On Transgender divisions and MOBAs.
So here I am. Enjoying a peaceful sick day and I decide to finally start writing again. It feels like all of us are writers now. Like you can’t google anything even remotely related to “Transgender” without being directed to some pretty girl’s video blog or HRT timeline. God, don’t even get me started on our reddit presence...Holy Shit. Where was I? Yeah, this is first time that I have written something of worth in a while. So. Here I go.
How many of us are allowed to be “brave”? Is it the young girls that come out early and come out swinging; totally dodging some of the struggles that the generations before them contended and still contend with? The older women that come out to children and sometimes even grandchildren expecting explanations? What about me? Seems that I am called by some, a crossdresser. Those people were fucking morons, but putting that aside, they do bring a rather large elephant into view. Who is allowed to be trans? Who is allowed to be brave? At work, I am Carlos, the probably bisexual who acts a lot younger than he is and always forgets shit. Everywhere else I am Kara. Sometimes I go out in guy mode outside of work just to make things easy. When I am around the house I don’t bother to put on makeup to hide my beard shadow. I am Kara but I look like carlos a lot. I don’t spend much time around family so the ones that know, just deal with it and I just show up once and awhile as Carlos and everyone goes home disappointed. I have heard everything ranging from “They think that you are a crossdresser” to “I knew you were a girl from the moment that I saw you” So I take everything in stride. The thing is, I come from a long, distinguished line of abused abusers. By the time I got to these assholes claiming that I was not “Trans” enough, I had just gotten to the point of being happy about not being “black” enough. So yeah, transmisogyny is a cold fish slapping against a dead nerve. Am I trans? We are kind of in our “run from the cops and don’t look white people in the eyes” point in our history. We are dying at an insane rate and getting just enough visibility to piss everyone else off. While we all admire all of the stokely carmichaels of the trans world being out and proud; we must not forget all of us out there who just get by how we can, when we can. Those of us not ready to lose the house. Or the kids. Or our lives. As we are all doting over the darlings of our community, charming as they are, try to keep your minds open to all of the trans narratives that we have yet to hear since the internet loosened the media’s grip on acceptable stories of transness. Remember that it has not been a full 10 years since it was the rest of the world telling us if we were trans enough. Don’t do the same shit to each other.
Now on to games...
Level 20 in League of Legends, just 10 more levels till I MATTER!!!1. I am sure that it serves a purpose but damn it sucks being irrelevant. I am trying to care about E-Sports so I am going to keep up with Team MRN since I recognize Marn from the Fighting game Community and it will be interesting to see if this branding works out better for him now than it did the first time he tried it. Not sure about Dota 2. I am having a hard enough time just getting around the map. Yep, I’m a casual. I’m sorry. You know what’s not Casual? Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed! This is the best GAME that I have played in a long while. This is the game that we all wanted Mario Kart to grow into. Punishing track mechanics that reward track and racer knowledge. The races are busy and hectic. It is almost as much F-Zero as it is Mario Kart. Trying to play my Vita more. I am really hoping that the Killzone game is awesome. The whole reason that I got excited about a handheld in the first place was that I could play console quality shooters on the go. Metroid Prime Hunters showed me that touchpad control just was not for me. Lastly, PLEASE LET THE 3DS VERSION OF DKCR BE GIMMICK FREE! Donkey Kong Country on the wii made me sell the damn thing. No Classic controller support? Forced waggle?. Yeah, if they force the touch screen on you, that will be it for me with Nintendo. I will buy a 3DS if I can ignore the damn stylus.
And there ends the ramblings of a 30 year old jaded, transgendered gamer. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go and beat Spec Ops: The Line and find out once and for all if I am supposed to walk away hating America or myself.