Author: Perry Gruber

An entrepreneur making the world a better place than it already is.
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When racism and transphobia look the same

racism-transphobiaIt’s an interesting question. This articlearticle takes a good, long look at that question. It begins with recounting the murder of a transwoman, so be forewarned…

The article’s main message is, you’re transphobic if you think a person who is trans needs to tell potential suitors that fact before they engage in a relationship. The argument goes that a person who is not attracted to transwomen will want to know ahead of time who they are getting involved with. Because if that person is transgender, there is a possibility the cis-person (or other variety of human) won’t choose to be with that person.

I guess the same argument could be made for being racist: if somehow black people could conceal their blackness, racists would want to know ahead of time whether the person they find themselves interested in is black, so they can check their interest.

Sounds dumb, right? I mean, in order for a person to want to be sure they aren’t interested in said black person is because they are somehow interested in them, right? Interestingly, we don’t have to worry about that because black people can’t conceal their blackness. Most anyway. As a result, people who make their partner choices based on skin color alone can merrily avoid all us niggers. lol.

Not so with transgender people apparently.

Which is the point, I think, of the article. Not that all transgender people conceal their trans ness…many actually do. Intentionally and unintentionally. But that’s not the point I’m making. I’m saying it’s quite possible that a person who is scared of being with a transgender person can easily find themselves attracted to a transgender person before discovering the person is indeed trans. I mean have you seen Dusty Rose? This of course has happened in many of the trans murder cases in recent years.

But being scared of a person because they are trans is an interesting thing.

The author puts it more plainly:

None of this means it is transphobic to not be attracted to individual trans people. Nor is it transphobic to not be attracted to specific genitals. But it is transphobic to claim to not be attracted to all trans, people. For example, there is a difference between saying you won’t go out with someone for having a penis and saying you won’t go out with someone because they’re trans.

It’s similar to someone saying they aren’t attracted to all black people. So is it a preference? Or is it phobia/racism?

Incidentally, many, many transwomen are racist if held to this same definition. Couldn’t a transwoman’s lack of interest in black men – because of their skin color – or some other aspect of their physical disposition, something they can’t help bing, be interpeted the same way?

You better believe it.

“Oh, but THAT’S a preference,” some will say….Not according to many,  many, many, many people. But not everyone. Some think it’s just prejudice. Others do think it’s a preference. So how is not wanting to be with a transwoman, even if a person is initially attracted to such a person, not a preference then? I think it depends on the story.

Dusty Rose
That’s Dusty Rose. And yes, she’s fine, period

After all, there are a LOT of black people, men too, who are loving, caring people. Just as there are probably similar such people among transwomen.

Here’s a great definition of racism: “people making negative assessments of large groups of individuals that they’ve never met, based solely on the color of their skin.” Replace “based solely on the color of their skin” with “based solely on their status outside the heteronormative binary”, and we start coming to some interesting parallels.

Suffice it to say this is an great example of why I wrote the post recently on why it’s so hard to be the “woke” police. Everyone has a picadillo or two. You’re bound to have yours exposed when you start exposing others. So it’s tough to call people racist or transphobic, especially in the grey areas. If a person is calling people racist slurs, or anti-trans slurs, or demeaning a person, or a group of people in either category on the basis of that alone, that’s one thing. But it gets really slippery when a person starts trying to parse out examples that could be just preference.

It’s far better – if you’re wanting to be happy – to leave all that shit to other people. It’s far better to create stories which create the best reality circumstances for your life and let other people live. If that means sometimes (in the early stages) meeting a dick, or a racist or a transphobe or two, so be it. In the end, those people won’t be able to find you….if you’re telling the right stories.

And you’ll live happily ever after.

 

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I knew the day was coming….

THEY CAN DO THATIt was only a matter of time before medical advances made womb transplantation a possibility. This technology already has been pioneered in cisgender women. It becoming available to trans women was a foregone conclusion.

While it may be some time before it is perfected. I am certain it will be. After all, as I’ve said many times, All That Is seeks to express itself in as many varied ways as possible in its effort to explore its expansion and creativity. So no wonder some trans women would ask for, and receive technologies making it possible for them to birth children.

And, of course, there are souls waiting to come into the world in exactly this manner.

Prepare for a massive backlash of ethical and moral arguments, particularly from those trapped in perspectives which see only “man” and “woman”. Those words and concepts are increasingly being blown out of the water as All That Is exerts its true nature upon human narrow-mindedness: humanity, as everything else, is an expression of All That Is. That means there never was a hard distinction between the two genders….and that includes the two sexes. I would not be surprised, for example, for a gay male couple, in the future using this technology to “birth” a child between them.

