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stellauk -> RE: The Transgender Thread (11/19/2011 1:08:48 PM)
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Oh man, 19 pages now?
I've just come back from canvassing.. I'm a member of the local Labour Party and part of the campaign team for the forthcoming elections for Mayor of London.
I'm going out and meeting different people face to face to try and get them to vote and/or sign up. Some of this takes me into the estates of South London, some of them - for example the Winstanley Estate in Clapham Junction, are part of the network of 'ghetto' estates in South London. Therefore I'm most likely dealing with hoodies and chavs on their doorstep.
Yes there are a few issues, as I could be taken as the lovechild of Bernard Manning and Jo Brand, but generally it seems they 'get it' much easier and quicker than a few people on this thread.
It's kind of related to my work, as I'm self-employed working to redevelop cultural community initiatives to rebuild communities affected by the recent Clapham Junction riots.
You see, this isn't about society. It's about individual people. Using society to back up what you think is just an excuse, nothing more. Society is no more than a concept, it's just people, and people is just a collective term for individual persons. It's individual people who make up society. Society doesn't share your reality, in fact nobody else does.
I'm okay with the fact that most people wouldn't want to sleep with me or have a relationship with me, because the feeling is mutual.
I'm here in this community not because I'm transgendered, but because I'm kinky. Being TG isn't a kink, it's not a mental illness, it's just part of who you are as a person - nothing more. I come from a poor background, one of social stigma and deprivation, I'm one of the few who got out and made something of my life, I'm artistic, creative, I don't fit in and the reason is not necessarily because I'm transgendered.
You can be forgiven for thinking that it is about me being TG, because I sometimes think it's for the same reason when it hasn't got anything to do with it.
My entire strategy here is 'this is me, my life, my experience, these are the cards I've been dealt with in life, this is how I'm playing them.' I'm not prepared fall back on 'society' and use it as an excuse to back up my excuses for not dealing or owning my issues, and equally using 'society' or 'other people' to justify what you personally think or feel on this issue doesn't work either.
Last July I came within a couple of votes of being elected Equalities Officer for the Executive of the local Labour Party. Those votes came from party members, most of who don't know me, hence you can take them as a representative proportion of 'society'. As a minority myself I had to campaign - and it was a campaign, complete with meetings, speeches and debates - from a position of having overcome the struggle. I based my campaign on the need for recognition of discrimination due to social class and background and how spending cuts appear to have been targetted towards women.
This is not to say that I haven't struggled, I have, and I have in the same way as others who don't quite fit in with what many people see as female or indeed feminine, or for that matter, passable. I've gone through the isolation, the social stigma and together with my problems with transitioning I've also dealt with the issues of being street homeless and destitute.
Many of these problems weren't caused by other people, but by me, either by misunderstanding something, not being in the right situation, not making the right preparations, or simply making mistakes. I'm probably quite an expert on 'How Not To Go About Gender Reassignment'. I still have issues, not so much with dealing with people but minor insignificant stuff, like eyebrows - and I have these issues simply because I'm not a naturally born female.
But a lot of issues have cleared up, simply because I have the acceptance I needed and while from the perspective of other people it seems I've moved into an area where I'm not accepted by most people and more restricted and isolated, when actually the reverse is true and my journey has been one of liberation and learning. I don't have this preoccupation of being seen as male when I have a female brain, now i can multitask, focus on emotions and communication and relate to the world and other people as I am inside.
This isn't just my issue, but one which affects most people, because few of us are really aware of just how much gender can vary from the binary and it comes because of the way we are all conditioned. When I point out to others issues of gender I'm not trying to tell them that they are wrong, that they are dysfunctional, mentally ill or stupid, but merely giving them an opportunity to understand what lies behind the way they're thinking or feeling.
I can only speak for myself, but when I become aware of something or learn something new, I try to change my beliefs or thinking to accommodate it and accept the fact that just maybe that reasoning on which I base my beliefs or thinking might be flawed. I'm no different from anyone else, I have my own biases, prejudices, I judge when maybe I shouldn't, I get things wrong, and while I accept that I may be aware of stuff in some areas I also accept that in others I remain blissfully unaware.
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