I get a lot of feminists, or really, a lot of cis people in general, who seem miffed about my dissonance as a trans woman. Or, in many other cases, confused. Apparently, a deep psychological or instinctual pain has to… make rational sense. Apparently.
This is illustrated best by a statement made by a cis woman I knew who I was speaking to about why I sought out hormone replacement therapy. Specifically, when I pointed out that I had dissonance regarding my facial hair’s volume (back before I got laser and estrogen, now my shaving is more of a safety concern and a lot less dissonance) she said, “but I have facial hair too! I don’t get how you can feel dysphoria over something regular girls have!”
Moving on from how she didn’t use cis and othered me, let’s take a look at this idea of “cis people have it too!” For one, this idea is based on a huge strawperson fallacy. Namely that our dissonance invariably comes from what we perceive certain sexes as having. This fail bomb of a fallacy sits within the reasoning of tons and tons of people. Bindel’s bullshit about gender essentialism depends on our dissonance somehow being caused by what we perceive others as having. Ron Gold’s bullshit depends on this same fallacy, that dissonance is just some kind of delusion built from what we see and perceive of another sex. But you see, it goes beyond that. This idea of “but cis people have that” is basically assuming that this is based off some sort of logical deduction gone wrong. When someone says that they don’t realize what they’re actually saying is, “your instinctual pain doesn’t follow logic!” Yes. If you think that sounds utterly ridiculous and unbelievably ignorant of even the basics we learn from our own experiences as humans, that’s because it is. Funny how that works. Deep psychological/instinctual feelings not being logical. Shocking, I know.
Now, no doubt, transsexuality and being transgender both come in a lot of different flavors (TG especially) and certainly many of us feel dissonance or dysphoria differently from others, in different intensities and due to different causes. So for the most part, this is going to be me, talking about me (and a contingent of trans folks I know who get it like me) and how I (and they) experience dissonance. In no way should these statements be applied across the board unless the trans person in question states they are accurate. Disclaimer stated, moving on.
My dissonance has absolutely nothing to do with what cis girls have. In fact, I am entirely indifferent to what cis girls have. You (you being directed at a hypothetical cis woman) could have a big bushy beard that birds live in and breasts flatter than a Plexiglas window for all I care. It is irrelevant (unless the birds were shitting everywhere, then it would be relevant to hygiene). Furthermore, and this goes back to all of this bullshit about how dissonance doesn’t make sense, who are you to expect a feeling, a deep psychological and instinctual feeling, regarding body structure, to be rational and easily explained? Last I checked, I didn’t have an awful lot to be sad about in my life (I actually do pretty well for myself, all things considered) yet I have depression. One could easily talk about how irrational my depression is. Yeah, except that depression isn’t rational. It just is. It’s a present internal feeling that has an effect on the mind and well being. It does not need to have a rational reason, just a cause.
And no one really knows what the cause of dissonance is. There are plenty of theories (most of which are made in complete ignorance of trans folk’s lived experiences) but the fact is, we don’t know what causes it. We don’t even know if there’s one single cause, or multiple causes or even multiple factors that merge together into a Voltron cause for dissonance. All of this combined, the fact that it’s a feeling, not a logical thought process, the fact that we don’t know the causes, all of this basically means that anyone who says that my dissonance “doesn’t make sense” is driving right off a logical cliff at max speed
Virtually all of the bullshit theories used to strip validity from us depend on some sort of socialization situation. And all of them arise from the fact that to cis people, our feelings “don’t make sense”. Shocking how a feeling that someone has never felt before wouldn’t make sense to them. Just shocking. The radical feminists say that it’s delusions that then make us hurt when we can’t get what we think other sexes have. The less intelligent gender abolitionists say it’s because we’re unhappy in our gender roles and instead of just saying fuck you to the roles, we change our bodies. Cisgays with an axe to grind say that it’s us trying to escape being gay and part of eliminationism of gay people (yeah, cuz everywhere = Iran. Apparently). All of this is ignorant. There’s really no nicer way to put it. In every single one of these blanket statements, there is an explicit ignorance of the counterexamples from among trans people and just a basic lack of comprehension of the fact that feelings ≠ logical. For instance, gender roles: I said a giant fuck you to gender roles before I transitioned. I went the gender apathetic route and did what I wanted for my self expression. Didn’t do a thing to change my dissonance. Also, I’m more annoyed by the expected roles for women then I am for men. I act as a counterexample to that bullshit argument and I’m generally ignored when I break it by existing. I actually act as a counterexample for the sexuality one as well, being that I only find individuals with vaginas, breasts, curvy bodies and a derth of body/facial hair volume attractive and this would label me fairly gay to society with my being a woman and all.
