Yesterday Kieth Olbermann, in an attempt to insult Ann Coulter, (whom I admit is generally a loathsome woman), said she looked like a transsexual, mostly because being aggressive and not wearing dresses but instead pantsuits apparently are solely male traits and thus suggest Ann is less than a "real" woman.
Now, not surprisingly, all my under-30 trans friends are justifiably angry and blogging angry rants about this asinine stunt on Obermann's behalf, protesting not only the hateful innacuracy of using trans women as a bogeyman to insult a challenging woman for not being femme enough, but because no one BUT trans women seem to care that he did so.
Now maybe it's just proof that I've gotten old and jaded but I am at worst, mildly annoyed by Olbermann's doucheyness. I am however not the least bit shocked or surprised that a priveleged white male Sportscaster/MSNBC host like Olbermann would say something so nasty and use a highly marginalized people as a basis to insult a woman for a perceived lack of femininity.
After all we live in a world where society at large still sees Trans women as a big bad wolf of sorts. For example the wingnut right-wing outrage over a trans woman getting a government job under President Obama, and the so-called comedy that resulted from her appointment that clearly suggests the widely believe grossness of "men dressing as chicks" that so many both think is hilarious even as it is frequently used as a murder defense. Although in the case in that last link, we actually got justice for a change, so there IS hope for the rest of us.
So many people really don't understand Trans women, or what our lives are really like. Some men for example who watch porn see titles that refer to us as "Shemales" or "trannies", terms which a lot of trans women find offensive, and, not knowing any trans women in their own lives, think that such terms are the correct ones. other people will see a movie like "Mrs. Doubtfire", or "To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmarr", both movies about men who identify AS men dressing up as women, and, again, not knowing anyone in real life to correct them, mistakenly believe that it represents what trans women are.
This is why when the religious right brings up the "Men dress as women to get into women's washrooms" defense as the bogeyman to get people to vote against measures that would grant Trans women equality and safe protection under the law, a lot of people are stupid enough to buy into that fear mongering because they don't know enough about us to know any different.
There are so very few examples of trans women in the media, which is where the average person learns about such things. The more positive portrayals there were, for example, of gay men and lesbian women on TV, the more widespread the general acceptance of gay and lesbian people became. Offhand in the last 15 years, I can think of exactly 6 positive portrayals of trans women that painted the character as a real human being. Any other trans character on TV or in movies was a derogatory charicature that relegated us to the stereotypical confused man in women's clothing, usually played BY a man who couldn't come close to looking even like a bad Drag Queen, let alone a feminine woman. Even this casting itself is done out of ignorance of real trans lives. And of the positive portrayals, only one is played by an actual Trans woman.
Another problem IS how vitriolic and angry some trans women get. While anger is COMPLETELY justified when being marginalized, especially considering that somewhere in the world a Trans woman is murdered every three days because of attitudes like these, becoming verbally abusive in reaction to trans-ignorance does more harm than good. I sadly know more than a few of my sisters who in their anger spewing invective have made trans haters out of people who just didn't know any better and were willing to learn until they were attacked for making a mistake.
I prefer to make allies out of such people. Change is never acheived by attacking the active haters. For example, no one is ever going to eliminate homophobia by pointing at the nutjobs of the Westboro Baptist Church, (You know, the funeral picketing "God Hates Fags" people), and screaming "You're an ignorant fuckwad!".
But if you talk, and educate, those who look at nutcases like those and say "I don't get what he means? Why do they say that?" and teach them about the people being attacked by the haters, and help them understand where the hate really comes from and why it's misguided, then you've changed the world just a little bit for the better.
The more people I talk to and teach about the lives my sisters and I lead, and the struggles we go through just to live, (a lot ofd us got into porn to pay the bills, and I myself was a prostitute for four years to just keep food in the house), the LESS people there are to be fooled and swayed by the haters.
Hatemongers count on people who are ignorant of the facts to spread their hate. There is nothing a hatemonger fears more than an educated person, because an educated person will always see through their bullshit.
I know some of my friends in porn hates the porn example but I've experienced it personally so many times. A guy will call me a tranny or a shemale because that's what girls like me are called in the porn he watches, and will be legitimately surprised when he's told it's offensive. Hell it happened to me just yesterday. And their excuse is always "But that's the name they used in porno?"
