September 24th, 2007

I really wish I had more time to write here.  I'm sure there are things I'm not getting down because I'm not near a computer when I'm thinking of it.  Oh well.

I was in a conversation last night, where a story was told about an incident where a transsexual person was treated with disrespect.  It wasn't quite as blatant as calling someone names or not allowing them entrance to some place, but it was out of bounds and had they thought about it, would not have behaved as they did.  (yes, I'm being vague for confidentiality).   There were 4 transsexuals in this conversation, and 2 cisgendered people (you know, standard gender identities & chromosomes to match).   Well, all of us save one, understood right off why this act was considered disrespectful, and expressed varying degrees of outrage.  But one of the cisgendered people, while acknowledging that it was wrong for this person to behave that way, wanted to point out that the public at large who generally know nothing of the subject at all and at best know of it through trashy talk shows, there is a genuine curiosity about the whole subject.   And some of the inappropriate comments, view points and questions that arise are based from a natural curiosity.

Let me try and put some examples together.  On my website, I talk about some very personal things with  my body and how I feel.  I'm sure I've even mentioned somewhere on my site how I view my own sexual orientation.  I initially thought that these were things that people would have that natural curiosity about, so I talked about them.  Let's say I hadn't done that, and did not have a Q & A section inviting all questions.  I might get questions from people like "so what's it like growing breasts", or "do you want to have sex with men now".  Both of these would be inappropriate questions to ask most people.  You would not ask a co-worker these questions or even many casual friends.  In my opinion, you'd better be a close friend who already knows such questions would be acceptable.  If you are not sure that a question is appropriate, you should certainly ask if you can inquire about something personal and hopefully have some explanation of why you feel the need to ask such a question.  In other words - exercise some common courtesy that you'd offer anyone!!  Transsexuals, while being rare, are still people who should be afforded the same considerations you'd give to anyone else.  Of course, this applies to any rare group with an odd condition.

I've read what other transsexuals have said about how we should be treated and what things society needs to learn.  Variations of sexual orientation are now becoming more accepted because the public has been educated.  Hopefully transsexuality might be understood more in the future too.  I don't really recall my high school health classes talking much about homosexuality, if at all.  I'm guessing it gets more 'air time' now.  Maybe an introduction to trans is in order :)

A very sound way of understanding sexuality and gender is put forth in the book I highly recommend called 'Whipping Girl'. Http://www.juliaserano.com/whippinggirl.html  I've not read the whole thing yet, but from what I've covered, I kind of feel I shouldn't have been so willing to expose myself for everyone.  But I think for me, I had some need to explain things.  At this point, I consider what I'm doing here to be educational in some respects, and want people to feel it's Ok to ask some questions that might be inappropriate.  Just please don't assume any transsexual will be to pleased with those otherwise inappropriate and private questions.