In a Mood
Maybe I’m in a cynical mood tonight.
Maybe I’ve just had a bellyful of the poison people like us have do deal with from toxic people in our lives.
I should be careful not to broad brush of course, I do know transwomen and men who had a relatively smooth transition, supported by friends and loved ones and even with no significant difficulty in work or other social interaction. But it seems so rare. True, good news doesn’t often make news, even in casual conversation, but the negative reactions can be shocking, even to a cynic.
(Continued below...)Don’t misunderstand, for some months now I’ve been banging the drum to come out. I’ve said things won’t get better without more visibility and I believe that passionately.
All the same, it’s also true that some around us are so passionately invested in the cultural mythology about trans people that they simply refuse to be moved by any rational argument. One of the reasons it’s been two weeks since my last blog is that I’ve been passionately involved in a few long-running discussions online, mostly resulting from the Leelah Alcorn suicide. In one such discussion, my Traditionalist opponent actually said that teenagers thrown out of the house by their parents for being LGB/T are responsible for their own exile. You get involved in these discussions and it’s staggering what some people actually profess to believe.
It is true that the anonymity of the internet seems to radicalize the rhetoric of some who might be much more placid in face-to-face conversations, but it’s also true that we all (almost all) have first hand experience with people willing to live out that sort of hateful mindset in their own personal relationships, be they spouses or siblings or parents or whatever.
This is not one of those columns in which I offer sage advice, or a plan of action, or even a big picture view. I’ve spent years confronting this sort of situation in my own life and I’m all out of potential solutions to change the heart of the individuals caught in the grip of that mindset. I won’t let such people hold me back or hold me down any longer, I refuse to be held captive to it no matter how it hurts to deal with it. But damned if I know what to do about it.
Photo by: Tobylyn Marjeta
I guess that ultimately, it comes down to; it is what it is.
I hate to be vague here or seem like a contradiction. But the plan of action is there is no plan of action.
You cannot change someone’s mindset, that is up to them to do. The best you can do is present the facts as you see them and let the person decide. To keep hammering your point of view because you see their mindset as wrong or bad, is just as disrespectful as people who disrespect transgenders because they don’t agree with their view.
I am reminded of the old saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink”. You can lead a person to your view and mindset but it is up to them to drink it or not. To insist the horse drink the water just pisses off the horse because your taking away the horses choice in the matter.
So maybe the course of action is to present our view and opinion. Let the person decide and respect the decision they made. It is hard to do. I know I become really passionate about my views and mindset and sometimes go overboard because I see the person’s mindset as wrong and want to “convert” them to a better one. But I am not doing any good and can do more harm by being disrespectful to the person I am engaged with.
In the end, I can agree to disagree with someone. If the person’s views or mindset is toxic to me then there is nothing I can do about the person and change it. But I can make the choice that it is not good for me to be with that person because of their mindset and walk away.
You cannot or is it up to you to change what is in people’s hearts. That is their choice. We can present our views and give them the respect to make their own choice. To tolerate what we see as bad or toxic mindsets just like people who don’t agree with our mindset should tolerate our mindsets even if they think its wrong.
Just as they have the choice to decide what their mindset is, we have the choice to be with those people or not. After presenting our views and we find them toxic or posiion because that mindset then the only thing to do is turn our backs and be with people who help us grow as a person because of their mindset.
In the end it is about tolerance of point of views we see as wrong and making choices to be with people that do help us grow. That is all we can do and make our own world a better one. To do otherwise is to become cynical and bitter because the world doesn’t see the wisdom of our thinking.
Sometimes, I guess, we just have to settle for the old: “it is what it is”.
Beth,
What an awesome website. I found this site while checking to see that my site is not yet appearing in google search results. I have search engine visibility disabled right now until I finish up some foundational areas of the site. I really like what I’ve read so far in your posts. You have an amazing gift and talent for putting just the right words together to make the point. I will try to write you a short note before leaving this site so that I can use a couple of examples from your writing to show you what I mean by my statement. I will be back often to read what you are writing.
I hope I can communicate that effectively, clearly and strongly someday.
Michelle Kelly,
That is a very astute observation and I think it takes most people years to adopt that kind of wisdom. Or … maybe the greater truth is that it took me years to gain that level of wisdom? I used to work for a law firm and part of the legal advocate’s work — as you might imagine — is to convince the other side that their position is the right one. Or, so it seems at the lower levels of law practice.
Now I’m going to digress just a moment but I promise it’s for a reason.
For many years I worked for a law firm as a research specialist, victims’ advocate and liaison between the city and various law enforcement entities. I handled the majority of redress issues with state and federal legislators. Primarily I worked as a Constitutional law analyst with special emphasis on Freedom of speech, press, worship and choice, Due Process and interpretation as it relates to historical context. I quickly learned these two phrases: “the best answer is …” and “Shifting Majority Sentiment.”
The higher courts recognize that there is no “right” or “wrong” answer. There is a “best” and “worst” answer. Sometimes the best answer fits because of the circumstances at a particular period of time. And then that “best answer” becomes the “worst answer” because of “Shifting Majority Sentiment.”
For example, In Plessy V. Ferguson, the courts ruled separate but equal. Nonsense, that phrase doesn’t even really add up to half the sum of logic. But this was the thinking at the time despite the old adage “together we stand … divided we fall.”
