Crossposted on Pam's House Blend
(I have just sent this to my district's Member of Parliament, Sukh Dhaliwal. I encourage all my fellow Canadians to do the same with their local MP's. As Mercedes on Pam's said, you can find the contact info for your local MP by typing in your Postal Code here.)
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As a member of your constituency here in Surrey, a voter, and a member of the trans community, I implore you to vote to pass Bill C-389. This bill, despite the lies and fearmongering that members of the religious right are engaging in, is not going to let "men put on dresses so they can rape women in bathrooms and claim they're really trans women". That is utterly reprehensible fearmongering invented by religious bigots who distort faith to justify inequality. What it will do is provide protection and dignity to a very beleaguered class. As you are a person of color, I KNOW you understand how bigotry for something you cannot change, in your case race, feels when the ignorant paint you with assumptions and broadstrokes. Trans women cannot change who they are. They do not go into bathrooms to harass women. We go into bathrooms to use the bathroom, same as everyone else. And Crossdressers are NOT trans women and do not use opposite sex bathrooms. Predators who would harm women tend to be very sexist insecure men, and are EXTREMELY unlikely to sacrifice their masculinity by dressing as women just to access women's spaces.
I was arrested and spent a night in jail this past January in PoCo because a security guard decided I didn't look womanly enough, called me a perverted faggot, and called the police. I was violently raped in juvey as a teenager and the entire night in jail I was wracked by flashbacks. The incident, despite being sorted out the next day when I showed the judge the F on my BCID, left me traumatized and afraid to so much as pee when out in public for months. I gave myself a goddamned kidney stone from holding my bladder til I got home rather than just use a restroom. The passage of Bill C-389 would ensure that women like me who are guilty of absolutely nothing except being born with our brains wired differently, (and yes, science HAS proven that MTF Transsexuals do in fact have the biological brain construction of a natal female), from having to risk this kind of humiliation at the hansds of bullies and bigots who mock and ridicule us just for having the courage to be ourselves.
Last weekend was the Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual day to remember trans women murdered the world over every year. Google Angie Zapata for an example of what women like me risk happening to us every single time we leave the house because we aren't protected under the law.
Imagine if your son or daughter came to you and told you this was who they really were, knowing the danger they will face just by being honest about that. And then remember that all of us, every trans woman, we too are someone's child. And like you, your family, like everyone else, we have the right to be protected by law, and to live with dignity, and to be free from bigotry and harassment just for being who we are.
I am asking you, not as a voter, or a trans woman, but simply as a human being.
Do the right thing. Ignore the fearmongering of religious bigots who bastardize their own faith to make excuses for hatred.
Vote yes on Bill C-389.
Thank you.
Penny Sautereau-Fife, Surrey BC.
11/11/2010
9 Answers For Muslim-Hating "Christians"
Crossposted on Pam's House Blend
Brace yourself in advance folks, as I'm about to go into full-on rant mode here, and it WILL get ugly, with trigger potential.
Every day I putter around the net, reading everything I can find about subjects that interest me. Last week in my random browsing I came across this cartoon.
Go read that first. It's necessary to understand the context of what I have to say.
Now I really don't have any issues with that cartoon beyond finding it well-meaning, if a bit disingenuous at times. The cartoon's author has a few good points to make, if getting a little heavy-handed once or twice. And I fully expected to find a dueling bastion of "Praise Allah!/Fuck Allah!" in the comments. ANY time Islam becomes the centrepiece (FUCK you spellcheck, I'm Canadian, it's re not er you bastard!) of a conversation on the web, the one-note idiots come out in full force.
So I wasn't in the least inclined to care about the back and forth of one-dimensional bs flying about in the comments, as I thought that the cartoon, in spite of it's flaws, acheived the sentiment it was aiming for with a friendly warmth that's all too rare these days.
It was when I reached an out-of-place very long comment amongst the short back-and-forth that I felt compelled to add my voice to the discussion.
The comment in question was left by a guy identified by Disquss as "Don", a self-proclaimed "Nasty Bastard" according to his Disquss profile. The man has Tea Party written all over his comment. Again, I'll let you click the clicky and read his crap for yourself.
Throughout his whole rambling comment he attempts to come across as a rational voice shining a light of truth onto Islam, while subtly underlying it with the suggestion that Catholocism/Christianity is better or more right yadda yadda.
Let me preface the next part of this blog by pointing out that, as my written history has shown, I do not directly believe Islam or Christianity themselves as ideologies are inherently good or evil. I believe from reading the "Holy Books" of both that both espouse some very good messages, but also condone some very repugnant and deplorable things. I have several friends who belong to either faith, and those are of the camp of Muslims and Christians who live by the good messages of their faith while believing that the harmful messages are not valid or meaningful in today's world. I believe that there are also people on the flipside of that coin who intentionally twist and distort these books, who choose to live by the bad ideals in them, who are deplorable people NOT because of their choice of faith but because of how they so choose to employ it to cause others harm.
Keep this in mind as I use this moron's own words to paraphrase and dissect his vile and very targetted bigotry by turning it around on him.
And so my reply to this idiot, point by point.
********************************************************
Christianity is every bit as bad as Islam dear, it just hides it better behind a thin veil of respectability. So let's tackle YOUR bigoted assumptions shall we?
1) A woman enters a convent/nunnery of her own free will, a Muslim woman does not. At any time if the woman chooses she may leave the convent/order without penalty.
- Not true. A good majority of nuns were guilted or forced into the life by family members slut-shaming them, mostly over imagined promiscuity. Many who find the courage to leave convents do so in spite of intense psychological abuse, bullying, and being told they are damning themselves to hell, and a horrifying percentage of those who left were physically abused by older nuns. Willing nuns are highly outnumbered by the unwilling pressured into it, and abuse of all kinds is rampant.
2) Most Western women who choose to live at home and rear children are looked down upon and ridiculed by sneering left wing liberals who look at motherhood as an offensive form of enslavement.
- Common conservative bullshit. Liberals do not condemn stay-at-home moms. That's a statistic conservatives pulled out of their ass to vilify the competition. The only time a stay-at-home mom is chastised is when she does so because of religious pressure or she herself spreads the idea that it's the only acceptable role for a woman. I myself would happily be a stay-at-home mom were I fertile, but by my own choice, not because of religious dogma or spousal pressure, and nor would I demand all women choose likewise.
3) This link is to a typical Muslim student...listen to her as she speaks in admiration of Adolf Hitler....this is the sort of Muslim student that is most unwelcome, on campus or in North America.
