Ugh ugh ugh transphobia.
This is my new top upsettedness thing. It used to be lgbtq rights in general, focusing on homophobia as applied to the good ole steady gays and lesbians and perhaps bisexuals, but happily most people I run into now seem to be past that. So now transphobia is beginning to be my issue of concern. It is also my current biggest Dating Yardstick (pushing past homophobia, racism, and misogyny, hurrah!), as in, lately it seems it is like, the first thing I want to know about a potential romantic partner. "Are you comfortable with and accepting of transpeople and genderqueerness, y/n?" Which is not to say, of course, that misogyny or racism don't matter, but I guess I feel I can trust people there a little bit more, and maybe get to that at the end of a conversation rather than the beginning. (I make a fun first date.)
Though casual/sublimated racism is still damn prevalent and manifests itself rather easily without much probing, and I currently have no patience with that either, so it should probably be higher on the hierarchy of Things That Make Me Say "Hell No." (I'm still having problems with my own terminology here--obviously someone really racist would make me go "hell no" a lot more emphatically, but I kinda feel that person wouldn't even be up for consideration in the first place, you know? Same with misogyny, etc.)
In any case, a friend of mine says that for them, veganism is the big thing, because if someone's not about that, they do not want to have that conversation. I'm less touchy on that, but transissues and the casual racism thing? I do NOT want to have that conversation. This entry is about transphobia though, so I'll get my focus back onto that. Right.
Anyway, it used to be that it was gay-bashing that could really-really hurt me, as in, actually make me cry after a particularly bad interaction with someone and leave me cringing and unable to resume the whole "distanced debater" stance. But lately, either I've gotten more used to it or just (more likely) not run into it as much, not with any people I might need to care about in any case. So now it's the trans thing. I am not good with it. I do not want to debate it with people. I do not want to explain. When confronted with hostility on that issue, I just want to curl up in a little ball and shut everyone out and have them go away, away, away, because I cannot deal with it. It hurts. A lot.
So, um, yeah, if anyone on this flist has a problem with that (and no, though my writing this was inspired by a specific post, I am not aiming this at anyone specific), they may want to leave me be.
I am also, always, disturbed by the exclusionary practices of various minority groups. Goddamn, I hate that. With the trans thing, I am disturbed by how some lesbian-feminist factions handle the whole woman-identified-woman thing. Both with the refusal to accept MtFs as women in many cases, and the mix of attitudes on FtMs.
I am especially disturbed by all the specifications on how one "ought" to act to not be a cause-traitor. Kittikattie just made a great post on the mess about being an oreo/not being black-acting enough/disavowing one's blackness in her own journal, and yeah, I guess it's kind of like that, except less openly vocalized most of the time.
If one is a woman who acts traditionally "feminine," who is flirty and giggly and wears pink frosted lipstick and the like, then one is a tool of the patriarchy because one is conforming to their expectations of feminity and selling out to be attractive to men.
If one is a FtM however, then apparently one is also a tool of the patriarchy, because one is disavowing one's feminity, and selling out one's biological gender in order to take on male privilege and further subjugating women into the "inferior" status.
So then, that leaves us with... what? Being just un-feminine enough to not be attractive to the average man, but not masculine enough that it seems one wants to go on over the other side? A nice little army of butch little amazons? Or what?
It is just very sad and limiting.
Though casual/sublimated racism is still damn prevalent and manifests itself rather easily without much probing, and I currently have no patience with that either, so it should probably be higher on the hierarchy of Things That Make Me Say "Hell No." (I'm still having problems with my own terminology here--obviously someone really racist would make me go "hell no" a lot more emphatically, but I kinda feel that person wouldn't even be up for consideration in the first place, you know? Same with misogyny, etc.)
In any case, a friend of mine says that for them, veganism is the big thing, because if someone's not about that, they do not want to have that conversation. I'm less touchy on that, but transissues and the casual racism thing? I do NOT want to have that conversation. This entry is about transphobia though, so I'll get my focus back onto that. Right.
Anyway, it used to be that it was gay-bashing that could really-really hurt me, as in, actually make me cry after a particularly bad interaction with someone and leave me cringing and unable to resume the whole "distanced debater" stance. But lately, either I've gotten more used to it or just (more likely) not run into it as much, not with any people I might need to care about in any case. So now it's the trans thing. I am not good with it. I do not want to debate it with people. I do not want to explain. When confronted with hostility on that issue, I just want to curl up in a little ball and shut everyone out and have them go away, away, away, because I cannot deal with it. It hurts. A lot.
So, um, yeah, if anyone on this flist has a problem with that (and no, though my writing this was inspired by a specific post, I am not aiming this at anyone specific), they may want to leave me be.
I am also, always, disturbed by the exclusionary practices of various minority groups. Goddamn, I hate that. With the trans thing, I am disturbed by how some lesbian-feminist factions handle the whole woman-identified-woman thing. Both with the refusal to accept MtFs as women in many cases, and the mix of attitudes on FtMs.
I am especially disturbed by all the specifications on how one "ought" to act to not be a cause-traitor. Kittikattie just made a great post on the mess about being an oreo/not being black-acting enough/disavowing one's blackness in her own journal, and yeah, I guess it's kind of like that, except less openly vocalized most of the time.
If one is a woman who acts traditionally "feminine," who is flirty and giggly and wears pink frosted lipstick and the like, then one is a tool of the patriarchy because one is conforming to their expectations of feminity and selling out to be attractive to men.
If one is a FtM however, then apparently one is also a tool of the patriarchy, because one is disavowing one's feminity, and selling out one's biological gender in order to take on male privilege and further subjugating women into the "inferior" status.
So then, that leaves us with... what? Being just un-feminine enough to not be attractive to the average man, but not masculine enough that it seems one wants to go on over the other side? A nice little army of butch little amazons? Or what?
It is just very sad and limiting.