Chez Rose

Let's Do the Time Warp Again

2010-11-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

"Those who do not remember History," Georges Santayana once remarked, "Are condemned forever to repeat it."

Ain't it the truth?

Don't believe me? You think, perhaps, that y'all are sophisticated, evolved and sane members of Homo sap, do you?

Some of us can't remember History, probably because they never studied it. Some of us are still possessed by atavistic, subhuman impulses that interfere with things like sanity and understanding.

(Notice that I said: 'possessed by'. It's an important distinction.)

The 'us' I refer to is a rather small subset of homo sapiens; that small subset residing in a medium large country located roughly between the 45th and 30th parallels of the Western hemisphere. It's a country that produces little in terms of manufacturing and product, but uses more of the Earth's resources than all of the other countries combined.

(This was once celebrated as a good thing. I'm not entirely sure why.)

That small subset of homo sap has a problem with remembering history; also a problem with effective communication, acceptance and that indefinable thing we call 'civilization'. In short, they don't like other members of their own species.

They base this attitude along visual modes, mostly; color of skin, wealth and display thereof, prestige and a weird form of nationalism that went out of style with the last World War. Oh, did I forget their equally odd brand of religion? In a word: superstition.

(Upton Sinclair pointed out that when fascism comes to this country, it will arrive wrapped in the American flag and bearing a Bible.)

Further examination of these atavistic sub-normals will reveal some curious characteristics: a very narrow demographic of white, Anglo-Saxon stock, located in an equally narrow *geographic; specifically the American South. They are, in fact, the very same states that supported the South's cause during the American Civil War.

Remembering History . . . Let's do the Time Warp, shall we? It's just a step to the left and then a jump to the Right:

I invite y'all to take a look at this link:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/would-the-south-really-leave/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Jamie Malanowski has done a superb job telling History in a very real, present-day sense. Read this one, folks. Read all the rhetoric and then do some comparisons. Listen to the rhetoric coming from the Tea Party goons and the Corporate mouthpieces and then ask yourself:

Have we come any distance at all from that bloody-minded idiocy, that savage vestige of our past?

Nope.

The fact that some politicians from those states have actually advocated secession only make my point all the more accurate. (Keep talking, smooth apes. The noose you're weaving for yourselves is growing apace.)

Analysis of the Tea Party movement continues to add data to my hypothesis: there is something utterly malign and sub-human at the core of their rhetoric and behavior.

We're better than other humans.

Don't believe that, either? Reductio ad absurdum, kids. Boil it down to the simplest possible reasoning behind the semantically-loaded words. They don't like other humans, for a variety of reasons that all boil down to feeling superior, when in fact, they're quite a bit less evolved than most of us.

Matt Taibbi presented us with some illuminating, if somewhat depressing data in his article in Rolling Stone magazine last month: "Tea and Crackers". Yes, they're crackers, alright, but the craziness is impelled by a terrifying lack of comprehension and inability to adapt to the realities of our world. They can't think very well, in other words, and it's making them do and say truly bizarre stuff. Taibbi pointed out that the Corporations have seized this opportunity to utilize them as foot soldiers in their attempt to consolidate their own power and wealth. Here's where it becomes truly terrifying:

Forget secession! Imagine a corporate-backed coup d'etat in this country, soon. Within twenty-five years, perhaps as little as a decade.

Perhaps even another Civil War. Only this time, both sides have nukes.

Did your hair stand on end? Good! So did mine, when I considered this.

And it all comes down to stupidity, in the end. Astonishing.

I have no answers, any more than Taibbi does. He seems to be at a loss as how to deal with these drop-outs from the human race and frankly, so am I. I could counsel perseverance and patience, but that has resulted in having our asses handed to us by some pretty smart sub-humans, notably Rove and his various henchmen. We have a Prez who also avoids confrontation like the plague and I can't say as I blame him one bit.

Nobody wants to be in a sniper's crosshairs. If Obama were to well and truly stand up to these Neanderthals in any significant way, he'd be assassinated within a week. The bloodbath that would ensue would make the Rodney King riots look like a minor domestic disturbance by comparison.

It may yet come to that. "Blood in the streets and blood at the polls, but another election was never held." Yeah, Heinlein was altogether too prescient.

Civil War seems to be our destination, folks. Unless we can find some way of educating and informing the more intellectually-challenged of our species, we're going to have another major conflict; one which could conceivably do permanent damage to the Earth.

I am no more prepared for a post-apocalyptic America than are you.

Let's do the Time Warp, for the last time.

Michelle Diane Rose
November 11th, 2010

*(Yes, I omitted Alaska. But I think they want to be their own country, anyway.)

Little Heros

2010-07-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

(Many thanks to Linda Hershman of Slate online for her initial article about this subject. You rock, Linda!)

We won a big one yesterday. Really big.

It looks little on the outside: one judge and two relatively unrelated rulings. One state: Massachusetts. One law: DoMA. One concept:

Equality.

Judge Joe Tauro of the US District Court in Boston delivered a ruling that used precisely the same logic and reason we in the LGBT community have been using for the last thirty years, ever since gays came out of the closet and started asking for their/our rightful due. That reasoning runs somewhat like this: the Federal government (and by extension; any government) does not have the right to pass a law that separates citizens into classes; one class having rights the other does not.

That's it. That's the core of it and he's exactly right. No government has the right to discriminate, either as a ways to maintain the social order or to encourage behavior. Period. No arguments there, please, as we try to think with our forebrains 'round here at Chez Rose, not our gonads or our amygdalas. If you manage to finish reading this piece, I would assume that you do, too. So listen up:

To quote Linda Hershman's article: "Judge Tauro rejected every possible reason to retain the law." He sure did. He did a scathing number on the whole underlying concept and stated it quite well: "The Constitution neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." One statement, referring to the Plessy v. Ferguson decision (1896) that established segregation and was struck down in 1967. (Almost a century. Hope you didn't get too bored, waiting for that...) One statement, but it's huge.

It's the central issue; the core value; the very heart of the consensual relationship between a truly free people and the government they choose to rule them. No other concept so defines the basic tenet of both the Constitution itself and the entirety of what 'American' means.

It means you can't tell me that I'm not allowed to be equal. It means you can't tell me that I have no right to be considered as worthy or deserving as anyone else. It means that I'm just like you and you're just like me: we have the same rights under the friggin' law and anyone who says we're not, for any reason, is a bigot and a hypocrite.

Well, the Judge didn't add that last sentence. I did. But it follows. How? Uh, the forebrain, kids. Use the forebrain. Stop living in the gonads or the lizard brain and listen up.

If you are entitled to be married to the one you love (and if you're cis, that means someone of the opposite gender. Not, I point out unnecessarily, homosexuals), then I am, too. Homosexuality is not a reason to deny me that privilege; that right.

But! you cry, recoiling in horror. What of the children? The bathrooms? The damage to society!

Children? Children of gays do just fine, if not better than offspring of cis-gender marriage. Better, because the divorce rate (or separation rate) among gays and lesbians is much, much lower than that of 'traditional' marriages. They don't grow up to be pedophiles, they don't grow up to be substance abusers and they damn sure don't all grow up to be gay or lesbian. (Some do. About the same percentage that homosexuality occurs in society. No change, in other words.)

Bathrooms? Oh, yeah. The horror of having a man with a beard and wearing a dress in the stall next to you. Is he masturbating as he avidly listens to you pee?

Not bloody likely. Same thing for the "beard in the dress" bit. I don't know of any trans woman who wants to keep her beard. Nor any andro or intersexed individual. (We hate facial hair, mostly. Yuck.) Someone who goes into a woman's potty for sexual purposes isn't trans or gay, he's a fetishist. OCD, in other words.

Damage to society? Hmm, wanna tell me what damage to society has resulted due to the presence of homosexuality? If you tell me pedophilia, I remind you that your forebrain is all that is required here. Command your gonads and lizard brain to remain silent for a moment. (If you can.) Pedophiles are almost exclusively heterosexual. Most are married men. Most have offspring who are among the first to be abused by these men. See the pattern. Ignore the rhetoric. Okay? Proceeding on:

Gay, lesbian, bi and trans folk have done as much (if not more, in some cases) to enrich and support society as any other segment of Western civilization. C'mon, you don't want the whole damn list, do you? It's about forty-some pages long. Really boring.

No damage, in other words. In fact, quite the opposite. To claim otherwise is to also claim a particularly stupefying ignorance. What rock have you been hiding under?

One of the rationales proposed by DoMA was to give American society breathing room, a time to assimilate this 'new' concept of 'gay equality'. As if we haven't had gays, lesbians, bi's and trans folk for thousands of years already. Like it just now popped up on the radar screen. That's horseshit and we all know it. Judge Tauro thinks so, too. He pointed out that the reversal of the anti-miscegenation laws in 1967 did not lead to complete societal breakdown, as the proponents claimed in 1896. He's right. The rest of you lizard-brains are completely wrong. See the pattern. Did black folks marrying white folks result in anarchy and nihilism? No, but it did give us some awfully beautiful and really smart people.

Same thing for marriages for LGBT folk. It won't hurt and it will definitely help. See the frickin' pattern!

Those are the high points. There's more, especially if you see the pattern and follow the logic of all its extensions. Briefly: no government has the right, either implied or consensual, to impose a system of segregation upon its citizens, for any reason or any cause. To do so is discriminatory and unjust.

It is unworthy of a sane, civilized and rational society society to impose conditions upon which any group may be damaged by omission or neglect or animus.

Judge Joe (he's now my new hero. I tend to be overly-familiar with my heroes.) used that word: animus. According to Linda Hershman, he concluded that animus was the only reason for imposition of this law: "If the Constitution means anything, it does at the very least mean that the Constitution will not abide a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group," Tauro wrote.

Damn straight, Joe. Thanks for pointing that out. It sure as hell does meant that. You listening, GOP? You listening, Palin? Limbaugh? Beck? You especially, Rupe. You and your evil clone better pay close attention. If all of you keep claiming the right to discriminate against us, you're going to run afoul of the very document you all claim to revere so much. (I have serious doubts about you, Rupe. I think you'd like to wipe your ass with the original Constitution.)

It means you don't have a legal leg to stand on anymore. It means you can't claim that it's a good law. You can fall back on your old (and creaky) habit of claiming "God says!" and point to the Good Book, but it's the one book that's not taught in schools and has no place within the framework of our government.

You'd like to change that, too. Wouldn't you? You will, if given half a chance.

You will not be given that. You have no right to that, despite what you may believe. Your belief is based on exclusion whereas ours is based on inclusion. We will win because our strategy is better.

See the pattern, lizard-brains. And perhaps you might see also that your evolution ended about the time you drew your first breath. Ours continues, will continue and we will grow while you will become extinct.

This is the death-knell for the extinction of those who believe that there are other humans who are not worthy or as good or as deserving. This is their last warning: grow or die.

It's about time. Thanks again, Joe. You too, Linda, for a great article: http://www.slate.com/id/2260039/?from=rss This one will keep me smiling all day. I hope it does the same for you, too.

Stand in the Light, y'all.

Michelle Diane Rose
July 9, 2010

Growin' Up

2010-06-25T23:49:00.000-07:00

I hid in the crowded wrath of the crowd
But when they said "Sit down", I stood up.
Ooh, growin' up...

Yuh. I seem to have that habit, too.

What kind of relationship do you have with those closest to you? Pretty equitable? Easygoing mutual respect, that sort of thing? Or do you clash with your SO, spouse, bedmate or bong buddy? Clash? Uh, you know; when they look at you like you just did a Jules Feiffer* and turned into the world's biggest baby? That condescending, dopey, wall-eyed stare and pause in their speech that, when they speak again, it's as if you were suddenly reduced in mental capacity to that of a cherrystone clam's.

That kind of clash.

Do ya?

We've all felt pretty infantile on occasion. Yup, I know I have. Ever feel that way about your own dear ones? Like: did they just lose twenty IQ points while I was talking to them?

I'm wondering about this, you see, because I hear my own SO doing it to me on a regular basis and I'm thinking she's feeling the same frickin' thing from me. I'm wondering where the fuck this comes from and why?

Why do we condescend toward our dear ones? Why do they condescend toward us? What is it about a 'normal' dynamic of an adult relationship where the partners trade off in that parent/child thing? Or more accurately: the adult/infant thing?

Still not getting it? Let us consider a few cliche's, shall we? The 'givens' in our culture, comprende'? Men tend to regard women as pretty non-technologically oriented. Hey, it's usually a guy under your car, right? Or a guy with his hands buried up to the wrists in your computer? It's usually a guy flying your plane (might be a woman. Might be) or installing your cable TV/Internet. (Sorry, Chloe. Yes, I know you're one of the few exceptions...)

So it's usually a guy doing the condescending: "Sorry, ma'am, but your tranny needs a complete teardown. I'd explain why it's gonna cost you $400, but I don't think you'd understand..."

(Your tranny needs a complete teardown. Yeah, sometimes I think I do...)

But that's a mechanic talking to you; a woman he doesn't know. What about your SO or spouse? "Sorry, honey, but you can't do it that way. Lemme show ya how..." and he elbows you aside.

And you? Cluck your tongue, shake your head. "Men." (Meaning: boys.) Don't they ever change the roll of toilet paper? Or put the damn seat down?

Cliche's, yeah, but they're helpful. You can fill in the blanks with any of the above actions/infractions. The behavior subsequent is still to the point: we tend to treat each other as if we were infants more often than not.

And if there is one thing I've learned as a trans person, it's that when you insist, demand, enforce your treatment of someone, it usually categorizes them as such. Let them define themselves and the dynamic shifts drastically, doesn't it?

Those darn dynamics! Will someone please tell me why, even in the depths of a loving relationship, we still struggle to establish one above the other? Is there, anywhere, in this World, this Earth of Hours, one relationship where neither struggles for dominance?

I'm having increasing difficulty in imagining such a relationship.

It may be only my own experience. I must say that one such had no such struggle within it; instead, there were other struggles having nothing to do with dominance; only rejection. (That may be a significant point.) Still, all the rest contained seeds and active flowering and even large, malignant thorn bushes of emotional dominance.

With some, I suppose it's a given from the get-go: "She's weaker and the less able, so it's up to me to lead..." or "He's strong and capable but he's about as bright as a small appliance bulb..." Others, it grows on you, almost by accident: "You said you would do that two weeks ago! And you're still dawdling! You're such a child...!"