- And THIS link provides a video of a Christian man spouting blatant and long disproven lies about homosexuality to sway a school-board AGAINST implementing a comprehensive anti-bullying program that would include homophobia education. Note all the old standbys like incest, pedophilia and disease being brought up just to add to the fire he's lighting in a crowded theatre.
4) Western children devout themselves to a particular subject or discipline for the betterment of medicine, technology, science, engineering and many other subjects. While it benefits the child, that devotion benefits Mankind and advances the human race.
- Timothy McVeigh. The Columbine 2. Ted Bundy. GOProud. Peter LaBarbera. Very often in Western society devoting oneself so young to a singular topic leads not to society's betterment, but to it's detriment. This is often fueled by extremist Christianity. It isn't Muslims murdering abortion doctors, blowing up clinics, driving teenagers to suicide or rigging elections through blatant lies and fearmongering in the USA. It's single-minded Christian extremists who devoted themselves to a particular subject.
5) There is no comparison to be made between defense of family and home and the hobbies of Muslim terrorists who dabble in all forms of terrorism and suicide bombing.
There is EVERY comparison to be made, since many of those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting for exactly that; Defending their homes and families from invaders. And US soldiers have been caught raping and killing indigenous people for no justifiable reason. What you define as an American as to what is defending yourself and what construes terrorism? Reverse roles and it's the same to them. YOUR soldiers are THEIR terrorists, and the USA started this LONG before 9/11. There are indeed some horrible Muslim extremists, but most of the people over there just want the outsiders to leave THEIR homes and stop killing THEIR families.
6) Its Muslims and Islam that puts themselves on trial. When was the last time you heard a Muslim admit to murder without dragging Islam into it claiming he was directed to kill by Muhammad and the Koran. As for Jews, there are Israeli prisons filled with Zionist criminals....this is a fact.
- And how many times has the murder of an abortion doctor, a gay man, or a transsexual woman been justified with "I was doing God's work, it was my Christian duty to kill them because God says they are evil"? Have an answer for that one wiseass? As for your Jew argument, any Zionist prisoners in Israel are imprisoned not for their beliefs but for their criminal acts. And how many news reports in the last few years have there been about the Israelis breaking ceasefires in Gaza killing innocent people? Google the one about one of the recent group murders that included a PREGNANT PALESTINIAN WOMAN by a group believed to be rogue Hamas agents? Any argument you can make trying to vilify Islam alone while ignoring the blatant crimes of other faiths, I can destroy in seconds with proven fact. The truth is NOT on your side here.
7) The majority of this can be answered by reading my answer to # 4, but further to that: if sharia law is the proposed solution it is ignored as with sharia law the solution is much much worse than the problem....any solution that recommends stoning of women and advocates a father hacking away at his daughters vagina to satisfy some depraved sense of religious propriety is no solution at all.
- Do I really need to break out Bible Quotes here to point out your utter hypocrisy with this one? I can if you push the point. The Bible condones women as property. Rape victims must marry their rapists or be stoned to death. Men trade their teenage daughters for land. Children are stoned to death if they ever rebel in even the slightest. Moses was ordered by god to burn entire cities to the ground, murder all men, children and livestock, but keep any fertile women to be forced into marriage and raped in order to keep the numbers in his group high for when they reached the promised land so they would have enough men to overpower the Palestines when stealing the non-believer's land under God's orders. For fuck's sake man! The Bible commands you be put to death if you eat shrimp or wear a polyester/cotton mix shirt! The point the cartoonist is trying, if poorly, to make, is that, like the Bible, the Quran DOES contain some positive messages that can be helpful solutions in real everyday life, but just like the Quran, the good in the Bible can be easily overwhelmed by all the outright evil it endorses. It is NOT the religion itself that causes the problems, it's what each individual person chooses to take from it, good or bad.
8) Simply look at the world around you....Muslims have engaged in some of the most outrageous and murderous behavior and then when held to account for this behavior and these crimes they point to Islam and fall back on the demented psychopathic ravings and edicts of Muhammad to legitimize and excuse the same crimes and behavior.
- The Crusades. The Benediction. The Spanish Inquisition. The Dark Ages. Pedophile Priests. Throughout history there are FAR more documented cases of atrocities condoned and spearheaded by church doctrine than by Islam, for which the church always falls back on the demented psychopathic ravings and edicts of God Jehovah the Father to legitimize and excuse the same crimes and behavior. Not fun when your own hate can be so easily turned around on you by the truth is it?
9) For this answer simply read my previous answers to the 8 questions. The Koran is neither holy nor a solution. The Koran is the blueprint for the enslavement of the human race and the reversing of every possible advancement of the same. The Koran is a mandate for violence, death, terrorism and brutality and has no place in the 21st century. It belongs in a museum where we can marvel at the writings of madmen and mass murderers.
- And as the Quran and the old Testament are in fact the EXACT same book with only minimal locational differences, you're describing Catholicism/Christianity in the exact same breath. The Bible too is neither Holy nor a solution, but a book full of blueprints for a horrible, violent repressed society where white men rule and women and "lesser races" are all property existing only to serve white men. To paraphrase, once again, your own words, The BIBLE is the blueprint for the enslavement of the human race and the reversing of every possible advancement of the same. The BIBLE is a mandate for violence, death, terrorism and brutality and has no place in the 21st century. It belongs in a museum where we can marvel at the writings of madmen and mass murderers.
So for every bigoted, hateful answer you gave, I have used truth and fact to bring you back to the really REAL world where it's so easy to look at the people on the other side of the world who do exactly as we do, some good folks, some bad folks, and some true nutjobs, and chastise them for the exact same values because their exact same values come from a different book. The ONLY difference between Muslims and Christians is that most Christians are better at compartmentalizing the evils they believe in to protect their conscience.
To paraphrase your own words one last time.
Christianity is a political ideology that can not suffer the light of day nor truth itself.....when exposed to reality, Christianity crumbles and reveals itself for what it is......the murderous rhetoric of misogynist madmen for the ears of easily manipulated fools who happily accept easy fear over educating themselves.
************************************************************
Everyone of course has the right to say whatever ridiculous drivel they want to, even if stupidly attacking an opposing ideology through complete hypocrisy. Fortunately, there will always be someone with a far better grasp of the facts to stand up and dissect said drivel. In this case it was me. I and others like me will ALWAYS stand up to ignorant pseudo-intellectual bullies like this and shine the REAL light of Truth right in their lying weaselly faces.
