I was confronted with certain feelings on yesterday when I read on an urban website that Eddie Murphy had been exposed by a transgender escort. Although this is not the first incident, as some may recall, I could not help but feel strongly about this particular announcement.
As a transgender woman who lives as female, (not as a she male, not an escort, not a tranny, a trap, or a female impersonator), I was a bit disappointed by the whole gotcha!! moment that was created by the escort herself. I asked myself if it was shameful to play a role in your own public humiliation. I mean just for consideration, by exposing a man for his interest in transgender women (by a transgender woman), and by asking for financial compensation as a motive to go away and not speak on it again suggests to me that she feels as if it is something wrong with being with her. This role that some trans women play in the stereotyping, the ridicule, the discrimination, and sometimes the violence against trans women is disheartening. I walk in a certain light and pride myself (humbly) in not being a stereotype. As a result, I hope that it illustrates (to those willing to be educated) that as a trans woman, I want to be treated with respect and with dignity, but I find it impossible for people to do so if I don't take an active role in teaching them how to view me. Not to make light of any of the many struggles and obstacles that accompany being transgender (including the belief of some that they are relegated to roles as sex workers), I wonder if the bigger shame should have been that he was with an escort, and not that he was with an attractive female who happened to be transgender.
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