A Transsexual Woman Defends Jim Rome

Really.

And, BTW, I mean me.

Yes, me - Katrina Rose, the transsexual lawyer who will not accept one syllable of mealy-mouthed shit from the Human Right Scampaign or any other de facto anti-trans cadre.

Not that Rome would lose any sleep if I didn’t defend him in the controversy over his remarks about Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo’s recent schooling in trans issues.

For what its worth, Jim Rome is the only sports talk show I will listen to.  Do I wish he’d be as consistently enlightened about transsexuals as he is about sexual orientation?  Sure.  Do I wish he wouldn’t refer to WNBA players as ‘nags’?  You bet.

But, here’s the deal:  I first ran across The Jim Rome Show by accident on Houston’s KILT 610 back in 1998.  When I first heard him, he was talking about NFL superstar right-wing nutcase Reggie White’s stupifyingly racist and homophobic remarks before the Wisconsin Legislature.  I landed on 610 mid-rant and wasn’t sure where he was going with it. 

But, I made an assumption.

It was a sports show, right?  Testosterone City, right?  Therefore, Rome had to be leading up to a spirited defense of the Packers’ White.

Not quite.

Rome ripped him up, down, sideways and through every dimension imaginable - clearly knowing that he was going to catch shit from plenty of his listeners, which he did.  (I wonder…Did GLAAD say anything positive about what Rome had to say that day?)

Since that day, I’ve been a Jungle Dweller (though it was a bit awkward back when Al Franken’s show on Air America ran opposite Rome; but, I managed.)

For even though my assumption was almost instantaneously dispelled, I had made an assumption about the guy.  And, as I mentioned, this was back in 1998.  More specifically, it was only a few days before I was to head to court to try to convince a judge to sign off on an order changing my legal name and sex.  In the years since, more than a few people have made assumptions about me, but luckliy the judge who heard my case was not one of them.

And the rest (or, for the rest of the Spring semester anyway, Tuesdays and Thursdays in one particular classroom at the U of Iowa) is trans history.

Rome, I’m sure, has enough on his plate that he doesn’t need to worry about that - just as I’m sure he doesn’t need to be worried about any of the hubbub about his remarks about Ronaldo.  After all, let’s be honest with ourselves: if enough tranny money materialized and enough trans folks moved into the 4th District of Massachusetts, then we could take down the Human Right Scampaign and Barney Frank in one fell swoop and stop worrying about trans-inclusion in ENDA.  But, even if Rome decided to start channeling Michael Savage and Norah Vincent on a daily basis, and we were of a mind to try to take down Rome, it wouldn’t happen.

As I’ve said on more than a few occasions: Let’s fight the real enemy.

And it ain’t Jim Rome.