Your words,
tossed off
trumpeted out
staccato,
running trills
like some
Miles Davis
of the trivial
not-thought-thru
remark
leave me
set on fire
and hanging
in mid-air
Tag Archives: transmisogyny
Feather and Fur
It’s puzzling…
the sheer effrontery
of those raucous rooks,
those rapacious ravens…
they flock around
(why? I couldn’t say)
and act all furry and red
and soft and they think
their beady close set eyes
are so foxy…
I act bored and disinterested
but I watch them carefully
with slitted eyes
and coiled muscles
ready to jump away from
blood-thirsty beaks
and harsh cries
that tear the air apart
and leave feather and fur
in their wake.
40 questions for Christians who oppose marriage equality (GUEST COMMENTARY) – Corner of Church and State
A VERY interesting and thought provoking article and series of questions…Reader, this is posted more for you than anyone else. See if you can hold your need to “binary-ize” things into your “either-or” world view…just for a second or two.
I am less interested in answering the question of right and wrong at this point, and more interested in asking what kind of heart are you showing, advocating, and modeling by your current approaches to relationship with LGTBQ people?
I mean…33 plus years of relationship was over in the flick of a heartswitch and the drop of an envelope in a mail-slot…
Boom.
My life has gone on. No…more accurately, my life has finally begun and I have been blooming and growing spiritually and emotionally and growing more healthy physically. The loss of relationship has in my case been a very healthy pruning in that so many new people have come into my life bringing messages to me like I have rarely experienced in my past years done in the dungeons of christendom.
But I do think about you, Reader…and the life you live of inspection and constant lifting of yourself and others into scales that are not even accurate…
…and I encourage you to read these questions and ponder them…
because to answer them and be challenged by them will require you to change your lifestyle, spend your time differently, and draw your boundaries very different!
You never know…you just may find that the river you say I have crossed that you won’t be crossing is the River of Life and that what matters is the water, and not the bank you stand on…as if that matters…as if you could really make that claim, that your bank is “the bank”…as if that pleases God who left heaven and took on the form of a bondslave…
…and as if that River of Life doesn’t have twists and turns to the human eye that could end up with us actually still “on the same side” (cus that’s a thing in this divisive binary world, being on the same side is far more important than belonging to Jesus *SARCASM*) and you not even realize it.
Just let go.
The list is getting sooo long, and the burden is getting sooo ponderous, all the things you must inspect and check and ascertain…how bout just letting all that go, and simply doing this: Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, and loving your neighbor as yourself with something more than a letter that slashed and burned and then preened like Little Jack Horner…
Alabama Teen Becomes Ninth Trans Woman Murdered in U.S. in 2015 | Advocate.com
Alabama Teen Becomes Ninth Trans Woman Murdered in U.S. in 2015 | Advocate.com.
You all already saw this article, right? Cus we as a society have decided that transwomen should be protected from violent murderous sanction…oh wait, we didn’t do that?
It could so easily be me…so quickly become me.
Omg…Happens To Me Every Day With Gender
No Protest In Philly!!
OMG Constance!! Did you hear about the massive protests and riots going on in Philadelphia because of the death of a woman of color???
Yeah…neither did I.
After all…she was only a woman.
A woman of color.
Oh…and she was trans.
Just another piece of trash collected for the patriarchy. http://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/transgender-woman-stabbed-to-death-in-philadelphia?utm_term=.yfzwq8GpK#.pnOnBKk8L 
But while I am on the topic of killing transwomen? If you slur me with your words…if you other me with your actions…if you lie to yourself about who I am…if you call me “engenderer”, “mask”, “monster”, “other” (a literal “othering”)…
…you do not get to call yourself a trans-advocate.
Words hurt, wound irrevokably…but silence slays the heart.
Still Underneath
I see you there, still
underneath your words
underneath your pain
underneath your masks
deep beneath the strain
of putting every thing that hurts
all that grew from choices made
all that sprung from things not done
all that you have fearful run
from and still found it there within
though the darkness haunt you long
I will hover in the song
that I have sung your whole life long
and love the you I see there, still
I see you still…underneath
Anonymous: Her Blood is on your Keyboard
Constance…I am sobbing deeply right now. Another transgender person dead, dysphoria eats another one of us, and what’s worse but not at all unusual is the way that the cis-world egged her on.
