Note: I created Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls, the world’s first transgender academy, 22 years ago. Prior to that I interviewed people and wrote articles about all aspects of human sexuality including many people who self-identified as transvestites, transexuals, crossdressers, transgender, drag queens, shemales. A word in common usage was “tranny.”
Reality: The word “tranny” has its origins within trans culture and from people who themselves identified in some way as trans, or were the allies of trans people. These were the people who fought the real battles, who came out of the closet. They stood on the side of tolerance and freedom. These people are owed respect for their efforts and their courage.
Reality: The origin of the word “tranny” was not used as a pejorative. It has been turned into a pejorative mainly by people within the trans movement who choose to see it as one.
Reality: Censoring language censors history. The history for whom the word “tranny” was and is a unifying word and a step up. Turning “tranny” into a pejorative is an insult to those who stood for the rights of trans people to be seen and heard.
Reality: The real enemies of trans people did not use the word tranny because they did not acknowledge trans persons or trans culture. The enemies of trans people used and still use words like “pervert.”
Reality: The word “tranny” is being used less and less even by those who once used it to self-identify. It is becoming out-dated, not because of the anger and divisiveness of the language police, but because of actions of those with the courage to claim they are not simply trans, but also women and men, or both, not the genders the outside world assigned them, but the genders they know from within. They are not a perversion of humanity, but humanity’s essence.
Reality: Humanity is messy and chaotic and can be dangerous. It is something all human beings share no matter how we identify. We need plenty of love, compassion, understanding, and unity–to get us through not only this moment in time, but those moments to come. For the times, they are a-changin’.
With thanks to the students of Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls and to Kate Bornstein, RuPaul, Mariette Pathy Allen, Annie Sprinkle, Calpurnia Adams, Jane County, Jamison Green, Johnny Science, Angie Extravaganza, Ariadne Kane, LaVerne Cox, Janet Mock, Diane Torr, Jill Monroe, and so many more, plus Bob Dylan…
Note: These thoughts will be included in a larger article soon to appear in the New York Observer.