Now when I was younger and still jumping before looking, I'd scream and cuss at these guys, insulting them, telling them to go fuck themselves, yadda yadda. The result was always a resounding "Well fuck you too you tranny cunt!". These days, I take breath, stay calm, and politely explain to them why tranny and shemale are incorrect terms, why they offend most trans women, why porn uses them, (market recognition. As Danielle can attest to, if you Google Tranny or Shemale you'll get a LOT more porn results than googling Trans woman will net), and then I educate them about the proper terms, pronouns, and about respecting us as women.
You know what happens now? They apologize. They admit they honestly didn't know any better, tell me they're honestly sorry if they offended me, and thank me for being so understanding and for teaching them. the more men I can reach and get through to, the less men there are out there who could potentially suffer from a sudden "Did I just fuck a man" guilt and murder one of us. The more people I can teach about who we really are, the less people there are who will vote against our equality and basic human rights.
Here in Vancouver BC Canada last year, a Women Only pharmacy called Lu's opened up in the Downtown East Side, (Vancouver's version of a Skid Row), with a "Women Born Women" policy. Through peaceful protesting and talking openly with the charity who runs the place about our lives, me and other local transwomen and our cis allies got through to them, and three weeks ago Lu's dropped the trans-phobic policy. We're now as welcome there as any other woman.
But if we had verbally attacked them, screaming about what ignorant hateful bigots they were being, it would have just been Kimberly Nixon all over again.
So, yeah, Kieth Olbermann was a douchebag. No I'm not going to piss and moan and send him long angry e-mails over it. I AM however going to tell as many confused cis folks as I can, calmly and intelligently, exactly WHY what he said was wrong and damaging.
Make the uneducated your enemy, and the enemy grows strong enough to kill you.
Make them your friend, and you castrate your enemy's power.
So don't worry about Olbermann. Get through to the people who don't understand yet why he was an idiot.
2/19/2010
Bloody Nightmares...
Just woke up. My skin is crawling and my body as always is screaming in crippling pain. Most of that is normal, except the skin crawling. I just woke up from a very long dream that went from uncomfortable to weird to just plain violently disturbing and I'm trembling as I type.
First I dreamed about my current landlord having been my landlord while I still lived with my abusive ex Kimmy, pressuring me to kick Kimmy out or be kicked out myself and I had to watch myself making "I walked into a door" excuses until I wanted to scream at myself. This oddly was after Fran had left in a car we don't own to drive to a store back in Georgia to buy a product that doesn't exist.
Somehow the dream shifted to a small pub with a tv crew, and I was for no apparent reason now on set at a Doctor Who taping where Leonard Nimoy was replacing Anthony Stuart Head as the narrator of Confidential. Aware I was dreaming but helpless to go lucid enough to actually control the dream, I thought to myself "Whew, the dream won't be so bad now". I watched amused as Matt Smoth in a Tennant blue suit pretended not to know Nimoy for a moment before going all fanboy on him. At which point I was asked to go outside to make sure none of the crowd had videocameras.
And that's when my brain decided to really stab me in the gut. This part may be highly triggery. So here's a jump to avoid accidental triggering.
Outside on the sidewalk the crowd wasn't watching the filming. They were hooting and hollaring as a bald biker looking man was violentally anally raping two drunk and near unconscious women, while NO ONE could be bothered to try and stop him. He frequently dragged them around the pavement by their hair before switching from one to the other and punching when one tried to crawl away. No one in the crowd cared, they were all laughing and cheering him on. A few were even masturbating. And I stood there watching the me in the dream cowering against a shop window hiding her eyes, scvreaming at her to do something, to stop this, to go kick the bastard square in his throat or crack his skull open with the pipe laying right at her/my feet, but she/I just ran inside to pee, trying to pretend she saw nothing. And wanting to vomit, and thankfully having to actually get up and pee, my body forced me awaker to go drain my bladder. I have never in my life been so grateful for my overactive bladder.
I keep trying to tell myself it was just a dream. That if something so horrible ever happened in real life in my presence that I'd intervene. But I'm still haunted by the Anne-Marie incident. I'm still haunted by the wondering.
I fucking hate my cruel subconscious.
