Kappa Beta Serving the transgendered community since 1988

What’s in a word? Words can be powerful, beautiful, or simply descriptive. All successful movements started with a word; a word that defines the movement. Civil, Black, Gay, Lesbian were words used as adjectives followed by the noun that defined the objective. That noun? "Rights." We, as transgender folk, also talk about wanting the same Rights as the mainstream community. When we tell our friends, our family, our Senators, our Congressional Representatives what we desire, we do a pretty good job of defining those desires. What we fail to do is tell them who we are. We are ‘T’. However, since we – as members of the "T’ community – cannot even agree upon what "T" means (or even the spelling of the word), how can we ever hope to gain respect and acceptance without this ability to define ourselves? Please note that none of the above mentioned movements tried to further define themselves to mainstream America by all the variations that could exist within the movement. We didn’t see, for instance, the "Butch Lesbian Rights Movement", "The Lipstick Lesbian Movement", or "The Lesbian with Bi-Sexual Leanings Movement." We saw a single word: Lesbian. It only serves to confuse and dilute a move toward acceptance when the movement is broken down into sub-groups. A single, unified group has hope; a fractured movement does not. Additionally, once Rights are established, the word Pride can be substituted in the movement’s name.

There is a book very simply titled Night, by Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. He chronicles the horrors of a young teen whose family is suddenly snatched from their home, the family separated and moved from death camp to death camp.

It is the story of survival in the midst of madness. It is also the story of a young man who's spark of hope continued to glimmer while the world, as he knew it, crumbled around him.

It is a story we have heard many times, but perhaps never really pondered the ramifications. Woven in the threads of the experience are life's lessons for the world, and each of us.

This is great little book, girls! In addition to the little tips she gives on hair, makeup, jewelry, etc. Ms. Leigh’s main emphasis is on helping us to become more fully accepting of ourselves. This in turn makes others more accepting of us.

The only thing emancipated crossdressers are ‘afflicted’ with is abundant self-acceptance, a lack of narrow mindedness, and a disturbing tendency to express our true selves. If this is a problem, then let’s define it as Gender Identity Euphoria, the treatment for which is MasterCard Therapy.”

Ms. Leigh uses both humor and straight-forwardness to show how to handle people we confront and teaches how to hold our heads erect and meet the world on our terms.

She emphasizes the three most important lessons we need to internalize:

Accept yourself – denial doesn’t work;

Assert yourself – you deserve the best;

Allow yourself – to enjoy your new freedom.

We are not monsters; we all know that – intellectually. This book helps us to believe that emotionally; and that is critical to our self-image and self-acceptance. It is possible for everyone else to be wrong and an individual to be right.

I highly recommend this book to all our members. And after you read it, be prepared for a shopping trip!