Incredible.

True. For me, it’s not clear cut on whether to share or not.

I want other trans people to know; however, what can happen to trans people when they share their personal stories online — the level of hate speech, and sometimes even hate action, one can experience in sharing one’s own story.

I still hold that it’s best when more of us are out of the closet because as we become known my more members of society we become more accepted in society — look at how lesbian, gay, and bisexual civil rights have progressed with more community visibility since the Stonewall Uprising.

But what’s good for the community isn’t necessarily good for the individual. It’s not only discrimination and hate from some in broader society we face when we’re out, but hate from some within our own population of transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people that we face in a struggle for ordinary equality.

It’s hard to move forward when we’re eating our own. Cathartically, and from a position of warning others what the costs of being out may include, I feel a need to talk that concept of eating our own within the context of extreme behaviors.

The Avengers gets my recommend, but I was a comics geek in the 70′s.

I saw The Avengers in Imax 3D, and I think it was worth the ticket price — this is one of those films that’s going to lose something in 2D. And if you wait for the DVD or Blu Ray to see the film, it’s going to lose even more. I’d say the action sequences — especially to ones with the the digitally created Hulk — won’t be as good in 2D or on the small screen. This is a action film that really needs a big screen, and it really benefits from 3D.

…So I’m left wondering what exactly the point of this is.

One point is the concept of internalized transphobia, and how it can express itself in shame — shame for ourselves; shame for for our peers; and tolerating, accepting, or embracing shame/disgust that our families, our peers, our communities, and many members of broader society feel about us.

An implicit point is that over forty-percent of the population of transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people attempt suicide at some point in our lives, and that there is negative self-talk that goes with the desire to end one’s life.

Yup…The duplicity is a telling thing.

@AutumnSandeen Wow! Thanks for the kind post!— Brittany Novotny (@BrittanyOKC) March 28, 2012

Hey Rick,

Please stay away from violent or suicide imagery in disagreeing with Rep. Morris. We have enough violence being directed to LGBT community, and a suicide attempt rate of 41% in trans community.

Expressing a wish for violence towards others, or expressing a hope others outside community commit suicide, seems a wrong way to address the hate in others direct at us because of sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression. We can’t drive out darkness with more darkness; we can only drive out darkness with light.

I guess calling me a Republican is better than resorting to stating that I have an inability to pass, and that’s why I’m out. You know, where you started your critique of this post.

Mak, I have a point of view, I’m arguing the merits of my point of view; in comparrison, you’re arguing in significant part with ad homeinem arguments — you’ve repeatedly tried to change the argument from whether or not one should be out to one that turns on me personally. I hope in the future that when you want to discuss issues, you get past name-calling and completely mischaracterizing motives and stick to arguing your point of view on whatever the issue is at hand.

As to the point of view you made in that last comment — where you stated my words were so judgemental and “republican”…Well! My statement was a paraphrasing of a Cesar Chavez quote with the intent to make the statement more trans specific. The original Chavez quote:

In this world it is possible to achieve great material wealth, to live an opulent life. But a life built upon those things alone leaves a shallow legacy. In the end, we will be judged by other standards.

I’m not exactly developing my “republican” points of view from Republicans; I’ve developed my ideas in large part from reading the essays, speeches, and quotes of civil rights icons. So no, “my” ideas really aren’t really “mine and mine alone.”

In this case, my ideas about being out, about working on issues, and about suffering and sacrifice to achieve civil rights goals have maturated within me by reading the essays, speeches, and quotes of Harvey Milk, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Alice Paul.

Syvia Rivera also has influenced me too — You can read Leslie Feinberg’s interview of Rivera here. The last four paragraphs of the interview:

I’m glad I was in the Stonewall riot. I remember when someone threw a Molotov cocktail, I thought: “My god, the revolution is here. The revolution is finally here!”

I always believed that we would have a fight back. I just knew that we would fight back. I just didn’t know it would be that night.

I am proud of myself as being there that night. If I had lost that moment, I would have been kind of hurt because that’s when I saw the world change for me and my people.

Of course, we still got a long way ahead of us.

And I believe we still do.

Well, obviously we’re not going to agree on this.

But that said, wheras you perceived me as attempting to lay on a guilt trip on you, you definitely decided to “go there” and make a personal comment regarding my appearance, and suggested my appearance was the reason why I’m advocating trans people should be out.

Unless you’re following through with what you suggested people could do four years ago — stating that trans people can write, use their voice, or donate money for the cause — then what I said is still true: you’re leaving the work for the benefit of the next generations of trans people to others.

I know what you’re against — you’re against the idea that trans people should be visible in society. And if trans people are visible in society, you indicate your main belief is that they’re visible in society because they don’t pass — even though quite a number chose to be visible when they could fade away out of public view. But what I don’t know is what you’re for, and what you’ll work and sacrifice to achieve.

For me, I believe in the statements of Cesar Chavez:

It is not enough to teach our young people to be successful…so they can realize their ambitions, so they can earn good livings, so they can accumulate the material things that this society bestows. Those are worthwhile goals. But it is not enough to progress as individuals while our friends and neighbors are left behind.

And…

Perhaps we can bring the day when children will learn from their earliest days that being fully man and fully woman means to give one’s life to the liberation of the brother who suffers. It is up to each one of us. It won’t happen unless we decide to use our lives to show the way.

As well as this one from MLK Jr.:

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

My motivations are diferent that yours. I believe that that we, as a population of transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people, have much to do for those who come after us.

