The Beneficial Effects of Gay Bigots

Whats good about a bigot? They have the ability to make you step back, take a look at the situation and make your move.

Of course gay bigots are no different than any others. The gays have their own little club in many ways which can be as exclusive and bitter as the Ku Klux Klan. What leads me down this path is an email I received from a reader who came under a transphobic verbal attack from a gay man. I'm paraphrasing here but the message was "I'm gay but not that gay"! DUH! Neither are we you idiot!

I spent a brief amount of time wondering just how the hell we got lumped together with them to begin with but moved on quickly. Now I want to thank the gay male venue who blatantly discriminated against me one night. I took my money and headed to straight venues where I did not get discriminated against. They didn't understand where I was coming from (like the gays) but came to accept me quicker and the huge transphobic kick in the pants turned out to be a life changing experience for me.

Before I let my rant get out of control and end up sounding like them, I do think the gay world is slowly starting to realize who the transgender community is. I'm going to go out on a limb and say in my neck of the woods trans men could be having a huge impact. They don't have the "drag queen" stereotype to fight through to start with to effect change in thinking. "Out and Proud" seems to be more of a theme more than the "Stealth and Gone" policy of transsexual women. (Just my hunch.)

Finally, like it or not we are the "T" in their club. Surely I have seen cross dressers pull off some pretty dumb things in gay venues but then again no more than than gay guys.
Certainly,  there are always going to be bigots to be faced from all facets of society but if we all hold our ground they will fade as surely as the klan has.

The Future of Gender

I have my own opinions (of course) on the future of the human binary gender system as we struggle to evolve. I believe it is collapsing now.

I have tossed out my thoughts in several circles in the past for no specific reason except I can't keep my mouth shut or my words quiet. I'm  far from an expert but I just believe there are very visible signs in the younger generation that the genders are blending. I also think much of the terrible violence we see against the transgender community is a last gasp Ku Klux Klan masculine desperation move against us. Here's another opinion:

"For there is in mankind a deep and desperate necessity to feel superior. In any group there are some who genuinely are superior … but it is easy to see that within the parameters of any group, be it culture, club, nation, profession, only a few are really superior; the mass, clearly, are not. But it is the will of the mass that dictates the mores, initiated though changes may be by individuals or minorities; the individuals or minorities, more often than not, are cut down for their trouble. And if a unit of the mass wants to feel superior, it will find a way. This terrible drive has found expression in many ways, through history—in slavery and genocide, xenophobia and snobbery, race prejudice and sex differentiation. Given a man who, among his fellows, has no real superiority, you are faced with a bedevilled madman who, if superiority is denied him, and he cannot learn one or earn one, will turn on something weaker than himself and make it inferior. The obvious, logical, handiest subject for this inexcusable indignity is his woman."

Certainly you can tell I didn't write it and it's a quote from a book Venus plus X which is actually copyrighted back in 1960. Here's the link to look at it on Amazon. Plus a more in depth overview here and another excerpt:

"…You cannot be objective about this discussion. But try. Please try You cannot be objective about it because you have been indoctrinated, sermonized, drenched, imbued. inculcated and policed on the matter since first you wore blue booties. You come from a time and place in which the maleness of the male, and the femaleness of the female, and the importance of their difference, were matters of almost total preoccupation. Begin, then, with this—and if you like, regard it as mainly a working hypothesis. Actually it is a truth, and if at the end it passes the tests of your own understanding, you will see that it is a truth. If you do not, the fault is not with you, but with your orientation: There are more basic similarities than differences between men and women. Read through an anatomy manual. A lung is a lung, a kidney a kidney in man or in woman. It may be that statistically, women’s bone-structure is lighter, the head smaller, and so on and on; yet it is not impossible that mankind had. for many thousands of years, bred for that. But aside from such conjectures, the variations permissible to what is called “normal” structure provide many examples of women who were taller, stronger, heavier-boned than most men, and men who were smaller, slighter, lighter than most women. Many men had larger pelvic openings than many women."

So there you go, you know I don't like to get too technical here in Cyrsti's Condo. Head to the above links for more.

Being a Political Transgender Person

By nature I am a political person. Raised in the shadow of the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King's assassinations, I felt the hypocrisy of a truly great country which over the years had been very slow to equalize basic rights to all it's citizens. The so called "white male privilege" did buy me an all expense paid trip to Southeast Asia and infantry training.  So why should I complain?
Now it seems, I occupy a unique political spot. I'm old enough to be the offspring of a true "greatest generation" parents and even older grandparents. My paternal grandmother used to tell us stories of going to the Ku Klux Klan meetings in a wagon. Of course I was wondering about my own gender and why people couldn't look past color to co exist as she was talking.
Then there were those old pesky ideas of equal rights. It took until 1920 for the Nineteenth Amendment to give women a national right to vote and the 1960's to get the Equal Rights Bills passed. So what the hell, why wasn't this country practicing what it preached as far as freedom went? It was always too easy to say- well we are better than any other country. Just exactly what does that mean?
It means to me as I read news about the Canadians, Argentina and others making progress in transgender rights I get upset.
I get upset because I feel essentially powerless.
I do join on line causes,  write this little blog and do my best to present myself as a proud transwoman to the public.
On the other hand I see many of the bigger mainstream transgender blogs who seem more interested in endlessly debating terminology than making any significant difference.
Finally, I have never stopped being a competitor and I want my country to be the best it can and the belief we can get there!