Double Flee A

I listen, when I remember on Sunday nights, to a radio program called "this American Life" on public radio, hosted by Ira Glass. They have a great archive of their one-hour programs dating back several years online, and sometimes I listen to that at home. I missed it last weekend when it aired, so yesterday I caught up. The theme was romance, and there was a segment about the transgendered. The individuals in this particular piece were born women, but that wasn't good enough, so they wanted to be men. The way I look at sexual or any other social maladjustment generally is, if it keeps you from killing me, do whatever you want. I'll even clap for you. But as I listened, I heard something that rubbed me the wrong way.
An ex-female (damn, that's awkward) was explaining that before [he] had become a [man], she had felt that it was "edgy" to go to a strip club. Now that she was a [man], [he] was "just a jerk". That is so stupid it practically drools, for many reasons, but before I get into that, it is worth mentioning that I have heard the same comment, on the same show, from a different person on a different episode. It may be time to write a letter to them, because if they must repeat the same material verbatim, I'd like it to be some material which isn't so alienating. Bring me IN to the show, Ira. I happen to be a man, a real one, who is satisfied, even exhilarated, with the hand he was dealt in life. How boring, how passe, but my life all the same.
Number one, it isn't "edgy" to identify or to be identified as lesbian. It's exactly the same as everybody else, so shut the hell up about it already. You're a person, hurrah, you like sex, great, you like this person, or these people, or vacuum cleaners, what do you want from me? I'm not interested in your underwear-swapping, candle-making, feeling-sharing lifestyle. I'm more interested in what you can do for me right now, on your knees with your mouth open. Got a little carried away there. Sorry. And just to get the obvious, and probably most common "rant" (yuck) on the internet out of the way once and for all (you're welcome), I share the sentiment that I'm white, I'm a guy, and I sleep with women, so where's my edgy sociopolitical cause?
Number two, you're not a "jerk" if you're a guy that goes to strip clubs, or to use the other, older, this american life example, checks out women on the street and thinks about sleeping with them. That's what straight men do. They always have, and we should all be thankful. If they hadn't been doing it for however many thousands of years they've been doing it, brainwashed feminists wouldn't be here to bitch about it. Two words: penis envy. And by the way, just by getting a fake one stapled or whatever to your uterus-toting abdomen doesn't make it a penis. It makes you a scary freak. I'm not surprised that you didn't catch on to that right away when you were surgically whisked away to testosteroneville, which leads me to my final point.
Number three, and the saddest by a mile, how tiny someone's mind must be that it never occurred to them that they can get outside this "edginess" fetishization without cutting up their bodies. Create your own reality, change your voice, your appearance, but do not assume that I will take it as read that you have the right to tell me what words mean, what reality is, because the last person I want to hear that from is... well, guess.

The social stigma associated with people that get sex-change operations is still remarkably small, and I'll wager that trannies consider that an insult. Almost nobody cares about their trifles. What we do care about is that a perfectly good radio show is tainted with a bizarre story that has no bearing on the issues facing the majority of everyday participants in this "american life".
So, if you're reading, transgenderoos, which you're not because you barely exist, for a more accurate physical representation of what you truly are deep inside, I recommend you see a surgeon about the possibility of having an anus placed in the dead center of your face. And please. Stay away from my radio show.

posted by dale @ 7:28 PM