I cannot imagine the cruel hearts of the people who said such horrible things to her.
But I will be blunt: everyday, you need to remember that most transgender people are treated with staggering othering and policing.
I myself am shunned, and my history is distorted and fabricated. My narrative is hijacked in service of a myth that allows people to feel good about the indifferent uncaring way they choose to live.
It weighs on a person, it does.
Constance, everywhere around you someone is suffering, someone is laboring. How about just be kind?
Please?
Someday you will wish you had been, if you’re lucky.
Trans woman, 23, kills herself after being attacked online | Gay Star News.
Trans woman, 23, kills herself after being attacked online
#HerNameWasRachel
A young trans woman has killed herself after being attacked online.
Rachel Bryk, 23, jumped off the George Washington Bridge, the bridge between New York and New Jersey, on Thursday night (23 April)
An eyewitness is believed to have seen the young woman leave her purse on the bridge and jump off into the Hudson River.
Bryk’s body has still not been recovered. A funeral will be planned when her body is found.
Her shocked mother Lisa Bryk, from New Jersey, found out on Friday morning.
‘She was super smart, really good with computers,’ she told Gay Star News. ‘We’ll miss her.’
Bryk was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and lived with chronic pain. This meant she was unable to get a job or keep to a regular schedule.
She found her life in anime, nerd culture and computing. She helped develop an emulator that allows you to play Gamecube and Wii games on your PC.
But because Bryk was talented, and hard-working, and open about being trans, it meant she left herself open to online attacks.
When she said on 4chan that she was considering killing herself, she did not receive support.
‘DO IT, if you’re such a weak willed thin skinned dipshit then fucking do it,’ one anonymous commenter told her.
Even in her death, some on 4chan have described it as a ‘victory’. On news of her death, some commented that she was the ‘whiniest fucking faggot’ and ‘any tranny death is good riddance’.
Such comments clearly left Bryk severely depressed, who would often call herself ‘worthless trash’ on her Ask.fm page. Her Twitter bio page read: ‘[Trigger Warning]: suicide on everything i say.’
At Friday midnight, this was posted on her Twitter.
The people Bryk worked with mourned her.
‘She will be missed greatly by everyone. We are stronger, better people thanks to knowing her,’ one said.
And another: ‘Rachel was more than just a great programmer. She was a great programmer who always managed to put a smile on my face. I don’t think that there ever will be anyone else quite like her. Rest in peace.’
When we asked Bryk’s mom how the family dealt with her daughter’s transition, she said: ‘It caused a lot of worry, because the world is not a kind place for people who are different.’
If you are considering suicide, please call the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255. The LGBT National Helpline is on 888-843-4564, with the Youth line on 800-246-7743.
– See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/trans-woman-23-kills-herself-after-being-attacked-online270415#sthash.jcThC57T.kXWTRJ3X.dpuf
Someone Tell Me That I’ll Live: On Murder, Media, and Being a Trans Woman in 2015 – xoJane
I am starting to think that trans women and trans femmes — all of us linked by the cardinal sin of being named boys at birth, yet breaking the rules of boyhood and manhood — are trapped inside a traumatized story. From an early age, we are inundated with the story of our deaths, we relive it over and over many times before we actually die.
This same story is taken up, commoditized, and mass produced by communities outside of ourselves — media outlets looking for sensational stories, academics looking to produce research, and as Morgan Collado points out, even “LGBT” human rights organizations eager to use the statistics of transphobic violence to garner funds used to pursue the interests of cis, white gays and lesbians.
Even well-meaning liberal cis people, eager to earn “ally” points, consume and exploit the narrative of the doomed trans woman in their way.
via Someone Tell Me That I’ll Live: On Murder, Media, and Being a Trans Woman in 2015 – xoJane.
