If I’ve said it once here, I’ve said it a million times. I am completely fascinated by any Oprah show that features the sexually & gender confused sex.

Thomas Beatty? That was like the second coming of Christ for me.

So I jumped on the chance to watch her episode yesterday where she featured a trans-gender 6-year-old & the full special on Our America on OWN last night.

Hopefully you won’t mind if for a minute or two I share what my opinion is on the trans-gender CHILDREN.

I am by definition a Christian, but I consider myself a highly evolved Christian (or maybe some of you may think of me as a highly back-slidden Christian. But we’ll save all of that for another post). I openly embrace & accept homosexuals and even have my fingers crossed that they get every single right that they deserve.

Trans-gender or transsexual is a different thing for me. I don’t not accept it, I just don’t understand it. But what someone else wants to cut off of their person or grow out of their person is none of my business.

But I have a completely different opinion when it comes to the parents that want to label their children as trans-gender. And yes I recently joked that Phoenix just might be, but clearly I have a warped sense of humor.

The first trans-gender child featured was a 6 1/2 year old girl named Hailey who used to be a boy named Harry. Her father talked in the interview how he knew that he was really a she because he she gravitated towards flowers & when he she drew pictures of her him self they always depicted them self as a boy.

Would they have let her be a dog if she drew him her self as a dog?

The second child featured was a teenager about 16 who was a girl but now a boy. She he was actually just starting out hormones and when asked is she he was 100% sure she he said yes.

The mother of the teenager also reasoned that she knew she he must be feeling correctly because she was also mistaken for a boy when she he was a child. Well Phoenix is constantly mistaken for a girl. Do I need to set a meeting up with my pediatrician to discuss estrogen injections?

A couple of points I wanted to mentioned from the show last night:

1. They {doctors} believe that in the womb there is a hormonal imbalance that causes people to feel like they are in the wrong body. But if this is a chemical imbalance why can’t they take a stabilizer like they do with all other kinds of imbalances?

2. When an older trans-gender was asked by Lisa Ling if she he was going to have the sex change she he responded “That’s not what determines society’s view on if I’m a woman or not”. Having a penis or not having a penis is the very thing that makes us say “Boy or girl”. When a baby is born they don’t run test to see what sex the baby gravitates to before filling out the paper. They look at the penis or lack thereof and make the determination.

3. They pediatrician who was working with the teenager said that she treats trans-gender children like any other thing you are born with. If you had diabetes shouldn’t she give you medicine? But insulin only manages your diabetes they do not change who you are. Which brings me back to point number 1.

4. If your black child decided that he was born into the wrong body and should have been white (Michael Jackson) would you let him bleach his skin? Would you let him go around telling people he was white when it was clear as the blue sky that he wasn’t?

5. How is a child a 100% of anything? It bothers me because in my opinion children don’t have a complete sense of self. Hell. I’m 23 and I don’t have a complete sense of self.

6. Shouldn’t we be teaching our children to love themselves for everything they are and not what they think they are?

7. Lisa Ling’s voice is annoying and I don’t like her as a narrator.

I just wonder if these parents are aiding their children in making life-long decision that might not be anything more than a phase & childhood confusion.

What do you think?

***********************************

If I have learned anything while blogging it’s that a blog is only as successful as the community surrounding it. So I want to start building more of a community and relationship with everyone who reads my blog. I’ve decide that on Monday’s I am going to randomly select a commenter from the week before & highlight their blog. My thoughts are that this will encourage more reader interaction & discussion here & will introduce everyone to your blog.

So make sure when you comment that you’re blog address is either left in your comment or linked to your profile.

This thing called the internet is one fast-moving train. A fast-moving train barreling down the main track that Denzel Washington needs to hop on and save before it blows up an entire town.

Last week it was the Amazon scandal. A few weeks before that it was the “gay” little boy & his blogging momma. This week? The TSA and all its pervy officers.

There’s all kinds of opinions floating around on this particular topic. Some I don’t agree with and others that are just to damn funny you can’t figure out what side it’s on. Like this one from Why is Daddy Crying?

I’ll have to add my two cents because if I don’t how will I ever increase my traffic by writing about current events?

Lately we’ve been flying  a lot. And we’ve gone through a lot of airport security. And we always get stopped longer then the passenger behind us. It could be because sometimes my husband is sporting a form of a Osama Bin Laden beard, but the more likely reason is my husband carries enough equipment in his backpack to host an impromptu rap battle (you must click on this link. seriously.) complete with all the best audio & video components.

