bT013
Cowardice
It's pointless to look at the concept of transition as something as woefully simple as "I have a problem, here's how it is described, here's how you fix it." That sort of descriptor is useful for when we’re deliberately trying to oversimplify, but to say that this is 100% of the process of transition is absolutely… unintelligent.
It should be understood, that one person’s solution may not be every person’s solution - especially if you’re an older trans person, who began transitioning in a vastly different time period. It’s easy to have been given the tools to provide oneself with a platform, and a following back then - but now? Yeah, we have the internet. We live in the information age.
Believing that your unique pathway is the only pathway is a bad way of looking at all of this. You derive some sort of comfort from the idea that you love your transitioned body and can now generate capital, which has in turn given you a platform, and a reputation.
It’s easy for people to fall into the concept of “Well, my reality was pleasant and preferred for me, and I like my process - why isn’t that the same for everyone?” but it doesn’t make it any less childish.
These feeble attempts to tear down every other trans person, and let loose this immensely childish - and incredibly masculine - false notion that there is some sort of ‘hierarchy’ to the ‘realness’ of people’s transitions that matters so very much, and permeates everything so much to the degree that we have to question whether or not there are “fakers amid our ranks.” - this is not what is occurring in reality. This is not actual reality for the vast majority of trans people.
The idea that this is occurring is a projected delusion within the mind of a man, whom so happens to be transgender, who began to transition only in parallel with their immediate relationship to the adult film industry/sex work - lest we forget wonderful titles such as “Sexing the transman.”
Can’t really blame him, sometimes people who established their identities prior to having access to the vast wealth of knowledge of other trans people via the internet have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that it really isn’t honestly all about themselves.
This idea that being transgender is a “disorder” that “requires medical attention” and only that is a noisified information environment that requires clarity - it is deliberately obfuscated by means of oversimplification.
By oversimplifying such a concept, it tells us far, far more than what is being said by the words alone.
It shows us an inner reality of Buck Angel’s where he believes that being transgender is something worth being ashamed about…
…that viewing the concept of ‘being transgender’ must always inherently be bathed in hate and hostility, dislike and dismay.
…that one must curse the fact that they are transgender always, repent and undergo an established and prescribed process, immutable and rigid as it is totally and utterly life-changing.
…that one must not celebrate the process of their transition, ever.
…that one must never be trusted to make the decision for themselves as to whether or not they are given access to hormones, furthering the idea that Buck Angel does not believe that any one person is able to decide upon any terms of their existence, despite the reality of his existence proving the opposite concept to be true.
His method of thinking [MOT], beyond being rooted deeply in transmedical belief structures, beyond proving that we all truly have a responsibility to find a way of de-escalating the amount of attention that our pre-supposed “elder leaders” are given…
…is weapons-grade, self-defeatist, alarmist bullshit that serves no place or purpose in a realistic, safe, intelligent analysis of who we are collectively, and what we need to do and build in order to secure a safer future for all of us that can be maintained.
All the pain that one goes through is not for nothing. Some people will transition in places in time periods where conditions are not ideal.
One thing that we have to come to terms with as a collective of currently existing transgender people, is that we all have a responsibility to contribute actively or passively, however it is that we can, towards either the establishment or improvement of infrastructure for us that we may never be the beneficiaries of, in our life-times. Which are comparatively shorter to cis people’s mind you. Perhaps that’ll put some of that into perspective.
Just because one person begins transition way before we had any support or infrastructure, and does so to the degree where they can [replicate a cis man] very easily, does not mean that their transition is inherently any more or less sincere, than someone else’s.
All people undergo their own struggles. The fact that we are so collectively dedicated to improving our quality of life should not only show you the deeply-held convictions of the people living these lives, but also the necessity for it.
We understand the gravity of being trans, our identities are forged in often-times, a gambler’s fire. Young people run the risk of being outright abused by their families, for the way that they are. The same way that it happens over sexual orientation.
The danger of being trans changes depending on where you go, and how you look. It fluctuates so much more for a trans person, than a cis person.
People like me have dedicated a great deal of energy towards the development of a reasonable framework understanding the individual’s relationship to the world around them - something that many trans people do not have, for many reasons. It’s pretty lonely out there, sometimes.
Transgender people need leaders, and they need themselves.
We can only produce these leaders by uplifting the achievers, and truly tangibly supporting those of us that do the right thing. They have to be developed, and held to collective standard. People that only say things that we agree with do not inherently make them leaders.
Transgender people really do get the shit-end of the stick, when it comes to frontwards-facing (publicly recognizable) leaders.
We don’t need people like Buck Angel making it any worse.
He represents a symptom of a larger problem that we *do* have - all of our widely-known, highly-platformed “leaders” are people that are so quick to speak down to/about the rest of us.
They’re the people that are responsible for endlessly pushing this faulty narrative that none of us know what we’re doing, and that all of us are allegedly unhappy, and that we have an endless array of internal problems between all of us.
And that isn’t true. Some of us struggle in different ways, but we’re here because we want to be, and because we need to be, and because it’s the right thing for us as individuals to do.
These falsified issues are delusions from within the mind of a man that faced his own, unique, internal struggles - and overcame them in a unique, and different way, and in tandem with an incredibly volatile industry that has become almost fused to the experience of being transgender for no reason other than the material need for transition-related capital.
Now that things are easier, and there’s more infrastructure and support in place for transgender people, and we’re able to (semi-regularly) live our lives safely, if not all the time safely depending on where you live…
…Buck Angel looks back, and has to come to terms with the reality of living through turmoil so that others who are not you can benefit from it. Things are getting better, and changing - just because you’ve already lived out a majority of your lifespan when things are /now/ just getting better, does not mean that you need to spend the rest of your life being miserable towards people that have the ability to have safer lives, now.
So perhaps, don’t take anything that he says with any sense of seriousness - it’s important to understand his plight boiled-down, so you understand just how deep the “miserable old coot” trope goes, when he calls himself ‘tranpa.’
Hey, he’s someone’s ‘tranpa,’ but he isn’t mine, and he doesn’t have to be yours.
He’s right, it’s not some ‘cool club.’ That doesn’t mean that you can’t love yourself, and enjoy yourself. Is that not the purpose of what we’re undergoing?
His words speak for themselves - he feels like there’s an ingroup, and he’s not in it. He’ll make everyone else feel miserable.
It just goes to show you, that if/when money can’t buy you happiness, the only logical decision is to work to ensure that nobody else can obtain it, either, or so it would seem.
In a kinder world, one would work to settle their differences with others that are just like they are - perhaps not as wealthy, but still, at their core, just like they are. I suppose that would require a little bit of courage, and self-analysis, though.
