Category: Blog

Posted on

Can Trans People Oppress The Majority?

Andrei Lazarev Opression FB blog
Photo: Andrei Lazarev

It can sure feel that way. But when the majority feels oppression, you’re winning.

Hear them:

“Seriously, what’s going on? Where are all these people coming from claiming there is something more than “man” and “woman”? Don’t they realize they sound delusional?”

So go the thoughts of those whose world view depends on immutable “Laws” about “reality”.

“Immutable” means “unchanging over time. Fixed, carved in stone, permanent or rigid”.

None of those words can be applied to life or being human. Both are forever changing and evolving for the better. Diversity is the norm. The more the better

And there’s no limit on what that diversity will look like.

People who need a “rigid” “unchanging” reality are deeply ensconced in fear and insecurity. They have lost the flexibility of their childhood, where reality was much less “hardened” than the adult world.

When something from outside that hardened world view meets that hardened-ness head on, the jarring feeling, the discomfort people who don’t understand being transgender feel, triggers reactions remarkably similar to those attributable to racist behaviors triggered from white fragility.

White fragility is defined in an excellent 2011 research paper written by Robin DiAngelo for the International Journal Of Critical Pedagogy, aptly titled “White Fragility”.

White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. Racial stress results from an interruption to what is racially familiar.

This would be a great definition for “Anti-Gender-fluidity Fragility”. Something I just made up 🙂

Replace “racial” with “gender”:

“Anti-Gender-fluidity Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of gender stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate cis gender equilibrium. Gender stress results from an interruption to what is with regard to gender, familiar.”

Interesting, isn’t it?

We could even go so far as to say Anti-Gender-fluidity Fragility, in extreme cases, results in attempts to coerce and control: humiliating, threatening, being aggressive towards and even waging violence against those perceived to threatened a hardened world view, i.e. transgender people.

Isn’t that what we’re seeing today?

What this means is, there is nothing personal about a non-trans person becoming hostile or trying to censure transgender people’s rights. They’re just acting out of extreme insecurity as they are confronted with circumstances outside their comfortable world views or stories.

In other words, they are scared.

And when a person who is used to being in control feels scared long enough, they find ways to ameliorate that fear. In most people unaware of their stories, “control” means trying to manipulate things (situations, laws, who can use which bathroom) and people (kicking them out of the family, for example).

But it can also including appropriating the victim role even though they enjoy privilege of [gender] acceptance.

A lot of people have said it: “When you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

The cool thing is, as history has always shown, actual oppression waged by the majority on a minority usually causes the cause of the minority to win.

Are you prepared to win? Don’t worry, when you do, they will too. But not in the way they think.

HT to this guy’s experience

Posted on

Transgender Women Perpetuate Toxic Masculinity? Some Do, Yes

Dating choices FB blog
The type of men you go after says a lot more about you than anything else. But it also can perpetuate exactly what you’d like to see less of in the world.

Yes, it’s true: some transgender women are as complicit in perpetuating toxic masculinity as men. But those transgender women doing it aren’t aware they’re doing it.

Frankly, we’re not even sure the men are aware. But that’s another story.

We’ve offered many times a unique perspective on cis-trans dynamics – ways both parties in seeking partners behave – which perpetuate toxic masculinity.

Recently we discussed this from the trans-attracted male’s perspective. No doubt, these men sometimes do their part to perpetuate toxic masculine attitudes and behaviors. Particularly the “alpha male” variety – those men some transgender women desire most.

That post was a promo for our recently-released YouTube and Podcast episode. We featured Tommy Matt, an activist in many areas and a strong proponent for transgender rights. Particularly transgender women and transgender women of color.

Tommy also is a self-declared, trans-attracted man.

Tommy speaks definitively, clearly describing the role toxic masculinity plays in cis-trans relationships and potential relationships. While Tommy focuses on the men, Remy, our show co-host, does an outstanding job highlighting transgender women’s role in perpetuating toxic masculinity saying “…it takes two. Every relationship is a dance between two people’s stories.”

The conversation struck a chord for one transgender female viewer who felt strongly enough to share her opinion. It’s powerful enough to repeat here:

“…trans women are sometimes just as guilty as cis men of perpetuating toxic standards of masculinity. But, because gender is a construct and because it’s how we communicate beyond words, toxically masculine men are a cheap way to highlight (if not affirm) a trans woman’s femininity. In other words, a cis man’s perhaps extreme or exaggerated concept of his own masculinity can be attractive, soothing, and/or satisfying to an albeit insecure trans woman because she believes she looks even more feminine around him than she does around a cis man generally perceived as less masculine. I think this phenomenon exists between insecure cis folk too. But, consider that that insecurity is pronounced for those who suffer from gender dysphoria.”

There’s a lot of truth to be explored in this.

Watch the entire interview:

 

 

Posted on

Trans Or Trans-Attracted: You’re Meant To Be Happy

 

Not happy FB blog
You came to live continually happy and getting all you want. Why aren’t you?

Relationships don’t make a person happy.

Having that transgender lover you want isn’t going to make you happy.

Having that new job, or that car you want, or that money you’re wanting won’t do it either.

When you satisfy a desire, you feel the satisfaction, sure.

But notice: over time, that satisfaction (and satisfaction is what you mistake as happiness) fades as it is replaced by new desires.