And each time without fail I have to unbuckle the cute but not airport appropriate shoes.  Whip off the metal coin belt and the big hoop earring and unpack the laptop buried underneath a months worth of reading material. And let us not forget the annoyance that is added to this process when I’m flying with toddler terrorist himself.  Pry the sippy cup away, undo the tennis shoes, unbuckle him from the stroller, break down the stroller, and hoist stroller on to belt. Cox freaked out toddler through security detector, get stroller down & opened. Plop terror toddler back in and re-dress. Wait 20 minutes for the husband to pack up his “gear” and race to the gate.

image credit

It’s a pain in the ass. Highly inconvenient. Frustrating & chaotic. But dagnabbit it keeps us safe.

And even with the TSA implementing these new machines that might give us all cancer and might just cross every personal boundary we have I still am not going to whine about it. Because really it’s a lot better than sitting on a plane that blows up.

I don’t even care if some TSA officer that probably owns one of those FBI – Female Body Inspector shirts is sitting in some office getting off to me and my granny panties and an old nursing bra with the milk stain. Hey. Whatever floats your boat weirdo. My husband says I just want to be felt up and if the TSA officer happens to look like Avery from Grey’s Anatomy or Jesse McCartney well then “Please officer. Do your job”

Hopefully they can rack their brains just a bit more and find a better solution. But until then I think that we should just suck it up and deal with it. If not you can always drive, get on Amtrak or take a boat. Or stay home.

image credit

And really people? Is this boycotting really going to get us anywhere but piss off people on Thanksgiving? Really? Really? REALLY?

But I will tell you. If I happen to be stuck in the airport terminal and one of those machines starts to go bananas and all of our lives are in danger. I sure do hope that Denzel is stuck in that terminal with me. Because that man. Sure does know how to handle himself in a crisis.

Another day, another internet controversy right? Today (and I’ll admit I was apart of it) someone tweeted a link to an incredibly disgusting book that Amazon was selling for download on the Kindle . Thank God I have a Nook!

The book was a “how-to” guide for pedophiles.

“A child lovers code of conduct”

Teaching them how to make the situations that children are involved in with pedophiles safer (whatever that means) and hopefully appeal to the pedophiles better nature and prevent all the hatred (paraphrasing, but from the book’s description) towards them.

Immediately when I saw it I signed in and wrote a quick review on Amazon asking them to remove the book. Declaring a boycott if it was not removed and RT’ing a gazzillion tweets designed to bombard Amazon to get them to take action. I also went as far as picking up the phone and calling Amazon’s customer service alerting them to the book, the twitter frenzy and pending boycott.

I was told it would be removed.

When I was done I was pretty proud of myself. I didn’t (and still don’t) understand how this book passed any type of quality assurance test and made available to the public.

But like the good ol’ internet has me doing sometimes. I am now rethinking my position. No. I’m not some shaky tree willing to side with whatever cause seems to be getting the most RT’s or traffic. But what I like about the internet & reading blogs is that you can come across so many opinions that open your eyes to totally different sides/points.

Jill over at Scary Mommy RT’d a link from @adampknave where he posted about the hypocrisy of the internet calling for a banning of the book.

So it got me wondering about freedom of speech and where one persons opinion crosses from freedom of speech to something that needs to be censored.

I’ve always been on the side of freedom of speech. I hate, absolutely hate it when news anchors/tv & radio personalities get fired for things they say. It bothers me. I don’t care who took offense to Don Imus and his “nappy headed ho’s” comment, the fact of the matter is. He has a right to his opinion. And he has a right to say it publicly. Whether we like it or not.

So wouldn’t the same be allowed for the author of this book? Should his opinion, regardless of how vile or offensive it is, be allowed to be shared with the public?

Is there a difference here because his thought process is illegal?

If we ban his book, there might be people who call for a banning of Modern Family (Oh no you don’t!) because of the homosexual couple.

If we ban this book do we also need to make it so porn is not sold on Amazon, because there are people who find it highly offensive?

Do you see how blurry the lines can get? I’m not sure exactly how I feel. I know that I feel its deplorable, but just because me and 100,000 other people find it deplorable should we ban it?

How do you feel?

