Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Comment Of The Day: Transgenders, Child Molesters, What's The Difference?
By Richard Connelly, Wed., Dec. 15 2010 @ 8:01AM

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/12/comment_transgender_judg.php (http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2010/12/comment_transgender_judg.php)

So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even.

[...]

We wrote last month about Mayor Annise Parker appointing the city's first transgendered judge, Phyllis Frye. The news finally reached one of our readers, who offered this insight:

Said Harv:

    Hey this is a good start, but if we truly want diversity, we must fill the city council with murders, Sodomites, child molesters, etc.

Seriously?????? God people's ignorance baffles me sometimes

Does anyone acutally use the word sodomite anymore?  Or know what it means in the modern legal sense of the word?

Sodomy (pronounced /ˈsɒdəmi/) is a term used in the law to describe the act of "unnatural"[1] sex, which depending on jurisdiction can consist of oral sex or anal sex or any non-genital to genital congress, whether heterosexual, or homosexual, or with human or animal.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy)

That's the stereotype we have to fight vehemently or it will continue to be perpetuated among the ignorant, the prejudiced and the sensationalistic media.

Look back at the civil rights movements.  Find the ones that were successful.  Compare them to how the typical TG responds to this kind of crap.  See any similarities? 

Are we united?
Are we out there protesting when one of us is beaten or killed?
Are we standing up against job discrimination?
Are we writing our elected officials?
Are we working to vote out the bigots?
Are we demanding equal rights and an end to intolerance?

If the answer isn't yes to each and every one of those questions, don't expect this kind of stigma to disappear anytime soon.

Julie Marie,
     That is a good point. I have never been political.  I  have never even voted. I don't consider myself an activist. Yet you are right. I find this type of comment hugely offensive. How to deal with this type of biggotry I cannot even imagine. But what you suggested is correct. Thank you for putting that bee in my bonnet.  :)

While I respect and understand the rightful indignation of many toward these sort of comments, they, frankly, don't surprise me at all.

The current case against Julian Assange for some specious sex allegation demonstrates that this is a bottom line, a desperate grasp by opponents. (Not sure if many in the US realise, but the principal concern with sending him to Sweden is that the US may attempt to take him from there, while it will be unsuccessful getting him out of the UK).

When I was growing up, homosexuals were perverts, as likely to attack an animal or child as they were another of their own sex. It was even claimed that a homo' would prefer to 'do it' anally with a woman than anything else.

In the last 15 years, we in the UK have suffered some of the greatest infringements of our civil liberities that have ever been seen. Much has been justified to protect children. Yet there are groups of children, boys and girls, as young as 10, selling themselves, openly, on the streets of many of our major cities, every day. Everyone knows they are there, but it is illegal to discuss it. I did a small report on this in the 90s which I submitted. I was told that if I kept any copies I could be prosecuted for possessing material seen as encouraging the sexual exploitaion of children.

What these sort of desperate claims mean, is those that make them, have run out of ideas. They are all but defeated. It doesn't mean we can or should ignore these. It may mean that some completely innocent people will be labeled with accusations.

But it is an endgame. Once this has been played out, there are few arguments left.

If history is anything to go by, there will need to be a few prominant figures facing accusations before the final whistle is blown. Remember McCarthy? He accused the then President. Here in the UK, homosexuality was finally accepted when a number of prominant aristrcrats were found to be gay.

Our best defense is to stick to the line of self expression.