Living Between the Lines

Sweet sensitive souls walk this Earth looking deeply upon everything they see and hear. If you take life too seriously you are bound to freak out far too much. And it brings us to a very valid question. When is an angry protest a good and worthy protest?

I used to get upset about everything. Eventually I’d get light headed with the level of frustration I felt. My blood pressure probably shot through the roof as I became numb in my limbs from the anger or frustration. It wasn’t long before I realized that it would be very difficult to fight a good fight feeling that upset. I might as well have been screaming and crying, because I was far too blinded by my rage to formulate a good response anyway.

Recently Rose McGowan was at a Barnes & Noble in Union Square promoting her memoir Brave when a transgender woman, Andi Dier, asked about allegedly controversial comments Rose made during RuPaul’s “What’s the Tee” Podcast.

https://youtu.be/L_Ko2895D2E

I watched this clip and the exchange between McGowan and Dier. I then dug deeper into the articles that stated Rose “Broke Down in a Transphobic Rage.” I watched the clip again and waited for the transphobic part to sink it. I watched the clip one more time just in case I was missing something and still did not hear transphobic rage. I saw a lot of rage from both parties, but could not put my finger on the transphobic part. I felt the same each time I watched it. I saw and heard Rose McGowan actually defend and include the male to female transgender community as a part of the cis female community. She called her “sister.” She said, “We are the same, my point was we are the same.”

At no time did I hear Rose McGowan say that Transgender women were not women. I am also an avid listener of the RuPaul podcast and remember listening to the Rose McGowan episode at least twice. While that was quite some time ago I don’t remember ever feeling slighted, upset, or confused by the things I heard. I do not remember Rose McGowan going on RuPaul’s podcast and stating that transgender women were not women and that they didn’t understand the fight of the female.

I do remember feeling that Rose was very angry and insistent, stubborn but reasonably so for her own story. RuPaul tried to impose a little of that “don’t take life too seriously” outlook upon the conversation. That’s it. That’s all. As I research this further it’s clear that people felt Rose McGowan implied on RuPaul’s podcast that transgender women have been through less than cis women.

I do not recall such an implication. I have heard several cis women throughout my life who definitely believe that transgender women do not belong being categorized as women. I have written about those people before. In most of these cases I recall specifically being upset by the words they had said. Perhaps something like, “Trans women are not women and are unfairly infiltrating the female gender.” How about, “They did not earn their vagina from birth and therefore are a cheap imitation.” Now these are statements you cannot confuse because there’s no mincing that kind of bullshit.

All I can see from so many people’s social justice fights these days is an extreme and angry reading between the lines. She implied. The audience whistled. She told her to shut up and that must have meant she didn’t matter. Dier was then escorted out by cis men who labeled her “sir.” (Totally uncalled for and especially ridiculous, but that was not Rose McGowan’s fault. The security personnel were being assholes escorting a pink-haired woman out of a store calling her “sir.” If this was a story about them it would work because I want to kick anyone if they see a person with breasts and decide a male pronoun is appropriate.)

I do not gather all of this up in my brain and take a side. What happens within me is a sadness about the entire situation. I see both sides angry, crying, screaming, and I feel the sadness from it. Rose said “we are the same.” We are the same! The transgender woman or man has struggled from cradle to grave with bias, hatred, and discrimination. The cis woman has struggled from cradle to grave with similar things. The gay man has too. The lesbian woman has as well. It’s a struggle. It’s painful. It’s horrible! We are all the same. We are all fighting our fight, a fight, no matter if it’s the same fight or not. We are all hurting.

This type of anger, confusion, and hurt is found in every fight. It’s the people who hate everything Donald Trump says no matter what he says. It’s the people who hated everything Barack Obama said no matter what he may have said. In the 21^st Century things seemingly are or they are not more than ever before. The gray area is fading into oblivion. If you believe one bad thing (a bad thing that is perceived to be bad by a group of people) then you are completely bad. You are blackballed. If you have done one bad thing then all of your good things are now invalid. Your entire catalog of work is thrown out of the library. Which falls within its own gray area because everyone has been good and bad as defined by others, depending on who those others may be.

If you happen to know or think otherwise about the Rose McGowan reaction and the RuPaul podcast, please leave a comment below and discuss further with our fellow TGF family. It would be fabulous to see what comments set you off and why you may believe Rose McGowan or Andi Dier are in the right or the wrong.

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Tags: andi dier, featured, feminism, rights, rose mcgowan, theartistd, Transgender

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion