Firstly, abortion is NOT murder, it is a medical procedure performed by doctors in clinics or hospitals in order to reduce the risk of infections. This is a bullshit plea that anti-choicers make that is calculated to try to tug at a pregnant woman’s heartstrings and get her at a time when she is vulnerable and in need of help. I personally think that this approach to spread their misogynistic message (more on that below) is sickening and anyone who engages in it should be engage for their willing cooperation in fraud. There is no scientific proof in any neutral peer-reviewed journal that would substantiate the idea that abortion is murder and there never will be. These people are afraid of submitting to the scientific review process because they know that they will be ferreted out as the bigoted liars they truly are. Instead, they refer to anti-choice sources for their own information whereas pro-choice people use their own sources, along with medical journals and non-biased websites. It is like relying on the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to report accurately on what is going on in North Korea.

The Back of an Anti-Choicer's Shirt

Secondly, homosexuality is only a sin if you are a member of the Christian cult and personally, that’s not saying much because much of the human condition is sin. Wearing poly-cotton blend t-shirts, eating pork, gluttony, pride, envy, lust, anger, greed, sloth and being a disobedient child are considered sins. So many things seem to piss off god, we need to wake up and see he’s a bad little child that is acting up and hurting people in his temper-tantrum. I mean, I am proud of being who I am and coming as far as I have in my own transition and according to Christianity – that’s a sin (along with masturbation). To say something is a sin is not exactly a negative thing to say about something as so much shit is considered a sin, it dilutes any negativity one could glean from the term. Defining the diversity of humanity as a “sin” says more about you than you would like it to say about homosexuals.

Thirdly, Islam is a lie and you really aren’t going to get me to disagree with you on it but haven’t you ever heard the phrase “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”? Yes, Islam is a lie – just like Christianity is a lie and the reason why Christians keep saying that is because they do not want to admit their association with the mentally deranged desert they came from. They do not want Americans (or any Westerners, for that matter) to see what they want the west to become like – an intolerant, misogynistic, homophobic hell hole just like the middle east. Islam and Christianity both believe in the same god (they are both Judeo-Christian religions much like Judaism and the Baha’i faith are) and to say that one is a lie is to admit that the God of Abraham is a lie. Any rational person can see this distinction but I am not too entirely sure if most Christians are really willing to come to that realization.

Fourthly, the claim of Evolution being a delusion… , remember that quote I used with Islam “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”? Well, for Christianity to call Evolution a delusion is for Alchemists to say that Chemistry is a delusion. Evolution is a scientific theory (which, in the world of science, is as close to fact as you can get) and has withstood the tests and trials of peer review across multiple different disciplines of life and natural science (biology, geology, botany, archeology – to name a few). However, what proof has been provided for the Christian point of view that hasn’t been easily disproven by the scientific community? Even the pseudo-documentary that the Christian right tried to put out with Ben Stein got shot down by numerous sources (including the Anti-Defamation League) for hitting every possible logical fallacy. Christianity must either prove it’s bullshit claims or stop trying to get in the way of REAL science, which is actually trying to get us closer to the truth about this world, not the bullshit that Christianity seems to proclaim.

Next, the claim that feminism is a rebellion… and your problem with that is what, exactly? Yes, feminism is rebellion, rebellion from the misogynistic bullshit that keeps women down. While there are many factions of feminism that are transmisogynistic and makes me cringe at applying the term to myself, I am a traditional feminist, a woman who cares about expanding the rights of women until they are on par with those of men. This is a rebellion from the Christian school of thought that women are supposed to bear children and be subordinate to their husbands. Christians believe this is “just” simply because of the fact that Eve tempted Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge (there’s that forbidden word again) of good and evil and therefore, her punishment is to be subordinate to her husband and have pain in childbirth. A great number of women nowadays have more respect for themselves than that and are rebelling against the Christian oppression against them.

