so i made it, what, ten days…this afternoon, in banning a few IPs from posting comments to my blog due to their pathological need to spam the crap out of my blogness, i had a little thought about the whole “bitter and angry” thing. by the way, banned IPs, it’s been nice knowing you, please stop telling me how ugly you know i am.
i’ve been thinking a lot about the whole game of labeling any criticism whatsoever as “bitter and angry”, a tag which has stung since the first time someone dispensed it on me for speaking up, and you know what? it’s time to claim that some anger (and by extension some bitterness) is damn well justified.
this is an uncomfortable reality for some because it means questioning both the “smile or die” paradigm that has suffused Western society as well as that it’s hitting back at transfundamentalism, which remains the smelly elephant in the room of the “trans community” no matter how we try to spin it because when transfundamentalists dominate spaces, they work to exclude rather than include.
so what i’m saying is that i ask that you see where i’m coming from: i’ve lived most of my life in isolation, i move to a city which is allegedly a safer place to be trans, i try to get involved with the community through the one vector everyone recites (going to their “support group”) and get nothing but rejection, told how coyote ugly i am, told how much surgery i “need” and then called a “r**ard” and “it” to boot. thus, back into isolation, since apparently you can’t propose to talk it out with the wonderful facilitator who thinks it’s fun to call you “it” as there’s no way to contact anyone from the group other than an email which never gets answered…but if you want to connect to the “trans community” the support group is literally the only point of contact anyone ever discusses…so if you’re me, and not “good enough” to be allowed, you’ve got nothing and isolation it is.
i mean, can’t you see how that might make someone a touch “bitter and angry”? how about when the information about safe medical professionals in the area isn’t shared outside said group? how about when you ask nicely online if there’s someone who’d be willing to go with you..again, not begging for friends, just a warm body who is better known to the group, not asking for committment… and stand up to the facilitator if she becomes abusive? oh, wait, you get crickets. or a much older person trying to find out your real name, where you go to school, and what you look like and becoming abusive and hateful when you don’t share that information which is none of her fucking business in the first place with her. oh and then she ridicules everything you post because after being that overbearing and creepy, you don’t want to be her friend, HOW DARE YOU. other than that situation, clearly from which no good can come, crickets.
so yes, i am “bitter and angry”. and for a very good reason, thank you very much. bitterness and anger at pointless othering and people playing keep-away with information for no good or defensible reason is a natural human emotion, and i am not so foolish as to believe i am above emotion. consider the frustration level involved with a group that holds all the cards not letting you in the door and not coming to the window when you try to talk it out, and consider how this would make you feel.
if you’d like to write me off for the sin of emotion, be my guest, but at least attempt to understand what leads to this discontent rather than slagging me as “bitter and angry” and walking away.
I dont question your right to be bitter or angry. Many of us have good reason to be so. However, I have noted in some of your posts that your message gets swallowed up by your emotion. This makes it hard to read a lot of what you write. If your purpose its to use your blog to vent, then that is just fine. However, if you are looking to persuade or convince people of the valid points you make then toning down the rhetoric would help you present your message. Remember, most trans people dont get involved in the kinds of thing you are talking about. In fact, most are just busy living their lives, often happily and succesfully. They are the ones you want to get engaged and you wont succeed if the reader has to wade through a lot of vitriole in order to discern your points.
I dont know anything about where you live. In my home area their exists a large informal network of long time transitioned people who go out of their way to help those who are struggling. We dont run support groups, we dont go to meetings, we dont march, but we do help, mentor and support those who are at a different point in their journey. I would be surprised if this does not exist where you live. You do have to meet people but their are many, like me, who are happy to help. At least I will if the person who needs help is not angry or unkind to me.
It can be hard to swallow but simply because you identify as trans does not mean that so-called trans support groups see you as having anything in common with them. In fact, you may represent everything they dont care for. I would expect the people in thesr groups are volunteers, not paid for their time and so under no obligation to help someone who is abrasive or who does not fit in. This is their right as well, to choose who they help and who they spend their time with. Having said that, noi group is homogenous and it should not be impossible to find a supportive member or two. Also remember that very very few – a tiny percentage – of trans people attend or are members of such groups. Most of us attend some meetings for a while but quickly move on as we progress with our transitions.
