Entries by AngryHarlot (4)

Saturday
Feb232013

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.

 

Wednesday
Aug152012

On closets, and other practical matters.

Got a new job.

It pays well and I seem to be pretty decent at it.

I have a new girlfriend willing to move mountains to make me happy.

Yet here I am, in the same spot I was two months ago trying to write a piece but feeling that it was too sullen and off topic to be posted on the site, or even to be of interest to anyone. Two months ago, I found myself in the midst of one of the most fruitful yet utterly devastating job searches in which I had ever engaged. Everyone wanted “Carlos”. Every prospect getting to the third interview me even turning some down because I knew that there was a better on out there. In the end I took a position doing something that my last “real” job passed me over for; six times.

Okay, this actually sounds pretty awesome. Let me back up a bit.

October 2011, my previous “real” job is coming to a head. After doing the same menial shit while taking on more responsibilities for the last five years. Seeing my Boss call customers and collect favors by hiring their kids and nephews to positions that I have been working towards, often in a week or two when it takes anyone else months to get into this company, it just started to grate. Being called “Carlos”. Being “Carlos”. Having the smallest bit of wiggle room afforded to my Gender expression by letting everyone know that I was Bi. It was just time to go.
I left on good terms. Told them that I was going back to school or something. Out of there, I felt like I had turned a corner. I was finally going to be myself at work. “Carlos” would just be the suit that I wore to my Mother’s (She knows, It’s just not worth the fucking trouble).

Then came six months of making less than I have ever in my life…

So here I am. Being good. “Being Carlos” Making more money that I ever have made before. A pretty decent amount considering I have no type of degree or special training and there is no manual labor involved.

I turned 30 this year

I honestly have no idea which half of my 20’s was worse. Coming to terms with who I was just made me see everything that I could not have. The funny thing about the closet is that you feel safe inside. Or at least I did. I was miserable but I didn’t exist. I couldn’t live life, but there was nothing out there for me. I swear, all of the people who harp on coming out of the closet never mention the goddamn the electric fence waiting five feet outside of the motherfucker. You go from never really seeing what you are missing, being totally in the dark with open eyes; to never being able to look away. God help you if you get lost in what you see. Maybe start to see yourself in it. Forget that the fence is there.

You will be reminded.

Some Good happened. I just can’t feel it. In dragging myself through for the sake of those that just can’t see me go; I lost something. I am still out, everywhere that is not my Job or my mother’s house. Just about everyone who loves me, calls me Kara; and considers me Kara. Things are not horrible. They just hurt and I can’t feel anything else.

I hate when people call me brave.

I guess that this is the part where I staple on some bullshit Tranny “Sailor Says” section so that this is not just a complete whine fest. That’s fine, while a major part of me is writing this just so I will be able to finally write something else, there can be purpose in this piece. Whipping Girl was the first book that ever offered me personal validation. In it, the writer mentions that one of the problems with mainstream trans-narratives is that they all tell the same story and that story seemed to be tailored more towards non-transpeople than anyone who actually needed to know that there was someone else out there like them self.

The closet really is the safest place for a lot of people’s “right now”. The Hood is not the place be an LGBT teen. The Hood is barely a place to safely be a human being. When homeless LGBT teens are the most at risk of any homeless youth, who would ever put pressure on a kid who has no control of their living conditions to be “out and proud”?

As for adults, we do make a decision and are not nearly as helpless. That being said, anyone who faults someone as smart as me and as hardworking as me and as resourceful as me for not accepting minimum wage in a sleazy area as a small price to pay for “pride”; can go fuck themselves.
No one ever talks about the people who hurt and keep moving. No one sees poor Gays and Lesbians who can’t afford to move somewhere safe. No one sees selfless LGBT people who care more about their families than they do themselves. No one sees transwomen that would fall too far outside of accepted female standards so fucking rigid that Fat women can barely fit inside without an asterisk. You won’t see these people posting transition timelines on Reddit or parading in their local Gay Ghetto declaring their Pride. They are just trying to keep a gun out of their fucking mouth.
I guess that if I could tell these people anything, it would be that “You exist as you are. You are doing the best that you possibly can with what you have and you are going about the hard work of living. You don’t owe anyone a damn thing and above all, stay safe.”

