Despicable.

Thanks on the “welcome back.” I’ve been in a months and months long funk — well, major depression actually — that I seem to finally be emerging from. And, as you might guess, the cyberharassment I was subjected significantly contributed to that long-lasting depression. Along with the cyberharassment component came a came family and relationship components I can’t talk about publicly.

But that said, I’ve recently taken my voice back — I’m finding I need to feel vital by speaking and acting on issues I care about. Speaking and acting is helping me get out of the funk.

So, if all goes to plan, I’ll be writing more.

And btw, if you really miss me I write the weekly Trans Progressive column for LGBT Weekly. =)

As I figured, you won’t or can’t identify where I’m alledgedly whining.

You forget that at Stonewall, the a very significant number of the folk who participate in the riot and follow-up uprising were called “queens” — now divided into folk who divide now into who we would now call drag queens and transgender people, to include Syvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson.

You’re probably not aware that the lead attorney who successfully argued for marriage equality at the California Supreme Court was NCLR attorney Shannon Minter — before Prop 8 repealed that California court decision — is a trans man.

You’re also probably not aware that the Executive Director of Outserve-SLDN, who is arguing for spousal benefits for L, G, and B servicemembers is a trans woman — Allyson Robinson.

Trans people are very much a part of what you consider gay community, and have been fighting for the ordinary equality of gay and lesbian folk. We’re part of your community fighting for your ordinary equality whether or not you choose to fight for trans people’s ordinary equality.

Noting is not the same as whining. Please point out where in the commentary you believe I’m whining.

I haven’t had you comment on a commentary of mine in awhile, SciFi Geek, so let me say “Hello!”

The comment by you is really an effort in deraling. You’ve made sure that I know you consider trans issues issues to be completely trivial — which is significant since I’m very publicly trans. You’re more than implying I enjoy feeling hurt so much that I look for reasons to be hurt and offended. The idea that anyone enjoys being hurt and discriminated against as a daily practice is so preposterous it could only be believed by someone with no empathy — someone who has no idea what it’s like to be a member of a significantly marginalized class.

I wasn’t feeling hurt when I wrote this piece; I don’t feel hurt now — my commentary wasn’t expressing any sense of hurt. But claiming I wrote my piece as an exercise of me feeling hurt for the sake of feeling hurt? That is a pure Deraliling For Dummies argument.

At a minimum, your tack is insensitive. And I get it: trans issues aren’t your issues, and you make no bones about it.

I’m not feeling slighted, but instead I thought that using gay instead of LGBT was notable and significant, so I noted it.

And to add to that thought, I included a list of things that President Obama and/or his administration have accomplished for trans people. It isn’t progress towards trans equality where the Obama administration progress towards a just an equitable society is lacking, but instead what could be said to be lacking is public acknowlegement that equality measured by gender identity and expression is an equality narrative of note in the same way that as equality narratives measured by race, gender, and disability are of note.

lol!

I don’t think you’ll find any less to write about in years to come. =)

Documentation, documentation, documentation. I’d hope the station has documentation to prove what they said happened actually happened, such as documentation of multiple meetings where they told the meteorologist she was repeatedly violating the new policy.

Whether there was an email announcement of the new policy as the station claims, or announcement of the new policy at a staff meeting that not all of the staff attended as the meteorologist claimed, has the same weight as an actual update of the station’s policy manual seems to me to be a failure of station management and the human relations department.

The policy manual should have been quickly updated — late August to early December allowed plenty of time for the station to update their policy manual. And once the policy manual was change, the staff should have been made to sign documentation stating that they’d read and understood this new and important change to the previous social media commenting policy. That these things didn’t happens speaks volumes about the poor management and inadequate functioning of the human relations department.

And, of course, the sad thing now is that when one looks at the linked Facebook page for the station, the four newscasters at the top of the page are all white. That alone doesn’t speak well of the station’s commitment to diversity; that gives me reason to believe the station’s accounting of what happened didn’t happen, and that they don’t have the documentation to prove their account of the story is true.

X3

I’m a transgender woman who is attracted to women. Most transgender people that aren’t heterosexual — the nubers are at least 64a%. Your basic premise on trans people’s sexual orientation is completely wrongheaded.

Kisses and hugs in return. =)

Okay, it’s 7:01 EDT, and 4:01 PDT folks. The discussion is now formally closed — at least in this comment thread. Let me echo Kate’s thanks to all who participated and lurked, and special thanks to Kate for graciously sharing her time with us.

This has been a wonderful discussion folks — especially the tranny part of the discussion. On a personal I know I’m going to be thinking about my position on the word because of this and offline discussions I’ve had with Kate — I’m still learning from Kate.

Oops. With three minutes left, no time for a pets question answer I’m guessing.

I note from the book that your pets are pretty important to you. What do you receive from your pets that causes them to be important to you?

Stepping out of my role as moderator for a moment, I learned a lot from those forced fem novels myself — such as when my nipples hurt from the hormones, I’d learned about those painful nodules under the areola from a Sandy Thomas published novel. In the seventies and eighties before the internet, they were a source of a lot of good transition information.

Are you a comic book geek as well? If so, your favorite superhero?

I know quite a few trans women who learned a lot of what they initially knew about transsexual people from reading tranny porn and forced feminization stories (such as what used to be up at Fictionsmania and the Sandy Thomas line of forced femination novels). I’m curious: is this where you learned a lot about trans people first too?

Stephanie Stevens asked what has been your most ‘challenging’ experience over the years, and how you dealt with it.