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Just who do you think you are???My reply to a curious letterHi, Nikki! Thanks for the note, AND for all the time you took to express some interesting thoughts. I think it only courteous to return the favor with a thoughtful reply... In an email message you write:
Melanie Replies... Wow! That's quite a paragraph. First of all, I've never thought of putting pictures up on the web as "audacious". Egocentric, maybe, but then I've enjoyed being in the spotlight since I was little kid. It was quite natural for me to simply carry on that life long thrill of playing to the audience when the Web suddenly came on the scene with the best playground an artist could ever hope for. I note with interest your "intuitive" sense that "someone" was not "genuine" based on the pictures. I assure those pictures really are me - nobody else. Of course, you might not mean the pictures aren't me, but might be saying that I, as a person, am not "genuine". Well, I suppose that is open to interpretation. But I'm known to my friends as a rather kind and thoughtful person who is both honest and can be counted on in a crunch. I don't think those who know me would see that as being ingenuine. Also, if you have to opportunity to talk to those who figure in my daily life, I think you'd find that those pictures reflect both my outward appearance and inner attitudes in an extremely genuine fashion. My last thought on this is that you likely meant that your "intuition" alerted you to the fact that I wasn't born physically female (only mentally so.) I must, in that case, pay high accolades to your intuition, as the other 27,000 people who have visited my home page in the last fourteen months have had no such comments or feelings to my knowledge. The next part of your opening paragraph starts to get really interesting. First of all, I love the "Wellllll....then", I really do! It has such a judgmental flavor to it that I honestly don't think could have been layered on quite so thick with any other means. Now, I don't mean to put you down. You probably meant it as a simple explanation of surprise. Still, I don't mind telling you that it read to me like it meant, "Oh, I SEE, THIS changes everything!" In fact, I don't think it changes anything at all. It's like saying, "You used to be crippled? Wellllll...then." Paying more attention to what was than what is, is certainly your prerogative. I must, however, take exception (at least a little) to you saying "Not a woman at all but a man who "became" a woman." Quite simply, I disagree with you. I was a woman inside since day one. I had corrective surgery to make the outside match. Again, you rely on the past as being who and what a person is, not by appraising who and what they are now. But I notice you counter that argument in advance by putting quote marks on the word "became" as well. This way, you not only label me as a man once, but a man still. Now I ask you. (You've seen the pictures.) How far do you think I would get in a Men's room. Or the locker room? Or the army, for that matter? Okay, you're faced with a choice. You have to separate a group of people into two groups by sex - men on one side, women on the other. Do you honestly believe your friends and neighbors would think you anything but mad if you told me to go stand in the men's group???? "Wellllll...then." Lasty (in this paragraph), you compare my web site to the Jerry Springer Show. I've never seen Jerry's show, so I'll have to rely on your judgment on that one. I have heard that he tends to sensationalize folks such as myself. Well, that's the LAST thing I'd want to do to myself. How is it you came to the conclusion I was trying to THAT, for heaven's sake! You continue...
I'm touched. I really am! That you would have to stop reading my diaries because of the impact of the "nightmare" I created for them - ESPECIALLY since you don't know them and haven't met them (or me, for that matter) is truly touching. I have to admit, your "empathy" is right up there with your "intuition". Remarkable.
Thank you. Strange, I hadn't gotten that impression before. But I do appreciate your taking the quote marks off "became".
What the hell, right!
Yak?
I may be missing something here, but I get the distinct feeling you just said that women never do anything selfish. That's quite a statement! I don't buy it, but it IS quite a statement. Heaven's, I've known some INCREDIBLY selfish women in my time. Even some who felt that people should be miserable their whole lives because of any angst they might cause others by being themselves. Me, I see a dad who was losing it. He was beginning to be a horrible husband and a rotten father. And then... "Wellllll...then", he went and got himself right and made his family happy again. Only now, it was "her" family (forgive the quotes), and she made a much better friend than a husband, a much better parent than a father, and created a much happier family that there was before. But, there are those who see that as being selfish (as if transition was fun - what with all the laughter, ridicule, and notes like this one both during and after!) Clearly there is a price to pay, and the only thing gained was a better life in the long run for the whole family as a group and as individuals. Now, guys who risk their lives as race car drivers, soldiers, electrical repairmen, stuntmen, and women who risk theirs as inner city teachers, public defenders, and explorers - you may see them as selfish people who create nightmares for their families. But I see them as heroes, and their spouses and children as beneficiaries of the risks they take and the price they pay.
As her parent. The world today is filled with divorced parents, step-parents, big brothers, youth leaders, and role models. Perhaps our language is not up to describing the full spectrum of people who love and care for children. But that is the fault of the language, not the people. The love is real, and that is all that matters.
I think I can speak for Dave when I say that there is no desire for thanks or praise, but simply recognition. Best wishes for all you hope to do and be, Melanie Nikki's response to my reply....
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