This is an inspiring and beautiful article! Thank you Charlotte for sharing your incredible insights with us and working to bring understanding and acceptance to a beautiful group of people who are being terrorized by uneducated and willfully ignorant people!
“It is so easy to do the right thing, the kind thing, and it’s tragic how many folks in our country intentionally make it hard.” I felt this in my soul and I am committed to doing everything I can to help others who do not have my privilege. You are amazing!
Frankly, this is fascistic autocracy on steroids. People may be getting tired and weary from the numerous references to Republican acts as fascist, but clearly that is what their acts and actions are. Republicans have been packing and stacking state legislatures for years. Their collective goals:
Turn the U.S. into a corrosive, rancid intolerant theocracy. Democrats have sat idly by, wringing their hands as to "what to do, what to do?" That is a blatant, in-your-face failure of leadership. Talk is cheap. Action is decisive. Fear paves the road to fascism. Republicans pave the road to fear.
The hatred being directed towards the LGBTQ community by Republicans is simply unfathomable to me. I don't get it. However, I'd add this--the LGBTQ community is the proverbial "canary in the coalmine". What's starting with them will certainly not end with them.
The GOP (and fascists in general) need enemies in order to generate the fear and hatred they need to push through their agenda. If there aren't any real ones, they'll create them as needed.
I had the privilege of being on stage today with Charlotte at a conference sponsored by Middle Collegiate Church in New York, talking about how white Christian nationalism is linked to and is fueling such hatred toward trans people. She was simultaneously generous and unflinchingly honest about the problems we are facing. Thanks so much for your spirit and courage, Charlotte.
I have a couple questions, and I hope this is an acceptable venue for asking them.
1) What does the trans community think about Caitlyn Jenner? I find her past comments about Dumpy (I refuse to use the former guy's name)bewildering.
2) How, exactly, does gender dysphoria work? I've tried to tell anti-trans people that gender is a lot more than genitals, that it has to do with your feelings about yourself and that you're not in the right body. Dear Abby once said, way before there was awareness of gender dysphoria, that the brain is the most important sex organ in the body. I've tried to use that, too, but I don't think I've really gotten anyone to think any differently. Yes, I know that a lot of people will never change their minds, but I'd at least like to think that I'd caused someone to think a little bit differently. It's difficult to explain something I've never experienced either personally or vicariously.
There's a great column in the WaPo by Jennifer Finney Boylan that explains and answers what I was trying to understand beautifully. I urge everyone to read it.
If you have not yet subscribed to Charlotte's Substack you should. It's very well written and helps everyone to understand the issues. My point of view is that there are no characteristics of the human body that are binary. Think about hair color and texture, eye color, other facial characteristics, height, weight, length of fingers and toes, other physical characteristics as well as individual talents in the areas of writing, speaking, intellectual pursuits, music, athletics, acting, artistic and other endeavors, personality traits, and then include gender identity in that long, long list. All of our internal organs are not identical and are not always in the exact same locations in our bodies. We are not clones but unique individuals, a composite of a huge number of individual characteristics and all of these characteristics are human and worthy. I have never understood people who use ignorance, hatred and fear as a lever to acquire power. I agree that we all need to be willing to stand up for anyone who is marginalized in our society, especially if they are put into dangerous situations because of who they are.
I agree that the most recent surge of anti-trans hysteria is being flogged by the GOP, what they are appealing to is the desire of people to simplify life by thinking either/or, or zero/sum. No shades of gray anywhere. You are male or female. You are one of four colors. Something is a sin or it isn't. Something is a crime or it isn't.
But look how they shade the things they want to believe in almost infinitely. When is something homicide? Used to be only if not in self defense or defense of others. But what is "stand your ground" but an infinitely shaded spectrum of actions. It has moved to the idea of "feeling threatened." And in a state with permitless concealed carry, what happens when a passerby, thinking about his unhappy job, frowns at you and that scares you? When will a kid throwing his ball in your direction let it be OK to shoot him? That's already happened.
This is an inspiring and beautiful article! Thank you Charlotte for sharing your incredible insights with us and working to bring understanding and acceptance to a beautiful group of people who are being terrorized by uneducated and willfully ignorant people!