Finally, the claim that liberalism is a false religion – *sigh* why do you fuckers have to claim that everything is a religion just to put it into a frame of reference that you can understand. Liberalism is not a religion for the following facts – first of all, it makes sense and appeals to rational people. That fact alone should prove ten-fold that liberalism is not a religion at all, simply because thinking people are into it instead of people who refuse to think at all. Secondly, saying the term “false religion” is like saying “wet sea”, anything that is called a religion is usually false because it requires adherence to beliefs that aren’t in line with reality. If religion was true, they would not call it religion – they would call it reality. Jesus is only real in the minds of those who believe in him but not in the minds of those who would rather believe in what is real and provable.

I hope this proves to you that if Jesus is the Judge, then we would have a worse system than if our justice system was run by North Korea.

I have not personally been to the concentration camps of Nazi germany and seen man of the historical remnants of the torture inflicted upon the victims of the holocaust but I know that a number of people that have visited the concentration camps had very emotional experiences. I can only speak of a person of Polish blood and a person who is a member of a group that has inaccurately been equated to homosexuality (homosexuality concerns sexual orientation, attraction and affection and transsexuality concerns identity). I can only speak as a non-European who would have been exterminated by German officials if I were living in those times. I can only speak as someone who has empathy for the survivors of such a tragedy and I know to respect that tragedy and never try to dilute it. But when I speak of the holocaust, I will speak in a manner which honours the survivors of the real holocaust and I will not co-opt the real evils of the holocaust to further my own agenda. I can only wish that Christian groups could do the same and respect history and the real victims of this monstrosity. However, since Hitler was Christian, his anti-semitism was Christian in nature (and most common in Christian nations), I can see why Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust would want to dilute the facts of the real holocaust.

The anti-choice movement to equate abortion to eugenics is faulty as abortion does not clearly have a eugenic plan. Abortion is provided to all women regardless of race in our country, thanks to the bravery of many activists and thanks to Roe v. Wade. Abortion is a medical procedure, agnostic to race and future ability of the fetus and is ultimately offered upon woman’s choice to have her baby or not. Just because Margaret Sanger may very well have been a supporter of Nazi eugenics does not mean that the movement is bad – one can evaluate the movement now and see that the results benefit women who cannot have a child at this time. Women have the ultimate choice as to whether or not they want to have an abortion and those who do either do so for personal health reasons or to allow them to continue with their life, uninterrupted by a child. Most of these women have made the choice not to have children at this point in their life or have chosen to continue with their education and feel as though a child would be a hindrance.

If you were born after 1972, we challenge you to consider yourself a Survivor of the Abortion Holocaust. 1/3 of your generation has been killed by abortion in America! – Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust

I cannot do this and will not do this because to co-opt the Holocaust and the real tragedies of the Holocaust is sickening and you people should be ashamed of yourself. Go to a Holocaust museum and see what the Holocaust really means and what really happened during the Holocaust – but do NOT compare the legalization of a medical procedure and a victory for women’s rights to these atrocities. It is sickening when groups do this and you are no better than the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights, a group that constantly tries to equate sound psychological and psychiatric therapy to Nazi eugenics and has an exhibit called “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death”. Both are shameless attempts to co-opt the horrors of the holocaust to further their own agenda and it is a really sickening thing. Along with constant harassment from Scientology’s spokesman, Tommy Davis, the CCHR’s constant co-opting of the Nazi Holocaust has led a seasoned investigative journalist to lose his temper on the spokesman.

I must ask anti-choicers to stop with comparing abortion to the real atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazi Party during the holocaust and the occupation of Western Europe. The reason why is that there was a serious deathtoll and loss with the actual holocaust and Germany worked to exterminate a large number of it’s chosen victims. Comparing the legalization of a medical procedure which has allowed many women to live better lives to the holocaust is a very sickening form of holocaust denial which you would expect to come from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran.

