Quoted from today’s tyee.ca:
Ten Signs of Transphobia in Our Culture, by Christopher A. Shelley
- Denial that the problem exists in the first place.
- Inability to distinguish between categories such as queer, gay, lesbian, and trans.
- Lack of meaningful discussion in educational and workplace settings.
- Anxiety over not being able to tell if a person is male or female.
- Crude jokes directed towards trans people or with trans-related content.
- Refusal to accept trans people as one’s own teacher, doctor, politician, dentist, etc.
- Thinking that being trans is OK but also dismissing the idea of ever dating a transperson.
- Reducing trans to being merely and solely a psychiatric category.
- Trivialization and media spectacles centred on trans-ness as an object of ‘fascination.’
- Refusing the fundamental claims of transpeople as being genuinely mis-sexed.
Book launch for Transpeople: Repudiation, Trauma, Healing. Event begins at 7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 25, at Little Sister’s bookstore, 1238 Davie St., Vancouver. RSVP to awilson@utpress.utoronto.ca.
In my continuing efforts to rid myself of unnecessary prejudice (in other words, to ensure that my prejudices are based on facts and their merit, rather than my unexamined assumptions), I must admit to guilt on #4, #5, & #7. The first question you ask when a child is born…. it goes pretty deep, folks.
Oh. I always thought that the first thing that you do is count the fingers and toes.
With ultrasound you know number of fingers and toes before the baby’s born. I have a pic of the soles of Darwin’s feet when he was only 19 weeks gestation.
link to the photo: http://www.new.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=611330&l=79938&id=635818125
But ultrasound doesn’t always reveal the sex correctly because Baby may decide to cover up, turn the other way, or the umbilical cord obscures the area…
The biggest disappointment is the level of trans-phobia in the gay & lesbian community. The only thing it’s done is take the edge of the bi-phobia in the community.
As my roomie says, “When I came out to my parents as trans, suddenly they were a lot more accepting of my decision to be a vegetarian.”