Since 1) my lifestyle leaves little time or energy to advocate for trans* people, and 2) November is Transgender Awareness Month:
I decided to try & gently educate my FaceBook peeps on trans* topics & people every day this month. It's sure to be imperfect & it might be kinda' lame using FB as a forum, but it's all I got right now & influencing even a few minds to become more trans* positive would be worth it.
I'm keeping all of my transgender posts public on my newsfeed. So the invitation is 1) if you know of anyone who could benefit from seeing a few posts a day on trans* topics, you can direct them to my page--they don't need to add me as a friend, just 'subscribe' to my public updates; and 2) if you see anything inaccurate, potentially misleading, obsolete, etc, I invite public corrections--I'd rather be corrected than to have bad info out there. I'm doing this primarily via Android (including creating Myth-A-Day graphics & some others) since I have no working PC at home.
My FB URL is /vakw75 but you would need a FB account to view it. Hope I'll do alright..... :-*
Hi Valerie! Sounds interesting and I will check it out. Thanks for the efforts to educate. Have a great day! BIG HUG! :)
Best of luck!
With all the people using facebook nowdays, it seems like a great meduum, actually, to spread a message
I'd join ya on twitter if i was out! Good luck in informing people, watch out for all of those who will try to tear you down on Facebook.
Thanks y'all. :) Not too worried about verbal backlash--people have been decent so far--mebbe' they're just not payin' attention, lol. Besides, as I enjoy cis-privelege, whatever I might experience would be exponentially less than what a trans* person would.
Well I must say that while it seems only a handful of my 200 'friends' on FaceBook are paying attention, I was quite impressed by a response I got today. An acquaintance commented with a sad face on one of my posts from yesterday, and I replied to express my appreciation for her reading my posts for Trans* Awareness Month. She then had this to say:
Quote"I love the lessons and am thankful that some of my own preconceived beliefs were wong, so.. THANK YOU!"
I'm impressed that she was open minded enough to read the info I've been posting even while already possessing her own conflicting ideas...and to then publicly admit she'd been wrong. She's been 'liking' many of my trans* posts all along, but this makes me smile a bit wider today. ~V.
Quick update: It's the last day of Trans* Awareness Month & while it seems only a handful on my 'friends' list were paying attention, the response has been positive. Also in the past week or so I've noticed a slew of 'likes' and comments on my posts from random strangers with whom I have no common friends--I don't know how they're coming across my page, but it's humbling & sweet to know that someone is finding my posts helpful and/or enlightening. If I wasn't working 99% of the time from my 'droid I could've done a much better job. But for a spur-of-the-moment idea, eh, not too shabby, I guess.
Today one of my FB friends (who I also know in real life but she's relocated now) posted the following on her own page, without tagging me, mentioning me, or anything:
QuoteI understand it's transsexual awareness month but this is getting ridiculous. How about we all stop focusing on what to call someone or the thousands of sub categories for someones sexuality or gender identification? Lets stop thinking about everyones junk and treat them like a person. If I'm not going to sleep with you I'm really not too concerned with whats happening with your crotch.
I was kind of irritated because for someone so hippie-peace-freak open-minded, she seems to get offended by the weirdest stuff. And it was awfully passive-aggressive of her. Annnnd...she had 30 days to take me off her news-feed if she was so irritated my post volume. I just responded thusly:
QuoteIf politicians, lawmakers, employers, health care workers & most of the general public were as accepting as you are, awareness campaigns would go the way of dial-up internet. Thanks for being an LGBT ally! :)
...and then proceeded to post more. >:-)