Letters to the Editor
Gwool
Published Letters: 366 Editor's Choice: 40
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"Just once I'd like to see Tennis call a bad person a bad person"
[Read the article: I'm cheating on my husband and loving it. Is that a problem?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No shit.
If there was ever an example of the "everyone gets a trophy" culture of entitlement and praise, this column is usually it.
For fuck sake, some things are worthy of negative judgment. Sleeping around on partners UNAWARE of the activity is flat out wrong on so many levels, and this broad says she feels no remorse. (We're not talking consensual or open marriages, here, which is different.)
One can only assume her conduct has caused considerable pain for others be they the people she screwed or the unwitting parnters of the people she screwed. One can only hope there is such a thing as Karma and that the payback is, indeed, a bitch for this bitch.
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Turning on themselves
[Read the article: Why the T in LGBT is here to stay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I always watch the vitriol associated with various minorities comparing their trials and tribulations with detached bemusement. As a straight white guy, I really don't have a dog in this hunt and figure tranny's should be afforded just as many rights as any other alternative sexual follower.
The interest to me is the way in which minority groups seemingly have to try to disassociate themselves from other groups to prove their plight is somehow better -- or worse -- and therefore in need of more political attention. Black minority leaders have bristled, for example, with comparisons with the advocacy of gay rights somehow being on a par with the civil rights movement of the early 60s. Jews, with some merit, throw down the holocaust card as proof positive of their singular standing as most oppressed minority.
Black america has another looming problem as well with respect to their hispanic brethren. Hispanics will soon become the largest minority population in this country, and with that change will be a redirected focus on a culture with far different sets of issues. Hispanics have assimilated far better socio-economically and do not have as startling a break down in family structures. Once that happens, the telescopic focus may turn inward on what the internal cultural dynamics are impeding african american social progress. That could get very ugly, if the reaction to Bill Cosby a few years back is to be any guide. It needs addressing, but right now it is a third rail frying anyone who dares touch it, which only impedes progress, unfortunately.
With respect to the current transgender attention, maybe it is the logical progression of acceptance levels. Extreme elements of an interest group need to be quieted as the group gains broad based acceptance with at least a large minority of the population. The gay rights movement seems to have crossed that threshold, so now is it time for tranny's to exit the closet as well and get on the bandwagon?
Various studies place the gay population anywhere from about 5% to 20% of the population depending on the definitions, while consensus seems to be somewhere in the high single digits. (Indeed, gay marriage statistics as a percentage of total marriage licenses issued in MA seem to track with this.)
So where does it put trannies in context with the overall population? Is it even more than one percent of the population?
No matter how small, they certainly have an expectation to equal treatment under the law. In some ways, I have to assume the motivations and desires have to be far more urgent to the individual to seek to undergo medical transformation. It has to be a more fervently held desire than a little same sex experimentation while under the influence in college, that is for sure.
Trannies are certainly coming to the fore, as evidenced by their having prominent roles in new television shows. From Diane Carroll as the first black woman highlighted in a television series in the mid 60s, we have slowly advanced awareness of minorities in our culture through the years in roles that are not caricatures, but fully developed and nuanced.
Inter-interest group battles over who merits more attention do not help. They are like having knife fights in a life boat. Adding another, less accepted, element into the agenda likely does impeded progress of "the movement" as a whole. Society finally seems to be coming to grips with accepting homosexuality, so adding tranny's to the mix may not fly well in red state America inching their way to non discriminatory acceptance.
That we're even having this discussion illustrates the social progress that has been made. I realize it's easy to say from the perspective of being a heterosexual white male, but it is progress. My views in favor of homosexual marriage are not going to change based on there being greater discussion and social education going on about issues effecting transgender individuals, and I doubt that growing awareness will prove fatal to advancing those rights.
I'd much rather see case studies detailing the path taken by individuals struggling with their gender identity than more red-state baiting photos of provocatively dressed Gay Pride Parade participants. Such antics may be music to the ears of activists, but it is chalk on a blackboard to those in Middle America inching their way towards trying to understand better alternative sexual lifestyles.
Transgendered folks deserve a seat at the table, so to speak. If that means we all have to shuffle our seats around to make room for them, then so be it.
Call me idealist, but I look forward to the day when there really is no need for this or that "group" to call attention to themselves and complain about their treatment in this country. We've made huge gains in this area in the past past 50 years, and my unbridled optimism sees no reason to believe that progress is going to abate. Acceptance takes time, like it does for a snake to digest a mongoose, so let America get their jaws around transgenders and get them snaking their way through the snake that is American social adapatation.
Once they get moving on that path, perhaps we can start educating the citizenry on the plight of Republican WASP males these past 50 years. Will no one feel OUR pain?