“It is so easy to do the right thing, the kind thing, and it’s tragic how many folks in our country intentionally make it hard.” I felt this in my soul and I am committed to doing everything I can to help others who do not have my privilege. You are amazing!
She is an amazing voice for the community, agreed.
Frankly, this is fascistic autocracy on steroids. People may be getting tired and weary from the numerous references to Republican acts as fascist, but clearly that is what their acts and actions are. Republicans have been packing and stacking state legislatures for years. Their collective goals:
Turn the U.S. into a corrosive, rancid intolerant theocracy. Democrats have sat idly by, wringing their hands as to "what to do, what to do?" That is a blatant, in-your-face failure of leadership. Talk is cheap. Action is decisive. Fear paves the road to fascism. Republicans pave the road to fear.
The hatred being directed towards the LGBTQ community by Republicans is simply unfathomable to me. I don't get it. However, I'd add this--the LGBTQ community is the proverbial "canary in the coalmine". What's starting with them will certainly not end with them.
The GOP (and fascists in general) need enemies in order to generate the fear and hatred they need to push through their agenda. If there aren't any real ones, they'll create them as needed.
I had the privilege of being on stage today with Charlotte at a conference sponsored by Middle Collegiate Church in New York, talking about how white Christian nationalism is linked to and is fueling such hatred toward trans people. She was simultaneously generous and unflinchingly honest about the problems we are facing. Thanks so much for your spirit and courage, Charlotte.
I have a couple questions, and I hope this is an acceptable venue for asking them.
1) What does the trans community think about Caitlyn Jenner? I find her past comments about Dumpy (I refuse to use the former guy's name)bewildering.
2) How, exactly, does gender dysphoria work? I've tried to tell anti-trans people that gender is a lot more than genitals, that it has to do with your feelings about yourself and that you're not in the right body. Dear Abby once said, way before there was awareness of gender dysphoria, that the brain is the most important sex organ in the body. I've tried to use that, too, but I don't think I've really gotten anyone to think any differently. Yes, I know that a lot of people will never change their minds, but I'd at least like to think that I'd caused someone to think a little bit differently. It's difficult to explain something I've never experienced either personally or vicariously.
Caitlyn Jenner is the Clarence Thomas of the trans community, in my humble view.
There's a great column in the WaPo by Jennifer Finney Boylan that explains and answers what I was trying to understand beautifully. I urge everyone to read it.
Boylan that explains a lot about how trans men and women are different from cis people. Ms. Boylan also describes gender dysphoria like this:
I have missed Charlotte since being banned from Twitter. This was a very good interview.
If you have not yet subscribed to Charlotte's Substack you should. It's very well written and helps everyone to understand the issues. My point of view is that there are no characteristics of the human body that are binary. Think about hair color and texture, eye color, other facial characteristics, height, weight, length of fingers and toes, other physical characteristics as well as individual talents in the areas of writing, speaking, intellectual pursuits, music, athletics, acting, artistic and other endeavors, personality traits, and then include gender identity in that long, long list. All of our internal organs are not identical and are not always in the exact same locations in our bodies. We are not clones but unique individuals, a composite of a huge number of individual characteristics and all of these characteristics are human and worthy. I have never understood people who use ignorance, hatred and fear as a lever to acquire power. I agree that we all need to be willing to stand up for anyone who is marginalized in our society, especially if they are put into dangerous situations because of who they are.
I agree that the most recent surge of anti-trans hysteria is being flogged by the GOP, what they are appealing to is the desire of people to simplify life by thinking either/or, or zero/sum. No shades of gray anywhere. You are male or female. You are one of four colors. Something is a sin or it isn't. Something is a crime or it isn't.
But look how they shade the things they want to believe in almost infinitely. When is something homicide? Used to be only if not in self defense or defense of others. But what is "stand your ground" but an infinitely shaded spectrum of actions. It has moved to the idea of "feeling threatened." And in a state with permitless concealed carry, what happens when a passerby, thinking about his unhappy job, frowns at you and that scares you? When will a kid throwing his ball in your direction let it be OK to shoot him? That's already happened.
Thank you for this interview. I learned a lot of information which I can use when discussing this issue with others.