If we are on a date, then I am obligated only to show you respect up until the time that you give me a reason not to. If you start going off on how you voted for McCain in the last election or are a fundamentalist Christian or how you hate feminists/geeks/transsexuals (ack!), chances are there will not be a second date. No, this is not because I wanted a free meal – it’s because I cannot stand your company and I do not want to go out with you again (and yes, I actually dated a Republican once, totally on accident). In fact, I don’t really like dating and I am not that big of a fan of dating men who only want to have sex or violate my principles in some way. If I really start to like you, then I’ll start considering letting you see me naked and maybe having sex with me – possibilities which do run through my mind quite often because I am a perv. Only if you pass my mental checklists of compatibility will we do the mattress dance. But there is nothing you can buy me that will accelerate this process – it has to happen naturally and of my own will.

Now, if you excuse me, I think I want to get a Vivanno smoothie from Starbucks… Anyone have a $5 note? ;-P

It can’t be said that I did not try but when my family started sending me to ex-gay camps, that was a major crack in my capacity to accept something on faith. I figured that if I were giving up something very serious to me (my life), that I deserved proof that Jesus was real. I started doing my own research, reading the whole Bible and started asking questions in church (which is totally not allowed once they realize that you aren’t looking for some half-answer that is only meant to motivate you to put faith in the bullshit). I even went to Bible College and got the same pseudoanswers that I got in church and now, I was wasting my money and my life for this supposed god. I camped out in Banff National Park for two weeks to try to figure out Christianity and the Bible and found it to be absolutely false. This was around December 2006/January 2007 and from there, an amazing adventure which has improved my life greatly started.

When I made the decision to leave Christianity, I was quite depressed and worried about retribution from god – a worry that is similar among people who have left cults. However, I rediscovered my transsexuality, which had been buried under layers and layers of Jesus bullshit and I used the momentum of leaving the church to power my transition. My transsexual transition has helped my recovery from religion and helped me become proud of myself – proud of being a transsexual woman and proud of being an atheist. My departure from the Jesus cult has encouraged me throughout the process of transition and in every other facet of my life. In that time, I have met such wonderful people, improved myself so much and have become a much better person as a result. When Christians tell me (or rather, shout at me) to accept Jesus, I wonder why the fuck I would want to – especially when belief in him made my life such shit, people who believed in him refused to get me the medical procedures I need and the people I see promoting this belief are some of the most hateful, ignorant people I have ever met? I identify as a recovering ex-Christian and I am proud of that identity too, as it exalts the fact that I have an experience that few people have had, having been in the Jesus cult and having gotten out.

