Author: Perry Gruber

An entrepreneur making the world a better place than it already is.
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If you’re not recognizing how many people support you, you’re not paying attention

Now more than everThere is ENORMOUS outpouring of support from all over the place indicating the tide has turned. More and more people are supporting you, transgender folks. If you’re still wallowing in negative stories, there’s no better time than now to start examining them.

Trans-loving men (you trans-attracted and transamorous ones), there’s no reason for you to remain in hiding. The women you love are increasingly being not only defended, but supported by larger members of society.

Even in the midst of turmoil under Trump, that turmoil has not silenced the support outpouring. It has done the exact opposite. Check it out:

All across America, people are fighting for your rights. In Texas, the dreaded bathroom bill collapsed again, due in part not only to families of transgender people, but, get this, republican legislative leaders. I’m not making this up. Meanwhile, this awesome camp for transgender youth is getting tons of media coverage as an early-stage refuge for these young pioneers. Here’s another doing the same thing.

Here’s a lawyer fighting for the community on his own.

And even Richard Simmons is getting in on the act in his own weird way.

You can choose where to put your focus. But where you choose to put it has a profound effect on your personal life. If I were you, I’d focus on all the good coming your way. Celebrate it, tell your friends about it, Facebook about it, and see how your life gets better.

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Life’s gonna suck under Trump. Or is it?

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What’s happening here?

I know. Pretty much everyone in the LGBT community hates Trump. Except maybe Caitlyn Jenner. While the rest of us worry about the terrible things his administration is going to do to the transgender community, let’s look at some of the real-world things happening that are making being transgender in America better.

BTW, we at The Transamorous Network are no fans of Trump or any other president. We can do far better without a president. Or a government. But that’s another story. Let’s instead look at some of the great things happening, many of which are because Trump is in office.

  • More than twenty 20 transgender people are now running for various government seats. These people are running for everything from city mayor to US Congress.
  • Gov. Christie, a republican, recently signed several pieces of legislation protecting transgender rights, insuring, among other things, that New York doesn’t go the way of Texas.
  • Speaking of Texas, the Bathroom Bill debate wages on, this time with many small businesses joining in to oppose the Texas Governor’s plans to “protect women and children”. Many Fortune 500 companies already have threatened Texas with economic hardship by refusing to do business with the state. California recently banned the use of state money to travel or do business in Texas.
  • The CEO of the state’s board of tourism recently ran the numbers:

“The bathroom bill debate has already cost the state $66 million in convention business. The state could lose more than $1 billion in additional convention business should Texas lawmakers pass the bill. San Antonio hotels have lost 43,623 booked hotel room-nights from convention groups that canceled because of the bathroom bill debate. San Antonio has already lost three conventions valued at $3.1 million because of the debate. Another 15 convention groups have threatened to cancel their events should a bathroom bill become law, taking with them $41 million in local spending.”

  • Newsweek recently reported that the Trump Administration’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered his prosecutors to review the case files on murders of transgender people to make sure there’s not a serial killer or hate group carrying out the attacks, he said in a speech Thursday morning. He also said he told his prosecutors to work with the FBI and U.S. attorney offices around the country to figure out how they can help local law enforcement investigating the murders. “We have and will continue to enforce hate crime laws aggressively and appropriately where transgendered individuals are victims,” the attorney general said.

The point isn’t to say people aren’t scared and worried about themselves or people they know. As we always say here at The Transamorous Network, the future is uncertain, but the probability of the future happening that you focus on increases the more you focus on it. Read that sentence again. It’s important.

And that’s why here at The Transamorous Network we strive to get you to focus on positive outcomes about the future and positive aspects about what is. For the future is borne of your thoughts.

So think positive ones.

 

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How “evil” works in your favor

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White supremacist, terrorist and murderer James Alex Fields Jr. arrested for his deadly participation in violence in Virginia.

It’s just so freaking interesting how things are progressing in the United States right now. As we watch our highest office in the land usurped by a racist, emboldening white supremacists to come out of the shadows, I wouldn’t blame transgender people for feeling fearful and worried. Or people of color.

And yet, it is undeniable that tremendous good is resulting from all this.

