365 days Friday, Jan 1 2016 

  • For the first time since 2000, I didn’t go to the Southern Comfort Conference. And when the time came, I wasn’t totally broken up about it. I did miss seeing friends, interacting with people as who I wish to be rather than who I have to, and spending time in Atlanta. But not going didn’t tear me apart like I thought it would.
  • I did go to Houston for a long weekend instead, and found out that it’s a nicer place than I expected. It’s far more open than maybe I thought it would be, got to see some great people, and even managed to find a pair of boots I love. I want to visit again, but with the present attitude regarding LGBT rights I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
  • We finally moved my mom up to Dallas, where we could keep an eye on her. She’s got her own apartment in a senior citizen’s complex, is making friends slowly, and I see her far more than I used to. The downside was the move, which came together very fast, getting her settled, and seeing far more of her than I used to. I should appreciate her, but we’ve gotten along better when there was some time and distance between us.
  • (And no, she doesn’t know. And at 81, I don’t know how she’d handle such a revelation.)
  • I wonder sometimes how I’ve made it this far. My own mental stresses and physical issues push me into my own abyss, but I have yet to decide to end it. So I guess I’ll be around for a while.
  • Let’s not talk about my gender issues. Because it’s still this huge mass that every time I want to approach it, something pulls me back. A crisis, someone else’s needs, etc. I do know that I need to get out more, but it’s hard to find people who just want to go shopping or to lunch as opposed to clubs or other nightlife.
  • At least I know I’m loved. That makes up for a lot.

I’d say overall 2015 is better off gone, and hopefully 2016 will be better.

FYYFF* Thursday, May 29 2014 

Know what? Call me a tranny, and I don’t care. It’s not the worst think someone has said to me. Fag, shemale, he-she, it, queer-been called all those things too. I don’t like it but I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of getting to me. Because if I went after everyone who’d insulted me, there wouldn’t be a big enough cemetery for all the bodies.

But that doesn’t mean I have to like it, or that I think it’s acceptable. Especially by people who ought to know better. Like the gay men who think that transgender people have too thin a skin because some object to being called a tranny. That we ought to just suck it up. Because they’re okay with being fags and queers, you know?

But see, I know gay men who hate being called fag, or queer. So I don’t do it, out of respect for their feelings and because in the end, it’s wrong. So why can’t they understand that if we don’t want to be called trannies, you ought to respect our feelings and accept that we just think it’s wrong?

It’s not all gay men. It’s the ones who got ugly after RuPaul got called out for it by the transgender community. It’s the ones who think that transgender people ought to “man up” and take it. It’s the ones who think I should “own it” just like they’ve taken to owning fag and queer. Empowerment, you know?

No, wrong…I shouldn’t HAVE to take ownership of a word I find repulsive. You ought to just shut the fuck up, okay? Get the words out of your vocabulary. You can do it, you’re an adult.

And if you really need a label for me, I have one. It’s Zelda. Get used to it.

*”Fuck You, You Fucking Fucks”–attributed to the late Ashley Morris, interpreted by John Goodman on the series “Treme”

TransFeminism/CisFeminism: Why Can’t We Be Friends? – Community Saturday, Apr 18 2009 

TransFeminism/CisFeminism: Why Can’t We Be Friends? – Community

But one way hierarchies are maintained is by setting up situations where members of oppressed groups in turn oppress those with even less power and privilege because it is one of the only available ways to demonstrate power and attempt to move up in the world – by moving someone else down.

I’ve seen this in so many other minorities, yet it’s a lesson few learn. The entire post is worth reading, and thinking about. It’d be nice if the gay and lesbian community would get a clue from it, too.

Just my opinion, that’s all.

Wrong on so many levels Sunday, May 27 2007 

Sibohan Curran posts a very personal discussion:

(I wrote this about a month ago. It was supposed to be the first of a three-part discussion on some of the problems I have with transvestism, the issues I think it generates, and the effects it has on other people. I was going to wait until I’d written all three parts before I posted it, but I think if I stuck to that strategy, it’ll never see the light of day.)

It would be ridiculous, I feel, for me to even hint at the notion that I think transvestism is A Bad Thing™. Not just ridiculous, ludicrous in fact. I mean, if I thought for one second that what I did day-in, day-out was in someway inherently wrong, well, I’d be a hippocrite of the highest order.

Perhaps.

But that doesn’t stop me wondering about it, you know, in a “What if?” kinda way.

11/10/09-Sibohan closed her blog, so I removed the now useless link.

Quoted from another blogger Sunday, May 20 2007 

Yahoo! 360 – Renee’s Blog: ““I think trying to find a cause of transgenderism or trying to find a cause of sexual orientation is really going down the wrong track,” Aronoff said. “It doesn’t really matter why people are who they are, it just matters that they are. And that they be treated with respect and are able to live to their full potential.”

— Simon Aronoff, a female-to-male transgender activist”

11/10/09-Yahoo! 360 was shut down in mid-2009 so the link no longer worked.