Nun starts drama storm. Film when hell freezes over.

[sistawendy]

Remember a couple of entries ago, when I expressed shock and dismay at being called my son's dad in public? I cross-posted it to Zuckerberg's data mine. Drama ensued. Once again, it was an unpleasant surprise. I mean, it's wonderful that plenty of my friends have my back, but it's less than wonderful that some of them now aren't speaking to each other. And some of the 'splaining that went on was kind of like watching the fireball from a derailed fuel train: hypnotic and voluminous, but messy and tragic.

Resolved: I'm not going to censor myself over this or anything like it in the future. And you know things like this are going to keep on happening for the rest of my life.

It's yet another hard lesson in what people around me are really made of, but no one gets to tell me how to feel or what to write about any of this.

Comments

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

This. To your typical american, the very concept of gender being non-invariant is about as likely to occur to them as Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. It is someting that simple does not exist in their brains. Does that makeit OK? No. But you can't in good faith expect better of them. Some of them can be taught, though you're under no obligation to do so, but generally speaking they are very unlikely to figure it out themselves.

I mean, hell, most of them can't even figure out people who change their *name* or *hair color*.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Never mind any epiphanies about gender identity. Just using her eyes would have told her "dad" might not be the right word in that situation. This was almost but not quite as bad as using my old name.

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

You have missed my point entirely.

To the Average Amurrican(TM), the vaguest concept of a Dad becoming anything at all other than a dad is about as remote from their so-called mind as a fish becoming a bicycle. To such a person, there is literally nothing you could ever do whatsoever to become anything other than a dad. Your appearance, your driver's license, hell, your very existence simply doesn't enter into it.

I'm not saying they're right. I'm not saying it's not offensive. But I am saying that it's true, and you have no chance in hell of ever changing it.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Jeez, Neuro, give me some credit. I know what you're saying. There are plenty of people out there who think you can "go gay", as well, who think that being a (cisgendered) queer is a choice. Their number is falling, or at least the number of people who are willing to admit to being one of them is falling. Even the latter represents progress if it means less pain for queers, trans or cis.

And the way that either kind of progress happens is by speaking out, and by appealing to the better nature of the Average Amurrican®. If the cis queers can do it, so can trans people. Yes, there are fewer of us than there are cis queers, and we're not as rich per capita, but the strategy is proven.

This is your virtual happy pill for the day, good for misanthropy and dandruff.