Trans & The Bathroom Issue

People are so ignorant...

Okay, listen. Trans people didn’t ask to be invited onto this political battlefield. We’re being used to fear-monger people who have no clue who we are and how we came to be trans. Now everybody’s got an opinion without having 1 clue what they’re talking about. You know what they say about opinions. In case you don’t know, opinions are like assholes; everybody’s got one and they all stink.

We’re fighting for our lives while cisgender people cruelly describe us and cause others to have the same opinions. They’re caught in an echo chamber of bullshit thinking.

Here’s the thing, though. Nobody gets to define who I am. The hysteria over bathroom bans is being used to divide/conquer everyone. Do you think if enough people say the wrong thing about this, that it will magically make them right? WRONG!

I am a binary transgender male and I’m not gay. In the beginning, I called it FTM or Female-to-Male. I dropped FTM, started saying I’m a transman, and now tell people that I am a Black man who happens to be trans. Why? I don’t define myself by this ‘trans’ identifier. My life isn’t all about being trans. It’s just who I am. A Black man.

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I began my transition at the ripe age of 58 in 2015. I’m not delusional, I wasn’t influenced by anything or anyone, and it was a hard-felt battle that I eventually lost. I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to be trans. I knew the world was at odds with this ‘gender identity’ thing and I wanted nothing to do with it. But once you know a thing, it is very difficult to deny its existence.

It was no different than me knowing I loved women back in the 1970’s. I certainly didn’t direct my loins to be attracted to women. What people think is inaccurate and bigoted. I fought that too. I’m now 67 living my best life. If not for all the bullshit being handed out like candy from bigots, I’d be happy as a lark.

I had a therapist in 2012 and told her I might be like Chaz Bono. Why him? He was the first transman I ever saw. I didn’t know we existed before I saw him on Dancing With the Stars in 2011. It was 3 days after my birthday and I was alone in my apartment. I watched him intently and hoped he didn’t drop his partner (LOL). What really intrigued me was his story before he danced. He caused a firestorm in my brain, because I could identify with almost everything he said. I couldn’t get enough of him talking about being a transman.

I tucked what I had seen & heard in the back of my mind and left Texas 6.5 months later. When I got to where I am now, that’s when I told my new therapist. She was very excited, and I thought I was going to die. She had other trans clients, but that did not thrill me. I thought it was a death sentence, and I refused to talk about it other than acknowledge I might be like ‘him’. When I went home from my sessions, I would research what transgender was. I spent most of my time researching because I no longer work.

It was exhausting fighting the truth, but I did so for 4 years. I refused to talk about it for 3 years with the kindest therapist I could’ve gotten from the VA. She was a civilian and I got her because it was going to take too long to have access to a VA therapist. So, Community Care found her for me and sent me on my way.

During the 4th year, I finally stopped fighting this. I embraced it instead. Then all the fun began. I started referring to myself as Ray, and after I began my medical transition, I changed it legally. I didn’t know 1 trans person before I embraced who I am. My endo doctor suggested I attend a trans veteran support group, so I did. The rest is history.

Some years later, it began to bother me that my body didn’t match my reality. So, I got top surgery. That was a few years ago, and I’m now considering bottom surgery. I don’t want people tripping about the surgeries. Enough people are doing that, and you can look them up whenever you’d like. Google them.

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Anyway, today I read this article and most of the comments. Those stupid people have a whole lot to say about the topic, and none of it is accurate or correct. I do mean NONE OF IT!

To My Dear Friends: No, I don’t believe your son is now your daughter

Their premise is all off. The way I dress is a side-issue of how I identify as a man. I’m not one way, pretending to be another. People, there is no pretense to this. We’re not playing dress-up. This isn’t a game or a deception. It’s not some kind of cult and there is no initiation. I am not an ideology. I am a human being. We literally know we are the opposite of the bodies we were born with. It’s called dysphoria.

Most trans children have 0 access to surgeries. It takes parental permission, a lot of therapy, long lines for a surgical consultation, and mostly no less than a year before the surgery. Most of you are lying your asses off to think they can go away one gender and come back another.

What some of those people think is ridiculous. I wanted to scream at each one of them. I wanted to educate them, but I don’t want to be the only trans person in there doing so. I’ve seen how they attack opposition & they lack any knowledge about this subject. I’d need a group of like-minded people in there with me. Well, I did it after all and dropped a link to this in that article.

They’re the blind leading the blind and have no idea who we are. They pat themselves on the back for all kinds of falsities about trans people. We’re sick of their misinformed opinions that deny our existence and invalidate who we are. They’re like people who only know French, trying to discuss English that they can’t even speak. They seem retarded to me.

