On losing a friend…

I lost a friend of almost four years last night. We'd been engaged in a heated debate on Twitter about trans assaults and suicides when he decided to say that I had betrayed my people by leaving the US and abandoning the fight. Then, I guess deciding that wasn't a real wound, he said my writing is pro pedophile.

So people, when I say "you" in this, I'm not talking to you. Please understand that I am talking to the friend who ended our friendship of almost four years so he could win an argument.

Dude, I would rather be associated with a pedophile than I would with you. You think you were putting me in my place by cutting me down, but you've just revealed that you don't know anything about me in spite of all those years I was talking to you. I heard you when you talked about your illness, about your abuse. I hurt for you and your problems. But I don't think you really listened to me, or you wouldn't have made the comments that you did.

Or maybe you would, and you were just looking for a way to win points in the debate that you were wrong about. We have an epidemic of hate attacking us from the moral majority already, but instead of attacking the hate groups, you attacked me as an ingrate. Then, you didn't just demean me by saying I abandoned my own people. You had to rub salt in the wound by saying something even meaner.

And now, you're free to wander away and complain about how mean I am, how I can't appreciate your help, even though you've done less than nothing as support. Did you write letters endorsing ENDA? Did you talk to gays who were against trans inclusion to try and change their minds about betraying us? Did you send donations to try in vain to get Juin Baize into a private school? Have you had to choose between paying an electric bill and sending a few hundred to a starving ally in Texas? Have you donated to the funds of murdered trans women, spoken publicly about our plight, or spent nights counseling abuse victims in private? Do you have any idea of how involved in this fight against ALL bullying and abuse I am?

No, of course you don't, because I don't talk about the work I do as an advocate. There's no point talking about it with you people anyway. Even when I said repeatedly, "We have a 40% suicide rate," you shrugged it off without acknowledging the number. If 40% of white men committed suicide, you'd be concerned. Less than 1% of white people have been mugged by black people in flash mobs, and that got media attention right away. But it's only 40% of trannies killing themselves in reaction to abuse and persecution, so we just don't matter. J, what number of us need to be committing suicide before you see that we desperately need a fraction of the national spotlight taken away from straight people and their financial woes? Or will you now at least admit that we will never get the spotlight off of straight white people and their first world problems? No, of course you won't. You'll tell me I abandoned the fight, and I'm pro pedophile.

Instead of acknowledging any of the numbers I presented, you told me to be grateful that straight people were being less prejudicial and oppressive than they used to be. And when I refused to show gratitude for people committing to discriminate 10% less, you cut me down to being a pedophile lover. You, who should know how my sexual history has left me scarred and feeling sub-human, reduced me to a sub-human position to make yourself feel better. But you don't care. You showed it with everything you said before ending our friendship, and that one sentence was the final nail in the coffin.

So please, go tell your privileged friends that I was being stupid and you had to put me in my place. I thought you had made an effort to see the real me, but on the last day of our friendship, you proved that you never cared enough to see me. Do you remember way back when you said that I was too wary about trusting people? Well you were wrong, and I was right to be wary of you. You were only a fair weather friend, happy to see me when I'm happy. But when I displeased you, you cut me loose with a broken heart in less than 140 characters. Good job.

And for what it's worth, I hope R and you both find treatments to help stabilize you. I don't hate you, but we are most certainly done. Sad thing is, I loved you, or I thought I did. Guess I was wrong again.