I'm proud to be me.

"…there are some things we do for ourselves, but there are some things we do for others. I am here because when I was young, I wanted very badly to be a writer, I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I couldn't find anyone like me in the world and it felt like my dreams were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others. If I can be that person for someone else, then the sacrifice of my private civic life may have value."

Lana Wachowski

 

I’m not sure if the quote is correct or even from the speech I’m linking to. But the essence of it remains true, none the less.

Turns out it wasn't. This is the one I was referring to.

This is why we’re not going to see the world we’re striving to make better in our life time. I’m not expecting it to happen. But what I do expect is that someday, someday far from now, people will scratch their heads in puzzlement about how this couldn’t be part of everyday life. This is beyond the point of honouring or even remembering the people who fought these battles for recognition and rights – this is the point of our race reaching the expected level of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek envisioned hope for the future (but that’s taking the time of the making of the series into account).

Boy or a girl? You know, if I ever have kids – be it one or more, I’m not going to ask that question. I’ll ask if the baby – because that’s right, it’s a BABY – is all right and welcome that child(s) as best as I can to this world. I’m not going to lie, I’m not sure I’m able to – I’m still stuck in all this pre-learnt gender stuff that’s been forced down our heads. Is it X or is it Y? It IS. And that’s all there is to it.

That’s actually frightening. If I, being what I am, can’t accept someone like me, what hope is there for other beings out there? Yes, it bothers me. My own ignorant prejudice bothers me.

Come to mind is an episode that happened years ago. There was a certain gathering of a special kind of young people. One of them were transgender. And I’m ashamed to say that I was trying, unknowingly at the time, to place said person into one of the little boxes. Having gently been corrected by the one next to me – “one isn’t supposed to ask that kind of questions” – made me not only show my ignorance, but how little I knew about that world. I think what did bother me was that this wasn’t a gathering of transgenderism, but BDSM. So, I acted out of what might have been thought of as less than a horrible wrong reason, but the result was less than pleasant for the other individual.

I guess it’s true about how transgender people saying that you'll end up developing a thick skin all too quick, because the option... isn't an option.