This month we're suspending our ongoing presentation of broader transgender issues and motivations, to share an e-mail article addressing a not-too-subtly derogatory ad that recently ran in a series of national computer publications.

To lend a personal perspective, three weeks ago I lost my wallet. The local Social Security office told me I couldn't get a replacement card because I "had not given them the document(s) they need to show identity." Never mind that I have a copy of my stolen card, and a recent letter from their office stating in exact detail how much my Social Security account is currently scheduled to pay upon my retirement. Also ignore my temporary California driver's license and two years of bills addressed to Kelli McAllister.

This is the same Social Security office that refused to grant my card in the first place back in 1996, and only relented after I produced a photo-ID California driver's license and asked them to suggest methods on how to reconcile my old card with my license's new name and gender.

To this day the Social Security Administration refuses to recognize my gender change.

Meanwhile, the DMV has placed me in a "special circumstances" category and will only give me a replacement license after a series of conversations with Sacramento. My original revised-gender license took four months and two separate applications to arrive. I'm still waiting for my replacement license ... and as I mentioned, in spite of already having received a post-transitional card, I now can't get my replacement Social Security card without a license.

Okay, girl, let's see ya dance fer us!

Here's the article.
-----------

McAfee Associates Spreads Hate Virus
-- by Sarah Fox, Ph.D.

On October 12, a two-page ad conceived by the Think Inc. advertising agency and sponsored by the computer company Network Associates, shows the hand of a man and a woman in wedding attire, with a minister in the background. Another hand is displaying a note to the groom, reading, "She's a man!"

Accompanying the photograph are the statements, "It's nice to know about something before it becomes a problem, " "because it's what you don't know that can hurt you," and "It might just save you from an embarrassing situation."

Transgendered people have long been the subject of humor, and there is nothing wrong with that. Along with all the daily torment they must endure, there are indeed priceless moments of humor. However, NAI's advertisement clearly crosses the line from humor to hatred and ignorance by suggesting that transsexuals are out to dupe unsuspecting men, thereby causing them "hurt," "a problem," or "an embarrassing situation." It clearly portrays transsexuals as predators and their partners as victims, and it conveys the message that a marriages between a transsexual woman and a man are somehow improper.

Imagine if the message on the note read, "She's a Jew!" The implication, of course, would be that the groom has been tricked by a clever Jewish woman posing as a Gentile and that the he must be warned, so as to save him from making the embarrassing mistake of marrying this terrible person. The only people who would not call for heads to roll would be the "Aryan" supremacists.

How is the ad about transsexuals any different? Contrary to the message of NAI's ad campaign, transsexuals are worthwhile and loving human beings, just like everybody else. Normal, everyday people knowingly date them, fall in love with them, and, yes, often marry them. Indeed, they are remarkably intelligent and talented people with unusual strength of character -- probably the most highly educated group of people that one could identify -- a group in which doctoral degrees are almost commonplace.

Transsexuals have no more interest in entering into deceptive relationships than anyone else. If anything, they value truth and honesty far more than most people, usually having sacrificed almost everything (e.g. family, friends, money, dignity, social status, career, civil rights, and personal safety) in order to be true to themselves.

Besides being hateful, woefully ignorant, and insulting, NAI's ad campaign hurts real people in real ways. Transsexuals are without question the most relentlessly persecuted people in society. There is nothing they would like more than to be left alone to lead normal lives, but society will not let them. Anything and everything becomes an issue or an obstacle -- everything from cashing a check to using the toilet to driving one's car to keeping one's job to obtaining medical care to filing charges against one's attackers to having one's burial wishes observed. Not surprisingly, many transsexuals find life too painful to live, so it is no wonder that such a large percentage of the transsexual population is lost to suicide.

Every time ignorance is propagated by some company such as NAI, transsexuals have to contend with it. They must wince at it when they see it in PC Week. They must reply to the questions and comments of countless acquaintances -- over and over and over. They must deal with the prejudice and paranoia of those they wish to date. They must deal with the legal and political ramifications of thousands of cretins contacting their Congresspersons to demand that these abominations of humanity be herded into the sea.

Each of these problems is but a single drop of water on the forehead. None by itself is unbearable. However, when the water drops do not stop or even slow down for days, years, even decades, we call that "Chinese water torture." The water drops may be different, but the effect is the same.

Even though the ridicule and hate has recently reached epidemic proportions, especially following the grotesque torture and murder of a gentle young soul from Wyoming, I have faith that this virus can be conquered. This time the solution will not come from Network Associates or from a medical research lab. The solution lies within all of us. We must all learn to cast off the shackles of bigotry and to respect our fellow human beings, or else we are doomed to lead miserable lives of hatred and bitterness, those same dark human qualities that lie behind the computer virus that keeps Network Associates in business.

--Dr. Fox is a transsexual woman, neurobiologist, and Communications Director for the transgender/bisexual/lesbian/gay education and advocacy organization, It's Time, Ohio!

SITE MAP      Back to WRITING