Signify your opponent as childish and it improves the odds, doesn't it?

(Odds?)

Of winning, stupid. (See, I just did it, too...) Yeah, we want to win. Even if it means humiliating the other. "To crush your enemies and drive them before you and hear the lamentations of their women!"

Okay, not everyone marries Conan the Barbarian. (Although, I sometimes wonder when I see some couples together...) But we do that, don't we? Some of us.

I do. And I hate it.

I wonder if she hates it, too. I know it has a lot to do with her seeing me as emotionally inept; flawed. Kinda bent inside, so to speak. There's that frisson of pity which really sticks in my craw and I'll bet it does yours, too.

So we give as good as we get and that's helpful, isn't it? Yup, let's play oneupmanship with a reckless admixture of chicken and we'll find out who flinches first.

That's a great way to develop a dialogue. Assuming, of course, that a dialogue is what you wanted in the first place.

But if we look at the facts (and they're staring me in the face, so they're a bit hard to ignore. Also very uncomfortable.), we find that we tend to do this more often than not and sure, why not? It's the way we've always done it!

Dynamics.

I'm thinking it's time to think outside the box. I'm thinking it's time for a changeup. Hell, I'm thinking it's time to change batters and pitchers! (Where the fuck did that sports metaphor come from? I swear, I ordered English Lit metaphors and look what they sent me!)

I'm thinking that it's time for a different reaction, from me, at least. If she signifies me as infantile or if I find myself talking down to her, it's time for a different dynamic.

(Which would be?)

I'm working on it. I'll get back to you. In the meanwhile, here's some more Bruce:

I took month-long vacations in the stratosphere and you know it’s really hard to hold your breath.
I swear I lost everything I ever loved or feared, I was the cosmic kid in full costume dress,
Well, my feet they finally took root in the earth but I got me a nice little place in the stars
And I swear I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car
I hid in the mother breast of the crowd but when they said, "Pull down," I pulled up

Ooh... growin’ up.

Michelle Diane Rose
June 26th, 2010

*Tantrum (1997) Google it. Why should I do all the work? Sheesh, you're such a child...

We Want the World and We Want It Now...

2010-06-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

Remember that line? Morrison and the Doors: "When the Music's Over". A nice, uplifting bit of anthemic, rabble-rousing crap. I knew it was crap when I first heard it and it's still crap.

This is not to say that the rhetoric coming from activists in the gay ghetto is all crap. Far from it. "I feel your pain," as Slick Willie would say. (Oh and how I've changed! I'd have never said that about Clinton ten years ago! Never. But time and my cynicism marches on...) Yes, even you, Lane Hudson, dear boy, though I sometimes feel like smacking your bottom and sending you upstairs to bed without supper.

But the rhetoric does rather remind me of a pre-adolescent child whining about such matters as eating the veggies, picking up the toys and behaving less...boorishly.

(Whoa, it feels almost treasonous to write that line. But my inner sophist is having fun with this thesis. Let's see where she goes, shall we?)

It's interesting that politically-conversant folks like Lane should seemingly be so ignorant of the dynamics of politics; the ebb and flow and currents of power. Politics, as Lane and others would have it, should be simple: take a stand, start a movement, lobby, convince your congresscritter and get a law passed. (Hmm, even that has a lot of steps.) Simple, right?

(Short pause for hollow laughter. Special effects courtesy of Dolby Labs.TM)

Politics, it's said, is the only game in town for adults. Everything else is pretty much kid stuff. Okay, tell me the rules.

In this world, at this moment in time: there are six and a half billion rules.

Digest that a moment, will you? Can you agree on everything even your best friend or lover or spouse or next door neighbor might say about this society, this incredibly complex and convoluted civilization?

If you can say yes, I suggest that you really don't know that person very well. And they don't know you very well, either.

Consensus: (literally: to feel together) First, a general agreement; second, group solidarity of belief or agreement. The best we can ever hope for, being the kind of creatures that we are, is a general consensus. Really, really general.

But we might note that, for the first time in American history, acceptance of gays and lesbians (alas, no mention of teh trans and should we even wonder why?) has risen above fifty percent; a slim but measurable majority.

That most of us in America can agree that the GLBT community should have equal rights and opportunities is amazing enough in itself. That some of us want those rights and opportunities right now isn't very amazing at all.

I get kinda tired, seeing and hearing some of our firebrands acting up and acting out. Run for office, why don't you? (Well, it's friggin' expensive, but we'll get to that in a minute.) I become weary, seeing good work dismissed or ignored; good work from folks who move quietly beneath the radar; deal-making and negotiating and taking those incremental steps that can all be individually defended instead of dropping a bucket-full of changes on an unsuspecting public and risking the whole shebang. I grow bored with the rhetoric that demands 'transparency' from Washington and all the State capitols just because it's the right thing to do.

When has 'the right thing to do' ever been a matter of general consensus?

Backroom politics has been a fixture in human relations ever since politics was invented. We should change that? How?

That we are able, after eight long, agonizing years with Bush II and the neocons to have a dialog about this, one we know is being noted and understood, is frickin' amazing all by itself.

It's all about strategy, Lane. (You other kids listen up, too.) All about not putting all of your limited resources into one fight and only one fight. Make no mistake; even the Leader of the Free World is limited in his resources. It's all about not spreading yourself too thin and prioritizing and being a good executive trying to fulfill his promise to bring as much change as he can in the four years he has allotted to him.

Because the next election ain't gonna be no free ride, either. I'll vote for him (unless Hillary runs again. Doubtful.), but I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt. The Justice Department's position on DOMA sucks, bigtime (Incest? WTF? Incest?), but we're getting closer with DADT and ENDA, right?

(Agree with me or you'll get no supper. I mean it. C'mon, nod your head and say: "Yes, Auntie Michelle.")

(I forgot to add impatience to the above list. I'd make a terrible parent.)

My impatience is not with the Administration but with those who demand that something be done now, without delay, this minute, because I want it and need it and I deserve it. This also includes those who want the government to butt out of their private lives. Y'don't want half much, do ya?

I can afford to be a bit smug. I live in good ol' Blue State Oregon, home of the Oregon Equality Act...

Also Measure 36, which is cemented into our state Constitution like some sort of obscene found object sculpture, one that even the artists (the voters of Oregon) regard with a certain distaste. It was an ugly fight, one precipitated by a small cadre of well-meaning liberals who rightly 'wanted it all' and thought it was the 'right thing to do'.

It bit them in the ass and they all scattered to cover their stinging asses, those fine commissioners from Multnomah County who ordered the wedding licenses issued to begin with. And while they were hiding and pointing their fingers at one another (and Diane Linn, a lot), another group stepped in to fill the power vacuum. They did what we should have done and introduced an initiative to change the Constitution and won.

You don't drop a bucket-full of change on anyone. All you do is lose most of it. Someone else will challenge it.

Pendulum swings, baby. Push it too hard and it'll swing hard the wrong way. You're right back where you started, perhaps worse.

Now I have to try to undo what a group of well-meaning liberals did to my rights and privileges as a human being in this part of the World. I gotta bust a little ass and wear out a pair of sneakers helping to fix a mess that shouldn't have occurred in the first place.

If we'd worked out a consensus. If we'd strategized. If we'd made a few deals and negotiated first. Now BRO and the ACLU and others have to spend a whole bunch of money they could be spending elsewhere and utilize a whole bunch of resources they could put into a different fight (DOMA, anyone? DADT?) to reverse a nasty, vile addition to our state laws that allows legal discrimination and bigotry.

I'm not happy about this.

So when I hear "Obama isn't doing enough..." or "Obama isn't keeping his campaign promises...", I want to point to the shining example of my dear home Oregon, a wonderfully liberal state and its largest city; Portland. Where I can stroll down the street as myself, with proper ID that matches my correct gender and name, and be treated with equality. Most of the time.

I just can't marry my beloved because she has an F on her driver's license and so do I.

Take a good look at Oregon, folks. This is what happens when you want the world and you want it now and it's the right thing to do and so what if some people object? Leave footprints on their faces and get 'er done!

(Ooops, wrong rhetoric...)

You wanna give the Teabaggers more momentum than ever before? Keep it up, Lane. You want to lose a few elections for our allies in Congress? Act up and act out some more. Heckle. Jeer. Wave your signs and block some gates.

Works every time.

But if you want some results, get your butt out into the street and change your neighbor's mind. Talk convincingly and logically. Form a frickin' consensus, willya?

That works pretty well, too. You can run for office with a big enough consensus. It's called a mandate. That's when you can get others to pay for it.

(You gotta love capitalism, sometimes.)

Okay, I think we're done, kids. Run along and watch TV, now.

Michelle Diane Rose
June 22, 2010

Hiring Teh Trans

2010-06-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

(I dunno why I've taken to using "teh" instead of "the". A sneer seems to be creeping in from offstage somewhere and I'm thinking it's indicative of something but I dunno what, yet.)

Would you hire a tranny?

C'mon, this is Oregon, a blue State through and through, right? We have the Oregon Equality Act, which prevents discrimination in hiring and employment practices, right? So any employer ought to be able to nod and say, "Yes, we would most certainly consider hiring a trans person for any position available if that person were qualified." Right?

Right.

And I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. Cheap.

Like hell any of you will. You will like hell hire me and people like me, even if we are more than qualified. You will like hell hire people like me under any circumstances.

You won't hire us simply because the law says you have to or should. The law says so, but damn few employers are going to even consider that law. They will instead develop ways to legally circumvent that law and devise ways to terminate any trans employee who transitions on the job if it becomes politically expedient to do so.

Cis-gender folks will read this, shrug and say,"So what? Most of you trannies are pretty gross-looking, y'know? I wouldn't hire you either."

(Would it do any good to note that our appearance has absolutely nothing to do with how well we do our job or how qualified we are or even how intelligent we are?)

(I didn't think so.)

Yeah, some of us look pretty weird, myself included. Trust me, we don't like it, either. You don't like looking at guys in dresses? (News flash: most of us don't wear dresses to the office.) Uh, well, now that you mention it, neither do we. We'd rather look in the mirror and see ordinary-looking women. We'd rather you did the same when you look at us, especially if you're male.

(sigh) But you don't, do you? If you're an employer or a co-worker and especially if you're male, you look at us and instead of a woman, you see a man trying to look like a woman. And everything you've learned from your parents and teachers and peers and everything that you absorb from the the media, either manifest or latent, tells you that this is all about sexual expression.

Not identity.

Sex.

It's as if a tranny hooker in six-inch platforms had just strolled into your office, adjusted her micro-miniskirt to cover the obvious bulge and drawled: "Honey, I need a job. Got anything I can do on my knees?"

Signification.

Gender=Sex=Behavior. That's the paradigm we face. If we are only men who seek to be women then we must be men who seek to be sexually submissive/provocative/promiscuous women.

That's the paradigm and there ain't none other, sweetheart.

Men set this paradigm and men enforce it and men signify it and men hire and fire as their gonads demand.

And you wonder why we don't want to be men? Get a clue, bubba.

(It's not so much that I don't want to be a man. I never was a man in the first place. I just don't like being stuck in this effin' male body.)

Can you look past that signification? Nope. This is what they mean by social pressures being overwhelming. We can prove to you, over and over again, that we're just as qualified, just as able, just as deserving, just as willing as any cis or 'normal' woman (or man!) and it would be a waste of effort.

Senator Barney Frank kinda summed it up again. Good ol' Barney, that traitor and backstabbing snob of a faggot (I use the derogatory label deliberately and deservedly) commented thus on the still-amorphous ENDA bill: "But we won't have any guys with beards in dresses using the ladies john, That's certain."

(It's always about the goddamned restrooms, isn't it?)

Safe bet, Barney, ol' buddy. (But you're known as a man who covers his ass at every opportunity.) No, we probably won't have that and it won't require a law, either.

But where's your dividing line, Barney? At what point do you say: "This guy doesn't look nearly feminine enough to be considered a woman, so he shouldn't be allowed to use the ladies room." Too masculine of a face? (FFS and laser/electro is fiendishly expensive. Trust me, I speak from experience.) Big, bulky masculine frame and size? (Can't do much about that. None of us can.) Deep voice? (see above. Voice lessons are expensive, too.) Simply not feminine enough?

Aha. Now we come to the meat of it.

Let's put this into a male perspective, shall we? If you're a male job recruiter or a male supervisor, whether you're willing to admit it or not--and there are an astonishing number of men who will admit this--your approval of anyone's femininity is based on one simple rule of thumb:

Is she fuckable?

That's it. That's all.

I can hear the screaming in the back: "Not true! It's all about the background and experience!"

Crap. NYC has had an ENDA law on the books for almost a decade now. They just did a blind study to determine whether a job applicant is less likely to be hired if he/she presents as trans in the interview or in any face-to-face encounter. They found that trans folk were sixty percent less likely to be hired.

Well, I suppose that's better than one hundred percent.

Then again, it's better than a poke in the eye with a flamin' stick, too.

Fuckability is about the only criteria a male uses in determining a woman's worth. He doesn't consider her mind, her talents or skills and he damn sure doesn't consider her worth as an employee. Instead, he considers what she would look like with no panties and her heels in the air.

And if he thinks she's got the wrong kind of plumbing down there, he's not going to hire her, even if it's just running a friggin' cash register.

Let's take my experience as an out trans woman on the job, going on almost two years now. (Yes, take it, please, because it pretty much sucks...) I work for a guy who considers himself extremely liberal. He thinks he's liberal, in the way that Barney Frank thinks he's liberal: he's willing to extend privilege and rights to those he thinks deserve it, but he's savvy enough to realize that he's not bound to a moral or ethical code which demands that he do so.

So he cheats, my boss does. He lets other people harass me. He lets the customers assault me verbally and sometimes physically. His supervisors approve. They don't want me there, either, mostly because they expect me to endure the abuse or, hopefully, quit out of sheer disgust and frustration and fear for my own safety.

But that doesn't stop my boss from gathering information for eventual termination. I'm willing to bet that they started that the second I informed the HR department that I intended to transition.

That's what I get for trusting a charity to honor my individuality and respect my rights.

I'm probably going to be fired within a few months. My co-workers, most of whom are women, are reaching a break point with me. Most of them have complained loudly about me using the ladies room, not working as hard as they do, and, most important; not knowing instinctively what women do while working in that particular environment.

