"We are One"

How do we show them?

Having taken on a life of transition, and lived in this life path for going on six years nowm, I wish I could say it's all been as wonderful as I'd hoped. I wish I could say that the claims from the right wing extremists that we are only attention seekers and crazies could be true. What I'm finding is middle ground between what they say and what trans-advocates say.

I spent the last six hours going through literally thousands of emails I have received from my online transgender newslists and I have discovered something rather shocking. A good 10% of these articles are about transitioning people who have murdered, played the system, hoaxed bomb threats, robbed stores, comitted fraud, cried wolf and a myriad of other things. This, to me, is highly disturbing. It means that as much as I would like to believe in the "whole-hearted and sparkling gold" agenda of the TS community, I can understand why alot of people would consider us stark raving mad. I can also undewrstand why they consider us mentally sick. It's the impression that they see.

It makes me rather sad to know that this is the way we choose to portray ourselves in the media. We choose to intentionally give them a bad impression and this is why they portray us as psychopathic,

On the flip side, there are those of us who just want to put this chapter of our lives behind us and move on with our lives, but find it increasingly hard to do so. It's no wonder due to the bad media we receive from the "crazies"

What I want to know is how do we solve this? How do we go about dealing with this and trying to help people understand without forcing it down their throats? How do we come at this from the "understanding mother" aspect?

I'm not saying shoving our pink trinagles or blue and grey or rainbow flags down their throats, I'm talking about providing them with information and showing them by example. SHowing them that despite the lunatics they hear about, the majority of us are just trying to live our lives as best we can and learn how to re-live in society as our preferred gender, the gender we really are. How do we show them that despite the "crazies", those of us that just want to live are serious about this?

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Comment by Kimberly Long on December 14, 2011 at 1:35pm: I agree with you on most of your post. You must think that almost all of us who are out, try to present our self as a woman and not to draw any attention. We pass so well that we blend in with the general public because that is our goal.

I am not an activist, I have no idea how to bring to the public the great side of the transgender movement. The only thing I can do is to be truthful with people. If there was every a chance to tell the general public about the Transgender life stile I would do so. Almost all my life that I was a crossdresser, I felt that something was wrong with me. I we did not have the internet to find out that there are thousands like me.

I am 71 and live 24/7 for the past several years, as Kimberly with the support of a wonderful wife. I go out shopping, banking and ever other thing as a woman. I love and enjoy my life what I call the softer side of life.

Also I am not one of the criminals like you talked about in you posting. I spent 31 years as a Police Officer and 10 years as Chief in a large city and retired.

I wish you the best, Love Kimberly

Comment by Nicole Aime on December 14, 2011 at 9:48pm: The old saying - No news is good news - is pretty accurate. If you are looking at new articles about any group of people, there's going a concentration of negative stuff. This is more pronounced when the demographic is so identifiable, and misunderstood. The TG news you are reviewing is not unlike the black news of the past or the Islamic news of the present. What did it take to overcome the prejudices those stories brought? People leading their lives in such a way that other people finally notice that they are good, or at least no worse than the rest of the people. But it can't be done overnight. It has to be done person by person, one on one.

Comment by Rachel King on December 15, 2011 at 7:13am: Um, Kimberley, you took this blog rather personal and really, you had no right to.

It's a really good thought provoking blog and of all people, you that has been in the service, should be aware of what is too obvious in our society.

Me, I live in a country town in North Western Australia, something akin to living in Alaska and I appreciate reading an honest given opinion.

The only solution I see, is the path that the gay community have taken since the 80's, as in, be in their face so they see we are not anything other than quite normal people who have a slightly different perspective on life.

Doesn't seem much to ask now, does it.

Comment by Kimberly Long on December 15, 2011 at 10:13am: Rachel I am sorry for taking your blog so personal and I am sorry that I offended you. I love your country when I was in the Air Force I flew out East Sale for several months.

I wish you the best

Kimberly

Comment by Rachel King on December 16, 2011 at 4:22am: Hahaha, pickle me grandmother, Kimberley, why are you taking all of this so seriously.

Absolutely nothing should be taken as personal on a cyber site.

Enjoy life and live it to it's full........

Sale is in Victoria and it is a standing joke in Oztralia, that we apologise for people that have the misfortune to be born in Victoria,hahaha.

Dunno where it ever started but it is fun to upset Victorians with that line.

Glad you were able to be in Oz for a short time, you can now say you have been educated.