Well, I believe it’s just not enough to know what each of us as individuals are against. I believe each of us needs to know what we’re for, and then be willing to work and sacrifice for it. And what I’m for is justice and equal opportunity for the next generations of transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people, to include trans youth. For me, that’s what it means to be — as Cesar Chavez put it — fully woman.

So yes, Mak, I would rather you be out — not that I would force it on you, but I’d rather you chose it for yourself. It’s possible to achieve “passing” privilege, and to live a live where one is invisibly blended into society, but a life built upon those things leaves a pretty shallow legacy. In the end, I believe we will be judged by other standards.

Ah. I see you’ve written on this subject as “me” on the Transadvocate post Closets are for clothes, stealth is for planes. Back then you wrote:

…Some people can give their experience to help make people aware of trans issues. Other people can use their voice, or their writing skills. Others can yet help by giving money to a trans cause. No path is better than the other. Each person gives what they can, in the way that they can.

I don’t know you, and honestly, if you’re out because you can’t blend, then I fell sorry for you. If you’re out by choice, well you have a far thicker skin than I do, but just because YOU do, doesn’t make anyone who doesn’t a coward.

And, I get that. I believe we should be out, but that you don’t believe as I do doesn’t make you evil, just as what I believe is different than what you believe doesn’t make me evil. But, you were, in my opinion, quite right to say there are many other things to do for community besides being out and public as trans. And, I’m hopeful you’re doing some of those things.

I understand from searching online that you’ve had FFS. Appearance — “passing” — apparently is something that matters to you a great deal. And honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that.

However, please don’t project your concerns about appearance on me: I advocate being out because I strongly believe our next generations of trans people need as many of us to be visibly out in society — regardless whether we pass or not; regardless of whether we have to suffer discrimination and hate speech.

I don’t impinge your motives Mak for not being out, so please don’t impinge on mine; please don’t project your concerns or point of view on appearance on me as if your concerns or point of view are my concerns within the deepest depths of my soul. My concerns and my point of view are shaped by other values than yours — and again, that doesn’t make either of us evil, it just makes us different.

And you would be completely wrong, Mak.

Then your blending into society, Mak, is detrimental to the generations of trans people who come after you.

As Bayard Rustin said, “People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself…Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.”

I would say that your invisibility contributes to the number of states that don’t allow trans people to change their identification cards and birth certificates. I would say that your invisibility contributes to the trans people who don’t have access to appropriate healthcare — both for basic healthcare and for gender dysphoria. I would say that your invisibility contributes to not having employment and housing antidiscrimination protections in more than half of the United States based on gender identity and gender expression, as well as not having federal employment antidiscrimination protections.

There are transyouth who deserve a better world than most of us trans adults were born into. If you don’t join the struggle for their ordinary equality, for availability of appropriate and adequate healthcare for them, and for their ability to obtain appropriate identification documentation, then who are you relegating the responsibility for those things to?

And that’s the problem with what you describe as blending in. You leave the struggle for our next generations of trans adults and transyouth to others — and worse, you leave the fate of trans adults and transyouth to in part to the social conservatives. You know, the ones who would deny ordinary equality to all transgender, transsexual, and gender nonconforming people.

Ah. I should have said “published a study” or words to that effect, and made clear religious right orgs such as Focus on the Family (FOTF)/CitizenLink haven’t funded such a study, even though FOTF/CitizenLink is the main funder of “bathroom bill” ads in states and localities with antidiscrimination legislation on the basis of gender identity being considered.

I changed text in the essay to reflect those changes.

Zimble, the genre is specific.

Read the link for temporary transvestite films (which also applies to temporary transvestite televison programs) to see the elements for the temporary transvestite genre. (I provided the link in the piece for this comment thread.)

The film you’ve cited doesn’t meet the elements for the temporary transvestite genre.

I very much love Gone With The Wind and The Jack Benny Show, but I wouldn’t like to see these remade with the racial stereotyping in the film and in the TV show intact.

And Blackspoitation films? Same thing.

As you mentioned, Paul, there are really good films in the temporary transvestite genre, but their time is past. The elements of forced feminization and involve “trickery,” combined with the mysogenistic stereotyping of what femininity is that the genre’s crossdressers end up trying to emulate — well, these are bad for women of all stripes. The time for the temporary transvestite genre is past. In my opinion, the current effects of this genre end up being both anti-transgender and anti-woman — the effects end up being anti-civil rights. The genre ends up reinforcing sex and gender stereotypes in a way that is harmful to ordinary equality for both civil rights communities.

And let me be clear on my take on this: drag and the temporary transvestite genre are two very different things. I’m not equating the two. Drag most often doesn’t imply trickery, and it doesn’t by design function to reinforce negative sex and gender stereotypes — those are significant distinctions.

Kewl beans!

I’ll be hoping she uses the term transgender in her response, as well as on her website.

I’m on it Jake! We’ll let the trans asexual do the kid raising! =P

I commented both on the Facebook page for this story, as well as on the webpage for this story.

Pam and Alvin both beat me to posting on this story — but if they hadn’t already posted on this, I definitely would have. What a disgraceful piece of “balanced” journalism — giving two sides of a story, but fact free on what the research and the experts say on the subject.

I also imagine nebulous goods the HRC could accomplish under this opportunity of new leadership — perhaps even the rest of the LGBT movement — such as embracing radical inclusivity as a value.

Such as, who can seriously imagine that the HRC’s executive director committee and board select a bisexual or transgender person as the executive director? And/or an African-American, Hispanic-American, or Asian American at the helm?

Some of the most important things I believe the HRC can accomplish under a new executive director are those somewhat nebulous sounding changes to their corporate culture. Besides the changes that Matt Foreman suggests, a culture of radical inclusivity perhaps should be added to that list.