azurelunatic | "I am" -- a list of people who make a difference.

I am...

I am the guy who came out to the entire school in his senior speech and got a standing ovation for his courage.

I am the girl who kisses her girlfriend on the sidewalk and laughs at those who glare.

We are the couple who planned and studied and got a damn good lawyer and BEAT the state that wanted to take our child away.

We are the ones who took martial arts classes and carry pepper spray and are just too dangerous to gay bash.

I am the transgendered person who uses the bathroom that suits me, and demands that any complaining staff explain their complaint to my face in front of the entire restaurant--and shares with my other trans friends which restaurants don't raise a stink.

I am the mother who told her lesbian daughter to invite her girlfriend over for dinner.

I am the father who punished his son for calling you a fag.

I am the preacher who told my congregation that love, not hate, is the definition of a true follower of God.

I am the girl who did not learn the meaning of "homosexual" until high school but never thought to question why two men might be kissing.

I am the woman who argues (quite loudly and vehemently) with the bigots who insist that you do not have the right to marry or raise children.

We are the high school class who agrees, unanimously, along with our teacher, that love should be all that matters.

I am the woman who cussed out the person who was using hateful language to a complete stranger on the sidewalk.

I am the woman who spoke up at work.

If you agree, add your own and repost this. Do it. You don't have to be afraid. You can handle it. You're stronger than you think.

I am making a difference. Hate will not win.
(found with

biichan.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I would only agree that this is not a homophobic attitude because I've always thought that it's not quite right that transgender issues and gay rights issues are lumped in together. One is about gender and one is about sexuality and so they are not really any more related than race rights and gay rights. Therefore I don't think homophobia should be used to describe irrational discrimination against transpeople any more than racism should be used as a term to describe irrational discrimination against gays. If there is a better alternative, I don't know it though...so I guess we're stuck with it as the best description.

All that's somewhat tangential, though...if someone is unfortunate enough to be born with (or assigned) the wrong gender and is trying to rectify that situation I think we as a society should be making that more easy for them rather than more difficult. As a non-trans man, I am not really familiar with the insides of ladies rooms - but from what I understand they are pretty much all equipped with stalls that have doors on them. So, I fail to really see what difference it really makes whether a woman "has a dick" or not. And, if that is the one requirement, it would seem you be okay with post-op transsexuals using your bathroom? What about those waiting on their ops? I know in Britain at least, some of the rather draconion limits on gender reassignment surgery is that the transperson has to spend a time living as a member of the gender they really are - how do they do that if they have to use the mensroom every time they are in public? What about the huge discomfort they would be forced to endure - going into a mensroom as a woman. What about transsexuals who can't afford gender reassignment surgery? Does it then become a class issue - transsexuals with the means to pay for surgery get to use the facilities properly assigned to their gender, poorer transsexuals can't?

Logistically, what we're really talking about here is transwomen who, for whatever reason, can't pass for women easily since ones who can pass as women wouldn't get checked. So masculine-looking transwomen can't get in but feminine looking ones can? Where does that leave masculine-looking non-trans women? Do we have a genetalia check at the door to each bathroom? Maybe we should ask transpeople to some kind of identifying mark on their clothes to prevent that...hmm, pink triangles, maybe...

If you're worried that people might be "perving" on you in the bathroom and that is your cheif objection, shouldn't you be banning all lesbians and bisexual women from using the female facilities too? Should I be banned from using urinals in case I might be perving on the straight guys there? Maybe we should have segregated facilities for queers?

Or maybe you could just lock the door when you're using the facilities if you're really that worried.

I'm sorry if some of this comes off too strong - but "I'm going to bitch loudly" when I see people trying to justify discrimination. Right the way through your comment, phrases like "I have decided I'm a woman, so I can use the ladies room!" and "if the person thinks they are a woman, or just wants to perv out in the ladies room", belittle the issues associated with transgenderism and the hardship that transpeople have to go through in their daily lives in a society that shuns and rejects them and can only accept the gender norm. These cooments strongly indicate that you have little understanding of these issues and less desire to understand.

