The Tucson Trans-Awareness week has been really great so far, I think. Last night I went to the last half of Ask-A-Tranny-Anything, and had an epiphany. It's nothing profound, or new, or anything I didn't necessarily know before, but it just kind of hit me: We could make the lives of trans people so much easier, as easy as the lives of everyone else plus a fairly major surgery, if we were just to accept being trans as one of the normal kinks in life. If parents made it clear that they were fine with it if their child turns out to not be the gender they expected and helped them on their journey, if people's reaction to the words, "I'm transitioning," was as blase as if the person had said, "I'm getting a haircut," if we FUCKING COVERED SRS AND HORMONES ON INSURANCE!!!! as routinely as we cover an appendectomy... Just to be clear, I don't mean that transitioning is on the same level as getting a haircut- there's a risk to the hormones, the surgery, and the fear that goes along with all that- but if we were all understanding and accepting of people's realizations that they're not the right sex and decisions to transition, it would make their lives so much easier, taking away the fear of how society will react to the change, and adding in unconditional support from family and friends. The depression resulting from knowing they won't be accepted by most, the fear and indecision about whether it's worth it to go through the societal pressure not to do it and policing of gender, we could take that all away.

It would be so damn simple to make the whole process so much more simple, but we aren't there yet. And it's so frustrating.