Yeah, if I was running away from gayness, I must sure be lost.
And all of this, all of this silliness would be completely avoidable if these people stopped believing that central fallacious fail bomb that dissonance is based on what we think people have, that it arises from thought at all. And let me tell you, this central bullshit pillar drives me up the wall so much. Because that one, I get to hear it from allies too, who are trying to comfort me and be helpful. Yeah. Thanks folks.
This crowd should know that pain isn’t logical. If any of them have dealt with disabilities that involve various forms of pain (or know PWD) they’ve got no excuse to think that a feeling of pain needs to make rational sense. Emotional pain, physical pain, none of it is something that you think about or arrive to through reasoning. So the sheer level of ignorant fuckery required to expect our pain to follow your arguments about rationality is just ridiculous, Internet RadFems Radscums. And the truly unhelpful statement of, “hey, I have that trait too” doesn’t in the least comfort us, allies. You’re just being lazy. It’s not hard to research. It’s not hard to ask those of us who are willing to teach. Finding out more is the best way to avoid tasting your delicious toes when you’re trying to help. Omnomnom foot. I get that all of you are trying to be helpful and comforting but well, we all know my views on intent.
Let’s talk about dissonance. (A more basic, 101 level post on my dissonance can be found here.)
Me personally, I’m probably slightly atypical (or perhaps a lot of trans folk hide this from the gatekeepers, either way), the radscum bullshit theorizing is especially silly since the dissonance came first. Yep, that’s right. My identity as a woman congealed out of dissonance. Not the other way around. I’ve always been in pain from some of the features we commonly refer to as male that I possessed. Of course, not all of them, but golly we wouldn’t want to break someone’s theory, now would we? For instance, most of my body hair wasn’t a problem. Yeah it was asthetically displeasing but that’s not dissonance. I also don’t want a uterus. All of this shows that dissonance comes in all patterns, intensities and styles (and is not in the least dependent on what society says women should have). It’s important to learn this. This lesson is made even more abundantly clear by the presence of nonbinary folk and genderqueer folk. There are no sexes out there that match what a notable number of nonbinary and GQ folk need in body structure (for those that do require body modification). Yet that number still has bodily dissonance. Funny how that works.
I don’t know why I have dissonance. I don’t need to know why to have it either. It’s inexplicable, I don’t know where it comes from, just what it does. I know that my mind rejects the presence of a penis and accepts and expects the presence of a vagina and breasts. The dissonance for my chest faded as soon as I got development. They weren’t even big. And the dissonance was still aided and gone from that spot.
Not once has knowing what cis girls have changed this sensation. And that’s because it honestly is not about what cis girls have. My facial hair hurting me is as valid as any other deep psychological pain or instinctual response, no matter how many bearded cis women dance under the stars (or sit, sitting is fine too). I’m not dissonant about my wookie legs but if another trans woman has dissonance regarding leg hair? That’s entirely valid too.
Because pain doesn’t need to make rational sense. That’s not how it works. Get the fuck over this.
And since I’ve spoiled you all with my diagrams, have another.
Filed under: activism, rant | 21 Comments
Tags: cissexism, feminism, kyriarchy, privilege, transgender
Allies. Supporters. Helpers. People who work with you in alliance, to aid your interests.
No doubt they’re important. Alliance is what gives us the numbers we need to fight back against systemic oppression. We can’t go it alone, obviously, so we recruit people to the cause. Alliance is not just giving lip service. In fact allies/supporters/helpers whatever often have a lot of work ahead of them just to avoid harming our efforts and us. So it should be entirely unsurprising that some allies/supporters/helpers are actually not allies/supporters/helpers at all.