Constance, you know my thoughts about this topic. This article states them far more eloquently than I do. There is a part of the article speaking about how people who “knew us then” feel as if we have died already…
…in light of the murder of trans-women being an almost ritualized offering of human lives to the bloodthirsty god of patriarchy, it feels so eerie, as if my own loved ones consign me to those fires with forked fingers and muttered incantations invoking protection against the evil (trans) eye…
My deepest sorrow is that my life seems a curse. If I exist as I was, then I am doomed and serving life in a prison invisible and undeclared and I am forever derided because I am depressed or despairing or I am resented because I hated myself…
…and if I exist as I am, then I am resented because I am the cause of death of a man who never was and never could be, except in the thoughts and minds of everyone around me. And all they offer me is the promise that they will give me their illusions and fears to prop me up and costume me and call it liberty, or they will call me Patrick Henry and give me death.
It is my choice they say.
Yes…it is…my choice. And I choose Tikkun.
I choose to live, and let go of all other things I cannot control. And if I die before you wake, then I pray the Lord your soul will take…to the fountains of truth and revelation…and then I pray that He will take you across that river you so proudly declared you would never cross…I pray that He will ferry you across Himself, and show you the blood-soaked ground that constitutes the banks of the river called Rejection.
Why I Get Very Concerned When I Am Called Names…
The men became enraged once they discovered that Nettles was transgender, according to prosecutors and a fight broke out.
Dixon punched Nettles in the face, making her to fall to the ground and strike her head on the sidewalk, causing a serious brain injury, said Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Viorst.
Viorst alleges that Dixon brutally beat Nettles and “struck her repeatedly as she lay on the ground” while “driving the side of her head into the pavement.”
The indictment charges that Dixon used the sidewalk as a “dangerous instrument” to cause Nettles’ death.
Constance…why? Driving face into sidewalk…enraged at a gender orientation…punishment of a capital nature for the crime of…what?
Being “a dude in a dress”? Being a “he/she?”
…and I am the one who has been judged as demonized…
*tears*
North Carolina mom believes bullying led to transgender teen’s suicide – LGBTQ Nation
North Carolina mom believes bullying led to transgender teen’s suicide – LGBTQ Nation.
Constance…ears are deaf to our pleas…another one has gone over the precipice of despair.
This area is the same one where some of my own dementors hail from, those truly baffling souls so full of hate that they are compelled to speak spite and make sure that they attempt to infuse my heart with that poison…oh yeah, cus they love me so much.
I am deeply saddened but not one bit surprised that this poor dear despaired in such a caustic and hateful atmosphere as this.
Ima keep on posting these things…you cannot pretend it doesn’t happen. You cannot pretend that reading here is the same as supporting a transgender person. If you read here but do nothing, you are like the rich person who walks the streets in -20 degrees below zero and tells the ones who freeze in their nakedness “be warm, be warm.”
Listen: it is not going to stop until you get you up out of your ease and privilege and stand with me! With us! In your community…and yeah, you will lose face and reputation and may be called a name or two…quel horreur!
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Charissa Grace
http://www.wsoctv.com/videos/news/mother-believes-bullying-led-to-transgender-teens/vDH8L9/
Can you stop killing us for just one week?
Constance…did you realize this?
I invite you to consider this request.
Being called he/she, and having it justified by a spiritual comment, well it smacks a bit of feeling like getting groomed for other, deeper transgressions.
It is a true reality that I could get murdered, just for walking transgender.
As long as you cis people read and feel all bad and stuff, and then see what’s on tv, we will keep being killed. No one will stop killing us until they are forced to stop…a bit like the police force and their wanton slaughter of young black men.
Please…we really are not doing anything to you. Just let us live.
The Evil of Too Much Compassion – #1000SPEAK
*(Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was not able to post this yesterday. Better late than never!)*
“Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.
‘the victims should be treated with compassion’
Word Origin
C14:
from Old French
from Late Latin compassiō fellow feeling,
from compatī to suffer with,
from Latin com- with + patī to bear, suffer”
Compassion. You hear a lot about it. It is an attractive word emotionally, these days. It is a feel-good word, one that evokes feelings of admiration in the one who attributes it to someone, and a sense of pride and accomplishment in the one to whom it is attributed.
