Okay Patriarchy, reign in your horses.
- May 23
- 4 min read
This video just made my blood boil:
Does she not look like every single one of your grandma's friend's when you were in grade school? I don't care when you were in grade school or where, I'm betting, if you're of anglo-saxon descent or roll with those who are, you've known so many women in their 50's who look just like her. And they're some of the best ladies in your life, you know it.
And she's being bullied for being "trans." Or a "lesbian."
First of all, I got hit with that one the first time when I rejected a guy's date invitation - which I suspected would be a humiliation ritual anyway. "Oh, so you're a lesbian?"
This was back in 1998, when it was widely considered a "bad thing" to be a lesbian (see the cult classic 1999 movie "But I'm A Cheerleader")... he was really baiting me there. Problem being, my ace and autistic ass (though I was aware of neither at the time) both saw right through the bait, and also didn't think being a lesbian was a shameful thing. So, even though I wasn't, I told him I was with my full chest.
This was after having endured my formative years constantly being asked "are you a boy?" (in a bullying way, as I was a hyper-feminine dresser with a name widely considered "princess-esque") because my mother didn't want a thing to do with my curly hair, so she kept it cut close to my head my entire childhood.
So, there's always been social correction for any display of divergence in gender expression, no matter how innocuous... or how uncontrollable. That's a known fact for anyone who's ever put a toe out of line.
Using my own experience again, I'm 5'10". I was 5'11" before the spinal disc removal. And the lipidema gave me bazongas, y'all. Without a bra, the nipples hover just over my belly button. They're my only "loose skin" that needs removal... when I lost the fat, I didn't lose the tissue, so they lost density but not volume. A little easier to carry, but with the actual shrinkage in my hips, waist, and thighs, I'm actually, literally the proportions of a living Barbie doll right now. You know, the most feminine object in the world? There's also no plastic surgeon on the planet that would make a boob job look like these. I'm on the list for a plastic surgeon to make them look not like these, purely for health reasons.
Between my hips now being narrower than the shoulders I need to carry these tits around, and my height, and the anti-trans "biological male" rhetoric going around in the United States right now, I have absolutely been eyeballed going into the ladies room. Not harassed, thankfully, but definitely obviously given some very hard looks.
Which is funny, considering I've had trans lady friends tell me I've been an Amazonian inspiration, which I love. Because height has nothing to do with femininity. Just because a man wants his women to be small and breakable and therefore defend-able doesn't mean my asexual ass has to comply with his sexual fantasy. There are plenty of women out there who would be "his type," and goddess protect them. Aphrodite is a goddess of love, yes, but also war - you think she's going to be some tiny, defenseless thing? And because she's not some tiny, defenseless thing, you're going to accuse her of being a man?
You may want to look into Hermaphroditus sometime. And then consider Mama Aphrodite is a goddess of LOVE and WAR. And as someone who has participated in multiple 24 hour live performances of Homer's Iliad, I can tell you that shoving a spear up one's opponent's ass for it to emerge somewhere around the eyeball region is The Homeric Way.
Not the way I expected to use my Classics degree, but here we are, 17 years later... 😅😅
Now, the fact that people should be able to choose to live their lives however they want, as long as they're not hurting anyone - and trans people and lesbians are obviously not hurting anyone around them by being trans or lesbian - should have nipped all this hate in the bud, but we humans sure do love to feel that sense of superiority when we cast judgement on others, don't we? Well, here's an additional argument for you - policing "biological males" hurts all women. Anyone who might not fit someone's narrow definition of femininity can be declared "trans" and therefore subject to harassment and abuse. They won't care that your little sister has a cross around her neck, a Bible in her bag, and a tampon in her vagina, if she's a little too tall, too square-jawed, too athletic for their tastes, they could do awful things to her under the guise of "I though she was one of those trans." And protecting her smaller, "more feminine" friends will be the excuse, so guess who's going to have survivor's guilt there?
This is where hate gets you. And yes, a lesbian woman has been severely beaten for looking too masculine while using the ladies room once already, not to mention the multiple incidents of harassment reported by cisgender women I found while looking for my source for the above, this isn't a fantasy extrapolation.
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