Nerd is my Gender
What's yours?
-
I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens, what do I have to do so people will listen to me?
The late 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer, a victim of relentless anti-gay bullying, tagged “last rant”. How many more have to die before people will realize it doesn’t get better until we make it better?
-
Happy Bi Visibility Day!
Some people are bi. Get used to it.
I’m here; I’m queer; I’m used to it.
-
Dear Supporter of Marriage Equality:
First of all, thank you for caring! I’m glad that you don’t need to be a QUILTBAG person yourself in order to take a stand for what is right. I do, however, have one piece of advice:
Don’t postpone your marriage to make yourself a better straight ally.
Now, I don’t know you personally, so I don’t mean to presume your particular motivation for your actions. But perhaps you happen to share a few common sentiments with others I know who are able to legally marry their partners but are holding off on it because same-sex marriage is still not legal in their region, in which case I appreciate you listening to what I have to say.
First, consider that you’re undermining a very important tenant of marriage equality: that “gay marriage has nothing to do with the success of your straight marriage”. The most recent example I have is Jay Leno telling Michelle Bachmann that he’s been married 31 years, and can’t think of a single way that some other person’s ability to marry could harm his own marriage. So now I ask you to consider the correlary to that situation: how does your not being straight married help me get gay married? Answer: it doesn’t. Unless you consider it to be a form of public attention-raising. In which case…
You can raise awareness no matter what your own personal marital status happens to be. It doesn’t take a piece of paper in the pocket to attend pro-marriage rallies, to write letters to congress people, or to donate money to non-profit organizations. Besides, it’s just as easy to stand up and say “we’re a straight married couple who believe that every gay couple should be entitled to the same rights as us!” as it is to say “we’re a straight couple who refuse to marry until all gay partners are able to marry!” Either way, your support of marriage equality is much appreciated, and we hope you keep it up.
This brings me to a third thought. Again, I don’t presume to know your personal life, but I have spoken with a few straight couples who feel guilty about their marital status. They feel like they’re somehow flaunting their privilege by taking advantage of the superior rights offered to their partnership. They may even feel like gay couples resent their marriage. There are many ways to deal with feelings of guilt, and I can offer one possible solution:
Take all the money you save by being legally married vs cohabiting (or what have you), and donate it to the marriage equality organization of your choice. Any time you would have otherwise had to get a power of attorney, donate that money to charity. Every time you file your taxes jointly, also calculate the rate it would be if you both filed single, and donate the difference. With all that money you save by being on the same health insurance, set up a monthly deposit to your local LGBT center. Bet you never thought of getting married as a fundraiser before! Heck, you could even take a collection for donations at your wedding and at any anniversary celebrations you may hold.
I know there are many reasons people choose to marry or not to marry. I’ve been married, and now I’m with someone I’m not married to, though we have the legal right if we so choose. Life is complicated that way. But if the only reason you are holding out on marriage is for us QUILTBAG folk, I hope I’ve given you a bit more to weigh in on your decision.
P.S. If you’re one of those people who are using the whole “I don’t want to get married till the gays can” card as an excuse to get out of a marriage you wouldn’t even want in the first place, you’re a douche.
-
1. You are human.
You are worthy of respect. You deserve to be treated with the same dignity as anyone else. There is nothing inherently wrong with your gender. You are not broken, you are not disgusting, you do not deserve to be hurt.
This is something that everyone, especially trans people, should put on their mirror to read each morning when they wake up. Something that I have to relearn each and every day.
-
![Ditto:
Hint: I’m the cute one. [link]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmie2vdzqb1qhwxjeo1_250.jpg)
-
2. You’ve been brought up and live in a world that’s designed to erase and demonize your existence,
you’ve probably internalized a lot of that- and that’s not your fault. But it can be hard to deal with. But you aren’t alone in dealing with it. And sometimes you have to buy into it to be able to handle it (warning: anti-trans violence). And that’s okay.
It is hard to deal with. I’d internalized it to the point where I was afraid to meet with other trans people. But it was something I also felt like I had to do, and I’m glad I did. I could see the ways in which I am different from them, and also the ways I am the same, and that helps me to find myself. Now I have a safe space where I won’t be erased or demonized. I wish everyone could find a safe space of their own.
