Is That a Chip on Your Shoulder or a Fashion Statement?

Should we still be carrying a chip on our shoulder so completely now if we are transgender? Should we still love the "poor, poor pitiful us" label so completely? Do I? Do you? I began thinking about the idea this morning...

When I turned on my old computer this morning I saw an ABC promo ad on this weeks Bruce Jenner transgender "unveiling" with Diane Sawyer. Something called Bruce Jenner "The Story". Immediately I recoiled and thought two things. When is the last time Diane knocked on your door to interview the average trans woman or trans man and the deep seated feeling this just can't be good. 

However, maybe I am not being fair and on occasion I have been known to carry a fairly decent trans chip too. Because I know Jenner's past athletic accomplishments took an incredible effort and much of that effort may have come from attempting to cover gender dysphoria. I think, quit being a bitch and understand? Dammit I should! Shouldn't I??? Why the guilt?

Plus, I can't escape the fact that on at least one occasion when I outed myself in a group of generics-one said "Oh! She (me) is like Bruce Jenner." or my daughters friends have specifically asked my ideas. I guess after Friday I will know.

Am I more trans than Bruce just because I don't have the Kardasian publicity machine?  No and I will have to shift the chip on my shoulder! (Maybe)

Don't get me wrong-I have a HUGE problem with our basic American rights being denied in society and in our military. (That is NOT the "chip" I'm talking about.") Increasingly though, I am feeling being a trans whiner rather than a "doer" is a waste of my time. Maybe I can remove my chip and throw it? Will Bruce?

Chuck Does an About Face?

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz that he believes the ban that prohibits transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military should be reviewed.

“I do think it continually should be reviewed,” Hagel said. “I’m open to that.”

After the 2010 repeal of the policy barring gay and lesbian service members from being open about their sexuality, known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” activists turned their attention to the transgender policy, calling on the military to allow transgender individuals to serve openly. But there has been no review of the ban. Earlier this month, a Pentagon spokesperson told Slate, “At this time there are no plans to change the department’s policy.”

But in an exclusive interview that aired on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Hagel said he’s now ready to reconsider the ban.

“I’m open to those assessments, because — again, I go back to the bottom line — every qualified American who wants to serve our country should have an opportunity if they fit the qualifications and can do it,” he said. Transgender issues are “an area that we’ve not defined enough.”

Hagel said his biggest concern is providing the medical support necessary to support transgender individuals, especially if they are stationed in what he called “austere locations.

Maybe the light at the end of the tunnel is not the train for transgender service members.

Sealing the Truth

Well my post earlier today was true according to ABC News:


"A former member of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs has come out to say she's now a woman. Kristin Beck, formerly Chris, served 20 years as a SEAL and fought on some of the most dangerous battlefields in the world, but after she left the service she realized she wasn't living the life she wanted. "Chris really wanted to be a girl and felt that she was a girl and consolidated that identity very early on in childhood," said Anne Speckhard, co-author of Beck's biography "Warrior Princess," which was published over the weekend.

Speckhard told ABC News Beck suppressed that secret for decades, however, through the trials of SEAL training and the harrowing missions that followed, growing a burly beard as she fought on the front lines of American special operations. Brandon Webb, a former SEAL who served on a different SEAL team than Beck, said that Beck's reputation in the SEALs was a good one and said she was, by all appearances, the "consummate guy's guy." But the book says that Chris "had considered living as the woman he felt himself to be for a very long time, but while he was serving as a SEAL he couldn't do it.

" "For years Chris had turned off his sexuality like a light switch and lived as a warrior, consumed with the battle -- living basically asexual. For Chris the other SEALs were brothers and in the man's man warrior lifestyle, even if he had wanted to entertain sexual thoughts, there really was never any time to be thinking too much about sexuality," the book says."

Of course none of Kristin's story is entirely alien to most of us who tried the macho lifestyle.  Go here for more and expect this story  to be huge!

I just wonder how I saw this first in the middle of the night coming from an Australian News Source...although Amazon.com was credited too...time change?

We are Everywhere!

 Coming up Friday in the same week as the National Geographic transgender special aired-there is more coming Friday on ABC.  Here's the promo and yes I did notice how they destroyed Jenna Tackalova's name!

“Transgender” — the word and the shifts in sexual identity it encompasses — have become more mainstream. Transgender women have been on the cover of major fashion magazines, and one transgender woman, Donna Tackalova, recently competed in the Miss Universe Canada pageant.
Legal boundaries are being pushed. Nikki Araguz, a transgender widow of a firefighter, is suing the City of Wharton, Texas for workers’ compensation benefits that she was denied because she was born a man.
Perhaps most famously, Chaz Bono, a transgender man, competed on “Dancing With the Stars.”
But Bono received hate mail, an example of the discomfort many feel about this trend.
“What Would You Do?” tested people’s acceptance of transgender with a scenario set at Colonial Diner in Lyndhurst, N.J. Carmen Carrera, a 26-year-old transgender woman who has appeared on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” played herself as if she were a waitress at the diner. Kevin, an actor, played a longtime customer back from a yearlong trip who deplores that the waiter he knew and liked as “Christopher” is now a woman.
“What the hell is the matter with you? Look at yourself! You’re a freak!” Kevin said.
“I’m not a freak, I’m transgender,” said Carrera. This appearance marks the first time Carrera has revealed that she is transgender.
How would diners react to Kevin’s scorn? Would anyone step in and defend Carrera?
One patron, Mary, tried to calm Kevin.
“Look at Chaz Bono,” she said. “Cher’s son. She used to have a daughter and now she’s a guy.”
Kevin only got angrier. “I don’t think I can even eat here!” he said. “This is disgusting.”
A group of women looked ready to rally behind Carrera, but right then Michael Rizzo, a diner regular, walked across the room to confront Kevin.
“It’s okay to be whoever you want to be. This is America,” Rizzo said.
Believe it or not, things were just getting started.
Watch the whole scenario on “What Would You Do?” Friday at 10 p.m. ET.