Intersex Solidarity Day November 8!

I just found out it's less than a week to Intersex Solidarity Day.

So in case I'm unable to post on the day and also to ensure that anyone reading this has a chance at learning of it in advance I'm posting on it imediately!

In my experience Intersex people are rendered even more invisible in Western Culture than Transgender people with few people knowing much at all about it. And yet considering what is done to children every year, the horrificaly unethical 'normalistion' surgery performed on children unable to give consent in Western countries where people react with horror at female 'circumcision' in other parts of the world this should be an issue that everyone knows about.

So please go here: http://www.intersexualite.org/ISD.html and sign the petition.

And the next person you see making or drinking a cup of coffee? Tell them about how horrible you think that surgery is and how the poor kids should be let grow up to decide for themselves what they are and what if anythings should be done to their genitals. Mention the petition and that the 8th is Intersex Solidarity Day.

And at the water cooler, talk to someone about it there too.

If you take a taxi, tell the driver what you think!

Bring the subject up in every conversation you can.

How many children are goin under the knife in the next four days? Are you going to just let that happen? Or will you help spread the awareness of that outrage so it will be stopped?

Transgender Beauty

"You look better than many..."

It's a phrase that seriously rankles a lot of people. But one a lot of people use.

On some crossdressing forums its considered quite the no-no as many wives and girlfriends feel quite offended that some consider that a TG person might look more female than a cissexual female or more attractive as a female than one (so far on the forums I've explored it doesn't seem to be as big an offense for boyfriends and husbands of FtMs but that may not be the case and please correct me if I'm in error on that). Some have argued that the actuallity is that some TG folk look more feminine than many Cis females, some CDs find it outrageous that any CD considers themselves more female than any female no matter how naturally masculine and the conversations tend to fall apart as people struggle to defend their own identities from the threat that peoples judgement of anothers appearance seems to constitute to them.

I could go into an analysis of what it means for many cis womens self identity if a crossdresser does look better or more female and the way that seems to speak of a lack of value of masculine physical traits in cissexual women, but thats not the point I want to make today.

See one thing I note in most cases where members of the general public respond with the phrase "You look better than..." in it's varients that most seem to fail to consider..

A lot of the time the TG person did not 'pass' and still got that compliment!

So what does this mean?
It means that these people see that the person is trans and yet still say they are good looking or attractive.

That means there must be qualities of Transgender Beauty that are utterly independant of strict masculine or feminine traits or which exist because of the mixture of these.

Now that many people can find androgyny attractive or fashionable is nothing new, their have ben trends in fashion for centuries where aspects of male or female fashion swap over and there have been plenty of people who've had success with a presentation that sits solidly between standard presentation of male and female.

But neither of those is what I mean. Because in the cases I'm referring to, the transgender person is clearly presenting strongly in a way that is, culturally, female or male, who is nevertheless perceived to be anatomically not matching that presentation and who yet is perceived to be attractive in that state.

And that is significant I think.

Prescient? Moi?

Wow.
And there we go.

Since my last post something interesting has turned up.
Another reasonably chunky piece of genetic evidence for transgender has turned up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7689007.stm

Not proof as yet but solid enough for the moment.

So now until there is strong evidence to the contrary then each and every piece of legislation around the world that requires surgery/sterility in order for someone to be recognised as their proper sex rather than apparent birth sex and/or for receiving rights and/or services

IS AN ACT OF GENOCIDE

Genocide and Transgender

I urge everyone to read this and pass it around.

http://takesupspace.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/genocide-julie-bindel/

But it is worth taking this further, because in much of the world to obtain basic rights and essential services as a transgender person that cis folk always enjoy one must be steralised.

It's all well and good for those who choose to undergo procedures that render them sterile. Its their right to make that decision for themselves and everyone should support their right to do so. But to mandate it in exchange for basic rights and access to essential services is a human-rights abuse plain and simple. Forced and coerced sterilisation has been one of the great crimes of the 20th century.