I simply don't see how you can justify the discomfort of a person who is a woman in every respect except a little matter of a bit of tissue and is forced to use a men’s bathroom (drawing attention to themselves and thus opening themselves up to embarrassment and ridicule at best, physical and verbal attack at worse) because of your personal hangups about toilet use and your desire to hold on to your heteronormative biases.

Edit: Sorry, attached to the wrong comment originally

If someone really feels they are a woman and goes out of their way to look/dress/act like a woman, then chances are they will get in and out of the bathroom without causing attention anyway, so no one will be the wiser. And yes, even if someone looks fairly obviously male, but doesn't point it out. One of my best friends has often been mistaken for a man, because she has an extremely deep voice, she's very thin, and due to her ethnic background, she has an abundance of dark facial hair. No one ever questions her use of the ladies room though, because she doesn't do anything to draw attention to herself. She goes in, she takes care of the issue, she leaves. She might chat with someone, brush her hair, or put on chapstick, but she's not doing anything that draws attention to her bits and peices, be they male or female. Therefore, most people assume since she's in the ladies room, she must indeed be a female.

If people in a restaurant are complaining then yes, this transgender person obviously went out of his/her way to point out that they had the less common equipment for the room. If they are going to be rude enough to make extra sure I know they have male bits but use a ladies room, then yes, I will bitch in public, in front of the entire restaurant that nope, I don't feel they belong in the ladies room.

It's how you handle it. Looks don't matter one bit to me, because I know guys that look more like girls and girls that look more like guys, so you can't judge anyone on their appearance. It's how you behaive. And if someone is going to be rude enough to make sure that everyone in the bathroom knows they have the oposite parts for what's expected, then yeah, they're wanting attention drawn to themselves.

And yes, if the exposure of said parts was accidental, then I'd overlook that too. (Such as, underwear getting caught in pantyhose so I saw a bit more than intended...) because in that case, this person probably didn't want to expose themselves and probably are mortified that they did.

I'll trust your restaraunt expertise here. That's a different dynamic than the only one I've had experience with transfolk in bathrooms around, which was the workplace dynamic.

She passed well enough so that I didn't catch on for several months, and that was mostly because other co-workers told me, and because she would occasionally tell stories about her youth in the army. In that situation, everyone knew that Emily was short on X-chromosomes and social masculinity, though she never did anything to draw attention to her bits in the bathroom.

I have had people come up to me and say, "I think that was a guy and he was in the ladies room!" My response and generally any manager I've ever worked with will be, "How do you know?"

I've never ever seen someone tell a man he can't use the ladies room in a restaurant if he/she has been somewhat...delicate about the matter. And by delicate, I mean as discrete as most women are in the ladies room. No more, no less. However, I have also had situations where I have been told there was a man in the ladies room that was acting inappropriately. In that case, we sent someone in to tell that person to leave the restaurant, if indeed the behavior is deemed inappropriate.

If I was told that "so and so is really a man!" I won't believe it unless they tell me themselves that they were/are a man.

Most true transgenders do everything in their power to show the world that they indeed were born with the wrong bits. But, there is a certain segment of that population that seem to go out of their way to show that nope, they are not the sex they are claiming to be. These are the ones that I really don't want to see in the ladies room, because to them it's really a big game. They will go out of their way to draw attention to themselves. And yeah, that makes me uncomfortable.

It would make me just as uncomfortable if I walked into the ladies room and found a woman going out of her way to make sure we all got a good look at her female bits. However, it's a little difficult to tell someone they can't expose the fact that they're female in the bathroom. I would, however, have no problem telling them they really should be a little more discrete that no one gives a crap what they hid under their underwear.

Yes. There's "the door is not secure", and then there's "Hi, welcome to the Genital Show!" And unless it's the sort of place where The Genital Show is in fact welcome, that's a problem. With any gender.

Ladies with adam's apples are still ladies. Asshats of any genderbits are still asshats.

"I am" -- a list of people who make a difference.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject