Aw, Poor Suzy Must Be Jealous She Hasn't Gotten Any Attention Lately

Even though I haven't had much to say about kooky Suzan Cooke lately, she has decided to go after me, and Ben Girl (who did tear into Cooke quite justifiably about her outrageously hateful post after Rick Warren's son took his own life...establish Cooke as a true bigot of the worst sort) in her latest post.  And it is a really twisted piece of work, even by Cooke's standards.  Actually, I have largely ignored Cooke for the simple reason that Cooke rarely publishes anything original anymore.  Most of Cooke's blog is simply rehashing stuff from the looney Left press, and from the Transgender News mailing list.  In fact, a few weeks ago, when Transgender News did not post for a few days, Cooke's blog went silent as well. Unlike Cooke, I prefer quality over quantity.  Granted, I had planned to speak out about Cooke's piece on Rick Warren, but Ben Girl did such an excellent job, I saw no need to.  Which I guess has been eating at Cooke for a while....

Now, in Cooke's latest bit of insanity, she makes this assertion:

I do know I have a couple of people who make slamming me and a number of other TS/TG folks the main focus of their blogs. Jennifer ***** and Ben Girl to name names.

As I have said many times, I prefer to not use my name here.  Even though a lot of people know it, and jerks like Cooke have no morals, I stand by my policy...  Now, that said, I would point out that Ben Girl has posted about Cooke all of 4 time out of 213 posts.  On this blog, Cooke has been a significant enough topic to rate a label in 60 out of 299 posts (including this one).  She is certainly not the "main focus" of either of our blogs.  Of course, Cooke is one of those people who simply cannot abide disagreement.  

Of course, Cooke, who has an ego as big as her adopted state of Texas, is not really ranting about me speaking out against her.  She is rallying to the defense of her compadres, and fellow transgender kooks, Mr. "Cristan" Williams, and Mr. "Autumn" Sandeen.  Somewhere along the line, Cooke went over the deep end, and decided to become a major port of what she used to label the "Transgender Borg."  Shoot, Cooke is now the "Borg Queen."  Sandeen is upset because he can't censor me.  And, ironically, because I am doing the very thing he calls Cathy Brennan a coward for, he claims, not doing...answering his crap.  He attacks Brennan for not emailing him, which would supply him with an email address he can use to harass her.  Or, worse, supply to others for the same purpose.  

Now, some might get the impression that Cathy Brennan is some virulent hater of men, by reading some of the crap Sandeen has written about her.  It turns out that a) she actually worked with Sandeen to try to get the Maryland transgender bill passed, and b) had met with Sandeen where she had the unfortunate experience of finding out, first hand, just how totally insane Sandeen is....  Here is a quote from a comment that Cathy Brennan made to Sandeen on Pretendbians...

You are not female. You might be legal status female, but you are not female. Remember when my ex gf and I met you for coffee? You pounded the table and told us how you wanted to put your balls in a jar after you got them cut off so you could bring them to meetings and say you brought your balls with you. You also asked my ex gf if she would cast your balls for you.

That’s not female.

BTW, I thought you were disgusting then, but I was working on HB 235 because I have trans friends I care about, so I held my nose and worked with you. But please do not ever state that we were friends. I would never be friends with someone so crass that they talk about their balls for 45 minutes at a political meeting.

I have to say, I knew Sandeen was a kook, but I had no idea that Sandeen was THAT  big of a kook.  No, that is NOT female, those are not the words of a woman...shoot, those are not the words of  sane person.  They are, however the words of someone Cooke apparently wishes to align herself with.

Cooke's post is really just bizarre.  In it, Cooke tries to compare me and Ben Girl to house slaves, like some character in a movie.  In it, Cooke, again, attacks me for having been a part of the move to adopt the term "Harry Benjamin Syndrome."  Ironically, in the early days of her blog, Cooke herself embrace the term.  I don't know if Cooke's objection was based on my involvement (Cooke has had a bitter hatred for me since I made a suggestion on her blog that she did not agree with, and her partner Tina somehow decided I was a threat) or because she realized it was competition for her own label, "Women Born Transsexual."  Oh, BTW, that suggestion I made was relatively innocuous.  It was simply that transsexuals might consider getting a born female to serve as a spokesperson, the idea being that it would allow us to better advance our case while protecting our privacy.  Unlike Cooke and the rest of the Transgender Borg, some of us don't wish to be seen as anything other than women.

