Tag: Transgender

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Yes, Christians love you too.

TitheTrans logo
#TitheTrans invites Christian LGBTQ allies to raise money for trans surgeries

Sheesh.

Just a few weeks ago, I published a post about how great it is that so many people and organizations are rising up in support of the transgender community. It’s almost as if (wink wink) for every negative ned that rises up against those people we love, another person or organization rises up to counter him.

But this most recent one was a pleasant surprise even to me. A Christian organization has come out not only friendly to transgender people, they are asking church-goers to tithe to raise money to support confirmation and other surgeries for trans people. How cool is that?

According to many news outlets, including HuffPost, FaithfullyLGBT is running, for the month of September their new campaign called #TitheTrans. Their goal is to raise at least $10,000 which they will give to the Jim Collins Foundation, a charity which grants money for trans surgeries.

Now FaithfullyLGBT seems to be a website representing “a collection of stories from people
living at the intersection of faith, gender and sexuality.” It’s not so much a group as it is a photo-essay website. Eliel Cruz, the founder says in a newspaper article:

“Meeting so many LGBT people of faith made me want to share their stories to begin to put a face to those of us who live in the intersection of faith and sexuality,”

So he curated a number of willing folks to tell their stories. That was back in January this year. The site is still going strong.

As of the time of this post, the #TitheTrans funding campaign on indiegogo has achieved five percent of its $10,000 goal.

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California courts side with trans people

Richard Simmons
It’s Richard Simmons

Slate Online just published an important article which should be shared throughout the transgender community. It accurately clarifies how the oddest allies of the transgender community, Richard Simmons, and his loss in a California libel suit has benefitted transgender Americans.

The article requires careful reading. Here’s the background:

A tabloid called Simmons a transgender woman. Simmons sued for libel and lost. What the judge said in his ruling was the key stroke which establishes a legal landmark for trans people:

For the first time in United States history, Keosian declared that misidentifying a person as transgender is not defamatory because it does not subject that individual to “hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy.” Keosian further explained that the judicial system should not countenance anti-trans animus, notwithstanding its existence in pockets of society. “While, as a practical matter, [transgender persons can] be held in contempt by a portion of the population,” Keosian said, “the court will not validate those prejudices by legally recognizing them.”

From the actual court document, which you can download here.:

The court does not mean to imply in its holding that the difficulties and bigotry facing transgender people is minimal or nonexistent. To the contrary, the court has reviewed the evidence submitted by Simmons regarding the deplorable statistics relating to transgender people….However, this court finds that even if there is a sizeable portion of the population who would view being transgender as negative, the court should not, in the words of our cousins in Massachusetts, “directly or indirectly, give effect to these prejudices.” (Albright, supra, 321 F.Supp.2d at p. 137–138.) Similar to the that court’s reasoning regarding the prejudices facing homosexuals, “[i]f this Court were to agree that calling someone” transgender “is defamatory per se—it would, in effect, validate that sentiment and legitimize relegating [transgender people] to second-class status.” Such a finding is consistent with holdings that misidentifying one’s race, medical condition, or sexual orientation is not libelous per se simply because there exist a portion of the population that expresses prejudice towards those groups.

The entire Slate article is worth a read. What it tells me is the legal foundations of the country are increasingly coming down on the side of transgender people. Added to this is the current administration’s hardline on indicting murderers of transgender people with federal hate crimes, and you have just a boatload of positive news about how society is shifting.

Good news all around!

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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?

donald-trump
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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Your circumstances match your stories

FullSizeRenderOk, in my last post I explained how most people’s life-experience-creation mechanism is operating on autopilot or default. Odds are good that you’re in the same boat: you don’t know much about stories and how they create your life experience. Heck, you may not even believe – let alone know – that you’re eternal or that you control your life experience.

Or maybe you do. I actually don’t now everyone who reads the stuff I write. But a LOT of people don’t. So the odds are, you’re among them.

And so you may be going through life ignorant that every time you complain about something you’re telling a story. And that story is creating circumstances which match your story. It doesn’t matter that it is something you don’t want. This is how the process works.

The good news is this mechanism comes with an indicator. We call it our emotions. Stories you tell that are not creating circumstances you want to experience cause you to feel negative emotion. Those that are leading to circumstances you’re wanting to experience cause you to feel positive emotion.

Now I want to explain what that means in terms of dating and getting what you want in that area and other areas of life experience.

If you’re telling the story that all men are chasers, it is not possible for you to meet men who aren’t.

If you’re telling yourself that your family disowned you and wants nothing to do with you, it is impossible for them to be anything other than what matches your story. In other words, they can’t change in the face of the story you’re telling about them. Yes, other people are part of your life experience and they, just like everything else in your life experience, is a result of your stories. That includes how they behave towards you.

I know, that sucks. But that’s what’s happening.

If you’re feeling shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence, insecurity, or fear as a trans person, you are telling extremely powerful negative stories, stories which are unconscious to you (you aren’t aware of them). But the feelings of shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence, insecurity, or fear you do feel are trying to alert you to them.

If you’re a trans attracted guy and feeling shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence, insecurity, or fear as a trans attracted person, you are telling extremely powerful negative stories, stories which are unconscious to you (you aren’t aware of them either). Others pick up on that shit. So they say things (like jokes and jabs) that further confirm your negative stories. They do things which indicate you are to remain feeling shame, embarrassment, lack of confidence, insecurity, or fear as a trans attracted person.

Those are just three examples of what is going on as you create your life experience as you go, and reap the benefits thereof.

So there is a purpose to suffering. What is it? It indicates the stories you’re telling are leading you to what you don’t want. Meanwhile, your life experience matches the stories you tell yourself. So there really are two indicators letting you know how you’re doing creating your reality: how you feel and what you’re getting in your life experience. If your life experience is sucky, you’re telling sucky stories.