yes, for transgender rights, too.
It is also the closing day of the 16 Days campaign for Activism Against Gender Violence, which started November 25.
Your right to present in the gender of your choice is a human right. You have a right to wear a dress, or a beard — or both! — whoever you are. That right is not respected in Asia, in Africa, and only in some parts of North America. I live in Virginia, a commonwealth whose citizens formally and thoroughly rejected equal rights for gays and lesbians by so amending their constitution that even if it’s not called marriage, you can’t do it if both parties are of the same sex.
Whether you are transgendered, cisgendered, or non-gendered, speak up to stop discrimination.
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7 December 2010 by kathleen.
Some people use the word “transition” to mean a years-long process, perhaps starting when they first think about leaving the safety of their home and ending around the time of surgery (if they have it). Personally, I transitioned in the instantaneous sense: I went to bed in my birth gender one day, and — having prepared for years — I arose the next day and began a new life, 100%, in my chosen gender.
I transitioned. Once. Instantaneously. My preparation lasted for years, but my transition happened overnight.
I defined the instantaneous view of transition in my glossary. It is not a popular view, but I think it is the most respectful of those around me. I say respectful because if “transition” means a years-long process, then during those years I would be neither fully female nor fully male. Sometimes people might see me as female, sometimes as male, sometimes half-and-half. It is the change back and forth, from male to female and back again, that angers and confuses many people. I think it would have confused me, too.
Quite truly, other people’s anger is their problem. The results of their anger and confusion, however, can very easily become a problem for me.
The alternative is the instantaneous transition. During years of preparation for transition, I continued to present as my birth gender. I underdressed, sometimes, when I felt the need, but when others saw me, they only saw me in my birth gender. When I was finally ready, I went to bed one last time in my birth gender, then woke up the next day in my chosen gender.
I was finished. I did not ever again revert. I was done with my birth gender: the transition was instantaneous.
Does that make sense to anyone else?
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5 December 2010 by kathleen.
On December, 6, 1989, Marc Lepine murdered 14 women engineering students at École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He accused them of ruining his life with their feminism. This anniversary falls within the campaign for 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence.
Unlike the massacre at the University of Texas in 1996, or the Virginia Tech massacre in which the shooters killed students of both genders, Lepine specifically hunted down women. He apparently felt threatened by their competence and their successes. He is not alone in his fear of women.
Please do not take my concern with this incident as morbidity. I remain disappointed that violence against transgendered people is not recognized for what it is: violence against women. When an FtM is the victim: it is violence against a woman. If we MtFs are indeed women, then when an MtF is the victim, it is again violence against a woman.
Whether or not you support the political goals of the United Nations, I urge you to support the UN initiative to end violence against women.
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25 November 2010 by kathleen.
Today, November 25, 2010, is a United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It is also the start of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, which ends December 10 with Human Rights Day.
As important as the Transgender Day of Remembrance is, born-women are murdered, raped, assaulted, and mutilated in astonishing numbers. Their transgression: being women! They are not murdered for looking like women; they are not assaulted for wanting to be women — no: their only crime is being women.
They are doing nothing scary, nothing threatening. They are just going about the business of being wives, daughters, lovers, and mothers. For that they are subject to merciless assault.
When women around the world are no longer subject to inexcusable violence, neither will be we who are transgendered. Please support the elimination of violence against women any way you can.
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19 November 2010 by kathleen.
We transgendered have a day of remembrance: November 20.
On that day we remember our defeats, just as the Serbian people do when they celebrate their defeat at the Battle of Kosovo June 15, 1389.
I salute Ethan St. Pierre’s Transgender Day of Remembrance. His work on this event — 12 years worth of work — is a valuable asset to transgendered people around the world, and to societies around the world, too.
But I have to ask: when will we have a day of celebration? When will we celebrate the successes of transmen and transwomen, instead of commemorating their deaths? Hearing about transmen and transwomen being brutally murdered: does this give anyone hope that It Gets Better?