Not fifty years after Plessy, the courts reversed position because the general consensus was that people’s mindsets towards blacks was changing. No longer did a substantial majority of people view blacks as a foreign race not to be trusted or given responsibility. You have to understand that before the 1920’s blacks (sorry, African Americans), pish-posh, to heck with all that political correctness; it’s part of the problem. Anyway, blacks were not even considered to be “people.” They were physically as present as anyone else but they were thought of as being even lowlier than the Native American. I’m not saying that Native Americans should be thought of in any particular way. What I’m saying is that most Indian tribes were viewed as savages, uneducated, unruly, wild, hedonistic people. And, blacks were thought of as being even more so. But suddenly we had publishing companies, reliable postal service, book stores, newspapers being circulated in almost every populous city and … as a result, people started to become educated. At the time of Brown V. Board of Education, we had not exactly reached a majority of consensus regarding the status of black Americans but we were well on our way to getting there. Trends showed that within a few years, the beliefs of the minority would become the beliefs of the majority.
And that brings us back to topic.
I was about 5 or 6 years old when I first began to realize something was different about me. By the time I was 8, I was secretly wearing panties that I found in the clean clothes baskets that I helped my mom put away.
By the time I was a teenager, I was wearing women’s clothes under my outer garments almost every day.
I became disgusted with myself because I thought I must be some kind of freak. I didn’t understand what was going on and I definitely knew my family wouldn’t. Coming out then was almost unheard of. It didn’t matter if one came out as a gay person or a transgendered person. Either way, the backlash and social exile was extreme.
So, until 2013, I tried to conform my life to the heterosexual norm. But, I was miserable. I was married for a time but … I was miserable.
In mid to late 2013, I couldn’t take it anymore. Something had to change. I thought to myself “Now, Missy, you’re a researcher by trade. You know how to find things that no one else can find. Do some research and see if there are any other people out there like you.”
I did and I learned about people like Jazz Jennings, a girl that warms my heart every time she puts up a video, speaks in public or just lives out her life on cable television or YouTube.
I learned about a man who became Chloe and as he told his story on a nationwide television program, I realized “Hey! That’s me.” I did all the things he did as a child.
I learned about children who were being given the chance to right the wrongs caused by genetic miscoding.
I learned that there are a lot of people in this world just like me and we don’t have to be ashamed, disgraced or miserable.
I learned about Nikki Araguz, a woman who almost single-handedly got the laws changed in Texas regarding birth and gender identification.
I was born and raised in Texas for the first 16 years of my life. I know how difficult a job that must have been for her.
But, she overcame.
Now I live in Oklahoma City. I am a totally blind pre-op TransGirl. You want to talk about difficult?
My family and friends are homophobic and militantly heterosexual as well as being legalistically Christian. When I do come out, I am going to be cut off from any assistance they might otherwise give. I am, however, employed, I am independent and I do live alone so the opportunity is there to succeed. I just have to find people with whom I can connect and network.
In January of 2014, I started writing and trying to connect with local groups and gay-friendly churches. It has proven a little more difficult than I first imagined but I will not give up. I continue to this day. I am still not out to family or friends but I have set a date of January 1, 2017 as the very latest that I will wait to come out. I would like to have some connections firmly established in the local LGBT community by that time so I will have some support when I am ostracized but regardless, I will take my stand.
And this is where I’m going with all of this:
We must have a plan. But, a simple plan.
Remember the phrase “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit?”
No one will ever forget those eight little words because of its simplicity and its big big effectiveness.
So simple and yet so powerful.
The plan is also simple but powerful.
So simple.
We must! stand together.
Brown V. Board of Education came about because the focus of the people was being directed again and again to the abuses being perpetrated on black Americans. People’s opinions don’t change until they’ve been saturated with alternative viewpoints. Right now transgendered issues are the focus of so many television documentaries, radio talk shows, web and smart phone podcasts, books, pictures, newspaper articles and segments of the evening news.
It is because of this saturation that opinions are changing. It is because of this “shifting majority sentiment” that we, as transgendered individuals can someday live in freedom and without fear of being abused, beaten, degraded or even killed.
But, it won’t happen if we don’t stand together.
If we show a divided front, then this will be broadcast to the world at large. The not quite shifted majority will see us as petty, back-biting, immature, freaks of nature and they’ll move on to the next “big thing” because … the interest of the people can best be classified as a “fad.” what interests the majority today, won’t interest them tomorrow; and, what doesn’t interest them tomorrow after having interested them today, will be just another abandoned project.
Do any of you have children? I do not but I understand this principle:
Kids want that new toy today. They have to have it today. They play with it for a while and then it goes into the corner where it is rarely noticed. But, it isn’t totally forgotten, it has become an accepted part of the child’s living area.
We have to become the “new toy” that everyone wants and then the old relic in the corner that is neither the focus of attention nor the focus of neglect.
I don’t know about yall but I look forward to the day when I can go to work in a dress and no one cares one way or the other.
Did any of that make a lick of sense?
I have been very lucky to have my family stick by me through my transition. My Mom was not happy with me dressing and wearing her and my sister’s clothes but my Grandmother, my Aunt, my sister and my cousin didn’t have a problem with me dressing in girls clothes. When my Mom found out I was taking birth control pills and Estroven, she finally understood that I was a girl in a man’s effeminate body and I wasn’t going to change. She took me to an endocrinologist and after counseling, I went on puberty blockers until I was 18 and then I started a somewhat aggressive regimen of HRT.
In high school, I was teased, nasty notes were left on my locker and I was called some terrible names. I was punched and shoved but I never fought back. My tolerance was admired by a few girls and a couple of guys and I made some very good friends. Still, I am very frightened when I encounter people in public who not very nice or who say mean things either to my face or loud enough for me to hear behind my back.
I guess my point is that there are going to be haters no matter where you go but I try to avoid them or if I can’t avoid them, ignore them.