empty vessel (white ftms will not discuss race/gender privilege)
went to a meeting of tg/ts males this evening, the topic was supposedly race and privilege, which would include discussions of passing and discrimination. heard a few anecdotes of poc being harrased, seen as boys of colour in a car or shopping, and you know the story. The white guys spoke about being seen as being younger than they are, not respected in the work place.
An african american kid spoke about joing the military and wanting to be exclusively male, one poc spoke about choosing to remain androgynus and the pressure they have heard from other ftms that they should not take T because they are 'hot' in the feminine. In response I gave a personal anecdote about being amongst TS people in israel, how in the middle east the language is so gendered, and though people were of different race/ethnicities they were all citizens of that place and had this language in common, i.e. of being TS in a strictly binary landscape...but here in english its easier to define an inbetween space.....moderator changed the subject. a white guy spoke about how we should embrace our 'boyhood'. i mentioned some of us as 'boyhoods' get to be cherished as vessles of potential, whereas others get followed in a store and suspected as shoplifting -- i tentatively disagreed with his point, saying he could reconsider, i.e. that race and milieu have some bearing on 'boyhood'. then one of the 5 poc in the room of 25 gave an anecdote about being harassed by a cop in a store. a white guy spoke at length about how we should all be out and educate others. i asked if he could bring this back to race. He went on to say, he could not speak about what its like to be chassidic or black, so what could he possibly say about race. One thing all the white kids had in common was the idea of being owed respect, specifically when being misread as too young to qualify for their jobs, myself included, insofar as people thinking i'm not telling the truth if i'm too young to have done what i'm saying i've done. At some point I also mentioned my experience of being harassed when read as a religious muslim.
and that was pretty much it.
extremely agitated. difficult day of too much stealth adventure, I was anxious before I got there, and felt so frustrated while I was there that i had to leave the room for a minute.
the moderators never invited the white guys to think about what it means to become a white man. (let alone a young, white, able-bodied, straight man.) There was no overt discussion of privilege, period. I almost lost it tonight, and was very nervous to speak after an extremely stressful day. When I asked the white moderator why they didnt use this opportunity to get into this issue, she said the group decides ....and didnt really finish her sentence. She apologised to me that my needs are different, or some such. I told her that she didnt have to apologise, and then asked - wait, can i not speak to you as a peer? She clarified that no, I cannot.
where is this going. There is this glut of ftms under 30 who have no sense of FTM cultural or political history, who do not have a critique of what they are doing in social space, and I do not witness any cultural impetus around me to change that into a consciousness let alone a movement for political change.
An african american kid spoke about joing the military and wanting to be exclusively male, one poc spoke about choosing to remain androgynus and the pressure they have heard from other ftms that they should not take T because they are 'hot' in the feminine. In response I gave a personal anecdote about being amongst TS people in israel, how in the middle east the language is so gendered, and though people were of different race/ethnicities they were all citizens of that place and had this language in common, i.e. of being TS in a strictly binary landscape...but here in english its easier to define an inbetween space.....moderator changed the subject. a white guy spoke about how we should embrace our 'boyhood'. i mentioned some of us as 'boyhoods' get to be cherished as vessles of potential, whereas others get followed in a store and suspected as shoplifting -- i tentatively disagreed with his point, saying he could reconsider, i.e. that race and milieu have some bearing on 'boyhood'. then one of the 5 poc in the room of 25 gave an anecdote about being harassed by a cop in a store. a white guy spoke at length about how we should all be out and educate others. i asked if he could bring this back to race. He went on to say, he could not speak about what its like to be chassidic or black, so what could he possibly say about race. One thing all the white kids had in common was the idea of being owed respect, specifically when being misread as too young to qualify for their jobs, myself included, insofar as people thinking i'm not telling the truth if i'm too young to have done what i'm saying i've done. At some point I also mentioned my experience of being harassed when read as a religious muslim.
and that was pretty much it.
extremely agitated. difficult day of too much stealth adventure, I was anxious before I got there, and felt so frustrated while I was there that i had to leave the room for a minute.
the moderators never invited the white guys to think about what it means to become a white man. (let alone a young, white, able-bodied, straight man.) There was no overt discussion of privilege, period. I almost lost it tonight, and was very nervous to speak after an extremely stressful day. When I asked the white moderator why they didnt use this opportunity to get into this issue, she said the group decides ....and didnt really finish her sentence. She apologised to me that my needs are different, or some such. I told her that she didnt have to apologise, and then asked - wait, can i not speak to you as a peer? She clarified that no, I cannot.
where is this going. There is this glut of ftms under 30 who have no sense of FTM cultural or political history, who do not have a critique of what they are doing in social space, and I do not witness any cultural impetus around me to change that into a consciousness let alone a movement for political change.