Transposition

I admit I'm not particularly stylish as far as pop culture go, but I have never heard of RuPaul.
Having said that, I certainly wouldn't have a problem with a homosexual being held up as a role model, as long as they had done something to justify being held up as a role model. (What has this guy done?) My 7-month-old baby's godfather is a gay man. He's the person my husband and I would most trust to care for our daughter if something should happen to us because he's a kind, gentle, fair, loving person with ambitions and goals. His being gay is irrelevant.

For those who don't know who Rupaul is she has the #1 show on the Logo network and several hit songs and is The Super Model of the World...

Enjoy!

http://www.logotv.com/shows/rupauls_drag_race/season_1/series.jhtml

This is absolutley disgraceful... honestly my two biggest role models have always been RuPaul and Calpernia, the former more so when I was struggling with my identity, and Calpernia more so now that I have realized my path. But beyond that, RuPaul has never done a single thing to deserve to be on anyone's shit list, other that defy the misogynistic views of American society... sorry, Amrrcin society. And for those who don't know, RuPaul is an amazing drag queen who, against all odds and oppression, made a suitable living as a television talk show host, singer/songwriter (although his music is very gay/disco/dance and at times hard not to laugh through... it's charming really) and model. Honestly think Tyra but a drag queen in the 90s (actually, if you go on google, almost every pose RuPaul has ever done Tyra has copied down to the outfit location and pose)

This reaction is disgraceful on multiple levels. Not only is it shameful that Rupaul has been relegated to "sub-standard" status, but it's equally shameful that the same has been said about Dennis Rodman. Black History Month is about celebrating who we are as a people - a complete group; both a subset and an integral part of American culture; a classification of diverse individuals who share a specific range of skin color. It is not something that's meant to solely honor Black politicians, Black celebrities, or Black businessmen & businesswomen. It's meant to celebrate the myriad roles that we as Black people fulfill. In my humble opinion any Black person who a child identifies as a source of positive inspiration is acceptable. Including, OJ Simpson. The man is not the devil incarnate - he is a human being, capable of good & bad, intention & error. Unfortunately our society as a whole has not evolved enough to make appropriate distinctions in this regard. Children should be taught the ability to separate a person from their actions; to see that people are complex beings who are never absolutely bad or absolutely good. As a Black woman who is married to a Black man; the product of a Black man & woman; the mother of a Black child - my hope for my daughter's participation in Black History month is that she learns the value of every person being themselves, whether they are a cultural icon or a housekeeper. We are all valuable, we are all capable of great things, and there hasn't been a person on the face of this earth who hasn't done some good for someone or something - no matter what unthinkables they may have also been responsible for. Instead of telling our children what and how to think, educators ought to increase focus on what and how our children ARE thinking. Give them the benefit of having functioning brains and understand that if children are inspired by Rupaul, Dennis Rodman, and yes, even OJ Simpson - there exists a potential for good; it's our job to further the good, not exploit the bad. Rupaul and Dennis Rodman are both strong individuals, who exemplify individuality in an entertainment industry which is largely homogeneous. Both achieved a level of "icon" status which is generally reserved for those who operate within narrow areas of what is acceptable vs. what is unacceptable. They surpassed the confines of their respective buckets of entertainment talent, crossing into the even larger bucket of popular culture - which engulfs lesser genres and encompasses more than just one major demographic of appeal. As a human being - I have been inspired by them . It will never cease to amaze me how much some people thrive off of divisiveness and attempt to elevate their relative status by pushing others down! This just makes superstars like Rupaul & Dennis Rodman shine all the more because they reached their rank by being who they were born to be, not by lashing out against everyone around them!!

Ru is gift and no matter what the man does he does it with an old world class. In drag or out he is a eloquent human being and an American treasure. I like Dennis Rodman because he also broke gender barriers himself, so I have no qualms about his inclusion but . . . . OJ is an American tragedy. It makes no sense.

Darlie

P.S. And 3 cheers for Psychology Today for adding Calpernia Addams as a writer. No is one is quite as eloquent or insightful. She is also one of the people we like most in this world.

I found out about this controversy the other day and my first reaction was "what the hell is wrong with RuPaul"? In a parade where Michael Jackson's portrait was also seen without controversy I'm almost certain that Rupaul was considered "inappropriate" thanks to good ole fashioned homophobia. Rupaul is indeed one of the most recognizable and respectable figures in the LGBT community and for the NAACP, of all people, to say that his inclusion is inappropriate sets civil rights in the country backwards, not forwards.

