Mass Resistance.org vs. Transgender Society

As I was surfing some trans retailers on the web, I noted a teaser of a news article on a protest held by transgender college students from U.Mass-Amherst and sympathetic community members. I am not one to promote spectacle hoping to shame one over to one's point of view, but where there is no awareness I suppose it is a start. What was interesting though was that the source of the article was a Blogger site dedicated to promoting homophobia and misunderstanding of gender variance--Mass Resistance.Org. So I popped back to read their article. It was vindictive and homophobic as usual and completely devoid of compassion. However, they did photograph much of the literature in addition to photos of offensive transgender persons in various degrees of dress up and undress. However, by opening up these photos, some of which were picked up by news services who were able to write more positive renditions of the protest and spread the word about discrimination against transgender persons. Ironically, a local Amherst Stonewall Center poster about transphobia was broadcast throughout the world. It read:

"What does transphobia look like?
-Assuming that everyone is either male or female.
-Continuing to use inappropriate gender pronouns for someone after being corrected
or calling someone it.
-Continuing to call an individual a name with which they no longer identify.
-Believing that transgender people cannot be "real" women or "real" men, or none of
the above.
-Considering transexuality to be a mental illness or disorder.
-Thinking that cross dressing is a sexual fetish or a perversion.
-Expecting all transgender people to be lesbian, gay or bisexual.
-Believing that transgender people will automatically feel included by adding a "T"
to "LGB"
-Feeling uncomfortable around someone who is androgynous or who challenges
traditional boundaries.
-Expecting all transgender people to be transsexual and want to transition
completely or not at all.
-Believing that women cannot be cross dressers.
-Thinking that people identify as transgender because it's "trendy."
-Assuming that genderqueer individuals are confused or undecided.
-Believing that transgender youths cannot be trusted to make decisions about their
gender identities.
-Thinking that transsexual women are really gay men who are so afraid to admit they
are gay that they would rather consider themselves heterosexual women.
-Believing that someone is using the "wrong" bathroom because they don't appear
gender typical.
-Treating hormone therapies and gender reassignment surgeries as elective medical
procedures.
-Asking someone what their genitals look like.
-Failing to rent an apartment, to give a job or promotion, or to provide a service
to a person because the individual is assumed to be transgender.
-Excluding a transgender person from activities, discussions, or decisions because
that person "doesn't fit in."1

The Mass Resistance Blog, by its opposition done more to disseminate the issues of transgender people than they could have done by supporting it. I recall the Civil Rights struggle when some well meaning but ignorant people, not just Southerners, fomented vicious rhetoric against African Americans in the news, in churches and in the political process. The family life would be threatened by proximity and interbreeding would produce children whose knuckles would drag on the ground. My own parents hid our own mixed heritage from me and my siblings. I am frequently seen as Indoeuropean, Native American, and Latino with perhaps a hint of Africa. DNA testing has revealed I am Celtic on a path that stretched from the Caucasus and picked up a Hebrew on the way. I have experienced the denial of service infrequently, but once is enough to anger anyone. I am proud of my non-European heritages, am proud of my nieces and nephews who are Japanese American, and my nieces whose father hails from Kenya. My grand kids are Russian, Jewish, Puertoricano, Mohawk, Cherokee, and a bit of European. My daughter is married to a Thai-Malay med student.

As a transgender person, the fear of uninvited violence punctuated my low visibility stance. As a veteran, it would have been more likely that the perpetrator would have been the loser in that instance, at least until I embraced life as a Quaker. I noticed that Mass Resistance promotes itself as a bastion of family values, Judeo-Christianity, the Culture of Life and free speech! What I hear of family values sounds like the Puritan ones than ran many subsequent European emigrants off to New York and Rhode Island. Jewish theology is a lot more accepting and affirming of strangers than Mass Resistance seems to be and does, it is not an example of loving one another as Jesus loved us. I consider my transgender and LGBQ friends and associates as much a part of the culture of life as anyone else. None of us are faultless. I believe that the ultimate choice in Free Will is the individuals alone, local mores not withstanding; and, we all have to deal with the consequences of our choices. Free speech is good too, but free speech was intended to be civil, lofty and truthful; the rhetoric I saw was more like the kid who took his football home because the teams did not want him to quarterback. None the less, kudos to Mass Resistance for giving a good example of what it is like to be demeaned for ones identity as well as the coverage of local events for the national media.

Gratefully yours,
Mx.Mystic

1 Sources: University of Massachusetts - Amherst, The Stonewall Center, Student Affairs and Campus Life, www.umass.edu/stonewall.