We Do Need Some Education

Yesterday my attention was brought to a blogger who has made it her mission to

use every legal measure to keep off transsexual people from having equal rights.

Sadly, her grasp of the law isn't very great as she has been collecting the private information of people she doesn't like and outing them. If this wasn't bad enough, she has also been inciting hatred and murder which, as I understand it, has indeed lead to the murder of at least one person.
However, I will not name this blogger as I don't believe, when someone deliberately sets out to offend and publicly shares her email address to receive the offence she has caused, we should pander to that person's cravings. So, for the purposes of the rest of this post, I shall simply refer to this blogger as Mildred.
However, I do believe Mildred is sharing some very badly informed opinions which perhaps highlight a wider problem of education about the "LGB&T community" and so I shall endeavour to correct that miseducation...

1. Facts are indisputable - opinions are not. For example, it is a fact that homosexuality is the sexual attraction between people of the same sex. But it is a matter of opinion that homosexuality is in any way wrong or immoral. Thus Mildred is entirely wrong to state

you can’t change the facts: that homosexuality is abnormal and disgusting.

as those aren't the facts. They are opinions. As such, they are quite open to dispute and so I feel quite comfortable saying that I think she is wrong. I think homosexuality is lovely!

2. For the vast majority of my life I have had great difficulty coming to terms with my gender identity because I believed transsexuals to be freakish and an abomination. Society has had no small part in helping me formulate that opinion and thus I see absolutely no need for Mildred (or anyone else) to tell me (or any other transsexual) to

Stop trying to pretend to be “better” than others because you consider yourself “transsexual”.

because it simply is not the case.

3. Human rights are entitlements that ALL humans have. And the good news is that no one needs to fight for them because we ALL have them - we are ALL entitled to the same things. What is even better is that human rights AREN'T finite - if I have a human right, then that same human right is there for you as well.
So Mildred is quite wrong to state

There isn’t an endless amount of human rights available, we have to deploy our resources carefully and wisely.

But is correct to say we have to handle them carefully and wisely because, if we were reckless and somehow destroyed a human right, it affects EVERYBODY and, personally, I think it's better to have as many human rights as possible.

4. Equal rights are entitlements that we all have EQUALLY (the clue's in the name). So, again, Mildred is misguided if she thinks she can

keep off transsexual people from having equal rights.

because if I don't have equal rights then NO ONE has equal rights. That is how equality works!

5. Whilst it is the case that the differences in sexual orientation aren't universally acceptable to every society it is not the case that they are not acceptable to any society. So Mildred is wrong to state

It is unbelievable how you, the LGBTQ people think that your sexual orientation could ever be socially accepted.

because it is very believable that where a large number of gay people live (e.g. Brighton), not being heterosexual is going to be socially acceptable! In fact, in my experience, I wouldn't even state that one needs to have a large gay population for that to happen. Also, being trans (the T of LGBTQ) has no bearing on your sexuality and thus a trans person could have any kind of sexual orientation! So to think every sexual orientation is universally excluded from social acceptance everywhere is almost certainly somewhat misjudged.

6. Believe it or not, a transsexual can be any one of the sexual orientations available. Thus to assume that a trans person is automatically non-heterosexual is wrong. So for Mildred to state

As soon as scientists will find the “transsexual gene”, there won’t be any transsexual babies anymore in this world. Then we can get rid of the LGBTQ peverts from the very beginning.

is not only offensive but also inaccurate.
Even if scientists find a "transsexual gene" and decide to use it to kill all the transsexual babies in this world, it could only rid the world of the T "peverts" - the LGBQ "peverts" would be no more affected than the S (straight) "peverts"!

7. Being LGBT or Q is not a choice. If it were, I would wager a good many would choose not to be LGBT or Q rather than face the prejudice, terror and/or murder for being seen as "abnormal". So, as much as anyone might desire it, it is impossible for them to

become normal immediately.

8. Since being LGBT or Q can lead to you being subjected to prejudice, terror and/or murder, a good many think it wise to blend in to society rather than being identified as LGBT or Q. Thus I have to differ with Mildred when she states

everybody is trying to stand out

Whatever she's seen on the telly, being LGBT or Q isn't like being on The X Factor!