The simple fact is, what has Cooke in such a state is the that I, and Ben Girl, are not interested in being transgender but prefer just being women.  Cooke, like the rest of her kind, seem to thrive on that identification as "other."  They would, simply put, but transgender than be women.  Cooke, again, exhibits what I am now labeling, in a sort of "ha, ha only serious" manner, cisphobia...the fear of, or animosity towards, being normal.  In fact, Cooke actually has the audacity, and the hypocrisy, to try to force the label "transgender" on us, when we have clearly rejected it.  I should note, by the way, that Cooke has effectively embraced it, so no, I am not forcing it on her.

Ultimately, that is what HBS was all about.  Interestingly enough, the cisphobic crowd seems more married to the term than those of us who advanced it.  While it has been used on occasion, it probably won't catch on.  I can live with the term transsexual, as it appears, thankfully, that its use as a label for a particularly nasty form of pornography has faded.  In fact, that had a lot to do with the development of the term.  We did not want to be labeled as transgender, which had become associated with kooks like Sandeen who want to play dress up and pretend...and with the term "transsexual" being linked to pornography, we felt that a new term was needed.  And Harry Benjamin Syndrome was chosen, not because of the fact that Benjamin Syndrome would be abbreviated as BS, as Cooke claims to have pointed out, but instead because Benjamin Syndrome is already used to refer to a a type of multiple congenital anomaly/mental retardation (MCA/MR) syndrome.  

I honestly don't know what emotional trauma haunts Cooke so badly, and drives her to such bizarre extremes.  I do know Cooke had a long history of substance abuse, and emotional problems.  I know that Cooke has long exhibited bizarre and unstable behavior.  I know that Cooke has some serious emotional needs that she cannot seem to satisfy. One of these obviously is rooted in the fact that some lesbians do not accept transsexual as actually being women.  This is illustrated by this remark...

No matter how far up the bigots assholes you have your tongue in the end you are still a transsexual/transgender person. You can play the role of an extermination camp Sonder Commando, but all it does is postpone the inevitable.

I have three things to say to this.  First, back early on in my transition, when some of my relatives exhibited problems with my situation, my reaction, "That is there problem.  I will not take responsibility for their ignorance and bigotry."  I feel the same way now.  If someone has a problem with transsexuals. that is their problem, not mine.  Second, I find that life is a whole lot easier if you don't spend all your time shoving the fact that you are a transsexual in other people's faces.  And third, that brings me back to a point I have already made.  I am not transgender because I don't have that need to shove my history in people's faces.  Cooke clearly does.

Cooke is one of those people who is truly invincibly ignorant.  No matter what is said, Cooke has this bizarre idea that she knows, and everyone else is wrong.  She says...

I’ve pissed off the HBS holes because I don’t buy their purity crap. I also don’t buy their hatred of every transsexual/transgender person who stands up for their rights and by extension for the rights of all.

My problem with Cooke is the same problem I have with every other transgender extremist kook.  It has nothing to do with "purity."  I realize that Cooke picked that term up back in the days of Usenet, when there were some who tried to define transsexuals based on a very narrow standard.  Cooke even harks back to that by bringing up my unfortunate remark about being "more than a transvestite, less than a transsexual."  When I first began transition I hit some rough spots.  Many do, and I did what many do, and I reverted.  According to the real purists, and Cooke I should add, was one of them, that marked me as "not pure."  I struggled.  I tried to find a middle ground.  I found there was not one.  And I moved on with my transition again.

Oh, and one one bit of information for Cooke.  I generally don't refer to myself as a "girl."  I leave that bit of silliness for the "men in dresses" crowd.  It has always struck me as a silly affectation.  And the term was Harry Benjamin Syndrome to honor him for his pioneering work, not to identify anyone as one of his "girls."  In fact, because of harassment from a cyberstalker, I thought it wise to not reveal my surgeon as I suspect he would have been harassed as well.  Seriously, Cooke need to get a clue...and a life.

Put simply, well, I guess my view of Cooke is the same as my view of any other bigot.  I'm not going to take responsibility for her ignorance and hatred.  But I will go on speaking out against transgender stupidity, whether from Cooke, or her comrades Mr. Sandeen, Mr. Williams, and others.  And if Cooke doesn't like that...tough.  

Update:  Cooke has posted another disjointed, and rather bizarre rant about HBS (a term which has largely fallen out of use).  It really doesn't warrant much of a response.  I honestly hope Cooke will either realize the need, or someone else will care enough to push her into seeking the serious mental health treatment she so clearly needs.  Oh well...  She rants about others living in a fantasy, while posting an edited version of her own history....  Sad, really, but not all that unexpected.

And a thought....if I am such a fraud, or self-loathing, then why do I allow anyone to comment here, and say pretty much whatever they want, provided they don't violate the privacy rule, while Cooke censors with a heavy hand, and blocks pretty much any post that disagrees with her extremely narrow viewpoints?  Why shoot, even Cooke herself would be welcome...