As KellyM has pointed out, we are too often considered to be whatever’s least convenient for us. It’s a real “Officer Krupke” situation.
“You’re not a woman, you’re just a man in a dress!”
“You’re not a member of the gay community, you’ve gone over to the straights!”
“You’re not straight, you’re a tranny!”
and of course the dreaded but succinct,
“Ewwwwwww!”
I must add it is just the lunatic fringe (left and right) who react this way, and that things are slowly getting better and better. I’m old enough to remember when we weren’t even Mentioned In Public, except as dirty jokes in nightclubs.
TIGER, IMITATING KRUPKE
Hey you!
RIFF
Who me, Officer Krupke?
TIGER, IMITATING KRUPKE
Yeah you, gimme one good reason for not draggin’ ya down the station house, ya punk!
RIFF
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke
You gotta understand
We’re not all screwed upke
Just cause we are trans
Our mothers never listened
Our fathers just got mad
Golly Moses, natcherly we’re sad
JETS
Gee, Officer Krupke
We’re very upset
We never had the love
That every child oughta get
We ain’t no deliquents
We’re misunderstood
How come nobody ever treat us good
RIFF
Why not good?
JETS
We’ve seen bad, where’s the good
Is there even any good
Even from the best of you we get no good
TIGER, IMITATING KRUPKE
That’s a touching good story
RIFF
Lemme tell it to the world!
TIGER, IMITATING KRUPKE
Just tell it to the judge
RIFF
Dear kindly Judge, your Honour
My parents treat me rough
I say that I am female
They say ‘stop the fag stuff’
They don’t wanna know me
Unless I act like a lad
Leapin’ lizards, that’s why I’m so mad
SNOWBOY IMITATING JUDGE
Right! Officer Krupke
You’re really a square
This boy don’t need a judge
He needs an analyst’s care
It’s just his neurosis
That oughta be curbed
He’s psychologically disturbed
RIFF
I’m disturbed
JETS
We’re disturbed, we’re disturbed
We’re the most disturbed
Like we’re psychologically disturbed
SNOWBOY IMITATING JUDGE
Hear ye, hear ye. In the opinion of this court, this child is depraved on account he dresses in ladies clothes.
RIFF
Hey, I’m depraved on account I’m crossdressed!
SNOWBOY IMITATING JUDGE
So take him to a headshrinker. You!
ACTION
Who me?
RIFF
My daddy burned my Barbies
My mommy sobs ‘why me?’
My grand’pa calls me ‘mister’
My grand’ma just won’t see
My sisters calls me ‘faggot’
They won’t let me wear a dress
Goodness gracious, that’s why I’m a mess
ACTION IMITATING HEADSHRINKER
Yes, Officer Krupke
He shouldn’t be here
This boy don’t need a couch
He needs some serious meds
Boy, your brain’s played a terrible trick
Why you’re not a lady, you’re just sick
RIFF
I am sick!
JETS
We are sick, we are sick
We are sick sick sick
Like we’re not transexuals, just sick
ACTION IMITATING HEADSHRINKER
In my opinion, this child does not need to have his head shrunk at all. Transexuality is purely a neurochemical disease.
RIFF
Hey, I got a disease!
ACTION IMITATING HEADSHRINKER
So take him to a pill pusher
RIFF
Dear kindly pyschiatrist
They tell me ‘you’re a boy’
But my penis and testes
Bring sorrow, not joy
It’s not I’m homosexual
Your solutions don’t work
Glory Osky, that’s why I’m a jerk
Pill Man
Eek, Officer Krupke
You’ve done it again
This boy don’t need just meds
He needs a year at Bellvue
Son you’re no woman and when the treatment is through
We’ll make a hapy well-adjusted man of you!
RIFF
I’m no man
JETS
We’re no man, we’re no man
We just weren’t born men
Like the rest, your answer is no damn good
The trouble is he’s homo
The trouble is hormones
The trouble is he’s crazy
The trouble is autogynephylia
An obsession with a woman’s
erogenous zones.
Krupke, we’ve got troubles of our own
Officer Krupke
We’re down on our knees
RIFF
We’re women not fellas
With some strange disease
JETS
Dear Officer Krupke
What are we to do?
Gee, Officer Krupke
Krup you!
Yes, I left the disturbed verse alone. Yes, I realise that I need to get the urge to hijack threads under control.
Though I’d read about transsexuality, I hadn’t knowingly met a transexual until one of my many trips to a mental health facility[sup][/sup]. Originally, her parents had a healthy little girl whose life would have been marvellous if they had only accepted her and gotten her the hormone therapy and corrective surgery she needed. Instead, they insisted that they had a son. They burned her My Little Ponies. Not just once, but every time they found another stash of girls’ toys. They gave her long lectures on just why she was a boy. They took her to prayer meetings in the hopes Jesus would cure her. And they found, with an ease which is disgusting and terrifying, psychologists and pyschiatrists who agreed that their boy was sick and only needed the right treatment to be made well. As a result of all this she’d gained numerous phobias (flirting with a cute boy at the mall only to have your mother yell ‘You know that’s not a girl? That’s my son!’ does tend to make one afraid of both crowds and relationships), spent years living in locked wards, been on numerous drugs she didn’t need, and at least once was made to stand in front of the other patients while the staff explained that, despite rumors, she was a boy.
[sup][/sup] I suffer from chronic recurrent depression, ADD, OCD, social anxiety disorder, and panic attacks (at present the meds keep all but the depression under control). What I’d been through was a day in Disneyworld compared to her life.
I certainly don’t hope you throw me in that category, Eve. You ‘n’ me have gone around a couple times on some sensitive political subjects, but I’m all for the rights of people to be who they want to be and love whom they want to love. And I’ll fight for 'em, too, when push comes to shove.
I find it one of the highest of ironies that the people most vehement about the idea that people suffering from gender dysphoria are in fact what their body claims to others they are, and not what they feel themselves to be inside, are the very people who claim, in other contexts, that one must find an inner strength of will to overcome what one’s body urges on one.
And, given the OP and the fact that HRC is incorporated as a charitable organization, I hope KellyM will not take it amiss that I point out the amazing irony in Olentzero’s .sig line as applied to this thread, too!!
Explaining things like this usually ends up losing all the flavor of what made them witty in the first place, but…
This is a thread based on a rant by a person named Kelly regarding a charitable institution devoted to lobbying for the rights of a given set of groups of people – which is clearly failing to do that regarding the particular group with which she identifies. And, as she notes, it will take more than a brick to straighten them out (atrocious pun, by the way).
I remember a thread a few years ago with OP by matt_mcl in which he ranted on the tendency of gay organizations to distance themselves from the problems of gay youth, lest they be construed as being pedophilic (ephebephilic, if you want to get pedantic about terms). I note that the gay student running for Student Council president in a Wilson, NC, high school, whose campaign posters were removed by the school as “too controversial” since they made reference to his homosexuality and to his intent to promote inclusivity and tolerance, got help from the ACLU but HRC (and GLAAD and GLSEN) were notably absent from the scene.
I’ve been supportive of HRC (personally, not financially, aside from once buying a $2 sticker) but it occurs to me that they have evolved into an organization devoted to pursuing the rights of well-to-do metropolitan gay and lesbian people to do whatever there are still problems with them doing in upper-middle-class metropolitan areas, not fighting for the people with real problems. And that is very disheartening. Quis custodet ipsos custodes?
I’d be particularly interested in gobear’s gay-libertarian perspective on this issue.
