You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2008.
It’s been one year and a day ago that I wrote my first post here on the Sophie sans scrupule wordpress blog.
Here are the stats
MONTH TOTALS AND AVERAGES
TOP POSTS
TOP REFERRERS
TOP SEARCH ENGINE TERMS
TOP CLICKS
There you have it the true story behind Sophie sans scrupule, and yes even an uninteresting post on how I won a ticket for an Alela Diane concert gets me hits. The total of transition diary posts got about 1700 direct hits, and then there’s of course all the indirect hits I am unable to count, but they’re there. To all of you whom have been visiting and reading my blog, a sincere and warm thank you!
Thirteen months in transition, and thirteen months in which people lost their lives because they were like as honest to themselves not to let their body take over their identity. Even last week Dilek, Duanna and Taniesha were killed, where should I go with my thoughts on this Transgender Day of Remembrance. They go those who lost their lives to something I can’t grasp, something so hateful that I want to run away from it. Hate, killed over two dozen transgender people in those thirteen months I’ve been transitioning, disregard of human life, killed the beautiful souls which were so brave to go against things most people hold for granted. I cannot take for granted, neither my identity nor will I take for granted that there’s people losing their life for being themselves.
My transition, is just a speckle in the lives of many, but there only needs to be one who doesn’t think I’m worth living. Conformity won’t be the way to go for me, if I’m given the oppurtunity to be part of this struggle to have other people be themselves without fear of their life, without hate following them around, then I will grab that oppurtunity. I am proud of whom I am, I am proud of the all the people that are whom they are, there’s nothing more real than being yourself. No day shall pass without me remembering that there’s violence against transgendered people, no day shall come to be that I give up on ending that, there’s a future for any of us and no one has the slightest right to take that future away.
There’s a reason why I started play an active role in the transgender community, and despite personal struggles mentioned many times on this blog, there’s a cause I will never let my eyes stray away from!
It was the first time, I was even part of the organisation, and certain aspects of the day came out of my pocket. It was great to see how others had worked so hard on making this day a worthy and beautiful day to remember our dead. It all started early October when I was invited to take part in the organisation of this day which would be held on November 15th. In the end I was one of over 30 volunteers, no wonder that this years Transgender Day of Remembrance was the biggest ever held in the Netherlands since the n00dles queer collective started it in Amsterdam in 2005.
So the day started early in the afternoon of saturday November 15th with a information stand and a modest exhibition on the Nieuwmarkt, to inform people about violence against transgenders and those whom didn’t survive that, and about transgenders and transsexuals in general. At another location in the city people could come together to prepare for the march, have coffee or tea and watch videos specially picked from youtube. There the march started at 17h40, only ten minutes later and a group of approximately 70 people marched with white balloons, torches, and banners towards the Nieuwmarkt.
Right through Amsterdam’s city center, along the Dam Square, where lots of people saw us pass. At the Nieuwmarkt there was a short introduction by Bastiaan Franse, who was one of the leading figures to make this day happen, and there were several speakers, whom speeched eloquently and spirited, while standing with us in the pooring rain. Their speeches were followed by letting go of the balloons to which cards were attached with the names of transgender victims of hate-crimes. With this the Remembering our Dead part of the day came to an end.
A part of the people attending went on to hold a reclaim the street march, making noise and being visible.
Transgender Day of Remembrance came to an end for me, and at 10pm I left Amsterdam. Having been part of this day and the organistion was a great experience, to have been on television and marching with all those people was a true honor. I hope to take part in the Transgender Day of Remembrance for as long as it’s needed, because there’s no place for hate against anyone for the sheer reason that someone has the guts to be themselves.
It was 5:15am when I woke up today, and it was 7:50am when I walked out of Studio 6 of the KRO’s public broadcasting station. I had just been on breakfast television, live, for the first time on national television, and of course that didn’t go perfect. Details of Duanna Johnson’s story didn’t come out in a fluent sentence, nor did I know the right Dutch word for ‘ignorant’ when talking about the people whom called me names in my genderbending period (i.e. showing a visable degree of androgyny). Overall though I think it didn’t go bad, at least I wasn’t there alone. I was there at this breakfast show with a friend and fellow transgender activist, and he did fine, wasn’t his first television show appearance. I guess the early hour we got up did influence my appearance, I looked unexcited at times and my hair didn’t look that great because I had no time to fashion it after getting out of the shower at 5:45am.
So in my perception I looked different from what I often look like, though the makeup was much better than when I do my own makeup of course. The question is how viewers experienced my appearance, what I said, and how I acted. I won’t know, but I do believe this to have been a positive experience in my life. One has to start somewhere, and if I’ll ever be the leader I think I could become (yes I’m Leo) then I will surely benefit from having some tv exposé and experience, I say.