Really.

Want to hear what both of the lead cashiers have said about me? (When they thought I wasn't present. I'm paraphrasing both.) "Well, if he was really a woman, we wouldn't have to explain it to him!"

(I should have butted in right there with one of my patented job-destroying comments but I didn't. instead, I hurried into the back room because it was suddenly very difficult to see. Something in my eye...)

Both lead cashiers are very attractive women. One is extremely resentful of me and complains about me on a daily basis. How do I know this? The boss let it slip during a 'counseling' session and I think he kinda regrets it.

They're both good-looking women. I have no doubt what my boss sees when he looks at them. I also have no doubt what he sees when he looks at me.

I'm not fuckable. Not by cis-male standards.

So: soon enough, I'm going to find out how difficult it is to find a job, now that I'm out and "socially" transitioned. I already know why so many of my tribe turn to sex work for any kind of income, because that's the only option left. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it? Men believe that the only reason a man becomes a woman is to have sex as one and lo and behold! The prejudice becomes the truth.

Sure. If that's the only option we have. That or die.

I'm not ready to die. Not yet.

Neither will I sell my ass for a handful of cash.

Michelle Diane Rose
June 20th, 2010

Blood in the Streets...

2010-06-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

"Blood in the streets and blood at the polls but another election was never held."

Robert Anson Heinlein wrote that almost forty years ago. He was commenting on a pair of short stories that he'd never written and never regretted the omission; "The Stone Pillow" and "The Sound of His Wings". The quote refers to the latter story which tells of a "backwoods, pipsqueak evangelist" who seizes control of the media, rigs a presidential election and seizes control of America. He promptly turns the US into a theocratic dictatorship, combining the worst aspects of the Spanish Inquisition and Mussolini's Italy. Forty years ago, this was science fiction!

Not anymore, it ain't.

What would Bob tell us about the blood in the streets and blood at the polls? We can speculate. The Grandmaster was a libertarian, perhaps the Uber-libertarian. He was also a unrepentant capitalist and somewhat of an elitist. (sigh) Growing up and finding that your idols have feet of clay is always depressing. That doesn't dissuade me from searching...but I digress. Much as I love the man's style and his brilliance and his warmth and humanity (plus the fact that he instinctively understood teh trans), he was still a bit of prick when it came to folks who don't quite measure up.

We have a bit of that going on in South Carolina. Mr. Green, a previously unknown candidate for Senate somehow managed to win the Democratic Party primary over the expected candidate, retired judge Vic Rawl.

(I'm merely pointing out facts here. Whether they're salient remains to be seen.)

Mr. Green is unemployed and refuses to disclose how he managed to raise the ten grand plus required for the filing fee. In fact, he refuses to disclose any information about his financial support or support of any kind. He did not campaign, did not buy airtime or any commercial time or ads of any kind at all.

Yet he carried 6 out of 10 of the votes in his district, handily beating Mr. Rawls.

("Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.)

A challenge has been filed, of course. Defective voting machines have been mentioned, the mysterious source of Mr. Green's funding has been raised and so have a lot of eyebrows, all the way to Washington, in fact.

Someone doesn't quite measure up and neither does his story, what there is of it.

I wonder: the Dem winner would be facing a fave of the teabaggers, Jim DeMint, in the fall election. Green would have his ass handed to him in a straight-ahead vote. ("Positions? What positions? He ain't got no stinkin' positions!")

Thereby handing the Senate seat to another "Conservative" currently on the teabaggers' most-favored list. A brief look at this dickhead's rap sheet tells me why; he votes against good stuff and he votes in favor of bad stuff. He says ugly, horrible things about nice people who work hard and give a damn about other people. He doesn't contribute much except controversy and animosity. He's perfect, in other words, for assisting in the overthrow of America.

The teabaggers and the fundies and the neocons all have the same general objective: conquer America for fascism. Oh, I know it's not expressed that way; that would be terrible PR, but it's the bottom line. There really isn't any other way to put it honestly. They want to conquer America, turn it into a homegrown Third Reich and rule the rest of the world through armed might and slavery and torture.

And they're experimenting, trying different techniques through various means to see how much they can get away with and how far they can push the envelope, especially through dissemination of misinformation via a controlled media and manipulation of the voting and legislative process.

Heinlein's story dealt with a cynical, greedy media mogul who took that "backwoods, pipsqueak evangelist" and turned him into a media star who could do no wrong. A few tricks with CGI (Heinlein visualized a kind of special effects that morphed the preacher into something awe-inspiring but this was the late Sixties. Not even he could have predicted what the nerds are capable of with the right equipment and software.), a call to arms among the faithful and wham: "Blood in the streets and blood at the polls but another election was never held."

It can't happen here, right?

Like hell it can't. George Bush had a fraudulent election handed to him by a Supreme Court bought off by his personal fortune and oil baron buddies.

How would they do that; conquer the country, as Heinlein envisioned?

Well, a "backwoods, pipsqueak evangelist" wouldn't be hard to find. They're a dime a dozen down South. Turn over a rock.

(A brief digression: what the hell is it with those effin' Confederates? Don't they effin' realize that they lost the goddamned War and that it's time to knock off the bigotry and prejudice and general slack-jawed, cornpone bullshit? Holy Jeebus, what do we have to do, nuke your stupid sister-molesting asses? Apologies and we'll return to our regularly-scheduled rant.)

But what "cynical, greedy media mogul" could possibly fit the bill?

I'm pointing the finger at you, Rupert Murdoch. You evil bastard. I know what you're trying to do. So do a lot of other folks. It isn't going to work, you Aussie asshole.

You're trying to destabilize American society. You're literally plotting to overthrow the government.

Treason.

You're a naturalized American citizen and you're planning to overthrow the government and destroy the country that welcomed you, you evil bastard. At which point, you'll install a puppet government and put your equally evil son in charge when you you finally die, you evil bastard.

I follow vector sums. I spot trends. I have been cursed with a skill in pattern recognition and all the patterns point at you, you warped, wrinkled fascist monster. You make Eichmann look like a frickin' Scoutmaster by comparison.

(This is what my professors would call an ad hominem attack. But sometimes you just gotta rock and roll...)

We laugh and sneer at and dismiss Fox but it has a huge audience, fully a third of the viewer share. That is not something to sneer at. It is something to be very alarmed about. Murdoch has perverted the concept of journalism on his so-called 'news-shows' and broken every rule, turned every nasty trick and repudiated every ethical and moral conviction inherent to responsible and honest journalism. Protests about these travesties result in contemptuous laughter and disingenuous comments such as: "It's not journalism, it's entertainment!"

Indeed. Thereby releasing you from the responsibility to tell the goddamned truth.

The truth is, you're going to be sued and sued repeatedly in the coming years. Certain people are going to be watching you, waiting for you and your evil clone to make a mistake. When you do, we'll be there, subpoena in hand and armed Federal Marshals at our side, if necessary. State militia if need be.

Are you listening, Rupe? Give it up. We're on to you. I'm just a tranny college student who works for a gutter-level non-profit. If I can spot it, don't you think that folks with a whole bunch more smarts than me and a truckload more resources than me (i.e.: $$$) can spot it, too?

They're in a position to do something about it, too. I can guess who some of them are and maybe even who their operatives are but I'm not telling.

But you better effin' watch your back, Murdoch.

Because we can, and will, clip your wings. Permanently, if necessary.

Hands off the election in South Carolina, bucko. No more directives to the clever lads who program those computerized voting machines. No more bribes and it would be best if you pulled your operatives out of the field until sometime next year. If we catch them, your ass is grass and I know of some really big power mowers who would love to take you on.

Michelle Diane Rose
June 16, 2010

2010-06-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

It seems to be an evening for weeping.

My makeup is streaked with tears, my hair rumpled and bed-headed and I would imagine the Hispanic woman next door is equally disheveled. She's been weeping not much longer than myself, which is to say; about two or three hours. She became quite vocal at one point, wailing almost, and I felt nothing but empathy for her, even separated from her as I am by two walls, perhaps forever.

Separated, perhaps, by more than mere walls of sheet-rock and siding.

We have our grief, she and I. I will never know hers but I can always speculate; an unhealthy proposition at best. Will she ever speculate about me, wonder why I wailed as well, earlier?

Perhaps not. Probably not.

Is it love that makes her wail, as it does for me? Love, or absence therof? Absence of presence and a sense of loss and despair? Does she, as I do, feel the pain of not being able to speak, to communicate from the heart and soul and tell of the hollow grief within her? Does she long to be held, as I do, long for that quantum of solace which can only be found in the arms of your beloved?

Wailing is all she has left, this dark and damp night in Portland, Oregon. Wailing and tears.

It's what I have now. That, and my endlessly restless mind and heart, questing after that which I may never have.

But I believe in Love, I do. I always will. I know that it exists, always has and always will, forever and ever, World without end, amen. Does that sound religious? Perhaps it is. There is love and there is Love and I see little difference, as close as I am to it, the forest for the trees, so to speak.

I have it and yet it eludes me. I long for it and it longs for me, love and Love alike and yet we cannot meet. So I weep, alone, in the night.

There is no way anyone of sound mind might ever consider this romantic.

Ah, well. Of such are pop songs great and puerile written and novels magnificent and mundane ground out by the score. (I'm winking at you, Danielle Steel and Babara Cartwright!)Gosh, I could sit down right now and crank out a tearjerker or two myself, either on guitar or this damned computer. Might even make enough money someday to invite Love (or her little sister; love) out for lunch.

Pizza sound good?

Michelle Diane Rose
June 9th, 2010

The World is Bleeding

2010-06-08T23:47:00.000-07:00

This is one ugly reason to restart this blog. I would have much rather done it because ENDA passed or DoMA was overturned or even because a meteor struck Rush Limbaugh's latest wedding reception and most of our troubles were solved in one fell swoop. (Or huge release of kinetic energy, but whatever...)

No. I'm writing this because our World is bleeding.

In case you were hiding in a cave or vacationing on Neptune, there's an ecological disaster of global proportions happening in the Gulf of Mexico. Behold, I am a soothsayer: in less than five years, over ninety percent of the life in the Gulf--fish, plankton, crustaceans, plants, anything you care to name--will be gone. Dead. Smothered. Rotted. Poisoned.

Murdered.

(I can hear the jeers already: treehugger! Eco-terrorist! Socialist! Guilty as charged to the last count, Your Honor, but the others are pretty ludicrous. I've never hugged a tree--unless you count hanging on for dear life when I was a kid climbing them--and I gave up terrorizing others when my wife and I separated.)

Yeah. Murdered. With malice aforethought, as the courts say. With gleeful abandon. Deliberate callousness.

I read an interesting op-ed on Slate; you wanna know who to blame? Look in the mirror, Mr. and Mrs. America, with your two and a half kids and your MacMansion in default of payments and your nasty, petroleum-guzzling Hummer that you absolutely must have to take the 2 1/2 kids to soccer practice. Look in the mirror. You are the one responsible because you won't give up that damned metal beast crouching in your driveway, that dinosaur that burns the World's blood.

Oh, and by the way: fuck you both. (We'll leave your kids out of it. For now.)

I can say that because I don't drive a car. Mine was stolen four years ago. Best thing that ever happened to me. I saved four hundred dollars a month in payments, insurance, maintenance and, most important: gasoline. I make less than ten dollars an hour working for a non-profit charity and there's no way I could have afforded it, anyway. So you did me a favor, even though you're a rat-bastard, whoever you were.

I walk. I take public transit. I bum rides with others, although that's pretty rare. I've done some jet travel lately and that's gotta be one of the most energy-intensive and costly ways to travel anywhere in this World but there aren't many "green" ways to get to New York State or Denver, Colorado or Baltimore, Maryland. So I flew on a jet plane more than once and frankly, it was pretty cool. I enjoyed it. Sue me.

Can't say as I enjoy watching our World bleed, though.

British Petroleum screwed up pretty badly and screwed the entire human race and our one and only World in the process. And they're whining about how it's impacting their profits. Too bad. Howdja like them profits shoved up your ass and ignited, boys?

(Sorry. That was less than literary and awfully undiplomatic. I must learn to control my outrage. It's going to result in a cardiovascular accident soon enough if I'm not careful.)

To say that this is a disaster of global proportions is not an exaggeration. Google the data. It's easy enough to lie with facts and stats but these might be a little hard to fudge. Or at least, not for long, because BP is the only outfit on-scene with cameras. Not for long, I think. I suspect the Prez is about to send in the Navy and about time, I think.

That isn't enough, unfortunately. Too little, too late and piss poor planning besides. What the hell do we do?

Stop drilling. Stop using oil. It's too valuable to waste by being burned in a goddamned car, for Heaven's sake. You know how many pharmaceuticals, exotic chemicals, plastics and just plain useful things can be had from crude oil? Thousands. More than you can possibly imagine.

But, nooooo! We burn it, adding to the rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and increasing the greenhouse effect and accelerating global warming. Great. Why don't we just set fire to the whole mess and walk away?

Whoops, can't do that, despite the cheers of agreement I hear from my fundie brothers and sisters. Sorry, I don't think we're quite ready for the Rapture but if y'all wanna go, don't let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out. The rest of us will stay and try to clean up the mess that you supposedly Christian, capitalistic, warmongering and violently testosterone-poisoned assholes left for us. Don't expect the welcome mat if you change your mind and want to come home to the good, formerly green Earth that gave you birth.

I can think of one very effective punishment that will forever dissuade oil executives from cutting corners, faking inspection records, lying to inspectors (and bribing them) and blithely figuring in fines, PAC donations, lawsuits and more bribes as the usual cost of business in Corporate America.

Execution.

My World is bleeding and I want the rat-bastards responsible to die, painfully. Slowly, if possible, but most certainly painfully. Boiling in their own goddamned oil sounds about right.

Barbaric, you say? Medieval? You recoil in horror. Oh, dear! We can't possibly do that! That would be...inhumane! Why, these are good family men, with full lives. Pillars of their community. Beloved by their friends and relative. They contribute to charities. They're just human and subject to mistakes, like any of us.

Hmm, izzat so? "One may smile and smile and still be a villain." Shakespeare, I think. No, they're not human. I'm denying them that. They have no right to call themselves 'human'. They are no more human than a rabid wolf or a recluse spider or a great white shark is human. I have no doubt that they'd love that last analogy. Something about violent, rapacious images gives all of these guys serious hard-ons. I pity their wives and their mistresses.