-
3. Your gender is no more or less than anyone else’s.
Your history doesn’t make you “not really” or “less” your gender than someone with a cis history, it just makes you a person of your gender with a different history.
So true. I wrote about this a while back, and I hope it reaches someone out there where they need it most: http://andythenerd.tumblr.com/post/4434296975/super-gender
-
4. You do not deserve to be held to higher standards than cis people.
You do not have to “prove” your gender by forcing yourself into societal roles that may not fit. You are not “failing” anyone by fitting into societal roles that are comfortable. It is not your job to break down the binary/patriarchy/or anything else. If you want to, go for it, but you have no obligation to do anything for cis people just because you are trans.
People don’t realize that’s what I was doing for two decades: trying to prove that I belonged as a woman, and that I was even a good one at that. But I was really trying to prove that to myself, and you know what? Can’t prove something is when it isn’t. Now I still have the urge to prove myself as genderqueer, but I’m really past that. Either who I am exists in the minds of those around me, or it doesn’t. I’m here, I’m open, but I’m not responsible for their lack of education.
-
5. Being yourself does not hurt trans rights
(so long as you aren’t trying to do so while stopping others from being who they are) and is not a reason why people don’t have to treat you with respect. There is nothing wrong with being a feminine man or masculine woman, or being a person who’s comfortable in their body, or being a person who doesn’t transition “all the way”, or being out about having a non-binary or genderqueer gender. You have not “failed” anyone by doing this, you are not “less” of your gender than someone else. Being who you are is not a valid argument for why people can’t treat you as who you truly are.
People ask me what makes me different from a woman who bucks all the gender roles but is still a woman. My answer is typically “she’s a woman”. Also, it’s ridiculous to imply that all people who buck gender roles do so in the same way and out of the same motivation. Some people do it for fun, some for politics, some for deep personal fulfillment, some for money, etc. I only can present my own experience. To say that I or anyone else is “doing it wrong” implies that we somehow owe you our gender. I owe it to myself to be myself for myself, and that’s it.
-
6. No one else has the right to say your body needs to be changed.
It only does if you need to change it. Or if you want to change it, that’s valid, too. Your body does not make you “less” your gender. It doesn’t make you “not really” your gender. It doesn’t mean you’re trapped in someone else’s body. You do not have to fix your body to “become” your gender- you already are your gender. All you need to do is what you need to do to be comfortable in your body. And if that includes reclaiming your right to label your own body, you are allowed to do that.
If I already am the gender I am, no matter what my body type, then it can be neither right nor wrong to change or not change my body. The sad fact is, society refuses to recognize people’s genders except by doing a panty-check, then also makes the means of changing one’s body out-of-reach to most people. That is cis privilege: your body is not questioned nor your medical care denied you on the basis of being the “wrong” gender. As a genderqueer person, there is no body type that society will accept as being the “correct” one for my gender. I don’t know if I’m more confounded or liberated by that fact - I’ll have to get back to you on that.
-
7. You have just as much of a right to privacy as anyone else.
You do not need to tell anyone about your body, your medical history, or anything else. Whether or not your body needs to be changed for you to be comfortable, you do not have to change it to deserve to be treated as who you are. You do not owe anyone intimate details about your personal life before you can be treated as who you are.
Before you ask someone a question about their body, as yourself this: does it pass the Great-Aunt Test? That means, is this something you’d want your great aunt to ask you loudly in a room full of your peers? ”Did you ever get that surgery on your genitals, Pat?” *shudder* Hopefully you get my point. And you know what? If you earn your friend’s trust, you’ll probably never even have to ask these sorts of questions to be let in on the personal details of hir life, because trans people need support just like anyone else. Just don’t assume you’re entitled to be a supporter simply on the basis of caring or curiosity.
-
Bullies Continue To Taunt Gay Teen Who Committed Suicide
What a great feat of bravery and skill it is to taunt a dead person. What courage! What magnanimity!
