It was bound to happen eventually of course but when it did, I nearly dropped my coffee on my lap!  “It” being one of my posts offending a reader to the point they made a very visceral response.  In a nutshell, I’ve been, unabashedly playing with certain keywords to attract traffic and to gain million of dollars in click on my Google Ads.  While visions of basking in untold Google Dollar wealth had fleetingly been in my mind, it’s been clear I and my “team of barista’s” is really not up to the task.  As Michelle, my good friend and fellow connosoir of Vietnamese food once remarked to me, “I like your blog but, you know, Rebecca, you don’t write in it that much”.   Apparently one has to actually write words in order to have readers.   That my gal pal had to remind me of this fact tells you how far astray I had gone in my Google Dollar Delusion (GDD).

But the post in question,Crossdresser tip 3 for MtF transgender persons: Keep a Pashmina Shawl in Your Purse, I thought was pretty innocent, despite the obvious, and frankly awkward, use of keywords in my pos’ts title.   Well it was not just awkward it was Finntastically inFuriating to one of our Finish readers, Suvi-Tuuli Allan, who made no bones about telling us so, “I’m a transsexual woman. If someone would call me “MtF” anything, I’d kick their teeth in.”

I appreciated her bare knuckles honesty.   But, I was taken a back.

In discussing this international incident with a friend over tea she said, “So, it sounds like Suvi was really objecting to the use of your terms.   I wonder how your other readers felt”.  I hadn’t thought of that.

How do you feel?  Beside all full of holiday cheer (read: booze).

Terms, I have to confess, I generally dislike for a few reasons. One, I feel they put people in boxes they really don’t need to be in.  As humans, we can be pretty changeable from week to week (or for some of us hour to hour).   So why box someone in with a label?   Second, I feel that terms can create caste systems that are both artificial and that erect barriers that were not there prior to the term being used. Why do that?   In our Transgender Community, here in Greater Boston anyway, we generally use the term “Transgender” in a global umbrella to encompass crossdressers, gender queer (well some do at least), bi-gendered, transexual women, and anyone in that general constellation.

Merry Christmas everyone, and, keep your holiday spirit alive!

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10-16-2011 Update: Changed titles of fashion posts to reflect a wider audience; they don’t apply to such a narrow group. Also, the idea of writing specifically for the search engines was really a flawed approach vs. just writing content that is helpful to our readers here at Beck’s Cafe. Thanks to Tuvi from last year’s comment for making us think about this topic. The posts labelled “Crossdresser tips for MtF transgender persons” we changed to just “Fashion Tips” as a result; you can see them all at this link: http://beckscafe.com/category/fashion/