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Hell hath no fury like a pissed-off tranny.
Hey, guys! Wanna see the transphobic shit that was printed in the Chronicle Herald?
He was specifically asked by one of the panelists not to write about the speakers, and, if he did so, to change the names. And then to not only ignore their express wishes, but to spew bigoted garbage like that? I call bullshit.
So I wrote him a letter:
You canyell at email Duffy at pduffy@herald.ca, and the Chronicle Herald at letters@herald.ca.
Dude lives in Halifax, for fuck's sake. The whole queer community there is gonna be on him like a ton of (immaculately groomed) bricks.
ETA: Duffy just emailed me back.
Oh, not Herald Policy? That makes it okay, then!
Way to not address... well, fucking ANYTHING, ya douchetool.
"Panellists Want Change, But Not for Others"
- Peter Duffy
I'M MISTAKEN. Or am I? One thing's for sure, I'm definitely confused. From my seat in the audience, what I think I am seeing is two young males and two females on the stage. There they are, pleasant-looking people in their late teens and early 20s, sitting at a long table, waiting for everyone to settle. My initial impression is that those at either end of the table - one with long dark hair, one with shoulder-length blonde tresses - are females while the other two panelists are male. But looks are deceiving, as I'm about to discover in rather graphic, rather uncomfortable detail.
I'm in Pictou, come to attend a one-day conference called Let's Talk Sex. The auditorium is heaving with high school students, teachers and health-care professionals. Sex is the name of the game and everyone's here not just to gain insights onto the mental, emotional and physical aspects of youth sexuality, but also to try to separate fact from fiction when it comes to "the deed" itself. Generating the biggest buzz of all is the anticipated appearance of none other than Sue Johanson, the Ontario grandmother who has become famous as an ask-me-anything media sexolgist. Sue will be this afternoon's keynote speaker.
Right now, however, it's time for the youth panel featuring those four young people I was mentioning; namely, Toby, Sam, Patrick, and Ashley. [Surnames omitted and first names changed, but not by Peter Duffy.]
It turns out only Toby is the gender I guessed - a heterosexual woman. The other three are young people in turmoil.
Ashley, the one that I thought was a female, is actually a male who's becoming female, or "transgendering," as it's known. Ashley announces he prefers to be addressed as "she," which has me scratching my head. A he who's a she? What pronoun will I use in my story to avoid confusion? After a moment's hesitation, I shrug. If it's she that he wants, it's she he gets.
Ashley describes herself as a transgendered bisexual with leanings toward lesbians and talks at length about the problems of coexisting with a hostile world. "Looks say it all," she observes. "I used to flip people off, go home and cry. Not now. Now I don't care as much." At one point, she tells us, it was so difficult that she almost committed suicide.
Then comes what, for me, is the most discomforting part on Ashley's story - hearing about the physical torture involved in becoming female. She mentions something called "facial feminization." It involves surgeons shaving, actually shaving, bones in her face, to make them more feminine. She mentions surgery on her voice box to achieve a higher-pitch. She mentions breast augmentation.
The thought of all this mutilation makes me queasy. This is truly the stuff of nightmares. I'm still squirming as the microphone passes down the line to Patrick, the next panelist. Patrick is a female who's becoming a male and I sink in my seat, bracing for the horror to come. "I want validity," Patrick declares. "I'm a man and I'm going to live my life as a man." The transgendered youth tells us he's known he was male ever since he was five, some 15 years ago. "I wasn't attracted to men," he relates, "I was envious of them!"
At the age of 18, he told his mother and his friends of his decision to become a man. He says he cut his hair short and began to bind his breasts flat. Now he's moving towards hormone therapy and surgery, including breast removal. I hear this and feel positively ill. How can these young people do this to themselves? Patrick, however, is smiling. "I'm so much happier then I have been in a long time," he tells the audience, to great applause.
There's applause, too, for Sam, the last of the gender-challenged speakers. Sam's a young homosexual and, as with the other two panelists, his life hasn't been easy. "It was hard going through school," he says, "because of the names and stereotypes." It was all very painful, he says, painful and demeaning. "I'd go home and ask myself, 'Am I good enough? Should I change?' "
He talks about how hard it was trying to balance the person he knew himself to be with the one that would bring him less grief from others. In the end, he stopped trying. Never try and change yourself to please others, he urges. The auditorium erupts in applause.
Here in the back row, how ever, I'm numb. Those disturbing images of mutilation are still stuck in my mind.
And suddenly, I feel really sad for many of today's young people.
He was specifically asked by one of the panelists not to write about the speakers, and, if he did so, to change the names. And then to not only ignore their express wishes, but to spew bigoted garbage like that? I call bullshit.
So I wrote him a letter:
Mr. Duffy:
I read your piece in the Chronicle Herald with considerable disgust. However, I was not disgusted by transgendered youth who "mutilate their bodies," but at your bigoted misrepresentation of the transitioning process. As one of those gender-bending "young people" you feel such pity for, I found your tone rude and condescending at the very best (and, at worst, hateful). Transitioning is an intensely personal and transformative experience, and transgendered youth hardly need another media voice decrying what is, for us, a remarkable rite of passage into a grotesque horror story. Moreover, considering one of the panelists specifically requested that you NOT print the story, your decision to write and run the piece goes beyond ill-advised to totally unethical.
Our lives are made into horrific parodies enough as it is- we really don't need your "help," and we really, REALLY don't need your patronizing, transphobic double-speak.
- Gerald Kenny
You can
Dude lives in Halifax, for fuck's sake. The whole queer community there is gonna be on him like a ton of (immaculately groomed) bricks.
ETA: Duffy just emailed me back.
Dear Gerald.
Thank you for taking the time to write.
Appreciate your input.
And just to set the record straight, no, one of the panellists didn't ask for the story not to run. He asked to see it first, and I replied, respectfully, that isn't Herald policy.
Most sincerely,
Peter Duffy
Oh, not Herald Policy? That makes it okay, then!
Way to not address... well, fucking ANYTHING, ya douchetool.
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He fails at everything.
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Also, when white kids get abducted, you see their faces everywhere! Horrible! Why can't the news media just ignore the white kids like they do the kidnapped kids of color? I don't want my sitcom full of affluent, white, middle class straight people to be interrupted by depressing things like white kids being kidnapped.
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It's not like things like rape and murder and beatings happen to people of color because of their race anymore anyways. I mean seriously, they have like, affirmative action in the states. Now that's racist against white people! They are oppressing us and our children and keeping us down!