I don't like unfriending people. I try to respect people's opinions - even when they differ from mine. Everyone is entitled to form their own opinions, I may disagree with what they say from time to time, but I try to not to push my view over theirs... note I said "I try". I will often get to a point that I have to agree to just disagree with a person and let the argument drop - for the sake of a friendship that means more than the argument.
But when someone tells me that the term Transgender doesn't exist; that I'm a 3rd gender that is merely 'transitioning' as I haven't latched onto a oh-so-necessary binary choice; that I should never be allowed into a women's washroom due to an arbitrary mark on my birth certificated - Pretending they respect me but calling me a fake person behind my back...
Well, we're not friends anymore... I can only take so many insults before I give up on giving people another chance to explain themselves.
I understand that not everyone gets transgender issues, or even fathom the concept of a non-binary person. But to blatantly state that I'm not real, my problems don't exist, nor do they respect the several dozen trans men and women I've come to know and call friends over the years. For, in his small mind, there are only two choices, and a person is trapped in their gender marker from birth - whether they identify with it or not.
People like this don't know the struggle many of us face. The sadness, confusion, and loneliness for not belonging, never feeling adequate, unable to find our place in society, trying our best to not stand out, because fear of the unknown can often lead to violent outbursts.
The friends I know who have harmed themselves in order to punish their bodies for not being who they feel they should be.
Reading almost weekly that another transgender person has taken their own lives because they couldn't take the abuse anymore - or had their lives taken away for them from those abusers.
- The transgender population is the butt of the jokes, We are constantly ridiculed in movies, media and music.
- We have this highest level of depression and suicide than any other minority group.
- We get fired from jobs once we start transition or can't find jobs at all.
- We are cut off from health care, or mistreated by health care professionals who see us as nothing more than a freak of nature. We are somehow untreatable, meanwhile our physiology is the same as anyone else's.
Well, we're not friends anymore... I can only take so many insults before I give up on giving people another chance to explain themselves.
I understand that not everyone gets transgender issues, or even fathom the concept of a non-binary person. But to blatantly state that I'm not real, my problems don't exist, nor do they respect the several dozen trans men and women I've come to know and call friends over the years. For, in his small mind, there are only two choices, and a person is trapped in their gender marker from birth - whether they identify with it or not.
People like this don't know the struggle many of us face. The sadness, confusion, and loneliness for not belonging, never feeling adequate, unable to find our place in society, trying our best to not stand out, because fear of the unknown can often lead to violent outbursts.
The friends I know who have harmed themselves in order to punish their bodies for not being who they feel they should be.
Reading almost weekly that another transgender person has taken their own lives because they couldn't take the abuse anymore - or had their lives taken away for them from those abusers.
- The transgender population is the butt of the jokes, We are constantly ridiculed in movies, media and music.
- We have this highest level of depression and suicide than any other minority group.
- We get fired from jobs once we start transition or can't find jobs at all.
- We are cut off from health care, or mistreated by health care professionals who see us as nothing more than a freak of nature. We are somehow untreatable, meanwhile our physiology is the same as anyone else's.
With so much of society against us, do you think we actually CHOSE to be transgender? Well I guess you can consider choosing to live who we are or death is a choice - much like we chose to breathe air or we suffocate. And yes, it is that simple.
I spent years burying myself under a shell of expectations. Suffocating the real me for fear that I wouldn't be able to function in society.
Effeminate men who are gay, while still being teased and scoffed at, are accepted in society, sometimes grudgingly, but their femininity can excused as a side affect of their homosexuality.
I was not gay, well not in the male sense. I was never attracted to men growing up, and often equated myself to a lesbian trapped in a male shell - not realizing how true that statement was.
So, while gay men are accepted in society, an effeminate straight male was not. There was something 'wrong' with me. I had to hide emotions, watch the way I walked, constantly check my expressions and speech, wait till I could be friends with people before showing any affection or empathy.
Cause men didn't show feelings, and feminine displays are a sign of weakness and shamed.
Transgender people are asking for two things:
1) Equal Rights - to receive the same basic human rights everyone has.
2) To be left Alone. We just want to live our lives. To be just people, just like everyone else, and no longer paraded throughout media as some freak show to be put on display!
I spent years burying myself under a shell of expectations. Suffocating the real me for fear that I wouldn't be able to function in society.
Effeminate men who are gay, while still being teased and scoffed at, are accepted in society, sometimes grudgingly, but their femininity can excused as a side affect of their homosexuality.
I was not gay, well not in the male sense. I was never attracted to men growing up, and often equated myself to a lesbian trapped in a male shell - not realizing how true that statement was.
So, while gay men are accepted in society, an effeminate straight male was not. There was something 'wrong' with me. I had to hide emotions, watch the way I walked, constantly check my expressions and speech, wait till I could be friends with people before showing any affection or empathy.
Cause men didn't show feelings, and feminine displays are a sign of weakness and shamed.
Transgender people are asking for two things:
1) Equal Rights - to receive the same basic human rights everyone has.
2) To be left Alone. We just want to live our lives. To be just people, just like everyone else, and no longer paraded throughout media as some freak show to be put on display!
