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.

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is Not Necessarily My Friend

Why is it that when people who use a word like 'tranny' to describe transgender people are told, by a transgender person, that the word is derogatory and offensive towards transgender people, they rally and insist that it isn't?

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".

So You Think You're A Good Person?

Self-acceptance -  the acceptance of the person we are, with whatever defects and flaws - imperfections - and even our perfections, determines who we are and who we become. How can we work towards becoming anything else if we don't even know who we are now? How can you chart a course from A to B if you don't even know where A is, or where B is in relation to you? If you don't even know what your own strengths and weaknesses - and character flaws are - how can you know what to work on, and where to improve, and what to leave behind?

Whatever we are now, we all began as something else. Personally, I'm far more partial to the view that "I am what I choose to accept I am", and "I am what I want to be". 

I am what I am. Nice sentiment that. But is it that simple? 

Challenges of Life

I believe where it is SAFE to do so, transgender people should be out and proud. And where it isn't safe, they should be proud if not out - and they should still work for equality, dignity and human rights so that they - and the generations that are to come - one day can be out. Nobody cares about people they don't know about, folks. 

When people don't remind folks that they really do exist, the haters, purists and bigots like to believe and pretend that they don't.

Bollocks And Bellyaching

Recently I saw an article posted by a transsexual sister activist about the failings of the alliance of the Pink Community. The article was very melodramatic, bordering on the hysterical. In fact, I feel it was nothing short of a load of bollocks and bellyaching.

More Separate, Less Equal

Despite the passing of marriage laws in South Africa in 2006, true marriage equality is still elusive in South Africa. Yes, gay and transgender people can and do marry, but how many people are aware that marriage for gay people is still codified under a separate act?

Mistaken Identity

Last night I came upon a blog which claimed to be feminist. Now I have no problem with feminists, in fact I am also a proud feminist (how can I be a human rights activist otherwise?) - and in the course of my activism for the pink community, I try to get a shot or two in for feminism also. After all, as a trans-woman I am also a woman and sensitive to the sexism and patriarchal attitudes that I face just as any cis-gender woman does. I am sad to say it, but the site in question also turned out to be transphobic in nature.

The owner, "Margaret" - wrote a post called "No Such Thing As A Transsexual" and proceeded to criticize transgender people to the point where I could actually forget it was a woman writing, and not a trans-misogynistic, heterosexist, homophobic bigot of the right wing. The only thing I did not see displayed was the rabid religious fundamentalist tendency to dump a ream of rhetorical religious references to somehow "prove" their point. Instead, scant references were made to the typical right-wing conservative propaganda machine, which has about the same basis in fact as Harry Potter is a world religion. The comments left by a gaggle of her goose-stepping cis-sexist wing men - and herself, simply expounded upon their clear bigotry against trans-women - and transsexual, and even gay people in general.

Let's start with the title:

What's Good For The Goose, Is Good For The Goose

I notice many cis-feminists out there attacking trans-women and berating them as "male pretenders." It makes me mad. After all, what does it take to be a woman? How much must a trans-woman cut off before she isn't considered "male" by these hypocrites? Some are truly hateful in their argument, leading me to believe that they hate anything which is - or was - in any way, shape or form masculine - even in terms of origin, even if no trace at all of that remains.

As one who supports democracy and freedom of conscience, it is my firm belief that cis-feminists are entitled to their erroneous opinion that trans-women are "men" - even if it proves that they are insensitive, blithering idiots.