May. 17th, 2013

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Yes, the redneck is me. It's how I was raised, whether you think I still fit the descriptor or no. I see it as a term to describe an American raised in a sheltered area, who hasn't had much big-idea or big-city exposure in their formative years, at the least, if not in their whole life (like Dad). [livejournal.com profile] alex_beecroft posted about transpeople today and made me remember my first experience with it.

The where and how I was raised didn't put me in contact with transpeople, and very little with gay or ethnic minority people; honestly, this is a situation where books, TV, and such media really DO have a tremendous influence on a kid. College broadened this view a little (I was 17 before I encountered that black people could dislike white people for being white, just as I already knew it could work in reverse from observing some members of my own family). You're free to mock young!me for ignorance, but you may be forgetting what things were like before the Internet exposed everybody to everything ever, or just not realize, if you're young enough.

So, I had never knowingly dealt with or known a transgender person until I was 27, when I took a job far, far from my home county in a much larger city. A fellow journalist with a different publication had decided the year before to become female in body. What made this notable was the guy was in his 50s and really locally well known as a columnist - and a man. My coworkers told me about John and that he now went by Jane (not real names). Their remarks were not flattering, but I think in retrospect it was a combination of a backwards view of transpeople AND the fact John had not been a very likable person before - their attitudes struck me as very schadenfreude.

The first time I ran into Jane while covering the same function, I thought of her as a he. She (as I soon started to think of Jane) looked very obviously like a man dressed as a woman - the makeup was bad, the clothes were worn awkwardly, and the voice and carriage were definitely still male. I actually ran into her in the women's bathroom. I never felt unsafe (as some people have complained), but I didn't know what to say ... so, I fell back on lessons from Mom on politeness and just asked what she thought of the function (reporters love to commiserate on these things). Jane seemed pretty friendly, so, other than maintaining the healthy distance I feel toward all rival journalists (another common response we have - you never can trust someone looking for a story for a living not to take your angle away from you, LOL), I had no problem with her. I admit for a year or two, I did wonder if this was a stunt for a story - it's plausible if you know your journalism history - but after that I stopped worrying if I was being duped for the sake of a story. It seemed highly unlikely after so long.

Anyway, I knew Jane for seven years until I moved away. We were neither friends or enemies, and except for that first encounter and lingering professional suspicion I mentioned, for a little while, I never had a problem thinking of her as "her." Her makeup and clothes improved, her voice became higher (I believe she was taking drugs/hormones but don't know if she ever went in for reassignment surgery), and she seemed to become more comfortable in public as female. I actually had occasion to go to a couple of strictly social functions she too was at, and we had fun conversations about movies.

I guess my point of this is just to explain how I came to accept the T in LGBT - it just is, it's not mine to really accept or not for a person, but I'm sure it probably makes their lives easier if bystanders like me don't challenge them on what gender they feel. I wish more people would meet a Jane earlier in life, or at all, so they're forced to deal with a human being and see it's not any bigger a deal than meeting anyone else in the course of a day.

Hopefully this doesn't sound terribly ignorant of me. Alex mentioned blogging about transphobia and so this is what came to mind.

(I admit I might hesitate to date a transman, but I wouldn't date a lot of men because I'm not attracted to very many, period, and I definitely wouldn't date any woman. I feel like sexual attraction between adults is one of those things you can't regulate - but it should have nothing to do with treating people equally.)

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