Google searching this to see other articles on this subject had me ready to pull out my hair because nobody was asking question regarding Rupaul. It was very refreshing to come across an article that actually talks about the worst offense with this whole issue. Thank you ms. Addams for the very wonderful op-ed piece on this subject.

Hi Callie and all,

The way I look at this is from an adrenaline perspective. Fight, flight or freeze. You are a heterosexual parent and you find out your child may be leaning towards transgender,gay, bisexual, lesbian lifestyle.You cant believe it is happening, you think they are warped. You as a parent can take several positions, you fight/support it because you have an unrequited love for them, you engage flight because you will be embarassed somehow and are self centered and selfish or you freeze and do nothing, you do not acknowledge anything.

So which is right ? It seems that a parent would stay with anything there children are. Your child is super outgoing, do you suppress that ? That could be DIFFERENT than what you are, yes ? Your child is shy, you say to your self why is she/he shy, I am not . Somehow we have to change that, but you can not. AN individual is an individual, Moms and Dads need to understand that. Most parents want their children to be happy and less burdened with lifes pressures than they were.

Many young people due to the internet are pretty savvy relative to whats going on in the world and get to share their feelings and the position they are in. As a 70's child we did not have that opportunity. Looking up to people is important, So many of us had the movies to look to and maybe TIME and LIFE magazine. Everything was "sterilized" as even the word "Hell" was frowned upon. So some of us took to the library or other means of understanding our selves.

So why does RuPaul bother anyone ? What has RuPaul done? Nothing that I can think of.

She is an enertainer and a fabulous one. Because I am caucasian I think about how the black community may perceive OJ. There are many out there that think OJ is innocent. He was one of the first new generation of super stars for the community to rally around and be proud of in his early years as a professional athlete, then thats it. So to many of his supporters he is a winner. Many of us though beleive he was the murderer of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. What if ALbert Einstein later murdered someone, I guess us whites would think of him as a genius with a decisive mental problem. Would we hail him as a person to look up to, probably yes except for the act he commited, which showed his human weakness. Would I want him as a role model for my child ? NO!

So why even put a potentially guilty person that was in a murder trial in the same category with entertainer RuPaul? Totally screwed up world.

Tom from Buffalo

For your information, I coalesced out of glitter and unicorn tears!

Thanks for the post. RuPaul is the only one I like out of the whole bunch.

I kind of find RuPaul's drag to be a kind of insulting parody of both women and of transwomen.

I am an "intersexxed person for whom it is most appropriate to live as a female".... which is how I disassociate myself from "trans-land" as much as possible.

You gotta be kind of obtuse to not recognize drag as a male put down of women. It is an insulting parody consisting of clownlike exxageration of supposed female characteristics.

And you gotta be kind of obtuse to not know it is a ridiculous embarrassment when "transwomen" and drag performers are somehow equated.

It is to say that transwomen are just ultra-clever, ultimately male, drag artists who "took it all the way".

The trans community went to hell in a handbasket at the end of the 1990's and early 2000's. Before that.. it was a world of honest exploration of a very interesting and troubling life experience.

It has become a strange realm of cultlike dogma where every MtoF-ish "gender variant" type person has decided they are "really a transsexual"

This sea-change occurred right around when "The Man Who Would Be Queen" was published.. and, while it was insulting and off-the-mark in plenty of ways... it came way, way, way too close to the embarassing reality of the majority of members of the "trans-community"

I watched people work like mad to mouth the dogma and to twist their own life story to match the official 'Second Selves" dogma.. whether it fit them or not..

They sought the social refuge that having an "official medical diagnosis" offered them since their status as "mere fetishists" was considered one step lower than that of transsexual.... low as that social status might itself be.

An explosion of "public trannys" began running around desperate to be gawked upon as "devilishly clever sex changes" occurred.

Exhibitionism seemed a prominent feature of the public spokespersons.

The "Vagina Monologues" debacle was no small embarrassment and insult to "the real ones", as well/

It was a sad carnival sideshow spectacle that the participants were either fetishistically excited over.. or were too spaced-out to understand was a ridiculously, embarrassing and exploitative event.

