Take This Label And Like It!

From the article: "Don’t Call Me Transgender!"
Posted on April 2, 2011 at 11:31 am2011-04-02T11:31:59Zg:i a by The Transexual Menace
www.transexualmenace.org

"Hellooooooooo girlfriend!
OMG! You really think that changing your sex is not breaking the cis-gender norms?

We hate to tell you but transsexual people are transgendered. Both of the founders of The Transexual Menace were post-op transsexuals who, before the political popularization of the meme Transgender, saw the need to have an general concept to describe the people who were being disenfranchised by society because of their expression of their gender. They felt that anyone who was marginalized because they failed to conform to society’s expectations of the correct gender expression was naturally a part of the ‘gender community’ as they called it originally. It was this concept of unity, embodied in the Original Charter of the Transexual Menace, that later merged with similar beliefs held by others world-wide giving rise to Transgender as we know it today.

Transgender is our word for ourselves. It has been around since the 70s. LGB didn’t assign it to us nor are they pushing it on us (in fact, some of them wish that T would just go away). Before the creation of LGBT in the mid-90s, we were Transgender."



WTF??!!...

One of my responses to the above article is, that I myself have successfully (and continue to do so, that is if I don't share my past with the wrong elements of any communities) lived as a woman for years, in the sense of legal, gender and sex realms. I personally, as a matter of choice, except for a few mature, very accepting, understanding gay, lesbian and bisexual friends and allies who know of my past cross-somatic birth defect, (they do not try to push a culture of "Queerness" on me or anyone else) I do not directly associate with the LGB portion of the population as a group; This is due to past bad experiences with that group as a whole, as I was at the early stage of my medical/physical correction.

For example, I did attend a couple of support groups of Transsexual concerns for a short time. These were located only in a gay area of the city that I have moved from and left behind to authentically live my life. The general mistreatment of the people of Transsexual-experience who spoke up in San Diego, was both horrendous and subtle. The disrespect of our inherent knowledge of which sex/gender we belonged to, the shouting down and silencing of our concerns and point of view, the near obsessive, constant portrayal of TS-experienced and Transgender people as just "drag queens" was bullshit that was nasty to bear.
some of the gay males AND more than one Gender Queer person would spread rumours about TS-experienced and Trans females, saying that they are really "gay males who dress up who desire gay males" if they did not like us individually.

One of those bad experiences included a therapist, whom I saw on a regular basis as I was going throughout my corrective transition. She kept insisting that I was "Transgender", said that "it's ok to be Third Gender" and that I use that term to describe myself. She kept ignoring the fact that I also Intersex, but fully identifying as a female, having been born with an underdeveloped female uterus and right ovary.
Of course, I never came back to see her. After that, it was interesting to note that 3 other therapists, one of whom wrote my letter for SRS, have said that I had an "extreme case of Transsexuality".

Two to three times, I've travelled from the diverse suburban area I lived in in San Diego, to donate brand new books bought with my own money, that provided accurate education about Trans people, to the LGB (--T--) center located in the "Hillcrest" area of that city. Two to three times, the brand new books disappeared from the shelves never to be seen again. I even once found 3 of the new Trans books in a trash recepticle on the side of the center.

Once, there was a woman's fair at that center that I bravely attended, only to be caught by surprise by one of the events at that fair. That event was an "open discussion and expression", some gay, lesbian and other queer people came up on the stage to berate Trans people, to tell them that they are "phony", "gay males and lesbian women with self image issues" and "not to alter their bodies".

(Autumn Sandeen is a member of the Transgender/Queer/Gender-Queer "mafia" in San Diego by the way, I've personally known her for years in San Diego).
As for any discrimination, mistreatment and transphobia that I've experienced, on the job or in a general social environment, that has occurred mostly when I or someone who knows of my past cross-sexed condition, told other people. Other than that, I ("pass" as some would call it) blend in and live as a women (myself) in society very well,
I actually came out of full "stealth", even telling some people where I currently work about my past, in order to contribute to the battle for the Human Rights of Transsexual-experienced and Transgender people as well as even Gender Variant folk.
But, for someone to tell me that my life as woman is just an "illusion", to unquestioningly use a label of "Transgender" for myself and not to argue about it, when in fact I did not change my "gender", I physically aligned my body to the inherent (internal) gender that I have been since birth, is highly ridiculous.

Telling someone that the true blossoming happiness and healing that they've finally achieved, by being able to blend in and live as their rightful sex in womanhood or manhood, is nothing but an "illusion" and to "wake up", sounds very akin to what elements of the LGB community says to and about Trans people, especially people of Transsexual experience.

"We hate to tell you but transsexual people are transgendered."

???-The above statement makes about as much sense as a snail with a turbo-powered engine with only 5 gears in reverse...



**How a good number of gay.inc males portray Trans women**