Some people just care far more about their reputation, their Liberal Points™, their own privileged person comfort or in being able to retain their reality ignoring delusion that they aren’t really privileged than they are actually fixing any of these problems. And some are just trying to fuck us over directly. But whatever the reason (and trust me, the reason does not matter in the least for whether the actions or lack thereof do damage) these people aren’t really allies after all. They are what I like to refer to as PseudoAllies. For whatever reason, they sabotage, deface, derail, distort, complain and generally do more harm than good. One such type of this is the “gray vampire” described in more detail here and also here, which are well known to attempt criticize the way things are done as an excuse not to commit.
And here’s where I make people get whiny. If you refuse to commit to or operate within a paradigm in which you oppose oppression of a group, for any reason (literally, any) then you are not an ally to that group. Whether you’re a gray vampire, a Liberal Reputation Points™ player who didn’t realize that you can’t be an ally just by having trans friends, a privileged person with shit perspective who believes that your comfort is somehow equal to our survival or any other reason, you still aren’t an ally.
Nope. Not even that reason. Sorry, not that one either. Not an ally. A pseudoally. Literally, announcing your intention to stop opposing oppression of a group means that you are not an ally. Note that I’m not saying you have to stay an activist. One can oppose oppression to differing levels of effort. Don’t have a lot of spoons or energy or busy with a lot of bullshit in your life that self care dictates handling? Just make sure you aren’t doing oppressive privileged bullshit and don’t enable others to do oppressive privileged bullshit and there you are, opposing oppression. And that’s really the rub there, opposing oppression is not fucking hard. It may take a little thought and a little research to make sure your actions are actually beneficial but the actions themselves? Easy as pie. And luckily, there will always be members of the trans community who are willing to subject themselves to multitudes of irritating questions of people who haven’t done the research (hint: I am not willing, so don’t ask me). So if you’re really unsure, ask one of them. (and if they say, hey don’t bother me right now, go find someone else to ask).
But the worst, oh the most deeply enraging of pseudoallies are the comfort mongers. The people who are so dreadfully hurt by how “mean” trans people are, how “aggressive” or “vicious”, how much we’re all “jerks”, “harsh” or “too rough” on them. Of all the ridiculously privileged, shallow, asinine reasons to abandon the paradigm of oppression opposition, this is quite simply the worst.
Let me tell you, pseudoallies who may be reading this (as someone will likely invariably link you my way when you pull your shit), unequivocally, indisputably, if your reason for not being an ally was “omg some trans people were mean to me”, you were never a good ally to begin with. If you are capable of abandoning the fight against the widespread oppression of trans people (or any group really, this applies on all zones of kyriarchy) because some trans people didn’t elevate your privileged person discomfort over our lives with us being upset at your privileged fuck ups (or even worse, at someone else’s fuck ups) then you are not a good ally or even an ally at all, by definition. Allies, as they pertain to marginalization activism, are people who work against and oppose oppression, always, invariably. An ally who purposefully stops opposing oppression is an oxymoron. A pseudoally. And if you’re being linked this post after you just did what I’ve described here, then you are a pseudoally.
This utter lack of being an ally is what informs our lack of caring about tone argument derails, about the whining of failed Appeaser archetypes that forget the need for Nukers, about criticisms of how many “allies” we’ve chased away with our tone.
I have not chased away a single genuine ally from anti oppression activism. Literally. Not even one. Some might not read my blog anymore but that isn’t a problem for me. As long as they’re still reading trans people’s experiences, accepting their privilege, owning their mistakes and fighting oppression, they’re fine. I have chased away many pseudoallies, but as pseudoallies are drains on our resources, who use us and abuse us, who turn us against each other, vampires that drink up our energy and our attentions with their precious hurt feelings and “it’s all about me” self obsessing bullshit, is that really a bad thing?
No. It isn’t. In fact, chasing away draining pseudoallies is something that helps clean the sides of the barnacles in activism. One of the main benefits of having Nukers is the loss of pseudoallies like gray vampires, comfort mongers, Liberal Reputation Points™ players, concern trolls and trapdoor trolls, all of whom supremely and easily fuck with Appeasers on a regular basis.
