Trans World

I never cease to be amazed at the mindset many in trans world have…what they are far and against…how really upset they can become over certain issues that to many of us just don’t count.  Every mistake the mainstream, and even the GLB, makes, no matter how slight, is magnified, discussed, and critiqued to the molecular level.  They appear to scour the internet incessantly looking for society’s faux pas du jour.  Their quest to be not just tolerated but accepted in the mainstream must require huge amounts of energy.  It must really suck to be in trans world.  To fully appreciate this, one must realize that trans world exists in two very different spheres.  And, trans world has failed miserably in both.

Their home planet is, of course, the GLB.  Aside from just a very few blogs, including this one and none with any particular influence, every trans blog and trans activist organization is statically connected to the GLB.  A quick glance at any and every trans news feed available will quickly reveal as many, or nearly as many, posts on entirely GLB issues as there are with feeds that are entirely trans related.  Those same activists, their blogs, and new feeds support, across the board, every issue that resides on the GLB agenda…specifically ENDA, marriage equality, and any legislation that prohibits discrimination on any level.  There is a reason for that…the very vast majority of trans people who are out, proud, vocal, and consider themselves an activist are also GLB identified.  (I applaud them for this.  On many occasions I’ve expressed the view that discrimination on any level is not just and the GLB and homosexual T should lobby for any right they don’t have but feel they should.)  These trans people gravitated to the GLB when they transitioned and most seem to feel comfortable nowhere else.

Unfortunately or not, however, trans world is also part of a bigger scheme involving the real world…the mainstream…the whole of society…those whose life doesn’t revolve around the GLB and all things trans.  Living in the real world is seldom an issue for those of us who have transitioned and assimilated into it, going about our business as a part of the whole.  Unfortunately for sure, however, it is a huge dilemma for trans world.  For if trans world is but a small moon around the GLB planet, the real world is the sun that sets on both of them.  This puts trans world in the unenviable position of being held captive by the all powerful Oz that is the GLB which is, in turn, held captive by society and the mainstream.  Not a good place to be if you live in trans world.

To gain the respect and all important acceptance they desire, trans world has to first sell themselves to the GLB and then take on real world.  How is that going for them?  I would suppose that would depend on perspective. 

If one would ask those in trans world I’m sure they would hear that great strides have been made.  Trans world would state how many cities, counties, and states now offer legal protection to them prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression.  Admittedly, those in trans world have done quite well over the years in that regard…that’s a good thing.  Trans world would also point to the increased number of hate crime laws that are on the books…also admirable.  Aside from local and state legislation, corporate America has also inserted non discrimination clauses into their policy manuals, as have many lower and higher education institutions.  Clearly, trans world has made great strides in obtaining legal recognition.  But, legal recognition is just half of the trans world holy grail.  What about acceptance?

To gain the acceptance that trans world desires they have to navigate two obstacles; the first is the GLB.  Back in the day, trans world was pretty tight with the GLB, but over the past five to ten years…not so much.  The Human Rights Campaign, the breath of the GLB movement, is all but a curse word to trans world.  If so many of those in trans world were not atheists, Joe Solomnese would be Satan.  To those in trans world, in the vernacular, HRC done them wrong.  HRC has put the GLB first in almost every campaign…the most vile to trans world being their support for a federal ENDA law that didn’t specifically include transgender and all of trans world.  Many in trans world will hold on to the HRC’s support of that version of ENDA as unforgivable until the day they die…considering that the vast majority of trans world is made up of self identified lesbians and gays to start with that is somewhat hard to understand I think.  Still, that act of support on ENDA by HRC was unforgivable, trans world felt left out, or thrown under the bus, as they so often liked to say.  To anyone who’s ever transitioned and dealt with gays and lesbians, it’s not hard to understand why HRC, a GLB first organization, supported the last version of federal ENDA.  The GLB has never accepted the transgender, or transsexuals for that matter, as anything but homosexual…I don’t think they ever will.  The GLB is no better and probably worse that the real world in wrapping their arms around the concept of someone changing their sex.  Anyone who doubts that has simply lost touch with reality.  Nonetheless, the GLB organized and quietly cultivated trans world into their agenda, never recognizing them for anything other than another form of GLB, in an ongoing and successful effort to further their own political goals.  Proof?  With little exception, non discrimination recognition that has come the way of  trans world has always come after, sometimes significantly so, the GLB obtained theirs.  But the ENDA fiasco really upset trans world…they were “sick and tired of being sick and tired” of getting crapped on by the GLB…and they let it be known, and still are.   What was the GLB response to this revolt?  Well, not so good.

