The Monster From The Blog

Imagination is the subject of today’s article.

Ironically, people with the least imagination are also usually the most narrow-minded religious fundamentalists you could find – something which one would expect to require… imagination.

They can’t imagine what it must be like to be a man attracted to another man, or what it must be like to be a man trapped in a woman’s body. And what’s even worse is that mostly, they won’t even try.

They have some very firm opinions on these things, often criticizing such people out of hand, without even entertaining a debate – especially an objective debate – on issues surrounding the legitimacy of other people’s needs and feelings about their own lives.

No really, imagine for a moment that you’re out there telling people who have a different sexuality or gender identity to yours, that “it’s all in their heads” and that they are somehow just “imagining it” – not just because of how you feel about these things – but because of what you believe in.

That’s right – you’re out there criticizing and chastising people, even opposing their right to be treated like human beings – because of something you have never felt, seen or heard for yourself – and have to use a great deal of imagination to even convince yourself it exists.

If you’re bludgeoning people over the head with “the Word” – which strangely enough, is a book written by other people who were supposed to have been “inspired” by God to do so – a feat which must have taken a great deal of imagination to perform – and which must take a great deal of imagination to swallow as 100 percent true and “inerrant”.

The whole thing reminds me of little kids who have these imaginary friends – except, as adults they have invented whole elaborate religions around them. Books to tell other people about their imaginary friends, people to do the convincing for them, and to “prove” their tales to other people who obviously need something invisible to believe in – even if they don’t know it yet.

Most people go through life seeing imaginary friends, who turn around and do something to prove they aren’t real friends. On the other hand, Leviticans and other religious extremists start out by making imaginary enemies out of everybody who doesn’t see the world through the blood-tinted glasses they wear.

When it comes to religion and human rights, equality and justice – and imagination, I tend to think of John Lennon’s song “Imagine”. It says it all for me. Imagine how things could be. Imagine how other people you think are different to you are really not so different after all. Imagine how much better this world would be if we could all just live, and let live.

Imagine that.

We tend to think that things are better today than they were long ago. After all, we have mobile phones, HDTV, Satellite communication and the internet, among many other things. Of course, not too long ago, we still used to have a more relaxed pace of life, lower stress levels and cleaner air and water – and also a certain level of respect for each other as people.

When we read about the DADT policy of discrimination which has many variants in military forces around the world, I think we are reminded that things were not always this way. Fifty years ago, being different was not always viewed as critically and with such a high level of paranoia and fear as some people see it today. From this we can infer that even today, despite DADT being in force, there are still many gay, lesbian and trans people in military service – even while closeted – they have always been there, and probably even more so.

It would seem to me that diversity is strength, and by having diverse people in your armed forces, we would have made your armies that much stronger. But oh well, your loss.

For people to imagine for a moment that there never were gay or trans people walking among them is nothing less than wishful thinking or driving with blinkers on. I know they may wish it was so, or that they even contemplate that all of a sudden, because of the “collapse of Western morality, blah, blah, fish-paste” we started “turning gay” and “weakening the moral fiber” of society. To their limited, shallow understanding – because they didn’t know we existed, and were invisible to them – which in their minds means that we “never existed” before.

Of course, this is nothing less than pure unadulterated bullshit.

Why did we become visible? Because while the majority of us were invisible, hiding because of the negative attention one gets for being open and ‘different’, there was a visible minority that got bullied by the powers that be. We all know the legend of Stonewall back in 1969, and the riots that led to the birth of our civil rights movement. It was persecution and prejudice that forced the issue. Do that to any group of people long enough and with enough cruelty and hate and sooner or later they will reach a point where they will say “enough is enough!”

And that’s the long and short of it.

On the topic of DADT though, I found the following post on a Facebook discussion about the modern US military and the poster’s own experience as a gay man in the armed forces:

“The old couple that I met when I came out at 16 (forty years ago) told me that “friend of Dorothy” was popular in the Korean War. My friends who went to Vietnam tell me that no one really cared and that there were many gay couples in combat. It is only in the past thirty years since the Moral Majority came to be that soldiers have a problem with gay men serving. Of course, the official position has always been that homosexuals were not welcome. The young soldiers that I meet from Iraq talk about the importance of cohesiveness. But, soldiers I have known from previous wars knew that gay men could be discharged. They also knew that there was nothing wrong with it and they had a great sense of humor about the whole thing. My grandfather who was born in 1895 told me that “sex isn’t anything new.” “It’s what you do that matters, not what you are.” While there wasn’t a good understanding of homosexuals in the past, there was a civil respect in the past for all people that is lost today. We have the fundamentalist Christians of the past thirty years to thank for that. Personally, I prefer Dorothy and friends. I’m happy to be a friend of Dorothy and proud of it.”

