My rejection of the LGBT model --talk about a social construct-- finally hinges on the T*. I find no grounds on which I would considering myself a part of such a tribe. To use a family analogy, I may (and do) find the attitudes and behavior of gay men largely off-putting, but it's somewhat like a family argument. He might be an idiot, but he's your cousin.
I feel no such affinity with transgenders. And the inclusion of the T with the LGB radically alters the meaning of this "community" from one based on the shape of your eros to to one based on the shape of your plumbing. Actually, that was just a cheap parallel I couldn't resist. What it actually does is base the common identity on gender deviance rather than same-gender attraction. It torques the idea of a man who is a man, loving another man into a human who looks like a man, transcending his gender into...what?
It is bizarre. Who on earth is more sharply aware of the difference between men and women than homosexuals or transgenders? In the first case, your life can be wholly overthrown because you don't respond erotically to the opposite sex, but to your own. And in the second, your desire to escape your sex is so overwhelming that you go through expensive and physically radical surgery and treatment to escape into the opposite one?
As well, latest studies indicate that transgenders are .3% --that's 3 in 1000-- of the population (and the total G, L and B population itself only about 3.5% or 4%).
Here endeth the ranting.
I called this post Micro and Macro. The above paragraphs were about the Macro, the transgender ideology and politics, for which I have no use at all. But as usual with ExCathedra, I can take a different attitude on the Micro level, individuals.
The first transgender I ever knew was an FTM, a very likeable guy whose gender history was unknown to and unsuspected by me until he told me. I knew him as a man and could not imagine him as a female. I have met and known quite a few trangenders since then and very few of them, if any, have given me the same sense of congruence that he did.
But here's a trans-man who does. As a female, a German pole vaulting champion. I have to admit, the fact that his transition treatment and surgery so successfully transformed his athletic frame and boyish face into a very good looking individual is a part of it. Having watched a video interview with him, he gives me the same sense of calm congruence about his identity.
*Although even without it, I find the compulsive victimism, obligatory leftism and feminist-driven androphobia deeply off-putting.
I feel no such affinity with transgenders. And the inclusion of the T with the LGB radically alters the meaning of this "community" from one based on the shape of your eros to to one based on the shape of your plumbing. Actually, that was just a cheap parallel I couldn't resist. What it actually does is base the common identity on gender deviance rather than same-gender attraction. It torques the idea of a man who is a man, loving another man into a human who looks like a man, transcending his gender into...what?
It is bizarre. Who on earth is more sharply aware of the difference between men and women than homosexuals or transgenders? In the first case, your life can be wholly overthrown because you don't respond erotically to the opposite sex, but to your own. And in the second, your desire to escape your sex is so overwhelming that you go through expensive and physically radical surgery and treatment to escape into the opposite one?
As well, latest studies indicate that transgenders are .3% --that's 3 in 1000-- of the population (and the total G, L and B population itself only about 3.5% or 4%).
Here endeth the ranting.
I called this post Micro and Macro. The above paragraphs were about the Macro, the transgender ideology and politics, for which I have no use at all. But as usual with ExCathedra, I can take a different attitude on the Micro level, individuals.
The first transgender I ever knew was an FTM, a very likeable guy whose gender history was unknown to and unsuspected by me until he told me. I knew him as a man and could not imagine him as a female. I have met and known quite a few trangenders since then and very few of them, if any, have given me the same sense of congruence that he did.
But here's a trans-man who does. As a female, a German pole vaulting champion. I have to admit, the fact that his transition treatment and surgery so successfully transformed his athletic frame and boyish face into a very good looking individual is a part of it. Having watched a video interview with him, he gives me the same sense of calm congruence about his identity.
*Although even without it, I find the compulsive victimism, obligatory leftism and feminist-driven androphobia deeply off-putting.
3 comments:
I think in a previous post you said, "they lost me at the T". Indeed.
I agree. But strangely enough the transgenders that I have meet were some of the most nicest people within the queer community I have ever met. Perhaps it's because out of all of us they tend to have suffered the most.
My theme of late: nice individuals belonging to inimical groups. Me, exhibit A! LOL.
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