Letters, 2/6/2002

[February 13th, 2002]

IT'S A MAN'S MAN'S MAN'S WORLD
The Callahan cartoon [Feb. 6, 2002] says it all: three male doctors, two of them gynecologists, and a crude juvenile innuendo about "The trouble with you guys...."

Cut to page 16, and to the story of a transsexual police officer hounded off the job. Damon Woodcock's story illustrates the depth of bigotry against transgendered and gay people in our society; it also reveals the close link between these prejudices and misogyny.

If you were born and raised as a boy, and exhibited some feminine personality traits, you learned quickly that girls were everything you weren't supposed to be. If, as an adult, you suspected that these traits might point to something bigger--a different way of thinking about yourself, a new way of being in the world--you found out that a man isn't supposed to want to be a woman.

The sexism Woodcock experienced while living as a woman, and the misogyny he encountered after his transition, share a common root with the prejudice Byron Beck admits to--and the homophobia he himself has experienced as a gay man.

Damon Woodcock knows what all transgendered people know: that gender is a rigid caste system with an "upper" (male) caste and a "lower" (female) caste. We know that breaching the barrier in either direction is a threat to the male-dominated system.

Callahan's doctors do not even see the real problem: that "the trouble with you guys" is that they are all guys.

Asher Abrams
Southwest Morrison Street

QUEER WINDOW'S TRANS PARENT
The Feb. 6 Queer Window proved that Byron Beck is a disgrace to the gay/lesbian/bi/trans community. While he admits that his opinion is bigoted, he doesn't make any statement that he plans to change this attitude. He just says that he hopes folks like Damon Woodcock will change public perception for him, somehow missing the fact that Damon and he are in the same queer boat.

Byron the Bigot needs a history lesson and some reflection on why it is that he gets to be an openly gay journalist with a queer-themed column. Because without the trannies who started the gay movement at Stonewall, his ass would still be in a closet somewhere with all the other "normal" American boys.

Amy Hojnowski
Southeast Madison Street