Women Born Transsexual

Separatist!

Assimilationist!

Traitor!

I touched upon this delicate area in yesterday’s post.

I’ve received abuse from the Transgender Borg for nearly 20 years due to my rejecting the label of “Transgender” in favor of the term “transsexual.”  Even worse I rejected the idea that I was part of the “Transgender Umbrella.”

Transgender Inc is like a dogmatic religion, one that demands rigid adherence to a particular set of rules including the exact wording of those rules.

One of the dogmatic tidbits is that there is absolutely no difference between those who get SRS and those who do not.

That is one that tends to fly in the face of reality.  SRS saves lives.  This is why many of us are pressing for it to be covered by both government funded insurance and by private medical insurance.  Getting it has positive mental health benefits, lessening anxiety, depression etc.

It often improves our access to non-trans society.  Post-ops generally don’t have to worry regarding which rest room to use.

Getting SRS frees up energy otherwise consumed with “transition.  SRS is a punctuation point in our lives and the start of a new chapter.

Leaving the “trans-community” and getting on with life means starting a new post-transsexual life.

Those who choose to leave the community after SRS are seen as claiming their own lives and rejecting the victimhood that is supposedly the universal lot of all people under the transgender umbrella. (Unfortunately or perhaps more accurately fortunately, the most horrible things visited on TS/TG people tend to fall most heavily on those living the most extreme of the kamikaze lifestyles.) This does not prevent the often grisly murders of street sex workers from being used as a weapon to keep people caught up in the dogmatism.

I found a perfect description of this behavior on Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

Identity as Victim

If I were to summarize this article in three sentences, they would be:

[1] People who identify themselves as “victims” harbor excessive amounts of rage at other people, whom they perceive as “not victims.” [2] In order psychologically to deal with this rage, these “victims” utilize defense mechanisms that enable them to harm others in socially acceptable ways, without accepting responsibility or suffering guilt, and without having to give up their status as “victims.”

[3] Gun owners are frequently the targets of professional victims because gun owners are willing and able to prevent their own victimization.

Thus the concept of “identity as victim” is essential. How and why do members of some groups choose to identify themselves as victims and teach their children to do the same? While it’s true that women, Jews, and African–Americans have historically been victimized, they now participate in American society on an equal basis. And other groups, most notably Asian–Americans, have been equally victimized, and yet have transcended the “eternal victim” mentality.

Why, for example, would a 6’10″ NBA player who makes $10 million a year see himself as a “victim”? Why would a successful, respected, wealthy, Jewish physician regard himself as a “victim”? Conversely, why might a wheelchair bound woman who lives on government disability NOT regard herself as a victim?

I would argue it’s because the basketball player and the physician believe that their identities are dependent on being victims — not because they have actually been victimized, but because they’re members of groups that claim victim status. Conversely, the disabled woman was probably raised to believe that she is responsible for her own success or failure.

The group solidarity of the Transgender Community is based on the idea that all are equally oppressed.  While all of us may well be oppressed, the burden of oppression is very unevenly distributed.

I’ve watched an interesting phenomena happening as the bans on same sex marriage have fallen across the country, along with corporation after corporation adopting non-discrimination policies, older LGBT folks are finding they aren’t all that different from their straight co-workers and neighbors.  And yeah about 10% of the wedding announcements in the back of the NY Times Sunday Style section are for same sex couples.

After I turned forty, over a quarter of a century ago, I noticed how the social scene that comprised the LGBT community was becoming less and less relevant with each passing year.

I suspect that for transsexual folks who come out in middle age, after having been in heterosexual relationships, never have the opportunity to feel part of that youth oriented LGBT social community.

Face it.  We are old farts.  We listen to the oldies station on our car radios because we sing along to the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac songs from our youth.

We have more in common with other people our age no matter the initial used to describe their sexuality than we do with 20 somethings.

Age is the great leveler.

But there is another thing.  I would not feel my life was lacking if I never heard another person who was excited about having started hormones last month.  It loses its novelty after the ten thousandth repetition.

Assimilation happens.  For it to happen, most post-transsexual folk only have to move out of the ghetto and throw away the 25 year old “Transsexual Menace” t-shirt that no longer fits.  Admit you would rather watch a mindless action movie than an intense documentary on the lives of tragic transgender people living in a South Asian culture. Say, “Not a chance, I don’t want to get sunburned” when you are asked to attend the “Trans-Pride Parade” or for that matter the LGBTQetc Pride Parade.

Admit you would rather save your money and dine at the local family style fried chicken restaurant than at the oh so chic LGBT ghetto restaurant with prices that would require you to take out a second mortgage.

After a few years and a few hundred seemingly meaningless choices you have moved a world away from the community or ghetto (you pick the word) and you realize one day that you really don’t miss it.