So no, we don’t care when we chase away pseudoallies. I’m amazed that anyone expects us to care. Do mention if we actually chase away a real ally (but don’t hold your breath for it). Until then, I’ll keep on doing what I’m doing.
Filed under: activism, rant | 8 Comments
Tags: bullshit, cis, cissexism, fuck this fuckery, kyriarchy, privilege, pseudoallyfail, transgender
Intent! It’s Fucking Magic!
Crossposted to Questioning Transphobia
Warning: This post is sarcastic to such a point as you may actually slip in the pools of sarcasm that are dripping off of it. Please walk carefully. The caution cones are there for your protection. Also, we totally didn’t intend for you to slip so we’re not responsible if you do.
Today, someone said a slur. It actually doesn’t matter what slur it was, because you see, he didn’t intend to hurt anyone and therefore it couldn’t possibly be a slur. Much like how intent magically protects the actions of all privileged fuckjobs, intent means that anything you say, no matter how many groups it hurts, what awful views it enables, no matter what systemic bigotries it props up through the usage of language that enforces social concepts that crush a marginalized group, it mystically negates all of that.
So if you out a trans woman? Your uncanny intent wraps around her and protects her from murder, harassment, degendering and objectification by the people you just outed her to! If you say something ableist, you’re not actually contributing to the system that demeans PWD because your intent will gird your words with alchemical shields, made of eldritch power themselves, that prevent the words from creating and furthering social associations between disability and being bad, wrong, broken or unwanted! I know? Isn’t it grand? I love magic!
See, the great thing about this thaumaturgy is that it protects anything a privileged asshole says! So it fits in line completely with that glorious sense of entitlement that privilege tends to confer, basically, the idea that you can say anything you want and should never have accountability for what you say! Because you see, all privileged people have this ancient eldritch power called “Intent”. In fact, intent is one of the primary elements of the world (see figure 1). Like fire, water, wood, metal, air and earth, Intent helps make up an important part of the very existence of the universe. So when you invoke its ancient might, its tendrils of ephemeral power shift in the very fabric of the ‘verse, creating a magic so powerful that you can manipulate thousands upon thousands of threads of fate, just to protect the person you just said or did something supremely privileged and horrible to.
So say, if you make a bunch of racist jokes, instead of contributing to the systemic oppression of POC, the bewitching might of Intent (I’m capitalizing the I now, to give it proper respect as a primary element) spreads out, blocking every single person from fully hearing the awful racist shit you just said, further preventing them from internalizing it and using it to justify actions. It also prevents it from creating an environment where racist behavior is seen as more acceptable, by twisting the very threads of fate there as well! And, the best part? If you say it in earshot of someone who’s offended or hurt by it, the occult powers of Intent change everything! Now, instead of hearing a hurtful slur or sentiment that reminds of past abuses at the hands of privileged fuckjobs, the marginalized person in question only hears the beautiful natural sound of birds chirping. Or whale noises! Because you see, Intent is just that powerful. It literally keeps anyone from getting hurt by your fuckery!
But you see, it goes further than that.
Intent is so unbelievably epic that it doesn’t just cover slurs. No, it covers actions as well! Because you see, the very threads of fate are not immune to this otherworldly flow of what you meant to do or say. So if you kick a trans woman out of a homeless shelter into the cold because she didn’t fit your views of what a woman should be and she didn’t want to be put in with the menz (who would likely rape and murder her, or at least harass her), your Intent literally changes the tapestry of fate so that instead of freezing to death in the cold, she actually is heated by an unexpected fire, lit by a lightning strike from clear skies, onto a pile of garbage that can’t spread the fire to anything else, right next to where she just happened to fall in exhaustion! I know! Isn’t it awesome?!
Intent is a power that you only have if you believe in it. Because so many marginalized people don’t believe in the power of intent when it comes to their/our marginalizations, few of us are able to call on its supernatural strength. Some rare marginalized folk are able to, but only in given situations and generally only in relation to themselves.