It’s sorta like a modern feel good girl-scout merit badge…wait, did Charissa just say that? Now that is not a compassionate thing to say!!
Unless it is, because it serves to deliver from a greater pain in the future.
Here is the troubling thing to me, as we are seeking to unpack this word and let it take on form and substance, as we seek to bring about “the Incarnation of Compassion”. We have far too often stopped at the first part of the definition of the word, and have utterly disregarded the origin of it…that part that talks about “suffering with”, or “bearing suffering with”.
Compassion is not about the one who has it. It is about the one for whom the feeling is born.
And too much compassion is a dangerous thing, because it gets in its own way.
After all, if you actually see your neighbor down the street, are moved to compassion, let the word become Incarnate within you, then you will take action and your time and energy will be consumed to the extent that your ability to have actual compassion (complete with action) will be severely curtailed commensurate with what you expend in this action.
I want to write, in the midst of this sparkling wonder of a snowstorm of exquisite flakes of compassion, to remind us that compassion is about someone other than the haver of it! The mere presence of the feelings commonly called compassion are actually closer to “pity” unless we do something about those feelings.
And that is why I have titled this post “The Evil of Too Much Compassion”…it becomes a little blue pill that we swallow to assuage the pain that comes when we feel compassion and then take no action. The alternative action is to simply read about more heart breaking things and feel more compassion, and then to read about more and feel more, and more, and…
…well, finally, we have become so compassionate that we are creating and attending “compassion rallies” and we are so stirred up about all the things we do that show how compassionate we are that we become very adept at dodging the homeless people laying in the streets and wrapped in rags and cold.
We are Houdinis of news aggregation. We are becoming so broadminded, so large hearted, that we think that rights and privileges should be shared freely…to people of all sexual and gender orientation…and then we read of the murder of the seventh transgender woman this year.
Yes…in the first seven weeks of 2015, seven transgender women have been murdered…and these murders are scattered about the nation, they have nothing else in common save for the gender orientation of the women…and we feel…what?
Compassion? Really? Did we feel moved to the point that we chose to “bear suffering with?” What form did your action take, when you read of that horror? 
Look, the fact is that if you remove the “trans” part and look at this string of murders in the way that most murders are viewed, it would seem the work of a very scary, very mobile serial killer who strikes with no rhyme or reason and could kill you next. There would be an outrage and our police force would stir itself in paroxysms of action to hunt down and stop a monster who would kill women at the rate of one a week…sort of a twisted demented “communion supper” offered to death and defilement!
But no…it is not done that way, because compassion for a transgender woman who is killed is not quite the appropriate emotion, because she may have been out late, or at a bar, or she may not have told the murderer yet that she was trans, or she may have told him she was trans and thus deserved to be murdered, or she may have been interested in sexual activity with an attractive partner or she may have refused sexual activity or…
…well, she is transgender for god’s sake, surely she must have known she shouldn’t just walk around trans and not hide it (or is it tell about it and broadcast so as not to “deceive”, or is it try harder to pass, or is it that she tried too hard and thus looked like a parody of a “real woman”, or…or…ad infinitum).
We get very good at letting our eyes skim over the words in today’s latest story of woe to suck out the juice to slake our thirst to feel good about ourselves…and then not take action lest we limit ourselves in our hunt for more to feel compassionate about.
If compassion is not more than a feeling, then it is not compassion at all.
It is pride.
This day of compassion may or may not be that…it is up to you.
Mother Teresa once said something about this sort of thing. She was in the gutter with a leper who had fouled herself with the loss of bowel control, and she was besmirched in the woman’s filth. A passerby who was well off stopped and rebuked her, asking her what possible difference she was making in the world.
“Look around you!” he exclaimed. “There are millions and billions of people suffering at this very second! Your life here is wasted and your efforts are in vain!”
Mother Teresa looked up calmly at the man, and then she said this:
“I am not called to serve millions and billions…I am called to serve this one.” She turned back to her little lamb, to tend her in her suffering, and the man walked away stunned, baffled.
