I Will Not Be Erased

I am not a political commentator by any means. However the unflinching cowardice of the GOP has pushed me into writing. Today’s piece will explore a political party of ignorance and misunderstanding. What can we do? And what would the world look like without us. Shall we begin?

Like any other transgender woman I just want to be free to live my life in the world as a fully employed and tax paying member of society should be. So let me get this right, I can work and pay into a system that is actively trying to exterminate me like some form of vermin. I am not asking for protections and rights I’m demanding them. How exactly do my rights change from me wearing jeans, no make up and a striped woolen shirt to being me? I put on a dress or make up and suddenly I’m not human anymore. These are the attitudes we endure on a daily basis.

One of the primary complaints by the GOP and their ilk of fanatical evangelist supporters is the bathroom bill. I don’t want my daughter or wife in the bathroom with you. Very rarely is the hostility coming from women but it does happen. This one issue as silly as it seems has split America down the seams. Here is another example of men trying to dictate what women can do. This vitriol typically comes from behind the safety net of a computer screen. Every now and again there is an actual confrontation but usually people stay quiet about it. Many just waiting for the hammer to drop on the transgender community.

I can’t speak for others but every time I use a bathroom regardless of what the little hieroglyphic on the wall shows, I get in and do my business look at my hair and make up and on with my day. I can’t recall a single time I was horny in the bathroom or getting my clothes dirty peeking under the stall. Because clearly that’s why I’m doing this. I cannot understate how stupid this idea is. I view myself as a woman, I feel it, I know it. Do women usually sexually assault one another in the bathrooms? I didn’t think so. Plus being on HRT chemically neuters most of us. So what am I going to do with this little tiny harmless thing that looks more like a skin tag than anything (Thanks to Janelle Kayla Crossley for that one).

There is a sub group who directly work against us by having profiles online of lumps in panties and making it seem like a disturbing sexual fetish. Of course the media and the naysayers latch onto this. You see, you see they proclaim. These perverts give validation to the notion that we are hulking men creeping on your women in the bathroom. I have devoted my life to changing this mindset and I don’t understand why these sissies don’t get the damage they are doing to the community. It’s repulsive on every level. I am not alone in this thinking and I’m not talking about the many crossdressers who just want a taste of the life but don’t want to fully commit. Some of the crossdressers I’ve seen and know present to the point you would be hard pressed to know. It’s the gross behavior online from sissies that cause this.

For me wearing women’s clothing was only ever a band aid for what I really needed and that was to transition. I feel comfortable and natural, I daresay even happy. In guys clothes and the guy department I never had any interest. I didn’t care about my body or how I looked because it wasn’t me and I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself before it gets through the thick skulls of these bandwagon bigots. But please go ahead continue to make assumptions that I wear women’s clothing to get off and try to rape your wife and kids in the restroom.

This erasure is firmly planted in the complete ignorance of a very vocal group who has somehow espoused white supremacy, Nazism, racism, misogyny, overlooking sexual assault, making fun of the handicapped and on and on. They promote big money and taking America back. Was it lost? I felt things were improving a little bit. Marijuana is finally being somewhat legalized and LGBT rights were moving forward. Now it’s the opposite. We have a grotesque president with a vile cabinet of henchmen who seem ripped right out of Austin Powers — yeah baby, yeah! If Donald trump isn’t Dr Evil then I just don’t know who is.

The truth is the president and I use that term in the loosest possible connotation has a total smokescreen going on. I’d like to know where this increase in my pay is? He talks about it and it seems to me that it’s just more of the same. Rich men looking out for rich men and to hell with the rest of us trans or otherwise. Their programming on fox and chat radio is so subversive almost hypnotic in the way it riles up and rallies those of lesser intelligence to beat the drum and try to squash our community. We have a president warning of violence if the GOP doesn’t win the mid term, he’s a keynote speaker at a hate groups gathering. I mean come on seriously? When is enough, enough?

If you’re casually sitting on the sideline you have to stand up. This is a slippery slope and if actual history has taught us anything. Do you think white dudes can run around in Germany wearing Nazi uniforms? No they would go to jail. It’s a criminal offense to even own Nazi anything over there. yet here you can spew hate and wear swastika’s with impunity. No one does a thing. I don’t like the way this is going even if I wasn’t trans I’d be seriously saying What in the actual FUCK right now. We are going to wake up and it’s all going to be gone and you have to take responsibility for it and say we let this happen. Our collective laziness and malaise has emboldened this party to be able to accomplish outwardly very heinous things. You cannot sit down. It is not just trans rights that will be flushed. Every disliked minority will be next systematically and one by one.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

This is critical mass. We trans people can only do so much. We need your help right now. Don’t even do it for us. Do it for yourself. Be the change. Collectively we have the power to make this world a beautiful place. Isn’t that better than having a regime of rich seemingly unstoppable sociopaths plucking away your liberties one at the time until everything is uniform and very, very white.

As a transwoman with children I have to look out for their best interests as well. It disheartens me to think that they have to grow up in a world where their parent has to struggle just to be seen as a valid human being and live with an ongoing fear that something could happen at anytime. It really is time for more education. We as a community have to do more as well. We have to self advocate and get more allies before we really are erased from existence in the supposedly “Land of the Free.” Free to be what we tell you to be perhaps.

As an addendum. We are who we say we are and there is no further discussion on this matter. Case closed. I am a woman as much as a biological woman. Fin.