Apologies to my Christian friends for using the negatives in the Bible without focusing much on it's positives in my rebuttal of this asswipe, but as the rebuttal needed to be context specific, and as my Christian friends generally openly accept and admit there IS in fact some really ugly stuff in there, I'm sure you'll forgive me this once.
Brace yourself in advance folks, as I'm about to go into full-on rant mode here, and it WILL get ugly, with trigger potential.
Every day I putter around the net, reading everything I can find about subjects that interest me. Last week in my random browsing I came across this cartoon.
Go read that first. It's necessary to understand the context of what I have to say.
Now I really don't have any issues with that cartoon beyond finding it well-meaning, if a bit disingenuous at times. The cartoon's author has a few good points to make, if getting a little heavy-handed once or twice. And I fully expected to find a dueling bastion of "Praise Allah!/Fuck Allah!" in the comments. ANY time Islam becomes the centrepiece (FUCK you spellcheck, I'm Canadian, it's re not er you bastard!) of a conversation on the web, the one-note idiots come out in full force.
So I wasn't in the least inclined to care about the back and forth of one-dimensional bs flying about in the comments, as I thought that the cartoon, in spite of it's flaws, acheived the sentiment it was aiming for with a friendly warmth that's all too rare these days.
It was when I reached an out-of-place very long comment amongst the short back-and-forth that I felt compelled to add my voice to the discussion.
The comment in question was left by a guy identified by Disquss as "Don", a self-proclaimed "Nasty Bastard" according to his Disquss profile. The man has Tea Party written all over his comment. Again, I'll let you click the clicky and read his crap for yourself.
Throughout his whole rambling comment he attempts to come across as a rational voice shining a light of truth onto Islam, while subtly underlying it with the suggestion that Catholocism/Christianity is better or more right yadda yadda.
Let me preface the next part of this blog by pointing out that, as my written history has shown, I do not directly believe Islam or Christianity themselves as ideologies are inherently good or evil. I believe from reading the "Holy Books" of both that both espouse some very good messages, but also condone some very repugnant and deplorable things. I have several friends who belong to either faith, and those are of the camp of Muslims and Christians who live by the good messages of their faith while believing that the harmful messages are not valid or meaningful in today's world. I believe that there are also people on the flipside of that coin who intentionally twist and distort these books, who choose to live by the bad ideals in them, who are deplorable people NOT because of their choice of faith but because of how they so choose to employ it to cause others harm.
Keep this in mind as I use this moron's own words to paraphrase and dissect his vile and very targetted bigotry by turning it around on him.
And so my reply to this idiot, point by point.
********************************************************
Christianity is every bit as bad as Islam dear, it just hides it better behind a thin veil of respectability. So let's tackle YOUR bigoted assumptions shall we?
1) A woman enters a convent/nunnery of her own free will, a Muslim woman does not. At any time if the woman chooses she may leave the convent/order without penalty.
- Not true. A good majority of nuns were guilted or forced into the life by family members slut-shaming them, mostly over imagined promiscuity. Many who find the courage to leave convents do so in spite of intense psychological abuse, bullying, and being told they are damning themselves to hell, and a horrifying percentage of those who left were physically abused by older nuns. Willing nuns are highly outnumbered by the unwilling pressured into it, and abuse of all kinds is rampant.
2) Most Western women who choose to live at home and rear children are looked down upon and ridiculed by sneering left wing liberals who look at motherhood as an offensive form of enslavement.
- Common conservative bullshit. Liberals do not condemn stay-at-home moms. That's a statistic conservatives pulled out of their ass to vilify the competition. The only time a stay-at-home mom is chastised is when she does so because of religious pressure or she herself spreads the idea that it's the only acceptable role for a woman. I myself would happily be a stay-at-home mom were I fertile, but by my own choice, not because of religious dogma or spousal pressure, and nor would I demand all women choose likewise.
3) This link is to a typical Muslim student...listen to her as she speaks in admiration of Adolf Hitler....this is the sort of Muslim student that is most unwelcome, on campus or in North America.
- And THIS link provides a video of a Christian man spouting blatant and long disproven lies about homosexuality to sway a school-board AGAINST implementing a comprehensive anti-bullying program that would include homophobia education. Note all the old standbys like incest, pedophilia and disease being brought up just to add to the fire he's lighting in a crowded theatre.
4) Western children devout themselves to a particular subject or discipline for the betterment of medicine, technology, science, engineering and many other subjects. While it benefits the child, that devotion benefits Mankind and advances the human race.
- Timothy McVeigh. The Columbine 2. Ted Bundy. GOProud. Peter LaBarbera. Very often in Western society devoting oneself so young to a singular topic leads not to society's betterment, but to it's detriment. This is often fueled by extremist Christianity. It isn't Muslims murdering abortion doctors, blowing up clinics, driving teenagers to suicide or rigging elections through blatant lies and fearmongering in the USA. It's single-minded Christian extremists who devoted themselves to a particular subject.
5) There is no comparison to be made between defense of family and home and the hobbies of Muslim terrorists who dabble in all forms of terrorism and suicide bombing.
There is EVERY comparison to be made, since many of those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting for exactly that; Defending their homes and families from invaders. And US soldiers have been caught raping and killing indigenous people for no justifiable reason. What you define as an American as to what is defending yourself and what construes terrorism? Reverse roles and it's the same to them. YOUR soldiers are THEIR terrorists, and the USA started this LONG before 9/11. There are indeed some horrible Muslim extremists, but most of the people over there just want the outsiders to leave THEIR homes and stop killing THEIR families.
6) Its Muslims and Islam that puts themselves on trial. When was the last time you heard a Muslim admit to murder without dragging Islam into it claiming he was directed to kill by Muhammad and the Koran. As for Jews, there are Israeli prisons filled with Zionist criminals....this is a fact.
- And how many times has the murder of an abortion doctor, a gay man, or a transsexual woman been justified with "I was doing God's work, it was my Christian duty to kill them because God says they are evil"? Have an answer for that one wiseass? As for your Jew argument, any Zionist prisoners in Israel are imprisoned not for their beliefs but for their criminal acts. And how many news reports in the last few years have there been about the Israelis breaking ceasefires in Gaza killing innocent people? Google the one about one of the recent group murders that included a PREGNANT PALESTINIAN WOMAN by a group believed to be rogue Hamas agents? Any argument you can make trying to vilify Islam alone while ignoring the blatant crimes of other faiths, I can destroy in seconds with proven fact. The truth is NOT on your side here.
7) The majority of this can be answered by reading my answer to # 4, but further to that: if sharia law is the proposed solution it is ignored as with sharia law the solution is much much worse than the problem....any solution that recommends stoning of women and advocates a father hacking away at his daughters vagina to satisfy some depraved sense of religious propriety is no solution at all.
