In Fanny Flagg's Welcome to the World, Baby Girl, the lead character Dena Nordstrom discovers in a shocking plot twist her Negro heritage, and finally realises why her mum mysteriously disappeared so many decades ago. In the
1940s-1960s, there were vast pockets of discrimination in America and Europe against individuals with even one-sixteenth of "Negro" in their blood. And once you had "Negro" stamped on your documents, doors were slammed shut in your face. Dena's young, prodigiously talented brother was "outed" by a black columnist and was thereafter shunned by the music community. He ended up desperate and destitute, with his life in tatters. In order to protect Dena, her mum fled Europe to America where she raised the girl in stealth, before being "outed" herself.
Like Dena's ancestors, transsexual women today have to choose between living in stealth and asserting their identities. Many doors have been shut in my face since I "outed" myself as a trans woman. But at least, I do not feel impotent and helpless when trans women are bullied. I can stand up for myself, ourselves - and even if my actions do not bear any fruit, at least our voices are heard. To be able to make a stand, to live and breathe in your own true skin, that's what being alive means. And we don't just stand up for ourselves. We stand up for other oppressed people too. So when yesterday, some close friends of mine said the most appalling things about gay couples - that they should not be allowed to adopt children because they will only abuse the kids - I chose to stand up and walk out on them.
Leona
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