9. Being LGBT or Q doesn't automatically make you a bad parent. Although I'm not a parent myself, I think it's commonly held that being a bad parent involves rewarding the worst aspects of your child's nature (such as hatred and violence) or, worse still, neglecting or killing them. So when Mildred directs

I hope you will never have kids. Because you would mess them up.

at a LGBT or Q person, I can only return the sentiment in kind. For, to me, she is the worst kind of person a child could ever possibly hope to have as a parent!

10. Kindness will always be seen as more virtuous than cruelty. So wishing neglect and death on someone will always come bottom of valued human qualities. And thus it is so with the sentiment Mildred expresses when she writes

And because only 10% of all people are LGBTQ, we can abandon them. The world population is already large enough, why should we keep the gays alive?

To my mind that kind of sentiment is the epitome of inhumanity. If Mildred wishes to be inhuman then she should distance herself from humanity not write lengthy blog posts that portray a poorly educated woman with the very worst of opinions.

A Matter Of Opinion

I've just read an article on The Guardian website by Philippa Perry entitled Gender And The Tyranny Of The 'Normal'.
I have no great interest in the article and I think her idea that we should widen the scope of normality is flawed (unless she means we should widen it to such an extent that it becomes inapplicable!) but what I do take exception to are some of the comments below the article by readers of it.
I shan't bore you with responses to all the comments I find objectionable on the website - and I don't have the time or inclination to do so anyway! - so I will just take the first three as I think they are fine examples of the arrogance I find amongst the ignorant who find no difficulties arguing with people who know far more about the subject than they do... such as a psychotherapist married to a transvestite (i.e. Philippa Perry)!
First up is zeldalicious who states

We can believe ourselves to be anything our mind can invent but that doesn't make it so.

Well, seeing as the only reality that exists is the reality we perceive (i.e. that which our mind invents), I would be fascinated to know what does make it so!
Sadly, however, my fascination will have to remain unsated as the all-knowing zeldalicious does not provide us with an answer.
I can thus only presume that zeldalicious is a cowboy builder by trade, practiced as they clearly are in leaving a trail of destruction with no promise of repair!

Then there is thetrashheap whose name seems particularly apt when they make statements such as

Children need taught how to be adults

So, if I understand thetrashheap correctly, it's not OK for children to be children and do childish things but need to be taught how to be adults and how to do adult things. So, presumably, the law is an absolute ass when it stops our kids from smoking, drinking and driving cars! And as for sex... well, I'm sure Garry Glitter will be nodding his head in total agreement with thetrashheap!
Thetrashheap then comes up with a real doozy that I'm still trying to get my head around and may just have to admit defeat on! It states

women need taught how to be girls.

Well, hang on a minute! I thought you just said that children need to be taught how to be adults?? So presumably what you're proposing here is some kind of never ending loop of human evolution! That as soon as the female child learns how to act like a woman they need to learn how to be a child again and then back to learning to be an adult again and then a child again and on and on an on! Fuck! I'm exhausted just thinking about it!!
Our evolutionary theorist then offers up an entry for this year's No Shit Sherlock Awards   

Men and women aren't alike as adults.

But I have to admit that I am perplexed by the differentiation of adults from children in this instance but, then, perhaps I haven't paid as much attention to the bodies of children as our evolutionary theorist has??
It continues

They form friendships differently, on some issues they'll behave totally differently, they be into different things

Yup, girls are into flower arranging and playing with their dollies whereas boys like pulling the legs off spiders and stealing apples. That's beyond question isn't it??
(By the by, a word of advice to our evolutionary theorist - if you want to be taken seriously you're gonna have to lose that Norfolk accent. It's not "they be". It's "they are"!)  
And then we have another entry for the No Shit Sherlock Awards

puberty will be totally different 

Yes, that's why I found it somewhat traumatic! Thoughts of being female are somewhat distracted when you have an erect penis between your legs!
And on and on it goes...

Just because the differences aren't so stark before puberty doesn't mean we don't prepare them for what they will become.

