Hi, Everybody!
Lately there’s been some talk about guilt, fear, shame, etc., the old faithfuls, so I thought I’d mention one angle that I sometimes take to the problem.
A transfriend of mine once asked the question whether we transpeople suffer from a disability. I’d never looked at it that way myself, but she said she believed that she did. Her birthsex (male) caused her some serious difficulties, both physical and psychological, that in the end could only be addressed by transitioning.
The point can be debated. But when you look at the serious problems that so many of us face, I think a case can at least be made for saying that we suffer from a disability. As one of our members has just said,
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Some of us might see it as a “birth defect”, and I think a lot of transphobes do. In their view we’re deeply flawed. The religious transphobes might call us sinners, while the non-religious variety might stick with “sickos” or “perverts”. So let’s accept for the sake of argument that we suffer from a disability or a birth defect or whatever you want to call it.
Why then should we be condemned? If we see someone who’s blind from birth, do we hate and despise and harass them? If we see someone who’s mentally handicapped, do we claim they should be persecuted? No, the approach we take to any sort of disability is that such people are deserving of our compassion and that we as a society should do what we can to help them live lives that are as full and rich as possible in the circumstances. A lot of times we even put public money into helping them do that.
So why is it different for us? The hard-core transphobes don’t want to see or hear or even have to know anything about us. In effect, they want us to be locked up for good in the closet. Is that their policy towards every disabled group of people? Yet a lot of us hardly treat ourselves any better, the way we agonize over our condition and torment and punish ourselves for years.
One of the most poignant scenes I’ve ever seen in a film was the one in “Good Will Hunting”, when Robin Williams was telling Matt Damon, “It wasn’t your fault.” Matt Damon tried to brush it off: “Yeah, I know.” “It wasn’t your fault.” “Yeah, I know.”
But Robin Williams kept repeating it until finally he got through to him. Matt Damon was trying to brush it off as a defence mechanism. He didn’t want to face the pain that he had suffered all his life. In the end, Robin Williams forced him to confront it, and it was an extremely painful moment for him. But it started him on the road to healing.
Our TGism isn’t our fault. So why beat ourselves up for it? It isn’t our fault. We believe in showing compassion to other people in difficulties, so why not to ourselves? It isn’t our fault. Why is that whereas we’d never dream of being cruel to the blind or the mentally handicapped, we’re so perfectly vicious towards ourselves? It isn’t our fault. Can we feel no sympathy for ourselves? We want understanding from society in general, so why not give it to ourselves?
It isn’t our fault, people. It simply isn’t our fault.
Best wishes, Annabelle