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

[azurelunatic]

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.)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

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.

[darqstar.livejournal.com]

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.

[azurelunatic]

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.