Yes, I Have An Opinion

Last week, I choose to support the college’s FMLA chapter by attending an event called the Breastival. The event was held to promote awareness of breast cancer issues, and even though I’m active member of our FMLA group, I went there as opposed to doing something else…like watching anime..

For those of you who don’t know, I’m transgender. Moreover, I mostly pass as a man. It’s not often that I choose to dress up as the female that I feel I am, and when I attended the Breastival, I didn’t dress up that day either. To some extent, having only three skirts and one pair of heeled boots limits my choices. So I knew going in that people who didn’t know me would see me as male. For the most part, I’m fine with that.

However, when I was sitting at the FMLA table and answering questions from people who wanted to know more about the group, I had the opportunity to speak to a group of guys that I didn’t know. Usually, men don’t choose to associate themselves with events that primarily concern women. To me, this seems a little shortsighted because most men choose to marry a woman at some point during their lives.

When this particular group of guys approached me, they wanted to know what FMLA was. So I explained it. FMLA stands for Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance.

One of the guys asked me, “But you’re a man, right?”

It took me about half a second to think about how I was going to respond. I could have chosen to tell him right then that I was transgender, but I felt as though that would have been unnecessary. I don’t always like to announce it and shove my gender identity in someone’s face. So instead I choose to say, “Yes, but I’m also a feminist.”

To which this guy I didn’t know said, “Well, everyone has an opinion.”

I knew that something had happened that probably shouldn’t have happened. At the time, I chose not to create conflict at an event that was geared towards promotion education. After having a few days to dwell on it, though, I would have to say, “Yes, I do have an opinion.”

My opinion is that women in our society aren’t taken seriously because they’re women. My opinion is that the word feminism has been turned into a dirty word by people who have no idea of what the feminist struggle is really like. And yes, my opinion is that I will continue to support programs that educate women about issues they need to know about as they go through life.

I don’t believe that makes me unusual, and I don’t believe that makes me someone who should be treated any differently than anyone else. The feminist struggle is the struggle for everyone to be treated the same as everyone else. It’s not a struggle simply for white women who went to college and decided they didn’t like what they saw. It’s a struggle for everyone who is oppressed by the male system of dominance that seeks to maintain its power at all costs- even at the expense of someone else’s rights. It’s not really that hard for privileged groups to do these things, because they aren’t aware of how underprivileged people feel.

So yes, even though it might make me an object of ridicule, I will continue to stand up and support feminism wherever I can. That is my opinion.