So what do I mean about the discrepancies of being a white heterosexual cisgender male?
Over the weekend I came across an article about Billie O’Neel, a transgender female figure skater who’s been hiding for 40 years. They recently outed themselves due to their state enacting a new law to prevent transgender athletes from competing. Unfortunately Ohio is going down that same path with HB151 “Protect Women’s Sports” is trying to stop transgender females from having an unfair advantage in competing in female sports. The Advocacy groups however dismiss the fact the while males cannot take performance enhancing drugs like testosterone, male transgender athletes can. And they also forget that transgender females are taking blockers which can severely effect there muscle mass and endurance.
While I have great empathy for Billie and what she now has to endure, I however am flabbergasted in how she was able to garner so much attention and support so quickly for the cause she believes in. I myself as a non-traditional figure skater have openly endured the bigotry, discrimination, and microaggressions of others for the past 20 years. I’ve spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars in trying to bring my experiences to light. Yet you will only find articles about me in 3 spots, my own website, The Fifth Edge, The Wooster Daily Record, (free version can be found here) and The Plain Dealer (link no longer works as it’s over 18 years old but the archive is here) and that’s it. Countless submissions to local and worldwide news organizations, diversity and inclusion advocacy groups, equality and justice groups, etc etc etc yet it’s as if most everything I’ve sent has been blocked.
I wish I had kept a better diary of all the people I talked with, wrote letters too (not a lot of emails back then) and phone calls I made. But as I’ve said, I’ve been dealing with this for 20 some year now. While I can’t legally be discriminated against based on attire, it hasn’t stopped people for taking bigoted actions against me, pressuring others to discriminate, or just outright violate the law. Back in the day when I contacted USFSA they told me that “We only regulate competitions, not rinks or coaches” Contacted the PSA and they told me that coaches are independent contractors and they can choose who that want to teach, or not teach, even if it violates the PSA’s code of ethics (or whatever it was called back then (Rules of Conduct?).)
Most assuredly if Billie was discriminated against for being transgender that lawyers and the media would be beating down her door and would be welcomed to numerous support groups. The same I believe would happen if a female was forced to wear a skirt and most assuredly it would be a breaking 6 o’clock news story.
Me however, being a white heterosexual cisgender (new to me term) skirt wearing male is instead deemed as some kind of deviant and not worth any kind of consideration or investigation. Indeed, US Figure skating recently created a Diversity and Inclusion group. Even though people classify my experiences as the epitome of discrimination, I was not elected to be in the group, nor was I further contacted to share my experiences. It turns out it seems that inclusion has it’s own boundaries.
Sometimes I mention to people that I’ve been discriminated against, and they give me weird looks due to my sex and skin color. They remark that I couldn’t possible be discriminated against, so I show them my figure skating picture of which they remark, “Well just wear pants and you won’t have to deal with it.” Nobody tells a person of color to just change their skin color to “deal with it” People can tell transgenders all they want that they are wrong to change their sex, but they are not them so who are they to say? And lets not forget the LQBTQ+ community and all the attention, support , and laws they have for what is happening in their daily life.
Certainly people of color had no choice in their skin color, just as transgender people will tell you they had no choice. In the past females also had little choice in many things, attire being one of them. The amount of experiences and coverage on this is boundless and never ending. Why is my choice of wearing a skirt or dress any less than anyone else’s? Why am I told I need to be something I am not when I make the choice of wearing a skirt or a dress?
Foremost, why is what I have faced and experienced not worthy of discussion?