The Invisible girl

Kate Bornstein’s autobiography

Just thought I’d post a link to Kate Bornstein’s autobiography A Queer and Pleasant Danger.

For those who don’t know, Kate Bornstein is an American author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist. She’s known for writing books such as Gender Outlaws, My Gender Workbook, and Hello Cruel World.

This autobiography starts out during Kate’s early childhood, when she was living as a Jewish boy in New-Jersey. Eventually, Kate grows up and decides to join the Church of Scientology. After being kicked out, Bornstein decides to explore her gender identity, moving away from her role as a birth assigned male, into a new life entirely.

I finished the book last night, and I must say, it was a real exciting and wonderful journey. I do recommend reading it. Whether you’re trans* or not, this is a truly fascinating insight into the life of an incredibly unique individual.

Purchase here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Queer-Pleasant-Danger-Jewish-Scientology/dp/0807001651/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

If you’re a feminist who understands the (apparently not) radical concept that women can have penises and men can have vaginas (and that there are people with either or both of those who may very well identify as neither a man nor a woman), would you mind reblogging this? I could really use a little faith in humanity being restored right about now.

(Source: coffeeandfisting)

Gender should not be dictated by our genitals

I’ve just returned from a friend’s house where a rather heated argument regarding trans* identity broke out. It was I against three people. I didn’t want to argue, but I just couldn’t help myself.

One of my mates turned the channel over to Big Brother. I never wanted them to put it on in the first place, as I knew that there was a transsexual man on the show this year, and that the people I was with would more than likely make some sort of bigoted remark toward him.

My fears were correct, as the three people with me began referring to this guy as a “she”. They also began to refer to him as a weirdo too, which was just too cruel for my ears to take. I couldn’t endure it any longer; I just had to correct them on their pronouns and insults. I told them that he identifies as a man, he lives as a man and therefore he is a man, regardless of his initial birth assigned gender.

Without a moment’s hesitation, they pounced on me like wolves; telling me that I was wrong in my claims. I tried to tell them that someones birth genitals and biology does not necessarily define them as simply a man or a woman.

They retorted by telling me that biology determines everything in regards to their gender, and that is - according to them - a stone cold fact which cannot be changed. I tried with all my might to tell them that gender expression and gender identity is so much more than this. I wanted them to see that humans are more than just their chromosomes and genitals. Sadly, my words fell upon deaf ears.

I couldn’t sway their world view. These three people were convinced that I was deluded. “Everything’s based on science” they said, “and science says that the person on the [television] screen is a woman!”

This is a cruel assumption. This traditional idea of the male and female binary is not simply what makes a person a boy or a girl. People must move away from this habitual beleif that sex and gender are the exact same thing. Yes, a majority of us are assigned a specific gender by our doctors at birth, but that doesn’t make it official or final.

It really does saden me. All this talk of “people with penises are men, people with vaginas are women” is merely oppressing the freedom of gender expression and gender identity. Let people live in the gender that they want to live in, despite the goddamn organ that happens to exist between their legs. What’s downstairs is no one elses bleeding business anyway!

I’d truely love for my friends to be able to understand gender diversity in the way that I do. But every time this goddamn subject pops up, I get offended and we end up arguing about it.

It’s a shame, because it means that if I do decided to start living as a woman, they’ll probably never accept me as one. They know that I was born a “guy”, therefore they’ll forever ignore my desired identity based on my DNA.

As my friend drove me home, I just wanted to burst into tears. I was seconds away from just admitting “I’m transgender. That’s why I was distressed by what you were saying.”

I was so close to blurting it out, but I backed out at the last second. I decided that coming out to my friend whilst upset and mad was not the right way to go about this situation.

So now I’m back at home and I feel like dirt. Whenever I have these arguments with people I feel so hopelessly alone in the world. I bet they’re all bitching about me now: saying how daft my claims were.

I just wish that they could understand that peoples identity should not be solely defined by their genitals. Surely in the 21st century, people can be more open minded about such subjects. I just hope, that one day, societies perceptions toward gender will evolve and reshape themselves for the better.

Everyone’s beautiful

The other day, I wrote a rather dismal post that involved me jealously moaning about a teenage trans* girl who I thought was far better looking than me. Looking back on that blog now has made me realise just what a rude and selfish fool I was being. I say this because today I’ve realised that absolutely everyone is beautiful, despite what they might think.

I understand that this may sound like one of those clichéd ridden, feel-good blogs, and perhaps it is, but that doesn’t make my my words any less valid. I earnestly believe that whether you’re overweight, underweight, short, tall, hairy, hairless, scruffy, tidy, muscular, puny, masculine or feminine; we’re all extraordinarily gorgeous in our own unique and wonderful ways.

People may judge you for the way that you might look, but their opinion isn’t factual. They have no evidence to back their words up with. Just because a neighbour or a friend might think that you’re weird looking or unappealing does not mean that they’ve uncovered some universal truth. Those people are not your designer and they didn’t create the concept of beauty. They just happen to possess an opinion of what is fetching and what is the opposite. Their perspectives are not universal and there shall always be people who disagree with them.

Even if a large proportion of society beleives that someone is considered ugly, it doesn’t make them right. Many people were once convinced that the world was flat, yet look how wrong that turned out to be. You don’t see professors of geology going “well all evidence suggests that the earth is spherical in shape, but then to counter that, people did say that it was flat.” Of course they don’t. They simply admit that everyone was completely wrong.

At university, there was a young girl named Lilly. Lilly was a 20 year old trans* woman who was often mocked and criticised for “not being feminine enough”. Her housemates called her ugly and some people even got annoyed that she “didn’t make a convincing enough female”. But guess what? I saw her, and they were wrong! She was an attractive girl. So what if she didn’t totally “pass” in the conventional birth-assigned-female way. She made a good looking woman. Girls most certainly do not need to be 100% feminine to look good; they look great in every shape and size.

