We all have words that upset us when we are connected with
them. Those words insult us, they hurt us, they bring us down emotionally. In
some severe cases, those words can hurt so much they push people to actually
take their own lives. Those words are used as deliberate attacks. They are
meant to cause pain. When someone calls a homosexual or an African American by
a derogatory slur it is almost always done with the intention of 'getting a
rise' out of the recipient. It has been my observation that they are trying to
get the homosexual or the African American to respond violently so they then
have an excuse to return that violence and physically attack that which they
openly hate and secretly fear.
It seems that no race, creed, gender, orientation, etc. is
immune to these attacks. The derogatory terms that women are called in our
society is shameful and the words used against the LGBT community are often
horribly accusatory. Just because a man
falls madly in love with another man he is accused of being a child molester
and many many other despicable things. I
have never understood this. If you hate something, or are afraid of something,
why not just leave that something alone? Why do you have to try and destroy it?
Open hatred and secrete fears are things that transgender
individuals are faced with all of the time. Over the years things have gotten better as
the medical community now openly recognizes and supports the reality of Gender
Dysphoria. More and more popular celebrities, athletes and politicians are
coming out as transgender and bringing the reality of it to mainstream society.
But just like marriage equality doesn't stop the hatred against homosexuals,
the brave men and women that are coming out publicly as transgender are not
stopping the hatred spewed toward them as well.
Most of these words you have heard. Many you may have even
used yourself and not even realized they hurt people. Tranny, Trannie, HeShe, Lady
Boy, It, Chick with a Dick and several others are shoved in our face almost
every day. And just like repeatedly calling a young homosexual a fag over and
over again can cause him to take his own life, calling a trans woman or a trans
man a trannie can do the same thing. Each and every person deals with derogatory
terms in different ways. Many decide to
take ownership of those words so that they can't be hurt by them. Fag, slut and
bitch are three words that come to mind. I personally shrug them off unless
someone is being persistent about it. But there are three words, that when used
deliberately in reference to me, get me every time. They are such tiny words.
They are so unimportant that they are rarely even capitalized. They are so
unimportant that every single English speaker in the world uses them several
times a day. But yet when those words in associationwith me, they become so
important they make me feel small, they hurt, they sting and then send me into
very negative emotional states. Those three insignificant little words are: he,
him and his.
