Being Me

So, it seems that hate crimes against the transgender community may be on the rise in the United Kingdom and I doubt that this is really unique there (don't even get me started on Russia with respect to LGBT hatred). What I don't really understand, I suppose I never will, but why the hate? What goes through the mind of someone who feels that they need to assault another person simply based on how they're dressed or who they want to be? Is it based on some unvoiced fear? A propagation of hatred taught by others? What drives it? As a society we like to think we've come a long way on these issues, but I don't know that history really backs us up on that front. Consider the history of trans-folks in pre-European Native society, the two-spirited people who filled valued and very honoured roles in Native society. It wasn't until the arrival of Europeans did this condition become seen as wrong or abnormal in North America and that hasn't really changed ever ...

Blue is for boys, pink is for girls. He has a penis, she has a vagina. It's simple: it's all black and white really, your gender fits your bits. Or so they like to tell us. You see, that's the science they're wont to tell you and it's real easy to grasp. Yeah, sure, easy for them to say. However, science (the real kind) isn't backing them up on this, these days. Oh no, you see, it's not quite so black and white after all. As The Slate so aptly put it: Sex is Complicated .

What can you say? Brilliant that a band like Arcade Fire would put out a song and video like this and just as brilliant that an actor like Andrew Garfield (he of Spider-Man fame) would put it all on the line to perform in the video. Love it!

Unfortunately, the blog name was taken... and basically empty. Grr. Ah well, what ya gonna do? I closed down my old blog because I wasn't maintaining it and the software was so massively out of date that I just didn't want to bother managing it anymore. So, now I'm back and on Google. I'll be spending some time bring some old content back and bringing it up to date (some was really, really, dated) and adding some new content as I go. I haven't been actively writing again, so that's not really in my planned cards at this time, but for now I can start to blog on the gender issues and events that interest me.