- Do I really need to break out Bible Quotes here to point out your utter hypocrisy with this one? I can if you push the point. The Bible condones women as property. Rape victims must marry their rapists or be stoned to death. Men trade their teenage daughters for land. Children are stoned to death if they ever rebel in even the slightest. Moses was ordered by god to burn entire cities to the ground, murder all men, children and livestock, but keep any fertile women to be forced into marriage and raped in order to keep the numbers in his group high for when they reached the promised land so they would have enough men to overpower the Palestines when stealing the non-believer's land under God's orders. For fuck's sake man! The Bible commands you be put to death if you eat shrimp or wear a polyester/cotton mix shirt! The point the cartoonist is trying, if poorly, to make, is that, like the Bible, the Quran DOES contain some positive messages that can be helpful solutions in real everyday life, but just like the Quran, the good in the Bible can be easily overwhelmed by all the outright evil it endorses. It is NOT the religion itself that causes the problems, it's what each individual person chooses to take from it, good or bad.
8) Simply look at the world around you....Muslims have engaged in some of the most outrageous and murderous behavior and then when held to account for this behavior and these crimes they point to Islam and fall back on the demented psychopathic ravings and edicts of Muhammad to legitimize and excuse the same crimes and behavior.
- The Crusades. The Benediction. The Spanish Inquisition. The Dark Ages. Pedophile Priests. Throughout history there are FAR more documented cases of atrocities condoned and spearheaded by church doctrine than by Islam, for which the church always falls back on the demented psychopathic ravings and edicts of God Jehovah the Father to legitimize and excuse the same crimes and behavior. Not fun when your own hate can be so easily turned around on you by the truth is it?
9) For this answer simply read my previous answers to the 8 questions. The Koran is neither holy nor a solution. The Koran is the blueprint for the enslavement of the human race and the reversing of every possible advancement of the same. The Koran is a mandate for violence, death, terrorism and brutality and has no place in the 21st century. It belongs in a museum where we can marvel at the writings of madmen and mass murderers.
- And as the Quran and the old Testament are in fact the EXACT same book with only minimal locational differences, you're describing Catholicism/Christianity in the exact same breath. The Bible too is neither Holy nor a solution, but a book full of blueprints for a horrible, violent repressed society where white men rule and women and "lesser races" are all property existing only to serve white men. To paraphrase, once again, your own words, The BIBLE is the blueprint for the enslavement of the human race and the reversing of every possible advancement of the same. The BIBLE is a mandate for violence, death, terrorism and brutality and has no place in the 21st century. It belongs in a museum where we can marvel at the writings of madmen and mass murderers.
So for every bigoted, hateful answer you gave, I have used truth and fact to bring you back to the really REAL world where it's so easy to look at the people on the other side of the world who do exactly as we do, some good folks, some bad folks, and some true nutjobs, and chastise them for the exact same values because their exact same values come from a different book. The ONLY difference between Muslims and Christians is that most Christians are better at compartmentalizing the evils they believe in to protect their conscience.
To paraphrase your own words one last time.
Christianity is a political ideology that can not suffer the light of day nor truth itself.....when exposed to reality, Christianity crumbles and reveals itself for what it is......the murderous rhetoric of misogynist madmen for the ears of easily manipulated fools who happily accept easy fear over educating themselves.
************************************************************
Everyone of course has the right to say whatever ridiculous drivel they want to, even if stupidly attacking an opposing ideology through complete hypocrisy. Fortunately, there will always be someone with a far better grasp of the facts to stand up and dissect said drivel. In this case it was me. I and others like me will ALWAYS stand up to ignorant pseudo-intellectual bullies like this and shine the REAL light of Truth right in their lying weaselly faces.
Apologies to my Christian friends for using the negatives in the Bible without focusing much on it's positives in my rebuttal of this asswipe, but as the rebuttal needed to be context specific, and as my Christian friends generally openly accept and admit there IS in fact some really ugly stuff in there, I'm sure you'll forgive me this once.
11/02/2010
Message to the Tea Party - What took you so long to get angry?
Hat-Tip to Alvin at Holy Bullies & Headless Monsters. He has also cross-posted this on Pam's House Blend, where he and I both frequently crosspost. He's given me permission to share this here, as it is an utterly brilliant and brutally honest take-down of Tea Party "values".
As Alvin himself has pointed out, no one seems to know who actually authored the following message. On the off-chance that the auther stumbles across this and can prove authorship, please e-mail me at theaerie@shaw.ca and I will update this blog entry to give you your due credit.
- The brilliant anonymous message to the Tea Party in the USA;
You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate Energy policy and push us to invade Iraq .
You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us. You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just disappeared in Iraq .
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in combined budget and current account deficits.
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans drown.
You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in taxbreaks. You didn't get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in several decades.
You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.
You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.
No.....You finally got mad
When a black man was elected President and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.
Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping fellow Americans who are sick...Oh, Hell No!!
As Alvin himself has pointed out, no one seems to know who actually authored the following message. On the off-chance that the auther stumbles across this and can prove authorship, please e-mail me at theaerie@shaw.ca and I will update this blog entry to give you your due credit.
- The brilliant anonymous message to the Tea Party in the USA;
You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate Energy policy and push us to invade Iraq .
You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us. You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just disappeared in Iraq .
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in combined budget and current account deficits.
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans drown.
You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in taxbreaks. You didn't get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in several decades.
You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.
You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.
No.....You finally got mad
When a black man was elected President and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.
Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping fellow Americans who are sick...Oh, Hell No!!
11/01/2010
An Open Question To The Extreme Right
Crossposted on Pam's House Blend
Morally bankrupt monsters like Matt Barber, Brian Fischer Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins and Peter LaBarbera, to name even just a handful of these deplorable people, have spent the past month at the absolute height of their reprehensible dishonest tactics. They and those like them, the soldiers fighting the evil homuh-seckshual agenda in God's name, (despite not a one of them actually having the first clue what the Bible actually says, using popularly distorted passages to justify their hate-we-swear-isn't-really-hate-honest-now-stop-picking-on-us), have been desperately bleating out excuse after excuse as to why they think there's no blood on their hands when gay or rumoured to be gay teenagers kill themselves.
