"Everyone should have enough money to get plastic surgery." Supermodel, Beverly Johnson
By the time I see my column published, let alone read the responses to it, weeks have passed and subsequent unrelated columns have been written and sent off, accounting for the consternating but unavoidable gaps in continuity which sometimes occur in Minstrel Blood.
For example, objections to The Emperor's New Gender printed in two consecutive Outlines' "Letters to the editor" might have suggested universal disagreement with my views on transsexualism. But this is not the case, as the stack of positive feedback on my desk confirms. These responses represent views I very often hear during my travels. They are usually accompanied by well—grounded fears of exactly the kind of attack some of the Outlines' protesting letters demonstrate and explains the anonymity of these excerpts. Each one expresses either a common theme or contributes fresh insight to the discussion.
First and most typical is general encouragement, like this one from Chicago: "We spent the entire meeting discussing the issue ... all of us are on the same page and everyone really enjoyed the articles."
Unaware of the F trend to M, a couple in New Mexico wrote, "We have always been so glad to be women, and profoundly glad to be lesbians ... . How incredible that women have so internalized misogyny that they would go this far."
Here's part of a letter from Montana saying, "I'm passionate about women. I hate seeing male sexuality inculturated into our young dykes. Women are so beautiful." There's, "You have given me words to express my uneasiness" ( Florida ) , and from North Carolina, "You articulate really well what I believe and what I feel."
Arkansas states, "i'm writing you cause of stuff that is horribly silencing happening in our area trans—stuff as i call it." From elsewhere in Florida, "...the sense of rejection of femaleness ... upsets me too." One Philadelphian wrote, "Fortunately I still know 'real' butches who laugh when they are called Sir, enjoy the trappings of butchdom and identify female!"
Others were analytical, like this from another Philadelphian writing, "To me ( transgender ) just makes more real the rigid and dichotomized gender system upon which male power and heterosexual privilege is based. It doesn't challenge anything. It doesn't change anything." A woman in Victoria B.C. wrote, "I have always felt that 'gender' was one of the worst words to come along ... I think the best thing would be if society would just let folks be however they wanted to be and that would be that." A New Yorker was alarmed by, "... the seduction tool of the medical establishment in the latest attempt to fix gay and lesbian people back into the binary definition of man/woman ... the final solution, so to speak."
An Australian pondered ".. converts to the het world, the zealotry of the convert in general. It's all so old isn't it, the crossovers hate us more than the men so they will do the dirty work ... the strategies of oppression whose interest this all feeds," and my favorite, "There might not be any money in this, and you might keep being the target of their venom and insults but it's your territory, and has been for a long time, and it will be there for the future."
I also appreciated the critical but friendly ( sarcastic? ) FTM Outlines reader thanking me for my past work and respectfully disagreeing with me. No problem. Her/his story, like everyone's, is instructive.
Some of us take no issue with choosing surgery and hormones as their personal solution to what's become known as "gender disorder syndrome." But others feel a need for a closer look, given our conviction that chronic patriarchal "gender distress" is socially constructed and demands social remedies. Furthermore, the experimental nature and lack of long—term experience with these interventions strongly suggest caution. Along with some short—term success, gender re—assignment's questionable medical roots starting with Nazi mutilations, followed by deaths from voluntary hormone overdosing, and finally the abandonment for apparent non—effectiveness by former pioneering institutional advocate Johns Hopkins, are worth mentioning.
Not personal but political, these concerns are legitimate. None are directed at any individual, but rather at underlying philosophy and belief systems.
They do not judge or demean any person who identifies, or loves anyone who identifies, as transgendered.
As Jim Fouratt has written, "I would rather champion the right to be different ... to allow the essential difference between men and women to be acknowledged as an expression of freedom, equality and diversity."
Isn't that what we're all about?