Quote from: Laura Eva B on May 31, 2008, 07:33:08 PM
Well two of the sources seem to have been the reputable "Times" and the "London Evening Standard" ....
"News of the World" is our local slander rag .... but even they know the cost and sting of litigation for liable !
I'm tempted to believe the story true and it reads badly when TS women here are regarded to our detriment as litigating "leeches" by employers ... 
...
Don't we hate it when TS women become "exhibitionist media celebrities" and tar how the public see us ... word has it that ex-Royal Marine soldier Jan is in line for "Celebrity Big Brother", least that story was in all the popular papers and women's mags ... God forbid !
Just why can't TS women steer clear of media unless they're a performer like Dana International ... and take example from my "hero" the professional golfer Mianne Bagger who handled her media exposure (which went with the PGA accepting her as a woman pro) with such restrained modesty, a normal young woman, a credit to us all .... ?
Laura x
I'm in two minds about this. If the MOD actually told the papers this as a way to smack her around, then I'm not sure the papers would be charged with libel. I know the UK law is more strict regarding publications than is the US law. So I'm not sure, but it seems that if the 'sources' were MOD personnel that the papers would be running their stories in good faith?
Which might well mean Jan truly is getting nothing other than a discharge and some retirement rather than between $1/2 & $1 mil.
Would I like publicized trans women to be people I thought were informed, experienced and 'good' examples of us all? Sure. But, Calpernia Adams, for instance, didn't 'seek' publicity through the murder of her boyfriend. It kinda came seeking her. That she's been able to make a living since. Well, that's her own industry. And, imo, she is a positive example for the GP of trans women.
Sometimes I believe that our own individual desires to be 'left alone' or our own loathing for 'transsexuality' lend themselves to hating or dissing other trans women who do gather some publicity and make some money through those means.
Would I want to go in the "Big Brother House?" Definitely not. Even if I had a totally different biological history. Nor would I do a trans dating-game show.
But, would I if in the course of my work I discover I could gather more clients and make a TS/TG therapy clinic that would be a positive for TSes and TGes who would prefer to work with someone who knew their issues from the inside out choose to be public? Yes.
I think we far too often damn other women and men who do find good reason, often through no compliance from themselves in the beginning, to be out and representative in some fashion of TSes. It seems like our own embarrassment over our births and lives has us play into the hands of the bigotry-mongers who use lies and half-truths to demand that we all be seen as freaks.
And, all too often, we make some sweeping assumption that Ms. X "makes us all look bad" & "Ms. Y makes us all look good." Their lives really say absolutely nothing about our lives, except when their lives are used by the bigots I already mentioned. Our lives do testify to whom we are. And to the people who know you, whomever you may be, and know your history YOU will make a much larger impact on them than the life of Candis Cane or Calpernia Adams will.
To disappear seems very good to me in everso many ways. But, I also have this notion that if I disappear that is exactly what many people would like to see us all do anyhow and that to do so might well be less-than-good for 'us.' I just don't see any of this being cut-and-dried, Laura.
N~