These brain-hurtingly offensive and morally bankrupt excuses range from simple dishonest bullshit to utterly deplorable backpeddalling and buck-passing. They've blamed equality activists for it, (these confused kids only killed themselves because T3H G4YZ tried to convince them they were *GASP* normal!), and worse, the kids themselves, (These kids really knew deep down how sick and disgusting they were, so that's why they offed themselves!). ANYTHING to avoid accepting even the possibility that the hateful bigotry they bust their asses to spread at every opportunity could possibly be a big factor in the cause of the homophobic bullying these kids endured.All because they're so entrenched in their delusional hate-fuelled belief that being gay is ungodly, unnatural, and serves no positive function to society, that they refuse to ever allow room for debate in their own minds.
Sorry but no, homosexuality is hardly socially useless. It reduces over-rampant hetero breeding that overpopulates a world that CANNOT sustain so many humans, and provides nurturing parental options for all the abandoned children that irresponsible self-absorbed hetero people give up because they had no interest in being parents but couldn't be assed to use condoms.
(That is not a knock against those who are poor or otherwise unable to keep a child they actually do want and give them up for adoption hoping their child has a better life than they can provide. To THOSE people my heart goes out to.)
What, however, truly DOES have absolutely no constructive value to society is hatred, bigotry, homophobia and lying in the name of God. Because these things cause only harm, leading to people being beaten, crippled nd murdered, or young people driven to suicide, because they're different, and for no other reason BUT that.
So here is an open challenge to those liars and killers on the extreme religious right, who very much DO have blood on their hands. I want all of you, especially the extra slimey ones like Porno Pete and Bamm Bamm Barber, to close your eyes, and imagine the following. If you can find any actual morality in your shriveled evil hearts, try to do so with a completely open mind.
Imagine that you have a teenage son, and that son is gay. He of course hasn't told you so because every day he hears your hurtful abusive dishonest anti-gay preaching and he internalizes it. Your son is miserable and unhappy, not because he's gay, but because you make him feel like there's something wrong with him. You make him feel like he's sick somehow, so he does all he can to bury it, hoping it will go away. He dates girls carelessly, fucking girls at random trying to man himself up, to chase the gay away, but with every girl he beds, inside he dies a little, because deep down it's still his football buddies that he thinks about.
But you just keep preaching that gays are sick and unnatural, and your son hates himself even more. And then one day at school, someone spots him looking at a boy for just a few seconds too long, and the rumours start. And because idiots like you keep teaching kids that gay people are diseased and sick, kids at school, with no proof your son IS gay, but based solely on those new rumours, start taunting him, ostracising him, even beating him up after school calling him faggot. And after that harassment and abuse at school he still has to come home to your garbage, reinforcing his feelings of self-loathing, cementing in his mind that he's a worthless deviant. And no matter how hard he tries to be straight, the gay feelings never go away.
And one day you come home from work and you find your son, dead on your kitchen floor after cutting his wrists open, because he felt so sick and worthless and abused that he finally decided being dead was better than living, that suicide was his best option.
All because of the kind of ignorant hate you and those like you spread.
YOUR son. Not someone else's. Not some poor kid you read about in the news and want to evangelize for your pet bigotry causes. YOURS.
YOUR son. This is very important. Imagine it's YOUR son laying there dead, YOUR son who ended his own life.
Don't deflect the question by insisting you'd never have a gay son, or by claiming that it's only gay activists convincing him he's fine as is that would cause him so much turmoil. We both know that's a cop-out, an excuse bigots use to avoid admitting to the harm they cause. Don't whine your bullshit about how your faith is being persecuted, we both know you don't actually have any. Don't sidestep the question by misquoting the bible or by distorting legitimate studies whose authors have publicly chastised you for distorting their work. It's cheap and cowardly and will only further prove your deplorability.
Just go look in the mirror and ask yourself honestly.
If you had a son and that son killed himself directly because the kind of hate you preach made him feel like death was his best option..... could you really live with that? Would you really tell yourself this was what God wanted? Would you accept any blame at all for your part in making him feel so worthless he had no better choice than to die?
Any of you among the Extreme Right who can answer anything except a plain simple "No" best enjoy your empty hate-filled lives while you can, because whenever your time comes, there's only one place your souls are booked for, and it's going to be awfully hot down there.
Morally bankrupt monsters like Matt Barber, Brian Fischer Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins and Peter LaBarbera, to name even just a handful of these deplorable people, have spent the past month at the absolute height of their reprehensible dishonest tactics. They and those like them, the soldiers fighting the evil homuh-seckshual agenda in God's name, (despite not a one of them actually having the first clue what the Bible actually says, using popularly distorted passages to justify their hate-we-swear-isn't-really-hate-honest-now-stop-picking-on-us), have been desperately bleating out excuse after excuse as to why they think there's no blood on their hands when gay or rumoured to be gay teenagers kill themselves.
These brain-hurtingly offensive and morally bankrupt excuses range from simple dishonest bullshit to utterly deplorable backpeddalling and buck-passing. They've blamed equality activists for it, (these confused kids only killed themselves because T3H G4YZ tried to convince them they were *GASP* normal!), and worse, the kids themselves, (These kids really knew deep down how sick and disgusting they were, so that's why they offed themselves!). ANYTHING to avoid accepting even the possibility that the hateful bigotry they bust their asses to spread at every opportunity could possibly be a big factor in the cause of the homophobic bullying these kids endured.All because they're so entrenched in their delusional hate-fuelled belief that being gay is ungodly, unnatural, and serves no positive function to society, that they refuse to ever allow room for debate in their own minds.
Sorry but no, homosexuality is hardly socially useless. It reduces over-rampant hetero breeding that overpopulates a world that CANNOT sustain so many humans, and provides nurturing parental options for all the abandoned children that irresponsible self-absorbed hetero people give up because they had no interest in being parents but couldn't be assed to use condoms.
(That is not a knock against those who are poor or otherwise unable to keep a child they actually do want and give them up for adoption hoping their child has a better life than they can provide. To THOSE people my heart goes out to.)
What, however, truly DOES have absolutely no constructive value to society is hatred, bigotry, homophobia and lying in the name of God. Because these things cause only harm, leading to people being beaten, crippled nd murdered, or young people driven to suicide, because they're different, and for no other reason BUT that.
So here is an open challenge to those liars and killers on the extreme religious right, who very much DO have blood on their hands. I want all of you, especially the extra slimey ones like Porno Pete and Bamm Bamm Barber, to close your eyes, and imagine the following. If you can find any actual morality in your shriveled evil hearts, try to do so with a completely open mind.