But never fear, Constance…because he was very very sad about all the millions and billions of people who are suffering in this world…very sad indeed.
And he simply didn’t know how he would be able to go on with this burden, so he prayed that his already expansive “compassionate” heart would be stretched and expanded even further so he could feel that feeling…
…the one that proved what a fine fellow he truly was.
Highways…byways…lost lambs…get you there and let your feelings of pity be transformed in the crucible of suffering into true gold compassion.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly…live compassionately.
Charissa Grace.
Van Nuys transgender woman stabbed to death then set on fire | Planet Transgender
Van Nuys transgender woman stabbed to death then set on fire | Planet Transgender.
Constance…nice to see that the perp got the obligatory “setting the corpse on fire” piece correct…right??
Sigh…always the post mortem mayhem and mutilation.
What does say about the strength of gender orientation?
(And no, Hater…the answer is NOT “the bitch had it coming”)
Well, at least we can all console ourselves with the knowledge that our Transgender Remembrance Day is gonna be soo great for all of us who live, and we will have plenty to preen about and feel ever so sad over as we break our arms patting ourselves on the back for how progressive we are because we cry and remember the dead ones.
Oh, but we must be oh so careful to never actually do anything about this ongoing murder spree lest we make the need for Transgender Remembrance Day disappear…can’t have that, now, can we!!? I mean, actually do something?? *Shudder*
Yes, Constance, you did a remarkable job in detecting my extreme sarcasm…get the point, and then get to work. This will not change until cis-gender people with privilege speak up and use their power on our behalf.
Grim Charissa
Charissa Comments On Leelah
So…at last I think I can comment about the tragic death of Leelah Alcorn. There has been a maelstrom of emotions inside me over this.
I won’t list them here, because some of them may shock, outrage, or worry some of you. Suffice to say that I absolutely and completely understand in my marrow the very heart-fire of what she wrote in her note.
But what is more interesting to me is this: her parents had a choice to make…a choice about gender, gender orientation, and even a choice about Who God Is in light of Gender. They had to either choose to reach out to their child in spite of their own feelings about gender and what it is and how it is derived, or to slap her down in the name of the binary. They had to either love their child in spite of anything, everything that she had done or failed to do, and love her just because she was here and gifted to them…or to repudiate her in the name of who they conceive God to be in their own small and stony hearts…
Well, actually let’s boil it down further: they either had to choose to love Leelah, or love themselves.
That is the bottom line. Let me unpack this a bit for you.
First, let’s start with gender, and the crucial thing here is to really feel the distate and horror they had for a transgender person, the visceral reaction they had to what they felt was wrong wrong WRONG! Oh Constance, how is it not more clear, the strong and unchangeable thing that gender orientation is!!? Because their rejection of who Leelah was and the feelings that they had? They are the same feelings and depth and strength and absolute that transgender people feel inside about who we are gendered as!
They would rather see her die than to see her live as a gender they thought she was not…and I will confess that I would rather die than live any longer as who and what I am not. That is not a life anyway, and never was, not at its core.
They imagined that it would be torture for them, to see Leelah dressed properly female but to their eyes looking like a clown (one of my former best friends told me that I look like a clown, by the way, thanks for that, former 33 year friend)! They pictured a life of seeing her over years and that making them uncomfortable.
Constance…this is how we feel…transgender people…when we live in a world where our very breathing is transgressive! And to walk around being in such a way to reduce the absolute hatred we face from others when we are ourselves is to choose to be something that is indescribable agony inside ourselves to be! We get treated “fine” (and that means with indifference and left alone)…but it is an abattoir inside our hearts as our own life blood is spattered on the walls of our souls as we claw at our chests trying to tear the pain out of our hearts!
But wait!! We can take hormones! We can dress properly…and even better, we can actually have medical attention that literally transforms that pain into joy, and fills that horrible void with presence! The statistical evidence is overwhelming on this point, by the way. But it comes with a price: we exchange our inner torment for torment and rejection from our social groups and culture. The torment just changes location…sadly, most people in our society are just like Leelah’s parents and they begin to exercise the dominance of the binary. They want to avoid their own discomfort and are willing for us to die, whether it be by our own hand or theirs.
