News Flash: Internet Buys Vagina!
I’m beginning to realize I somehow manage to work the word “vagina” into about eighty percent of my posts.
I suppose this means I was dropped on my vagina as a child and she’ll never let any of us forget.
But I just had to share writer Samantha Allen’s story of using an internet crowd-sourcing site to raise $8,000 in 24 hours (!) to finally have her unwanted penis removed and a vagina installed.
I found Allen’s story hilarious, bold, vulnerable and touching.
I must admit that, until recently, I didn’t understand, or want to understand, the plight of people who feel they were born in the wrong body.
I was certainly prejudiced – due to ignorance and fear – against them. They seemed fringe and freaky to me. Foreign and scary and just too far outside my heterosexual, suburban box.
But the more I’m exposed to their stories, both fictional and factual (Kimberly Pierce’s Boys Don’t Cry and Jane Anderson’s Normal, two of my favorites), the more I recognize I’m just like all of the other judgey judgers who judge.
I have to keep an eye on those judgements; hold them up to the crystal clear light of day and have a good hard look at them.
I have to ask myself where the judgement is coming from?
Is it righteous judgement that instinctually knows right from wrong (no violence or abuse, please) or is it simply fear or something I don’t understand?
Samantha’s piece is so personal, I felt as though I’d slipped into her skin and experienced her transmogrification not just physically but emotionally.
Reading her journey makes me feel like I know her. And, the true sign of a great writer, that I could have been her.
Read Allen’s piece here. I’d love to know your take on the subject.
