About a week ago someone posted a very rude and sexual comment on the Face Book page for Trans Girl Writer. This was not the first such message that I’ve received, but it was the first openly public one. I was quite understandably upset and angry with this comment and went on something of a rant on Face Book about receiving these kinds of messages and being the focus of some peoples fetishes.
I posted this rant on a couple of Face Book pages that are designed for transgender people, for them to share their thoughts and feelings and talk to other people in the same situation as them. For the most part people were of the same opinion as me and I received a lot of positive feedback about what I had written.
However, on one particular group, which I will not name, I began to receive negative comments. Rather than these comments being targeted at what I had written though, they were targeted towards me. The comments became directed towards how it was my fault for attracting these kinds of comments and messages towards myself.
After a while these comments began to change towards people turning around and accusing me of making the whole thing up, and even lying about being transgender in the first place. Their basis for such conclusions are based in the fact that I don’t have any pictures of myself on my Face Book page.
I’m early on in my transition, I’ve never lied about what stage I’m in, so I don’t like the way I look. I don’t like to look in the mirror and see a man looking back at me, so there is no way on earth that I’d post pictures of a body that I would hate on my Face Book for the whole world to see. I’ve read countless accounts of transgender people that don’t like pictures of themselves pre or early transition and have even gone so far as to destroy these pictures of themselves.
For another transgender person to turn around to me and say that unless I post a picture of myself then they’re going to assume that I’m a guy just pretending to be a girl is horrible. Even when trying to put my point across to them that I am being truthful and indeed transgender they just continued to bombard me with insulting and hurtful comments, even going so far as to advising me to ‘seek professional help’.
It’s bad enough that we become the target of bullying from the rest of the world, simply for being born different from everyone else, but to have people within the community turn on you because you don’t fit into their opinion of what a trans person is or should be doing is terrible. We should be helping each other and giving our support to fellow transgender people, not attacking them.
The comments made have since disappeared from he conversation thread, either by an admin removing them or the original commenter taking back what they have said, but the damage from these comments has already been made. It’s ruined my day. I feel like complete shit and just want to break down into tears.
It wasn’t a trans hater or a bigot who made me feel like that, it was another transgender person. This elitism of ‘I’m more of a trans person than you’ or ‘if you don’t do it a certain way you’re not really trans’ is disgusting and destructive to the community. We need to work together here people. If we can’t even accept and support each other how can we expect the rest of the world to do so?
Amy.
xx
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Unfortunately there are some in the trans community that believe in such things. For some gender queer people simple dont exsist, for others mtf's should only wear pink summer dresses and ftm's must become mechanics or join the army. It's like how some gay men used to believe every other gay person had to be flamboyant or lesbians had to be butch, the world is growing out of this for the gay community but transgender is popularly believed to be a few years behind in many ways.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I know I am trans I will happily admit to distancing myself from the label not because I am ashamed of who or what I am but because the label holds many different meanings for many different people, I always hoped the transgender community would be less judgemental considering the circumstances. I'll happily be involved in the community but only to support and help people.
just my two cents, maybe I am too naive especially knowing what the anonymity of the internet can do
Hi Amy,
ReplyDeleteI've encountered and written about the 'trannier than thou' set myself, and I was shocked to find what a divisive topic it was! Personally, I believe it is a mix of insecurity and an overwhelming need to establish some kind of hierarchy where there is no reason to have one except that they perceive themselves to be on an upper rung.
The joyous thing is that this applies to a very small minority of other trans I have encountered. If you can, please avoid giving someone like this any kind of power over you. Trans who have the need to make themselves taller by jumping down on your back clearly have other problems. Where schoolyard bullies can still beat the tar out of you, all these online fools can do is stomp around comically like they are the bigger dick. :-)
Thank you show much for sharing your experience. I'm not a frequent commenter anywhere, including my own blog, but this moved me to say something.
All my best,
Michelle
PS - Plastering pics of yourself all over Facebook does not make one more trans, just a showoff or delusional.