Isn’t it ironic and tragic that these soldiers, whatever their sexual orientation or gender identity, go to fight for their country – and then because of who they are they are discriminated against, persecuted and reviled? In earlier years they would have been recognized for their service to their country, regardless of things which should not play any part in that recognition – such as who they love, or what equipment is between their legs.

The sad thing to me is that people still have to fight for the right to be recognized as people, and to have their right to exist honored. It’s tragic.

Some people say we live in a sick world. I don’t think it’s the world that’s sick – just some of the people living in it.

Transphobia and homophobia is fear of the unknown. GET TO KNOW US, stop fearing, stop hating. That is my challenge to you.

What are we in this world? Agents of change? Do we make things better, or worse? Or do we sit back and moan all day, doing nothing constructive and even worse, leaving the world unchanged and no better for our passing? We could go even lower by referring to our friend IdiOT Amin’s “bloody agent”, but I’m sure we can do better than that. So could he.

In South Africa we don’t seem to have GLB groups leaving the T and I out – or discriminating, or abandoning us like in the USA and ENDA matter. The UK has “Stonewall UK” – a group that does a good job fighting for gay and lesbian rights – but that has solidly turned its back on the transgender and intersex communities, and occasionally even helped to attack them. Luckily we haven’t seen this deplorable behavior here. Transphobia from the straight bigots in our society, yes. There is still plenty of that, but then, isn’t there everywhere?

GLBTI is an acronym. Some use LGBT – and some sit on the sidelines and pick at the way people use these acronyms. It’s so hard to please everyone and to keep everybody happy. People get annoyed by the order of the letters, people get pissed off because their letters are left out, or some other letter they don’t like gets added in. If you’re thinking how childish this sounds, you’re not alone.

Should the gays get upset about who gets listed first? Should the Intersex be pissed off every time they don’t get listed? Should we start using something like LGGBQPTA2XYZ etc? When kids come out they can say: “Mom, Dad, I’m alphabet soup”? Why should we care about the sequence if we are all supposed to be equal – or do the nit-pickers really want their letter to be more equal than the rest? Why do you think I prefer to use ‘Pink Community’? No list, no acronym – no favorites – and it includes everyone. Some people have even accused me of abandoning transgender rights in favor of the gay community – I have even been accused of being a “traitor” LOL. By now I have learned to take it from whom it comes.

Once again why I prefer using “Pink Community”, because it includes EVERYONE not hetero or cis-gender and is a hell of a lot easier to remember, pronounce and type or write than LGBTIQQ2AP etc, etc. Acronyms like that, while useful in extremely technical cases are otherwise a royal pain in the arse for activists and people who actually have use them every other sentence – which is probably why so many of them settle for using “gay” when they mean everyone in the PINK COMMUNITY. I challenge you to think of a better term that includes everyone, without it being some bloody ridiculous and annoying acronym that inevitably leaves SOMEONE out.

Yes, there are groups out there – and activists too – who only worry about their own little sub groups and letters within the acronym. But not me. Some groups completely ignore trans and intersex issues and the communities that go with them – despite the great big hugely obvious mountain of common sense staring them in the eye that shows how many of our trans or intersex (or any of the other letters tacked on) rights can be included and addressed within the scope of the work they do to fight for their own rights. Aside from the compassion and solidarity this would represent, think of how many more voices this would add to the cause of our human rights globally. More voices, more votes, more say. Need I elaborate? And while it may sometimes seem to my trans family that I am only fighting for gay rights, I fight for trans rights too – through my fight for gay rights – and I fight as hard for all our rights as if they were all for me.

So there are groups out there that leave us out. That’s a challenge, and a disgrace. And an exercise in irony and hypocrisy for times to come. But how will things ever change if we just sit there in despair and hopelessness and say “they don’t want to play ball with us”? Funny, how as a transwoman I am heavily involved in two SA pink community groups (and even president of one and on the executive of the other) – and also involved with several foreign GLBTI groups…

So wherever you are, there may be groups that aren’t inclusive of everyone, inclusive of your group? So what do you intend doing about it? Yes, you.

Stop being an armchair critic and talk to your friends in the other groups – you do have friends in the other groups, don’t you? Get involved with an advocacy group and be a trans voice within it. Educate them about who we are and how similar our needs are to theirs. Mostly these groups will realize their mistake and open up to you, but if they won’t hear you, shout louder – or start your own group – and include everybody. Don’t play tit-for-tat and repeat their mistakes and return their hostility in kind. Stop drawing battle lines between us and our allies.

Because outside this alphabet-soup minority group of ours, there are loads of people who will happily call us all “gay” and hate us regardless of however we see ourselves or how we feel about each other. And fighting in a burning house makes about as much sense as a caucus race and a white rabbit being late for anything.

There are lots of ways and idioms to describe this, such as “two wrongs don’t make a right”, but my all time favorite is a quote by Gandhi, who said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

So what are you in this world?