Who has it Worse? – A Rant

I don’t normally like to rant.  I’m trying to improve the world–to add to it, in other words, and not to increase the darkness already so widespread. And ranting never adds light.

But I can’t hold my tongue today.  I was reading a comment thread on the wall of one of the FB groups to which I belong–a group trying to make things better and easier for trans people worldwide.  The original post was about something unimportant to this rant.  The comment thread, however, took a turn that made me really pissed.

The gist of it was whether FtM trans men have it worse that MtF trans women, in terms of employment, discrimination, etc. It quickly degenerated into “We have it worse because of this, you don’t understand what we have to go through”, etc. Here’s what I had to say:

Understanding of a group–any group–is very difficult to achieve. Even WITHIN the trans community, there is so much misunderstanding, so much “I have it worse than you do because of x, y, and z”, “I’m better than you because I x, y, and z”.

You know what this proves? That we’re human. EVERY other group, every other community in the world does this.

One thing we CANNOT afford to do–if we are to present our trans community as united or worthwhile, is show the world we’re just as messed up as the rest of it is. We HAVE to be better than that, or we will NEVER get the one thing we ALL want–acceptance.

I’m just an infant in this slice of population–I haven’t been burned like many of you have. I haven’t seen so-and-so gain acceptance while bashing such-and-such. Not first hand. But I have seen a lot of self-pity and blame and lashing out to others WITHIN OUR OWN COMMUNITY that it makes me sad for ever finding my own acceptance.

MTF, FTM…everyone has it good, everyone has it bad. Does it matter that in case X FTM has it worse, or in case Z MTF has these obstacles to overcome? No matter who you are or what group you’re in, someone has it better than you, and someone has it worse. Cheer those who have it better, support those who have it worse. Get out of your own heads long enough to see the bigger picture.

As I said, I’m just an infant here. I’ve been “out” less than a year…how can I hope to EVER find acceptance in then world if I seriously doubt I’ll find acceptance even in my small segment of the trans community?

Okay, rant off. I just think it’s sad that we as a community seem at times to be even more selfish and self-centered and self-pitying than just about everyone else in the world.

EVERYONE has obstacles and blocks to overcome or break through. Ours always are worse to us than everyone else’s are to them. Knock off the self-pity and work on removing your own obstacles, then–oh, here’s a wild thought!–help someone else overcome theirs.

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