You might think that the people who bullied 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer with comments like “JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND UGLY. HE MUST DIE!” are completely ashamed of themselves now that Jamey committed suicide. However, you’d be wrong. The problem is you’re thinking like someone who isn’t utterly disgusting.
In an appearance on the Today show, Jamey’s parents, Tracy and Tim, revealed that bullies were celebrating his death at a dance his sister attended. Tracy says:
“She was having a great time, and all of a sudden a Lady Gaga song came on, and they all started chanting for Jamey, all his friends. Then the bullies that put him into this situation started chanting, ‘You’re better off dead!’ ‘We’re glad you’re dead!’ and things like that. My daughter came home all upset. It was supposed to be a time for her to grieve and have fun with her friends, and it turned into bullying even after he’s gone.”
Tim adds, “I can’t grasp it in my mind … I don’t know why anyone would do that. They have no heart, that’s basically what it comes down to.” You can watch the full interview below … then curl into a ball and weep for humanity.
-
8. You have no obligation to educate anyone.
This includes trans people, but is most important with cis people. You are not a walking encyclopedia of transgender and/or transsexual information, you are a person. You do not have to answer every question any cis person comes up with, you do not have to represent trans people as a whole, you do not have to bare the most personal and vulnerable parts of your soul to other people on demand.
This reminds me of Derailing for Dummies. There’s a reason the first item on that page is “if you won’t educate me, how can I learn?”, followed by “if you cared about these matters, you’d be willing to educate!” These are the two things that will cause a passionate person to get burnt out the quickest. I know from experience, because I do care, and so I am willing to educate.
It starts out simple enough, with a few basic questions for definitions and the sort. Nothing wrong with that (casting aside for the moment that 95% of these conversations take place on the internet, and the internet has Google). But then sooner or later, the question always comes up, explicit or implicit: “why do you have to be that way? why can’t you just be like everyone else?” Suddenly, I’ve gone from being teacher in a classroom to being primary suspect on the cross-examination stand.
I don’t believe most people intend to be hurtful by asking questions, but that doesn’t mean they’re not causing pain. A simple self-test by the curious can determine whether a question could be hurtful: how would I feel if this were my identity on trial? What if someone kept asking me how I know for sure my gender is real, and swept aside my best attempts at an explanation, demanding something “more real”? Then maybe we could come to the table seeing each other as people, and not as interactive museum exhibits.
-
9. Not educating people does not “hurt” trans rights.
NEVER let anyone try to guilt you into educating people or doing something you don’t want to do by insisting that doing otherwise will “destroy trans rights/acceptance/whatever”. Trying to force trans people to become walking information desks or to put themselves in dangerous situations regardless of whether or not you’re even up for dealing with this destroys trans rights and shows a great deal of intolerance. Asserting that you don’t have to tell anyone anything you don’t want to? That really doesn’t.
This is really difficult for me to internalize, mainly because I’m so passionate about trans rights. I am willing and eager to educate other people, in hopes of creating a more compassionate future for all of us. Unfortunately, these conversations are more often than not lacking in compassion for my struggle, and end up hurting me more than they help my cause. How does it help trans rights if it hurts trans people in the process?
(Source: derailingfordummies.com)
-
10. If you DO want to educate people, you are allowed to set limits and boundaries.
You are allowed to say that you won’t talk about certain issues, or that you will only talk about them on your terms. You are allowed to decide which people you will talk to about which issues. You are allowed to change these boundaries if you become uncomfortable educating people you were previously willing to educate. You are not obligated to educate anyone just because you educated someone else.
Even I can’t help but feel like I’m a bad person for declining to educate someone on the spot, so sometimes I feel the need to soothe my false feelings of guilt. A tip for others like me: keep a few good URLs on hand, so you can share those web resources you feel explain your issues the best. I find that external sources of information are best received when I say “you should read this; I’m not a particularly good writer, but they explain it better than I could in the next 10 minutes”. Yes, we all have the right to say “I don’t want to educate you” or even say nothing at all. I just wish I could claim that right and own it.
Genderqueer with a touch of happy humanism.
