I heard a line "That depends on where you sit and what cards you hold".
Over the past week or so we have witnessed several positive influences on the transgender community.
Three I can think of are the Ontario Canadian ruling, the Melissa Harris- interview and the Glee program.
I am going to refer to "Janie's Blog" a Canadian herself about the decision to allowing a gender change on documentation with out SRS.
She recently wrote: "
A court decision in Canada has struck down a law requiring SRS as a
precondition to having one’s gender changed on their documentation.
There are undoubtedly people on both sides of this issue who will be
unhappy about it – post-op transsexuals who may feel that anyone who can
tolerate the “bits” of the opposite gender is not truly transsexual,
and others who may feel that this just makes it too easy to play games
with one’s gender and official documentation.
But, remember that most people who eventually undergo gender
reassignment surgery spend years living as the gender opposite to what
their identification indicates. They do this for financial reasons, or
even for reasons of uncertainty and fear of going through with the
surgery. They are not fooling around; this is serious business in their
lives, and having a passport or ID that matches the gender they are
living is important.
(Read the whole post
here.)
A show two Sunday's ago saw MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry
featuring being Transgendered in America.
(It's posted here in the condo in our
"Home Entertainment Center" .)
Guest "Mara Keisling" pointed out
"For one of the first times that I can remember, trans people got to
outline to the public at least part of the trans political agenda for
ourselves. From health care access, to barriers to updating identity
documents, to talking about jail and detention reform and raising
awareness of CeCe McDonald's story, we finally had a chance to bring
trans issues to a national audience
as trans people."
Then, lets not forget the "Glee" episode which featured a real live transgendered character in a very mainstream television program.
So, where I sit, have sat and looking at the cards I hold, my hand definitely is improving as a transgender person in this country.
I'm going to quote an old song "You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them and know when to run".
Well, I'm not going to run (tried that), not going to fold them (**purged a couple times like the rest of you) and I certainly will want to hold them.
As with any good player, I know the game is far from over but I like the progress so far!
**Purged is totally throwing away all your items you were using to present as your chosen gender.