Transgender Awarness Week

Again I present another thoughtful post from Connie:

"Here I am, on Thursday, just becoming aware that this is Transgender Awareness Week. Could the reason for it be that I am constantly trying to forget my own transgender status, and that being aware of the "trans community" requires that I also be aware of myself? I think I have moved along in my own transition to the point where I look at transgender issues more from the outside than as one from within the community itself. 

Of course, I have empathy for people, especially the children, who are struggling with their own gender identities, and although I don't expect the general population to ever understand those struggles as I do, I wish that we could just be aware that we are all human beings. As Maya Angelou wrote, "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike." Bullying is not acceptable human behavior for any reason. 

I was bullied as a child because my extreme efforts to hide my gender identity caused me to appear to be a weird kid to some people. Whether it was worse than the bullying a child must endure for coming out or not should not be the question; the awareness by either party is altered by individual perception. Maybe this should be Transgender Perception Week, then, yet are we more concerned with the perception of the transgender person or those perceptions of the rest of society?

 I have to believe the awareness is already established by now, and we should be dealing with the perceptions by moving on to a level of acceptance - at least tolerance. The awareness we need to spread is that we are more alike than unalike."

Just an idea Connie that sooner more than later one enters a state of stealth in their transition, if you seek it or not. Some of us stay in the "arena" to perhaps help others as some sort of activists. Some just go away which is OK too.

We will see what the future brings with the new administration and how closely we will all have to band together to effect more change.  For those having trans "passing privilege" going farther underground to be left alone would seem to be the natural way out. But fortunately, the younger generation isn't seeing it that way.