Thread with 3 posts
jump to expanded post
Bit late to Trans Day of Visibility.
It feels weird this year, because while I'm technically a whole lot safer than I was in a blood-red corner of America last year, I'm still currently sitting in a city where being openly trans (or gay) is just...not done.
I'm no expert about this place, but there is a cultural comparison to America that is somewhat illuminating.
1/3
The three poisons I see across the cultures I've been in:
Male machismo -- it looks different in different parts of the world, but boils down to a terrified, insecure pecking order among men that looks (to an outsider) like weakness.
Religion -- when it's the most potent identity-facet a person can access, boy do they cling to it like a life preserver. They do whatever it says. And want to bash whatever it prohibits. It's like a kid trying over-hard to prove themselves to a stern parent.
Misery -- most people don't have the intestinal fortitude to keep from passing on to others the shitty feelings that a hard life fills them with. Average people do this by toying with the oppressed, in the coward's manner of "as much as they can get away with." And the powerful do this by treating everyone else like contemptible toys. It spreads, and becomes a social contagion, then a plague, then a rot at the heart of a culture.
Trans people exist at the nexus of life-avenues that these three things feel safe targeting.
That's it! That's all we did! It's fucking incidental that we're treated bad -- it is nothing to do with what we are -- it isn't earned.
I don't feel able to be visibly trans in Georgia, because these three things exist here. Both in the Georgian culture, and in the growing negative influence from Russia, a really sick society.
This was also identically true in America. It's both an internal problem, and an externally-influenced one. Machismo-religion-misery. They've all got to be addressed, because they influence and exacerbate each other.
Absent of these three social pressures, trans people are beautiful, normal people. And living a fun and meaning-filled life is completely probable.
Machismo can be met with the visibility and activism of those whose circumstances give them the ability to stand up for DEI, "modern culture", progressivism, and human equality. Loudly, often, and shamelessly.
Religion needs to be kept in check with a respect for the scientific reality of diversity, and how this huge world is still revealing so much to us.
Misery can be addressed with things like UBI, compassionate discourse (all of us need to do this), and cultivating some self-respect as a society.
Trans people are full of these energies. Whether we are out and visible, or working on things in solitude, we are HERE and we are so necessary for the future.