Instead of holding up these images of death, how can we speak a message of hope to ourselves and to despondent transgender teens and young adults?
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15 November 2010 by kathleen.
I heard today about a report issued by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) containing recommendations for policies and best practices regarding transgendered athletes in high school and college. The report is the first to address transgendered student athletes, and it provides comprehensive model policies.
The report is entitled On the Team: Equal Opportunity for Transgender Student Athletes, and is a free download in PDF format.
This document can be valuable in framing issues for discussion with school administrators, as well as in drafting policies at the local level. If you are involved with high school or college education, if you are a transgendered student, or if you have a transgendered child, please read this report.
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13 November 2010 by kathleen.
Every once in a while, you may come across an article or a blog post that describes transgender as a “lifestyle”. Being transgendered, I can make some lifestyle choices, the same as any cis-gendered person can. But transgender itself — the state of having one’s gender be the transgender — that is not a lifestyle, nor is gay or lesbian a lifestyle. Don’t let anyone tell you it is.
Lifestyles are choices, e.g., barhopping versus attending the opera or symphony — those are choices. Or vacationing in the winter at ski resorts versus in the summer in the Caribbean. Or camping versus taking a cruise. Or even having children or not. Those are lifestyle choices.
Trangender is being; it is not lifestyle; it is not a choice. Being transgender is no more choice than being Asian, African-American, or Caucasian.
There are some who think that gays choose to be gay, they way they might choose a white shirt instead of a tan shirt. Or that lesbians choose female partners the way they might choose one pair of shoes over another. Or that you and I choose our transgender the way we might choose which television program to watch tonight.
Being the way we are, we can choose a suicidal lifestyle, or an alcohol-abuse lifestyle; far too many of us who are transgendered do choose those lifestyles. A fundamental choice — not a lifestyle choice — is to hide your nature, or to express it. One or another lifestyle choice may occur after that choice, but whether you go to the opera as your birth gender or your chosen gender is not a lifestyle choice: it is a choice to be authentically yourself or not.
Posted in General FtM topics, General MtF topics | 2 Comments »
9 November 2010 by kathleen.
Today I heard about a survey being conducted by Dr. Tarynn M. Witten, PhD, MSW, who teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. The survey is looking at how transgendered and intersexed people are preparing for the later stages of their lives.
I took the survey myself in about 15-20 minutes. It asked about my gender and my current life, then looked ahead toward the end of my life: giving and needing care, financial planning, etc. I haven’t seen another survey like it directed at transgendered people.
I met Dr. Witten a couple of years ago, and found her to be knowledgeable, responsible and personable. This is a serious survey which is likely to be of great value to caregivers and healthcare professionals. Please take some time to complete it.
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28 October 2010 by kathleen.
What should be done with undocumented migrant workers, illegal immigrants, and those who extend their visit past the expiration of their visas?
Be careful how you answer: we transgendered are illegal immigrants, too: undocumented immigrants in the land of our chosen gender.
Actually, I have my papers now. I’m legal in the land of women. I know I am lucky to be able to pass, and lucky to have been able to afford surgery.
Many of you reading this are not so lucky. Some MtF are overweight, some are both overweight and very tall; some are bald, others hairy. Some FtM are round and soft instead of angular and firm. Like immigrants (legal or not), we seek freedom and new opportunities. While we are heavy or soft, they have physical features or skin color unlike mainstream Americans.
They are scorned, hassled, assaulted, blamed for things they did not do — just as we are. And like us, their voices give them away even if their skin color does not.
Equality and justice for all is the promise of the United States of America. It is a promise that inspires men and women to risk their lives to get here from Colombia or Nicaragua, and that is the same promise that inspires transmen and transwomen from California to New Hampshire to risk their lives to express their essence.
It’s easy to cynically cite bullying and violence against transmen and transwomen as evidence that equality and freedom are lies, but know this: that in eastern Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East, and in many other areas around the world there is not even the pretense of freedom for those who are transgendered: there is only violence and death.
I invite you to remember your similarity to immigrants if you hear someone complain about them.
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