Before we look at that, let’s look at some facts. First, we here at the network already shared (via our Facebook Program IN YOUR FACE) how Trump’s infamous tweet about banning transgender people from the military was really a brilliantly-played smokescreen he laid to mask the FBI raid of his campaign chief’s house in the pre-dawn hours. This raid happened at nearly the exact same time Trump turned to twitter. Interestingly, as we said and you probably know, the entire world focused on the tweets. Including the transgender community. Meanwhile, few media reported at the time about the FBI raid, which would have further eroded Trump’s credibility.

Were you among the bamboozled? We weren’t!

We had been saying all along that tweet was NOT about banning transgender people from the military. It’s NEVER about what it’s about.

Then, we saw how Secretary of Defense James Mattis came out in the news essentially saying there may be no transgender ban. In fact, the White House has yet to offer a policy on the issue. It may, it may not. If it does, Mattis will take the responsible action, which I read to mean he’s going to do the right thing, which is not what the president wants.

Next we saw massive violence erupt in Virginia prompted by white supremacists who showed up to protest the removal of a confederate statue. The president then made a series of speeches about the event that were breathtaking…and not in a good way.

On the heels of all that, not one, not two, but several US cities are acting to remove prominent confederate statues from parks and buildings, the leaders of these cities acknowledging they represent symbols of white supremacy and have no place in United States public places. Many of those cities are in Southern states!

Following all that, the heads of all branches of the US Military came out stridently against white supremacy. This is a direct contradiction of their commander-in-chief. THAT alone is remarkable in US history.

One has to wonder: What the heck is next?

Stories create reality. Stories are powerful. It doesn’t matter if your stories focus on what you don’t want, or what you do want, they will faithfully create either. We pointed out in that same IN YOUR FACE episode that Neo-nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists have some of the most focused, powerful stories….. Their focus is on how terrible and subhuman people of color are. The want a white nation. But they don’t focus on that. They focus on how terrible people of color, gay people, jews, transgender people and other minorities are. They decry how everything and everyone is against white race. All the while they don’t realize their stories are faithfully delivering what they focus on: bringing them more people of color, more binary and trans people, more whites who fight for people of color and equality, more jews doing the same. More gay people. And now, the removal of their cultural symbols.

Yes, the things happening over the last few weeks…since Trump came into the White House actually, can be seen as a kind of evil. But the acts of “evil” are always focused on pushing against good. And whatever your stories push against, you get more of. So it’s inevitable that evil will produce good. That’s what we’re seeing in our nation today.

What does this mean for us trans-attracted men and transwomen? It means look around you: the world is showing you demonstration after demonstration of the power of stories. It’s also showing you that everything eventually serves good. The same can be said for your life: Your life is predisposed to you experiencing good. It is showing you that what you focus on you get. So you can experience the life you always wanted, the love you always wanted, anything you’ve wanted. But you have to tell stories that support what you want, not what you don’t want. Which means you have to focus on that which you’re wanting.

But even if you don’t focus on positive stories, you will, eventually, have all you’re wanting.  For many that may not happen in this lifetime. But it will happen.

Since the choice is yours, why wait?

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I didn’t choose to be transgender/transamorous

IMG_1062Actually you did. So did I.

What? Did you think it was some random selection?

Well, I have news for you: Everything happening in this physical “reality” is being agreed upon and acted out in a massive cooperative venture. And that includes choices you make about you, what you look like, your gender and more. In the same way you create your reality through the stories you tell (the thoughts you think) you have created everything else about you.

Now, you may think you don’t like the choice you made to come into the world as you are, but actually, you’re celebrating the fact in the eternal now that is your home.

Yes, you are an eternal being. I know, you probably don’t have any reference for that statement. Or maybe you do, and you rail against it because the reference refers to some kind of religious dogma you’d rather not think about. That’s cool because I’m not sharing dogma here. I’m sharing something you can easily verify with a little effort and guidance (guidance because you have to know what to look for).

Consider the possibility that you are eternal. What if this life was just one of an infinite number you have lived, many of which you have lived, and are living simultaneously right now. If that is the case (and it is), then it seems you as an eternal being would tire of experiencing every freaking life experience as a woman or a man or whatever.

Look a that again: If you are eternal, continuously, raucously, enthusiastically experiencing lifetime after lifetime AND you have had infinite numbers of experiences in the past, doesn’t it make sense that you’d get tired of coming into the experience only as a man or a woman?

