Trans* rights in the United States. See a problem here? A shocking chart
Can't we even guarantee BASIC human rights? In 2012?
Editting to thank William because it looks like we'll get there! http://www.democraticunderground.com/113713732
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against transgender persons in these states may be primarily directed at trans women.
And this discrimination towards trans women may possibly be a ramification of the widespread misogyny so prevalent within the large (relative) conservative populations of these states.
For this reason, (and for reasons of simple human decency, naturally) , I believe that feminist organizations have a very strong (because trans women are women and are extensively victimized) self-interest in actively promoting transgender equality.
And it really does cross all lines.
I have no basis to disagree and knowing how sharp you are about this, I'd like to understand why you think this may be primarily directed at trans women?
My main experience was with my cousin (male) trying to cross over. He felt so isolated, misunderstood, persecuted, ostracized and hated that he killed himself.
What he suffered was so ghastly enough, I don't wish it on any human being.
Please help me understand because this is personally really important to me.
(Caveat: There is no claim of being "sharp" about anything on my part. I really don't know anything, I just think about things and form opinions derived from my experiences and my thoughts. But thank you for the compliment, and thank you for posting this info and thoughts on the subject here.)
I'm sorry, Catherina, but I'm involved in a creative project right now and can't give this my full attention and it warrants full attention, IMO. So I'll post this essay that somewhat explains my thinking. It is obviously very easy to transpose the homophobia that is discussed in the essay with transphobia. I'm not Catholic, but IMO, this author does a pretty good job of outlining the relationship between misogyny and homophobia/transphobia. I'll get back ASAP and discuss. Gotta go!
I'm so very sorry about your cousin.
These types of tragedies are all too common an occurrence among trans folk.
Also, the gender of your cousin is not clear to me from your post. Was she a MTF trans woman, or was he a FTM trans man? No offense meant; I simply don't know how experienced you are with trans issues.
Misogyny and Homophobia
There was and continues to be a profound connection between misogyny and homophobia in our culture. Misogyny is defined as a fear and hatred of women. It manifests itself psychologically in the repression of everything in the psyche that is tradition- ally connected with the feminine. Among other things, this includes all emotions, feelings of compassion, all spiritual feelings, all dependency, and all need of community. In the future I would prefer to refer to misogyny with the word “feminaphobia.”
Over sixty years ago, G. Rattrey Taylor in his classic book Sex in History (New York: Vanguard Press 1954, Chap. 4, pp.72ff.) attempted to expose some of the culturally conditioned attitudes on sexuality. He found a universal phenomenon in cultures based on a patriarchal principle. These cultures with few exceptions tend to combine a strongly subordinationist view of women with a repression and horror of male homosexual practices. The institution in today’s culture which continues to hold on to the clearest expression of that form of patriarchy, including its homophobia, is the Roman Catholic Church.
In contrast, those cultures based on a matriarchal principle are inclined to combine an enhancement of the status of women with a relative tolerance for male homosexual practices. Taylor concludes that the tradition of the Christian West has been fundamentally based on patriarchal culture. This may help to explain certain striking anomalies from an ethical viewpoint in that tradition.
One of the most remarkable of these anomalies is the almost complete disregard of lesbianism in western Christian tradition. Although the Holiness code in the Old Testament, for example, explicitly condemns under penalty of death male homosexual practices and female bestiality, no mention is made of female lesbian practices. (This should not be surprising when we recall that King David had reputedly a harem of nearly a thousand women.) Apart from a disputed reference to unnatural female acts by Paul in Romans 1:26, there is no other reference to female lesbian activity in Scripture and scarcely any at all in all the other documents of Christian tradition.
