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!

My Brief Delusional Time As A Lesbian

This morning I was lying in bed considering what to wear. I sleep naked these days, because I've enjoyed the new found freedom that being physically female brings. 

What I was wondering was, what to clothe my body with once I got out of bed, and despite the personal style I've developed over the past few years, I'm now totally at a loss for what to pick in my closet.

Being female, albeit a transgender female now 6 years post-op, the choice should have been clear to me. The reason for this dilemma is that I was told last night by a person of some prominence in the local lesbian community, that I "dress like a drag queen".

Alternative Healing

I was impressed by two stories this week. I know, it is only Tuesday, but I am already beginning to think it will take something pretty extraordinary to top the past few days, at least for me - and at least, in the field of human rights in South Africa. 

Satan's Package

A Facebook friend left the following comment on my wall the other day:

"My girlfriend is an 'ex-miracle'. Her step family used to parade her around to their circle of churches and proclaimed to anyone that would listen that she was "HEALED" of being a lesbian. I have since been called (by these same family members) "SATANS PACKAGE".  

 

I have to wonder at their arrogance - they proclaim an all powerful God, and yet don't trust him enough to create people as He sees fit. They feel that they need to spend their lives trying to 'fix' what He created so that we all fit into perfect Christian-shaped blocks to make THEM feel acceptable. If God wanted robots he would have created robots... a whole world full of happy-clappy, heterosexual, hymn singing, judgmental pharisees."

Very true, very fitting and very well said.