That is the choice we have: suffer in how we are made…or suffer at our own hand…or suffer from the hands of other people.
Because God forbid that my choice of clothing and presentation make anyone uncomfortable or antsy, right? Better that I just go away, or even better, change back…I am blood guilty, after all, of “wasting a perfectly good man” as another 3 decade long friend said to me in utter seriousness after 3 and a half hours of me trying to explain to him what it is like.
But that brings us to the next point in regards to the Leelah Alcorn tragedy: Who is this God that Leelah’s parents supposedly worship and live for? What is this God like?
Well, if we look honestly at this situation, Leelah’s parents believed that they themselves would be guilty of sin if they reached out to Leelah and did whatever it took to be sure she was mentally stable, healthy and able to actually live everyday without being bullied, othered or policed. They literally believe that God would call them unfaithful sinners and accuse them of enabling their child to be in sin, and then remove all blessing or protection or support from their lives.
They see God being who they themselves are! To their way of looking at it, Leelah’s suicide was the lesser of two evils, and really they actually are implying that God would say to them “Well Done, Good and Faithful Servants! You held the line against immorality and sin, even at the cost of your own child! You sacrificed your own flesh and blood for your own standing as righteous and defending My Honor!”
That’s essentially what happens inside their heart…they were willing to endure the death of their child in a horrific way, and live with that their entire lives, her blood crying out in every sunrise and sunset…because they think that brings God pleasure.
Where did they get this picture of God? I really want to know this! Because they certainly did not get this from the Bible, a book that I have read countless times and studied for years at various stages of life and maturity.
Here is who the Bible says God is…the Father who had children who chose selfishness, self-worship, hatred, strife, murder, envy, greed, malice, war, slaughter, wantonness, foolishness and darkness instead of simple fellowship with Him. So THIS Father did something completely other than what Leelah’s parents did. This Father instead searched out His children, went where they were, and gave a manifestation of His Heart on their behalf. He didn’t require them to die for their deeds and lives…instead He had His own Heart die for us instead, as a transaction of love which covers everything.
When you love your children regardless of their actions, reactions, deeds, words, silences…well you are imitating God that that finds great favor…when you put your children to death with your own words, deeds, actions and reactions…well flat out you are imitating the devil and worshiping yourself…because the only spiritual beings who take pleasure in evil are satanic and people who put themselves above everything else.
So this post is a very emotional and very crappy piece of writing. I am too close to it to not be all over the map…but just try to grasp these things:
The horror that cis-gender people feel when they are around us is nothing compared to the primary horror we are inside ourselves waking up and finding our heart/soul/mind/spirit at complete odds with the body we walk around in and are consigned to for everyday of our lives, and the secondary horror we will cause ourselves if we dare to give away who and what we are or even worse if we avail ourselves of the medical miracles there are which will almost entirely cure us.
It is the same absolute for us that we are not congruent inside and outside as it is for cis-gendered people that we are just mentally ill and can be fixed so we are just like them.
These two points illustrate the lie that has so long deceived us all…that gender is derived from plumbing…because if that all it is why do they freak out so bad if they even think about dressing or acting different? Wouldn’t it be as inconsequential as being in costume for a play? That it is NOT that inconsequential proves absolutely that gender is something inside and it is what it is!!
I mean, I truly think they would rather us kill ourselves than let us live and move and have our beings just like them! But if we are too stubborn to kill ourselves, there are plenty of brutes every year who are happy to execute us for the sin of breaking the binary.
It is so strong that they will even remake who God is to justify it…well, sadly, God gets remade all the time to justify the evil that people do.
I hurt and suffer as a human being, in common with everyone else…but I hurt and suffer as a transgender person in addition to that…and I hurt and suffer additional burdens because of what others do and say, fail to do and say…and I hurt and suffer at the lies that people live out as testimony of who they think God is.
Because that is not who They are.
Now the confession that I have been avoiding: in all truth, I am envious of Leelah, because in the midst of all the sorrow and horror and grief, her own torment has ended…and that prospect, of that low grade fever buzz of wrong being gone finally and there being blessed silence, sweetness, and rest…well that is something that I wish I could have.