But consider this also and consider it well.

If there is a genetic cause or factor involved in being Transgender then forced sterilisation is clear and direct biological Genocide.

It is Eugenics!

Transgender people do not automatically lose their reproductive rights! They may choose to waive them but should never be forced to waive them.

Those who do go through treatment that renders them sterile should be able to preserve reproductive material where possible and to use that later in life if they so choose.

Where there are state-based health systems these should provide for this service for those that are covered by them.

Transgender people have the same reproductive rights as anyone else. They may choose whatever treatement is appropriate to suit them according to their own priorities. They ahve a right to their own culture too.

These are all Human Rights. Basic fundamental Human Rights.

To deny them these rights is a Human Rights Abuse and where it constitutes Genocide it is a Crime Against Humanity!

Antiseptic stings

No I've not endured an injury or anything, just giving people an effective analogy.

Cause plenty of people are all for equality or for helping out the disadvantaged and discrminated against until it reaches a point or an area that they find personally uncomfortable.

But antiseptic stings when put on a cut.

A scab itches.

A healing wound aches.

When your body fights a disease you feel sick.

The pain the aches the discomfort etc is an inevitable part of the healing. It's how you know it's working! If your cut has gone numb you know there's a terrible problem but if it stings from the antiseptic then you know it's going to heal.

So then when people find some aspect of human rights makes them uncomfortable from same-sex marriage to transgenders in public toilets that discomfort is the awareness of something wrong, but it is not the equal-rights that is the something wrong but the previous acceptance of the injustice now being challenged that is the cause of the discomfort.

And that discomfort passes with time, like the sting of antiseptic, like the sore foot as it heals.

Do we ever think about how uncomfortable many white folk were when things were desegregated? Do we consider that just as gays and transgender people are falsely portrayed as predatory pedophiles so were innocent black people portrayed as cannibals and rapists and instinctive animals less than human. The discomfort those people felt when having to share their spaces with black people was real! But it was a shameful unjustice, based on lies. Still it was how people felt. And because of this no amount of how people feel now is an excuse to keep an inequality!

And men having to share their worklaces with women felt real discomfort, and when they had to share their education institutions it was real then too. And when Christians had to coexist with Jews and stop persecuting them again there was discomfort.

ALL equality results in discomfort because the undoing of injustice is discomforting, often even disstressing and painful. That should never be ignored or forgotten as it is far too easy in hindsight to dissmiss the concerns of people in the past as pointless while to consider valid the discomfort of people now.

So if you ever find yourself feeling uncomfortable about a rights issue do not use your feelings or comfort as judgement, it will betray you and lead you to injustice because justice and equality stings like iodine on an open cut!

Instead judge it solely by the philosophical principles of human rights. That is it's only valid measure!

If you want it to heal you have to expect it to sting a bit!

Dealing with the damage done

Well I'm trying to take it easy at the moment. Spring always ends up making my CFS play up and I overdid the activity and emotional stress a little both of which are bad for flare-ups.

I've been doing some gentle introspection lately to figure out how to improve my life a little. (Well, in between chapters of Varney the Vampire and watching a DVD I stumbled on for a pittance of Flesh For Lulu in concert)

Anyways my tiny social life and minute romantic situation had me wondering why things have been so difficult.

My problem is not communication skills, those are quite good. It's not empathy, that works fine. My trouble is social skills. Not ordinary day-today ones but more the meeting new friends and potential romantic partners skills and the turning casual friendships into strong ones.

And inevitably the problem came I think from school bullying. We moved around a lot in my early years but that wasn't much of a problem, I still made new friends and coped with the bullies. But the last year of primary school and then Highschool things were different. Thats when the ostracism began. A constant campain of not just physically violent but also psychological and emotional bullying from many and having friendship with me become social death for others what few friends I developed in high school swiftly ceased them to gain acceptibility for themselves.