Society has built this paradigm of what is ugly and what is beautiful. The social engineers of society (e.g. TV, films, parents, peers, teachers and magazines) have fed us this dumb lie that a certain type of girl is beautiful; whilst anyone who doesn’t match their criteria is apparently unworthy of attention. What a pathetic little lie this paradigm is. Yes, the slim and feminine women in these magazines and films do look fantastic, but so does every other girl.

And for that matter, every single gender that exists looks fantastic. This is not just a “girls are beautiful” post. Every goddamn human looks superb in one way or another.

If anyone out there feels like crap because some heartless fool called them fat, manly, ugly or whorish, tell them to get stuffed. People criticise others no matter what they look like.

I get criticised all the time; no matter how I look.

Back in 2008 I was fifteen stone, whereas today I’m ten stone. Back then, my friends use to call me fat. They told me that I needed to get to the gym, that I should buy some bigger clothes and that I must quit the booze before I get fatter. Today, however, my friends’ say I look ill. They insist that I stop exercising so profusely, that I need to start purchasing clothes for a slimmer build and that I need to get a goddamn Guinness down my throat before I curl over and die.

But screw them; I like my new slim look. I love working out, eating healthily and coming across as more feminine. They may not like it, but then I’m not doing it for them; I’m doing it all for me. And if I get big again, well so what. I enjoyed myself when I was fifteen stone. I ate well and I enjoyed my booze. Doesn’t matter what my friends and enemies thought about me. It’s not their goddamn body!   

So on the whole, my self-pitying blog from several days ago is a load of old tosh. Whether you’re cis or trans*, everybody looks bloody fabulous, including me. Does that make me a self-loving fool? Why yes it does, but then everyone should feel that way about themselves, because they’re goddamn incredible!

Remember that judgements are light years away from facts; they’re just the by-products of idiots who can’t keep their silly traps shut.

Debating with friends: a bleeding waste of time

It happens all the time. I’m down the pub with a group of friends. At first, everything is hunky dory. We’re chatting about our day, joking about something one of us did during a drunken night out, or rambling on about the latest film/tv show.

Then, at some point or another, one of us will say something that triggers a disagreement. It can be absolutely anything, but the moment one of us objects, everything kicks off.

The next thing you know, the table divides into opposing groups.  Sometimes, it can be a petty little squabble over who likes or hates Lady Gaga; at other times, it can be an hour long battle over our political and religious ideologies.

Some people absolutely adore debating with their friends and enemies. They feel it flexes their mental muscles, strengthens their communication skills and helps to teach a lesson to those who don’t know any better. But I don’t give a damn what it does for others, I despise it with a passion.

Watching a debate occure can be quite an interesting experience. So long as I’m not an active participant in the discussion, all is well. Two people disagreeing over something can be both entertaining and educational. Whether it’s the enjoyment of two buffoons bickering over their favourite movie or a couple of intelligent individuals tackling a tricky subject, the whole event can be an incredibly enlightening experience.

But when I’m actively involved in a disagreement, it’s a walking nightmare. I sweat copiously, stammer uncontrollably, grow frustrated at my opponents opinions and quickly become offended when the opposing side resorts to petty insults (e.g. “you’re an idiot” or “I know more about this than you”).

The major problem with debating amongst friends is that both sides are often too arrogant to reason with. It doesn’t really matter what you’re discussing as each side is religiously convinced that their claims are 100% correct.

When you’re passively observing an argument, you can indeed acquire information from both viewpoints. You’ve nothing to prove and no ego to preserve; freeing yourself to learn from what is being said.

When you’re slap bang in the middle of a disagreement, however, you couldn’t give a toss about what the other person says. All people care about is throwing as many ideas and statistics at their opponent’s face as is humanly possible.

Even if one side has a more valid and watertight opinion, the opposing team will rarely change their stance. When was the last time you saw a conservative student agree with a liberal student (or vice versa of course)?

This happened to me last week. I was in the pub with my friend Anton. At random, he began to badmouth another friend’s girlfriend. Despite our friend absolutely adoring his girlfriend, Anton arrogantly stated that she should be taken away from him immediately. His reason was because she suffers from depression and self-harms. In his opinion, self-harm is mutilation and therefore morally wrong, whilst depression has negative effects on people close to the sufferer.

I immediately became enraged at his claims, accusing him of being thoughtless and disrespectful. I told him that just because he doesn’t understand another person’s behaviour and because their actions may not fit in with his moral criteria does not give him the right to judge whether or not that person should be in a relationship.

He aggressively disagreed with me and for the next hour we shouted at one another; coming up with as many facts, philosophical comebacks and hypothetical scenarios’ as we could conjure. We only stopped when we were both too exhausted to continue.

Afterward, the two of us didn’t speak for several days. We were both pretty pissed off at each other for spending our previous encounter yelling at one another.

Despite all the bickering, neither of us changed our position on what we stood for. All we managed to do was accuse the other of being incorrect. Nothing beneficial came from our words at all.

I certainly don’t think that debating is a bad thing. It allows free-thought to flow amongst humankind, gives varying sides to every idea, stimulates people’s thought patterns and allows individuals to readjust their core beliefs.

I’m just so sick and tired of fighting with my friends over every opinion and idea that we differ on. We’re different people with varying ideologies, tastes and lifestyles.   

From now on, I think I’ll let the professionals and gifted speakers do the debating. I’m done with squabbling amongst my nearest and dearest. The next time that they say something which I disagree with, I’ll either try to ignore them or recommend them some books which state otherwise.