Hello!
So, I'm going to talk about transgender today.
So, let's begin by getting a few things clear. A transgender person isn't pretending to be another gender. If someone is transgender, just because they haven't had the surgery yet doesn't mean they're not whichever gender they would like to be. A person wants to switch to another gender? Fine! That gives no man, no woman, no non-binary person, no flipping penguin the right to call them by the gender they wish they weren't. Consider a straight, 'cis' person. You wouldn't call a straight, 'cis' male a female, would you? Then why does it seem right to call a transgender female a 'man'? Remember the things we always used to get told in elementary school? . "You can be whatever or whoever you want to be!" No one got jeered for saying they wanted to be a doctor, or a singer. Why should anyone get jeered for now for saying they want to be a separate gender to the one they are now?
No, my rant was not backless. In 2011, a woman called Chrissy Lee Polis, who was transgender (for people that don't quite understand, she was born with male features, but is a woman and should be addressed as a woman) was dragged out of a woman's bathroom by two girls, kicked, beaten and bruised until she had a seizure. This occurred in a McDonald's bathroom, and it happened while staff filmed the incident and others warned the two girls to leave quickly. Another woman wrote a personal account for the Guardian, in which she describes, that, looking like a man, purely because she is transgender, people think they are justified to ask if she's "really a woman?" Yes. Yes, she is really a woman. Are YOU really a *insert gender*? Yes? Then yes, she is really a woman. Then yes, he is really a man (if they happen to be a transgender man).
Guys, it is really hard for transgender people. Simply because the elder generation aren't used to the concept of LGBTQ+ (it did exist in the 1900s, but it wasn't brought into light), they don't know how to react to transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, etc. I have a friend who was born female, but is genderfluid, although they think they might like to be a transgender male, and I was telling him how lucky that for now he's (biologically) a female. Simply because, even though for him it kind of sucks being born female when he knew he was always a man, he can at least dress up in 'manly' things i.e. jeans, trousers, shirts, and receive no judgement. It's so much more difficult for females who were born men, and we should always respect them whether they were born a woman or man.
In fact, this same friend said that he was out with his little sister and his mother going shopping, when his little sister pointed at someone and went, "Look, Mummy, there's a man in a dress!" His mum said - and I quote, not paraphrase, "That's not a man in a dress, that's a cock in a frock!" While it may elicit a guilty giggle - and I understand, it sounds funny at first - it's a very hurtful thing to say. Parents, I don't blame you if you think LGBTQ is weird because you're not used to it. Please don't teach your children this kind of thing though. Simply because, when they grow up, they'll find it hard to adjust, if nothing else. The world is always changing.
One other thing. This is more for gay people than anything else, but please bear this in mind:
Alan Turing worked for the British in cracking the Nazi Enigma machine. It took a team of scientists with super brains, and he led the team. They worked in an enclosure known as "Bletchley Park". Thanks to Alan Turing and his team, the British thwarted the Nazis, and won the war.
However, Alan Turing happened to be gay. He didn't exist in the 2000s, he existed in a time where gay was shunned and frowned upon. The man that saved thousands, millions of lives, was castrated for being gay, and eventually killed himself out of misery. No, this wasn't any old person. A HERO, killed himself out of the misery of being discriminated against.
I'll leave you with this thought, but to people who probably knew everything I said, and always treated people fairly regardless of personal views, you rock and I love you. You know, I'm not asking people to love LGBT. You might think to yourself, in the deepest sub-levels of your mind, that it's weird, and you're not sure what to think. Just treat people respectfully, is all I ask.
Bye everyone!
