Sunday, June 1, 2008

Example 1:
If a bio-male with a mortage, a wife, 3 kids and still paying off a car decides hie is no longer willing to deceive hymself and everyone around hym - and comes out as a transgender woman - what do you think usually happens (in the enlightened societies we live in) ?

Hie usually (98% of the time) loses everything.
The lot.

The (bio-male) tg woman is on a fast track
to living on the streets,
selling her body (which she usually hates!),
risking her life from violence as well as through hiv/aids etc,
usually ending up on drugs
and/or intravenous drugs
- just to get a few $$ together to keep on living.

Her decision to be true to herself, is the right of each and every citizen in society. This unfortunate situation comes from other factors.

It is society's condemnation of what she's decided, that IS the problem here.

Society (for the most part) would rather she slit her throat,
than change her life around, make the changes she needs to make and get on with living.

The way for her to seek some hope,
is to go on Social Security for as long as she needs to
until she's transitioned
(can't get a job with a beard and a dress),
until she's saved for the operation
(can't get male-to-female surgery on medicare)
until she's found suitable housing
(some people -don't- want transgenders renting from them)
until she's back on her feet again.

She is only "dysfunctional" as far as Society has a problem with her.

If Society had no problem with her being who she really is,
then she wouldn't be "dysfunctional".

She'd be able to keep that job,
keep paying the mortgage,
maintain contact with the kids,
transition comfortably on the job,
save for surgery or whatever she wants over time,
keep her friends,
keep her support networks in place,
etc... you get the picture?

It is not the individual who's the problem here.

It's the society at large who has the attitude problem.

IF society hired transgender women as equally as anyone else,
if society allowed transgenders to transition on the job,
if society didn't see/have any problem with bearded women in dresses in the workplace,
if society didn't demand that a woman must never have a penis,
if society didn't throw a transgender on the street,
--- then the transgender "problem" would be solved.

http://astraeasweb.net/plural/mptg.html -it's a site mostly about multiplicity, but this bit is true.  It's not a disorder in the sense that we're a problem- it's a disorder because society creates one.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was cool, thanks for sharing!

Yeah, I think society creates "disorders" where there are none. Tomorrow, I will find out if I have Asperger's syndrome, or not. While it is a disability, disability isn't always negative, and often people with disabilities have a harder time with society than they do with their disability in of itself.

On a side note - I don't really like it when people refer to sex work as "selling your body". Sex workers sell sexual services, not their bodies or themselves. (But, don't mind me. I know you didn't write this, I'm just a but of a PC language nazi.)

Dreki said...

Yeah, probably. Anything that doesn't conform with society is labeled "bad" and society tries to make it conform. :\

"selling your body" really is a lame way of putting it. Maybe if they were selling organs it'd work, but they really aren't selling their body any more than anyone who performs a service sells the tools they use.

Queers United said...

society needs to wake up and realize it is pathologizing diversity of the human condition