Why do I say that my World is bleeding? Look at those camera feeds from two miles down. Thick, dark fluid spurting from a rent in the skin of the Earth, deep beneath the ocean, where the skin is thin and the only illumination is from halogens dropped from the airy light above. It billows out just like blood as when a great white tears into the side of a victim, fanning out into the salty water like parasols of pain and filth in 3-D.

It's blood. Our World's blood. It's the nasty, organic residue of millions of acres of prehistoric forest and reptilian life squashed into a thick, gooey mess and it's spurting, gushing, bleeding into the underbelly of the World.

It's pornography in the way that a hardcore S&M flick is pornography. Not B&D, although that distinction often escapes most folks. (Then again, the distinction between myself and a common hooker often escapes most folks as well, so whatcha gonna do?)It's a frickin' snuff film and you may be damned sure that I've never seen one and if anyone is stupid enough to try to show me one, he's gonna be minus the cost of a tape or DVD and some substantial facial repair.

Murder most foul. Premeditated. Planned. Executed with deliberation.

So that's why I say: execute those who would kill our planet, out home, our World. They knew what they were doing. They did it with full knowledge of the risks and they dare to complain to us about their costs?

I have a suggestion to the fine boyos from BP: shut up. Now. You're going to make it worse when we finally bring you to trial, right before we hang you for crimes against humanity. Shut up and get to work and you might, just might, get that sentence lowered to merely life in prison, short as that's likely to be.

At the very least, that's a lot more mercy than you showed our World.

Our World.

Not yours, BP.

Michelle Diane Rose
June 9th, 2010

Do You Believe in Magic?

2008-12-06T19:01:00.000-08:00

But not the kind in a young girl’s heart.
What kind of magic do you believe in? Are you a LOTR fan? Hobbits, elves, orcs, that sort of thing? Or even darker: vampires, werewolves, the Mummy, ad nauseum?

Or are you a fundamentalist Christian?

Wait! Do I really mean to say that Christians believe in magic? I mean, gee, you won’t find any Christians, fundamentalist or otherwise, publicly admitting that they believe in things like vampires, or hobbits or even witches. As a matter of fact, just about every Protestant religion—and even the Catholic Church—has repudiated the prosecution of witchcraft. The official position is that witchcraft, black magic, doesn’t exist and it is in fact blasphemy to believe that it does. So how can I say that Christians believe in magic?

You’d better believe that they do, bubba. A stupefying percentage of them believe in the blackest magic of all: the existence of Evil as personified by the Thing we call Satan. And the Catholic Church has as the foundation of Its faith the daily miracle (read: acceptable white magic) of transubstantiation, i.e.: the changing of wine into blood and bread into flesh.

And just between us folks, a religion that ritualizes cannibalism is kind of creepy.

But it’s magic we’re concerned with here, people. Western religions refer to acceptable magic as miracles, that is: ultimately descended from God and thereby acceptable. Whether performed by a saintly person, an exorcist—and what is an exorcism but a series of incantations by a priest?—or merely a purportedly innocent human being, it’s magic that God Himself has authorized. Sanctified by prayer and pure intent, of course.

But consider: the more fundamental of the Protestant faiths quite clearly acknowledge the existence of a supernatural being called Satan, once called Lucifer. He is said to be a fallen angel, formerly the most highly regarded of all the angels and a creation of the Deity Himself. Yet this Divine creation was somehow flawed, rebelled against God and was cast into another Divine creation we call Hell. A most unpleasant place, by all reports and by the physical laws of our universe: impossible. This place was apparently created to hold those who rebel against God or do not believe in God or who were unaware of the existence of God. The latter get a slightly better deal, according to Dante, similar to a nice retirement center or vacation resort encircling a particularly odious garbage dump.

Damnation is relative, it would seem.

Yet most of the Western world believes in the existence of these impossible things: a Divine creation that rebels against its Creator and a whole host of demonic creatures accompanying It. Evil acts—mostly temptations to unpleasant behavior—encouraged by these creatures. Miraculous cures, tears of blood, stigmata, visions of the Virgin Mary, portents in the sky and sea and soil and the occasional corn chip. Signs. Omens. That transubstantiation thing. And the biggest, baddest most Magical Thing of all, the headliner act to beat all acts, the Lollapalooza of battles (or Mother of All Battles, if you’re a Muslim), the hot ticket for the season, ladies and gentlemen, it’s Armageddon!

That’s right, the End of the World. You can’t miss it; it’s in the Enquirer every other week.

Now, how do you reason with that? How do you deal with a faith, a whole sheaf of faiths that believe the world is going to end in a huge fight between the armies of Good and Evil? Good is supposed to win, of course—survey says!—and all the baddies are supposed to get their comeuppance. Or so it says here in the Book of Revelations: an interesting, if somewhat hallucinogenic series of letters written by one of the early Christian holy men during the time of the Emperor Nero. Who, by the way, was referred to by early Christians as The Great Beast. Really. Look it up if you don’t believe me. Google: Nero+Christians+Great Beast.

This is a bit weird, friends. Why would anyone want to believe in a God that intends to let the world end in a blaze of fire and destruction? Why would anyone want the world to end? Uh, I think I know why, but the answer disturbs me even more than the concept of magic:

Some Christians are cowards.

Okay, now calm down. Do you think I like the idea? I don’t like concluding that nearly half the world is composed mostly of gutless, chickenshit whiners who want Big Daddy to wipe the slate clean because they can’t deal with all the unpleasant subjects demanding our attention these days. Which ones? Fundamentalist Christians are against: abortion, homosexuality, procreational sex, teenage sex, extramarital sex (in fact, sexual intercourse seems to be a big no-no for any reason except making babies exclusively in wedlock), free speech, evolution (hey, don’t blame man for that!), unlimited medical research, democracy and impure thoughts, whatever those are.

They are, however, foursquare in favor of war against the heathen Muslims. Onward Christian soldiers. If you want a real eye-opener—and stomach-turner—try to lay hands on an unexpurgated history of the Crusades, especially the First and Fourth Crusades. You will discover why the Arabic world holds us in such contempt and it isn’t because we slaughtered so many of their people to capture a few cities that didn’t belong to any European monarch in the first place. No, it’s what the noble knights of the Crusades did afterwards that pisses them off and rightly so.

But, enough history. Turn off your hormones for a moment and let’s be utterly objective. Evolution is change. Change is the only thing that remains constant. The scientific word for it is thermodynamics or sometimes entropy and you can see it happening all around you. You can see evolution at work, too, but only if you put down the Good Book for a moment and really look. A social system is subject to change, too. Just like an organism, which it resembles on a larger scale. This is why I can’t help snickering when I hear the word conservative. Definition: “desiring to preserve existing institutions and thus opposed to radical change”.

Eh?

If you don’t grow and change, you die. Period. Ever read Dr. Robert Malthus? A depressing man. He pointed out that when an organism runs out of resources and room to grow, it dies. Every time, without fail. I don’t know if he ever tested an organism that deliberately and consciously refused to grow, but it follows that an organism that limits itself cannot grow in that direction.

A Christian might tell you that that’s a good thing. Who wants a society to grow in the direction of abortion or homosexuality? Do you want unlimited abortion or rampant gayness pervading this society? Well, abortion, no. I’d rather see a foolproof—make that idiot-proof—method of birth control. But that’s forbidden, too. No makin’ whoopee other than for makin’ babies. Married couples only, please. Preferably those devout enough to pray before they do the horizontal bop.

Homosexuality? (Shrug. Yawn.) Well, if I may be permitted an entirely utilitarian observation, it’s one way to lower the birth rate and increase adoptions. Of course, it will also increase the mortality rate, AIDS being the mutating killer it is, but that’s an area we must grow to understand or we will die. (No kiddin’, said Doctor Malthus.) But am I worried that the gays have a secret agenda to control the world and turn it into vast sodomite orgy, controlled by the Fiendish One?

Uh, no. And frankly, that sounds pretty damned paranoid to me. I rate it right up there with the Red Scare and all its attendant horrors like McCarthyism, anti-Semitism (and its equally suspect counterpart Zionism) and the horror of horrors: racial purity as religiously practiced by the National Socialist Party of Germany. (Gott Mit Uns!) Of course, they didn’t like homosexuals either and I expect that the religious right will soon adopt much if not all of their rhetoric and tactics.

Then again, they may have done so already. You probably realize that in the minds of most fundamentalists, gay equals pedophile. That the evidence does not support this conclusion in any way shape or form, seems to be irrelevant to your average devout—and blindly obedient-- fundamentalist. Their preacher told them that the Bible says so: end of discussion. Their preacher also told them that the world will end in fire fairly soon, so get ready for this by contemplating your next life through prayer and regular donations to the Church. Which may be why some elderly people can’t make ends meet: (“That handsome minister on TV told me to send in a $100! So I did . . .”)

Springsteen once commented that blind faith in your leaders will get you killed. No kiddin’, Bruce?

Amazing. Never have so many believed so little for so contemptible a reason: cowardice. And if the world really is ending, what do you need all that money for? Just curious...

Facing an uncertain future takes a certain amount of courage. In a high school physics class I saw a depiction of the curve of human technological advancement graphed logarithmically. The damn thing went completely vertical very shortly after the Millennium. I’m sure most of you have seen it as well or something quite similar, jammed as the media was at that time with predictions by Nostradamus, the President’s astrologer and every damned crackpot who managed to get on the Art Bell radio show. And friends, that’s scary.

That means that technology is not only changing faster than we understand or can control, it means it’s changing faster than is possible for us to understand or control. Shall I simplify that?

No one human, unaltered or un-enhanced can possibly understand the whole of human technology or science nor absorb more than a fraction of the new technology that is being developed every minute. It can’t be done. Our brains aren’t big enough to contain all of the bits of data nor do we have the processing power to comprehend the sum of it. The operative word here is un-enhanced. There are ways, now being explored, to make it possible for us to get most of it, or at least the parts that really matter. But, as they’re finding out now on Google and other search engines, what constitutes the important stuff and what is garbage?

We might want to keep Sturgeon’s Law in mind when addressing that. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of it? Ninety percent of everything is crap. I know some people who live by that paradigm. Sometimes I don’t know whom to pity most: the Christians that believe in a God who wants to blow up the world and torture most of us or those poor saps that can’t tell a rose from a cowpie.

Fear and Faith and Knowledge and Reason: it seems to be not so much a War between Good and Evil, but rather a War of Extremes. And isn’t that the way it’s been growing for several decades now? Partisanship has not merely reared its obscenely ugly head, it stands rampant upon its hind legs and both sides are worshipping that particular Golden Calf. Riotously so, one might say, especially in the neo-con camp.

What can be done to reverse this or even stop it? Sadly: not a whole lot.

We can only hope that posterity will judge those conservatives who want us to remain as we were because they fear what we might become for what they truly are: cowards. Obstructionists. Speed bumps on the road to Progress. We can’t reason with them: the fundamentalists and the neo-cons, the nouveau riche of the right-wing power elite. We can’t smear them or defame them either, because there will always be more to take their place and it cheapens us to use their tactics, assuming anyone would even pay attention. (Another scandal? Yawn.) We can’t ignore them because they won’t go away and they insist upon spying on us in the bedroom, taking our money to wage wars and thereby enrich themselves; lying to us, deceiving us, rigging elections, bullying the helpless and needy and generally behaving in a reprehensible, hypocritical, boorish manner unworthy of allegedly civilized beings.

We could try to vote them out of office and keep them out but that’s been fairly unsuccessful and the process is fraught with accusations and counter-accusations and not a shred of proof, thus far. The jury of public opinion is still out on that one and as long as the opposition continues to influence or outright control a substantial percentage of the media, we’ll never be sure.

And one need only accuse a priest of child abuse to create no end of grief for him, that is, if you don’t mind the foul taste in your mouth afterwards. Trust me; washing your hands repeatedly doesn’t help either. (“What is truth?” said the jesting Pilate, and would not stay for the answer. Anyone remember where that came from? I don’t. E-mail and educate me, please.)

No, all we can do is hope that their dreams come true and that their God ends the world for them and leaves it for the rest of us to go on with our lives and grow and change and hopefully: flourish. Or we could go elsewhere. We’ve been trying to do that for nearly half a century now and sometimes I think: just one more great idea or one more committed billionaire and...

So I guess I believe in Magic, too. But I don’t have to like it.

Michelle Rose
Portland, 2/15/05

Orycon30

2008-11-26T01:28:00.000-08:00

Well, shit happens, doesn't it?

I almost didn't get to go to Orycon this year. And I'm gonna take it in the shorts for the loss of pay because I ran out of sick time because I'd been sick with pneumonia because...

You get the idea. And then the OSFCI got buried in late entries and they didn't process me so I sniveled, I did, and sweet Michael Pinnick, the co-chair of OSFCI, who goes by the name Czarcasm in one of my other tribes: The Darklings (polyamorous followers of Darklady aka Theresa Reed), stepped in and personally fixed the problem with John Lorentz, the other chair at OSFCI.

(Everybody has a pseudonym there. I just go by Michelle, which gives you an idea of how unoriginal I can be. I'm also not polyamorous. Real boring.)

So I got to go. I volunteered. I entered the costume competition. I got stinkin' drunk Saturday night after the disaster at the costume competition. More about that later.

I didn't meet any writers. I didn't read any of my stories as I'd planned. I did, however, spend about $50--food and a couple of rings from the dealers room--put in about six hours total guarding the Hospitality Suite and the Game Room and manage to make an utter fool of myself at the costume competition.

Friday went pretty good. Picked up my badge about 6:10, about an hour after I'd planned and strolled around, poking my nose into things. I had my new hairpiece on, the one that Jamie from the salon had done for me and I looked pretty good. Ten years younger. (gawdamn Male Pattern Baldness!) I stayed as late as I could but began to fade around 11:00 pm. Missed Theresa's panel on Gender that happened around midnight. (I think they put her stuff on late at night for two reasons: 1)They think only the perverts will stay up long enough to attend these and 2)They don't want anyone affected by the perverts. ('They' being the nimrods who did the programming this year.) Had a good time, otherwise.

