TDR - Nov 20
by Raven Usher
November 20. Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Violence against transgendered people crosses every line of division you can imagine. For both assailants and victims, trans-violence comes in every race, class and age. It crosses ethnic barriers. It ignores age divisions. It overcomes economic lines. It defies social strata limits.
Victims range in age form infancy to retirement. This year three-year-old Mikey Vallejo-Seiber was murdered by his mother’s boyfriend when the boyfriend tried to toughen the boy up. He wanted the child to be a soldier and not a sissy. Assailants start in the early teens of the junior high school years and continue as long as they can muster the strength to raise a fist.
There are plenty of places to place blame; basic prejudice, inadequate education, fear and panic, insecurity needing a scapegoat, religious condemnation, apathy and inaction form law enforcement, failing to use safe practices and even plain social morays.
Those reasons are all just empty excuses. The things on that list are NOT reasons why trans-violence happens. Those are the reasons why people get away with it. The truth is, transfolk are easy targets for violent people. A violent person are going to find a victim. And the victim is going to be someone who makes the assailant feel good about himself when he does his violence.
How does a heterosexual man prove his manhood? He gets as many women as he can. If he is unsuccessful and gets shot down too often his manhood suffers. This is specially true if the failures are witnessed by his peers. But not getting a date is nothing compared to getting the wrong date.
Getting shot down can be remedied by getting the next girl. But getting a girl who is not really a girl requires more drastic action in the heterosexual male mind. There are four basic ways a straight man can defend his manhood when he thinks he’s been attracted to another guy.
If he is very secure with himself he can laugh at it. Shrug it off and say, “She was still hot.” He will even be able to endure the jokes and taunts of his buddies.
Or he can bury the secret and never let anyone know it happened. Eventually he will even be able to deny it ever happened even to himself. Of course, this only works if nobody else catches on at the time of the encounter.
Sometimes even if no one else notices, the event weighs so heavily on his mind that it creates guilt. Then he needs take more direct action to prove himself a straight man. To do that he goes out and has sex with as many women as he can as fast as he can. He may even resort to raping someone.
When the encounter creates anger instead of guilt, it can only be reconciled by purging the feelings through physical action. In layman’s terms... he has to destroy what “tainted” him. He has to go beat up and/or kill the other person.
It is textbook psychology. Each one of these options indicates a specific level of self security. The less secure he is with himself and his own manhood the more drastic his reaction will have to be in order to counter hurt.
That is the one and only true reason why violence against transgendered people happens. Because heterosexual men are insecure with their own manhood.
So, on November 20, please join me and others across this great nation in paying homage to the transgendered victims of pointless violence. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Let a trans person know you support their right to live.
Blessed Be
by Raven Usher
November 20. Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Violence against transgendered people crosses every line of division you can imagine. For both assailants and victims, trans-violence comes in every race, class and age. It crosses ethnic barriers. It ignores age divisions. It overcomes economic lines. It defies social strata limits.
Victims range in age form infancy to retirement. This year three-year-old Mikey Vallejo-Seiber was murdered by his mother’s boyfriend when the boyfriend tried to toughen the boy up. He wanted the child to be a soldier and not a sissy. Assailants start in the early teens of the junior high school years and continue as long as they can muster the strength to raise a fist.
There are plenty of places to place blame; basic prejudice, inadequate education, fear and panic, insecurity needing a scapegoat, religious condemnation, apathy and inaction form law enforcement, failing to use safe practices and even plain social morays.
Those reasons are all just empty excuses. The things on that list are NOT reasons why trans-violence happens. Those are the reasons why people get away with it. The truth is, transfolk are easy targets for violent people. A violent person are going to find a victim. And the victim is going to be someone who makes the assailant feel good about himself when he does his violence.
How does a heterosexual man prove his manhood? He gets as many women as he can. If he is unsuccessful and gets shot down too often his manhood suffers. This is specially true if the failures are witnessed by his peers. But not getting a date is nothing compared to getting the wrong date.
Getting shot down can be remedied by getting the next girl. But getting a girl who is not really a girl requires more drastic action in the heterosexual male mind. There are four basic ways a straight man can defend his manhood when he thinks he’s been attracted to another guy.
If he is very secure with himself he can laugh at it. Shrug it off and say, “She was still hot.” He will even be able to endure the jokes and taunts of his buddies.
Or he can bury the secret and never let anyone know it happened. Eventually he will even be able to deny it ever happened even to himself. Of course, this only works if nobody else catches on at the time of the encounter.
Sometimes even if no one else notices, the event weighs so heavily on his mind that it creates guilt. Then he needs take more direct action to prove himself a straight man. To do that he goes out and has sex with as many women as he can as fast as he can. He may even resort to raping someone.
When the encounter creates anger instead of guilt, it can only be reconciled by purging the feelings through physical action. In layman’s terms... he has to destroy what “tainted” him. He has to go beat up and/or kill the other person.
It is textbook psychology. Each one of these options indicates a specific level of self security. The less secure he is with himself and his own manhood the more drastic his reaction will have to be in order to counter hurt.
That is the one and only true reason why violence against transgendered people happens. Because heterosexual men are insecure with their own manhood.
So, on November 20, please join me and others across this great nation in paying homage to the transgendered victims of pointless violence. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Let a trans person know you support their right to live.
Blessed Be
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