Reflection on Transgender Warriors

If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
  Frederick Douglass, 1857

I have been reading Leslie Feinberg’s,

Transgender Warriors,

in the few chapters,

I have read,

I have learned,

much,

and it has brought me to,

reflection on the nature of gender,

and transgender,

I always thought,

I didn’t understand,

much about,

transgender,

maybe,

I get it more,

than I thought.

Sometimes, you read,

something,

and it crystallizes,

your thoughts.

For instance,

I had read,

before,

in the bad old days,

before Stonewall,

that when cops,

arrested homosexuals,

in bar raids,

they could charge you,

if you weren’t wearing,

three pieces of,

gender appropriate,

clothing,

and I thought,

fuckin’ fascists,

I would fail,

by that criteria,

everyday,

most,

days,

it’s one piece,

three guesses as to what that might be:-)

strangely enough,

I have never seen,

being butch,

as cross dressing,

I don’t attempt to pass,

for anything,

but,

maybe it’s just another,

degree.

I don’t know.

Deserves, reflection.

But, I’m grateful,

to Feinberg,

for insight and illumination.

If you are not transexual,transgender, or intersexual,if you’re not a cross-dresser, bigender, or drag queen or king, then perhaps you already understand that defending our rights to be who we are is inextricably tied to your own right to explore and define who you are . Each individual has a stake in trans libearation– Transgender Warriors page 92

Never,

thought of it,

quite like that before,

I’m thick,

sometimes,

but, I do attempt,

to catch up.

It can be quite the process.

In the last six months,

Feinberg,

post-modernism,

genderQueer,

and discussions,

here,

and elsewhere,

have helped in,

my quest,

to be less thick.

The process goes on.

Just, wanted to let,

you in on,

my reflection.

Later girls,

BB

Author: Bookish Butch

I am a bookish butch in my mid early fifties. I live in Montréal and always have. I used to run a small used bookstore. Reading keeps me sane. My latest jiggie is photography, book project in the works, living the dream

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