Thank you for the clarification, Susan, that helps, at least from my perspective. But you might be surprised by what gets said in court arguments.
Re: Cindy's comment about lateral violence.
I can echo that I also receive occasional hate mail. 100% of the hate mail I have received in my activism "career" has come from trans* people. I have never received a hateful letter or email from a cisperson. (I have received some other things from them).
I don't know much about the binary-nonbinary war that people are talking about here, so I can't say anything helpful about it. But I can share a personal story that maybe is relevant.
I'm pretty binary, but I'm also a person whose transitional story differs from most. Biologically, I am very androgynous. Trying to live as male meant taking testosterone. Trying to live as female means taking estrogen.
I've taken a lot of heat from the trans* community for being the way I am. I've been attacked for not taking any hormones and looking androgynous. I've been attacked for my choice of a name. More recently I've been attacked for being "too much like a woman." No, I'm not making that up. It's the most common complaint I hear nowadays. And the lack of acceptance makes the trans* community a very lonely place to be. I had a very exciting time last night at a support group because it was the first time I ever met a trans* person with a story similar to mine.
So for me, my personal support network has always come from cispeople instead of trans* people. When people think about me, they tend to think of legislative, legal, and policy stuff. But what I actually spend most of my efforts on is building a new type of trans* community. One that won't exclude people for being different. One that is made of the biggest mix of different identities possible. One where we don't do lateral violence.
So today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Last year, I spoke at a local TDOR observance about the need for all of us to stand together. After several months of people pestering me to publish my remarks, I posted them here on Susan's here:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,159607.0.htmlPerhaps they are relevant again, and I encourage people to read them and think about them, because I am not the only person delivering that message.
May we make this day a time when we all stand together. A day when we recognize that the word "community" is made largely of "unity." A day when we recognize that one of the best things about our community is how different we all are. Because experience shows that when we stand together, we are incredibly strong.
So may it be.