First I dreamed about my current landlord having been my landlord while I still lived with my abusive ex Kimmy, pressuring me to kick Kimmy out or be kicked out myself and I had to watch myself making "I walked into a door" excuses until I wanted to scream at myself. This oddly was after Fran had left in a car we don't own to drive to a store back in Georgia to buy a product that doesn't exist.
Somehow the dream shifted to a small pub with a tv crew, and I was for no apparent reason now on set at a Doctor Who taping where Leonard Nimoy was replacing Anthony Stuart Head as the narrator of Confidential. Aware I was dreaming but helpless to go lucid enough to actually control the dream, I thought to myself "Whew, the dream won't be so bad now". I watched amused as Matt Smoth in a Tennant blue suit pretended not to know Nimoy for a moment before going all fanboy on him. At which point I was asked to go outside to make sure none of the crowd had videocameras.
And that's when my brain decided to really stab me in the gut. This part may be highly triggery. So here's a jump to avoid accidental triggering.
Outside on the sidewalk the crowd wasn't watching the filming. They were hooting and hollaring as a bald biker looking man was violentally anally raping two drunk and near unconscious women, while NO ONE could be bothered to try and stop him. He frequently dragged them around the pavement by their hair before switching from one to the other and punching when one tried to crawl away. No one in the crowd cared, they were all laughing and cheering him on. A few were even masturbating. And I stood there watching the me in the dream cowering against a shop window hiding her eyes, scvreaming at her to do something, to stop this, to go kick the bastard square in his throat or crack his skull open with the pipe laying right at her/my feet, but she/I just ran inside to pee, trying to pretend she saw nothing. And wanting to vomit, and thankfully having to actually get up and pee, my body forced me awaker to go drain my bladder. I have never in my life been so grateful for my overactive bladder.
I keep trying to tell myself it was just a dream. That if something so horrible ever happened in real life in my presence that I'd intervene. But I'm still haunted by the Anne-Marie incident. I'm still haunted by the wondering.
I fucking hate my cruel subconscious.
2/11/2010
I Was Paid To Want To Vomit
I've been torturing myself this morning for some reason. I replied to a topic on a group in Fetlife about rape and consent issues and linked from one page to the next to sites all over the web with stories of prostitutes being left to suffer for moral reasons as if they weren't human or deserved fair protections. It bothers me on a deeply personal level as both a rape survivor and a former prostitute that so many people use bullshit morality as an excuse to justify stances against offering more safety measures and protections to women who are using their own bodies just to survive.
I am not proud of my 4 years as a sex worker but I refuse to be ashamed of it either. If I were thinner now and my wife was willing to allow it I'd probably still be doing it now to bring in extra money so we can afford to eat. As it is I rescue restaurant leftovers from dumpsters so we can eat, but I guess at least I don't have to touch men.
My original reason for prostitution was survival, same as it would be now, but with a different motivation behind the survival. If I were to resume the work now it would be solely so Fran and I can afford to eat. Back then it was so my then common-law spouse Kimmy wouldn't beat the shit out of me.
I prostituted myself to buy food and give Kimmy money to get drugs with, because if Kimmy went hungry or couldn't get high she got violently nasty. My spine is permanently crooked because of her abuse. I vomited after every client and spent a lot of time crying because I felt so disgusted by the work, but it was literally keeping me alive to do it. Every dollar I brought in prevented another beating.
I'm not Pro-Prostitution. I never will be. But I'm Pro-legalization/decriminalizing it, because keeping it criminal only hurts the women who have to do it to survive. Ideally I'd like to see a world where no woman has no other choice but selling sex to survive, where only those few who do it because they honestly enjoy the work ever have to do it, where those who don't like doing it have other options and are safe and protected from harm. But that world will never happen as long as these moral crusaders have their way.
I'd like to ask these supposedly strong moral people something. Prostitution, Marijuana, GLBT Equality.... all these things they throw so much money at to try and prevent in the name of some righteous morality...
How many wife beaters and rapists and murderers could be in jail right now if even HALF the money spent on prostitution stings was spent on real crime?
How much Crack and Meth and Cocaine could be out of circulation if you'd stop villifying a medicinal herb like Marijuana?
How many blankets and cans of food could be bought to stock homeless shelters with all the money you spend on fighting to keep gay people as subhuman under the law?
