i just read this at a yahoo news link from my twitter timeline.
it was obnoxious to me on a number of levels. not the least of which is the fact that soon after i began supporting my transgender daughter in her quest to be herself i was reported by some hopefully well-intentioned individual to the child protective services. not once, but twice the investigators from CPS recieved complaints about the fact that i was ‘allowing’ my child to live as a girl.
yes, in a world where priests are routinely given shelter by the Roman Catholic church after being accused of sexually abusing children, a world where children are afraid to report when a relative or parent ‘touches’ them inappropriately, in a world where the horrendous beatings and punishments that parents and others inflict upon children are rarely deemed newsworthy, i was reported to CPS for supporting my child.
just yesterday i read about a nine year old girl who died after her mother and grandmother had forced her to run for three hours straight as punishment for lying to the grandmother about eating candybars. yes, this time it made the news. but where i live in the deep south here in america, in the bible-encrusted region where ‘sparing the rod’ is considered against god’s laws i have watched in horror as a father snatches up his son by one arm in public and beats him with the free hand, or where a mother backhands a child for not ‘shutting up’ while shopping in walmart. these are not rare incidents, not the excetion. such things are often done around here, publically and without the slightest bit of shame. and i can only watch because around here such things are not consider abuse.
now studies are coming out that tell the story of transgender kids being sexually abused, so of course some use these stories to support the view that transgender people are broken people who manifest their damage by being transgender. altho the above article doesn’t do this and raises concern that our transgender kids are being abused at a high rate and that lifelong scars result, some people are putting the cart before the horse, insisting that transgender people become transgender as a result of abuse.
it figures, tho doesn’t it? that this interpretation would arise in the small minds of those who can’t accept different-ness?
so, the Roman Catholic church has millions of dollars in a fund set up by then Cardinal Ratzinger who is now the pope to defend the pedophile priests. presidential candidates threaten to relieve women of their rights to their own bodies as attempts are made to ‘redefine rape’, the extreme christian rightwing nutjobs tell us that homosexual marriage is the same sort of abomination as bestiality, and yet parents who try to support and protect their children are investigated by CPS.
right across the street from me lives a neighbor whose yard is filled with garbage, everything but the kitchen sink really, the house is small and likewise filled with trash. there are four adults and four children living in this tiny one bedroom shanty so small that the children have no room to play indoors. the mother of the kids, their grandmother and their aunt all take turns ‘correcting’ the behaviour of these beautiful children, and usually do so in violent and abusive ways. to top it off altho all four children are under 12 years of age, these people have recently allowed a known and convicted sexual predator, whose crime involved minors under the age of 12, to park his tent in their front yard, and live with them.
so where’s the concern over this? calls made to describe this situation are met with absolutely no response by CPS. no investigator has come to check out the living conditions which are substandard and not fit even for animals. upon informing the authorities about all of this one is told that it is ‘their right’ to allow this perv to live amongst them even with minor children present, that since he has disclosed to the proper authorities where he resides and since everyone in the neighborhood has been made aware of who he is and where he is, the situation is out of their hands.
really?! allowing a known sexual predator of minor children under 12 years of age to live in your home where minor children under 12 years of age reside isn’t child endangerment?!
but i am investigated, not once but twice, for supporting my transgender daughter.
to be fair, the investigators on both occasions were almost apologetic about even having gone out on the call. especially after meeting my daughter, seeing how we live and hearing from me about the recent research about transgender child issues. i am grateful for the fact that we ‘passed’ inspection, but confused as to why no one even bothers to go out and at least inquire into the safety and well-being of the children across the street.
it is worrisome to know that my daughter has a greater chance of being subjected to sexual abuse, rape and assault simply because she is transgender. and as i see it, that is all the more reason for me to advocate on behalf of people, like her, who are different. my strong hope is that someday our society will quit protecting pedophile priests, and the rights of sexual predators. that it will become a place where those who would redefine rape and attempt to rob women of their rights would be laughed out of public office and deemed unfit to govern.
but i’m not holding my breath. instead, i am standing my ground!
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