And I feel a huge amount of guilt over that envy…because it is very clear to me that were I to seek relief it would be at the lifelong expense of many people I am connected to, and I would buy my own release with their pain…and that is unacceptable to me…so I sit…and mourn Leelah even while I am longing for what she now has…and feeling this awful mix of guilt and cowardice and bleakness…and thank God for Them, and They do bring comfort and joy and security even in the midst…no, especially in the midst.
I have many blessings…I have inner peace in terms of the Ultimate End of things…but I struggle, oh I struggle so hard, and I truly fear at times that I am not up to the task of being. I try to be honest with myself, and that means feelings…but then again I am not like other people and able to just rise above them. And that adds to the guilt and shame of not being good enough.
I wish I knew if Leelah would want me to live…I think she would, actually, because I think she wanted to live…it just got too hard, too heavy.
Hey Constance…regardless of your feelings about gender…if you have any feelings what so ever about being a good person? Try making the burden lighter for people…with compassion, kindness, tender heartedness and smiles, instead of heavier with judgment and rejection. You would be amazed to know what one kind word can do.
Confused rambly Charissa is now done gushing and vomiting.
Sorry for the succumbing to the passion and letting it produce a big messy dump of a post…I just could not live with all this inside me any longer.
Transmisogyny a special flavor of hate from hell
This was written on a blog that I read that is about the specialized form of misogyny that transgender women face…transmisogyny. I post it here to hopefully give you pause for thought. While I am not in the dating market (thank God!), I still face the same kind of reaction from random people if I am not extremely careful. This will continue until all of us women, cis and trans, stand together and say enough! It is not acceptable that the baseline is we feel lucky if we aren’t assaulted and/or killed.
“When I mentioned that there were ways in which transmisogyny causes trans women to be more oppressed than cis women in certain areas, a lot of people got defensive. I’m against defining any kind of universal experience of womanhood, whether specific to trans or cis experiences. It will not be universally true, but transmisogyny can cause a higher degree of discrimination, hostility, and violence to come upon a trans woman.
Of course, many of the people who had defensive comments probably came from TERF sites or are otherwise hecklers, but I thought I’d make one point, regardless:
If you don’t think being perceived as a “fake sex object” (read: fake woman from a patriarchal lens) could be worse than being perceived as a “genuine sex object,” I would propose a little experiment. I do not recommend actually trying this experiment, but rather keeping it as a thought experiment due to the potential for physical danger:
If you don’t think you can come into a higher level of physical danger or otherwise be more oppressed by being perceived as a trans woman, cis women can try going to a bar (one that caters to a hetero crowd, at least) and wait for a man to approach them showing interest. Don’t tell them right away so as to scare them off, but after a few minutes of talking to a man who’s interested in you, just try telling them you’re trans. You never know when they’ll scream at you and call you an ugly freak (in spite of being really attracted to you ten seconds ago), or maybe they’ll follow you to your car and attack you. Maybe they’ll start to value your agency even less and assume you must be “easier” because you would have a “male sexuality.” Or just assume you’re a “freak” so you must “like to get freaky.”
You don’t know how they’ll react, do you? Neither do we. But one thing that can be considered a reliable conclusion is that they will not treat you with as much respect after disclosing trans status. And because there’s literally no universal difference between trans women and cis women, a cis woman could tell a man she’s trans and be treated the same way.
AGAIN: I DO NOT RECOMMEND TRYING THIS AT HOME – This is a thought experiment for cis women. If you try this, you WILL be in serious danger! However, that serious danger is what we’re EXPECTED to subject ourselves to every single time we interact with someone we’re interested in.
This is one reason why I wrote the statement, “Wait until you’re seen as…” because the way transmisogyny manifests in society is through perception, just like misogyny. Cis women CAN experience the same kinds of transmisogyny, all people need to think is that you were born trans, and that doesn’t require you to look, act, feel, think, etc…. any differently. You as a person won’t change in any way, but you will be seen a LOT differently, and that is definitively sexist.”
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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