My name is Penny Sautereau-Fife. I am a former prostitute and a lesbian IS/Trans woman. I was paid good money to vomit after my clients left so I could survive. No one protected me, no one cared about my welfare or safety. There are people now who care and are fighting to give today's sex-workers the rights and safety protections that I and others like me never dared dream about. Please support these people however you can. It's about priorities. And if your priorities including ignoring real crimes to persecute non-evils because your "morality" tells you the non-evils are somehow worse than violent crime, hard drugs, or taking care of the helpless, you are nothing CLOSE to a moral person.
If you can afford a few dollars here and there, feel free to click on that button. The less I have to eat Burger King's leftovers pulled out of the garbage, the less my health suffers. No donations are obligatory, nor am I actively asking any of you to do so. I just promised some friends I'd put the damn button here so the option was there for anyone who felt like helping out.
I am not proud of my 4 years as a sex worker but I refuse to be ashamed of it either. If I were thinner now and my wife was willing to allow it I'd probably still be doing it now to bring in extra money so we can afford to eat. As it is I rescue restaurant leftovers from dumpsters so we can eat, but I guess at least I don't have to touch men.
My original reason for prostitution was survival, same as it would be now, but with a different motivation behind the survival. If I were to resume the work now it would be solely so Fran and I can afford to eat. Back then it was so my then common-law spouse Kimmy wouldn't beat the shit out of me.
I prostituted myself to buy food and give Kimmy money to get drugs with, because if Kimmy went hungry or couldn't get high she got violently nasty. My spine is permanently crooked because of her abuse. I vomited after every client and spent a lot of time crying because I felt so disgusted by the work, but it was literally keeping me alive to do it. Every dollar I brought in prevented another beating.
I'm not Pro-Prostitution. I never will be. But I'm Pro-legalization/decriminalizing it, because keeping it criminal only hurts the women who have to do it to survive. Ideally I'd like to see a world where no woman has no other choice but selling sex to survive, where only those few who do it because they honestly enjoy the work ever have to do it, where those who don't like doing it have other options and are safe and protected from harm. But that world will never happen as long as these moral crusaders have their way.
I'd like to ask these supposedly strong moral people something. Prostitution, Marijuana, GLBT Equality.... all these things they throw so much money at to try and prevent in the name of some righteous morality...
How many wife beaters and rapists and murderers could be in jail right now if even HALF the money spent on prostitution stings was spent on real crime?
How much Crack and Meth and Cocaine could be out of circulation if you'd stop villifying a medicinal herb like Marijuana?
How many blankets and cans of food could be bought to stock homeless shelters with all the money you spend on fighting to keep gay people as subhuman under the law?
My name is Penny Sautereau-Fife. I am a former prostitute and a lesbian IS/Trans woman. I was paid good money to vomit after my clients left so I could survive. No one protected me, no one cared about my welfare or safety. There are people now who care and are fighting to give today's sex-workers the rights and safety protections that I and others like me never dared dream about. Please support these people however you can. It's about priorities. And if your priorities including ignoring real crimes to persecute non-evils because your "morality" tells you the non-evils are somehow worse than violent crime, hard drugs, or taking care of the helpless, you are nothing CLOSE to a moral person.
If you can afford a few dollars here and there, feel free to click on that button. The less I have to eat Burger King's leftovers pulled out of the garbage, the less my health suffers. No donations are obligatory, nor am I actively asking any of you to do so. I just promised some friends I'd put the damn button here so the option was there for anyone who felt like helping out.
2/08/2010
Feminist Musings From Hedon? That Or I'm Really Tired
I've been reading a lot online in blogs of late about various different ideas of feminism, which are as varied and different as the gap between Christianity and Aethism. One thing they all agree on is that a lot of men have a bad habit of making assumptions about what they're allowed to do or say to women.
I've also learned from personal experience that this is doubly so for transwomen. If a man isn't disgusted by me and assuming he has a right to shove me around, he's assuming right off the bat I'm a porn shemale stereotype who will be gratefully receptive to crude advances.
Last month for example a security gaurd took exception to my using the women's washroom at a Safeway, and assumed that he just automatically had the right to call me a faggot and grab my breasts to see if they were real.
Also on several of the social networking sites I'm on for the purpose of making friends, (I'm already married), I get messaged by several jerks in a day who willfully ignore the parts of my profile that read "married", "lesbian" or "NO GODDAMN MEN", and proceed to message me with lewd come-ons or long-winded speeches about how they want to marry me and make a god-fearing woman out of me, completely disrespecting my clearly stated boundaries. Then when I very clearly reiterate my "not interested, they seem genuinely mystified by the very concept that I don't want to jump down their pants.