Here’s what I said to the author of an opposing piece. Just found out she was banned for disagreeing with those people, so she couldn’t fight back and made her own article:

I dared to read one of your footnote articles and said to myself, "You won't last as my friend with that mindset. You don't get to gaslight me or misgender me and still call me 'friend'." Their arguments, including commenters, don't get to deny my existence or invalidate me and think I won't dismiss you immediately.

That's like denying my lived experiences as a Black person because of your racist fears or bigotry. I don't trust people who say they are colorblind because it's a lie. My experiences say otherwise, and I won't pretend to be white for someone's comfort zone. I also don't trust people who say being transgender isn't a lived experience by people all over the world. I'd side-eye you, swear at you, and get away from you as quickly as possible.

Notice they're always talking about men dressing as women, not women dressing as men. Dressing one way or the other doesn't mean you are trans or cis. It's that appendage hanging off biological male bodies that distresses them most. But it is the dick of cisgender males that evokes their thoughts of bigotry & violence most of the time. I won't get into the whys of that but let’s just say they are the ones doing stupid, cruel, and dangerous things with that appendage.

I am a man because I believe I am a man and there was an ooops going on in my gene pool. I've known this about myself since I was 6 and had no language for it. My brain is one way, my body is another, and fuck anybody who thinks otherwise about me. They'll just be excused from my life. Our surgeries just help us be at one with our minds and don’t make us biological anything. What I think makes me who I am. Penises don't alarm me or threaten me, just like vaginas don't either. One is sex, the other is gender, and who are those people to say someone's 'sex' must dominate one's existence? Screw them and not the nice kind of screwing. Perhaps with a corkscrew. LOL

Why didn't you challenge any of those transphobic idiots in that article? UGH!

I also said this in the same article:

I forgot one important thing about the bathroom issue. My mama used to pack us up and travel halfway across the country by car to hook up with our father; her husband & legend Bob Gibson. The St. Louis Cardinals trained in St. Petersburg, FL, it was the 1960's, and it was before integration. I'm not sure why we didn't fly, but my mother loved to drive anyway. 

All across the country, we had to piss on the side of the car. Why? Gas station bathrooms were for whites only and we weren't allowed in them. I thought it was adventurous as a child, my mother made it fun, but imagine how frustrated she was knowing her children were so dehumanized that they couldn't relieve themselves in public establishments. We were too young to have a rational conversation about why we had to do that. 

I rarely speak of things I do not know or have not experienced personally. To see those times come back again is disgusting, infuriating, and insulting. I'M NOT GOING BACK! When they say that, I have a further distance to go back to. The most outrageous & transformative times in the history of this country. The Civil Rights Era!

Oh, that article is this one:

To My Dear Friend: Yes, Their Daughter Has Always Been Their Daughter

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Everybody has the right to go to the restroom in peace. Before we got dragged into politics, that’s precisely what was going on. Despite what people in that article’s comments said, it’s the same as being banned from the bathrooms during Slavery & Jim Crow. They’ll say anything to justify their transphobic bigotry towards trans people. They convince themselves that they aren’t bigots when they are. Oh, the irony of it all. They’d say the same things about being Black, but it’s open season on trans folks now. Because of the stupid things the orange menace said during the campaigns, all sorts of people are openly discussing us in disgusting manners.

It’s so insulting, takes away our dignity, disrespects us, and puts us at odds with most people in this country. They don’t see our humanity any more than those same people see Black people’s humanity. Everybody knows they can’t say racist things about Black people openly, but they can diss a much smaller group of people who can’t defend themselves in droves. Because of this political climate, white people are returning to saying racist things about Blacks too. What right do they have to do any of this? It’s sick and idiotic.

Do you know what most transwomen do in public bathrooms? The same as any other woman does in there. Primp in the mirror, redo their makeup, socialize, do their business, wash their hands, and leave. What do transmen do? The same etiquette any other man does in there. Go in, do their business, wash hands and get out. Stop being moronic, you transphobes.

Leave us alone and mind your own damn business. Your opinions aren’t necessary and won’t change a thing. It’s clear that many don’t even know a trans person, let alone suddenly talking like they’re experts. They’re only experts at running their mouths. They’re ludicrous, not us. As frightening as it is to most trans people, it’s time to stand up and take your dignity back. I AM. Fuck those people! 🙄

This video has nothing to do with this post. I like it and couldn’t find one to express my disgust about trans bathroom bans, so I found one that makes me a happy man. LOL