Oh, consider this: There are no genders in that eternal state that is you. In that state, the original state from which you spring, you are all “genders” (infinite potential). If you are eternal, you have access to the amazing variety (i.e. infinite) of ways you could express yourself in physical reality. Also, presuming you are eternal, that means everyone (and everything) else is too. Along with eternity comes mastery of awareness and knowledge. Since you are not some closed-off being, separate from other experiences of other beings, you have direct influence upon other beings’ experiences. So all that interoperability between you and other points of being-ness has an infinite potential to generate variety….variety that you crave as an eternal being.

(are you beginning to get this?)

℘”What if this life was just one of an infinite number you have lived, many of which you have lived, and are living simultaneously right now.” ℘

So here you are, at the point of yet another life. You’re excited, thrilled even for another plunge into this framework that freaking fascinates you. You’re wanting to have a new experience though, one that will add to the immenseness of you. You’re also wanting to positively influence those other beings with whom you are in contact with and will continue to be once you in-personate yourself.

So, you choose an experience on the frontier of life experience. One that will push the boundaries of life experience for you and for others “affiliated” with you. These others (your family members, friends, lovers and everyone else you may encounter) have agreed to this escapade of yours and promise to make the experience interesting. But they are bounded by the stories you tell, stories which create experience after experience in your coming day-to-day journey that will be your life.

So you come into the world with an express purpose: to experience joy, “growth”, to have fun in the process, and to explore the frontiers of what it means to be you. Not you the transperson or trans attracted person. But you the eternal being having a life experience as a transperson or a trans attracted person.

This may make no sense to you whatsoever. You may have no reference to understand what you’re reading.  Many folks aren’t ready to hear this. But as I wrote above and in previous posts, with a little effort and guidance all of this can be verified by you.

But whether you choose to verify it or not doesn’t really matter. Your stories are predetermining your life experience moment by moment. And if you’re telling stories of suffering, mayhem, bad relationships, joblessness and such, that is what is stacking up to be delivered in your day-to-day life experience.

And that is why we focus on the stories you tell.

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When poll numbers tell us nothing

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Click to enlarge if you want.

In the wake of Trump’s momentous tweet last month, those with an anti-transgender agenda pointed to polls demonstrating that Americans agree with the president’s claim that the military would be better off without transgender people serving in it.

Those poll NUMBERS indeed seem to support that statement. One poll conducted in late June showed that 31 percent of Americans said it was bad for the military to have transgender people serving. Only 21 percent said it was good and 38 percent said they had no idea.

Another poll, much more widely, shared said 44 percent of “likely voters” agreed with Trump’s tweet, while 45 percent disagree, showing the country pretty evenly split.

Let’s go back to college and talk about polling and survey methods. If you recall, your professor harped on question formation. How you formulate your question means everything in survey research.  The questions you ask, if they aren’t considered thoughtfully, will result in your survey measuring the wrong opinion.

Let’s go back and look at those polls cited above. The first one asked:

“The U.S. Department of Defense now allows transgender people, those who identify with and want to live as the opposite sex, to serve openly in the military. Is this decision good for the military, bad for the military or does it have no impact?”

The majority of Americans have no educated opinion on this matter! How on earth does the average American know anything about this? They don’t! it’s the wrong question because people’s opinion on this matter is irrelevant: they aren’t qualified to have an opinion.

The other poll asked survey respondents to “agree”, “disagree” or select “undecided” to the following statement, which you should recognize because it’s what Trump tweeted:

“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

Now this is a more “valid” question because anyone can have an opinion about what someone says or does. A person needs no qualifications to judge this. But this is still not the right question! Who cares if people agree with the president? This is not a presidential issue, it’s a policy issue. You have to ask the right question.

On July 26 Reuters released polling results which tell a completely different story. Reuter’s poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe transgender people should be in the military. How could this poll show such an overwhelming majority of people supporting transgender service people when the other two did not?

It asked a different question:

“Transgender people should be allowed to serve in the military.”

Only 27 percent of people responded “they should not be allowed” and the rest of respondents didn’t know how to answer the question. That latter group is likely more qualified to have that opinion because most people in America don’t know what it’s like to serve in the military because they haven’t served themselves.

It’s interesting how numbers can always be used to argue for a specific agenda. That’s why it’s so important to look beyond the numbers. For clues always exist which clarify just what the numbers are saying. In this case, what they’re saying is: you gotta ask the right question.