Saturday was another thing entirely. I'd stayed up too late. I was fried and overslept. I couldn't get that damned hairpiece to look right and wound up wearing my ol' standbye big blonde shag. I wore the black velvet pantsuit and red satin blouse with the big collar and fold-over-jacket cuffs. Those cool black velvet low heels with the rhinestones I bought at Goodwill, long ago before I came out and boy did Elis look at me funny when I purchased them. I was late to breakfast with the Darklings and I could tell Our Lady was annoyed as hell with me but controlling it admirably. I thought.

I thought I looked good. Theresa giggled and told me I looked like a fuckin' flight attendent from the '70's. Actually, she used the word: 'stewardess'. Scornfully.

This was not an auspicious beginning to the day. We finished breakfast around noon.($15 is what that sucker cost me. But it was good food, so there ya go...) I headed off to volunteer, idealism shining in my baby blues.

Four hours later, I was bored, tired and eager to change clothes for the costume comp. Now! I was thinking. Let's do it now!

Let me explain: I had the most killer outfit imaginable picked out. I'd done four hours of handstitching Thursday night, taking it in about four inches each side--both my machines died--and it's one of the prettiest dresses I own: fire engine red with black mini-pokadots with a black tulle' underskirt, off the shoulder and cut low in the back. Add a pair of black velvet fingerless gloves, black patterned p-hose, the Priscilla Presley wig and those cool cuban heel shoes--also from Goodwill-- and I looked efin' fabulous, I did.

Well, I sashayed up to Theresa's room after borrowing her cardkey around four and began my work.

First off, I wore too damn much foundation. I dunno why I did that. Force of habit, I guess, from when I used to do the drag queen bit. But things were going rather well, I thought. I glued jewels to the Priscilla Presley wig with eyelash glue, and was well into it when Theresa popped in around 5:30 and fed me snacks and alcohol. The alcohol was a bit of mistake, in retrospect. If I'd been sober, maybe I might have been able to handle better what happened later at the costume competition.

I hit the call time for the CC right on the button and sat around with the rest of the folks. The emcee, an old duffer whose name I did not catch (and should have so I could mail him cab fare so he could go drown himself) came up and down the line of us contestants, taking names and asking how we wanted to be introduced. He came to me and asked me my name.

"Miss Michelle Rose,"I said proudly.

He blinked at me. "Miss?" he asked, rather pointedly.

Alarm bells should have rung. I was tipsy, so they didn't. "Uh-huh," I said, rather enthusiastically. "And could you add: 'The Fabulous Fifties'?" (The Con's theme was Through the Years or something like that and I thought I looked delightfully retro.)

His eyebrows went up and he looked down at his clipboard. "Hmmm," he grunted and scribbled something. I was too keyed up to notice his reaction. Too keyed up and drunk.

He moved on. I sat there, jittering. After a few more minutes, a couple of stage hands came in and announced that they would be the ones at the front of the stage to help us contestants off so we didn't stumble in case we were blinded by the stage lights. One of them, the female--who had a decidedly dykey air about her--looked at me and grinned. "Especially you, honey," she told me cheerfully. "Are you supposed to be someone special?"

Still no alarm bells. I can be so effin' dense sometimes. "No, not really," I said, rather distracted. Showtime was coming up fast and I was getting a serious case of stage fright. There were a lot of people out there.

"Well, you just walk out, bow to the Empress of Style and then come forward and we'll help you." She snickered and elbowed her partner who favored me with a toothy grin.

I still didn't get it. They left and we were off and running a few short minutes later.

I was number five in line. I hit my mark behind the curtain, they announced me, the stage hand pulled the curtain back and I waltzed onto the stage. I was three steps out there when the announcer's intro sank in:

"MISTER Michelle Rose. The Fantasy Fifty!"

I almost stumbled but I curtseyed, pivoted toward the front of the stage and, beyond the lights, I saw the two stage hands break up laughing and high-five each other.

This time I got it. Sometimes it takes a friggin' building to fall on me but I got it, oh yeah. Connections snapped and fizzled through my sozzled brain and I knew without coming any closer that there was no way I'd make it off that stage without those two morons dropping me into a disjointed pile.

No way! my blitzed brain screamed at me. Get out! NOW!

I did a one-eighty and sashayed back toward the emcee who was glaring at me over his pince-nez. As I passed him, he muttered: "You're supposed to go off the front, asshole."

"Not a chance, asshole," I murmured back at him and stumbled back down the stairs into the backstage area. I found a chair and sank into it, shaking like a leaf.

I let most of the group go off and then snuck out the back of the backstage area and headed for the rear of the room. Nobody noticed me, thank Ghod, else I might have burst into tears then and there. I hung around waiting to see if someone might possibly approach me and apologize for attempting to play a practical joke on the 'ridiculous' tranny but nobody did.

I slipped out and went across the way to watch a really cool Celtic/Gaelic band named Tricky Pixie. They were so damned good, I quite forgot my embarrassment and humiliation for a while and just enjoyed them.

When they were done--I applauded until my hands hurt--I went back to the CC room, intending to find that effin' emcee and thrash an apology out of him. Guess who was at the door? No, not him, that dyke with the warped sense of humor. She recognized me.

"Hey!" she yelled at the top of her voice. "There's the guy who fucked us up! Hey man, can't you tell when we're just messin' with ya?"

I glared at her and brushed past her. She tried to push me back but I was moving too quickly. I couldn't find the emcee so I turned around and headed back out, thinking that maybe I could find Michael and lodge a complaint. The alcohol was burning off from all the anger and high emotion and I seriously wanted someone's head on a platter. As I approached the door, I saw another young lady there who'd been with the dyke when I came in. I went up to her and in calm, measured tones, I said:

"You people need some education in gender issues. I may look like a man in a dress, but in fact, I am transgendered and I am living full time as a woman. It was not right for your associate to call me a 'guy' nor was it right for the emcee to introduce me as 'Mister' and I do not appreciate being the butt of a very juvenile joke. I intend to report this to the OSFCI co-chairman. Do you understand?"

She stared at me glassily. "Hey, listen," she began. "It was just a joke. You need to lighten up..."

At that point, I'd had a bellyfull. "No," I snapped. "You folks need to grow up and quickly. I'm prety laid-back but the next tranny you dis' may not be so easy-going and she's probably gonna hand you your pointed little head. Get a clue, youngster. This ain't no joke."

And I sashayed outa there, fighting down tears.

I hit the bar. I got a drink. I sucked it down in ten seconds flat and went to find Michael. I found him about a half-hour later and poured out my heart to him and sobbed a bit while he held me and soothed me and promised he'd look into it and kick some ass.

I like Michael. I trust him. I know he's a man of his word. But I'm never going to put myself through that again, you bet your ass.

The rest of the night passed with me hunting down free alcohol and doing my level best to get fried.

I succeeded admirably. I had to take a cab home and the driver was female and very understanding. She got me home for under ten bucks and I tipped her another three and staggered upstairs to my place, dropped my bags on the floor and bawled like a baby for a while.

And the moral of our story is?

I expect that from the average man on the street who's clueless and hostile. I expect it from the religious fundies who think I'm Satan's whore and have an ideological axe to grind over me. I can even endure it from a suspicious cop who thinks I'm a hooker.

But not my tribe. Not from S-F people who not only should know better but I know have been trained better. Not from supposed free thinkers and progressive people who should know who and what I am without me having to throw a hissy fit.

I'm gonna go again next year and I'm going to volunteer again and I'm going to be cool and calm and oh so urbane.

But I'm never entering a costume competition, ever again, at least not at the Oregon Science Fiction Convention.

Not this trans woman.

Michelle Diane Rose
November 30, 2008

A Soldier's Girl

2008-11-13T06:44:00.000-08:00

(this post originally posted to my blog at alt.com)
Aug 27, 2007 10:55 pm

I like to rave about something good once in a while. I raved about "My Husband Betty" and I hope a few of you went down to the local library and checked it out or shelled out a few pesos for a copy. If not, please do. It's worth it.

And now I have another rave! And it's probably one most of you have already seen: "A Soldier's Girl". Yep, THAT one. Barry Winchell and Calpernia Addams.

I cried my eyes out.

Then I went online and started looking for Calpernia's site. Easy. Just google her. Oh, my. What a lady. What a role model! What a sweet, smart, utterly cool human being. If we could all be that gracious and classy and utterly ethical.

You all know the story, of course. Barry and Calpernia fell in love while he was in the Army Airborne and she was a showgirl in Nashville. Real love, folks, not just a she-male fantasy, despite Calpernia's pre-op status. The kind of love almost all of us dream about: the kind, handsome, noble and strong warrior who can treat you with respect and not care about the plumbing issues.

The kind of love who will die for you.

And that's exactly what happened.

He was beaten to death with a baseball bat while asleep in his bunk. One of his squadmates actually committed the murder, his squad leader egged him on. So much for unit loyalty. The Army took its own sweet time investigating and prosecuting the two. General Ramsey Clark was the base CO. He's now Chairman of the JCS, thanks to King George. He claims he had no idea, no idea at all...

Except, in the trial, it came out that Barry had been enduring over a YEAR of verbal, psychological and physical abuse at the hands of his fellow soldiers and even his direct commanding officer, who investigated him following allegations that he was 'homosexual'. Allegations by the same psycho who eventually killed him.
Like most stoic warriors in the Army Airborne, Barry shrugged it off and didn't talk about it, not even with Callie.

THAT is the strong, silent type.

Lee Pace plays Callie. He's utterly gorgeous and absolutely amazing, the best drag/TG performance I've ever seen in a supposedly non-gay actor. Of course, the state-of-the-art makeup and prosthetics helped considerably and if you want an exercise in uncontrollable envy, watch the transformation segment under special features.

Troy Garity plays Barry. Need I tell you how sweetly he plays Barry? Need I tell you that you will like him immediately and recognize that he's different from the goons that surround him? Need I tell you that he handles the concept of falling in love with a transwoman as naturally and beautifully as anyone's love? You'll see his struggle and you'll see that the struggle finally becomes irrelevant to him, that THIS is the girl for him and what she has between her legs is largely secondary to who she really is: a woman. His woman. And he's her man. Simple. Elegant. Truthful.

And the love scenes...Oh. My. Goddess.

If they don't make your ears catch fire, you're dead inside, darling. No, of course there's no real sex. This is Showtime, after all, not Joey Silvera. Yes, there's nudity and you get to see what a dynamite job they did on Lee's tits. Yes, there is some serious kissing and petting and those two boys did a FABULOUS job of showing a transgendered relationship without any of the kink or stink. I saw two very lovely people very much in love and very much aware of it and it was irrelevant that both of them had a cock.

"But!" you cry. "That's what makes it so exotic!"

Maybe. Probably. Yeah, so what?

ALL love is exotic. All love has its own charms and silver spangles and bright, happy rainbows.

(With the obvious exceptions, of course. Pedophilia and beastialism aren't rainbows, they're big, grim, Steven Spielberg-type stormclouds in really hideous shades.)

With Callie and Barry, it was something very special, as I've said. Lee and Troy captured it perfectly, beautifully, sweetly. I sat and sighed and cried. I looked like Alice Cooper halfway through the darn thing and I was blubbering like a baby at the voiceover at the end: "I hope someday to become a real soldier's girl."

You did, Ms.Addams. You are, Callie. Barry would have been so proud of you.

This happened over four years ago and Calpernia doesn't like to talk about it anymore. She's taken some heat for capitalizing on, exploiting Barry's death. Read her blog on her site. That should convince you. She's not rich and she's not poor but she's done it all herself and we owe her the props on that one, folks. She was a political football for a couple years when all she wanted to be was an entertainer, a showgirl, and she received exactly the wrong sort of publicity.

And we owe Barry's memory, too. When you visit her site, drop a few pesos in the paypal slot, huh? It's a good 'un, this one.

If you haven't seen it (and I know there are dozens, hundreds, here who have and thanks for not being patronizing) then do. And weep, weep, weep beyond time for this Earth of Hours.

And then go do something good with your grief.

It's better that way.

Michelle

Further on Down the Road

2008-11-13T06:23:00.000-08:00

(this post originally posted to my blog at alt.com)

Nov 3, 2008 12:18 am

Hello, there.

It's been a while since I posted anything to this blog, partly because I've been concentrating my efforts at the My Husband Betty message boards and partly because this transition has taken much much more of my time than I could have possibly predicted ten months ago when I went on the hormones.

Long story short: it's been a rough, wild ride so far, people.

Physically, I'm pretty good. My breasts are developing nicely and some of the other secondary sexual characteristics are coming out, right on sked. My libido has gone on vacation, though and I'm not altogether sure it's going to return anytime soon. As they say, this is where we separate the women from the men. Ce la vie. I'm not sure I miss it. Sex may be overrated but love and relationships are just as important to me as they once were, maybe even more so.

I have a new job. Never mind where, I'm equally sure that they wouldn't want their name mentioned on this site and I respect them too much to do so. Suffice it to say that I'm out there, they accept me and guess what? My transition is now 24-7, even if my official ID does not as yet indicate my female name. My work ID will, though, this Wednesday and that feels incredibly, unbelievably rewarding and fulfilling. That one was kinda tough and I can only advise any of my sisters out there who haven't yet transitioned at work to do the paperwork! Get your letter from your shrink and doctor and make sure your HR department gets copies of it. If you live in a state where your rights are not protected, then consult an attorney first and pick your way through it like it's a minefield.

Because it is.

Other things? As I said, I'm 24-7 now. I present as a female (albeit a rather masculine one) all the time now. It's still a bit scary and a bit annoying when I catch the occasional nasty look or leer but I hold my head high and ignore them. Portland and the State of Oregon have laws to protect me and those like me and that's why I waited so long to do this.

That, and being scared out of my mind. After half a century as a male, old habits die hard and old reflexes are very hard to redirect. But: so far, so good.

Which leads me to this reality check. Let's recap, shall we?

1.) Did I do the right thing?
Absolutely. I just wish I'd done it sooner.

2.) Did I do this the right way?
No. I screwed up, many times. But I was lucky. I got to go back and fix most of my mistakes.

3.) Will I continue doing this?
Hell, yes. No way would I even consider returning to being male, not for a second.

