It always amazes me when people you would otherwise think are quite intelligent, say something completely, well, wrong.
This afternoon, I was listening to talk radio.
Wait, before I go on, yes I listen to “talk” radio. Normally NPR. However today I was listening to actual talk radio, the kind where the crazies of the world express their twisted views of the world. This happened to be a particular semi-local personality who regularly preaches the virtues of social conservatism. This is not what I listen to, but instead what my MOM listens to…. Yeah….. We will talk about mom in another blog…
At any rate, the radio personality brought on a representative of a regional LGBT organization to talk about trans peoples rights…. Yeah, lets talk about the community for a sec…
LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender… I would like to know why the heck that we, the “T” in LGBT got stuck way the heck at the end. Throughout the history of LGBT activism, the trans community has been right at the forefront, in fact, I believe you would be hard pressed to find some video of a LGBT rally (or riot) where there is not some disheveled trans person marching with a sign, or throwing a molotov cocktail…. The point I am trying to make here is, a “community”, that is fighting to come out of the shadows, puts their most discriminated, degraded, and criticized people, who happen to be some of the most recognized examples of the community, at the very end of their acronym.
The real reason behind this is actually “gay separatism” . This is the belief that while trans people have (and will continue to) stood up for the rights of the “community”, some gay and lesbian people believe that the bi and trans people should just take a hike because our issues are not the “same”… Yeah, I’m not going to get into that at the moment, but rest assured that I do not agree…
Anyway, back to the point of the detour, in a “community” where the trans demographic is a tacked on tail, maybe, those representing us should be thoroughly aware of the group they are talking about.
So, the representative tackled the LGB questions without even flinching. Deflected intentional misrepresentations and set the record straight (or in this case, gay) on all accounts. However, when the topics moved into the “T” side of the spectrum, the representative quickly became a detriment to the community instead of an asset…
The first leak in the sinking ship came from a statement by the radio personality regarding “men in dresses, using women’s restrooms” and the “dangers of potential child molestation and abduction” associated with. Now, instead of playing it cool, and indicating that every day thousands of trans people use public bathrooms, and every day hundreds of children are abused, molested, and/or abducted, and every day, molesters, abusers, and abductors are arrested for those crimes, the number of those arrested people that are trans? It is not even a statistical factor…. It doesn’t occur with any greater probability than non trans people, in fact if you factor in that there are far more non-trans people than trans people, each trans-abuser would wreak havoc on the trans statistic. 1 out of 1,000 is .1% 1 our of 100 is 1%, and THAT is a big difference. Instead the rep spent his rebuttal engaging the “men in dresses” commentary using my ultimate biggest pet peeve “Woman trapped in a man’s body” argument. Thank you very much for making no headway on the common misconceptions of the populous, by going as far as to perpetuate the stereotype, AND letting the radio personality off the hook with calling me a potential child molester…
Next came classic nomenclature problem. I suppose that the trans community is a little to blame for this, primarily by allowing ourselves to be called transgendered as a whole, but really subscribing to quite different functionalities of gender deviance. I for example take offence to being called a transvestite. Why you may ask? Well, I am NOT a transvestite! A transvestite is someone that crossdresses for purely sexual gratification, the best way to exemplify this is to stand a transvestite and a transsexual side by side, tell them that to continue on, that they will have to give up their ability to orgasm, so in effect, removing the sexual gratification associated with presenting as the opposite sex. The trans person will most likely go on, the transvestite will take a hike. So, throughout the whole interview, the radio personality referred to trans people as a whole as transvestites, crossdressers, trannies, and transsexuals. Did the representative stop the radio host once to set the record straight? NOPE!
The final blow came about when the representative themselves failed to separate gender identity and sexual preference in their statements and explanations. This always irks me, primarily because it perpetuates another trans stereotype. You know, the one that trans women are just fem gay guys, and trans men are just butch lesbian women. Just FYI, trans people are available in all flavors of the sexual preference rainbow, all way from hetro-nymphos to asexual hermits.
Moral of this story is that, while I have no issue being an LGBT advocate, I do take issue with representatives of the “community” having knowledge that seems more
LGB………………….pation…………………..T
Know your facts!
BTW, my parents are probably watching FOX news right now….
No comments:
Post a Comment