1. Love What You Do – I think that this is a very important thing to do – because no matter if you are in middle school, University or in the professional world, you have to love what you do. If you do not love what you do, you have to get an education to do what you love to do. I know that I would be a good doctor so I am working towards becoming a Naturopathic Doctor and in my own mind, my education is personally fulfilling at this point. This is true because of the fact that I feel I was robbed of an education by the school district and my own parents and now, I am coming into a much more thorough education in the sciences. I have had a great time in my education path at Naropa University and being educated in a contemplative community of very intelligent, thoughtful people. I am not exactly “loving” what I do at the moment due to money issues but I am trying to get into the mentality of loving what I do.
2. Never stop learning – One of the things that continually confounds me is how people can feel as though they should stop learning and that is seriously one of the biggest problems with this country. I am certain though I will learn much more throughout my life and not just because my chosen profession has a continuing education requirement no matter where you go in the world. I do not even limit that to my chosen profession or religious path but rather, I would like to know more about the world I happen to live in because I have always been a curious person who has always wanted to know more. True, this desire was suppressed when I was in Christianity because the Christian religion is anti-knowledge and anti-learning but now that I am out, I have seen the fruits of this rule. In fact, I would have to say that being in the Jesus cult and having left the Jesus cult has helped to strengthen my desire to never stop learning because I have seen what it is like to be commanded to stop learning and the kind of bullshit you can believe when you stop learning.
3. Form works with function – I am not exactly at the top of style, most of the time I wear clothes which are comfortable or durable. An example would be that I really don’t wear high heels unless the occasion calls for it – but most of the time, I usually wear winter boots or Birkenstocks (given what time of year it is). I do not own a Prada purse, I own a Samsonite purse that has been through more wear than most other purses could possibly handle, to be quite honest. I do not intend to own pretty luggage, I intend to own luggage that is either cheap or sturdy and can do it’s job because I don’t like it when the things I buy break and I have to replace them.
4. Simple is beautiful – My ex, Samara, always decried the fact that I am a minimalist (as though being a minimalist was a bad thing) and there is a reason for this. I believe that very simply designed websites are implicitly beautiful and very simple things can be made very beautiful in their simplicity. For example, I have absolutely hated the remote controls for cable boxes and media centres that have all sorts of weird assed buttons, most of which never saw any use during the brief bouts of my ownership. However, the Apple Remote is, in my mind, a much superior remote control as it allows you to control your AppleTV, MacBook Pro or iMac and do things like launch Front Row and watch a movie while you are on the couch with your sweetie. I believe that a lot of interface designers, product designers and most certainly remote control designers need some fundamental courses in usability.
5. Work hard, play hard – I firmly believe in this concept, especially since I am certain that it will help me throughout my educational and professional life, as well as for the rest of my life. I am learning how to play games that will help me to open my mind and strengthen my powers of reasoning such as chess and Dungeons and Dragons. I also intend to find ways in my work that will help me to play harder as well, providing for a mutually beneficial relationship between my work and my play.
6. You get what you pay for – Having owned Macintosh laptops and netbooks, I have never believed this to be more true than right now. It seems as though when you pay more for something, it happens to be of a much better quality and is a lot more durable – but not always. I mean, there’s nothing saying that my Samsonite purse is less durable or worthy than a Prada purse but I have gotten much more benefit out of things that have cost a little more. I will provide a couple of examples. I was recently given a netbook and I would have to say that while the thought was nice, I was frustrated at the thing because out of the box, it was a slow computer. In contrast, any Macintosh computer I have ever owned has been a much more superior machine than any PC because (1) it works the way I want/need it to work and (2) it is much less likely to crash/be a slow piece of shit.
7. When you talk, I listen – A lot of people accuse me of being unwilling to listen to them and most of the time, these are conservative people that are more often than not brainwashed into Christianity. However, the truth of the matter is that I listen to everyone and there is nothing anyone can say that I am not willing to listen to. I do seem to be a bit more wary of this because I do have a limited number of spoons being an emotionally disabled person but I try not to disengage from conversation so quickly as I am used to simply because I want to know more. I want to listen and possibly, if your information is right, I want to change and improve. However, when most conservative people talk to me, they are unwilling to consider my viewpoint and it’s at that moment that I start to engage because it is not a fair exchange of ideas then.
8. Must constantly improve – This is a very important rule for me, both as a person and as a transsexual person because I feel that this transition is still a beautiful opportunity to try to ride for as long as I can and improve myself in new and exciting ways. I believe that as a person and as an open-minded person, I should strive to constantly improve and I am both excited and anxious to see what Jessica Sideways becomes a year, 5 years and 10 years from now. I do have to say that I am constantly doing new practices and trying new things in order to try to constantly improve myself.
9. Respect your inspiration – I respect all of the people that I have learned from or been inspired by and I think that makes me a much better person in the long run. That does not necessarily mean that I agree with all of their viewpoints, some of them are Christians and that is just simply a horrible belief system that I could never really get behind. However, I do respect these people for inspiring me or teaching me in the ways that they have. The amount of people who have inspired and taught me over the course of my life time are quite numerous and too many for an (already long enough) single blog post. However, where ever you are, thank you very much!

The main reason why I want to immigrate to Canada is simply to get away from the Christian morons that run our government into the ground and turn our country into a living hell. I swear, I cannot understand why the people in this country have a seriously unhealthy fear of socialism, which is something that would definitely improve the lives of many people in this country. These are the people who are willfully retarded enough to vote for George W. Bush as president, twice – you have to wonder what the fuck is wrong with this place to compel people to do that to themselves! It’s as retarded as turning on the stove, placing your hand on the grill and refusing to remove it until a doctor comes, heals you and you blame him for the pain. That’s pretty much what is going on right now in America, there is a contingent of people who see the damage this last president has done to our nation and blaming Barack Obama for it. Granted, Barack is a very useless man for failing to live up to a number of his campaign promises regarding equality, but it could be worse – we could have Grandpa Maverick and the Rogue Lunatic.