Again, I shall have to bow to our evolutionary theorist's superior knowledge on children's bodies but I have to say I find it shocking that children are separated into male or female if the differences aren't defined before puberty!
I would also imagine that it makes it next to impossible to decide which children will be entered into the gender specific evolutionary loop our evolutionary theorist has defined for women. If only we could know for sure which were boys and which were girls it'd make it all so much easier!
But, hang on, what's this?

Also because of a few people born with gender dysphoria doesn't mean we set up society as gender nuetral

Well, fuck me! Our evolutionary theorist has managed to count how many gender dysphoric people there are in the world! Do you know how many studies there have been on gender dysphoric people and not one has managed to accurately count how many of them there are! And that's just in this country! Our evolutionary theorist has managed to do it across the whole world!! I think the bets are off for this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Science, don't you!
So, having managed to define those born with gender dysphoria as being a mere few, it certainly makes sense that we don't set society up as gender neutral doesn't it! We have to make the effort to change it from the one thetrashheap's clearly identified as being gender unspecific before puberty into one clearly set up as male and female a mere 7 years later!
Our evolutionary theorist then leaves us with just one more nugget before he goes...

Boys especially do better in a pack with social convention and structure

OK, so I guess I was right all along. I am a girl!
So why the hell did they make me play with the boys all the time? Surely that's child cruelty! I'm going to consult my lawyer! There could be millions in this for me!

Our final contributor is Raffiruse who states

I wanted to be a T Rex, sadly society would not accept it, so I had to be a T Rex in secret.

So someone who clearly identifies with the trauma of gender dysphoria then. For like 99% of gender dysphoric people, I had to keep my desire secret too.
I couldn't proclaim it publicly because then I'd get fuckwits telling me I was wrong or perverted or maybe go so far as to brainwash me into being what THEY wanted me to be! Or maybe they'd take it upon themselves to kick the desire out of me or perhaps just have done and kill me!
So, yes, I certainly kept my desire secret for a long long while! It didn't matter that I was in mental torture pretending to be what others wanted me to be every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of my God damned life! For at least I could then be guaranteed of still being alive - even if I didn't want to be!
No, it's far better to act out our desires in secret and not test society's patience with them.

A Responsible Voice

When parking your car you will often see a sign that states something along the lines of "The owners of this car park accept no responsibility for the car or it's belongings whilst it is parked in these premises".
I would like to echo that sentiment to anyone reading this blog:

As author of this blog, I do not accept responsibility for anyone or their actions that arise during or after reading this blog.

The reasons are thus:

1. I am not omnipresent, so I am therefore not responsible for what happens to you during or after reading my blog. 
2. Whether it be mine or someone elses, I am not responsible for whose opinion you happen to believe and thus not responsible for your actions during or after reading my blog. 

So it's no good holding my blog or the opinions expressed within it against me. You must take responsiblity for yourself.
Please do not blame me for having an opinion that disagrees with yours. After all, I hope you're reading this to improve your knowledge not reinforce your ignorance!
And it is through knowledge that we can all become stronger. So why not embrace those opportunities to learn from one another instead of moaning about having your prior knowledge challenged!
Ignorance is not bliss. If we went through the whole of our lives learning nothing, we would all quickly perish. So the more we know the better!
So it's no good taking shortcuts either. Do not seek out one opinion and claim that opinion represents others - even if that opinion claims to do just that!
For example, I can not judge all Roman Catholics by the opinion of The Pope even though he claims to be their representative. There are many different opinions and personalities that claim to be Roman Catholic and The Pope's is just one (albeit the one with most gravitas).
And the same applies to this blog:
Just because I am a trans woman, do not think my opinion - or my way of life - is in any way typical or representative of others.
Just because I have a civil partnership with a gay man do not think all trans women do.
Just because I am unemployed does not mean all trans women are.
Just because I came to realise my gender identity at 37 years of age do not think that is in any way typical. It is not!
To think otherwise would be like claiming that every car is red; ignoring the fact that they come in many other colours and that, even then, the colour can change over time according to it's environment and age.
So please do not assume that this blog is a trans voice or a LGBT voice or any other kind of voice other than mine and mine alone.
And, remember, I am responsible for expressing my voice but I am not responsible for when or how it is received.