Unfortunately.. a great many if not the majority of members of the "trans-community" are wholly adolescent male at the core of their soul and "get off on" being seen as a mixed gender being... and who seem turned on by a paradoxical quasi-heterosexual sense of being both genders at once.

One need only hover around the chatrooms and "support groups" in trans-land to see a giant percentage... well over 2/3s and probably more like 9/10s are wholly male souls at their core... albeit severely emotionally retarded pre-adolescent males.

A noisy and seemingly inexhaustible supply of spokes-people have made sure that there is now a non-human category into which to dump "transwomen"... and that category is "transwomen".

Before this explosion of public exhibitionism found its way to the popular media.... a "transwoman" had some hope of being taken as a "woman with a medical history".

Afterwards... "we" got demoted from "woman" to "freak with an official category".

My life has seen degradation after degradation... the more the "trans-liberationists" have worked at it.. the more "we" have been relegated to a non-woman category.

I kind of find RuPaul's drag to be a kind of insulting parody of both women and of transwomen.

I am an "intersexxed person for whom it is most appropriate to live as a female".... which is how I disassociate myself from "trans-land" as much as possible.

You gotta be kind of obtuse to not recognize drag as a male put down of women. It is an insulting parody consisting of clownlike exxageration of supposed female characteristics.

And you gotta be kind of obtuse to not know it is a ridiculous embarrassment when "transwomen" and drag performers are somehow equated.

It is to say that transwomen are just ultra-clever, ultimately male, drag artists who "took it all the way".

The trans community went to hell in a handbasket at the end of the 1990's and early 2000's. Before that.. it was a world of honest exploration of a very interesting and troubling life experience.

It has become a strange realm of cultlike dogma where every MtoF-ish "gender variant" type person has decided they are "really a transsexual"

This sea-change occurred right around when "The Man Who Would Be Queen" was published.. and, while it was insulting and off-the-mark in plenty of ways... it came way, way, way too close to the embarassing reality of the majority of members of the "trans-community"

I watched people work like mad to mouth the dogma and to twist their own life story to match the official 'Second Selves" dogma.. whether it fit them or not..

They sought the social refuge that having an "official medical diagnosis" offered them since their status as "mere fetishists" was considered one step lower than that of transsexual.... low as that social status might itself be.

An explosion of "public trannys" began running around desperate to be gawked upon as "devilishly clever sex changes" occurred.

Exhibitionism seemed a prominent feature of the public spokespersons.

The "Vagina Monologues" debacle was no small embarrassment and insult to "the real ones", as well/

It was a sad carnival sideshow spectacle that the participants were either fetishistically excited over.. or were too spaced-out to understand was a ridiculously, embarrassing and exploitative event.

Unfortunately.. a great many if not the majority of members of the "trans-community" are wholly adolescent male at the core of their soul and "get off on" being seen as a mixed gender being... and who seem turned on by a paradoxical quasi-heterosexual sense of being both genders at once.

One need only hover around the chatrooms and "support groups" in trans-land to see a giant percentage... well over 2/3s and probably more like 9/10s are wholly male souls at their core... albeit severely emotionally retarded pre-adolescent males.

A noisy and seemingly inexhaustible supply of spokes-people have made sure that there is now a non-human category into which to dump "transwomen"... and that category is "transwomen".

Before this explosion of public exhibitionism found its way to the popular media.... a "transwoman" had some hope of being taken as a "woman with a medical history".

Afterwards... "we" got demoted from "woman" to "freak with an official category".

My life has seen degradation after degradation... the more the "trans-liberationists" have worked at it.. the more "we" have been relegated to a non-woman category.

You might find it interesting to try to function outside the confines of a protective "trans-community" where unrealistic notions are reinforced and reinforced yet again.

The sad reality is this... if one is "inthe trans-community" one is probably a trans-anything but "transsexual" in the original meaning of the term..... not the meaning as it has morphed.

Precious few who find themselves "there" exhibit anything more than a simulation of a female mentality... and an ill-informed one that parallels the notions the pre-adolescent male exhibits on the subject of "adult women".

A good analogy is to think of an all boys boarding middle school, well outside of town in thew country... with a few women as teachers and staff... and occasional trips to town.

Then consider a play written by and starring those boys where the title and subject of the play is "The Life And Inner Lives Of Adult Women".

