What Does Being Transgender Bring To My Writing?

Hello! :)

Today I'd like to discuss the question: "What does being transgender bring to my writing?"

It's a question I was asked recently by someone, and so after a little thought, I'm here to answer it.

It's 2019 now, and it's been 19 years since I started transition and 13 years since I had my final surgeries. As a matter of interest, since I woke up after my "big op" on January 10, 2006, I felt completely natural - and above all, whole and complete! As a result, I sometimes have to stop and think to remember what it was like to have grown up and lived a male life.

New Release: "The Pink Community - The Facts" Second Edition!

New release: "The Pink Community – The Facts" - Second Edition! Back in 2009 when I was in full swing of my human rights advocacy and running two LGBT rights groups (SA GLAAD and ECGLA), I put together an online information resource which mainly consisted of useful quotes and links to articles online.

As an activist who campaigned a lot on social media against bigotry in form of homophobia and transphobia, these links came in handy to post as replies to enraged bigots, rather than typing out lengthy replies each time! Instead, the link would manifest with a reference to a useful scientific or medical article that would invalidate the bigot's viewpoint, and they would be left there, seething, embarrassed, with egg on their faces!

Gradually this list grew until it migrated from a text file I kept on my PC, into a Word document - and then, when I started my blog "Sour Grapes: The Fruit of Ignorance", I dedicated several pages to it there. Later, in about 2012, I migrated it to my official author site, where it still lurks, as a free resource for human rights advocacy. This allowed for page hierarchies rather than just a huge cluster (or clutter!) of pages on a site!

What DO I Really Want?

It's regarded as naive' to want everyone to 'just get along' and 'make nice'... but nevertheless, that's all I really want from the world. Every day as a human rights advocate I see words spoken by people consumed by anger and hatred towards other people, and it saddens me. Yes, I've spoken out in anger before too, and I will again today and tomorrow... but that's a reaction to the hatred and anger of others - and the acts of cruelty committed out of their hatred and anger. At least I am above committing such acts of hatred and cruelty, unlike those I usually take on as an activist.

Russia Has Lost It's Soul... And Its Mind

Russia has begun a very enthusiastic crack-down on LGBT people, and it's using Christian religion and junk-science being peddled by Scott Lively as justification. It's very concerning. Unfortunately this is what happens when religious conservativism is allowed to run riot, and when that very important line between church and state is erased.

Change Is As Change Does

The DA is virtually the only party in this country which includes the rights of people on the basis of gender, identity, gender identity and sexual orientation in its policies and manifestos. 

To this day, I feel that there is no viable alternative to the DA in securing the promises in the Constitution of South Africa, which pertain to freedom, equality and equal opportunity for all.

However, the recent events surrounding the matter of the Traditional Leader's Bill, and the careless statement made by Mr de Freitas as a representative of the DA - whether he himself is gay or not, have cast a different light on the Democratic Alliance and its stance on civil rights and protection issues.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

WARNING - contains honest opinion of the author about ChristianISM (i.e. Christian terrorism), righteous indignation, and some good, down to earth home truths. 

The willfully ignorant may be offended.

22 Things Heterosexual Couples Take For Granted When Getting Married

Lists have been on my mind lately, so I thought I would run with it. Today's list is about things heterosexual couples can expect or take for granted when getting married:

Genocide In Eight Easy Steps

"Never again", the world says - and yet genocide has occurred numerous times since 1945. The most infamous recent example is in Rwanda, but Saddam Hussein also dabbled in genocide against the Kurds in Iraq back in the 1980's. And it still goes on today - with the state-sponsored murders of gay people in Iran, the religious fundamentalist militias in Iraq, the mob violence and murders of gay people in Jamaica and Uganda. The laws being passed in numerous countries which turn ordinary people into criminals and fugitives based solely on their sexuality or gender identity are a precursor to genocide. They put it in people's minds that such people are a threat and are in fact criminals.

Doing Unto Others

Reports of a large billboard on the side of a busy public highway in a big city with the words "SOUTH AFRICA: TURN TO GOD" and some vague bible reference beneath it, makes me think deep thoughts.

Wow.

Isn't this illegal? If it isn't, it should be.

I can already hear the hackles raising on the necks of folks who would like very much to burn me at the stake for saying something like that, but wait - put down those matches, bro - and hear me out first.

