What Do You Mean 'I'm Not Real?'

The other night I hopped on the bus after a long day at work. I was ready to get home, destress, and start the process of transposing the blog posts I'd composed on my legal pad during my break and downtime to my computer.

My thoughts were rudely interrupted by a snaggle-toothed African-American hardhead hissing at me as he ran his mouth on his cell phone 'You ain't real.'

After telling his jockey sized behind off and making a sarcastic reference to his pea sized brain and male member being a perfect match, I returned to my own mental space for the rest of the short ride and walk from my bus stop home.

This is an example of the mentality of some folks in my community when it comes to transgender issues. Sadly some members of the gay and lesbian community, the Catholic Church, the GOP, women and fundamentalist 'little c'Christians share it as well. They have the misguided opinion that they can judgmentally determine who is or isn't female based on their specious interpretation of Biblical scripture or radical feminist dogma to make their own sadly insecure selves feel better about their own lives.

I didn't even allow that nattering nabob of transphobic negativity to ruin my day because I'm cognizant of the fact that there are people in my life who see me as the phenomenal woman I am.

So this fool thinks that 'I ain't real'. Well, I'm real to God, my pastor, my boss, my coworkers, and the people who read this blog and my writings elsewhere in the blogosphere and beyond.

I'm real to the people who've heard my radio and podcast interviews, read my newspaper column, the activist community, my councilmember, my state rep, my state senator and my congressman.

And most importantly, I'm real to my supportive family, my friends, anyone who has met me and all the people who love and care about me, period.

So yeah, I'm real. Too bad some peeps are real stupid and too blind to see it.