Imagine that you have a teenage son, and that son is gay. He of course hasn't told you so because every day he hears your hurtful abusive dishonest anti-gay preaching and he internalizes it. Your son is miserable and unhappy, not because he's gay, but because you make him feel like there's something wrong with him. You make him feel like he's sick somehow, so he does all he can to bury it, hoping it will go away. He dates girls carelessly, fucking girls at random trying to man himself up, to chase the gay away, but with every girl he beds, inside he dies a little, because deep down it's still his football buddies that he thinks about.
But you just keep preaching that gays are sick and unnatural, and your son hates himself even more. And then one day at school, someone spots him looking at a boy for just a few seconds too long, and the rumours start. And because idiots like you keep teaching kids that gay people are diseased and sick, kids at school, with no proof your son IS gay, but based solely on those new rumours, start taunting him, ostracising him, even beating him up after school calling him faggot. And after that harassment and abuse at school he still has to come home to your garbage, reinforcing his feelings of self-loathing, cementing in his mind that he's a worthless deviant. And no matter how hard he tries to be straight, the gay feelings never go away.
And one day you come home from work and you find your son, dead on your kitchen floor after cutting his wrists open, because he felt so sick and worthless and abused that he finally decided being dead was better than living, that suicide was his best option.
All because of the kind of ignorant hate you and those like you spread.
YOUR son. Not someone else's. Not some poor kid you read about in the news and want to evangelize for your pet bigotry causes. YOURS.
YOUR son. This is very important. Imagine it's YOUR son laying there dead, YOUR son who ended his own life.
Don't deflect the question by insisting you'd never have a gay son, or by claiming that it's only gay activists convincing him he's fine as is that would cause him so much turmoil. We both know that's a cop-out, an excuse bigots use to avoid admitting to the harm they cause. Don't whine your bullshit about how your faith is being persecuted, we both know you don't actually have any. Don't sidestep the question by misquoting the bible or by distorting legitimate studies whose authors have publicly chastised you for distorting their work. It's cheap and cowardly and will only further prove your deplorability.
Just go look in the mirror and ask yourself honestly.
If you had a son and that son killed himself directly because the kind of hate you preach made him feel like death was his best option..... could you really live with that? Would you really tell yourself this was what God wanted? Would you accept any blame at all for your part in making him feel so worthless he had no better choice than to die?
Any of you among the Extreme Right who can answer anything except a plain simple "No" best enjoy your empty hate-filled lives while you can, because whenever your time comes, there's only one place your souls are booked for, and it's going to be awfully hot down there.
10/22/2010
Every So Often, the System DOES Work!
Cross-posted on Pam's House Blend
I was just woken up by an unexpected phone call.
Normally, this would be extremely irritating as you can imagine. I barely get much sleep, so being woken up when I actually was passed out is a pet peeve.
This however, was a wake-up I can definitely forgive, as it was the BC Supreme Court Crown Counsel calling me.
For anyone who is unfamiliar with my legal battle with Safeway Co. Ltd. please direct your attention here, here, and here.
Why would Crown call me less than a week before my final court date? To inform me that, as the man whose job it is to prove I'm guilty of the crime I'm charged with and convict me, he has, after two months of investigation into the testimony and evidence presented during the first part of my trial in August, determined that Safeway's case is so full of gaping holes and blatant transphobia that it is not even worth the Court's time to persue it further.
I no longer have to law awake at night fearing the system won't care about the transphobic bullying I endured by Safeway employees that lead to the false shoplifting charges, or hope I may be found not guilty because proof and justice were on my side.
Because the Crown decided Safeway's bullshit was so mind-numbingly obvious he COMPLETELY DISMISSED THE CHARGES!!!!
Apparently, inasmuch as he was willing or able to tell me, his attempts to procure interviews with the abusive security guard who the arresting guard was forced at my first hearing to admit WAS there and had been suspiciously left out of his report completely, he determined my version of events was clearly the accurate one and that the security guard who testified had a vested interest in trying to pretend otherwise.
I don't know if I have the energy after a year and a half of my life has been chewed up by this to actually SUE Safeway, but I'm damned sure going to Ask them to reimburse me for the items I had paid good money for which the security guards confiscated wrongly as stolen property.
Today, I am a happy kitty. Sometimes, the system DOES work for us.
I was just woken up by an unexpected phone call.
Normally, this would be extremely irritating as you can imagine. I barely get much sleep, so being woken up when I actually was passed out is a pet peeve.
This however, was a wake-up I can definitely forgive, as it was the BC Supreme Court Crown Counsel calling me.
For anyone who is unfamiliar with my legal battle with Safeway Co. Ltd. please direct your attention here, here, and here.
Why would Crown call me less than a week before my final court date? To inform me that, as the man whose job it is to prove I'm guilty of the crime I'm charged with and convict me, he has, after two months of investigation into the testimony and evidence presented during the first part of my trial in August, determined that Safeway's case is so full of gaping holes and blatant transphobia that it is not even worth the Court's time to persue it further.
I no longer have to law awake at night fearing the system won't care about the transphobic bullying I endured by Safeway employees that lead to the false shoplifting charges, or hope I may be found not guilty because proof and justice were on my side.
Because the Crown decided Safeway's bullshit was so mind-numbingly obvious he COMPLETELY DISMISSED THE CHARGES!!!!
Apparently, inasmuch as he was willing or able to tell me, his attempts to procure interviews with the abusive security guard who the arresting guard was forced at my first hearing to admit WAS there and had been suspiciously left out of his report completely, he determined my version of events was clearly the accurate one and that the security guard who testified had a vested interest in trying to pretend otherwise.
I don't know if I have the energy after a year and a half of my life has been chewed up by this to actually SUE Safeway, but I'm damned sure going to Ask them to reimburse me for the items I had paid good money for which the security guards confiscated wrongly as stolen property.
Today, I am a happy kitty. Sometimes, the system DOES work for us.
10/20/2010
I Am Purple Every Day
Crossposted on Pam's House Blend
It's no secret to those that know me that I'm a tad obsessed with purple. I own a lot of purple clothing, a fair chunk of my digital art is purple, and I've had my hair dyed purple more than once.
What very few people know is why. And since a well-meaning campaign has declared today Spirit Day and encouraging people to wear purple to raise awareness of teenage GLBT suicides, now seems as good a time as any to tell you all why.
I've seen several examples today on Twitter alone of trans youth being ignored, ungendered, or lumped in unfairly with gay youth and ignoring the different struggles they face. I know gay kids go through a lot of bullshit, yes, but Trans kids have several completely different struggles on top of those, so before I begin, let me remind you, honor EVERY kid in turmoil today. Do NOT gayjack or ungender trans kids by lumping everyone together as if one universal solution will fix everyone's problems.
