Social conservatives like to use Trans people as one more target of their grievances over the ending of THEIR America. They lost the Civil Rights Act in 1964. They failed keeping women at home. They lost the fight against Gay marriage. They lost excluding LGBT participation in the military. And the levels of acceptance of the LGBT population in business, society, government, and family frustrates them ever so horribly.
And yet, being against the trans community is a fight they think they can win. And they will with the help of people like Joy Behar of the View.
It does not help any trans man or woman when erstwhile allies, who are seemingly politically progressive, mis-pronoun a trans woman running for California Governor in the upcoming recall campaign.
Joy Behar of The View mis-gendered Caitlyn Jenner three times in a late April telecast each time using the pronoun “he” to refer to Jenner. Three times? Seriously? Usually when someone wants to insult me, they refer to me as he. With friends like Joy, the trans community is screwed. Her ‘mistake’ lends credence to the charge by conservatives that trans men and women are fakes. That we are not to be taken seriously.
I wonder how many other liberals hold similar views? Ask any trans person and they will have similar anecdotes of getting the same treatment by supposedly progressive voices. Often the slip ups occur because one bad gender signal disturbs a person’s perception of us. With trans women it is too often the voice. But other times, the muck-up bears the trace of intention.
So how do we move forward knowing that at least a few progressives really don’t like us hanging around their liberal community? Forgive them, but only so far.
Progressives, no matter their foibles, are infinitely better than those ‘old stick in the mud’ conservatives who feel particularly aggrieved by trans people. Be that trans person a High School Wrestling Champion in the boy’s competition, (if they could spot the difference between a trans man and their uncle Chester) or the trans girl who just wants to use the bathroom.
A question for the reader: ever wonder why conservatives have a very strange obsession over bathrooms? I do. From Jim Crow, to today’s toilet edicts in multiple states, conservatives have ‘pole vaulted over mouse turds’ to restrict access. But their attacks are unequal. Their harshest fusillades are reserved for trans women. Be that woman a model strutting down the runway in the latest Givenchy, to a little girl who just wants to run Cross Country in High School. We are the big Boogie-Girls.
Which brings me back to The View. Trans men and women need all the support our allies can give us. It doesn’t help when a progressive voice like Joy Behar’s is caught using the wrong pronoun, no matter how stinky the message from a trans woman of questionable political identity is. It gives our enemies ammunition. Too much of it that they are happy to use. While to her credit Ms. Behar apologized, the damage, was unfortunately, done. Words are like bullets. You cannot call them back.
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