And thinking about it since then I've devoted far too little time and energy to such social skills relying on having a small amount of good dependable trustworthy loyal friendships. But life draws people to distant corners and while all those are good friends they are mostly scattered over the continent now. And one of the worst parts of CFS is that it is socially isolating, leaving people unable to attend parties or having to leave early, preventing them from working or studying, keeping people housebound and restricting interaction substantially.

I realised that other than via the net I interact with other humans on less than half the days in the week. That is not good.

So despite the limitations of my CFS and of course of being far different from 'normal' (thank goodness!) I need to work on improving my social lot.

With the huge incidence of bullying I wonder how many others are struggling with the damage done to them. How great a cost that must have on society.

And considering the social effects on Transgender people... those caused by fear of having ones closet door opened, the fear of unacceptance, the fear those who find transgender people especially attractive that they would never have such a relationship accepted by others that leads them to either just hide it or to seek only sex and not a long-term relationship, worst of all being the outright hostility violence and ostracism that comes from transphobia where people lose families, friends, jobs and more for coming out.

Thats not ok, not acceptable. One of the major challenges for the Human Species is to change this malfunctioning excluding tribalist instincts role within society. We must find ways to include those excluded. Whether by the practicalities of illness or the oppressions of moronic and illogical intolerance.

So I'm adding another ball to the juggling act of balancing my CFS by slowly trying to improve my social life without getting myself housebound, or worse bedbound by my symptoms. It'll be interesting.

Will someone just cure this already?

So the other day i tried to join in a game of Warhammer 40,000 that some friends were wanting to play. I knew I was feeling more tired than most days and I knew that Spring would likely trigger a bit of a flare-up of my CFS.

About halfway into the first turn of the game the crash hit and I went from participant to half asleep spectator and over 3 days later the crash is not yet over, just lessoned a bit.

So I'm having periodic mental blanks, confusion, language troubles and housework is a pain. I'm too tired to do even 5 minutes of tai chi let alone walk around the block.

I've had this damn illness more than half my damn life and I'm so sick of it!
What happened to that medicinal chocolate stuff I once heard about having promising effects on CFS? Why is it almost everyone I meet knows someone with this debilitating life destroying illness and yet there's just about no resources or support?

Its a constant drain on my existence making every single thing more difficult from the largest to the smallest.

In other news the AHRC has put out an initial proposal for reforming sex documentation law... an improvement over the current situation but far from actually being consistent with Human Rights! Being able to have documentation changed to be recognised as male or female now would require some medical or surgical treatment rather than full SRS which is good for many but its not good enough! However they've added a third sex.. and they have called it Intersex! That understandably has a few people quite upset at this sudden new meaning of the word. And thats just for starters on the human rights issues in this proposal cause there will be gatekeepers of one sort or another in the process too.

They really should instead be looking into doing away entirely with sex markers on documentation! They are hardly used at all except for the purpose of unjust discrimination.

Meanwhile Intersex (by the original meaning of the word) children are still at risk of unethical permanant surgery! I'm still not covered by antidiscrimination and antivillification legislation and there are huge amounts of issues yet to cover.

Meanwhile I am stuck having to change into guy-clothes to visit friends I'm out to and change once I'm there because some of the local taxi drivers are substantial gossips so until/unless I am ready to be out as a crossdresser entirely then I have no transport unless I conform my appearance to at least androgynous, thank goodness for being a Goth!

So here I am with not enough strength and energy for most basic tasks, cognitively impaired, trying to manage to relax my 'act like a guy' survival habits when I have the opportunity to be social with people who know, trying to work out how to judge dangers and safety, trying to cope with loneliness frustration and the cornocopia of issues that being disabled and transgender combine to create.

I wish someone would hurry up with an effective cure or treatment for my disability so I could get back to fighting for my rights, the rights of others and making the most of my life and contributing to society!

More tha 16 years I've been suffering a bad case of this. It's like being only half-alive and I have a lot of catching up to do!