  • That relationship, job, car or amount of money, no matter how wonderful at first, comes with inherent disappointments:
  • Relationships inherently are made of unmet expectations, frustration, trust issues and growth. Yes, you can be happy in them. But it’s often a roller coaster.
  • Jobs nearly always include frustrating bosses or colleagues, unwanted stressors, and rarely satisfying pay. No matter how much you make or how satisfying the work. Jobs and happiness are rarely in a long term relationship.
  • Cars come with traffic, car repairs, worries about it getting stolen, parking fees….money comes with…well you know.

No.

Whatever material thing you’re wanting is like any satisfied desire. Once you get it, once it is fulfilled, you want more, or you discover more is possible.

But happiness is borne of in-the-moment-awareness of your recognition, your acknowledgment that your life is a delightful journey, orchestrated by you in every moment. When you get to that recognition, life becomes what it is meant to be: a continuous string of joyful experiences.

It takes a while to get there, not because it’s hard, because it’s easy. It takes a while to get there because you have to gradually slow the influence of your old way of living: thinking that life is hard, that you must work hard, that relationships are hard, that trans women are elusive, that men don’t like transgender women, that all trans-attracted men are gay or chasers….and on and on and on.

You are meant to live a happy life. It is as near as you saying that you want that, then doing something productive about it.

And when you find yourself happy, you get everything you’re wanting. Easily. Including that relationship, that car, that money and that job.

Not happy, why aren’t you?

Posted on

Doctors: We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet

GENDER BINARY Sharon McCutcheonHumanity has spoken: The gender binary narrative is a dead dog.

Doctors in the UK are predicting an unprecedented and massive increase in the number of transgender people seeking out gender services in the future.

“We’ve got to be prepared to start thinking about designing a healthcare service that will allow somewhere around one to three per cent of the population at some point in their lives having a discussion about their gender. Referrals to adult services have increased by 240 per cent over the last five year period”

So says James Palmer, the medical director for specialized services at NHS England.

“There are currently 7,500 adults waiting for an appointment with our services. No other specialist service has seen this growth, anywhere near. As a result there is absolutely not sufficient capacity in the system.”

His conjecture is this is a good thing, particularly that younger people are seeking such services. He and other providers see the average age of patients steadily decreasing as time goes by.

This phenomena causes me to question whether what were doing – offering support to trans and cisgender people in their search for love – may become obsolete as being transgender normalizes.

We talked about this in a recent IN YOUR FACE episode. The plain facts are that younger people are much less bunged up about transgender people than their older contemporaries.

That may portend a future where society naturally embraces transgender people in ways it doesn’t today. If that’s true, and it sure seems to be the case, then older adults who struggle with gender identity will soon be outnumbered, further encouraging the normalization of trans.

I think that’s a great thing and expect I’ll live long enough to see it become reality.

That has me really excited for all kinds of reasons.

Posted on

How Transgender Women Can Help You Understand White Male Privilege Expressed As Rage

Paula Williams blog
Photo: TEDx Mile High via YouTube

“The call toward authenticity has all the subtlety of a smoke alarm.”

So says Paula Stone Williams. She was once a former corporate senior executive, pastor, evangelist while presenting male…Then she transitioned into “Paula”, her authentic self.

And lost everything but her authenticity, humor and keen insight.

Authenticity calls all of us. Some hear that call better than others and benefit in the listening.

But once the call is heard, then heeded, one becomes an amplifier of it for others.

Paula has become exactly that.

“The call to authenticity is sacred, it’s holy, it’s for the greater good.” She says.

The call also connects us all, offering species-level transformational potential. The more who are transformed by it, the more room is made for others’ transformation.

· · ·

Paula’s TEDx talk landed in my inbox with perfect timing.

I mentioned two weeks ago on our IN YOUR FACE show (Mondays at 5:30 pst), a conversation I had with what at first sounded like a transphobe. Even though Billy is “grossed out” by trans women, I was impressed with his willingness to be vulnerable, his articulate arguments, and his willingness to chat instead of doing a dump and run on our YouTube Show’s comments section.

This weekend though, our conversation turned for the worse.

It’s hard to have a long conversation about transgender people without bringing up obvious parallels between what transgender people are going through and what other minorities have experienced. So it was natural for me to do that.

In doing so, I referred to the browning of America and the benefits a renewed balance to resource access will have on race matters in the United States, and by extension, to transgender people.

That pushed Billy’s buttons.

Thankfully, he’s still willing to chat. Paula’s lessons shared from her male privilege experiences, or rather the loss of them, came – with perfect timing – into my life. They helped me better understand where Billy was coming from, why he was so rage-inspired, and allowed me to be more gracious in the receiving of his vitriol.

· · ·

There are so many benefits transgender people bring to the world. Paula’s influence on my conversation with Billy is a small, but apt demonstration.

You might argue that it’s better to transition when young. And while I agree with that for many reasons, benefits come from transitioning late in life too.

For those folks, Paula offers an example of how late-blooming can be just as awesome as blooming early.

Spending a long time presenting as male affords a magnificent inside view of male privilege.

It can be shocking post-transition to lose all that privilege. But it also can be used as a powerful sociological transformational path to authenticity for self and others.

Paula clearly has successfully stepped into that with grace and humor.

And here is where late-blooming transgender women such as Paula can have a huge influence on others: by sharing their personal experience in an authentic way to transform the species for the better, they become greater than themselves.

I think that’s the kind of impact we all want to have, but many miss the chance.

Watch her TEDx talk here.