I still have Naturopathic Medical School in order to get through in order to come to Canada and become a citizen but understand that I will work hard at becoming a Canadian. But it would be worth it to escape this hell hole…

I am here to remind you of the promises that you have made to all of us during your presidential campaign, like a fat transsexual Cindy Lou Who (trust me, that’s not self-deprecation). You promised to help repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (why that issue, I have not the foggiest clue), pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (a violation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause and state’s rights). True you signed the Matthew Shepard Act into law, but you have made some serious promises for which your Administration has made little progress on. I am wondering when you are going to get your butt in gear and work on keeping your promises to the LGBT community because so far, it looks like once you got our votes, you left us high and dry. This pains me to say because I would much rather have you in the White House than any Republican simply because the people in the Republican Party are mentally insane.

We know that you have a lot going on, what with Health Care Reform and the BP oil spill but the fact of the matter still remains that you remain eerily silent about these very important issues which you campaigned on. You do not even care enough to give us a status report on how you are resolving these issues. It feels to me that you took our votes, sold us a complete bill of goods and I think that if you refuse to do the job you promised to do or give us a status report, then the Democratic party needs to pick a candidate who will work to get things done. As the incumbent, so far you haven’t earned your place in the White House but the Democratic Party does not have the courage to select a different candidate for the 2012 election so there is a lot that rides on you turning this around, Barack.

Still, it could be worse – McCain could have won the election and we would have been royally screwed but that does not give you the license to shirk your responsibility to your nation. You ran on a campaign of hope and of course, this being my first presidential election, I believed you because our previous Administration gave us little to hope for at all. You gave us grand promise but I want to see the action behind the promises – not just scraps in an effort to keep us pacified and think that you are actually working for us. I will tell you right now that this shit cannot go on forever and it would not be wise to continue to do these kinds of things because it will make gay people see that you are not on our side and refuse to vote next presidential election. This is not good, as it would mean less of your core constituency would be voting for you and that would mean a higher likelihood of Republican victory in 2012. Needless to say, we cannot have that and I am scared that you will continue to do nothing about these very important issues. I am afraid that I am all out of hope but still full of audacity.

Sincerely,
Jessica E. Sideways, Esq.

*sigh* When will I get to move to Canada?

I would like to make it very clear that I am not against free speech at all – in fact, I believe that for the most part, our society has benefited from the discoveries and advances that freedom of speech allows. However, I believe that these exploitative films should not be spread without a black box warning, which would inform people that this is a work of fiction, should not be replicated in real life and any other warnings that a crack team of psychologists should deem necessary. In addition, unless film festivals and theatres are overtly hostile towards transsexual women, these transploitative movies should not be shown in film festivals nor theatres, and most certainly not in respectable film festivals like the Tribeca Film Festival. If I go to South by Southwest one year when I can afford it and I am told that South by Southwest allowed some transmisogynistic bastard like Isreal Luna to show one of his films at SXSW, I would be pissed off. The reason why is that transsexual women are a frequent target of violence, as the Transgender Day of Remembrance seems to prove and this makes for a very inappropriate topic to make light of. Because I know that transsexual women are often the targets of violence, I am usually a person who keeps to herself and doesn’t have too many friends that are not online.

When a transsexual person dies, the media seems to go out of it’s way to be a bunch of pricks and report the old name of the transsexual person (which is why I am very thankful that I live in a society that does not know my old name). Some media outlets also choose to report us as being a different gender than we actually are, which is deeply disrespectful to the victim. I remember being alerted to a media outlet in San Antonio inaccurately reporting the gender of a victim of a sexual assault by a cop and contacting the editor who was responsible. He defended his disrespect of the victim and would not budge an inch, threatening to stop communication altogether if we called him on his transmisogynistic bullshit. I am doing as much as I can to purge my old name from any sort of official records, including considering the possibility of immigration to a new country, where my records in that country would be exclusively in my correct name. I am greatly comforted by the fact that all of my degrees that I earn will be in my CORRECT name and the transcript data will be in the correct name and gender, with the exception of my high school records (it’s a Texas high school and instead of caring about the accuracy of their records, they would rather use incorrect data).

