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Re: the reemergence of OrangeBlossom
(Anonymous)
2011-11-01 09:10 pm UTC (link)

The thing is, I've worked with trans people who have crossed the line into outright delusional before.

I always wonder, though, when talking about the complexities of gendering the body (and more specifically sexing the genitals; because, let's face it: that's generally what we mean when we talk about gendered bodies) how much of the "I've always been 100% male/female" line is delusion and how much is semantics. For instance, an explanation I've heard from several trans folks, particularly those who are well-read and into queer theory:

"I'm a man, and I have a vagina; therefore, this vagina is a man's vagina, and I was born with male genitals."

Andy, for all of the frankly stupid mistakes he's made, is a very smart person. I wouldn't be surprised if he was aware of an internalizing this kind of logic. (Though I guess that doesn't explain why he'd frequently bring up the subject of his penis in casual conversation.) Does that make him delusional? I'm not a psychologist. I have no idea.

Whatever the case, though, I think you're right about Andy's potential to be a good man. He always tried hard to be Capital-G Good (see: righteous freedom fighter, rescuer of women, defender of children), but any good that he really has done is so caught up in lies that someone's bound to get burned. (Just look at how his big plans for his domestic violence charity blew up once the wankers caught on.) If he could separate Being Good and Doing Good from Being Some Fantasized Ideal of a Man, the lies could vanish, and he could just live his life.

But maybe a fantasy life is more fun for now. I wonder how long that can last.

Re: the reemergence of OrangeBlossom
(Anonymous)
2011-11-01 09:26 pm UTC (link)

I also wonder how much of this has been exacerbated by Turimel. Her vendetta and insistence on Andy=Amy=ZOMGEVIL!!! can't have exactly been increasing the odds of him feeling like he could accept himself fully and openly. If anything, I think she's probably hugely added to his belief that only by utterly severing "Amy" can he ever be a real man or good person and that being trans is itself something horrible that would require him to tattoo "fyi, I was once a woman" on his forehead. If she has rendered any form of being himself so toxic, it can only push him deeper into hiding from her and her band as much as he's already hiding from himself.

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Re: the reemergence of OrangeBlossom
(Anonymous)
2011-11-02 12:20 am UTC (link)

The LGBTQI community can feed this sort of thinking too, funnily enough. There's this idea that if you aren't "out and proud" (insert showers of sparkling rainbow unicorns here) you're somehow bad and betraying all of them and maybe not even an authentic nonheteronormative that can be very strong in some of the areas that you think you're going to find the most tolerance. Which for a long time made me think that I either had to choose pretending to be a man or introducing myself as "Hi, I'm Jane, formerly John, I'm a transwoman, and here's every gory detail of my personal journey because it's my duty to represent and answer your questions about the trannies." I can really see how appealing it would be to just want to say "John? Who the fuck is John? I'm Jane, always have been, here's my whole (new, invented, very feminine) backstory, and I'm just a normal woman like you." I'll even admit to having faked PMS and carried tampons in my purse just to pass better, so the penis thing makes sense to me. Because to just be normal really is, in my experience, the whole Queer Agenda anyway.

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Re: the reemergence of OrangeBlossom
(Anonymous)
2011-11-02 07:55 am UTC (link)

There's this idea that if you aren't "out and proud" (insert showers of sparkling rainbow unicorns here) you're somehow bad and betraying all of them and

Log Cabin Republicans.

I can really see where this thinking comes from, especially with the amount of queer people that were closeted, and actively worked against LGBTQI people.

I am not saying it's a perfect approach but...it's kinda understandable why things turned out the way they did. Humanity sucks.

I can really see how appealing it would be to just want to say "John? Who the fuck is John? I'm Jane, always have been, here's my whole (new, invented, very feminine) backstory, and I'm just a normal woman like you."

This would be my dream, honestly. I wish I could do this.
Sadly, the gender policing going on doesn't allow this. Hell, if I'm beaten up if someone figures out I was born male, I'll probably be considered to be at fault for that, too. fuck transpanic!

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