I came on line over fifteen years ago. Bill Clinton was President.
Before that I read Tapestry, Gender Trash, TransSisters and Transsexual News Telegraph. That takes me back to when Reagan was President.
Years before that I co-ran the National Transsexual Counseling Unit and Nixon was President.
I’ve seen some progress over those years, some false steps and a whole lot of people who have deserved more and better than what they got.
Once upon a time I was part of movements that had a grander and more universal vision than the self-centered, can’t think beyond their own little “community” groups of today.
For more than fifteen years I have listened to the endless wars of words between transsexuals and transgender people.
I’ve been called names because I expect to have the freedom to define, describe and own my own life and my own experiences using my own politically incorrect language. I have been told I shouldn’t use the rich vocabulary transsexuals and even queens used in the 1960s, a time when we could have been arrested in many parts of the country for going out in public as ourselves.
When I hear people say, “Well the doctors say/said…..” My head wants to explode. Is there any reason why I should care what a doctor, an academic or pshrink has to say about a life I have lived?
I mean it has been my life, not theirs. I am not their project. I bought a fucking service from them, an operation that let me have a cunt between my legs rather than parts I hated even touching to wash or retuck after peeing.
So today some Doctor is on Huffington Post saying how we should all use Gender Conformation Surgery. Fuck that shit I had a sex change operation, if I’m trying to impress academics I had sex reassignment surgery. I think the whole gender thing is just a scam to oppress women. Besides among TS/TG folks everyone has always said, “Gender is between your ears and sex is between your legs.” The operation I had was between my legs.
Then a friend wants me to write something about her protesting outside the GLAAD Awards. WTF? Didn’t GLAAD just stand up for Jenna Talackova? Why in the world do I want to protest an organization that is on our side when we have assholes like Ted Nugent and the Tea Baggers calling the President a “n—-r” and threatening his life.
Don’t you think there might just be a few bigger issues than protesting GLAAD? Can’t you see there are more productive things to get worked up about?
I’ve had it with pure identity groups, self centered to the point that they fail to see how the world is burning down around them.
You aren’t just getting fucked over because you are transsexual or transgender. That is just an additional burden. You are also fucked if you are old, over weight, a member of a minority group, an undocumented, a student with loans, a home owner scammed by the banks. If your house is near where they decide to frack, clear cut or open pit mine. If you are unemployed.
If you are different in any way, if you aren’t part of the one percent like Mitt and Ann then you should be working together for things that affect all of us because unless we tackle all these things the piecemeal remedies even if they rectify one pressing issue are still going to leave everyone just as fucked.
I’m old enough to have seen the utter failure of word games and identity politics, how all these petty political games gave us first Nixon and then Reagan and how things just get worse.
Am I pleased with Obama’s being able to fight the right wing agenda? No… But I am deeply afraid of what happens if we don’t trounce the Reich Wing Republicans this fall and win overwhelmingly.