What it now means is that fringe members of the trans community created a campaign of division to alienate themselves from the rest of the queer movement, and succeeded in transforming the word "tranny" into a pejorative, the likes of which blind some people to context.

The second trans person I met was born male and transitioned to become a woman who loves other women. Jordana, aka DJ 187 from my rave days, transitioned from male to female and stayed with her wife...don't feel alone. Of the trans persons I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with, about a fourth of them are…

The generational perversion of a former term of endearment is not cause for fomenting such rage. Carmen is not infallible, otherwise she wouldn't have had to clean her own Twitter account of the word. I'm upset in this argument because it's pitting friends and family against each other - because this self-avowed…

You mean RuPaul, who has fearlessly presented a non-conformist gender appearance in the public eye for over 30 years, more than 20 of those years in the mainstream media? The RuPaul who encourages people to love themselves and fully realize who they are? The RuPaul who presented Carmen to the world, then said Carmen…

When I say gay community above, I include the transvestite and transsexual community. We weren't so divided at one time.

When I say gay community above, I include the transvestite and transsexual community. We weren't so divided at one time :-/

When I say gay community above, I include the transvestite and transsexual community. We weren't so divided at one time :-/

When I say gay community above, I include the transvestite and transsexual community. We weren't so divided at one time :-/

When I say gay community above, I include the transvestite and transsexual community. We weren't so divided at one time :-/

RuPaul's motto has been "love yourself" for as long as he's been in the mainstream - about twenty years now. I took Ru's tweets to mean he's disappointed that the trans community is so up in arms about a word, when there are much, much bigger fish to fry. Congressional and Constitutional fish, even. And here we are,…

Faggot never started out as a term of endearment. Faggot was always about killing homosexuals. Tranny started out as a term of endearment. Somewhere in the last few years, it got perverted.

I would guess that RuPaul, growing up in the deep south and dealing with these issues for nearly 40 years now, is more than a little bit offended that the literal beatings he took for being gender queer are being equated with vocabulary exchanges today. I wouldn't blame him.

Lara, I am addressing Carmen's self-promotion and hypocrisy in the situation. I've not witnessed the same from you. But again, can someone research the origin of when the term went from endearment to derision? I see several op-eds online dating back to 2008, mistakenly addressing it as a connection to pornography and…

The greater problem is none of us wants to walk on eggshells fearing which innocuous word will become the next great divider in our community. "Faggot" is a far more offensive word and has always been intended as dehumanizing, by referencing the historical practice of burning the homosexuals in the kindling of a…

A world where battles are not started between friends and "family" just for the sake of promoting a show on TV. Carmen herself had to erase the use of the term on her own Twitter account. That's the irony here, Lara.

I appreciate you're speaking about your experience with the word, but you're speaking about it as if it's the only way the word is or ever has been used. That is, your experience is yours and that experience is anecdotal. It's very hard to have a reasonable conversation about topics which affect entire populations…

When did it become a slur? Who told you it was a slur? Who told them? Can we trace the origin of when it was first proclaimed a pejorative instead of a term of endearment? I'm asking as someone who's been in the gay community for nearly twenty years and heard the word used casually in conversation without incident…

I don't agree. And while I am not trans, I've known and worked with far too many transsexual and transvestite friends who never had an issue with this word until recently - and most still don't have an issue with it. It is, as RuPaul pointed out, a fringe set of activists out to make a name for themselves.

^^This. They had no less than four of them near my campus. All of them were packed as novelties when they opened and a couple of them lasted longer than some of the regular bars in the nightlife district, but they ultimately lost out to increased availability of W/D connections in apartments. That being said, this is…

Oh, Violet. I cried tears of joy while reading this and enjoying my Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz. Such an inspiring tale!