Cis women know all too well the joys of presumptive sexist men and their skin-crawling charms, but they need to know trans women suffer from the same sleaze. Now I'm not for a moment saying all men are like this, but if you define as a woman, cis and trans alike, there will always be men who honestly believe it's their god-given right to treat us like sexual property, and are incapable of fathoming the idea of us not liking it when they do.
We are all women, and we all have the right to expect to not be treated like meat. The kind of man who will call you a bitch if you say "Not interested" all need to learn that we are not obligated to be their fantasy. We belong only to us, and the only person we have any obligation to is we ourselves.
I've also learned from personal experience that this is doubly so for transwomen. If a man isn't disgusted by me and assuming he has a right to shove me around, he's assuming right off the bat I'm a porn shemale stereotype who will be gratefully receptive to crude advances.
Last month for example a security gaurd took exception to my using the women's washroom at a Safeway, and assumed that he just automatically had the right to call me a faggot and grab my breasts to see if they were real.
Also on several of the social networking sites I'm on for the purpose of making friends, (I'm already married), I get messaged by several jerks in a day who willfully ignore the parts of my profile that read "married", "lesbian" or "NO GODDAMN MEN", and proceed to message me with lewd come-ons or long-winded speeches about how they want to marry me and make a god-fearing woman out of me, completely disrespecting my clearly stated boundaries. Then when I very clearly reiterate my "not interested, they seem genuinely mystified by the very concept that I don't want to jump down their pants.
Cis women know all too well the joys of presumptive sexist men and their skin-crawling charms, but they need to know trans women suffer from the same sleaze. Now I'm not for a moment saying all men are like this, but if you define as a woman, cis and trans alike, there will always be men who honestly believe it's their god-given right to treat us like sexual property, and are incapable of fathoming the idea of us not liking it when they do.
We are all women, and we all have the right to expect to not be treated like meat. The kind of man who will call you a bitch if you say "Not interested" all need to learn that we are not obligated to be their fantasy. We belong only to us, and the only person we have any obligation to is we ourselves.
1/27/2010
Positive Change Is Always Good
Whereever it can be found, positive change is a good thing. And today I am very proud of my little sister trans woman Danielle Foxxx, adult film actress and generally nice girl.
In October I blogged about her website. She had returned to sex film work after recovering from her SRS. I and a few other outspoken girls took issue with what she chose to call her post-op website.
Danielle is a wonderful person, and I've gotten to know her very well in the past few months. Which is not to say she can't be a calculating bitch, (as she will proudly tell you, hehe), but at heart she's a good woman and very human. And while she steadfastly assures me that it was solely for money and marketing reasons, she has changed her site.
Sex Change Tranny is gone. Welcome to the web Sex Change Girl.
Thank you Danielle. Even though you only did it for the money. *winks*
In October I blogged about her website. She had returned to sex film work after recovering from her SRS. I and a few other outspoken girls took issue with what she chose to call her post-op website.
Danielle is a wonderful person, and I've gotten to know her very well in the past few months. Which is not to say she can't be a calculating bitch, (as she will proudly tell you, hehe), but at heart she's a good woman and very human. And while she steadfastly assures me that it was solely for money and marketing reasons, she has changed her site.
Sex Change Tranny is gone. Welcome to the web Sex Change Girl.
Thank you Danielle. Even though you only did it for the money. *winks*
1/10/2010
Giving Up Is Sometimes Survival
Some of my friends are vehemently questioning my decisions of late. My decision to plead guilty to a bogus shoplifting charge I'm innocent of to just avoid more jail and move on with my life. And now my decision to give up writing erotica, short stories and my long suffering novel because none of it will ever be published unless I stop writing about women like me.
My friends don't want me to give up. Fight it they say. Even if you might never win Penny, fight it, always fight it. They say I'm letting Transphobia win by giving up. They say I'm stronger than this. They all insist, I've lived through so much horror already and survived that these relatively minor things comparatively shouldn't be able to break me.
I say I am NOT that strong. I've survived til now purely on a stubborn refusal to roll over. That in itself is what my friends mistake for strength. But stubbornness and strength are not the same thing. And I was stubborn, not strong.
