Transmissions From the Transgender Battleground

 As I've stated before, the views I hold now are not the ones I held a few years ago. I've grown, apologized and hopefully moved on to a healthier viewpoint. However there are some things I'd like to specifically apologize for now. I want to apologize for statements I made in relation to a women's event I attended early in my transition. To be clear, this particular event was inclusive of transwomen, as long as the transwoman was "living full-time as a woman", Also, while the event was predominantly for lesbian and bisexual women, it was not exclusive to women of those sexualities. I did not attend with the intention of anything sexual happening, nor did it. Perhaps you could say that I wanted to attend for "validation", but mainly I just was looking for an event that I could attend to replace the gay men events I was no longer allowed to be a part of. Would I attend this event again in the future, probably not, but I might. I am supportive of events...

The warning is sounded often and loudly. "If you don't let your 'trans child' transition, they will possibly kill themselves.", "Would you rather have a live daughter or a dead son?", "Over 40% of 'trans' kids attempt suicide." Pretty scary stuff, right? All of this is used to support the idea that children should be allowed to socially and medically transition. After all, we don't want children to suffer, and we certainly don't want them dying. Only a complete monster would advocate for the death of children, and you're not a monster, are you? Let's look at some numbers. The Trevor Project did a 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health . This survey had 40,000 respondents age 13-24 who "identified" as either 1 of over 100 sexualities that was not "heterosexual" or 1 of over 100 gender identities that was not "cisgender", or both (Side note: WTF!) I could not find a breakdown of LGB...

I will start each review with a plot summary. I will try not to give spoilers for future chapters. Then I will comment on the aspects of the story and characters that I find relevant to the gender discussion. This means that in addition to my initial listen to the whole book, I will be listening to each chapter two more times. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice.  Summary of Chapter We are introduced to Reese, a 35 year old transsexual woman. Reese is on a ‘date’ with her “Cowboy”, a married man who is HIV+, a result of a previous affair with a different transwoman. While riding to pick up takeout, Reese thinks about her attraction to married men and the new sexual thrill she’s discovered by having sex with an HIV+ man. She compares the potential risk of contracting HIV to the possibility of pregnancy that women face. She has even taken to calling her PreP prescription ‘birth control’. Reese thinks about the fact that as a transwoman she can not have a baby, yet she desperately want...

This isn't about being happy about being transgender, I'll save that for another time, but about whether or not one is allowed to be transgender and be happy with your life. Full disclosure: I am happy with my life. I have a career I want. I have a great boyfriend. I had a wonderful, supportive husband. I own a home. I have friends. I have a few too many cats. I've developed interests in new types of music. I've even learned that under the right circumstances I can enjoy watching a football game. And importantly, I'm comfortable in my body now, give or take the weight that I tend to loose and gain back every few years. But if you listen to the "trans community", all of that is impossible. I'm transgender and to be transgender means that you are oppressed. People hate/fear/mock you wherever you go. We face discrimination in employment, housing, relationships. People want to stop us from existing, Now I'm not going to say that none of those things ev...

OK, don't shoot me, but I'm going to say something positive about "Detransition, Baby". At one point, a character refers to the current generation of transwomen as rampaging baby elephants. She goes into a longwinded explanation of groups of orphaned elephants that rain destruction, even on each other as a result of both their trauma and the fact that there are no adult elephants keeping them in line. This sounds pretty accurate from what I've seen of trans spaces, both in real life and especially online. Most of my online energy is spent on Twitter. But I've recently started looking at other spaces, specifically trans specific spaces. What I'm seeing is shocking. I'm not at all going to excuse bad behavior, but I think I'm starting to understand why it's flourishing. First, I keep forgetting that while a lot of platforms say they have age restrictions, children have and always will get around that. I still can't understand how Twitter can ...

I was introduced to the novel "Detransition, Baby" written by Torrey Peters, by a Twitter follower. This book is garnering critical and popular acclaim as an "Unforgettable portrait of three women". It has been longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, which according to their website. "is an award celebrating and honouring fiction written by women" and "showcase the very best writing by women". The novel is unforgettable, but not in a good way. And I'm sorry, but if this is someone's idea of the "very best" writing done by women in 2020, I despair. This says nothing about whether or not Peters, a transwoman, should be considered for this award.  To be upfront, I downloaded the eBook version and listened to it as an audiobook. This would not be my preferred way to experience a book, but it was the best way I felt I could get through it. I don't consider the writing to be good. The chapters are overly long. The narrat...

 "If transwomen want to be women, why do so many appear to hate women?" I see this or similar sentiments often. While certainly not all transwomen "hate" women, the actions and especially the words of many can make it feel like we do, Go online and you will quickly find transwomen complaining about "cis lesbians" or "TERFs". Maybe they'll even tell you that transwomen are somehow better at being women then women are. It can feel jarring to think that people that claim to be women apparently have so little respect for the group they claim to be a part of. Where does this come from? In my opinion most of it stems from jealousy. Transwomen are jealous of women, to one degree or another.Yes, even me. The simple fact is that you are what we wish we were. We can go on and on about "trans pride" all we like, but the simple fact is that given the choice, we would have rather been born female. Of course this comes with stipulations a lot of ...