Logic Bomb

There are a few things that have stood out to me in my campaign for equality for the pink community. Of these, one that stands out the most is the liturgy used by people who fight against gay rights - who call equal civil rights for GLBTI people "special rights". This is of course a horrific lie - made all the more so by the underlying hatred and malice concealed by the simplistic and exclusionary reasoning they employ.

Human Soup

"DEMAND same rights and same opportunities as the heterosexual community. After all, Female, Black, Asian, Homosexual, Male, Jew, Muslim, Christian, we are all part of the soup that makes up HUMANITY. Our differences make us the same. We need to stop the atrocities than man puts on man."

This quote I found on a website is a comment on a very provocative concept today - human rights - and who is or isn't "human enough" to qualify. As always, it raises more questions for me.

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

If a gay community leader began preaching "reparative therapy" how long would he or she remain a gay community leader? Interesting question.

It seems people choose their leaders because they agree with their own views - or because they feel these leaders have their best interests at heart. Clearly the above example illustrates my point. A gay leader preaching "ex-gay" dogma and "reparative therapy" clearly does not have the best interests of the gay community at heart - but the complete polar opposite. In fact, I would say this person would be ostracized from their community as a traitor - and with good reason.

Likewise, if a woman begins preaching on behalf of the patriarchy - against feminism - for me, all sorts of warning bells and alarms go off.

Hmm. Parrot indeed.

A Summary Of Straight Privilege In Daily Life

The other day I found online a list of observations made by a class of heterosexual university students in the USA, asked to think about advantages held by heterosexual students over their non-heterosexual counterparts. I think they made a very good effort, and I think doing such an exercise helps to broaden the mind.

It certainly helps to show others how fortunate they are - and highlights the clear advantages straight people have over us - and thereby reveals the inequalities in society we face today. Hopefully this will show people why it is we fight for equal rights - and that we really have a few good reasons to gripe after all.

I thought about it and worked through the original posting, making some additions of my own - and this is what I came up with:

Sex, Drugs And Diversity

"Gay activists are outraged after Xavier High School, a Catholic school in Albury, Australia published an anti-gay piece by a former student in its alumni newsletter. "Writing in a letter to the editor in the newsletter, former Xavier student Matt Price entreated “a world free from homosexuals”, who he said lived lives devoted to drugs and sex.

His letter called for businesses not to employ homosexuals, with Price revealing that he lobbies CEOs with his message." http://queersunited.blogspot.com/2009/07/australian-high-school-publishes-piece.html

Interesting.

The Dogs Of War

When the new SA Constitution became fact and law back in the early 90's, discrimination in South Africa against gay and transgender people instantly passed into history and lore.

No?

You don't agree?

Why not?

If you are one of the folks who think I have been smoking my underwear and you insist that "of course we have equality now" - let me point out the following:

School Of Thought

It seems in recent times, with gay-hating groups getting trounced on the grounds of attacking homosexuality in terms of "nature versus nurture" and on the subject of Pride events - that they cling to that also disproved mainstay of the anti-gay movement - "homosexuals are pedophiles". Unable to argue the facts to the contrary in these other matters, they then try to show that gay people want to lower the age of consent "because they are after our children" - for the reason that they also push the cliche'd and just as inaccurate belief that gay people become gay through "recruiting".

Flexible Morality & Other Fairy Tales

SA Government has today launched into a tirade of criticism of Madagascar's latest coup. They have also asked the AU to expell Madagascar from membership on this basis. Curiously enough, they claim they will not support a government which has taken power through undemocratic means yadda, yadda, yadda. Pull the other one, apparently it has bells on.

Interesting hypocrisy. For quite some time they have done or said nothing at all of the kind for our friendly northern neighbours in ZimBOBwe who have for a decade or so been suffering under the yoke of a senile fool who seeks his own glorification and enrichment and has set these goals ahead of the good of his own people and is not even moved by their suffering. He has insanely clung to power through intimidation, violence, corruption and manipulation of election results - and still, STILL - after nearly railroading unity government negotiations for months, he is referred to as PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe. Why is that?

God™ Created Heterosexist Marriage ©

The ongoing debate about same gender marriage is not simply about same gender marriage – it is about the right to co-exist, and to do so freely and equally. I do not see the point in forcing churches or “men of god” into presiding over wedding ceremonies of people whom they may despise. But I do feel that the church has no place in politically opposing the right of people to marry, whether it be civil or religious – or to try to “copyright” the word “marriage”.