The facts record that Isreal Luna knew that his film would be incendiary in the minds of any transsexual activist with half a brain. As a gay man and someone who worked for the press, he should be aware of the GLAAD media guidelines and the fact that tranny is an offensive word to many transsexual women in our community. He used the term not only knowing this but in a movie that exploits transsexual women and the very real violence against us. He created a film that glorified violence against transsexual women and retributive violence against our attackers and he choose to remain clueless to the fact that this film is deeply offensive towards the transsexual community. This film is just simply in extremely bad taste and my baser instincts would call for it to be banned but I must restrain myself and insist that the film continue to exist for one reason – to show how heteronormative and insensitive some people in the gay community remain. From the Human Rights Campaign’s Joe Solmonese who sold the transgender community a bill of goods and continued to support a version of ENDA that did not include gender identity protections to Isreal Luna with his extremely insensitive movie against transsexual women, this proves that gay men aren’t always on our side. This provides a spotlight into the very prevalent cissexism in some gay men and shows something that we definitely need to correct in our community. And that’s why this transsexual woman is ticked off.

What has irritated me so constantly and consistently about cissexual people is that when I had my SRS, some people have had the gall to assume that just because I had my SRS – I was “now a woman”. Every time I heard that, I got quite pissed off on the inside because it showed me that they assumed that I wasn’t a woman before. Needless to say, I lost a few cissexual friends because of their revelation that they did not truly think of me as a woman before the surgery – which was just simply willful ignorance, the same willful ignorance that has compelled some of my old “friends” to burst out that old name any time we had a difference of opinion. They insinuate that having the surgery makes someone a woman, not the inner qualities and strengths of a person and that is not only insulting to me, it should be insulting to cissexual women as well. Being in the transgender community, I have had the pleasure to know a lot of beautiful, funny, smart, wonderful and feminine women who have had penises and a few strong, sharp and masculine men who have vaginas (I do not really get to meet that many transsexual men, especially since I’m in an area that has a disturbingly fucked up TG community). This is why I am a firm believer that genitals are not the defining factor of who you are – I believe who you are is something that is deeply embedded in you and something that a lot of transsexual people try to deny at first.

The thing of it is, I am happy that I had my surgery – it’s one of the bigger accomplishments of my life and until I earn my ND, it’s pretty high up on the list. However, I do not feel as though surgery is for everyone and if you don’t need it, you are most certainly a stronger person than I or anyone that has been or was driven towards the surgery by that somatic need. I do not feel a need to deny the womanhood of my sisters who have not had their own surgeries yet because I know that before I had my own surgery, I was a woman. I am happy when one of my friends gets their own surgery but I will never assume that it’s the capstone of one’s transition. I know from my own experience that my voice needs work and I need to finish off my remaining facial hair with electrolysis in order to complete my transition. I am far from done and I most certainly don’t want to alienate other transsexual women from contacting me – whether they be pre-op or post-op, because I am always looking for a few friends with a common background, be they local so we can shop or global so we can chat when I get home at night. But the LAST thing I care about is your genitals, unless we have decided to do the mattress dance. ;-P

One thing I can find out anything else in the cissexual world is equitable to how I feel when people use that old name is how Wil Wheaton feels when he is called Wesley Crusher, instead of by his real name. For those who know, Wil Wheaton is the man who played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation and personally, if he weren’t married, if he asked me to marry him tomorrow, we’d be in Vegas within a few hours. But that’s another discussion for another day. But yeah, it’s like referring to a character that I played a few years ago for a couple decades as though it’s me – but it’s not me and it’s incredibly insulting to limit me to that. Especially since that was the worst, most traumatizing role I’ve ever played in my life and I am very resentful towards everyone who forced me to play that role. Which is why I moved to Colorado – to live in a society where no one knows that old name and that is exactly the way I prefer it.