4.) Am I going All The Way? Even to the GRS?
I don't know. None of the surgical options are covered by my insurance, not even an orchidectomy and I still haven't decided if I'm going there. To be brutally honest, I really don't want a surgically constructed vagina. Even the best ones--and I've seen some really lovely neo-vaginas!--are primarily esthetic and/or sexual in purpose. They're an entrance, not an exit and the only way I'd consider having that done would be if they could implant a uterus as well. Yep, that's right: I'd want a child. Even in this utterly messed-up world with its greed and violence and madness, I'd want at least one child, even if I'm 'just' a surrogate mother. And that, my friends, is an indicator of just how much I've changed. As a male, I would never have considered having children! I was married for 17 years and it was never on my radar screen. But now...yes, I'd want to be a mother.

"Life is so strange/destination unknown..."

5.) Have I managed to keep the vows I made when I started this?
No. And I'm sorry about that. Abjectly so. I've hurt a few people here--Hello, Bobbi. Are you still well? I think about you often--and elsewhere. I've acted dishonorably and with cowardice. I've feuded with my sisters. I've committed more than a few dishonorable acts and never mind what, exactly. No, nothing unlawful but there have been a few things I've done that left me with an overwhelming need to wash my hands or rinse out my mouth. So: no. Those vows were broken, more than once, and I am here to testify: I am ashamed of some of the things I've done.

This morality/ethics thing can really wrap you in knots sometimes.

Shall I sum up? Don't be silly, I'm not done yet and who can really 'sum up' a life? I'm not even going to try. 'Work in progress' is the best, least trite thing I can say and even that strains the definition somewhat.

I may not be back here anytime soon. I've met some cool folks and not a few flakes on alt.com. But the main purpose of this site is for folks to hook up for sex and frankly, that's not really where I'm at. I'm not judging any of y'all here and what a bad joke that would be if I were. Sex is still great and wonderful and the best thing ever invented, it's just not that high on my list anymore.

Frankly, I'd rather just hold hands and make out. Kissing is still the most pleasant social convention we humans indulge in and if I happen to meet any of y'all, I'd be very pleased to lay a flyin' lip lock on ya! So it's not a total loss, really.

Take care and be well, people. Live, love and laugh a lot. Don't hurt anyone, especially in affairs of the heart and never ever give up on love.

That's still the most important thing. Truly.

Love from me to You
Michelle

Beginnings

2008-11-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

(this post originally posted to my blog at alt.com)

Aug 19, 2007 12:18 am

Well, I finally dood it. I got the note. I got the get-out-of-jail-free card. I got the news and it's pretty good, actually.

I received permission to start hormones.

I'm sure 90% of the other t-girls on this site who might be reading this shrugged and said: "So what? Started mine years ago!" Cool. Uh, but for me it's like someone just opened the windows in a dark room onto a sunny day. Or turned on an exhaust fan and a room-full of dark smoke I hadn't paid much attention to suddenly was whisked outside and I can see, finally.

Finally.

There are a lot of things that led to this and the synergistic effect has been straining the seams of my psyche. Two counselors, Effexor XR and a whole buncha soul-searching notwithstanding, it's been a long, twisty road and a tiny steering wheel, dammit. But the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back?

My Husband Betty.

If you haven't read this gem, this finely polished jewel of autobiographical/sociological genius, then you must spend your makeup money on it next paycheck. No kiddin'. I've never been more serious.

Some of us came from broken marriages or relationships wherein the GG couldn't handle the women we really are. For those ladies I can only say: I wish you could have had this book in your hands when you told her. Then you could have handed it to her and said: "Read this. It'll help." Oh, yeah.

The author, Helen Boyd (a nom-de-plume) is unquestionably one of the most determined, clear-sighted, compassionate genetic females to ever walk this green Earth. (Betty, you lucky girl!) This is a floor-to-ceiling examination of transgendered people and issues with no BS, no salacious content and a firm commitment to the principle that we were all born to be who we are and no government, no religion, no antiquated social construct can change that incontrovertable fact and they may as well not even try. Instead: try to understand us. And she does, she does, she does.

Thank you, Helen, for understanding us and for giving me the final, necessary push in the direction I've been resisting for almost half a century. Better late than never, I guess. And the rest of you that read this? Read that little book. If it changes your life even a fraction of what it's changed mine, it'll be worth it. And wish me luck and love in the Light of the Goddess, y'all.

Michelle

Larry Craig

2008-11-13T06:12:00.000-08:00

This post originally posted to my blog at alt.com)

Aug 30, 2007 10:04 pm

Politics and sex. They always seem to go together, don't they? Like ice cream and hot fudge. (Hmm, there's an allegory in there and we won't explore that one tonight.)

Sex scandals come screaming out of Washington on an average of one or two per week. It's a tribute to the persistant nature of our national media that each and every one elicits at least a raised eyebrow and a grunt of disgust and contempt from nearly all of us. You'd think we'd be burnt out by now, wouldn't you?

You'd think that we'd get tired of a steady diet of hot fudge and ice cream, wouldn't you?

Apparently not.

Larry. Larry, Larry, Larry.

What are we gonna do with you, big guy? Well, we're going to drag your name through the mud, excoriate you, embarress and humiliate you, harass your family and close friends, set up camp on your effin' front lawn and take pictures of everything related to you from your third grade teacher to the guy who picks up your trash every week. We're going to shout the most inane questions imaginable at every person who shows up at your door and if YOU happen to appear, there's going to be a feeding frenzy and small, furry creatures who happen to be caught in the melee' are going to be torn to bloody shreds.

Just kidding about the last part, there. I think. Still, it ain't gonna be pretty and YOU, my man, my corpulent, small-minded dinosaur of a Republican, are very likely going to lose your Senate seat, the love and support of your family and friends and those lifetime courtside tickets.

All because you're gay and you had to hide it.

I shouldn't accuse you of being gay, actually. That's so unfair. You could be bi. You could be bi-curious. (How many times can you have sex with someone of your own gender before you can no longer call yourself bi-curious? Quite a few, apparently. Some people are just REALLY curious.) You could be a heterosexual woman in a man's body in which case, you REALLY need our help! (Listen, I know this great pastic surgeon...)

But the most probable conclusion is that you're queer, just like a lot of the rest of us (including me!) and now you have to do the diplomatic shuffle to keep your job, your family and your honor.

(Uh, news update, Lare: your honor's already in the dumpster. And your job's about to join it.)

And it's all because you solicited sex from an undercover vice cop in the men's restroom at the airport. Oy vey. Larry, c'mon! The men's room? At the freakin' airport? See, if you'd used Alt.com, you could have set up a nice discreet meeting at the airport Sheraton and there'd be none of this storm of controversy. (Sigh) You showed VERY bad judgement, my corpulant Republican dinosaur. And like the dinosaurs, you're about to become extinct.

And the terrible thing is: you really don't deserve it. Oh, sure: you're a rat-bastard Republican who votes for guns and Big Oil and votes against gays and unwed mothers and freedom of speech, thought and action but that's really overcompensation, isn't it, Larry old buddy? Just another way to hide your gayness and convince all your scumbag fellow Republicans that you're foursquare in favor of the dominance of the Republican Party above all things and that you're entitled to your sloppy, stinky piece of the pie.

How long have you been hiding it, Larry? How long ago was it that you first sucked a cock and said to yourself: "Hey, this is pretty good but I better not let anyone know."? How long ago, Larry?

It's too long, no matter how long ago it was.

You couldn't be yourself, Larry. You couldn't be gay because you wouldn't have access to the wealth and power and position you enjoy. So you hid it, concealed it and now it's blown up in your face because you got a little desperate and careless.

I should hate you for your hypocrisy and your cruelty and your selfishness and your self-centered attitude and allathat, but I just can't bring myself to do that. I've learned a thing or two here at Alt.com,(and elsewhere!) in the last few weeks and all I can do it pity you. NOT sympathize! NOT empathize! PITY.

You're an object of pity, not respect and admiration. Funny how quickly that happens, isn't it, Larry? Funny how fast you can lose everything over one dopey mistake.

Funny how fast your life can fall apart, all because of your sexual orientation. NOW do you know what we're saying? NOW do you understand why we hate and abhor legislation and rules and guidelines that exclude and discriminate against people like us?

NOW do you understand why we're pissed that we get punished for being honest with ourselves and the world while lying hypocrites like yourself get all the perks and goodies and favors? We pay the price on a daily basis for our appearance and our beliefs and just for being who we are; people who were born this way and can't help it anymore than you, Larry old buddy.

And now you have to pay the piper, too. Relax, it won't be too bad. Your life really isn't over, you know. Your wife will publicly forgive you although you're never going to have sex with her, ever again. (Not, I suspect, that it's a big problem for you. She doesn't smell right, does she?) Your kids will forgive you but they might be keeping their distance for a while. The media will get bored and move on to The Next Big Thing and you'll be dissed again, but I think you'll be grateful for that final snippet of disrespect.

And I'll forgive you, too, though I don't have to and it doesn't really matter. I forgive you, Larry old buddy. I forgive your hypocrisy and your lying and your dirty deals with other scumbag Republicans (I'm trying to figure out a way to make that into one word: scumbagRepublicans. Nah, too busy...) and even your cruelty to those who have never done you any harm; gays, unwed mothers, etc.

I forgive you but will you forgive yourself? Or will you stay in a state of denial, protesting even as they take away your Senate washroom key? I kinda suspect you'll keep denying it, Larry. It's a habit, like denying that unwed mothers need assistance just so they and their babies can survive, like denying that the Earth was created billions of years ago instead of a few thousand. Like denying global warming or corporate malfeasance or all of the things your Party has so well taught you to deny.

But you can't deny that you're gay, Larry. Not to yourself. Nope. Can't do it.

You're one of us, Larry. You can deny it, but it's true. You can run screaming from us and babble all you want, on or off the record, that it's a mistake, that you would NEVER do that, that that cop solicited sex from YOU, not the other way around. (sigh) Okay, if you say so.

But we'll be here, Larry. Waiting. Yeah, you might have to take a little crap before you get to suck some cock, but it's part of the Dance, y'know? But we'll take you back, right here where you belong. You should have come here in the first place, Larry. A cover name, a little judicious research (Hey, you might have even been able to find another gay Republican!) to cover your ass and all your needs could have been met right here on good ol' Alt.com. Holy cow, I'll bet that never occured to you, did it?

(The men's restroom at the airport. Jeez...)

Next time, try Alt.com, Larry. We'll be here.

Waiting.

Michelle

SYMRC

2008-11-13T06:08:00.000-08:00

(This post originally posted to my blog at alt.com)

Oct 2, 2007 5:15 pm

Hi, everyone!

It's been a while since I posted here and I have a very good excuse: my computer is going insane. It won't talk to my DSL modem anymore and resists all efforts to update/reinstall the necessary software. Alas, it will soon be time to give the poor thing a decent burial; an ecologically acceptable one, of course.

So I hope y'all will forgive me for my silence. It was not intentional and I'm doing okay, other than still struggling to find gainful employment. A word to the wise, dear readers: don't let too much time go by between jobs or you will get the Vulcan eyebrow from a job recruiter or interviewer. Just a thought.

But that's not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about SMYRC!

(What? Who?)

SMYRC is an acronym for Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center. It's an arm of Cascadia Health Services here in Portland. We counsel and help young (13-23) people whose sexual orientation is not the usual bipolarity found in the straight culture.

I first encountered these wonderful people when I attended and participated in the World's Longest Drag Queen Chorus Line here in Portland on July 22nd of this year. To say that I was impressed with the courtesy, grace, poise and general classiness of these children and advisors would be to make a grevious understatement. In one word: WOW.

First: Google the chorus line thing. I'm the tall blonde in black, about dead center behind our leader; Jinkx Dubois. Although it was horribly hot and muggy, I had a terrific time and I think you will enjoy the clips on YouTube. Or you can just google SMYRC and you'll see a number of these clips and also some of the kids we deal with. They are all, without exception, wonderful individuals and I'm proud to be a volunteer there.

I was so impressed with these children that I said to myself: "Gee, I wish I'd had something like this when I was growing up, then maybe my childhood and adolescence wouldn't have been such a nightmare." And then I said: "Great Goddess, Michelle, why don't you get involved?"

And that, dear readers, was all it took.

I emailed Zan Gibbs, our coordinator, and offered my services. After playing electronic tag for a few weeks and filling out some forms (background check and personal data, etc.), I attended a weekend of training that had to be the best and most eye-opening experience of my life. It felt like coming home to a home I'd never had but had always wanted; a place where I could be myself, really and truly, without judgement or bigotry. A loving home that accepted me for who I am and wanted me to be ME; Michelle.

It's a place where I'm needed. And, sisters and brothers, that feels so grand and wonderful, I can't begin to describe it.

We help and counsel kids that have been marginalized because of their sexual and gender identity: Gay, lesbian, trans, queer; you name it, there's a place for them there at this cool, funky warehouse-like space in Southeast Portland. Over sixty percent of the kids we serve are homeless; street kids that have been thrown out of their homes because of who and what they are. Many of them have mild to severe emotional problems and few, if any, have the requisite social and technical skills to survive in this viciously capitalistic and competitive world. I hesitate to use the word 'handicapped' because it has some unpleasant connotations but it's true, at least in some definitions of that word. It's through no fault of their own. These children did not ask to be born this way and it certainly isn't a 'lifestyle choice', as the Republicans so sneeringly put it. They didn't choose: the choice was made for them, forced on them and they're suffering because of it.

My decision to help them may very well be the best choice I've ever made, with the possible exception of my decision to transition.

Attendez moi, everybody! How many of you donate to good causes like United Way or Salvation Army? How many of you write a check or input your credit card number into a PayPal account for a small donation to a cause you feel is worthy? Half? Maybe two thirds? Good for you!

BUT IS IT ENOUGH?

Ask yourself that. Is it enough? How much is enough?

I can answer that: it's never enough.

Money toward a cause or a foundation or a movement is always a good thing, especially if it helps the future of our species. The list of good causes is endless and I won't bore you or waste space here enumerating them. But there is one thing we tend to overlook when we donate and that's manpower.

Helping hands.

Money is good. It buys supplies like food and necessities for those who need it and pays the salaries of those professionals who have dedicated their lives and careers to those who can't help themselves. But we sometimes forget the fact that there are never enough pros doing this kind of work and there are never enough hands to do the grubwork, the dirty, time-consuming stuff that NEEDS to be done. I'm sure most, if not all of you, have great admiration for those professionals and volunteers who make it their business and their obsession to get down in the trenches and do what has to be done to make this world a better place than how we found it.

But have you ever asked yourself if YOU could do that?

