Toni Braxton's - The Rainbow Times

• May 6, 2010 - May 19, 2010 • The Rainbow Times • www.therainbowtimesnews.comLet us work together for the good of allBy: Deja Nicole Greenlaw/ TRT ColumnistTrans Opinions & MoreIn the past week I have receivedmessages from two people whoappreciate my viewpoints. Onewas from a reader from Noho whowrote a Letter to the Editor in the lastTRT issue and the other was fromWillam Bella via a Facebook message.Willam is one of the actorswho plays one of the leading rolesin Ticked Off Trannies with Knives(TOTWK). I appreciated both gentlemen’ssupportive words and I’m gladthat I can connect with others outsideof the Trans community!Sadly though, both messagesmade me think of the divisivenessand infighting that there is in ourlarger LGBT community. The “T”element sometimes seems to be theantagonist in the community. Don’tget me wrong, being Tran is very difficultand we have many obstacles toovercome. I can see firsthand wherethe anger is present. Most of us Tshave been fighting our whole liveswith who we are and who societywants us to be. We have to endure allof the same situations that everyonein the LGBT community has plus weactually change our physical gendersand deal with our family, friends andcoworkers about this change. This is acontinually very difficult issue to dealwith and believe me; it is not for the weak!A few years ago, one of my electrologists(something that we Transwoman have to endure,painful and seemingly never ending hairremoval) was talking to me as she was stickingher needle into my pores and shooting currentsAsk a Transwoman: The reality of being trans, and how I killed Mac, part IIBy: Lorelei Erisis*/TRT ColumnistDear Lorelei,(Continued from April 15th issue)What is the best way for the friend of atransperson to express anger and resentmentat a transperson for “killing” the personthe transperson was before they started theirtransition?—Nora C.Wow. Taking a deep breath.Welcome friends (and Nora) to Part 2 of“Live Nude Lorelei.” This is the part franklythat I’ve been putting off, the part of thisquestion that delves most deeply into who theheck I think I am. I honestly can’t speak for alltranspeople or all of the friends of transpeopleon this one. But, I suspect based on my experienceof the commonalities of human nature,that this is an issue that almost all of us haveto deal with at some point, whether or not wehave someone in our lives that can put it thisclearly and succinctly.Honestly, this question blew me away theof electricity into my face. I was complainingabout a very vocal group of trans who wantedus to boycott one of the local LGBT bars. I remembersaying to her, “Why are they alwaysfighting? Why?” She said to me, “Deja, theyhave been fighting their whole lives livingwith being trans. Maybe they don’t know howto stop fighting.”I thought about her comment for a while andit did make sense and rang true with a lot of themembers of the T community. We are naturalfighters. We are born with a gender mismatchand we fight it. We don’t know what it is, itfrightens us and we fight it. Then we realizethat it is not going away and we fight it. Weknow from society that we are “supposed tobe” one way, yet we feel the other way. So, wefight it. When we finally come to terms withit then we fight society into accepting us andrespecting us. We expect society to acknowledgeus as our true gender and the fightingspirit is always there. Many times people don’tunderstand us, we confuse them or maybe theyjust plain forget how to address us and theymay refer to us as our birth gender. That makesus upset. Let’s face it, people make mistakesand use the wrong pronouns and “wham!” thefight in us surfaces! We must not lash out atour friends and allies. They will help us if welet them. If people make a mistake with pronounswe should politely and quietly tell themthat we would appreciate it if they refer to usas our true gender.I hate it when the Ts fight with the Ls andthe Gs—whether it’s boycotting an LGBT bar,protesting about TOTWK, being surly withlocal Ls and Gs about the Employment NonDiscrimination Act, ENDA, or just from themsimply from using the wrong pronouns withus. Yes, we can have issues and disagreementsfirst time I read it. The idea of “killing” the personI was before I fully came into my own as“Lorelei” is especially distressing, but not entirelyinaccurate. The person that I was in theworld, while not an honest expression of whoI really felt myself to be, was about as close asI could come to it. And, it was a fully fleshedoutperson for what it was. What I was.Here’s some full-disclosure that you will almostnever see from a transgender person. InformationI might add that is NOT okay to askunless it is offered. Before I was Lorelei, thefabulous entertainer/columnist/activist/pageantqueen that you know today, I presentedmyself to the world as a boy named Mac. ReverendMac, if I was feeling formal about it, andyes I am an ordained minister.