But you see, it isn’t even limited to the fuckery of kyriarchy, self applied -ism and/or privilege. It works everywhere else too! Made a really bad business deal that bankrupted your new business but didn’t intend to screw that up? Intent will magically negate the effects of the business deal on your finances! Drove during a foggy night while drunk as fuck and accidentally ran down a college student with your car going at high enough speeds to instantly kill him? Intent’s eldritch power will restart his heart and heal his wounds! Intent has the ability to change everything and anything you do and say to match your intent. That is simply how strong it is as one of the primary elements of the universe. It’s why we’re so darn unreasonable for being mad at the fuckery of privileged assholes, or for even calling them assholes. They didn’t intend to hurt anyone! They didn’t intend to do anything bad! And clearly, due to that Intent, to that thaumaturgic sorcery that spills forth from the mindset of the asshole who claims its power, any harm or bad shit they caused is magically negated!
Because you see, Intent is the ultimate alchemy. It doesn’t change lead to gold, it changes harmful, negative or damaging actions into happy, fun, “everyone hugs and no one is oppressed”, magical unicorn actions. It dips its eerie powers into the pools of time and space and counters each and every ripple of fuckery and pain created by the actions of an unthinking douchebag who was too privileged or self absorbed to see that their actions were a problem.
Isn’t that magical? I sure think so.
Filed under: rant | 34 Comments
Tags: fuck this fuckery, kyriarchy, sarcasm maelstrom
I Hate When I’m Right *updated*
Addendum: I’ve heard tell that that there were some assertions Chally was white on twitter, apparently in a convo with me. I didn’t catch this (nor can I seem to find the damn tweets regarding it) but I apologize for not being vigilant and calling that statement out (if I was even online while it was still around). There was also a conversation on twitter where some disability policing was going on. I responded with the fact that time needs to be given to correct this mistake for the sake of spoons and that I hope that this isn’t just excusing shit. Clearly I was not heavy enough that disability policing is not okay. So I apologize for that as well. Also, I’ve been referring to the situation as cisfail because of the original post, however, because some trans folks were involved in the apologism in the subsequent comments, people have understandably thought I was degendering them. I apologize for my bad wording.
Especially about this kind of shit:
On January 6th, right after the Shakesfail debacle, I voiced the following tweet:
Me:
Goddamn, who the fuck is next? Will I get to see a giant transphobic meltdown at FWD in two months? I’m running out of sites worth reading.
Guess what happened the next fucking day? (Read down to the bolded note at the bottom of the post before the comments, I have screen shots if they take it down)
FWD’s note (bold and italics theirs, not mine):
There are lots of blogarounds and drop it like it’s hots and self promotion threads about the femiblogosphere. Up till now, we haven’t had a “drop your link here” thread. I’m going to experiment with making this a space for linkdropping. So, for the rec reading, for now, here’s the rule on using the comments to drop links:
There must be substantive disability rights content, with a feminist lens; AND: the only links that can be dropped are those written by writers who self-identify as PWD and who aren’t cis men.
As always, you’re also more than welcome to talk about the topics raised in the post, instead of (or as well as) dropping links.
The comments involve folk pointing out that hey, erasure of trans guys isn’t fucking cool. First from sqrrl, then Drakyn (who also fucked up on thinking gq describes all nonbinary folk.), then sqrrl again, and again and finally Julian as some examples.
(Note: Several of these comments are in response to the FWD contributors making indirect assertions regarding gender nonconformity and trans men and regarding whether transphobia is a feminism issue under an umbrella term of “gender oppression”. So they may seem slightly out of out of order, that’s because FWD responses are interlaced with them timewise)
Sqrrl’s 2nd comment
[...]
You have the idea that cisgender transsexual men are less likely to engage in male based privilege and oppression than cisgender cissexual men. It sounds as if it’s coming about here due to a conflation of two types of gender oppression under a uniform ‘gender’ marker: the oppression of trans people by cis people and the oppression of not male people by male people (as well as possibly touching on the oppression of non binary people by binary people). These are two (three) separate things. The problematic part comes with the fact that to get from this conflation to the earlier assertion, it is necessary to go through the idea that genders of cisgender trans men are somehow different from the genders of cisgender cissexual men. Whether you realize that this is entailed in the assumptions you’ve made or not, it’s still busted.
