Val, I would love to have your attachment as a poster in my home. Hit’s it pretty square on the head.
Growing up as I am, back in the 70’s and 80’s, transvestite was one of the few labels society had for us. They, the uneducated societal namers, put the connotation on it that to be called a transvestite somehow meant that you were a total, depraved, social deviant with no hope of redemption. You should have been shunned and ostracized for daring to break the rules of polite society. They never considered the literal Latin translation of the word, and made it, and us, something to be despised and loathed.
Back then, many of our sister’s committed suicide over the way we were treated if a ‘normie’ found out about our little secret followed by the treatment we got from them. Many other’s seemed to just disappear in an attempt to escape the scorn and ridicule heaped on us as they moved away to escape the stupid prejudice of people.
But many of us grew closer together and formed tighter friendships because of it. Many of us just ignored ‘them’ and went about our lives. A few of fought back though, both physically and legally, and the cracks began to form in the walls put up to stop us and close us off. Now, today, we are known by an almost bewildering alphabet of labels and files and terminology.
When I was going through all of my cancer treatments and surgeries and counseling, I got a lot of questions about how they should list me in my records, trangender, transitioning, bi-gender, etc. I finally got very tired of that line of questions, and I began answering the “Professionals” by just telling them I was ‘ME’, nothing more, nothing less. I preferred the word her or she, but I understood the legalities of the labels too. But I made it clear to them, and they did eventually stop trying to classify me and one dear lady actually did put the word ME on one of the forms for my sex.
To me, Transvestite is now almost as archaic a term as is werewolf, or witch, and belongs to history and has no real place with us now except in tales told to scare children at night.
PaulaF
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