Showing posts with label transphobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transphobia. Show all posts

Friday, March 31, 2017

Transgender Day of Visibility

Today is the annual Transgender Day of Visibility, a day to show your support for the trans community.

The idea is recognize the accomplishments of trans people around the world, to combat cissexism and transphobia, and to spread awareness of the trans community.

Unlike the Transgender Day of Remembrance, this isn’t a day for mourning: this is a day of empowerment, recognition, and love.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Remember Leelah (Updated)

Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender teen, was killed by a passing semi trailer on an Ohio interstate at 2:20 a.m. on Sunday, and a previously written suicide note later appeared on the teen’s Tumblr blog (http://lazerprincess.tumblr.com/) through scheduled publishing.

These are the two last posts on Leelah's blog.

If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.
Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.
When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.
My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.
When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.
I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.
So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.
At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a shit about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.
After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.
That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a shit which one. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.
Goodbye,
(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

And now for my sorry notes to some people I knew…
Amanda: You are going to have such a wonderful life. You are the most talented and pretty little girl I’ve ever met and I love you so much, Amanda. Please don’t be sad. I’m going to miss you so very much. I love you.
Tiffany: We haven’t talked much recently since we’re both so busy but I’m so happy you’re my sister. You are so courageous and determined to achieve what you want, you can accomplish anything. I love you.
Justin: We’ve been jerks to each other a lot recently but I really do love you. You get on my nerves almost all the time but no matter what a part of me will always love you. Sorry for picking on you so much when we were kids.
Rylan: I’m so sorry I’m never there for you. I love you so much.
Abby: Thank you for dealing with my pathetic problems, all I did was make your life harder and I’m sorry.
Mom and Dad: Fuck you. You can’t just control other people like that. That’s messed up.
I don’t really feel the need to apologize to anyone else… odds are you didn’t give a shit about me and if you do, you did something that made me feel like shit and you don’t deserve an apology.
Also, anyone who says something like “I wish I got to know him better” or “I wish I treated him better” gets a punch in the nose. 


Update 12/31/14
Although I do agree that the desperate action of young Leelah to a large extent was due to the actions or inaction's of her certainly worthless parents, I cannot agree with, or condone, the outpouring of hatred and the incitement going on that we should contact the parents and express our disapproval of their parenting skills.

In my opinion the parents themselves are in part victims of indoctrination by their religious leaders and the bigoted Christianist culture in which they supposedly live. In short the parents probably didn't understand better and were wrongly advised by those whom they trusted to guide them in a situation they found difficult to handle.

This tragic event should instead be used as a warning to those who continue to subject children and young people to abuse by non-acceptance and through theories and practices of  so called "conversion therapy" with the aim to change sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual, or trying to convince a transgender person to give up their true gender and identify with their sex assigned at birth.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Cake In the Face

The temperature in the upcoming national election in Sweden in September, was raised several degrees yesterday when Göran Hägglund, Minister for Health and Social Affairs and leader of the Christian Democrats of Sweden, got a cake shoved into his face when he was in Gothenburg, Sweden, to give a campaign speech.
Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT
The cake-attacker was a 20 y.o. spectator who was apprehended by the police immediately after the incident.

The Fag Army insignia
Today a group called Fag Army (who have a presence on F*c*book) accepted responsibility for the cake-attack, saying they are a group of men who identify as LGBTQ and that they are tired of homophobia and the liberal mass-hysteria "that too often hijacks our struggle against it".

In it's statement on F*c*book, the group also stated that the group "caked" Mr. Hägglund as he represents a homophobic and transphobic party which over the years has done everything it could to thwart  the rights of LGBTQ people and that the Christian Democrats is the party in the present government that represent and normalize "the oppression that stalks, abuses and kills (LGBTQ people)" 

The statement ends with a laconic postscript that says, "Given what religious extremists have done to us LGBTQ people throughout history, isn't a cake in the face quite innocent?"
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Although I do agree with Fag Army that a cake in the face is quite innocent and that the Christian Democrats of Sweden is a party for organized homophobia and transphobia, I believe that there are better ways to handle our opponents. This, however, doesn't mean that I don't think this was a hilarious action and that it probably helped to put focus on the Christian Democratic parties deplorable stance on LGBTQ issues.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

...And The Winners Will Be...

It's the annual high point in many gay European men's year tonight, the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm staying away from those parties because I don't like the music one bit and everything gets a bit over-the-top and "gala" for me to feel happy and comfortable.

If there was any justice whatsoever in the world this song would be allowed to compete again this year and would win this time around (mostly because of the song but a little because of the cute guitarist and, to be quite honest, the singer/composer too).


...but as I am not expecting miracles in this unfair and unjust world, my second favorite for winning tonight is this one.

I want the Russians and the other homophobes and transphobes out there to get a wake-up call and have their bigotry rubbed in their faces, so I will vote for it ten times although I don't like the song that much.