To Hell with all of It

[Bionca]

This thought has been rumbling around in my mind since November. The observation of the TDOR (Trans Day of Remembrance) was covered, obviously, by the online Trans* communities. The Feminist and Gay/Lesbian bloggers were also very active, and also with reporting the stories memorialized on that day. Namely the Trans* women last year who were killed by anti-trans violence.

Where were the "Admirers"? Where were the guys who oggle bodies like mine? Where were the guys who make money off of bodies like mine? Where were the guys who love/date/fuck/lust after gals like me? To the best of my knowledge, they were silent - quiet while they "hunted" or cashed their checks.

Men are willing to go online to cry about how gawd awful it would be if their friends found out, they take great pains to point out their heterosexuality, they are willing to make "Shemale" porn quite profitable, they are more than happy to reduce me and mine to the sum total of our parts. But when one of us is harmed, we can't count on them - they evaporate like fog by mid-day.

Once again a friend of mine was sexually assulted by a man she thought was "swell". Once again someone I know is afraid of how the authorities will react, so she is silent and ashamed. Once again, the first reaction from people who know is to ask if the guy knew her status (because we all know that Trans*women love to pull that surprise *rolleyes*). Maybe men have too much invested in keeping us a dirty secret.