Liberal Hatred for Susan Sarandon is a Symptom of People Who Refuse to Acknowledge Their Own Failure

[rainbows_]

Oscar-winning actor and progressive activist Susan Sarandon sparked a good deal of controversy during the primary stage of the presidential election when she expressed doubt to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about whether she could bring herself to vote for Hillary Clinton in a “lesser-of-two-evils” situation. It was a common question at that time among

Comments

[amw]

I understand that to some people the word "trannie" is considered offensive, but please be mindful not to retroactively assign a blanket status of "slur" to a term that has been used for years - probably decades - as a term of endearment, solidarity and identity amongst transsexuals, transvestites, drag performers and transgendered people. There are lots of users of the English language outside of the largely America-centric internet activist community, and it can come across as cultural imperialism when words are unilaterally deemed slurs (or not) just because in certain parts of the world they tend to be used that way. A good counter-example is "queer", which continues to be used a slur in some parts of the world, but nevertheless got elevated to top-level representation in "LGBTQ" and is considered okay to use in polite language online.

My personal experience of oppression and "dehumanizing" language as a transsexual in Australia, Canada and continental Europe has never involved the term "trannie". I have been called "man", "he... she... it", "thing", "faggot", "man-woman" and a whole bevy of other inaccurate terms that were far more offensive to me than the actual term I and many people in my circle have used for years to describe ourselves.

In the interests of being sensitive to your experience, i will try to remember to use your preferred term (is it "transperson"?) on this community in the future. Some feedback for you, though - i would suggest that if you do not want to scare people away from contributing to this community, you should not attack them for the language they are using to express themselves in not-bigoted-at-all and unrelated political discussion.