Fortunately, the time I played that role is over – it is completely over and it’s time we wake up and move up from the show. Myself, I will be living my life, without playing a role nor lying to the world and you should move on too. I have helped myself in revoking myself from this old role – including moving to another state in order to make sure that no one from my past will recognize me while I go about my daily life here in Boulder. However, you should respect me enough to use my correct name and pronouns, anything else shows a serious lack of respect for me. It does show who these people are – people who are unwilling to accept that the show is over and that makes these people worse than the most extreme trekkies. Then again, what do you expect from people who are in the Cult of Jesus Christ? Even when I was in, I knew the self-righteousness, homophobia, transphobia, hate and bigotry of the people in the Jesus Cult but I know it to be even more true now. Which convinces me even more that this is a cult.

I know this reeks of being a bad sport and all but I guess it is just a manifestation of the fact that the news that someone I KNOW was chosen and I wasn’t. It’s a very human thing and I would like to ask all of the people I know on the Internet and in person one small favor, and please do this for me, don’t remind me. Don’t remind me of the fact that I lost the POINT foundation by exalting Kyle as a hero – he’s not, he’s a lucky guy and he might of earned his newfound scholarship but what about the 1,600+ other people that applied, weren’t they good enough too? It’s hard enough paying for University as it is and paying for a private college like the University of Denver or Naropa University is quite difficult without scholarships, grants and loans. I am fortunate that for the 2010-2011 school year, I was awarded a very sizable Naropa grant which helped pay for over half of my tuition. The rest of my tuition was paid for by Pell grants, supplemental grants, Stafford loans and Perkins loans – with a little bit of money to live off of. I did not receive any scholarships I had applied for this year and it does take it’s toll on you when so many people reject you, which is why I never went back to speed dating.

I know I read all of your blogs and eventually, a story about Kyle Inselman, transgender superman, might come up. I’ll just skim over it like I do the pro-choice crap that is hurled at me at times, but I ask you to please don’t point me to this. It just pisses me off that he can win and I can’t, it says to me that I’m not good enough and frankly, I don’t need that message coming at me from all directions, especially not from my own community.

To my surprise, he said that he had been thinking that giving me away by himself didn’t feel right; he would want, at the very least, for my mom to walk down the aisle, too. And really, when you got right down to it, my stepmom and stepdad should also be there, because they put just about as much time and energy into raising me. And then you’re trying to fit five people (with me in a not-small dress and carrying a big bouquet) down a tiny little aisle, and the whole thing starts to get a little sitcom-in-sweeps week.

And of course, we have the natural response from the peanut gallery, whom feels it’s their right to insult and interfere with this brave woman’s life. Of course, this really is not a surprise as if they had their way, women would be property of their fathers and then their husbands (as the tradition of the father giving away the bride symbolizes), the pursuit of knowledge would be vilified as original sin and gays would be executed. Naturally, the religious reich choose to interfere as this woman is brave enough to challenge their misogyny and choose to have the kind of ceremony that she wants. How dare a woman want freedom and wish to use her wedding to express herself genuinely?!?

That’s exactly what is wrong with so many people today. I doubt that you want to have any vows either. Let’s just live our lives as we want and when he cheats on you, oh well, there wasn’t anything there to begin with. How about dear old dad that worked his ass off all his life to make sure that you didn’t go hungry or live in your car, let’s not honor him in any way after all, it’s all about you. Make sure you don’t ask dear old dad to chip in any money for this either, since you have your own life and he isn’t a part of it. I bet the people on here that agree with this selfish act are the first ones to make to call to dear old ‘Bank of Dad’. Life was good when we had the old time values and people showed respect but that is a thing of the past. – Byron