“Mac” was not my legal name mind you; itwas a traditional Irish nickname that my parentsgave me when I was born. You still don’tget to know my soon-to-be-former legal name.I wasn’t especially crazy about it even thenand I’m looking to be rid of it now. That’s awhole other column though.The reason I’ve shared thiswith you is that “Mac” is theperson that I killed. “Mac” iswho I was and how I identifiedand as wonderful as hewas, he is gone now. There isno Mac, only Zool. (For thepop-culture-impaired that wasa “Ghostbusters” joke. –LE)I was not happy being a man,but I figured if I was going tohave to be one, I would be thebest man I could be. It nevercame naturally, but I’m a goodDeja Nicole Greenlawstudy of characterand an excellent actor.All told, I like tothink I was a prettygood guy. I waswell-dressed, polite,funny, intelligent,understanding and Ialways wore reallyfantastic shoes! Really,not so differentfrom whom I amnow. Except that itwas a character. Itwas boy-drag.about these thingsbut I think we needto be more civil indealing with thesematters. After all,this is a much largercommunity, theLGBT community,and we are all membersof it. We reallyshould be workingtogether to go afterour real foes who tryto deny us our rights.That’s where are anger and our fighting shouldgo! We shouldn’t be infighting and trying to bedivisive within our own community!Like most Ts, we have many gay and lesbianfriends. We support the gays and lesbians intheir struggles and we expect them to supportus in our struggles. This is what friends do. Weshould be helping each other, not fighting witheach other. We should not direct our anger tothose who have nothing to do with issues likethe T being dropped from ENDA. We shoulddirect it to the people who did that are inWashington, DC. The people from Northampton,Springfield, Boston or Hartford shouldn’tbe blamed! If you feel a need to address thisissue then I suggest a civil protest much likethe one I did, not once but twice, in 2004when I civilly protested HRC (Human RightsCampaign) right outside of their home officein DuPont Circle in Washington, DC. Weprotested for Transgender inclusion in ENDAand the Hate Crimes bill both times. Yes, I ama TransActivist! But, I am also a realist. Wemust not overreact especially when it comesto airing differences within the greater LGBTcommunity.Lorelei ErisisI’ve always prized honesty and for the mostpart, I was very open and honest about whom Iwas and what I thought even as Mac. I was almostcompulsively honest in fact. It got me intoa lot of trouble, especially in relationships.“Do you think I look fat in this?”“Yep.”“Are you attracted to other women?”“Sometimes.”“Are you now or have you ever been a memberof the Communist Party???”“Well, not actually a dues paying member,but …”You can see how this may have played out.Still, I was as honest as I could be. I think it’simportant. But I was lying to everyone aboutthe single most basic fact of my existence.That I was a woman.I’ve come to think that my “honesty” came inlarge part as a way of distracting people fromasking the one question I prayed they wouldnot. If I was so notoriously and publicly honest,why would anyone think that I was hidingIf we are offended by movies such as TOT-WK please let’s be civil with our disagreements.Please don’t rant and rave as some Tsdid on the internet. Please keep the disagreementon a civil level.If we have an issue with an LGBT establishment,then approach the management of thatestablishment and ask for a meeting to talkabout it, don’t just boycott it without addressingthe issues first.If someone calls you “trannie,” I personallydon’t mind it, but if you don’t like it, pleasepolitely tell them that it makes you feel uncomfortableand then let it go.We need to all work together as an LGBTfamily. When disagreements arise (and theywill!) then we need to address these issues. Wereally are a team and we need to be together!There is still a lot of work for us to do and weneed to be together to do it. I have heard onseveral occasions that some transpeople goas far as to say that we don’t need the gaysor the lesbians—that we can do it ourselves. Isay that we do need the gays and the lesbians!These are our friends and allies and we need towork with them!To the non-T members of our greater LGBTcommunity, when we, as Ts, disagree with youplease keep in mind the fighting spirit, whichresides within us and has been there sincebirth. Sometimes it just comes out and we mayoverreact. We must get past that. We need towork together for the better for us all! I wantall of us to move on and to fight for all of ourrights together. I am hoping that our T communitywill tone down the way that we presentour internal differences, work them out peacefullyand work together for the good of all!something?And here is where I comeback to the originalquestion.How can I possibly expect you, Nora, to notbe angry at me? To not be harboring all kindsof resentment towards me, when I have beenlying to you and everyone else for all theseyears?When we shared such intimate moments andclosely held secrets with each other in the understandingthat we were both being as honestand as open as was possible for two people tobe—and here I am saying that the person youknew, that you shared so much with was at theheart of it a lie.I fear sometimes that I did too good a jobof being the best man I could be. The mostcommon objection from my female friendswhen I announced my transition was that I wasthe one of the best men they knew and theyneeded me around to be an example for theirboyfriends/husbands/brothers.But, I went through with it anyway. I killedMac. And the only thing I can do is apologize.I’m sorry. I truly am. You have every right tobe angry and resentful. It is a perfectly naturalreaction.And so, on that dramatic note, I leave you‘til next time dear readers, when I will returnwith the third and final part of my answer tomy long-time friend Nora.R.I.P. Reverend MacSlainte!*Lorelei Erisis is Miss Trans New England2009 and she can be contacted at:loreleierisis@therainbowtimesmass.com.