George Michael - “Well i guess it will be nice, when I, buy my new body, I know not everybody, can afford to buy one too….”

but

Rihanna - “….You can’t stand under my umbrella -ella-ella-Nay-Nay-Nay!! 

***Ok first thing-sorry for making your read the above line in Rihanna’s voice. You didn’t want to do it I know, but you couldn’t stop yourself from the involuntary compulsion your brain had when seeing the words, and I am so not judging you for doing it. If it makes you feel better I now have the song stuck in my head and can’t change the channel….And this is well deserved punishment for me for doing such a trick yes?

So with that pleasantness over; welcome once again to Transsiterr8to. I am Josie your host and I am coming at you live from the studio atop my bed in the pink bedroom I now rent to afford my transition. AKA: Pink Room studios.

Today’s rant..er I mean..topic is all about the trans umbrella. For those that don’t know of it, its the clinical term encompassing all forms of trans expression- Transsexuals, cross dressers, drags artists, gender benders….etc.  Some love it, some hate it, some want it taken for a swim with cement sneakers in lake of fire and battery acid. Its a huge debate (OK was a big one over the summer I found.) But I to let you listeners out there get to know me a bit better, I felt I had to play that skipping record just one more time. But don’t fret, I have a few more notes to add.

So lets jump in then. The umbrella in question is the transgender umbrella and as many of you know is a term created to encompass all the many varied expressions of ones gender, leaving cis out in the rain. Many feel it falls short of including all expressions, some feel it labels them something which they are not (trans), and still others feel they are wrongly grouped in it as their expression is much more enhanced and has medical and mental professionals giving them a clinical designation. In short, its like the story of “Goldilocks and the 3 bears” where the umbrella is tried out; but then found to be too hard, too soft, and only a few find it just right. And everyone has their reasons for saying so, but we as a far-too-often marginalized group are missing a huge point in this discourse.

Above I made 3 groups of peoples reactions to the umbrella. The: “the groups too small” ; The: “I am me and not a group”; And the: “I am way too cool to hang out with you guys” group. All of these folks have one thing in common actually: its that within the first 6 months of beginning the expression of their variant of the cis-gender life, they all received their honorary PHDs in Gender studies from the University of “My life sucks and so does the world”.  Studying gender theory and texts becomes addictive in the search for truth and awakens the mind to the vast world on gender ignorance; its down right shocking!!.   And so when the Umbrella topic hit the discussion, everyone came in, guns blazing, spouting discourses of trans educational supremacy that cut some folks to the bone. The battle raged and a few hundred people got shot in the face with poor terminology bullets, some lost 50 followers on their blogs, and some even made obscure facebook posts that only 5 people liked out of their friends. Oh it was a world under siege this summer, the heated discoursing roared and rocked the entire planet off its hinges. It caused an earthquake round the world of about .00000000756 on the Richter scale.  It was war PEOPLE!…but what was it good for?….NOTHING!!!

OK…some hard facts coming at you all so brace yourself:

1) We are the VAST minority of people in the world, get used to that.

2) Our internal arguing made no sense to the outside world since they do not have your honorary degree status nor understand your gender jargon.  And therefore not 1 single Fu…er..care rather, was given about you or your rants.

3) Internal arguing within any group or organization, along with lack of clear mandate for change spells death to that group from any outsiders willing to partner with you or take on your cause for freedom.

These my dear listeners are the hard facts of life beyond the trans-topia walls.

So what do we do Josie? Well here is the plan I am following in all my speeches, all my talks, all my posts and all my videos. “I STAND PROUDLY UNDER THE UMBRELLA with ANYONE”  And my advice is simple: A) It is great that we all have that gender degree, but keep it under raps unless specifically asked. Its just hodge-podge to outsiders and confusing. B) If you feel the Umbrella doesn’t include you or work for you, I still support your expression and include it under a legal umbrella for you to receive any human rights laws for gender variant people. Because that’s what’s right and just! In short…WE NEED TO GET ALONG PEOPLE!!!!

Now mischievously I have been saving the best for last, my answer for the supremacy folks; you know who you are! You are the ones that say “That pathetic cross-dresser over there is holding our inclusion back” or ” I don’t look anything like that drag queen over there, they are an act, I am a REAL trans-person”. You folks are the cancer that is within the community. The worst and most destructive part of the community actually. And so I think for a moment you better listen close cause this is something you need to know.

What you are basically saying is “PASSING” people should be the only ones with rights. And maybe you are one of them. But YOU MUST realize that passing has nothing to do with you and its not up to you. Its up to the world around you. THEY are the ones to gender you correctly! Ya you know, the voting majority out there? The ones that can vote with us for change?  Ya here’s hard fact number 4 for you folks

4) THEY, the people, do not see any difference in you nor the crossdresser and have NO interest in whatever your gender PHD has been telling you. You are the same to them. You would be swimming upstream atop a waterfall trying to make them see different.

The reality supremacist, is that we all started transition at one time or another. We all had our “ugly duckling” stage where passing just didn’t happen. Then hormones and certain behaviors one day finally got us gendered right. It was a right of passage of sorts. And there will be other passing Transsexual people coming behind us. And to use your words they are “real” and so they deserve rights just like you do. The problem is in those first stages, they can look like just about any category under the umbrella. And to us PHD holders, we can probably pick them out fairly well as to where they sit on the gender scale. But SOCIETY and the VOTING MAJORITY PUBLIC CANNOT!!!

So it boils down to this, you can stick with your PHD type lectures to uncaring people and pee your time into the wind, or do what I do and encompass them in entirety and fight for their rights too.  Because they need those rights MORE than you do in their starting stages. You at least have the passing privilege already.  Because when society at large sees a minority group’s mandate, direction, and internal all-encompassing harmony; that’s treading a focused path; they will know they can vote for us with confidence.  And “REAL” PHD would know that silly ;)!!!

OK stayed tuned folks, the shows just getting started!  Up next is 2 legends battling it out with their new duet. Its the Eagles and Snoop Dogg doing  “Life in the Puff Puff Pass lane!”

Hugs y’all

Josie