Thursday, March 12, 2009

President O includes transwoman on White House Council: What it means to you




Like the warm hum of a kitten’s purr, Obama’s invitation of Mara Keisling, a transgendered woman, to the White House Council on Women and Girls tickles the brain, and, like a candle, warms the gloaming.

What does it mean to you, ladies, gents-- those who are deeper than skin, than sex, than gender?

Well it means a step.

Literally it means political inclusion, for O’s gestures give states precedence to make violence and discrimination against trans people illegal. In all states. All communities. For all of us.

Because we are women too.

O is humanizing, moralizing, and exercising our hair, bones, and muscle.

Not that America’s arms open wide and suddenly the wife tells her husband to grow nails and sway like he’s always wanted. Nor does the entrenched family on the porch lean over the railing with a helping hand to their newly discovered “daughter” or “son,” their snarky, straight attitude wavering in the air as if someone had slammed a Bible upon the floor. Not even the sexual fetishists, with their frilly skirts and leather straps, are allowed any more respect from the stones who live among us: the gifted, the wise, the blessed.

But among those whom for capital power is occupation, lifestyle and passion, the transgendered person has arrived.

What does it represent but another minority to champion? A cultural nod to a class of persons who have long lingered in corner shadows?

It is proof of the transgendered head that rises from the freakish Atlantic that asks, that declares, that offers the third choice, the third gender, the third eye, the truth.

We are we are we are

And always will be the mirror by which both sexes see their nature.

So what does it mean, this gesture?

It is one of many to come. On November 10th 2007, O banned LGBT discrimination for his transition team; a term loaded for the trans community, in process or not. True, his invitation of Rev Rick Warren to preach at the inauguration lay like a thorn in the grass for all us dancing about in the clover, but such action reads more like a gesture of compromise to the Republicans than an insult to the LGBT community. I mean please, for those whom the Bible is key and lock I say enjoy your preacher, for only the most liberal of you would have me over for tea and poetry and mean it. Most of you would see me dance upon hot coals.

It’s sadly the truth, and like a bean it can sprout up among the churchyards and brick alters, this fear of the trans community, of us folk, as if we were somehow more freakish that the whole history of their religion.

The gesture is important.

The gesture.

As if O is reaching out a touching us on the shoulder to say: you’re real, you’re the truth, you’re alive.

See these links for more.

Pam's Diary

365gay.com

2 comments:

  1. The grandest of gestures.
    It's a new day for so many...for everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As an outsider looking in, I think it's a big jump for the establishment. I hope it all goes well. I really do.

    ReplyDelete