Paralells

When I think about the transgender community, I often think about how divided we are amongst ourselves and how there are always the obvious things that keep us so.

I had the opportunity a while back, to sit in on a discussion about Maine legislature and how Trans people could be included in that, what kind of rights/bills would we like to see happen within the next five or so years.

When seeing each person in the room talk of their own experience and what they would like to see happen for trans people. Now, when you've been to enough caucuses regarding gender and or sexual orientation I always see a clear division of class. In this particular group, the common thread was health insurance. One half of the group who has the concern of 'how we can get health care to cover srs's(sexual reassignment surgeries)?'
and the other half of the group with the concern of ' how do we get health insurance?"

I've really tried to gain perspective from these people. I've also really tried to point out that our community is lacking so much more. Our resources are slim, and our community is so divided amongst so many issues.

As a young person, but old enough to have privilege regarding age, I have tried to be really active in the youth community. I've always tried to point out the lack of support and resources young people have. But I can imagine when you're older, since high school bathrooms don't pertain to you, one could easily just sweep such an issue to the side. And if you don't have to deal with your parents, or homeless shelters then why should you care?

I think thats one of the biggest struggles in doing community work is that a good portion of us are all so wrapped up in our own struggles and our own oppressions that we forget there are other people out there struggling. There are other people that we are connected to. I often feel like theres a struggle of "my oppression is bigger than your oppression" and in our community there is a hirearchy and a feeling of "I am more trans than you" or "I've got it worse than you."
Much like within the female born versus the male born struggle, we find reasons to argue with one another on Whos got it worse?

There is common connection here, there is a common thread we all share. We are all human. One who has different experiences than me could easily have a different agenda than myself. But I would like to say that doesn't mean we should just sweep one another's issues under the rug.

If health insurance is important for us as a Transgender Community, than its important to recognize that some people don't even have health insurance. Its also important to recognize that should someone have insurance, in most cases, health insurance does not cover Hormone Replacement Therapy much less surgeries. We should look at all of this, I however think that theres a latter to follow. This doesn't mean though, that I think the other stuff is important but I think that there are stepping stones.

I guess my point to all of this is that I wish we were not so divided as a community, I think we could get a lot more work done that way.

what the crap?

So ENDA, the bill on anti discrimination has passed in the House Of Reps. And this is history in the making. A non-discrimination bill has NEVER passed in our national government. On some state levels it has, and on most it hasn't. However, this is not the history we should be seeing.

There were two versions of this bill. The original bill was inclusive of all sexual orientations /and/ gender identity. But then a state senator from Massachusetts, Barney Frank, who is an openly gay man, proposed that gender identity be stricken from the bill, thereby, once again, screwing transgender people over. The idea for this once again, was that the gay lesbian and bisexual community would be doomed if they hadn't taken gender identity out of the bill. There chances were slim to pass in congress if it were to be kept there.

My thought process here was though, that if George Bush were going to veto the bill anyways, why not just go for it? If your chances are already slim, than why not?

There is this belief out there that Transgender people are simply holding the lgb community back. That we are dampening their cause and that we should just not be apart of that community anyhow. And there is , along with this belief, that transgender people are simply confused about their identities in the world. Transwomen are simply effeminant men, and trans-men are simply butch women.
I cannot account for how many times I've been told that I'm simply a butch lesbian, and that trans-men are "stealing all of the butches away". It comes to a point where you have to ask yourself, " how fluid is gender"? and "how has our own internalized genderism affected the way we interact with the rest of the community?"

I would like to state from my own personal beliefs, that gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same, and gender and sex are not the same.
We as a society are taught to look at gender as male and female, boy and girl. We look at it in a totally binary system. Much like we look at race, we state what we see, even though, race, much like gender identity is not as visible as we think it to be. Race and Gender Identity are so very complex. We still manage to turn it into a binary.

A large majority of the hate crimes against lgb people are commited because such victims do not fit the gender binary, and while, they are called names like "fag" and "dyke", there are still many unspoken, and spoken words of hate that are geared towards how a person does not fit hir binary of hir given sex. Meanwhile, none of us fit the binary. And looking at those words, I mostly hear those words being called to exactly what I described.

But we, are the ones keeping them behind.

The HRC has repeatedly stated that they will come back for us. they will come back for us, but it is nearly 30 years later and they have not come back for us. They continue to leave us in the dust. Then again, its easy to do that when you're a mainly white upper-middle class male populous. While you do have some female donors, and some people of color, the majority of them are male and white. The petition to keep gender identity intact on the ENDA bill had over a dozen or so organizations listed on it, but one of the the names missing was HRC. In most cases I wouldn't be so fumed except to say that HRC is the biggest organization for LGB people.

Its also funny though, because so many GLB people reference back to stonewall as being the breakthrough for the lgb community. It was the event that began the movement as we know it now.. but even as we know it now, we know nothing of it. Stonewall was indeed the start of it. But I would like to remind the white LGB people, who so quickly reference stonewall, that stonewall was not the lgb people, it was transgender people of color on the front lines. But there was no recognition, and still isn't. The people at stonewall were people who did not fit the gender binary, who did not identify with how the world saw them. But the LGB movement took it as there own, and have continued to take transgender struggles and turn them into their own. And while most of them are one in the same, they are not all.

So please tell me how we are holding you back? I would like to see the faces people who are so avidly against transgender people being included on an all inclusive bill.
And I would like you to see our faces. Because most of us can't use the bathroom without fear of safety. And most of us can't go to a job interview without knowing in the back of our minds that we have slim chances of getting this job because of how we feel comfortable dressing. And most of us have to hide ourselves because the world can't see more than two genders.

I know that alot of these issues are parallel but theres so much farther to go..
But how far will the LBG people have gone before they have forgotten us all together?

im currently watching Air Supply on an info-mercial for great hits of the 70's.
Im having nostalgia for a decade i never took part in.

second draft

I like this version better.. the colors were all from samples I took from the origonal picture with the eyedrop and smudging them all together..

this is the origonal image :
click it for bigger picture.


Eventually ill get good.

edit:

the three side by side..

im feeling green

im getting better with photoshop. I kind of like this image


im feeling alot better since last night.