Am I really off the mark? Sorry for the essay, but some things fell into place when I read that tweet. Actually, I rescind that apology. I’m allowed to be a person with an opinion, despite having been conditioned otherwise.
I have been getting so cross about this. I seem to be cross a lot lately, I feel that I’m seeing sexism everywhere, and it’s driving me crazy. For some reason, though, this whole trans debate is getting a lot of the focus of my anger. I’m angry with the terms used on both sides, angry at the lack of tolerance I’m seeing, just angry in more directions than I can handle.
I used to have an eating disorder. I know it’s not the same thing, but I have some insight into feeling strongly that my body is all wrong, some insight into having a burning determination to change it and make it comply with my idea of what it should be instead. I hated my body, but at least I never felt that is was literally comprised of the wrong parts. I cannot begin to imagine the pain of that.
So for that reason, I have a lot of sympathy with trans people. I’m grateful not to be trans. I don’t mind the term cis, though I know a lot of people hate it and are offended by it, but I don’t mind it because I don’t want to be termed as non-trans, in the same way I don’t want to be called non-male. I’m uncomfortable with non-white for the same reason.
So, I felt, largely, that we, society, need to show a bit more tolerance towards those who are trans.
Except, then there are these issues with toilets and other single sex spaces and sport...and I don’t know what to do about those things so I think perhaps I shouldn’t be allowed an opinion at all.
So I think perhaps my way of settling this in my head is that I’m okay with post-op transsexuals, but not pre-op. Except that means the exact same person apart from the timing, so that can’t be right, and my opinion, again, is null and void.
Then this happens. Lesbians being hounded for going to pride and saying “I’m a lesbian, and I do not want to have a penis in my vagina”. I understand that. I don’t want a naked penis anywhere near me. Regardless of to whom that penis is attached, I just don’t. I don’t feel like it. I don’t have to have sex with anyone, ever, if I’m not in the mood to do so, and I do not want people, any people, to make me feel badly about that.
I work in an office with mostly men. If any of them, tomorrow, came out as trans and needed to use the women’s toilets, I’d be okay with that. Except one of them, because he’s a creepy fucker, regardless of what name he goes by.
That may, I think, be the crux of it. Men are mostly fine, except when they’re not. That sentence is true when you replace the word ‘men’ with ‘women’, ‘transexuals’, ‘penguins’, almost anything.
And finally, I think I may have figured out what I think about it all.
I’m not transphobic, and I do not need to fear having that thrown at me as an insult. In exactly the same way, I’m not anti-Christian , and I don’t need to fear being called so for thinking that the Westboro Baptist Church is a shower of hatred. They might call themselves Christian, but I don’t have to agree. I do not hold Muslims responsible for terrorism committed by terrorists calling themselves followers of Islam. I do not hold trans women or trans men responsible for the views of a vocal minority. That vocal minority might like to call lesbians transphobic for not wanting to sleep with them, but they can bog right off. My vagina, my right to decide what does or, more usually, does not get to access it.
I feel so lucky to be cis. I’m not trans, and I’m grateful for it. But if anyone, cis, trans, otherwise, wants to tell me I must accept being penetrated by their penis, and that being reluctant about that makes me the bad person in the situation, then no. NO. I don’t accept that.