Stranger things have and will happen.

And this is just the beginning. We are in momentous times. Expect the unexpected. But just know, everything is always working out. Even when you think it’s not.

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More people are liking our content

Aaarrrgghhh

And some aren’t. That’s just how society is. Especially the transgender community. We are steadily gaining accolades for our work. More people are beginning to follow what we do, which is great, because there is no reason why the approach we advocate for living can’t be practiced – to beneficial results – by anyone.

But I’m not stupid.

Not everyone is ready for this approach. By that, I mean some folks are just too deeply wedded to their stories, stories which convince them that life (as Remy has put it) “happens TO them”. We’re having a conversation with such a person right now on one of our YouTube shows.

The momentum of one’s stories can be seemingly irresistible. Particularly stories that have been repeated many, many times…to the point they become beliefs. Beliefs are simply hidden stories. They are hidden from the storyteller.

But the results aren’t. Everyone can with relative ease discover what stories they are telling, simply by looking at two things:

  1. What’s happening in their lives.
  2. What’s coming out of their mouths.

There are quite a few illustrious stories in that YouTube conversation. Worth a read.

So while our numbers continue to rise, it’s no surprise there will be those who are turned off by something we publish and stop following our work. That’s ok.

It can be for everyone. But it doesn’t have to be.

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When a playmate means something

Ines Rau
Playboy’s newest playmate: transgender model Ines Rau.

There have only been a few times when Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine used it’s societal prominence to score a strategic win for human rights. The first was the magazine’s debut itself. For it recast women as sexual beings deserving of a right to sexuality. Ironic. Because the magazine is regarded by some as a sexist objectifying rag.

Everything can be seen in multiple fashions depending on your story.

As an icon of early American sexuality, Playboy used it’s culture-shaping influence, literally, to influence a number of women’s causes, including abortion rights in the 60s and 70s. So says a University history professor in a recent Fortune Magazine article on the subject.

“In its heyday in the 60s and 70s, Playboy was supportive of mainstream liberal feminist causes,” says Carrie Pitzulo, an adjunct history professor at Colorado State University and author of the 2011 book Bachelors and Bunnies: The Sexual Politics of Playboy. The magazine “was considered an empire; a cultural leader at that time.”

The magazine’s stance on women’s reproductive rights, Pizulo says, “helped move the culture in a freer direction for everyone.” And its advocacy reflected Hefner’s personal espousal of sexual freedom in every form.

Right around this time, eight years before Roe v. Wade, Playboy took another daring move: featuring a black woman for the first time, in March 1965, as playmate of the month. 1965! Ballsy approach Hef, for we know at that time the civil rights for African Americans was in full swing. As it was announced that Jenny Jackson would be the March playmate, as you’d expect back then, cis-het white males were up in arms:

cis-het-white rants

Today it’s the same thing as Playboy prepares to make history again, again at a crucial social moment, by featuring transgender model Ines Rau in its pages. As the second quote above shows, history is repeating itself. There are a handful of people lambasting the magazine, pulling their subscription or threatening to do to. But you can bet there are just as many Playboy subscribers (and likely far more) salivating for the upcoming issue so they can feast their eyes on the beautiful Rau. Just as there probably were cis-het-white men secretly salivating to feast their eyes on a naked Jenny Jackson.

History does repeat itself it seems. But there is always ALWAYS progress.

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We are all doing great

Yes, you’re trans.IMG_1063

Yes, you’re a feminist

Yes, you may be pissed at cis-het-men.

Yes, you may be a cis-het-man

Yes, you may be hate chasers.

Yes, you may be in the chaser stage.

Yes, you my be afraid of the future.

Yes, you may fear for your safety.

Yes, you may love to feel loved.

Yes, you may have desires you feel you may never realize.

Yes, you may crave intimacy.

Yes, you may wonder if you’ll ever have that.

Yes, there are probably a thousand other things I could put down that would describe the fears, aspirations, desires, concerns, hopes and dreams you have. But above (mostly) all, you are human.

You’ll make what people call mistakes (they aren’t). You’ll get triggered, not by what people say or do, but by the stories you make up about what they say or do.

You’ll fail to realize that everyone around you is in the same boat: they’re human too. You’ll judge, thinking you have the moral high ground (no one does).

You’ll wish you had it differently, envying others’ station, while being oblivious to your own blessings and the power you have to change your circumstances, whenever you want, for the better.

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. While perhaps never knowing what those emotions are about or what they’re telling you.

You will die.

Perhaps before that, you’ll achieve a peace and prosperity born of realizing just how profound a being you are.

And when you do, whether it happens before or after you shuffle off this mortal coil, you will find that all the while, you were doing fucking fantastic.