Byron, how’s it wrong that she chooses not to participate in a misogynistic and patriarchal tradition – whether her father agrees with her decision or not (he does, as you can see above)? Just because she does not want to participate in a misogynistic tradition during her wedding ceremony and to reform the ceremony that honours all participants equally does not mean it’s without vows or fidelity. They have been in a monogamous relationship, living together, for a few years prior to their wedding so why is it that you feel as though the husband-to-be would cheat on his wife-to-be? If you have actually bothered to read the article, you can see that there is a lot there already without the wedding – there was the life they built together and the time that they spent together since high school. High school, hun! I cannot even say there is a single guy that I would have that kind of relationship with (of course, my situation in high school was not conducive to having that kind of thing develop between any one of my friends and I). Besides, remember that her father did not want to be the only one honoured, he wanted to make sure that her mum and her future in-laws were honoured as well. And having all of those people, her big ass dress and her groom walking down the aisle at the same time was not practical.

Furthermore, shouldn’t your wedding be about you and your future spouse? It seemed to me (simply because I am a rational person that does not believe that bronze age fairy tales are true) that she wanted to make sure that her ceremony honoured both her future spouse and her. It’s not “all about her”, it is about her spouse as well and her family is included in this – not just about her. What I think is the source of your frustration Byron is not that it’s centred around the couple but that it’s not about the exchange of property. Furthermore, just because she did not want to have only her father escort her down the aisle (remember, he was not exactly comfortable with the idea either), does not mean that he’s not an active participant in her life. He was at the wedding with the rest of the family, treated like the rest of the family – how is that equitable to excluding him from her life? Furthermore, what are these ‘old time values’, like ignorance, misogyny, homophobia and the absence of life saving technologies? Our society has gotten much better over the years – and those old time values have been traded in for something better – something that is much more meaningful to everyone involved. Values that are inclusive and give everyone a choice – even women, whether you like it or not. Values that are closer to our goals of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for all people, not just straight Christian men.

There are several comments that are posted that echo the Christian message of misogyny and hate and it is obvious what they are really angry about. They are angry about the fact that their bigoted world where women are the property of their fathers and husbands is shrinking. The younger generation is starting to open their eyes more and more to the idea that women are not just someone’s property but people with their own lives and choices to make. They see that women are humans too and while we are different from men, we should also be equal to them – but they see the difference between women and men as a flaw in feminism. I see it as quite the contrary, as difference between men and women does not necessarily challenge the idea of feminism and men can also be feminists as well. In fact, we are starting to see more and more men stand up with courage and defend the rights of women everywhere, whether they denounce the misogynistic device we call the “Burka” or they denounce traditions that demean the women in their lives. The old values are falling ways to values that are more about equality and work to give dignity to all people.

And wouldn’t that be nice?

I definitely believe that she should not be congratulated for her work for the GIC but rather, to be admonished for it. Her blind support for the Standards of Care is reprehensible and a disservice to our community, much like a transsexual woman running under the Republican ticket. She is also a fellow traveller to Thailand to receive her sex reassignment surgery, but the difference is that she received hers from Dr. Preecha. I remember quite clearly that when I voiced my distaste for the Standards of Care and stated that I am not adhering to the Standards of Care in my own transition, she attacked me. She is not one for academic discussion about the Standards of Care that do not adhere to a positive point of view about the Standards of Care. She stated that she believed that I would commit suicide after having had sex reassignment surgery but I sincerely doubt it. I believe that having had my own surgery, I have a much higher investment in my own transition, my own life, causing me to be less likely to commit suicide.

Her insistence on blind adherence to the Standards of Care, along with her threats of personal harm if one does not adhere to the SOC does not make her a positive influence in our community worthy of emulation, but a threat. She is a direct threat to the transition of anyone she comes in contact with, an awful influence to many transsexual women and one of the primary influences that hurt our community. While there are some organizations that are working to help bring together community, such as TransAction, she is one of the many reasons why the Gender Identity Centre of Colorado is keeping down the transsexual community here. So, I cannot understand why it is that Karen Serenity chooses to honour TG Spirit, when many transsexual women here in Denver and have actually been to the ground zero environment that is the Tuesday Night Groups at GIC speak against her – many not as loudly as I speak about her. As for myself, and what I must do now, I have to let Karen Serenity know the truth about TG Spirit.