It doesn't take much, really. A little time, a little organization and a little honesty. And maybe a teeny, tiny bit of vision. Look up from your own life for a moment. Look around. Do you like what you see? Do you like the way things are right now?

(That was a rhetorical question. Of course not.)

Ask yourself this: is Money all that is needed to make this a better world, for ourselves and our children; for every thing that lives on this good, green Earth?

(Another rhetorical question. No, Money doesn't solve ALL the problems. It never will.)

I'm not a cheerleader nor am I a rabble-rouser. I'm really not. I'm just a T-girl going through her own problems and struggling to deal with my own life. I'd like to think that winning the lottery or having a rich relative leave me a huge inheritance would solve all my problems. But I also like to think I'm smart enough to realize it won't. When I began my transition, I made some promises to myself and, if for no other reason than to be true to myself, I intend to keep them. One of those promises was to help my sister (and brother!) trans-people whenever, however I could.

And now it's time to do just that.

You can do it too, y'know. Wherever you live, unless it's out in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization; you too can make a difference. And even if you do live out in Bumfuck, Egypt (meaning no disrespect to any Egyptians who may be reading this! ), you can still take one day, just one day, out of your schedule and DO SOMETHING.

It doesn't matter what it is. Help out at a nursing home. Serve a Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless at a shelter. Get a little training like I did and help out somewhere, somehow, some way.

PAY IT FORWARD.

It's a simple philosophy and it's amazing how many of us pay lip service to that and don't do an effin' thing. We drop a fistfull of change in the Salvation Army bucket and then we forget about it, don't we? I've done that myself. We donate to a cause and then we say; "Ah, I've done my part."

Well, yes and no.

The work requires helping hands, dear readers. Muscle power. Participation not limited to $$$.
And a little time. Time is in short supply, these days, isn't it?

You bet. We're running out of time, losing it like the sand in the hourglass and ain't nobody gonna turn that sucker over again for us all.

We have to do it ourselves.

The government isn't going to help us. Yeah-yeah, we pay taxes for social services and sometimes our subsidies actually do some good. Corporations certainly won't help, although some of them DO actually make a difference, like Bill and Melinda Gates's foundation. But the bottom line is that Money may make the world go 'round but that doesn't mean diddly to a homeless kid shivering under a bridge.

I've been told that I really need to curb my tendency to preach. Ya think? Sometimes a little preaching is required. Just ask the Rev. Jackson. And if you don't like him, well, neither do I, especially, but ya gotta admit his heart's in the right place.

Is yours?

I'm willing to bet it is. I'm willing to bet that ALL of you out there who read this are good, kind, thoughtful people who believe that EVERYONE deserves a chance, a fair shake, an honest shot at a better existence. I'm willing to bet that you ALL believe in equality, fair dealing, freedom and the intrinsic good nature of the human species. Yes, we can be a pack of killer apes and thugs (Hey, Blackwater! How many innocent Iraquis did you slaughter today?), but I also believe that we good folk outnumber the bad guys by a considerable margin.

The marchers in the Chicago Riots of 1968 said: "They got the guns, but we got the numbers. And may God give us the blood to keep going."

That works for me. Does it work for you?

Pay it forward, people. And may the Goddess bless all of you.

Michelle Diane Rose
October 2nd, 2007

Further Along

2008-11-12T22:07:00.000-08:00

Nobody told me that there'd be days like this.

I'm incredibly, uncomfortably ill as I write this so bear with me, would you all? Fact is: I'm dying here.

Yup, it's only partly an exaggeration. I have a bad mitral valve: stenosis and it's a big effin' problem. I can't sleep. I can't walk more than a dozen steps without running out of breath. Work is a goddamn Ironman triathalon. I have pneumonia and pleurisy on top of it, making me just short of suicidal.

But I can't die. I have people counting on me to stay alive, Marilyn my Sprite being the first and best example.

So I'm going to go under the knife, probably in January. It may not be a knife, it may be a balloon and catheter. If that's not an option, then it's crack me open and slice and dice, baby.

It's going to hurt. A lot. It's going to leave one hell of an ugly scar between my brand-new tits. It's going to lay me out for at least a month. It's going to cost an insane amount of money.

It's going to be the scariest thing I've ever done. My first time down the street in full drag at high noon was a fuckin' cakewalk by comparison, literally and actually.

Therein, I suspect, lies my lesson and my knowledge: nothing can frighten me after this, nothing can daunt me and nothing, absolutely NOTHING will be able to dissuade me or turn me from my course.

I've already gone full time. Shortly after my birthday, I fought through the fear and the inertia and the resistance at work and the street and I started to be me, Michelle Diane Rose, 24-7. I started wearing some kind of makeup and stopped hiding my breasts and I dress like a woman, not a man, not a man at all.

ME. Finally. Half a century of being a construct, a synthetic personality, someone who simply wasn't a real person and did not know how to behave and now I'm FINALLY at home in this body.

And it's going to die unless I go under the knife and let them cut into my heart.

The irony of this has not escaped me one bit, thank you very much. If the same Cosmic Jokester were responsible for both; my nearly-successful transition and my impending doom, I'd be at a loss as to whether to kiss Him/Her or punch Him/Her in the nose.

Probably both.

I've shed quite a few tears in the last few weeks, I have. I cried in the Cardiac ICU at Sunnyside Kaiser while Dusty, the charge nurse held my hand and comforted me. God bless you, you red-headed little sparkplug. I love you, too. I've shed tears uncontrollably, reading the responses to my situation on the MHB message boards--and if any of you folks are reading this; hi there, especially YOU, Darya--and I think I've fallen in love with three or four intensely beautiful people there whom I've never met.

And I've shed tears in the ER and ICU while male nurses manhandled me and touched my breasts and made me wanna DIE.

I'm not done shedding tears. It's THAT which makes me so tired. I'm tired of being sick, tired of grief, tired of pain. I literally do not know if I can keep going and endure any more. It's just begun, it will get worse before it gets better and I don't know if I'm strong enough.

I wanted to change my name before I did this. I NEEDED to. I don't want to be in a hospital bed, helpless, while some big ape of a male nurse or orderly calls me 'Michael' and refers to me as 'him' or 'he' and treats me with that casual male camaraderie that FUCKIN' MAKES ME SICK TO MY STOMACH. (I am NOT male, you asshole.) I don't want my breasts handled with casual contempt nor to be treated like some side-show freak and I DO NOT want to be called 'Michael' for any reason, at any time by anyone.

I'll put up with it at work because some people there just don't have a construct and some people are having trouble shifting perspective and besides, I promised I wouldn't. I want to get along, I really do, but the hospital is there for ME, not for their arrogant convenience.

If one, just one person calls me by that hated name, whether or not I'm successful in having it changed before the end of the year, I'm gonna climb out of the bed and kneel on him or her, look them in the face and politely inquire as to where they left their fornicatin' manners.

But do it I must and do it I will. Affirmation. I choose life. I just hope It chooses ME.

I think it will. My mother is standing behind my shoulder again.

And too many people want me to live.

Support me in thy prayers.

Michelle Diane Rose
November 12th, 2008
10:10pm PST

Entitlement

2008-08-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

A gracious good evening to y'all.

I've been surfing, I have, and I've been looking for trends. I do this partly because it's interesting simply as a hobby and partly because it's my nature. When I was quite young, my father--before he went mad from grief and accompanying alcoholism--tried to pound it into my head--sometimes quite literally--the need to scan. To get the overall Big Picture and pick out the patterns in things.

It worked quite well. I see patterns and trends and oddball things that jump out at me from the white noise of the Net and the news, both print and electronic. I'm not always cognizant of what it means but it sometimes provides me with clues and hints of events just over the horizon.

There are experts that do this sort of thing for a living, of course. Brainy folk that work in think tanks and focus groups and research organizations that are paid to predict stuff based on current and past events. They are quite a bit better than I at doing this--just imagine my surprise--and they get paid very well for it, too.

Wow. What a way to make a buck. I'm envious.

So what do I notice, surfing the Net and reading the papers? We are an incredibly arrogant bunch of smooth apes, that's what.

This is news? No, of course not. Every one of you that might read this are already aware of this and it's old news.

Yeah, but...

This extends to damn near every part of human civilization and into every nook and cranny of human relationships. Examples: wealthy people believe they're entitled to their wealth, even if they didn't earn it. Powerful people believe they are entitled to rule, even if they have the blood of innocent people on their hands. Elderly people believe they have the right to take up the whole damn aisle when they're in the supermarket. Young people believe they have the right to raise several different kinds of hell because they're young and youth, ah, youth is wholly experimental. Religious leaders believe they have the right to condemn others because they have a mandate from God/Allah/Big Juju/Whatever.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Or do you?

Do you really?

Stop and think about it for a moment. Think about the last time you got angry, experienced a bit of road rage because that asshole in front of you cut you off. (I always wondered what that meant. Took their turn first? Got there ahead of you? Or was just plain rude? Define rude.) Or perhaps you were nasty to that service person at the supermarket because they didn't load your groceries fast enough or just the way you wanted. Or the incompetent hairdresser who didn't get your color just right. Or the teller at the bank who didn't smile enough. Or the barrista who didn't fill your coffee cup high enough. Or too much.

Getting the pattern? No? Try this: how 'bout the price of gas these days? Terrible, isn't it? Awful. Over four bucks a gallon. It's an outrage!

Really? People in Europe have been paying the equivalent of that for well over a decade. They don't seem too outraged to me but maybe I just don't travel enough. (I don't travel at all, but that's another story, another installment of Chez' Rose.) They shrug and just drive less; ride a bike or walk.

Still not getting it? Let's go back to the service sector again because that's where the trend pops out at me in bright neon colors. Think about the last time you called the local PD or any other governmental service and demanded that they do something about that noisy party or that stupid neighbor with the weedy yard or those potholes in your street. Took a while, didn't it? Too long. You wanted satisfaction now.

Aha, you say. She's talking about instant gratification. Well, yes and no. Instant gratification is a symptom but only one of many. The truth is, we humans, Americans especially, have this ingrained sense of entitlement. We feel entitled. Entitled to perfect service, low prices, superior quality and the right to abuse anyone who happens to get in our way.

Why?

I gotta target and it's a beaut.

Hello there, Madison Avenue.

Now, we can lay some of this at the feet of regular human chauvinism that goes way back to the Roman Empire. I won't digress and tell you that a lot of our ingrained sense of superiority can be laid at the feet of a bunch of bad-tempered, arrogant Italians who have somehow managed to control the course of human history for almost three thousand years--although it's true--because the Asians can be pretty damned arrogant, too. So let's not talk about the Middle Kingdom or the Holy Roman Empire, either B.C. or A.D. because the scholarly works about both hemispheres of this tired old world already exist and it's too extensive.

Also: bloody, terrifying and just plain tragic.

No, let's focus on the good ol' US of A. My country 'tis of thee and allathat noise.

"The business of America," as Curious George said, rather fatuously, "is business." Yup, that's a fact. We are definitely the most capitalistic country in the world and everybody wants to ride in that fully-equipped Cadillac. Even the Chinese and Russians. (Mao, Lenin and Marx are spinning so fast in their graves right now, I'm surprised the Earth hasn't gone off its orbit.) Business means sales and sales mean advertising. Let me put that in caps so you get it:

ADVERTISING.

Some years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that advertising was a form of free speech. (They also ruled that a corporation has the same rights as a human being but again: subject matter for another installment.) Somehow, I don't think our Founding Fathers had that in mind when they included that particular provision in the Bill of Rights. First, corporations have a lot more money than the average citizen and thereby one massive advantage over the rest of us. They can shove these ideas into our ears and into our eyes and into our heads and what can you do?

You can make a sign and parade up and down the sidewalk. Print up some flyers and hand them out. (But be careful if you post them. Anti-litter laws, doncha know.) Stand on the street corner with a megaphone although that may get you arrested for disturbing the peace.

So: it's not a fair nor balanced system. But we'll come back to that in a moment. The Mad Men--no, haven't seen the series. I'm not interested in depressing myself--have a stranglehold on the First Amendment and that's all there is to it. They have the money and the numbers and the message is:

YOU ARE ENTITLED.

Entitled to the best, the finest, the top of the line, the coolest and the most expensive. (And if you happen to be an ignorant black kid from the ghetto, you're entitled to pick up a gun and take it, if you can get away with it. Actually, color has very little to do with it but we'll come back to that, too.)

It's pervasive and invasive and very, very subversive. It permeates every nook and cranny of our society and civilization and Madison Avenue has a vested interest in making sure that you believe it, with all your heart and soul. Because, if you don't, sales go down. If you don't believe you're entitled, you won't buy it. You won't spend the money. You won't do it and that's anathema to the whole heart of the capitalist system.

(Aha! someone in the back exclaimed. She's a socialist! Who, me? Why, how could you even think such a terrible thing?)

(I'd smile but I hate those emoticons and little smiley things you can do with colons and such.)

Nope, it doesn't matter if I'm a socialist, a communist or even an anarchist. It doesn't matter. Because we're a civilization that buys and sells things and we're entitled. Everything is for sale.

Even you and me.

Human beings. For sale. Like a loaf of bread or a pair of shoes or a gallon of gas.

There's a joke--attributed to Disraeli, I think--that goes something like this: He approached a woman at a reception or party and asked if she would be willing to sleep with him for a million pounds Sterling. She laughed, batted her eyelashes, fluttered her fan and, thinking he was flirting--he was stinkin' drunk--allowed as how she just might. So he asked her if she would for ten bob. Outraged, she said: "Of course not! Just what do you think I am?" He replied: "Madam, we have already established that, we are merely haggling over the price."

There are plenty more examples but you get the idea. We're all for sale. All of us. Each of us has a price and each of us, if we can meet the other's price, are entitled to purchase the other.

Still don't believe me? Folks, the Thirteenth Amendment didn't end slavery, it just made it unlawful. And, as we all know, in this country--and elsewhere--justice and the law are always for sale.

If you can afford it. If you can't, tough luck.

Thank you, Madison Avenue.

Yes, yes, I know. That incident with Disraeli happened long before there was a Madison Avenue and slavery has been around a lot longer than that. Madison Avenue just took the ball and ran with it.

And they're still running, with the blessings of the Supreme Court and the Government of the United States.

And you, my friends, are the ball they're running with and how does it feel?

To me, it feels like I'm being used and abused. I dunno, maybe years of poverty have made me feel like I'm not entitled. Maybe my father's pounding on me pounded that notion out of my thick little head.