* I will not be posting the link back to this book. The reason being is because at 11 AM when I started hearing about this, the author ranked at like 158,221 in the bestsellers list in the Kindle store. When I started this post Tuesday at 4:45 PM he ranked at 5,000 and some change. When I went back at 5:20 his paid ranking shot to 1,656. I get it people are downloading it to see what it is, but he’s getting money for it and although I’m not sure he should be banned, I do know I don’t like him being compensated for it. But thanks to the internet gods, if you look you’ll find it.*

Gap denim Jacket

Ralph Lauren Straight leg jeans in gray wash

Converse All-Star high top in Neon Pink

Long sleeve screen print H&M t-shirt

I have been on the hunt since summer for hot pink converse’s for Phoenix. And every time I tried to order them on the Converse website they were sold out. But Mom to the rescue and she found them at Amazon and Phoenix has been rocking them since we went to Savannah.

Toddler Boys’ Outerwear by Gap
Infant Boys’ Pants by Nike

I’m not trying to jump on the nerdyapple band wagon or anything with putting my son in “girl” shoes. It just so happened to fall at the same time. But I am certainly not opposed to dressing Phoenix in strictly boy clothes. I don’t think I’d put him in a tutu or t-shirt with flowers on it. But he does own two pink shirts and these pink shoes. I don’t discriminate when it comes to fashion.

Have you had a chance to read the post that is ALL.OVER.THE.PLACE? I read it and I agree with her. Especially the part where she says this:

I have used this logic in an argument a lot with some specific (won’t name names) people I know in reference to Phoenix wearing “girl” colors or clothes. My niece has dresses that are blue & green. Those are “boy” colors (whatever that means) but we would never say she was going to end up being a lesbian.

I grew up learning & hearing a bunch of different opinions that I now truly & firmly believe are nothing more than christian scare tactics. The things that we feel we can’t explain & rationalize its easier to just scare people away from it. Does that make sense?

But as we’ve seen with all the recent suicides linked to gay bullying these scare tactics don’t work and its doing nothing but hurting people.

But for the sake of Phoenix I don’t think I would want him to want to dress up like a girl. But only because of his feelings. I wouldn’t want people to make fun of him. That’s all…

So what do you think?

**These links are affiliated links and if you make a purchase I will receive a portion of the sale.**

We live up on a mountain. Where it took 4 months to get TV, internet and phone. And also no one delivers. And for whatever reason the power goes out at least once a week.

Last week the power went out and did not come back on like it usually does. The gracious and helpful power company said they would have it back on by Monday. It went out Wednesday. So we have been at the Hilton ever since. But I’m not complaining.

The Hilton delivers you the days USA Today every morning. And the headline on Friday’s paper made me immediately think “Blog topic” and “Are you FUCKING kidding me?!”

Question: Has Social Networking Gone too Far?

By now we all have heard the sad, sad story of Tyler Clementi the 18-year-old Rutger student who took his own life after his roommate & a friend posted a video online of him having sex with another male.

Seriously tragic story and I can’t imagine what those parents must be feeling. And no matter what you believe (and boy am I being challenged with that everyday) you have to know that this hatred of gays really has to stop.

But now there’s all this buzz about social media as if Youtube or Twitter is the problem. It’s not. You are the problem. A lack of good parenting is the problem. A lack of compassion for human beings is the problem. A lack of self-control.

Blaming social media for deaths that occur because of online bullying comes from the same stupid sect of people who think its ok to sue McDonalds because they got fat.

Where is personally responsibility at?

I asked the same question that USA Today asked on my twitter and got this response from @mommythisnthat

The internets (and yes that is plural for a reason) is not dangerous. People are dangerous.  In the wrong hands ANYTHING can be dangerous. Anything can go to far. I I once saw a movie (or maybe it was Lockup Raw) where the inmate killed someone using a  spoon. Do we now hide spoons?

Clearly there is an issue of people using the internets and not being responsible. But that is on the people. The teens, the children, the MOTHERS.

Again I am so sorry to Tyler’s family for their loss but why the hell is Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook to blame for this?

They don’t lure people in by saying “A great place to network and humiliate each other”

You’re going to use social media you need to be socially responsible. And when you fuck up. YOU fucked up. No one made you do it.

Parents when you are teaching internet safety don’t just talk about the dangerous of meeting some creepy toothless man who lives in a cabin somewhere in West Virginia. Talk about how to be responsible & kind to people on the internet. That’s our job. Not Facebook’s.