When I was young, my femininity was not exactly subtle. I knew at age 3 something was wrong. I knew I was supposed to be a girl. I didn't know I actually WAS a girl surgically jiggered at birth. But I knew I was supposed to BE a girl. And every time I expressed femininity I got beaten up.
If I asked to see a Barbie doll at recess, I got beat up.
If I didn't want to join in at sports or play War or Tackle Tag, I got beat up.
If I said I actually liked cooking my own breakfast, I got beat up.
Anything I expressed interest in that the boys saw as even bordering on stereotypically girly, I got beat up.
I ended up suspended from Grade 3 for a week because I admitted to liking Jem and the Holograms, and when the teacher pulled the bullies off of me and said I should expect to get beat up if I was going to be a sissy and not like GI Joe instead, I told him to go fuck himself. I got beat up and yet it was ME who got suspended, because I stood up to a teacher reinforcing stereotypes and condoning the bullying.
When I started to grow breasts, I got beat up.
When I tried to resist my rapists in Juvey, I got beat up.
And every time I got beat up, I waited til the next day. And the next day, when the bruises formed, I saw my only friend, Purple.
Purple, who appeared on my skin to remind me I was different and had to fight to survive.
Purple, who reassured me I had survived another hate fuelled beating.
Purple, who told me I was still alive, that they hadn't broken me.
I love purple. Purple tells me I'm alive. That I'm strong enough to survive the abuse. Purple tells me I'm allowed to be me.
I admire the girl who came up with the idea of a Spirit Day. It's a noble thought, even if some idiots are already distorting her noble idea to ungender trans kids. I wish there were less such idiots and more kids like Brittany McMillan who want to do something positive.
But I'm purple every day of my life. And so should all of us be. Every day should be a day we talk about and support young GLBT folks. ALL of them.
I love purple.
It's no secret to those that know me that I'm a tad obsessed with purple. I own a lot of purple clothing, a fair chunk of my digital art is purple, and I've had my hair dyed purple more than once.
What very few people know is why. And since a well-meaning campaign has declared today Spirit Day and encouraging people to wear purple to raise awareness of teenage GLBT suicides, now seems as good a time as any to tell you all why.
I've seen several examples today on Twitter alone of trans youth being ignored, ungendered, or lumped in unfairly with gay youth and ignoring the different struggles they face. I know gay kids go through a lot of bullshit, yes, but Trans kids have several completely different struggles on top of those, so before I begin, let me remind you, honor EVERY kid in turmoil today. Do NOT gayjack or ungender trans kids by lumping everyone together as if one universal solution will fix everyone's problems.
When I was young, my femininity was not exactly subtle. I knew at age 3 something was wrong. I knew I was supposed to be a girl. I didn't know I actually WAS a girl surgically jiggered at birth. But I knew I was supposed to BE a girl. And every time I expressed femininity I got beaten up.
If I asked to see a Barbie doll at recess, I got beat up.
If I didn't want to join in at sports or play War or Tackle Tag, I got beat up.
If I said I actually liked cooking my own breakfast, I got beat up.
Anything I expressed interest in that the boys saw as even bordering on stereotypically girly, I got beat up.
I ended up suspended from Grade 3 for a week because I admitted to liking Jem and the Holograms, and when the teacher pulled the bullies off of me and said I should expect to get beat up if I was going to be a sissy and not like GI Joe instead, I told him to go fuck himself. I got beat up and yet it was ME who got suspended, because I stood up to a teacher reinforcing stereotypes and condoning the bullying.
When I started to grow breasts, I got beat up.
When I tried to resist my rapists in Juvey, I got beat up.
And every time I got beat up, I waited til the next day. And the next day, when the bruises formed, I saw my only friend, Purple.
Purple, who appeared on my skin to remind me I was different and had to fight to survive.
Purple, who reassured me I had survived another hate fuelled beating.
Purple, who told me I was still alive, that they hadn't broken me.
I love purple. Purple tells me I'm alive. That I'm strong enough to survive the abuse. Purple tells me I'm allowed to be me.
I admire the girl who came up with the idea of a Spirit Day. It's a noble thought, even if some idiots are already distorting her noble idea to ungender trans kids. I wish there were less such idiots and more kids like Brittany McMillan who want to do something positive.
But I'm purple every day of my life. And so should all of us be. Every day should be a day we talk about and support young GLBT folks. ALL of them.
I love purple.
10/06/2010
Women Like Me
Crossposted on Pam's House Blend
Women like me are called “it” on the radio, on television, in the news, and by politician wanting to undermine our rights. Just ask Sally Kern's supporters.
We are murdered at a staggering rate. 1 in 8 will be murdered, according to a Harvey Milk institute study. And chances are, 9 times out of 10, no one will cover it except angry trans/is bloggers like me.
Raping us is not yet a crime. Oh sure rape is still technically illegal, but if the victim is a woman like me? Most courts, if it ever even gets to court, dismiss the plaintiffs as deviants who left themselves vulnerable, therefore it's our own fault.
Murdering us is considered justifiable. The victory in Angie Zapata's murder trial was a rupugnantly rare exception where we got justice. The rule is generally "Oh she was a dude? I understand, you're freev to go sir." And that's if it ever reaches trial. Police don't genewrally put much manpower into hunting down some guy who killed another tranny, she was probably a prostitute anyway amirite?
Also generally considered to be perfectly acceptable by society in general are spontaneous public beatings, often by police. Especially in New York where there are at least 3 publicized incidents in the last 10 years of cops standing with a crowd watching and laughing and doing nothing as a transwoman got beaten.
Police often rape us, prior to fabricating charges of soliciting. They know in a their word against ours situation, not even gay and lesbian advocates will believe us over police. Because all trannies are hookers, everyone knows that. We must be, it's not like anyone will give us a real job.
We are openly taunted and demeaned in the media using the most hateful language. If you don't believe me, just Google "Memphis Trans Murders" and see how the media portrays us when we're murdered.
So called “LGBT” activists lie to us to take our meager dollars at fundraisers, then abandon us as beneath them when we need their voices to stand up for us. HRC is a frequent offender, and Joe Solmonese couldn't give a rat's ass about actually including Tran folk. He actively tried to push a trans-exclusive ENDA because he knew them there Gay Fellers would get approval easier if they threw us under the bus. AFTER taking donations from us and promising they'd fight for us of course. LGBT newspapers like Bay Windows and the Washington Blade call for our exclusion from basic rights legislation.
