Deprivations, the Devil's Sister and the Increasing Regard of Transgenderism

Virginia Elects Danica Roem, the First Openly Transgender State Legislator

Well it seems transgender identities are not really regarded as shocking any more.  Let's face it, anybody who does regard them as 'shocking' tends to be insecure and bigoted.  Personally I don't care if someone is transgender.  Well okay let's face it, I did a PhD on hate crime and transgender identities in Manchester, UK, so I'm not exactly freaked out by transgender.   You can get it here to download if you want: 

My PhD

I tend to take the view, "Is that person I'm working with and/or socializing with a nice person?"  Doesn't matter what gender they are.  All I care about is are they good at their job and are they nice to chat with?

Yeah I know there too many bigoted people out there.  That's why over in the UK there are special anti-hate crime/incident laws:

"The police and Crown Prosecution Service have agreed a common definition of hate incidents.

They say something is a hate incident if the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on one of the following things:

• disability
• race
• religion
• transgender identity
• sexual orientation.

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This means that if you believe something is a hate incident it should be recorded as such by the person you are reporting it to. All police forces record hate incidents based on these five personal characteristics.

Anyone can be the victim of a hate incident. For example, you may have been targeted because someone thought you were gay even though you’re not, or because you have a disabled child.

Some [UK] police forces also record hate incidents based on other personal characteristics such as age.

In particular, Greater Manchester Police now recognises alternative sub-culture hate incidents. These are incidents based on someone’s appearance and include Goths, Emos, Punks and other similar groups. This means they will also record any such incidents as a hate incident."

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[https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/hate-crime/what-are-hate-incidents-and-hate-crime/]

So it seems the war against prejudices is slowly being won.  I say 'slowly' - it's like baby steps.  Let's face it we've got President Trump who's not exactly open-minded.

Remember what I said - bigotry derives from insecurity and, I suppose, ignorance - being vulnerable to getting lied to and manipulated.

Do you remember the whole situation about Trump banning transgender people serving in the USA Armed Forces?  In reality, transgender identities are a tiny fraction of the population.  And those that serve in the Armed Forces are quite willing to sacrifice themselves for the country they love.  That bravery goes way beyond gender.

So Trump was banning patriotic people serving in the US Armed Forces.  Kind of weird thing don't you think - especially when you remember about how he was accusing some sports people of not being patriotic when they weren't standing while the US national anthem was being played?  (Of course, not standing was protest against racism.  Let's face it would you want to stand if you were a black person and your president was supported by the KKK?  Anyway...)

Issues about transgender identities are touched on in my novels.  The thing is I wanted to make sure those identities were just minor things.  They're not major parts of my mainstream novels. 

Effectively I wanted to show people how minor these issues are but also to make you rethink your opinions in a lot of different things.

Let's face it, essential parts of any novel are to make it exciting and absorbing.

I've already had several very positive reviews about my first novel Deprivations: The Psychopath and the Child.

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The Devil's Sister is a very different novel in that it makes you question all you've read, seen or heard about the Devil. 

At no point do I ever misquote Biblical or mythological writings but I do interpret some of those writings differently. 

Let's face it, misquoting Biblical writings is something frequently done by many writers, filmmakers, terrorists or even evangelists. 

(I'm not connecting terrorists with evangelists - I'll leave that up to you if you wanna do that.)

That actually gives me ideas for a possible future novel or short story.  It's unbelievable and frustrating how I have been getting ideas about various things to write about in novels and short stories when I still haven't finished my third book.  It's about three quarters completed. 

Anyway...

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