Gotta agree a bit with cryptqueen... I am of the strongest believe that people are people, and people likes (loves, desires, f***s, sleeps with, live with, so on and so forth) people.

I do understand a need to be specific and as including as possible, so I admire this attempt to make it clear(er)... but at the end of the day, things do tend to get simpler: you either like a person or not. Period.

She calls out the gender-centrism latent within all aspects of the LGBT community in the hopes that we might better recognize our cliquish biases cloaked within our own self-righteousness.

It's soooo true. We tend to pair up, align up, migrate towards groups that we identify with – it’s like between our society standard and survival, it is forced upon us. Society declares you an outcast if you don’t align yourself into a group – they’ll do it for you…it’s very cliquish. The more the person indulges into a group, the more the individual disappears to become one with the group – it’s a collective way. And things that are different or for what ever reason, seem threatening – it’s looked down upon.

I find Julia’s dissent of her position that society is forcing her to be in, to be very forthcoming. She spoke of how the acceptance of the masculine transgender is more favored over the feminine transgender. Not saying the masculine transgender ever hit that wall of discrimination – those of us who have been informed of Khadijah Farmer’s NYC case against Caliente Cab Company know all too well it happens -- even in the heart of our own community.

But the thing that spoke and hit me, was how much we are still fighting on the feminist front. Femininity is still looked down upon, a degrading or a helpless way. The moment a woman becomes strong, she no longer is feminine, but masculine. And both gender roles that have evolved and are still evolving (and some that have reverted back) has helped in shaping these dueling labels. I’d like to add that it is because of individuality, that can not be silenced, helps even make evolution possible. I should say, the dueling individuality vs. group is what drives society in any and all directions.

On another note, I think the entertaining trans-femme, or drag queen, helped break some boundaries for acceptance – but still fitted themselves with the constraints of not being taken seriously because of being entertaining and accentuating the femininity hallmark, that the feminist movement tried to move away from – they positioned themselves to be in a sort, eye candy – which is a huge part of what entertainment is.

The trans-femme alignment with the feminist movement is confusing to quite a few. From an outsiders view – you see the body of a man, who makes them self become woman, and then fight to become more masculine…

But it isn’t to become more masculine, but to change the perception of the gender roles – which unfortunately is masculinity = strength and femininity = weak.

I think indoctrinating the trans-femme in with the femininity movement is a signaling the merge and acceptance movement of the trans-femme-community into our society.

Taking a step back and looking at the individuality vs. group and watching these polar ‘bangs’ and mutate and evolve and transform through each other – you can see a heart beat taking claim of being alive.

I enjoy your blogs, Moon :)

rovermom :)

Life is a 3D puzzle and everyone has a piece!

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Speaking as a chick and a dyke (yes, I do use those horribly disempowering words *gasp!*), I think a large part of the problem is overwhelming the ear and the mind with too much bloody rhetoric. How many new words and phrases will they need to create to accurately express the fact that they feel like outsiders? Hey, welcome to the club.

I also think that another big chunk of the problem stems from the fact that they depersonalize the issues by dredging up and retching out all of these words that seems like they came from some ancient old physiology textbook from hell (and probably did). I'm not a cissexual. I'm a chick. Using mouthfuls like that only distance one from the actual people and cause people to forget that there are in fact people involved and are affected by these issues. Not just fucking labels. Speak simply, speak passionately, speak sincerely and you can't go wrong. Forget the labels. Talk about the human issues, here, not the fifty-cent adjectives that go better in a medical textbook than anybody's real life.