Quote from: Thundra on September 25, 2007, 06:43:17 PM
People ought not be penalized from having a place to live, or from holding a job because someone else dislikes the way they dress. That is just stupid IMO. The world would be a much better place if everyone would mind their own GD business.
Damn hell straight!
There's a reason a wiser man than I once proposed "Mind Your Business" as the national motto of the United States. That's the American way in three words.
Now here's my view. You have the right to be what you want to be. And for some people here, that means transitioning and disappearing into the world, and looking for everyone's eyes like a completely unremarkable member of the gender binary, and never speaking up about queer anything. And that's their right. No one is compelled to fight for any cause. But what's not their right is to escape the effects of their choices if they should get outed in a world that sees them as culture-destroying perverts -- which they did nothing to stop, and thereby enabled -- or, worse, acted to support, in an attempt to blend in. You have the right to make choices. You don't have the right to escape the consequences of those choices -- freedom means obedience to the laws of nature, not being pardoned from them when they inconvenience you.
So, sure, you can say, "Nuh-uh, I'm a straight woman and always was, I was just born with a birth defect, and it's gone now." That won't change the fact that if your stealth breaks, you're just as much a target of the anti-queer army as all of us androgynes, genderqueers, crossdressers, gays, bisexuals, and all the rest.
But you don't have to be an out-and-proud activist, either. Just speaking up when someone disparages gays, transgender people, or whoever (hey, this applies just as well to black people, white people, Arab people, Jews, or any other group that someone might call "a threat to our society," or whatever they call people they don't like) and saying "Hey, that's not right. They just want to live their lives, like all people, like you and me," and elaborating as necessary and as appropriate, is a very good thing, and if done by enough people, is worth a whole lot of activism. It is a vote in favor of treating people like people.
(If you don't believe that last part -- that "Hey, that's not right. They just want to live their lives, like all people, like you and me," -- then do what you want. I don't care about you.)
