Child abuse

[pasithea]

I hardly ever talk about trans issues anymore. I got done with transition and had surgery about a decade ago and my life became pretty happy and stable. There are still twits on the internet who like to bash trans* people but they hold so little power that they don't really affect me.

Since I hurt my foot, I've been driving to/from work and I listened to NPR on the way home today. Here's a link to the text of the article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90247842

I made it home before I broke down and cried. Writing about it now, the tears come anew. Stuff doesn't usually hurt me but I was that child, Bradley, and I know what it felt like for me. Abused, alone, full of self hate, burned out, and dead inside. I tried to shut it off for a while, but then I thought maybe it was better to let myself hurt. If I could let other people understand that hurt, maybe I could stop it. Maybe some other child wouldn't have to go through the kind of Hell that this one is going through; that I lived in for so long.

So... Lucky you. You get to hear me sniffle and cry. I lack the writing skill to make people understand, but maybe you can hear it in the crack of voice and choked back tears. Maybe just maybe someone will understand how much it hurt and (when I think about my past) how much it still hurts.

I expect somehow this will end up all over the internet for people like Ilthuian to laugh at and make fun of, but I don't really care. They're too small to hurt me and if it makes even one parent have a second thought about killing their own child inside, then it's been worth it.

So.. Here you go. For the first time ever, dv_girl raw and unedited. http://squirrel.twu.net/zucker.ogg

Comments

[skipperofarc.livejournal.com]

Apart from that it's like--HELLO--sexual differentiation in the body is completely different than how racial traits develop! There isn't a part of development where the body goes, "Hmm, so should we go white or black?"

Sexual development "screws up" and crosses the gender binary on its own. It's a pretty tiny stretch to include sexual orientation and identity within that realm of fluctuation, and the only reasons medical science hasn't been investigating these links is because of incredibly strong, institutionalized cultural biases.

To think that a DOCTOR of all people would try to relate differences in sexual development to racial traits is beyond me...

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

*nod* It's as if he doesn't seem to know that there is a significant percentage of XY females and XX men in the world who are not transgendered or intersexed. There isn't anything we can point to and say, "This will absolutely make one male or female." The only part of his comparison that may be remotely valid is that binary gender is as much a myth and social construct as 'race' and 'nationality' are. We're all just people.

And if you step outside the human animal, the picture becomes even more obviously weird. A good number of insects, fish, reptiles, and amphibians can physically change their sex in their adult form. Naked mole rats are more less genderless except for their queen whose hormones rule them all. Stuff like that.

[skipperofarc.livejournal.com]

The only part of his comparison that may be remotely valid is that binary gender is as much a myth and social construct as 'race' and 'nationality' are.

And the difference there is that one analogy is referring to physical/brain development, whereas the other is referring to social prejudice. Comparisons to race usually make sense within the context of social injustice, but not the other!

And if you step outside the human animal, the picture becomes even more obviously weird.

There's a theory that might be gaining legs in the not too distant future, that relates homosexuality and other "non-reproductive" members of humanity to the role-division seen in other species. The "superorganism" concept, except we're in the very early stages of adopting it. Considering gay couples are typically better parents, it's not much of a surprise to me XD

[shantidove.livejournal.com]

actually in some cases, homosexuality is not even "non-reproductive" as in the cases of species with type 2 males which appear to be attracted to the type 1 males and that attraction leads to reproduction of type 2 males, not an attraction to the females....so yeah, gender and sexuality ARE far more complex than previously thought.