Happy Girl

While I was driving back from York yesterday I was listening to one of the three 'happy songs' CDs that I have in the car - these are mixes of cheerful music that I made to keep me up-beat while on journeys that are long because of distance or delay (I have an equivalent play-list I use on my phone's mp3 player for cycling up big hills).

One of the tracks is Happy Girl by Martina McBride which is fantastic to sing along to and just make yourself feel happier and cheerier. The lyrics do actually apply well to me and it got me thinking that, with everything I have been through over the past few years, I am still very much a happy girl and in fact always have been. I think I've mentioned this on the blog before but it's worth pointing out again.

There are times when I do feel low and there are certainly posts on the blog which sound like I may be upset, angry, bitter, and depressed. My inarticulate writings may not be able to convey my feelings properly and it's quite possible that I come across as more negative, insecure or down-right insane than I actually am. The reality is that I am a positive person. I'm also approachable, open, friendly, and not in the least bit scary or indimidating. In short, I'm just a nice, happy, normal person.

This line of thinking brought me to the idea of stereotypes: I'm constantly surprised and intrigued recently by people who don't conform to my built-in set of expected behaviours from certain groups. I started to come to the conclusion that I shouldn't be basing my amazement at contradications to stereotypes but instead should approach everyone who is interesting from an individual perspective. This seemed akin to the view of "Wen the Eternally Surprised" who is a character in the Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time.

For example, I passed a large, elegant car (something from maybe the 70s that gently suggested 'classic automobile' and hinted that the owner had this from new and had looked after it well) on the motorway driven by an aged, white-haired Indian gentleman, wearing I suit or similar smart attire, and also occupied by several elderly ladies who appeared to be knitting and gossiping. Obviously the contrasts in terms of culture and skin colour, all based on stereotypes, were striking but I think just as individuals all the occupants of that car, and the vehicle itself would be amazingly interesting in their own right.

It also made me consider that the stereotypes concerning transgendered people may also be the background against which those who have not personally encountered anyone of this nature before view my comments. I'm not sure what the general view may be, I'm obviously biased, but certainly for the available documentaries and news stories of 'ordinary' transexuals we could certainly be perceived as complex, pushy, emotional, sensitive, obsessive, glamourous (I wish!), unstable even. I think almost any group portrayed on TV actually comes across like this, which says more about that medium than about the people being viewed through it!

Being trans myself I take a different perspective which I think is the one that, after the initial coverage of the gender stuff, is more amazing: it's everything else about someone that makes them truly interesting. I certainly use to enjoy the friendly curiosity of others concerning my trans nature, it made me feel special in some way, but now I realise that that attention is fleeting and also there are things about me just as there are about others that are much more worthy of discussion.

There are many examples of the other interesting aspects in peoples lives I have friends who, as well as being trans also; have a model railway shop, can sing and play guitar (and publish videos of themselves doing this - they would say they aren't that good, I just think they are brave and that alone is amazing), work as escorts (this may tend to a bad stereotype of trans people but it's nevertheless interesting), have a job as a welder, are financial experts, run restaurants, work in IT ... actually that last one is generally accepted as quite common lol!

The point is, we are all normal human beings, not extreme in any real sense, friendly, approachable, and fascinating ... just like almost everyone else you are likely to meet in the world. So, lets all try and throw away our stereotypes and see that we are all individuals ("Yes, we are all individuals!" ... "I'm not"), and all amazing, intriguing, and fascinating in our own right. There is so much to learn and experience out there, lets concentrate on that.

Stereotypes

It seems that innocent comments really can really cause problems and example being my latest Facebook status which read:

"Fiona is getting to be a stereotypical scatter-brained female already, psychiatrist appt is 19th DECEMBER!"

Also this kind of came up in discussion at work and lead to some talk about driving ability and the affect of gender. Seems that this is a touchy subject. So, to make it up to anyone who is offended or upset by this I thought I'd do a bit of research and put things straight.

First the driving:

"Women and Gay men are the 'Worst' Drivers" - According to the article from 18th April 2008. This only talks about navigational ability though, it's nothing to do with how safe you are just your ability in knowing where to go and getting there quickly.

"Men officially worse drivers than women" - Confused.com has this article from 8th March 2008 with some pretty large numbers to show that men are more often convicted of motoring offences than women.

"Why are men worse drivers than women?" - Trying to pick 'reputable' sources of information here so this article is from the Guardian and seems a little more balanced at the end. Based on the stats men have more accidents but apparently they drive further, correcting for this and things even out a bit.

"Women vs Men" - Not official in the slightest but seems to be based on a very interesting sounding presentation that at least illustrates some of the differences and their affects.

Just one thought on the driving thing: taking the eye-sight differences between men and women, the latter having better peripheral vision, and the navigational ability, it seems that a trans person *could* actually end up with the worse possible situation. I don't believe your eye-sight can be improved by hormones though I read that cognative ability may tend towards that of the hormones you take. So not so good eye-sight and no ability to find where to go!

Okay, onto the cognitive ability and the whole "scatter-brain" idea:

"Men and Women: No big difference" - Haven't read all of this but it seems to point to the idea that there isn't much difference between the genders on average.

"Thinking differently: Differences between men and women " - Haven't had a chance to read all this either (running out of lunchtime in which to write this), but seems to suggest the middle ground again but with some bias in findings for specific tasks.

I think there are differences in how male/female brains work and that does seem to be supported by things I've read. I also did once find an article about how brain volume and other attributes do change in transexuals and it looks like I'm heading for some interesting changes myself once I start on hormones - I'll try and do my own study and document it here.

Last word: things are different but everyone is ultimately an individual and even if they may conform to the sterotypes in some cases it doesn't mean this is a blanket thing that defines everything about them.