Think before you speak

In the book “Read my lips”, Riki Anne Wilchins lists several things that you don’t say to a transsexual. Here are some:

“You must have a lot of courage to face the surgery”. To have the actual surgery I just had to be able to breathe deeply, count at least partway backwards from 100 and fall asleep with some semblance of dignity. In all of these tasks, I was reliably aided by enough anaesthesia to subdue a small water buffalo.

“Is it true that transsexuals are women trapped in men’s bodies?” Yes, that’s right. In my case, they had to call in the fire brigade and even then it took 3 hours to cut me out. Luckily, I had my Walkman and a few Judy Garland tapes, so it wasn’t too awful a wait.

“You look just like a REAL woman”. How splendid, especially when you recall that I’m composed almost entirely of soy by-products. And you look just like a REAL transsexual. Oh, sorry - I didn’t realise that was an insult.