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ALAstella -> RE: MTF TS and gender roles (1/14/2009 2:15:51 PM)
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Yesterday afternoon around 3.30pm I finished a meeting here in London and went to catch the bus home. At the bus stop there were about thirty or so teenage schoolchildren, mainly of colour, and most of them were setting upon one of the girls among them who managed to escape after having her face punched by the others to passers-by. I couldn't intervene, none of the other adults at the bus stop did, and it was a passing van driver who escorted her to passers by on the other side who took her into the shopping centre.
I boarded a bus with about a dozen of these kids. The comments started, 'Is that a man or a woman?'.. 'It's a man', 'It's a transsexual', and so on and for the twenty minutes or so alone I was subjected to comments, derision, laughter and verbal abuse. Nobody else on the bus intervened, nor did the driver.
Is this wrong? Maybe it is, but I did nothing. I just sat there and ignored them.
The thing is, I know who I am, so does my partner, my friends, my doctors, the actors in my theatre, my neighbours, the remainder of my family, the people I work with and so on.
I am a transgendered female, and I know that people fall broadly into three categories. There are people who will accept you as female because that is the way you present yourself, there are others who will accept you as female only after your operation, and there are people who will never accept you as female.
Yes it is wrong, but you try arguing that with someone who is convinced that anyone with a penis is male, or worse still, someone who believes it is wrong because that is what they believe based on something written in the Bible.
If you have come across someone who cannot accept that going through gender reassignment treatment and the transition means that you are already female, then you're going to waste a lot of time trying to convince them of the fact.
I've learned through bitter experience that you don't win such arguments, and besides, why bother justifying who you are to someone who isn't going to accept you anyway? I mean, it's not a given that everybody is going to accept you as a person, even if you aren't transgendered, so why expect it if you are transgendered?
It's also worth bearing in mind that on sites such as CM you are also dealing with people's preferences, which places another hurdle.
Therefore my advice is to not argue with or bother about the people who don't accept you, but instead look for and devote your time and your life to the people who will accept you. This keeps life simple.
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