Sometimes, and I know you wont like this, you need to fit in, need to conform, in order to get the help you need. It is not nice or fair but welcome to the real world.
“However, if you are looking to persuade or convince people of the valid points you make then toning down the rhetoric would help you present your message.” sounds an awful lot to me like “you black folks would get so much farther if you weren’t so angry.” …not the best start, but i’m curious about what “rhetoric” you’re seeing, since i do know that as part of being human, emotions color my perceptions of things. the topic of this entry is that emotions are valid and necessary things sometimes.
“In my home area their exists a large informal network of long time transitioned people who go out of their way to help those who are struggling. We dont run support groups, we dont go to meetings, we dont march, but we do help, mentor and support those who are at a different point in their journey. I would be surprised if this does not exist where you live.” …not that anyone’s ever bothered to tell me about, but i’m not struggling. i transitioned over two decades ago, you see, and my issue at first was trying to find a doctor who would hook me up with hormones after the health clinic for queer women here closed under troublesome circumstances. and, you know, had that worked out, i’d have ventured merrily back into the forest. in case you missed it, that didn’t work out. the fiction that you can go to any doctor for hormones is just that, a fiction, and furthermore it also is a dangerous, dangerous fairy tale to tell trans people. similarly, it puts me in a pickle when it comes to getting regular healthcare. do i delete being trans and actually be seen for why i’m sick…but that involves lying, and i hate myself for doing that…or do i tell them i’m trans and be told to “get the fuck out, you freakish man.” <— direct quote. i had pneumonia, just so you know, and ended up having to go pay out of pocket for an ER visit three days later because it didn't magically get better after i was told to "get the fuck out." i know this runs in conflict with established, permitted trans women fairy tales, but those fairy tales hurt people, real people. i wanted to find safe medical access. that's all i was asking four years ago. i got told the support group is the only game in town for that information. so i tried going, and well…
"It can be hard to swallow but simply because you identify as trans does not mean that so-called trans support groups see you as having anything in common with them. In fact, you may represent everything they dont care for. I would expect the people in thesr groups are volunteers, not paid for their time and so under no obligation to help someone who is abrasive or who does not fit in. This is their right as well, to choose who they help and who they spend their time with." …not if they eat up resource information and cash claiming to serve "the community." sure, the facilitator is a volunteer, but she has no right to call me "it" and "retard" because i'm present. sorry, i think maybe you're not understanding the issue: the yelling was directed at me. i am, politely, pretty meek. i am soft-spoken, quiet, and really terrified in groups of new people. so what was my sin, wearing pants and no makeup? sorry, that's how i dress to leave the house. or are you making unwarranted assumptions…or perhaps are you missing that this place is a nest of transfundamentalist types who offer a lot of unsolicited feedback, like how much facial surgery i “needed” and how terribly ugly i was…and all i said was "please stop"? "please stop" isn't "abrasive." “please stop.”
"Sometimes, and I know you wont like this, you need to fit in, need to conform, in order to get the help you need. It is not nice or fair but welcome to the real world." …so being able to conform in everyday life sufficient to survive, work, go to school, etc…that's not enough? i can't change that i'm disabled, that i'm poor, that i'm not white, etc. and i manage to "conform" with greater society enough that nobody there has much a problem with me. so what do you mean by "conform"? i'm curious here. all ears.
…or are you just throwing rocks, Amber?
The OP is talking about a support group that hogs up all of the available resources in a given area, then not merely turns an individual away but actively commits emotional abuse against a trans woman and denies her access to further resources. Amber, it says a lot about who you are as a person that you hear that story and your instinct is to question the individual who has experienced abuse rather than the group structure that has inflicted it. It speaks of an instinct towards subservience to power that is actually kind of disturbing.
*clapping*
Yes. Being both angry and bitter when you have cause to be so, is good.
god knows I have my fair share of both. And I don’t care. And I’m not about to care.
i’m YES YES YESing on this but that’s because i’m well versed in feminist theory so i knew much of this already :B
a) you’re a good writer
b) you’re gorgeous
c) this post is truth
d) there is no d and there is no spoon