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The Transgender Crucible

Started by skin, July 31, 2014, 12:05:09 AM

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skin

July 31, 2014, 12:05:09 AM
Sabrina Rubin Erderly, Rolling Stone
July 30, 2014

A dozen eggs, bacon, maybe some biscuits: CeCe McDonald had a modest shopping list in mind, just a few things for breakfast the next day. It was midnight, the ideal time for a supermarket run. Wearing a lavender My Little Pony T-shirt and denim cutoffs, CeCe grabbed her purse for the short walk to the 24-hour Cub Foods. She preferred shopping at night, when the darkened streets provided some relief from the stares, whispers and insults she encountered daily as a transgender woman. CeCe, 23, had grown accustomed to snickers and double takes – and was practiced in talking back to strangers who'd announce, "That's a man!" But such encounters were tiring; some days a lady just wanted to buy her groceries in peace.

And so it was that on a warm Saturday night in June 2011, CeCe and four friends, all African-Americans in their twenties, found themselves strolling the tree-lined streets of her quiet working-class Long­fellow neighborhood in Minneapolis, toward a commercial strip. Leading the way was CeCe's roommate Latavia Taylor and two purse-carrying gay men – CeCe's makeshift family, whom she called "cousin" and "brothers" – with CeCe, a fashion student at a local community college, and her lanky boyfriend trailing behind. They were passing the Schooner Tavern when they heard the jeering.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-transgender-crucible-20140730

"Choosing to be true to one's self — despite challenges that may come with the journey — is an integral part of realizing not just one's own potential, but of realizing the true nature of our collective human spirit. This spirit is what makes us who we are, and by following that spirit as it manifests outwardly, and inwardly, you are benefiting us all." -Andrew WK
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Lonicera

#1
July 31, 2014, 01:30:29 AM
I appreciate biases may be rendering me oblivious to flaws but that seems like one of the most amazing articles I've read in an incredibly long time. It's full of relevant information about the struggles frequently endured by trans women of colour, it's deeply empathetic, and it paints a complex overall picture. Thank you very much for sharing it. As always, I can't help crying whenever I read CeCe's personal insights.
"In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood, where the straight way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there." - Dante Alighieri
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Jera

#2
July 31, 2014, 03:03:57 AM
It's news to me that this was ever national news. I lived in Minneapolis at the time, and the city itself had a kind of forced ambivalence to it regarding anything about this story. People just didn't talk about her, trying to politely ignore that this ever happened. Just like the Twin Cities tries to be "Minnesota Nice" and generally ignore that they have a trans community at all.

That attitude always disgusted me, and seems nearly as dangerous as bigotry. I'm glad she actually did get the national outcry she deserved. This is a well written piece.
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