The Honesty Of Being Trans

There is an insightful read over at Questioning Transphobia (there actually are many insightful reads at Questioning Transphobia, which is why I read the blog) entitled holding on. This post talks about why author little light loves trans community and believes in its members -- and it has to do with the honesty of trans community members. An excerpt:

I want to suggest that we believe in us because we, as a people, are marked above all by our integrity.

There is not much you can say that describes all trans people. We are a broad and heterogeneous bunch. But you can say this: contrary to what the cheap punchlines and propagandists, the frat boys and the Womyn's Landers, the sketch comedians and the murder defendants would have you believe, we are not united in a grand campaign of deceit. We may not be magical, or magically virtuous, but we are, as a people, astonishingly honest.

You look at those numbers we've let outline us-the grief and the blood and the hurt, writ vast and cruel-and that is a truth. But I believe the greater truth is us: we looked at that world-that heartless world that tears us up and turns us away from every hearth-fire-and we looked at the option of deceiving it into letting us in, the option of pretending to be something we weren't in order to survive, and we said, to a person: no. No, we will not lie, even in the face of starvation, of isolation, of loss, of torture, of death. No, even to escape the risk of a world that will never treat us right, we will not lie. We will not pretend. Not today. Not again. At some point, if you are here, and reading this, and calling yourself a trans person or something like, no matter how many compromises and illusions you had to throw up in front of you to make it to today alive, you eventually said "no more." You refused to lie, even if only to yourself.

I believe in trans people because, above all, we know something about the great and terrible worth of the truth. Not because we have paid that price-it has hit some of us harder, and some of us have come through nearly unscathed. Not because whatever we have suffered has made us more special than any other person. Because each of us is a person who looked out at a very dangerous, risky landscape and chose, eventually, to travel through it because the truth mattered most. We know something about the truth. We know what it is worth. And we, as a people, surrounded by those who do not believe us and want us to pretend for them that they are right, chose that truth knowing it might cost us everything.

little light's assessment is one I find myself agreeing with, but hadn't really thought about before reading her essay. Even if you find yourself in disagreement with any or all of the essay, to me her entire essay at Questioning Transphobia should be a must read her intriguing concept. Her comparrison of trans people being incredibly honest verses trans people as deceptive and dishonest in their presentation to others, is well thought out, and the arguments for her postulations are compelling.

little light's essay reminds me of a Cesar Chavez quote on committment:

"...there has to be someone who is willing to do it, who is willing to take whatever risks are required. I don't think it can be done with money alone. The person has to be dedicated to the task. There has to be some other motivation."

Again, I believe this essay should be a must read -- I very highly recommend it.