As trans world began to throw fit after fit towards the GLB for leaving them behind in the fight for rights and acceptance the GLB took a very understandable, if unstated, position.  The leading GLB activist simply said it ain’t so…and continued paying lip service, at best, to trans world just as before.  The GLB rank and file, however, took up the standard of what the GLB really felt.  As trans world activist and their lemming bloggers became more vehement in their criticism, the GLB soldiers more and more seemed united in a response that basically had one message:  “Fuck you.  If you TRANNIES don’t like the way the GLB is handling things then go do it yourself.  Who the hell invited you into the GLB anyhow.”  Now, of course, trans world can do little for themselves so being told to fuck off by the GLB, as is becoming the case more and more, is kind of like using a hand grenade to crack an egg.  Everyone in trans world has absolutely had it drilled into them from day one that the GLB and trans world have to be, and forever are, inseparable.  How many times have we all heard that what’s good for the GLB is good for trans world…it’s a trans world mantra.  Unfortunately, however, the GLB doesn’t buy into what’s good for you is good for me because, remember, the GLB sees trans world as just another form of GLB who can help them in their political-social quest for rights, not as people who are really men or really women and have changed or are changing their sex.  To the GLB, trans world is just a bunch of over-the-top gays and lesbians…who don’t know they are just over-the-top gays and lesbians.  To the GLB, trans world is also saturated with a bunch of drama queens to boot.  Considering trans world jumps on everything the GLB says or does that doesn’t quite jive with their sensibilities, who can blame them.  No, trans world has not gained the acceptance and respect from the GLB they demand.  At the rate they are going, acceptance and respect aside, trans world is even quickly bleeding out what little tolerance capital they were ever afforded by the GLB in the first place.  Still, trans world hangs on to the GLB life ring with a steel grip…both unable and unwilling to let go of what they perceive as their greatest hope.

But, the GLB is an easy jump compared to the real world.  Trans world in the sphere of the GLB has only one group to appeal to.  But in the realm of the whole, they have both the GLB and the real world to contend with.  Trans world just doesn’t seem to grasp that.  If they do, they never talk about it…ever.  Trans world just doesn’t seem to ever want to make the intellectual jump of recognizing the difference between tolerance, embracement, and simply coming to terms with reality.  The tact of trans world within the real world appears to be that of forcing tolerance through legal and legislative action…assuming they will be embraced later down the road…and then ignoring the reality associated with both of them.  Somewhere along in there they throw in a bit of education.  To me, it’s the trans world attempt to educate others on trans world that has been their downfall.  Their efforts at educating the real world has consisted of autobiographical books, television interviews and documentaries, and governmental/legislative/municipal lobbying.  Trans world has almost a fetish about being understood.  And, as in step as they are to their own, trans world, sensibilities it’s amazing how completely out of touch they are with those of the other 99% of the world.

 

When one reads the autobiography of a trans world inhabitant invariably they are immerged in a mind fuck.  More often than not a family, complete with children, is destroyed in the name of the author’s undying quest to be who they really are.  To everyone but others in trans world this story of coming out is characterized as brave…not so much to the spouse and children and extended family whose worlds are being turned upside down by, to everyone else, a selfish, self centered and plain weird husband (or wife) hell bent on sacrificing the lives of others for their own best interests.  To the real world, whose values are based on thousands of years of nuclear family units, these stories are no different than one spouse divorcing another after cheating for many years.  No brownies points for the novel approach.  Thankfully, I doubt many in real world seek out trans world autobiographies for their reading pleasure. 

The television interviews and documentaries are another story.  On these we get to see trans world in its glory.  Trans world gets the spotlight that everyone on these programs obviously desires so much; trans world gets a chance to be understood…with a mass audience held captive.  If trans world would stick to the facts and not come across as the authority on everything and anybody disagreeing with them is ignorant they might would have had a chance.  These trans world interviews and documentaries have become a standing joke, even within trans world, yet they roll on like an unstoppable tide.  They are most predictable.  There are the endless shots of the trans world heroine putting on make up and dressing up…the obligatory I’ve always known I was different.  Most are married, some claim their wife supports them, as the camera pans to the completely broken up spouse…they are only attracted to other “women”, other trans world women.  They may or may not have had or even seek GRS…either way they don’t need gender reassignment surgery to be a real female.  Some claim to have some obscure intersex condition…and then there is the infamous “bee sting” cause.  Of course they support the GLBT.  They are more often than not alienated from their families, which seldom understands them.  They love football, hunting, playing pool, cigars, race cars, and motor mechanics.  And, always last but not least, they are in everyway as female as any other female watching the program…they just came to that point in a different way.  Sounds good to me, there’s only one problem.  The real world looks at these programs and says what the fuck.  Here is this physically unattractive man in front of me, in make-up, playing dress up who has destroyed his family, can’t get a job, comes across as goofier than shit, telling me he might or might not have a penis but is just as female as any other woman. 

