The Boy or Girl Question

[LeftHander]

Chris Crocker, Internet meme, media whore, attention whore, entertainer....what ever you call her. Posted a video on October 20th that I feel will do more to highlight the plight of trans people to the masses than any episode of Springer, or what ever Reality show...

Like her or hate her, Chris Crocker is part of the transgender community and the media is already lining up to attack and condemn and feed the hate beast that is always out there.

With Chris, I think the bigger picture is of a young trans person who stumbled onto 15 minutes of fame as a result of "playing with" internet self-publishing media. The end result is insight into a personality and a struggle that we would not of seen. We get to see someone grow through the volatile process of discovering ones gender identity in all it's gory detail.

Most do not understand that volatility because the question of gender identity discovery is relatively easy for the vast majority of people. For trans folk it can be a slow train wreck that ends frequently in tragedy, sometimes triumph.

Chris's story is playing out on YouTube and so are numerous others. Many are tragic and some glorius. It is the raw drama of humanity.

Say what you will about Chris Crocker but for me I understand Chris and found this video particularly poignant.

Here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZRgqCa_OPY

[ccharles000]

1. I like Chris

[imdjh]

2. I think that 50 years from now the current way of looking at things will be considered primitive.

People are always saying not to employ or enforce "binary" gender stereotypes, but then they wrap themselves in those very stereotypes of pronouns, clothes, names, mannerisms, etc... And because the common enemy is so harmful and fierce, we haven't seen the internal spats that are sure to come at some point between those who are "real" and those who "play" or those who go all the way and those who simply want to express themselves differently.

I get yelled at for this, but I think it's an angle not considered in what is actually a very rigid set of gender rules by a groups that claims to reject gender rules, from gay people to drag queens to transvestites to transgenders to surgically and chemically modified people.

I think that 50 years from now, the idea of a "man trapped in a woman's body" will seem absurd to people who identify, perhaps as trangendered but what we would identify as transgendered. They and society will no longer see these people as mistakes which are to be corrected, they will see them as variations, not as something both male and female or inbetween male and female, but AS male or female, matching their sex but not conforming to today's ideas of male or female.

We already have variation within sex, we simply haven't permitted it to include the extremes. And that is what I predict that the future will hold.

[gleaner]

3. I learned a lot from this video .....

Thanks for posting the link. I think any realization of self or inner need to change what you appear to be to others is gut wrenchingly hard because of societal pressures for everybody to conform and fit into one niche, even if they belong somewhere else. This video really brings that home.