Nature’s Way?

Why does society hate genderqueers so much? It’s a question worth pondering. You get so used to the stares and the disapproval that it begins to seem inevitable. Part of the problem, I suppose, is that shaming is the primary way most of us are taught gender. Little kids who make pronoun and gender “errors” – calling a woman “he” or referring to Dad as “mommy” are laughed at, and quickly learn to “correct” themselves. This is one way we know that gender categories are not hard-wired, because we all have to be taught them.

Now that I have a 2-year-old, I begin to see that her “errors” are not mistakes, she’s simply navigating a different gender system.  She sees people in pants, and for her that codes as masculine and “he.”  She see someone with long hair, and codes that as feminine and “she.”

Special Inspection

I seem to locked in this death-struggle with the TSA. They always pick me out for “special inspection,” which is transportation security terminology for “check out the trannie.” Even when I’m wearing a skirt and high-heels, they address me as “Sir” and insist on wanding my chest  four or five times like my size-B boobs are hiding 20 or 30 pounds of C4 explosive wired to detonate at any second.

Groin Jobs

You have to say these weird things to get surgery. You can have a tummy tuck, tooshie lift, face lift, ear bob, eyebrow lift, nose job, boob job, and enough Botox to paralyze the facial muscles of a charging bull elephant but no one says you have to go see three psychiatrists.

But if you tell them you want to have a surgery down there – a “groin job” – suddenly you’re sick with something called “Gender Identity Disorder.”

This is the medical diagnosis you have to get if you’re going to get surgery. Otherwise it’s considered “elective,” like Viagra.

Ooops, sorry, no. That’s always covered because old men getting erections is critical to the foundation of our very social fabric.