Advice on how to respond to this?

I feel a bit awkward posting in here, but something has come up that I would really appreciate some advice on, and this seemed the obvious place to ask so I hope it's OK.

A friend of mine on social media has made a post that has shocked me to the core and I really don't want to leave it unchallenged. The real shock has been who posted it, someone I knew to be LGB (and I had assumed T) friendly. I've been stewing on it all day and have now worded a reply and I wanted to run it past you. It's not an area I know a lot about so have been struggling a bit with using the right words and checking definitions and I'm worried it could seem patronising or something. I hope not. I feel a bit better because I've just noticed someone else has already posted a "WTF ???" response to them.

They also used a term that I quote in my reply "gender thief". I had never heard it before and don't know if it's something they have just come up with or a known term? I want to be able to challenge them more on it but have no idea where they got it from.

As I said it's a real eye opener. This person has actually called people out publicly for casual homophobia and sexism before, and are a genuinely empathetic and caring person. But the words they used - I won't repeat it, but it was so disrespectful of Conchita Wurst personally, and offensive to transsexuals generally, and then concluded with this "gender thief" thing.

I also want to say - I include references to esoteric/spiritual beliefs in my reply to them, because this is their belief system so I'm challenging them on their own ground. I did think about cutting those sections before I posted here, but I thought that broke the flow a bit. Just skim those 2 "esoteric" paragraphs if it doesn't sit right!

Here it is, my reply. Any feed back or corrections/suggestions will be greatly appreciated:


Firstly, definitions. Tom Neuwirth, the man who created Conchita Wurst, is not about to chop anything off or have implants because he is a gay MAN and NOT transsexual. Drag is when either a man or a woman cross dresses as a performance: Tom Neuwirth is a drag artist, and Conchita Wurst his alter ego.

Drag is very different to transsexual. Transsexual people identify with the opposite gender to what they were assigned at birth. Drag tends to be flamboyant and obvious because it’s a performance. For trans people it’s who they are, and wish to be accepted as the gender they identify with. This is not a performance but an identity.

If you don’t like drag as a form of entertainment that’s fine, we all have preferences. If you find it offensive (really?) I don’t understand why, but each to their own.

But I really want to focus on transsexual/transgender if that’s what the issue is. Even if it isn’t, this comes across as very disrespectful not only to Tom Neuwirth, but to trans people, and will be a really painful and distressing read to anyone struggling with their gender identity who happens to see it. Which is why I can’t let it go.

Gender is so much more complicated than male and female. Many indigenous cultures recognise up to 6 genders for a start. There are also many people who are intersex (born chromosomally female with male genitals, or male with female) or hermaphrodite (about 1 in 100 babies are born with some degree of hermaphrodism – physical characteristics from both sexes). Where do these people fit on the ‘gender theft’ scale? Does a genetically female individual who was born with a penis automatically get told they can have whatever surgery they want, but will never be female? Why exactly? And are they allowed to be female if they have ovaries? Or what if they have female genitals and no ovaries? What about when someone born with a penis develops breasts? What about the other way around?
Or would a female drag artist be a ‘gender thief’ for wearing a suit? What about if a woman cuts her hair short and wears trousers as these are traditionally ‘male’ in western society? Is she a gender thief too?
Men aren’t just male and women just female; there are infinite combinations and variations.

You were born with the genitalia appropriate to your genetic gender and identity. But imagine for a moment you are still you in every particular, in identity and feelings, that you saw yourself in your imagination only as female, saw a female body, or saw yourself marrying and giving birth, from your earliest pre school memories. But due to a hormonal blip in utero you were born with male genitals. You will have been judged, coerced, forced to ‘cross dress’ all your life as a gender that was alien to you, been revolted by your own body, been bullied, rejected, invalidated, had to fight denial and psychologically damaging attempts at ‘curing’ you.
Then a woman turns round and tells you: “do what you like but you will never be female, I will never recognise you as female and if you ever attempt to indentify as female you are a thief.”

And esoterically, the SOUL is subject to polarity and is therefore either fundamentally male or female. There are male souls in female bodies, female souls in male bodies. Where do you draw the line? A person indentifying as female in a female body could in fact be a male soul who then lectures a female soul who identifies as female but was born with a penis on how they have no right to claim a female identity. Or vice versa.
Not even to mention reincarnation and how often we move between different genders.
We are meant to experience everything, every possible expression of human life, gender, sexuality. That means straight, gay, bisexual, asexual, intersex, transgender – we’ve all been there. There are no black and white lines separating out different genders and sexualities. We are so much more than our physical bodies, why define someone by something so limited? Are you defined purely by your genitals?

We have come such a long way in acceptance of sexuality just in our lifetimes in this country. Things like this remind me how much further gender identity has to go even to draw level with that. I read that and feel the same as if someone had written:
“Gay marriage – no way. You can call it a ‘marriage’ all you want, but it will never be REAL unless it’s a man and a woman. Call it what you want it’s not REAL love”.
In the same way that is a total invalidation of same sex love, making it inferior, this is a total invalidation of gender identity, and equally as hurtful and damaging to any intersex/transgender person reading it.

There is a reason depression, anxiety, self harm, dysmorphia and suicide are so high in the trans community, and it is because so much of society invalidates what they are and how they experience the world. That invalidation, including things as apparently innocuous as refusing to use appropriate pronouns, can be more devastating to their mental health and self worth than outright abuse.
It’s not the hate-fuelled bigots that destroy health and hope for these people. It’s every time a woman or man turns their back and says:
“This is my gender, you’re not having it”

Just the most basic rule: don’t judge. The universe is complex beyond our physical brain’s ability to understand.
All we can do is the even more fundamental rule: love.
Not conditionally, not with caveats. Transgender people are some of the most alienated, judged and abused people in our society. We are humanity, walking the path together, defining and understanding ourselves. They do not need or deserve a lecture, but acceptance, respect, validation and a hand to hold. And that is our job, end of story.

 

Thanks for all your responses, I'm really grateful for the validation and reassurance that I got it right

I posted my response. I have no response from the original poster yet, but it's not been there long, so I'll give them time to process what I said. I'm glad that several others have already posted, both bewilderment (like I say, understandable because they really are the last person anyone would expect to come out with something like this) to more straightforward calling them out on it. It's also reassuring for me to know that my friends are not all harbouring unexpected prejudices but genuinely the type of people I assumed they were - everyone who has responded are straight and (cis gendered?), and no one has supported them.

I gave it a more gentle personal opening because I believe that they will be genuinely upset if they realise how hurtful and unacceptable what they said was. I really hope it will bring them up short against something they may never have analysed or thought about before and help change their perspective.