This is a good analogy of what we see in the trans-community.

And this "community" does a horrible disservice to at least two kinds of people. One type would be the ones who figure that they are "just like women" because they match the notions the boys have of women as exhibited in the play.

The other group would be those who truly are the "owners" of a female soul and who have been "misdiagnosed" as boys.

In their questioning times.. they will not recognize their mentality in this play that purports to demonstrate the inner lives and thoughts of adult women.

The "real ones" are hectored and harassed... just as you so ably demonstrate in your replies to me.... for failing to "live up to" the ideals presented in this boys' play about women.

The trans community gives the hose to both those who are actually dealing with the authentic female-soul/male-body problem.... and misleads the "immature boys in large male bodies who mistake for femininity their immaturity and erotically charged attraction to the symbols of womanhood".

The trans-community serves all of its members poorly... it is a disappointment and embarrassment and source of pain.. for the "real ones".... and it is a source of misinformation and mutually induced delusions in the adult-aged "immature boys" who make up the bulk of its members.

I read youjr posting.

the shame is not of "transsexuals" but of non-transsexuals impersonating them... or playing at it.

This is where your naivete and willingness to suspend objectivity in pursuit of a fantasy notions.... or in support of the fantasies of others who "pay" for your support by playing along with a whole dogma of "T-ness" that rarely applies to tbose who claim to embody it.

The plain objective fact is that precious few of those who "chase the operation" possess anything more than a shallow pretense of female personality.

They are embarrassed fetishists.. to whom the term autogynephilic does indeed apply in many, many cases.. who imagine that "the operation" will turn them both body AND soul into a woman.

They do not now possess.. nor will they ever possess the "soul of a woman"... they seek the change.. the thrill of the change... they seek to be changed from a boy into a woman.

And so the shame you propose is a falsehood.. it is embarrassment at the spectacle of goofballs who are exploited by a boutique industry who offers them services for high fees an which needs customers galore to stay in business.

We see these poor sad goofballs who frequent chatrooms and who are told by chatters how to convince "therapists" by reading "Second Selves" and who adjust their tales to fit the specs in pursuit of their fantasy.

Anyone who has spent any appreciable time in chats can see this occur.. it is as common as sunrise and sunset.

The "shame" is not in 'transsexuality" per se... it is in being associated with such a community where the clear majority are goofballs who do not now and never will posses the female soul they propose to buy.

The need to be publicly identified as transwomen tells us a great deal about the motives... "they" have no interest in "living as women" and a great interest in being seen as a mixed gender being who amazes and titilates the onlooker with their "amazing success at passing for a woman".

Actions speak louder than words.... and when the actions say "gotta be seen to be a gender freak".... that seems very likely to be the motive.

Sorry, honey, you are really screwing up "the real ones'.. which probably includes YOU.. by trapping yourself and the other "real ones" in this freakshow-bizarre category of "transwoman" rather than accepting yourself as a woman.

Identifying as a transwoman is a failure to fully transition psychologically... it means one has gone from male-socailly to transwoman and has not taken that third step to woman.

In "the olden days" there was no intermediate transwoman stop on the path,.... a stop that retards progress to being a woman socially.

The trans-community screws up "trasnwomen" by retarding their progress and trapping them in a non-woman place. They now need to take three social steps.. male to tranny to woman.

Few make it past tranny.... much to the detriment of the "real ones" who are lassoed and emotionally blackmailed into staying there for the amusement of the bulk of the trans-community who are simply excited spectators anxiously awaiting the spectacle of watching "the few real ones" or in watching the many wannabe's who can be termed "transsexual impersonators" and who constitute the bulk of the community.

Just as an aside...

Does it not occur to you that using the juvenile insult "TWAAT" imply more about your mentality than those upon whom you project a lot of supposition-based hatred?

Your "problem" is in being in denial of the plainly observable reality of the confused and baffled and truly dysfunctional community that claims itself to be the representative of all things transsexual.

Why not go the whole route and call the imaginary straw-women you invented Completely Un-Nice Trannies while you are inventing "ever so clever and insulting" acronyms?

While you seem to be a "real one" you have been held back by the ridiculously obvious juvenile-boy mentality that predominates in the "trans-community".

The way you defend the goofballs.. who hold you emotional hostage... reeks of the immature boy mentality that prevails in that world.

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