Showing posts with label Political Affiliation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Political Affiliation. Show all posts

Friday, October 4, 2024

Why do transgender people skew towards being Liberal?

 

Why do transgender people skew towards being Liberal?

This is a question that has a simple and logical answer.  Liberals put a greater priority on the rights of the individual than they do for the community's need for individuals to surrender their rights to the collective for its preservation.  For example, who do we value more?  Do we value the contentious objector to a war fought for questionable reasons, such as Vietnam?  Or, do we value the drafted soldier who may give up his life fighting in the same war where our nation's goals were not achieved?  Whose rights matter more, the individual or the community?

Historically, gender was viewed as a binary in Western culture. Either one was born male or female, and then slotted into the roles assigned to the associated gender.  Household and community tasks were assigned to the genders, and rarely did things not match accepted Western cultural norms. Reproduction was a higher priority than it is today, as both a large number of women died in childbirth, and many children died before they were adults. Homosexuality was discouraged, and being transgender was totally out of the question. As you can guess, people who did not meet these norms had to hide their true selves in order to survive.  

The 20th century brought us great change.  We had 2 world wars.  We entered the computer age. And Christine Jorgensen made news with her sex change (now called gender confirmation/correction surgery). Things people took for granted as unchangeable could now be changed.  Gender may be the first attribute assigned to identify a person, and traditionally has been based on a person's visible genitalia for good reason. This can scare people with weak self identities. These people tend to cling to traditional ways of identifying people, and reject transgender people as freaks - simply because they don't understand the emotional pains of people born with a brain that develops with the characteristics of one gender, while the body develops with the characteristics of the other. In short, those that reject transgenders as being weird are simply looking to conserve traditional ways of understanding the world.

When people are rejected by a collective group of people, they gravitate to others that will accept them. Liberals tend to be much more diverse in views and expressions, as they accept non-traditional ways of defining the world.  This is why transgenders tend to associate with liberals - we are accepted for who we are, and not being forced to comply with others' ways of looking at the world.

Yet, there will always be some transgender people who identify with others that hold "conservative" values - even when those others reject them because of being transgender.  I'll never understand why some people keep trying to belong to groups that would reject them. But then, humans are a tribal species, and none of us enjoys being rejected by our peers.  One trans person I've met moved to a "conservative" region of my state and decided to go to the local church - and was rejected because she was transgender.  I don't know what happened to this trans woman since then, but I know the rejection must have hurt her very much.

So I have to ask, have you noticed how political conservatives are using the "fear of the other" to control the masses?  Look at Trump's lie, saying that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH are stealing dogs and cats, then eating them.  This has "given permission" to crazy people to terrorize the residents of this city, and has forced schools, offices, and public events to be shut down for public safety. Contrast Trump's lies with objective reality - the Haitians have been a net benefit to Springfield, law abiding people who have helped in the rebirth of the city.  No wonder why transgenders skew towards being liberal - we have suffered like most of the groups that have been defined as "the other".

So, what do you believe and why do you believe it?

 

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Dinner with a Transgender friend

 

It's not every day that I can get together with another person from our transgender community.  It takes a while for our conversations to get going because we come from opposite sides of the spectrum.  But, in the end, we get to chatting like typical ladies - albeit, not in the way one would expect.

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We arranged to meet at the restaurant at dinner time, but we screwed up which dinner time that was.  So, I ended up being 1/2 hour early, yet 1/2 hour late according to SKB's initial impressions of our time frame.  (I take half of the blame here, as I could have chosen the earlier to get there and we both could have gotten there at the originally expected time.)  One thing I can say - I don't want to be walking out on a side street near Atlantic Terminal / Barclay's Center after rush hour.  But I digress.  SKB ended up being later than expected due to a hunt for a parking spot. (There are many good reasons that I use mass transit in congested parts of big cities.) 

In many ways, SKB is the opposite of me.  I identify as a person who is left of center by today's standards. (I'd likely be considered a Goldwater Republican, the way he was towards the end of his life.)  SKB identifies as a person who is right of center.  I have almost no interest in sports, save for an interest in the history of baseball.  SKB has an interest in the most American of sports, football.  We should be like oil and water, but we always seem to have good conversations.

All too soon, our conversation had to end.  SKB was able to reach her house in 30 minutes, while it took me 30 minutes to reach Grand Central Terminal.  Since it was after 9:00 pm when I got there, almost every place where I could get a bottle of fizzy water was closed (or was closing down).  Luckily, one place was still open at 9:30, and I was able to get my seltzer before hopping on the train.

Normally, I get on a train that has a stop or two before reaching Croton.  This time, I caught the express whose first stop is in Croton.  As a result, I had to fight to stay awake just enough not to miss my station, instead of being able to fall asleep until the last stop.  Yet, I made it home by 11:00 pm, and was ready to fall asleep by midnight.

A return to the Norman Rockwell Museum

  This past Saturday would be a long day with my brother.  We had tried to get together on a weekend for a while for a road trip to the Norm...