One little note regarding the editorial staff did one thing that bothered me, when I got on screen it showed my name and (what they call a title) the word transsexual. I am not really glad with that, because I find it difficult to identify as transsexual, I know my shared experience with other transsexual people has meaning to me as well as being diagnosed transsexual, but I find it intrusive of other people to call me transsexual when I don’t refer to myself as such in my communication with them. I agree that they have perceived me as a transsexual person, but one doesn’t need to underscore that. Viewers should view me as a person not that much as a transsexual, it depersonifies me in a way. There is some blaim to myself though, I told them it would be best not to mention my initiative for GenderQontrast, because at the moment that’s not on top of my personal agenda, and there’s not much happening within the initiative. On the other hand three of us initiative volunteers also volunteered for the Transgender Day of Remembrance which will take place on Saturday November 15th in Amsterdam (and for which I was on television, just to mention that). So if I simply had agreed to be addressed as representative of GenderQontrast, then I probably would have gotten that title transsexual. Ah well I won’t break my head over it, my appearance on that breakfast show wasn’t about me, but about discrimination and violence against transgender people and the Day of Remembrance.
One intersting note, the presenter of the show is also lesbian, so that allowed me to be impressed by her appearance without the straight deception. Yes that does sound silly, but she is an an attractive woman, and only 5 years older than me…ghehe… Ow and she isn’t perfect either, she stumbled while reading the auto-cue, while I stumbled over my own words, which is good, because having flaws can be sexy. How else would I want to believe of myself that I can be sexy, ain’t I right?
Today, a bit over a week to go until my 1 year blogging anniversary here on WordPress, this blog reached 10,000 views.
So for the occasion of my ten thousandth view I went on paperwork clean-up frenzy, I bought two bright pink (of course) ordners after my speech training session this morning, together with what I guess is file pockets and a number of tabs, and not to forget two purple carton boxes. They’re all filled now, it’s good to have the majority of my paperwork ordened now. Not that it wasn’t somewhat ordened before, but it’s better, future proof, so to say.
Well I sure didn’t spend two hours on that because I got my 10,000th view on Sophie sans scrupule, neither did I get a new haircut this morning because of it. It is a nice milestone though, this blog might not be, and probably never will be the heaviest traffic blog in the world, but the thought that a percentage of those 10,000 views were not only views but true readings of my posts on here, does satisfy me.
Imagine a democracy in which the majority has the lawful ability to suppress civil rights of minorities, in my opinion of what constitutes a democracy that would simply be contradictive to what I consider democratic. Some people think that a referendum is the most democratic instrument to govern. These people don’t understand that in countries which have a parliamentary democracy each and every referendum will erode the fundaments of that democracy. Democracy isn’t simply the rule of the majority. Democracy is about protecting the minority from the rule of the majority, not by making the minority rule the majority, but by a constitution that acknowledges that every person is born equal and free.
The State of California is to my knowledge a state which had parliamentary democracy but that’s been hollowed by the institution of referenda. California hit rock bottom on Tuesday when a slight majority of Californian citizens took away a civil right from gay people. Marriage, an institution recognized by the state, was until Wednesday an institution free from discrimination, though it had only been so for several months, it meant a whole lot for those people who were banned from it before and banned from it once again. Civil rights, you’d think they’d mean much in a country which voted it’s first african-american president into office on that same day. Civil right can’t get emptier than this though, man and woman, caucasian and african-american, equal and free before the law. Straight and gay…… not, marriage to discriminate against those who’re not heterosexual, it not only tells gay people that they’re less equal, but foremost that their love is less, unworthy of recognition, denied to be as valuable as heterosexual love.
I am actually really mad about this. I might not be US citizen, not even living there, even living in a country which does not deny civil rights to people because of their sexuality. I can marry, if I want to, with another woman. All of this absolutely doesn’t make me feel more comfortable with the fact that other people far away are being denied the right to marry because they don’t love someone of the opposite sex. I am quite discomforted that men and women who saw their rights being recognized by court earlier this year now have lost that right, that civil right, again.
I hope that the gay marriage ban will soon be resolutely banned and similar bans will be declared unconstitutional, because we are all born equal and free and no majority has the right to inhibit equal rights for whatever kind of minority!
The issue of prop.8 in California showed to me that the right to marry is something really important to me, that the happiness of Ellen and Portia or Abby and Amanda (The Ditty Bops), adds up to the happiness I enjoy to have the right to marry here in The Netherlands. It’s more than solidarity, it’s the shared conscience of being part of a community that still has a big struggle ahead for true equality.
Marriage, everyone should be able to enjoy that in freedom and equality, and honestly I hope to enjoy it from a certain day on too.
Recent Comments