One Hell of an Introduction Piece
May. 8th, 2007 02:30 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
labrat78.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
transI will have to admit, I did not expect to see anywhere the amount of theological and political opinions when I simply post the trash from Fred Phelps. But I also noticed something, actually, again, that hit me as interesting.
All of us here come from totally different places and believe different things. Some believe only in themselves and others believe in the divine beings of their religions.Call it superstition, call it faith, it really makes no difference. Each one of us have different experiences, some good, some bad, that define who we are and how we interact with others in this wild world.
But it really came to me in the last comments posted in my last entry to this group. The difference between those who transitioned way before us and those who are transitioning now. Times have changed since folks like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wicked_nikki basically had to hack the road that the rest of us would eventually follow. I can understand her being an atheist as some religions, Fred's is a fine example, that "left a bad taste in our mouths". Not only that I can start to understand why some in the TS community, including those who are deep stealth, are bitter. Bitter at life in general, bitter at someone else, it doesn't matter, I have seen it here reading LJ for over two years now.
Life's experiences temper people and their opinions. Ten, twenty years ago it would be IMPOSSIBLE for people like me andmonklike to transition anywhere but in a large city where "behavior like ours" ( not to be insulting but for lack of a better term) was accepted and considered the norm. Times HAVE changed and certainly for the better. When I first started I was sure that the only place I could get any professional help at all was in St. Louis. My employer had better ideas and put me in touch with a LCSW not 60 minutes away from my house.
The Midwest is home to thousands of trans people who live and work here, just as their predecessors should have done all those years ago, but were run out of town on a rail for being themselves by people who did not know the truth. Not only do we have the means to live our dreams but the support of our own friends and family as well. People in Kansas and in the rest of the Midwest are not the same thing as they were all those years ago. They have indeed grown up. Not all of them maybe but some have and thats a start. People are a lot more accepting here, no matter what their political party is. Hell, I vote Republican every now and then if the candidate is someone who I think will do the best job and cost me the least amount of money in taxes, nothing wrong with that.
Not all Republicans are Bible throwing morons that other people think they are any more than all the left wing liberals are the scum of the earth who will tax the hell out of anyone. Both sides need to get their act together on social issues that ALL of us can get behind not just the few. My own family does not have a problem with me becoming a woman, except for my older brother, and he is outnumbered anyway. I have dozens of friends and acquaintances in the railroad industry that have not a problem with it either and when I first came out some were quick to educate themselves, as did my parents, on what was going on. We are not as dim as folks on either coast would like to think of us as. Likewise, some of us look up to you all ( thats "ARKY" language pardon me all to hell) because without you there we would not be here.
Sure, we have it a lot better than what our predecessors had it, thats no reason for them to be bitter. We are all the same, going to basically the same destination but perhaps taking different paths. We ALL need to stick together and help each other out.
All of us here come from totally different places and believe different things. Some believe only in themselves and others believe in the divine beings of their religions.Call it superstition, call it faith, it really makes no difference. Each one of us have different experiences, some good, some bad, that define who we are and how we interact with others in this wild world.
But it really came to me in the last comments posted in my last entry to this group. The difference between those who transitioned way before us and those who are transitioning now. Times have changed since folks like
wicked_nikki basically had to hack the road that the rest of us would eventually follow. I can understand her being an atheist as some religions, Fred's is a fine example, that "left a bad taste in our mouths". Not only that I can start to understand why some in the TS community, including those who are deep stealth, are bitter. Bitter at life in general, bitter at someone else, it doesn't matter, I have seen it here reading LJ for over two years now. Life's experiences temper people and their opinions. Ten, twenty years ago it would be IMPOSSIBLE for people like me and
monklike to transition anywhere but in a large city where "behavior like ours" ( not to be insulting but for lack of a better term) was accepted and considered the norm. Times HAVE changed and certainly for the better. When I first started I was sure that the only place I could get any professional help at all was in St. Louis. My employer had better ideas and put me in touch with a LCSW not 60 minutes away from my house. The Midwest is home to thousands of trans people who live and work here, just as their predecessors should have done all those years ago, but were run out of town on a rail for being themselves by people who did not know the truth. Not only do we have the means to live our dreams but the support of our own friends and family as well. People in Kansas and in the rest of the Midwest are not the same thing as they were all those years ago. They have indeed grown up. Not all of them maybe but some have and thats a start. People are a lot more accepting here, no matter what their political party is. Hell, I vote Republican every now and then if the candidate is someone who I think will do the best job and cost me the least amount of money in taxes, nothing wrong with that.
Not all Republicans are Bible throwing morons that other people think they are any more than all the left wing liberals are the scum of the earth who will tax the hell out of anyone. Both sides need to get their act together on social issues that ALL of us can get behind not just the few. My own family does not have a problem with me becoming a woman, except for my older brother, and he is outnumbered anyway. I have dozens of friends and acquaintances in the railroad industry that have not a problem with it either and when I first came out some were quick to educate themselves, as did my parents, on what was going on. We are not as dim as folks on either coast would like to think of us as. Likewise, some of us look up to you all ( thats "ARKY" language pardon me all to hell) because without you there we would not be here.
Sure, we have it a lot better than what our predecessors had it, thats no reason for them to be bitter. We are all the same, going to basically the same destination but perhaps taking different paths. We ALL need to stick together and help each other out.