Can You See the Real Me?, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

June 4, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 1 Comment

Over a decade ago, I was talking with an old friend who had recently come out to me as transgendered.  She was hurt, on a daily basis, by innumerable slights and insults, interrupted by the occasional undertone of physical threat.  We were talking about what it would take for the general public to accept — maybe understand — transgendered people.

In my smug, self-satisfied way, I proclaimed, “It will be like it was with gay and lesbian people.  There will be acceptance when people see you as a character on a sit-com.”  (This was in the era of Will and Grace.)

This week, almost everyone I know was talking about Caitlyn (nee Bruce) Jenner and her appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair.  Many of us are old enough to remember Jenner’s triumph at the 1976 Olympics, and then as a role model for masculinity on a box of Wheaties.

For the most part, we thought Caitlyn looked terrific.  Some of us were catty about it, saying, “Well, sure, if I had that kind of money, I could look that good.”  Some of us bitchily wondered how much photoshop went into the pictures.  Some of us had pronoun problems.

Aside:  Here’s a quote from the link above, from Jessica Diehl, fashion and style director for Vanity Fair:  “Caitlyn’s proportions are fashion proportions, really. She’s tall, slim, narrow hipped: kind of ideal to dress.”  Isn’t it a problem when someone who was a man is the ideal woman to dress?

My friends and I might have been snarky, and we were definitely jealous, but we weren’t nasty, nor were we judgmental.  We didn’t question Caitlyn’s motives.  If anything, we felt sad that she had lived for 65 years (and two marriages) without being able to express her true self.

Lots and lots of people don’t understand this.  Some of these people aspire to positions of authority, such as Mike Huckabee.  He thinks people go through all of the expense and pain and ridicule just to go into a locker-room for the “opposite” sex.

This is more about Mike Huckabee than I want to know.  Because everything in his statement implies that he would do exactly that.

It’s also kind of scary that so many people say that transgendered people are going through the transition process just so they can use a different bathroom.  I don’t know what goes on in men’s rooms, but in my sixty-odd years of using a ladies’ room, no one has ever looked at my genitals while I was using the facilities.

(Since that last link is about the Duggars, here’s my opinion:  Pedophilia is a disease.  A horrid disease, and one that those who suffer it must learn to control.  I feel sorry for them.  The crime is the cover-up.  The sick person should be treated (and removed from temptation, forcibly if necessary) but the criminals should be in jail.  Indefinitely.)

In the meantime, there are more transgendered characters on television every season.  Some are even played by transgendered actors, in works written and directed by transgendered writers and directors.