And the difference between stubborn and strong is very simple. You can't beat down strength. Strength is innate, it can't be broken.
You can break stubborn eventually. Ask any donkey or horse or trained dog.
And I'm broken. I'm fucking tired. I'm 35 with the body of a goddamned 80 year old. I'm a freak of nature to most people, a pervert, an abomination. I know 95% of the time my gender/body/presentation means I WILL NOT be treated fairly or even humanely.
I have submitted my writing for publishing over 400 times in the past 6 years. I have been universally rejected, even by querr/LGBT publishers, not because my writing wasn't good, but because it was universally NEVER "what they were looking for". Which as all my trans sisters know is cis speak for "Okay I admit you're a good writer but I ain't printing no fucking tranny stoiries unless you write the trannies like circus freaks".
Which essentially means I write too well to have my Trans/IS stories published. I write GOOD stories about women like me that show them as real people, women, vulnerable and human, and not as sexual perversions existing only for bi men to find their inner gay man with.
Let me stress this is not my sour grapes whining, this is what publishers have ACTUALLY TOLD ME. I have been told if I rewrote the Trans characters, minimized them, or outright removed them entirely, my work would be published. I've even been offered very good money to write full non-trans murder mysteries. But no publisher will EVER accept a story where a trans woman is not only a MAJOR character, but is a lesbian, or is written as being a perfectly normal human being with dept and character.
And so I give up writing fiction, period. My heart just isn't in it anymore. All I can write now is angry blog rants about how much this world fucking sucks. And all that is really is venting. I have no joy or passion anymore to write anything else.
And as for pleading guilty, well, if you think I should keep fighting it in some twisted sense of Trans Activism to not let the haters win, well, fuck you. YOU weren't the one being groped in jail while prison gaurds mocked you on Friday Morning. YOU weren't the one just barely fighting back flashbacks to being repeatedly raped in juvey 18 years ago.
There are hundreds of other loud and proud trans women fighting the good fight, ME giving up the fight will NOT destroy the movement for acceptance. I am TIRED people. My entire goddamned life has been fighting, fighting, fighting. I deserve my rest. Hell the only reason I don't just give in and fucking kill myself is because of the people who'd be hurt if I did.
I HATE my life. I'm fat, dying, unhealthy, miserable, and in too much pain to DO anything about it. I am NOT happy. I can't have sex with my own wife because it leaves me in heaving sobs afterward because of the pain flare-ups. I can't work, I can't socialize. All my friends are online, I have NO ONE here locally. I eat food out of restaurant dumpsters because I can't work. Death would be peace, freedom from my broken screaming body. And I keep living and suffering for YOU people. The people that love me, who'd hurt if I killed myself. I keep suffering for YOU.
And you want to chastise me for being willing to stop fighting and plead guilty to something I didn't do because avoiding more jail is better than being able to say "WEll at least I tried fighting it" as I'm getting RAPED AGAIN???
If you call yourself my friend and can still guilt-trip me and condemn me for finally being too tired and broken to fight and for wanting to avoid further trauma, fuck you and your high horse. I've survived worse shit than most people have to endure, I have fucking EARNED my rest.
I DESERVE the right to just lay down and stop busting my ass on a fight I can never win.
So just let me rest.
I fucking earned it.
My friends don't want me to give up. Fight it they say. Even if you might never win Penny, fight it, always fight it. They say I'm letting Transphobia win by giving up. They say I'm stronger than this. They all insist, I've lived through so much horror already and survived that these relatively minor things comparatively shouldn't be able to break me.
I say I am NOT that strong. I've survived til now purely on a stubborn refusal to roll over. That in itself is what my friends mistake for strength. But stubbornness and strength are not the same thing. And I was stubborn, not strong.
And the difference between stubborn and strong is very simple. You can't beat down strength. Strength is innate, it can't be broken.
You can break stubborn eventually. Ask any donkey or horse or trained dog.
And I'm broken. I'm fucking tired. I'm 35 with the body of a goddamned 80 year old. I'm a freak of nature to most people, a pervert, an abomination. I know 95% of the time my gender/body/presentation means I WILL NOT be treated fairly or even humanely.
