“Carmen Sense” is a writer on the blog Gender Reality — a blog that has the subheader of It’s not about the clothes. She’s the one who wrote the post Stop both engines… that I responded to in the Pam’s House Blend post “Swift Boating” My Wear Of A Women’s US Navy Dress Blue Uniform In DADT Protests.

I recently used Gender Reality‘s contact page to send “Carmen” a note, referring to the news found in my post My Bittersweet Sex/Gender Court Ruling: The San Diego Court Appearance. You know, the one where I went to court and legally changed what think of as my sex but the State of California refers to as my gender. I asked for an apology from “Carmen.”

So why did I ask for an apology?

In the comment thread for Stop both engines…, a commenter writing under the pseudonym Bambii with two eyes wrote this in a thread comment about me:

She never served in the US Military as a woman, would no longer be allowed to serve at all, never was and never will be issued a female uniform. The military does not recognize her as female. Neither does the State of California. She’s playing dress up.

Carmen responded this way in the comment thread:

To be fair to Sandeen, if she managed to get her birth certificate changed we’ll apologize to her for the error. If…

Well, I legally changed my gender, although I haven’t as yet change my birth certificate — that literally takes about three-quarters of a year to do. It’s a function of California State Government working a “bureaucratic speed” to update birth certificates — it’s considered pretty low priority in my state. But that said, my court approved change of gender document states this:

ORDER FOR CHANGE OF GENDER AND ISSUANCE OF NEW BIRTH CERTIFICATE

In other words, that should be sufficient documentation for an apology; that should be sufficient documentation even by her standards for retracting her comment that I wear a “costume” — or I wore a “costume” — when dressed in a women’s US Navy uniform. Obviously it isn’t just about the clothes for me — it’s about my sex and gender and about public protest to press for progressive change.

Since my legal change of gender document has personal information on it, and I’m not comfortable sending this document to an anonymous blogger, I offered to send a copy of the court certified document to a third party — such as Stampp Corbin, the publisher of LGBT Weekly, or Jillian Page, an editor at the Montreal Gazette — and that third party could verify for her that I did indeed legally change my gender in my home state of California.

“Carmen” or any of her peer bloggers on Gender Reality didn’t respond to my offer of a third party verification of my legal change of gender, or respond to the request for an apology in that same contact message. And, “Carmen” hasn’t publicly apologized either.

I’m actually irritated and offended she called my wear of a female Navy uniform the wearing of a costume. Call me petty, but I really want that public apology from “Carmen Sense” that she promised.

And, I’m waiting for it.

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Related:
* “Swift Boating” My Wear Of A Women’s US Navy Dress Blue Uniform In DADT Protests