On living well and coming free Article Analysis

Aoki reveals her principal problem as a queer individual is that the society that used to love her before her transformation into a woman now shuns her, and yet even male queer LGBT members appear to be male chauvinists. According to Aoki, transgender-identifying people are largely believed to be outsiders and law breakers-this makes members of this community, as Ryka Aoki puts it in her article On Living Well and Coming Free, “outlaws. ” The LGBT community in the United States wrestles with a multiplicity of challenges including stigma, depression, rejection by close friends and family, and high suicide rates. Aoki challenges the irony of the word outlaw, in the context of being a transgender. While outlaws in popular American films such as Clint Eastwood in the “The Man with No Name”, Sarah Palin, a defiant Republican vice presidential candidate in the 2008 U.

Aoki in the article laments her internal battles but finds strength in them at the same time. She shows resilience and patience, and even when presenting her martial arts skills, thinks like an “outlaw. ” While the rest of her equally skilled martial arts instructors strive to show jaw-dropping skills, forms of showmanship that included broken bones and strangulation, Aoki takes a different path (Aoki 632). She mentions that she would not wish to have a female student prolong a fight longer than is necessary, and thus prefers to teach how to disarm the attacker, and disabling him or her down on the floor long enough to be able to call 911( Aoki 632). In this context, Aoki is emplacing women’s vulnerabilities regarding rape and to Aoki prefers that the female student should avoid additional harm.

Transgender-identifying people are abandoned in second-class citizenry where they experience scorn and are viewed with puzzlement (Veritas). In comparison to same-sex marriages or relationships which enjoy protection against discrimination by the law, transgender-identifying people are not perceived as real humans, they are victims of fetishization. Furthermore, the existent laws do more to lock transgenders out of bathrooms and other public facilities than they do to ensure transgender-identifying individuals are protected from hate-crimes such as being violently attacked in public places or entertainment spots. The fact that a transgender man or woman can be beaten to death and no one will be willing to follow up on the case, inclusive of the police, the attorney, the jury and the judge explains why Aoki feels trapped and isolated.

The community is primarily against the welfare of the transgender community. Aoki is right to mention that for there is no safe space for a non-passing, trans person. She points out that is not even whom they choose to date or partner with regarding sexual preference, but that the real catalysts of the violence and hatred against genders boil down to the size of their hands, their heights and voices, basic and almost negligible features (Aoki 635). According to the article, also, 25% of transgender youth had already attempted killing themselves, while about 50% of them were suicidal (Aoki 635). These statistics explain why transgenders, true to Aoki’s hypothesis, do not “see their grandchildren. ” Aoki’s form of activism is unique. Aoki tells the story of being an outlawed, queer person in America through the eyes of a trans woman.

Aoki asks the question, “What are we doing to help individuals live well?” In the author’s point of view, living well is the best form of revenge against a society that wants to see the transgender community humiliated and miserable (Aoki 636). While she mentions that brave initiatives such as working with the police to teach them that transgender people too, are humans, and need not be treated like animals, instead of fighting them, she also emphasizes the need to help transgenders, and other queer people, live well (Aoki 636). I believe that she is right in stressing that instead of forcing transgender people to fight like the typical outlaw, to burn out fighting, to die in battle, to experience a premature death, to struggle against multiple enemies and challenges, they should be taught to live better.