I have submitted my writing for publishing over 400 times in the past 6 years. I have been universally rejected, even by querr/LGBT publishers, not because my writing wasn't good, but because it was universally NEVER "what they were looking for". Which as all my trans sisters know is cis speak for "Okay I admit you're a good writer but I ain't printing no fucking tranny stoiries unless you write the trannies like circus freaks".
Which essentially means I write too well to have my Trans/IS stories published. I write GOOD stories about women like me that show them as real people, women, vulnerable and human, and not as sexual perversions existing only for bi men to find their inner gay man with.
Let me stress this is not my sour grapes whining, this is what publishers have ACTUALLY TOLD ME. I have been told if I rewrote the Trans characters, minimized them, or outright removed them entirely, my work would be published. I've even been offered very good money to write full non-trans murder mysteries. But no publisher will EVER accept a story where a trans woman is not only a MAJOR character, but is a lesbian, or is written as being a perfectly normal human being with dept and character.
And so I give up writing fiction, period. My heart just isn't in it anymore. All I can write now is angry blog rants about how much this world fucking sucks. And all that is really is venting. I have no joy or passion anymore to write anything else.
And as for pleading guilty, well, if you think I should keep fighting it in some twisted sense of Trans Activism to not let the haters win, well, fuck you. YOU weren't the one being groped in jail while prison gaurds mocked you on Friday Morning. YOU weren't the one just barely fighting back flashbacks to being repeatedly raped in juvey 18 years ago.
There are hundreds of other loud and proud trans women fighting the good fight, ME giving up the fight will NOT destroy the movement for acceptance. I am TIRED people. My entire goddamned life has been fighting, fighting, fighting. I deserve my rest. Hell the only reason I don't just give in and fucking kill myself is because of the people who'd be hurt if I did.
I HATE my life. I'm fat, dying, unhealthy, miserable, and in too much pain to DO anything about it. I am NOT happy. I can't have sex with my own wife because it leaves me in heaving sobs afterward because of the pain flare-ups. I can't work, I can't socialize. All my friends are online, I have NO ONE here locally. I eat food out of restaurant dumpsters because I can't work. Death would be peace, freedom from my broken screaming body. And I keep living and suffering for YOU people. The people that love me, who'd hurt if I killed myself. I keep suffering for YOU.
And you want to chastise me for being willing to stop fighting and plead guilty to something I didn't do because avoiding more jail is better than being able to say "WEll at least I tried fighting it" as I'm getting RAPED AGAIN???
If you call yourself my friend and can still guilt-trip me and condemn me for finally being too tired and broken to fight and for wanting to avoid further trauma, fuck you and your high horse. I've survived worse shit than most people have to endure, I have fucking EARNED my rest.
I DESERVE the right to just lay down and stop busting my ass on a fight I can never win.
So just let me rest.
I fucking earned it.
1/08/2010
Consider Me Reminded
Sometimes I forget. I really do. I forget how it can take just ONE transphobic cocksucker to completely destroy me and reduce me to feeling like a fat ugly freakish blob of worthlessness.
I just got home from a night in jail you see. Technically I was in jail because I had a warrant out for my arrest, for a failure to appear at a court date I didn't even know I'd had, for a bogus shoplifting charge I thought I'd beaten a few months ago. But as I don't break the law, chances are I'd have never been in a position to have this warrant discovered had it not been for the transphobic cocksucker at Safeway.
See last night Fran and I made the two hour trip out to Port Coquitlam to meet my mom. We were waiting for her at the plaza near her house and I dipped into the Safeway to use the bathroom. On my way back out of the store a middle eastern man identifying himself as store security forced me physically back inside the store, choked me and said I was under arrest for trespassing, because, he said, I was violating a condition of my arrest from two weeks before by being on Safeway Property.
Now, how I managed to be in his store on Christmas Eve stealing hot dogs and DVD's when I was home on Swine flu Quarantine puking every half hour is a miracle I don't think I'm magic enough to be capable of, but the fact is he was insisting I was the man he'd arrested that night and screaming at me about being a perverted faggot for going into the women's washroom wearing a skirt.
So my night from hell begins with my being ungendered by a security guard insisting I'm a man and lying through his teeth about a non-existant prior arrest to justify his accosting of me and excessive force. I couldn't breathe as he was choking me. But by the time I convinced trhe store manager to check my id to confirm I'm female and check their own records to confirm my claim that the douchebag was lying, (I take a little comfort in the angry look the manager gave him at that point), the police had already been called.
