i shouldn't read feminist blogs before bed
ETA: I originally came in here to write about how the internet is Eating Feminism and turning it into a Circular Firing Squad Lined Up On a Mobius Strip and I have very little faith that anything will really be accomplished in all these consciousness-raising blogcircles (also can feminism be trusted anymore? Should *anyone* outside the very specific demographic - read white, middle class, straight, educated - for which mainstream feminism was formulated have much faith in it?), but instead this came out. Enjoy.
Ya know what? I hate hate hate it when cisgendered queers (or anyone, but especially queers) use "tranny" as a negative descriptor. (Not that I'm particularly impressed when/if transfolk do it, but it's their word, at least - they're members of the marginalized population to which the term refers). I don't think I use it often, myself, though I'm gonna start paying better attention. I tend to describe things that are fabulous / so outlandish they would only be worn by genderbenders as being related to drag queens - like I bought this pair of platform silver pumps with upturned toes that are totally dutch drag queen shoes.
But really, I don't care how many trans friends you have. Tranny is the same as all the other negative descriptors that are based on further dehumanizing a "sub-human" group. I try not to use loaded terms like that anyway - bitch, whore, and cunt are not my terms of choice, neither is dick - because I don't think those should be insult words. I don't like labeling genitalia like that, and I don't like hating on sex workers either, and I especially don't like the word bitch. It's not something I have reclaimed, I guess . . . I dunno about that one. (And of course, being a white person and therefore scared of being called a racist, I avoid all racial terms cuz I'm enlightened and shit.) That's why I like douchebag, and variations thereof - douching hurts ladybits, and nothing should hurt ladybits!
Also? Three close friends of mine are trans. I'm fooling around with a genderqueer. And you know what? It would be easy for me to say "I know from trans" as though I'm an expert on it, but I'm not. I respect the fact that, as much as I observe and empathize, as much as I love my gender-variant crew, I'm not one of them. I'm cisgendered (my body and the gender I perceive myself to be are very much in alignment). I am safe. I present to the world in a non-threatening way. I feel uncomfortable in "boy clothes." I have never been called sir by accident and I likely never will be. I think of transpeople as our warriors - they are often the most visible, the most likely to be in danger. (The rate of murder, suicide, assault, substance abuse, etc. is all MUCH higher in the trans community - why is there not more research? Why are there not more resources? WHY?) I love the idea of gender as fluid, I love the work being done on the edges by gender-variant people (I obviously recognize gender-variant people aren't living their lives to benefit me, but I appreciate the benefits I reap anyway) and how it's seeping its way inward, towards the middle, towards people like me who are neither totally straight and narrow yet insufficiently queer. I wish being trans didn't threaten people's lives. I wish more people would recognize it merely adds insult to very real injury to throw around the same terms used by those who would hurt, kill and maim our warriors.
Ya know what? I hate hate hate it when cisgendered queers (or anyone, but especially queers) use "tranny" as a negative descriptor. (Not that I'm particularly impressed when/if transfolk do it, but it's their word, at least - they're members of the marginalized population to which the term refers). I don't think I use it often, myself, though I'm gonna start paying better attention. I tend to describe things that are fabulous / so outlandish they would only be worn by genderbenders as being related to drag queens - like I bought this pair of platform silver pumps with upturned toes that are totally dutch drag queen shoes.
But really, I don't care how many trans friends you have. Tranny is the same as all the other negative descriptors that are based on further dehumanizing a "sub-human" group. I try not to use loaded terms like that anyway - bitch, whore, and cunt are not my terms of choice, neither is dick - because I don't think those should be insult words. I don't like labeling genitalia like that, and I don't like hating on sex workers either, and I especially don't like the word bitch. It's not something I have reclaimed, I guess . . . I dunno about that one. (And of course, being a white person and therefore scared of being called a racist, I avoid all racial terms cuz I'm enlightened and shit.) That's why I like douchebag, and variations thereof - douching hurts ladybits, and nothing should hurt ladybits!
Also? Three close friends of mine are trans. I'm fooling around with a genderqueer. And you know what? It would be easy for me to say "I know from trans" as though I'm an expert on it, but I'm not. I respect the fact that, as much as I observe and empathize, as much as I love my gender-variant crew, I'm not one of them. I'm cisgendered (my body and the gender I perceive myself to be are very much in alignment). I am safe. I present to the world in a non-threatening way. I feel uncomfortable in "boy clothes." I have never been called sir by accident and I likely never will be. I think of transpeople as our warriors - they are often the most visible, the most likely to be in danger. (The rate of murder, suicide, assault, substance abuse, etc. is all MUCH higher in the trans community - why is there not more research? Why are there not more resources? WHY?) I love the idea of gender as fluid, I love the work being done on the edges by gender-variant people (I obviously recognize gender-variant people aren't living their lives to benefit me, but I appreciate the benefits I reap anyway) and how it's seeping its way inward, towards the middle, towards people like me who are neither totally straight and narrow yet insufficiently queer. I wish being trans didn't threaten people's lives. I wish more people would recognize it merely adds insult to very real injury to throw around the same terms used by those who would hurt, kill and maim our warriors.