Our unemployment rate is staggeringly high. Even where our kind are supposedly protected from job discrimination, there's always a reason why we're "not right for the job". No employer has to actually say he isn't hiring us because we're trannies, he just has to make up any flimsy excuse and he'll get away with it. I've been passed over because 120 words per minute was "too speedy for office needs".
Because we are often incarcerated in male prisons with exaggerated sentences. I was in juvey for punching a group home worker for calling me a little faggot. I was gang-raped in a shower. The guards denied me medical attention and their reply to my story was "yeah yeah sure queer, back to your cell". That is a verbatim quote as they dragged me back to my cell while my ass was STILL BLEEDING.
Because it is still considered OK to deny us basic medical care, and to excoriate us in the media for seeking it. Just ask the trans woman who in August went to emergency with her wife and daughter because she was coughing up blood and was sniggered at by staff who ignored her id, then had her sanity questioned instead of treated for her illness, then ultimately refused treatment because of her "condition". Not her actual medical condition mind you. They meant her being a "transvestite".
Or as Tyra Hunter found out, to be tortured with naltrexone injections in the last moments of her life, while being taunted for who she was as she lay dying on the pavement, because the EMT found a penis in her panties and refused to touch her afterward. As far as I can find on Google searches, he was never punished.
“Feminists” still call for our exclusion from basic human dignities and protections, such as restrooms and DV shelters, because we're just "men trying to infiltrate female dynamics". (Google "The Transsexual Empire" by Janice Raymond for reference to this crock mentality).
We are effectively barred from attending womens colleges, as well as many women only venues. I personally received 14 death threats by e-mail after I said on my old now-defunct LiveJournal account that I planned to attend the Vancouver Dyke March 6 years ago and speak onstage about tg issues. I was afraid to attend though, as they were so descriptive and specific in their threats. The police of course did nothing.
And finally, because all too many women will ignore this post “because it doesn’t affect them,” or because of their own issues with women like me.
Women like me are standing up and telling the rest of you; We exist. You will not ignore us. You will not pretend we aren't there. You will address us as we live, not by our genitals. You will respect our identities. You will not shrug if someone murders us. You will nott exclude us from equality legislation for the sake of expediance swearing you'll "come back for us, honest".
Women like me, ARE women.
Get used to it. We will not quietly go away, and every new generation of us gets louder and louder.
Women like me are called “it” on the radio, on television, in the news, and by politician wanting to undermine our rights. Just ask Sally Kern's supporters.
We are murdered at a staggering rate. 1 in 8 will be murdered, according to a Harvey Milk institute study. And chances are, 9 times out of 10, no one will cover it except angry trans/is bloggers like me.
Raping us is not yet a crime. Oh sure rape is still technically illegal, but if the victim is a woman like me? Most courts, if it ever even gets to court, dismiss the plaintiffs as deviants who left themselves vulnerable, therefore it's our own fault.
Murdering us is considered justifiable. The victory in Angie Zapata's murder trial was a rupugnantly rare exception where we got justice. The rule is generally "Oh she was a dude? I understand, you're freev to go sir." And that's if it ever reaches trial. Police don't genewrally put much manpower into hunting down some guy who killed another tranny, she was probably a prostitute anyway amirite?
Also generally considered to be perfectly acceptable by society in general are spontaneous public beatings, often by police. Especially in New York where there are at least 3 publicized incidents in the last 10 years of cops standing with a crowd watching and laughing and doing nothing as a transwoman got beaten.
Police often rape us, prior to fabricating charges of soliciting. They know in a their word against ours situation, not even gay and lesbian advocates will believe us over police. Because all trannies are hookers, everyone knows that. We must be, it's not like anyone will give us a real job.
We are openly taunted and demeaned in the media using the most hateful language. If you don't believe me, just Google "Memphis Trans Murders" and see how the media portrays us when we're murdered.
So called “LGBT” activists lie to us to take our meager dollars at fundraisers, then abandon us as beneath them when we need their voices to stand up for us. HRC is a frequent offender, and Joe Solmonese couldn't give a rat's ass about actually including Tran folk. He actively tried to push a trans-exclusive ENDA because he knew them there Gay Fellers would get approval easier if they threw us under the bus. AFTER taking donations from us and promising they'd fight for us of course. LGBT newspapers like Bay Windows and the Washington Blade call for our exclusion from basic rights legislation.
Our unemployment rate is staggeringly high. Even where our kind are supposedly protected from job discrimination, there's always a reason why we're "not right for the job". No employer has to actually say he isn't hiring us because we're trannies, he just has to make up any flimsy excuse and he'll get away with it. I've been passed over because 120 words per minute was "too speedy for office needs".
Because we are often incarcerated in male prisons with exaggerated sentences. I was in juvey for punching a group home worker for calling me a little faggot. I was gang-raped in a shower. The guards denied me medical attention and their reply to my story was "yeah yeah sure queer, back to your cell". That is a verbatim quote as they dragged me back to my cell while my ass was STILL BLEEDING.
Because it is still considered OK to deny us basic medical care, and to excoriate us in the media for seeking it. Just ask the trans woman who in August went to emergency with her wife and daughter because she was coughing up blood and was sniggered at by staff who ignored her id, then had her sanity questioned instead of treated for her illness, then ultimately refused treatment because of her "condition". Not her actual medical condition mind you. They meant her being a "transvestite".
Or as Tyra Hunter found out, to be tortured with naltrexone injections in the last moments of her life, while being taunted for who she was as she lay dying on the pavement, because the EMT found a penis in her panties and refused to touch her afterward. As far as I can find on Google searches, he was never punished.
“Feminists” still call for our exclusion from basic human dignities and protections, such as restrooms and DV shelters, because we're just "men trying to infiltrate female dynamics". (Google "The Transsexual Empire" by Janice Raymond for reference to this crock mentality).
We are effectively barred from attending womens colleges, as well as many women only venues. I personally received 14 death threats by e-mail after I said on my old now-defunct LiveJournal account that I planned to attend the Vancouver Dyke March 6 years ago and speak onstage about tg issues. I was afraid to attend though, as they were so descriptive and specific in their threats. The police of course did nothing.
And finally, because all too many women will ignore this post “because it doesn’t affect them,” or because of their own issues with women like me.
Women like me are standing up and telling the rest of you; We exist. You will not ignore us. You will not pretend we aren't there. You will address us as we live, not by our genitals. You will respect our identities. You will not shrug if someone murders us. You will nott exclude us from equality legislation for the sake of expediance swearing you'll "come back for us, honest".
Women like me, ARE women.
Get used to it. We will not quietly go away, and every new generation of us gets louder and louder.
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