But I still get pretty pissed-off when that barrista doesn't fill my cup to the lip. And I have to constantly remind myself that the other bloke is a human being, too.

And he or she may be perfectly aware that there's a price on their head but they're equally aware that some things are just not for sale.

I'd like to think that it applies to me, too. That you're not entitled to abuse me, use me and screw me out of my humanity and my alleged right to existence. Unless you happen to be a black/Hispanic/white/Asian kid from the bad part of town that wants what I have in my purse.

And if you have a gun, well, you're entitled, aren't you?

Le fortmaine. The strong right arm. Droit de signeur. The right of the master. Might makes right and a millennium ago it was a man at arms that could take what he wanted from a peasant, including his life. Of course, he might have to pay a small fee to the owner of that peasant but that was merely a minor legal matter. The man at arms didn't go to jail or suffer execution because he ended another's life, he just paid a pittance and that was that.

Is it any different now? I think not.

Look around you. Listen to the conversations drifting past your ears, especially that jerk with the cellphone who feels entitled to bellow into it while he's making the Deal Of The Century. Listen to the cadence, the substance of that speech and ask yourself:

The Constitution and Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence aside, exactly what am I entitled to?

Nothing, my friends. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Everything that you have, everything that you are or will ever be can be taken from you in the blink of an eye by the mugger's gun, the terrorist's bomb or the enemy fusion missile.

You are entitled to nothing. You exist by pure happenstance, even if you believe in God and His Master Plan for you and yours. Justice and law and entitlement are all human conceits and have nothing whatsoever to do with the reality of this existence.

You might have thought of me as a socialist somewhere in the middle of this article. No. I am a stochastic. Broadly speaking, that means that I, as a rational human being, have a responsibility to impose order upon the chaos and white noise of the Universe and human existence.

Responsibility. To me, to you and to this good, green Earth of Hours. Responsibility to behave graciously and courteously and with urbanity. I do otherwise at my peril, for to do otherwise means to sink back into the murk and mire of competition and fang against claw and the ubiquitous sense of entitlement that pits us against one another as if this were still the Stone Age and the winner--and still champion!--is the meanest ape with the biggest club. Or the shiniest Mercedes.

I try. Goddess, I try. I fail and I feel horrible guilt when I dis' that poor barrista and I go home and lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling and wonder if I'm ever going to evolve. I pray and I wonder if She's listening and then I realize that it doesn't matter if She is because it's my responsibility, not Hers.

Yours, too. Remember that, please. It's your responsibility to evolve beyond that hairy ape, that man at arms, that bad-tempered Italian or arrogant Mad Man.

It's up to you and me and all of us.

Try.

Please.

And good night and good luck.

Solidarity

2008-07-18T01:13:00.000-07:00

Good evening, all.

A few words, s'il vous plais, about solidarity.

An easy concept, right? Easy to read, easy to encompass and easy to accept. Well, of course we all want to present a united front to the 'straight' world, an image that shows we're all on the same page and if this were a camping trip, we'd all be toasting s'mores and singing 'Kumbaya'.

NOT.

The transgendered world--if I may refer to it as such--covers everything from the hairy mechanic who wears his wife's panties under his greasy coverall to those who work in the sex industry and are--rather deprecatingly--referred to as 'she-males'. That's a mighty big spectrum, isn't it? And it might be argued that neither end of that spectrum has much to do with the other.

In fact, it has been argued. Over and over. Relentlessly. To tiresome effect, I might add. I've lost count of the times I've heard transgendered folk say--with not a little disgust: "I'm not like them!"

Oh, yeah?

The basic tenet of transgenderism is that gender has nothing to do with sex. Gender is what you are, sex is what you do. Simple, basic stuff that most of us learn, almost from the first time any of us slipped on a pair of high heels and a dress and looked at our reflection in the mirror. Some of us sighed with regret and decided it wasn't such a great idea, others among us nodded and said: "Yeah!"

But most of us fell somewhere in the middle: needs work, yup.

And I think that's where the trouble begins.

If you're a male who wants to present as a female, even if it's just in the privacy of your own place, you have a need, a desire, a compulsion. It can be pretty low-key, like that hairy mechanic underneath your car or it can be an all-consuming drive that triggers darn near every gland in your body, shuts off your frontal lobes and causes you to empty out your bank account in the effort to make that feminine image you see in the mirror a real thing; actualized and part of the outside world.

It's the same thing for all of us, just to different degrees. Yes, it's a spectrum but the same thing drives all of us.

The same thing. All of us. Whether we want to believe it or not.

To date, medical researchers have yet to pinpoint any one particular cause for transgenderism. The usual suspects are in the lineup: prenatal hormones; neurological wiring; environment; oh, there's a long list and none of them can be noted as the primary cause of why some of us just don't feel comfortable with being born as one particular gender.

(And that doesn't even begin to explain those born intersexed; undeveloped genitalia or obviously mixed gender markers.)

Ain't diversity wunnerful?

Apparently not, at least for some folks among us.

This is a pretty touchy subject for a great many people, many of whom I note are those who refer to themselves as crossdressers. I have also noted that there is a great preponderance among those crossdressers to disassociate themselves as much as possible from both the hairy mechanics and the she-males. ("I'm not like them! I'm not! I only do this for a hobby/on the weekend/just for relaxation!")

Methinks thou doth protest too much.

I like to quote Robert Heinlein a lot. He was a pretty sharp observer of the human condition and one of his comments was wickedly keen: "Everybody lies about sex. Everybody."

Substitute gender for sex and I think we might be getting close to the central idea.

Our society has almost inextricably associated sex with gender. It's that bipolarity thing; if you're female, you should be with a man, if you're male, you should be with a woman. Homosexuality? Oh, well. It's the same thing, only inverted, right?

Uh, no. Not exactly. In fact; not at all. But the central idea is this man/woman/family thing which the Religious Right proudly points to with claims that it's the thing that makes our Great Society so great. ("My pastor says that's what God says.")

(The unalterable fact that traditional marriages rarely last past the second decade and often result in messy divorces, abuse, alcoholism, insanity and violence in and outside the family is something they conveniently forget. But I digress...)

It's all about shame, folks. Guilt. Or, as I like to put it: gender panic. "What'll I do if someone finds out? Augh!"

Well, what if they do?

Divorce, abuse, alcoholism, insanity, violence. Hmm, that sounds so familiar...

It's not about the gender issue, it's about what other people might think. And for those among us who have high-paying jobs, big families, high social status, it's a death knell for all of the above to even admit that we might be transgendered.

So: some of us lie. To others, but more importantly, to ourselves. We lie to protect our status, our perks and benefits, our jobs and our families. We don't want to lose those goodies and the big thing we don't want to lose is:

MALE PRIVILEGE.

(Notice how I capitalized that? You did? Say, you're quick. Bet you're dangerous at mumbletypeg.)

There's a CD I know of. She's a respected elder in her church, a pillar of her community, she works at a high-paying job, she has kids and she has a wife of many years whom she adores.

She also hates what she calls 'bad trannies'.

Who are these bad trannies? Well, they're the ones who act up and act out. They cheat on their wives. (With other trannies and men, presumably.) They behave abominably in the ladies room. They post lurid accounts of risky and rather horrifying sexual exploits on web groups like Yahoo. They dress like hookers and sluts and they give all of us 'good trannies' a bad name.

I've never met or seen any of those 'bad trannies'. Yet, she swears they're out there, by the hundreds, nay: thousands, and they're spreading disease, destroying marriages and ruining reputations by the score. She's made it her life's work to confront these 'bad trannies' and tell them a thing or two; clean up your act or else!

(or else what?)

Has she met any personally? Uh, no. Just on-line. Through those Yahoo Groups and myspace sites and such.

Seen any while she was out? Uh, no. She doesn't go to those places where they hang out. Wouldn't be caught dead there, doncha know.

Remember Heinlein's comment? Everybody lies. Including the 'bad trannies'.

See here, I don't expect that everyone who posts crap on a Yahoo Group or a myspace site or whatever is just fantasizing. Nor do I expect that every 'bad tranny' is a homewrecker, a cheat nor an HIV carrier.

And neither should you. Or you. Or, yes; even you.

But, at the same time, neither do I expect that any of us should be held to account for the actions of a deranged few. Nevertheless, to reassure her wife and to retain that MALE PRIVILEGE, this CD I know wants to do just that; nail any of us who show even the least little deviation from what she considers moral and ethical behavior.

And, oh my. What a division these deviations produce. She's not like that, not her!

Nope. And neither are 99.999% of the rest of us.

And that's the problem. We're all alike but none of us want to admit it. The CD's are pointing fingers at the 'bad trannies', the pre-ops are pointing fingers at the CD's and the 'bad trannies' and the post-ops are gving us all the middle finger and walking away in disgust.

(Those post-ops who are stealth would much prefer to pretend that none of us even exist.)

And everybody marginalizes the she-males. They're all hookers anyway, so who cares about them?

(I do, actually.)

Shame. Guilt. (sigh)

Isn't it awful that two of the worst emotions that a human being can feel can also produce such divisions in people who are basically the same kind of folk? Isn't it a shame that guilt and shame can make some of us lie through our teeth, deceive ourselves and each other and make us want to throw our own kind to the wolves? Isn't it disgraceful that social status and MALE PRIVILEGE makes us jump through all kinds of tortuous mental hoops to prove to all and sundry that we're not like that, no, not me!

I have to say that Virginia Prince and Tri-Ess notwithstanding, no amount of sophistry and semantic bullshit is going to prove that the fellow who wears his wife's panties is any different from that incredibly foxy Brazilian she-male whose pictures he has stored in his computer in some innocuously labeled file.

It's just a matter of degree. That, and lots of money, of course, but it's a capitalistic world, isn't it?

I'd like to conduct a nationwide survey with completely anonymous responses: if you were given a million dollars, would you transition to a partially or fully female state? This survey has been performed but not anonymously and not on a nationwide basis and the results were pretty predictable: one-third said yes, one third said no way! and the other third was undecided.

I wouldn't accept results without a statistical universe of over one hundred thousand responses. And even then, I'd be pretty suspicious of some of the respondents.

Everybody lies. It's human nature.

I know I sure did when I first started my own journey. Looking back, I realize that it was the only defense mechanism I had, that; and stuffing it down as far as I could.

I almost went mad. In fact, I know I did.

But I got better.

So can all of us if we just learn how to tell the truth; to ourselves, to each other and to the world at large.

And then maybe we can toast some s'mores and sing 'Kumbaya'. Even though I personally loathe that song.

Good night and good luck.

Michelle

Introduction: Who is this, anyway?

2008-07-16T20:48:00.000-07:00

Hi, everybody. I'm Michelle Rose, a TG woman from Portland, Oregon and this is what I think and here's why.

Just kidding, I think. My SO, Marilyn the Sprite, thinks I should use that title for a public access cable show and maybe I will, one of these days. I will say that I am one terribly opinionated individual but I do my best to respect everybody else's opinions, even if I utterly disagree. That quote from Voltaire comes to mind but I won't repeat it 'cuz I'm sure everybody knows it.

I've been formally 'in transition' since December of '07, meaning that I'm on the HT protocol (estrogen, progesterone and finisteride) and also; I'm presenting as a woman more and more often every day, every way. Briefly: it's grand and scary and wonderful and my only regret is that I didn't do this earlier in my life. Better late than never and that's a philosophy I heartily subscribe to, believe me!

I have a lot on my plate these days and transition is only one of the many things before me. I'm a musician and I'm shopping for a local band that will accept a transgendered keyboard player as something other than a 'novelty' act. I'm heading back to school this fall to finish my English degree, come hell or high water AND I'm volunteering at Multnomah Cable Access (now known as MetroEast) and--hopefully--will soon begin training in camera operation, audio tech (I have an advantage there, I think) and floor direction.

Life is a banquet. I intend to pig out, big time.

I may say a few things that some of you may find politically incorrect or offensive. I sure hope not. No, no racist or bigoted comments or unpleasant sneers at anyone in particular. (With the possible exception of the Republican Party's leadership!) I will be self-editing this blog as much as possible to avoid pissing anyone off, but I fully expect disagreement and a bit of controversy now and then. Again: my intent is not to step on toes, point fingers or call names on anyone. That's been done to me far too often and I think I have learned some valuable lessons about posting on other message boards and commenting on other's blogs. Let me be perfectly clear:

I BELIEVE IN UNITY AND SOLIDARITY AMONG ALL PEOPLE.

Was that clear enough? No? Okay, one of the reasons I decided to do this was the tremendously fragmented state of affairs I've observed among transgendered folk; the exclusionary mind-set I see on a daily basis among people who want to exclude or marginalize their own kind. It saddens me, sickens me and yes, enrages me on occasion.

It's wrong, folks. Especially among people who should know better because they themselves have been excluded. It's dis-empowering for both the marginalized and those who would do that to others. It's a waste of resources. It's emotionally traumatizing to people who need help and direction. It's stupid and stupidity used to have its own reward, i.e.; removal from the survival sweepstakes but, regrettably, that's no longer the case. It's counterproductive, counterrevolutionary and anti-human.

And when it comes to the human race, in toto, I'm an unashamed chauvanist. No apologies: I'm four-square in favor of saving everybody, even those that don't deserve it.

(Even Curious George, aka the Pretender. That poor schmuck...)

So: there's my thesis sentence or statement, more or less in a nutshell. Some of you may roll your eyes and think that I'm a freakin' Pollyanna or that I'm utterly out of touch with reality. Maybe so. But I've been on the receiving end of the crap this society hands out to those that don't fit or conform for so long now, I'll be doubly-damned if I'll play that game and make someone else feel bad just so I can feel good.

Not me. Not this trans woman.

This is not to say that I won't get positively medieval on someone or a group of people I think are acting horribly. There are a lot of targets out there and I'm going to try to avoid the easy ones, like the Religious Right or the sick monsters who harm or kill trans folk. But every now and then, something will pop up on my radar screen and I'm darn sure gonna lock and load, you betcha. I have often been accused of having a 'poison pen' or being a fast gun with an insult or cutting remark. Guilty as charged. But remember:

The pen may be mightier than the sword but God fights on the side of the biggest guns.

And with that cheerfully mixed metaphor, I'll sign off for the evening. Good night and good luck.

Michelle