Hiya guys
I wrote this blog article a while back but hadn't ever posted it. It took me quite a ehile to voice what was in my head at the time. Now I feel there is somewhere I can post this, I'm very keen to hear peoples comments and open up discussion:
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Hiya guys, I'm interested to hear your thougts and feelings, open discussion and hear your reality on this aswell. Trans, non trans, it would be interesting for me, a like others who connect with something in this little blog article.
Over the last year or so I've come across various TV one offs and films that have struck a chord in me. Perhaps, everybody, in some way connects or relates to the messages, metaphor, tale/philosophy shown in these shows and films. They are, after all, very deep snd connect our deepest parts to something about life that is profound. The first programme I watched was Black Mirror: White Christmas. For those who have seen it, you will know that in the hour long episode, a woman is forced to live a life where she is to organise a daily schedule for another woman 24/7. The lady has no choice, she is either punished, for months and sometimes years for disobeying, or she has to comply. She must attend every minute detail in her keepers life, or she is punished. The catch is ... She is not real. The kept woman, can think, feel, touch, smell, etc etc and experience every capacity of the human existence as we can. She is a programme - a microchip. She does, however, believe she is real. She knows she is. She feels so.
Chappie, a slightly more lighthearted Hollywood film, but with a dark twist, is about a robot who can, like the lady in the previous programme, can think, feel, experience just what we experience, and most importantly, knows what he is and knows he is real - and profusely expresses, in the film, his desire to survive! His desire to live told throughout the story, is as strong as ours is.
Another example is the 2013 film, I recently watched, called Her. It is about a man who falls in love with his OS, his operating system. A device that supposedly, as is portrayed in the film (although trickier to detect, than the previous two I've mentioned due to the fact you are limited visually from the OS's reactions), has feelings, thoughts, creativity, compassion - the full human emotional capability. Again, the computer, this time, believes it is real. Perhaps it is? The crazy thing about this story, contrary to what one might expect, the computer actually decides to leave the man who falls in love with her. Which throws a big twist to the whole film as; since the programme is created for human pleasure, its decision to leave the man suggests it no longer wishes to serve for human pleasure - which we would have thought, would be its purpose
Lastly, the 2015 film, Ex Machina. The story about a robot that is a protocol designed by google to replicate humans as closely as possible. The robot, whos name I forget, is in her testing phase and is basically kept as a slave whilst she is experimented on in a laboratory. Despite her knowing fully she is a robot, this does not take anything away from her experience of her knowing she is real. Without spoiling the film, she is aware of what will happen unless she is compliant and is meticulous about finding a way to survive.
Over time, I had noticed these four films I had seen all share a common thread. That is, the begrudging question, what is it that makes something real? If we answer, no they are not real, they are toys, programmes, gadgets, robots etc we are not, by definition, using an objective judgement and we are instead subjectively basing our opinions to understand something we think we understand, but actually, probably, do not. The characters in these fictitious films believe they are real, they know it so much, they are willing to risk they're lives, or even die, so that they can live.
Perhaps the reason that when I watched these films, it struck something in me, which only recently clicked. I'm not a robot... But am I considered real? Am I really a female? I am transgender, thats a broad term for people who have an incongruity that lies between their brains and bodies. So what?? What does that really mean to people? It's a dressed up term that society more willingly accepts. Fantastic, great news. But that means nothing. I meant that in the least disrespectful way, truly, to the people who with open arms who have accepted transgender people. To the people who are 'trans'. What does it really mean to you? Am I female?
What do you think?
I don't care what you think, but you might not be on my friend list by the end of this if you argue with me about my existence. I, unquestioningly, know I am real, know who I am. Which is why, I don't care what you think or say. Yes, words can upset me, because they bring me back to thoughts of a world where I had a different existence, one where I was miserable, unhappy, searching, lost. One which I am afraid of, for ever live those feelings again. I relate to the characters in those films, because despite they're existence being something different, non-human; they are real.
Its quite a deep subject I've brought up, through a strange metaphor, onset by something which felt like an itch that wouldn't go and didn't know was there, has helped clarify this myself and maybe let others see an alternate perspective on their reality, or lest, explore my mind.
Maybe this is an overdressed way of saying the same thing that thousands of other people have written, fought, voted and proclaimed for, for decades, and perhaps speaks some truth. Just a thought
