Saturday, September 3, 2011

The "T" in LGBT

So today I was thinking and talking to my newest friend Sidney and we started talking about how transgenders are pretty much invisible in the LGBT community.  They aren't really seen in books, rarely seen in movies.  They, or rather, we (I have to start owning who I am), are like the dirty little secret of the community.

Why?

I honestly have no theories on this matter.  No ideas for why this would be.  We are apparently not liked or loved by a lot of people within the community.  Maybe we're not fully understood?  Either way, I feel much as I did as a teenager when I couldn't find any interracial romance books with a black female and a white man as the main characters.  Like I don't exist.  Like who I am is so taboo, so unattractive that few will speak of it.

And yes, I know that now there are a lot of interracial M/F books out there with the main female character being black and the main male character being white, but you know what?  I've moved past that (Yeah, I did, so deal with it).  I have figured out who I am with the help of friends and doctors and soul searching and reading the book "Static" by L.A. Witt that had me shaking and sweating as I had a panic attack and "Hawk's Landing" that had me crying because I could see myself in BOTH books.  Now that I know who I am, now that I've embraced it, I want to see myself represented.

And I sort of feel bad because there are others out there who have been dealing with this for years and I'm the rookie, the newborn and I have come in whining and complaining wanting to know where are all of the transgender books and movies?  Where are we in the reality shows and the television shows?  Why aren't we on "The A-List: New York" on LogoTV?  (Yes, that is my current tv obsession)  Why is it when I go to publisher sites and author's websites and blogs that I only see four or maybe five books with a transgendered MC?

Where are we?  The idea of realizing that I'm once again invisible to a community is heartbreaking.  Because I'm not just a bigendered/transgendered female to male, I am also a black one and damn if that doesn't just screw me over even more.  When I was a teenager and I told my mother that there weren't any books with a black female and a white male who fall in love and were the main characters, she told me to write it.  While I know I can't talk to her about this dilemma, I still hear that same advice in my head: "If no one else is doing it, then you do it.  If you want to see more of those types of books, you're an amazing writer, you write it."

I don't just write stories and books though.  I write plays, tv shows, movies.  So I guess I'll have to start writing and filling in the gaps.

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