polerin

Otep, I respect you, your music has given me strength when I was weak and hated myself... but I need you to know what you just did.

You just made me a joke.

You just took my transition, spat on it, ground it into the dirt, and laughed at it.

I'm not your satire. I'm not your polemic device to attack those who think gay people are sick. I'm just as much the target as you... Most of the looks I get are for being a lesbian, not for being a trans woman.

And yet you take me, the daily fight that I go through, the taunts of being called a he/she, shemale, chick with a dick, tranny slut, monster, despised one, mutilator... you just erase me.

because it's just SO MUCH EASIER to be trans right?

Except not. The Transgender day of remembrance is coming up. Did you know that?

Did you know that this last year has been the worst year on record for the murder of transgender people? 95 just for being trans or being thought to be trans. That's 19 a month. Dead.

I risk that every day, and you use me as a rhetorical trick.

And just that. You know why? Because your trick isn't real. Because the ability to marry is based off of your birth certificate in most places, and your birth certificate is in the control of the state where you were born.
Texas? HAH!
Tennessee? Good fucking luck!
California? You'd better live there, because Schwarzenegger vetoed the cost-nothing bill that would have let you change your certificate there.

Beyond that, What of those people like me that got married before transition? Is my marriage still valid? I don't know, and neither does anyone else until it's challenged, and guess what? It'll mean I have to go to court in Tennessee, in Nashville likely, home of the Southern Baptist Association, and their cronies, a state where gay marriage is not recognized because of a constitutional Amendment.

Even then, guess what? You might still not be married.. And guess what? You'll be viewed as even more of a freak. You'll be subject to even more hassle, you'll have to fight your way through a medical establishment that thinks your psycotic, or in the case of trans men, that you just don't exist get away so I can keep drooling over these "Autogynophiliacs".

I support gay marriage as strongly as you, I'm fighting to defend my own as well as everyone else's.... Don't throw me to the wayside like so much trash. HRC already fucks me over, there was nobody there to defend me at the recent ENDA hearing, and yet I stand strong and fight back.

Don't you turn your back on me too... please don't. This post hurts, it reaches it's hand deep inside my chest and rips my heart out. Put it back, please...

So, just joined the YMCA, and I really have to make a note of how great the woman who took our registration forms was. She went out of her way to make me feel comfortable when she realized I was trans , asked *me* which changing room I planned to be using, and then suggested the all gender family room when I said I probably wouldn't be changing at the facility most times. She also entered me as female, even after I had sighed and checked M on the form because of my license.

I don't think that it would be even a regional YMCA policy to do it, but it really did make my night. That along with her hovering the mouse over "F" while looking at the form over and over and over and over, then slowly turning around with an embarrassed "I'm not quite sure I understand" look on her face. It was very cute and she was completely awesome all the way around.

Major good thoughts going in her direction tonight from our household.