[PA,USA] Life as a Trans Woman Aint Easy

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2007/12/life-as-trans-woman-aint-easy.html
December 23 2007

By way of (brief) introduction, I am a trans woman in her late 40s; I started transitioning 4 years ago. I am white, middle-class, Jewish, queer, dealing with multiple disabilities, and a survivor of long-term adulthood sexual abuse.

An interesting read in light of Nero's Can one live as their target gender without passing? thread.

Still, this person seems to have a rather well-developed sense of victimhood. I'm not so sure her problems are simply due to not passing.

~Kate~

Quote from: Kate on December 24, 2007, 12:25:21 PM

Still, this person seems to have a rather well-developed sense of victimhood. I'm not so sure her problems are simply due to not passing.

~Kate~

*smile* A "well-developed sense of victimhood"!!! LOL Yes, so many people (notice, no trans there?) do have that. She does seem to find flaws in her treatments without even trying.

Although as has been said before: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's NOT out to getcha!!"

Nichole

She seems to be more than a bit paranoid.

Reading through bits of her blog makes me glad that I more or less pass most of the time.

Yeah, and Philly, at least where she has to go to get to the clinic she talks about, is a pretty easy go, even for the totally unpassable. Now if she's living in some areas of Northeast or in Kensington!!! OMG! But, I imagine she's not, she'd be dead rather than blogging!

N~

Quote from: Nichole W. on December 24, 2007, 03:08:15 PM
Yeah, and Philly, at least where she has to go to get to the clinic she talks about, is a pretty easy go, even for the totally unpassable. Now if she's living in some areas of Northeast or in Kensington!!! OMG! But, I imagine she's not, she'd be dead rather than blogging!

N~

I was born in Scranton.  If I was presenting as me there, I would have died in Scranton with the rabble coming for me with their torches and pitchforks.

I left there when I was 18, transitioned at 51, and never looked back on either.

Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia.
W. C. Fields

Wing Walker

Hi all

I don't know where this place was but it sounds much like the kind of thing one would expect more from back in the 60's

Well anyway I can only account from my own experience. I don't know if it's so much that I pass as it is people just appear to like me no mater where I go, well I do have a wonderful personality. Maybe that's what makes a difference, when I set my mind to doin something i putt my all into it heart and soul ad I don't fear anything, I have this song in my heart, I follow it.

I came out full time in a small town of 16000 in Southern Ontario Can. I was full time for 7 years in that little town where I worked as a social worker, so I met a lot of different sorts of people everyday. I only had one skirmish and that two years into full time. A drunken jerk who tried to rough me up while trying to take my purse but I managed to jerk the purse back out of his hands and whacked him in the side of the face with it, that bought me enough time to get in my car and lock the door.

When I met Wing Walker we went everywhere in Barrie and Toronto and several different eastern states all the way down to DC and not a soul bothered us, actually we were treated very nicely by the servers in restaurants, and Motel management or housekeepers. No one bothered us except for maybe an occasional transient person here and there looking for spare change for what ever, we always give to these folks.  I love road trips and this kind of thing is not going to slow me down any from enjoying further road trips in the future.

Cindy

She's also using other peoples' experiences to detail the types of harassment that trans people are subject to on a daily basis, not everything in the blog happened to her personally. Check out the links in the article, they all point to very real (and disturbing) instances of trans oppression.

y2g

Quote from: cindybc on December 24, 2007, 05:18:10 PM
Hi all

I don't know where this place was but it sounds much like the kind of thing one would expect more from back in the 60's



Cindy

Philly can be 'interesting' in places, Cindy, but it is definitely not 'back in the 60s.' I live near and travel there often and move through and in most of the city. Never a bad moment.

I imagine the writer of that blog sees ill pretty much wherever and whenever she goes. There's a pretty large TG population in Philly and among those I have met i can think of one who might have the same attitude as the writer. Something along the lines of "O, crap, when you gave me the Masserati it was supposed to be BLUE!!! Take it back, it's no good! You just did this to hurt me."

Thanks, but no thanks. Some people find danger and evil everywhere they go.

Nichole

When you are down to interpreting a wink in a cross-walk (and then listing it in your own personal on-line abuse stack), you're too far gone anyway.  After all, everyone gets a lightbulb joke about their group.

Hi Nichole W.
Thanks for the fill ins. I am still not going to let this cramp me out of road trips. So far I have traveled Canada from east coast to west coast from Newfoundland to Vancouver island. And the entire eastern coast of US and now Wing Walker and I have begun exploring the west coast of US. Met a couple of TS's from this group ad I will know on Friday if I can start working with TS's at a street center here in Vancouver.  i love life and everyday is way to precious to worry wart about disaster situations that could befall us. I could also get run over by a street care stepping out the door to.

Cindy