Perhaps I was a bit harsh in my example above.  Admittedly I took certain aspects of many interviews and documentaries.  My point is that, except to those in trans world, who simply live for the next program, the participants in these documentaries just don’t come across as female…in any way.  Every one is filled with statements and concepts that the real world just doesn’t buy.  Those in the real world find their common sense assaulted and their sensibilities insulted by these programs.  I, a post operative transsexual myself, experience the same thing when I have watched them.  These programs do accomplish one thing though, I think.  They expose their audience to trans world.  And real world, at least in America, has reached a point that some pride themselves in sympathizing and showing a level of tolerance for anything different…even trans world.  The baby boomers of the hippy era have come of age and there is a growing sense of live and let live among them.

Lastly there is the trans world efforts to lobby on the local/state/federal level for legislative protection.  Now, I don’t lobby, but I have seen the class photos of those who do lobby governmental organizations.  I’m not even going to go there.  Trans world is and always will be…trans world.  Nonetheless, not so much on the federal level but on the local and state level trans world has done extremely well…note all the accomplishments I mention way up above here.  All of the local and state legal protection they have gained (with the great support of the GLB) plainly illustrates a sizable portion of society is quite prepared to show trans world their tolerance.  In fact, I’d venture to say they have almost as much tolerance with the real world as they do with the GLB.  But what does that really say?  Not much.

I think I read the other day that somewhere near 70% of the United States population lives under some form of law or ordinance that protects trans world from employment discrimination.  I think that’s great.  The only issue is that I’ve seen no data that the unemployment rate of trans world has declined.  On the contrary, every “survey” that appears seems to be worse than the one before in that regard.  Interestingly enough, it doesn’t even appear that the GLB are much interested in hiring anyone from trans world.  Clearly real world is not buying trans world as any kind of viable labor pool…neither is GLB.  Both may tolerate trans world for the sake of political correctness or in the case of the GLB, political gain, but apparently they are nowhere near acceptance.  And, if all of the statistics one reads are correct, violent crimes against trans world are on the increase…hate crime legislation apparently hasn’t made a dent in that.  When I lived in Dallas, I ran up against a lot of those in trans world who were at one time or another into prostitution.  Contrary to popular dogma, I never met one who had to hook.  They were prostitutes because they wanted to be prostitutes, not because they had to.  I’m sure there are some who are in such dire straights that they have to prostitute themselves though.  That’s very sad.  But the overwhelming number of attacks on trans world occur on dark streets, in the depths of night, where trans world is somewhere they have no real reason to be if they valued their safety…where no one with any sense of wanting to stay alive would catch themselves.  And, no amount of hate crime legislation is ever going to stop those people from sooner or later being the victim of violent crime just because there is a hate crime law.

So, trans world chugs on.  The GLB treats them with almost open disdain when not outright ignoring them.  Their stories become stranger.  Their sensibilities become more sensitive…just call them TRANNY and you’ll find out just how sensitive.  They have no sense of humor.  They are obtaining their legal protection due to tolerance.  Yet, to hear them talk, they live in abject fear of violent attack.  The legal protections have done nothing to increase their employment, even within the GLB sphere of influence.  The GLB themselves are increasingly becoming aggravated with their drama and criticism, yet trans world in unable and unwilling to strike out on their own.  What tolerance the real world, and the GLB, offers up is always offset with the reality of not being accepted, a concept they refuse to acknowledge.  Hate crime legislation is having little if any effect.  From my perspective, trans world has made many steps backward in their claim to have moved forward over the past five years…everything has changed in trans world, but remains the same everywhere else.  Their war cry of transphobia has turned everyone off, even many feminists and GLB types who might otherwise be their ally…anything that doesn’t line up with trans world is instantly branded transphobic…that’s great to the trans world that draws the word like a sword but nauseating to everyone else.  The trans world activists of the past ten years are pretty much still around, beating the same drum…to the same tune…the same tune that has done nothing significant for transsexuals since the last birth certificate legislation was passed nearly 35 years ago.  The new breed of trans world activist come across more like juvenile delinquent punks than women…but they pick up the trans world dogma from the internet and plunge right in with all the zeal of a young Spartan prince. 

It’s clear that trans world is failing and they’ve lost their message…lost their way, whatever their way ever was.  It appears that not even shifting into full survival mode will stop trans world from imploding, losing what little integrity they ever had in a pink mist of vitriol, anger, and absurdity.