So I apparently had a court date on December 19th that I missed. Mostly because no one bloody informed me I HAD one. So because of the warrant I was arrested. The minute I set foot in the cell the flashbacks began. I was fighting them the entire night. On the bright side, the cops at the police station respected the F on my ID and put me in the women's section.
The sheriffs at the courthouse this morning, not so much.
They put me in with men. They refused to feed me when they fed everyone else. When I complained of getting groped they said there was no one any of those guys would touch my fat ass, I probably just wanted them to because I was a little tranny faggot. Even the female officer ignored my claims of rape flashbacks. They made me wait FOUR HOURS after the Judge, (The only one in the whole damn Courthouse to read the notes and respect my gender) said I was free to go.
So let's review.
In the past 24 hours, I've been misgendered, physically and verbally assaulted, fat shamed, slut shamed, sexually assaulted while in custody, endangered by the Sheriffs who were supposede to keep me safe in custody, and generally made to feel like a fat ugly faggot in a dress, all because a prick with a badge didn't like me using the women's bathroom in his store.
God I want to fucking die.
I have court again on Monday for the bogus shoplifting charge I thought I'd beaten. I'm tired. I'm going to plead guilty and ask for Time Served despite being innocent because I don't have any faith in the Justice System anymore. In a case of my word against a cis male security gaurd, I won't win. I'm just the freak tranny, who's going to believe me?
I just got home from a night in jail you see. Technically I was in jail because I had a warrant out for my arrest, for a failure to appear at a court date I didn't even know I'd had, for a bogus shoplifting charge I thought I'd beaten a few months ago. But as I don't break the law, chances are I'd have never been in a position to have this warrant discovered had it not been for the transphobic cocksucker at Safeway.
See last night Fran and I made the two hour trip out to Port Coquitlam to meet my mom. We were waiting for her at the plaza near her house and I dipped into the Safeway to use the bathroom. On my way back out of the store a middle eastern man identifying himself as store security forced me physically back inside the store, choked me and said I was under arrest for trespassing, because, he said, I was violating a condition of my arrest from two weeks before by being on Safeway Property.
Now, how I managed to be in his store on Christmas Eve stealing hot dogs and DVD's when I was home on Swine flu Quarantine puking every half hour is a miracle I don't think I'm magic enough to be capable of, but the fact is he was insisting I was the man he'd arrested that night and screaming at me about being a perverted faggot for going into the women's washroom wearing a skirt.
So my night from hell begins with my being ungendered by a security guard insisting I'm a man and lying through his teeth about a non-existant prior arrest to justify his accosting of me and excessive force. I couldn't breathe as he was choking me. But by the time I convinced trhe store manager to check my id to confirm I'm female and check their own records to confirm my claim that the douchebag was lying, (I take a little comfort in the angry look the manager gave him at that point), the police had already been called.
So I apparently had a court date on December 19th that I missed. Mostly because no one bloody informed me I HAD one. So because of the warrant I was arrested. The minute I set foot in the cell the flashbacks began. I was fighting them the entire night. On the bright side, the cops at the police station respected the F on my ID and put me in the women's section.
The sheriffs at the courthouse this morning, not so much.
They put me in with men. They refused to feed me when they fed everyone else. When I complained of getting groped they said there was no one any of those guys would touch my fat ass, I probably just wanted them to because I was a little tranny faggot. Even the female officer ignored my claims of rape flashbacks. They made me wait FOUR HOURS after the Judge, (The only one in the whole damn Courthouse to read the notes and respect my gender) said I was free to go.
So let's review.
In the past 24 hours, I've been misgendered, physically and verbally assaulted, fat shamed, slut shamed, sexually assaulted while in custody, endangered by the Sheriffs who were supposede to keep me safe in custody, and generally made to feel like a fat ugly faggot in a dress, all because a prick with a badge didn't like me using the women's bathroom in his store.
God I want to fucking die.
I have court again on Monday for the bogus shoplifting charge I thought I'd beaten. I'm tired. I'm going to plead guilty and ask for Time Served despite being innocent because I don't have any faith in the Justice System anymore. In a case of my word against a cis male security gaurd, I won't win. I'm just the freak tranny, who's going to believe me?
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