I promise. Next week I’ll talk about League of Legends or some shit.

Sunday
Apr222012

LGB(me)

I work for an LGBT bookstore/adult novelty shop in Atlanta. I was hired to work on their inventory management but also as a way to add representation for the trans community in a traditionally Gay area that is dominated by small, fit attractive young white males. There is nothing inherently wrong with pretty young twinks being everywhere. I like that they have an area to go to where they can be themselves with no need to feign hetero-normative behavior. The thing is that Atlanta is awesome because of it's diverse LGBT community. There is really only one bar in the city where noses are in the air and you will be ignored unless you look like you just walked off a photo shoot. All of the rest are super casual and welcoming. I've partied with the Bears at the Atlanta Eagle, the Country guys at the Heratic and even with the more “urban” set at Bulldogs. While I've gotten my share of ignorant questions, there has never been any malice thrown my way.
The thing that I find the most surprising about the community's attitude towards me is that Gay men have a bigger problem with my Gender expression than Lesbians have with my male physiology. I am extremely early in my transition. The only treatment that I have undergone is psychological counseling, so I am 100% physically male at the present. Now, this would make one, or at least me, think that a Gay man would be more interested in me than a Lesbian woman since how I view myself would be little more than background noise once the clothes come off but It seems that Gender Identity counts for quite a bit more than one would expect. Inversely, most Lesbians that I speak to view my body as little more than details. Yes, while things are by no means perfect for me, I am very blessed to live in a place like this. In fact, the more I write, the more mundane, I realize that my life must sound but like my previous post, I am giving an outline. There will be plenty of time later to go into my brushes with the BDSM community, my dating attempts or even the 21” forearm dildo that we sell at work (complete with hand). My entries will be a nice mix of Gaming rants, musical snobbery and real life bullshit. I'll try and avoid the sob stories of fucked up childhoods that are always plastered all over the testimonies of other Trannys as I really think that everyone gets to adulthood differently and what really matters is how you go to war with the army you got.

Later Peoples.

Tuesday
Apr172012

Hello...

I'm at a bit of a loss.

How do I introduce myself? The Geeky Tranny? The Black Transwoman? The non-threatening well-adjusted transperson that you totally should get to know and use as a token whenever you say something fucked up in front of a socially progressive group of people? So many choices. I could do the whole, “I am a person, take me as I am and fuck titles” thing but who would that help? I guess I'll just give you the cliff notes and let you come up with something. The only interests that I have had my entire life are video games and wrestling. If I ever had one of those “life as a movie” montages on my death-bed, the first 12 years would consist of Hulk Hogan and Sonic the Hedgehog. While wrestling kind of hit the back burner once I became responsible for my own cable bills/prayers/vitamins, my love of the vidya still goes strong.

At first, I was mainly into platformers and fighting games. That all changed when I got my Saturn and “Guardian Heroes”. “Holy Shit! Games can have stories!? After that, I was all RPGs, all of the time. Western or JRPG, did not matter. As a person who knew that they would never be able to be an actual person, it was the ultimate escape. I can only imagine how sad the scene may have looked to some. Locking myself in a dark bedroom in my teens. 70 hours for Xenogears, 30 hours for Parasite Eve, roughly 20 for Magic Knights Rayearth these were more experiences than games. It was like that until Final Fantasy X. After that things just got...different. That is when I really began to tackle the wrongness that felt in my own body. A lot of things happened between my early 20s and now (Turned 30 three days ago). I have no intention of turning this blog into a pity party. Just know that I filled a lot of time with WoW and the fighting game community. Nowadays, I spend most of my gaming time on the PC. Lots of Killing Floor and Skyrim with a dash of Hard Reset and Serious Sam 3 to keep things interesting.

And there you have my gaming roots, or at least an outline. This is by no means the depth of my geekdom nor does it even begin to scratch the surface of my life in general. I just wanted to present my story in a way that reminds all of us why our hobbies are so valuable. We never know what Twilight/True Blood/Call of Duty/(insert “low brow” fandom) is keeping a person's mind off of these days.

So be nice.