Julian’s Comment
i honestly can’t see this move as anything but transphobic and based in the assumption that trans men aren’t real men (or are men-lite, as someone else mentioned).
i’m not sure how trans men are automatically “gender non-conforming” any more than cis men are.
i understand the concept of woman-centered (and support it — as has been said, women’s voices are often drowned out in a sea of dudes), but i didn’t realize this was an exclusively-woman space. it’s difficult to come to a feminist perspective when one is not a woman, but it is possible.
the whole thing just makes me really squicky. :-/
The responses from FWD’s folks? Not so encouraging (links are above the quotes and names, if that causes accessibility problems I can easily edit it.).
Assumptions that trans men automatically see from a feminist lens and lack male privilege
Lauredhel:
sqrrel: What I’ve written has nothing to do with who I think are “real” men and who aren’t, and everything to do with what I personally fear being (and don’t wish to be) deluged with on these threads. If I start drowning in links from disabled trans men bloggers throwing their unexamined male privilege around while writing about disability rights and claiming a feminist lens, and I’m not happy with it, I’ll revisit the wording. [...]
Apparently as long as Lauredhel hasn’t seen trans guys throwing around male privilege, it hasn’t happened. Fuck, I guess that means I have no grasp on reality, considering I’ve been dealing with a lot of male privilege mongering trans guys lately. And of course, the wording is only problematic if a bunch of trans guys act like assholes, not for the fact that it erases trans guys. Huh.
(As a note: I don’t oppose cutting the voices of cis guys out of link set ups like that. They do have the entire internet to play in. The way it is said and put needs to change though to stop erasing trans guys and transphobia in general. I go into this in more depth below)
meloukhia:
The concern which Lauredhel was trying to address here was that cis men have an entire Internet to play in. This is a space which centres the voices of disabled women [This was a misstatement, and I am editing this to correct it, since it has considerably clouded the discussion—what I meant, and should have said was that this site centers the voices of people who live at the intersection of disability and gender oppression. This is not and never has been a women-only space and includes people of all genders.], and thus, we are primarily interested in links to content written by people who live in bodies at the intersection of disability and gender oppression, with voices which are often shouted down and ignored in other spaces. [...]
More erasure as transphobia continues to be squished into “gender oppression” and then some lovely dodge and derail of the call out as well as conflating trans men with being gender nonconforming by definition (hint: as you’ve seen above, not all trans guys are gender nonconforming)
meloukhia:
[...]She wanted to stress the fact that women and gender nonconforming people with disabilities are often excluded, marginalised, and silenced.
[...]
This is being turned into a discussion about whether or not there was embedded gender essentialism in Lauredhel’s wording which is also ignoring an important aspect of Lauredhel’s request: That links also be written by people with disabilities. In effect, people with disabilities are being erased in a discussion about gender identification on a disability-centred website.[...]
Cuz yanno, a call out about erasing trans people on a feminist disability website is totally off topic, amirite? We can’t have that! It might distract from the real issues, which are certainly never trans erasure! Bitterness, I have you.
amandaw (part 1: Emphasis the original author’s, not mine.):
[...]
We want to raise the profile of the people who are directly affected by both of these two oppressions (the axes of ability and sex/gender).
[...]
Disabled trans men are often granted male privilege (privilege, remember, is a thing granted by the outside, not a thing intrinsic to the inside). Disabled trans men, however, can still face a great amount of gender-based oppression. They can face it during their lives before transition. They can face it during the transition itself, and they can face it even after the transition, in those assumptions of a cisgender default, and if they have the misfortune of encountering a person who perceives them as not “passing” and attempts to enforce their binary-cissexist understanding of gender on them. And they can face it if they don’t transition at all. Throughout their lives, trans men with disabilities can experience gender-based oppression because they live in bodies that are hotly contested by the society they live in, and by the medical and psychiatric systems with which they are forced to deal.[...]
More erasing combination of transphobia and sexism as being under one category and look at that shit. Apparently trans guys face women oppression (notice how cissexism is held up as sexism by implying it is opposite to having male privilege? That’s either the shittiest wording I have ever seen in my entire life or someone is playing a game of “I didn’t say you aren’t really the gender you are, but I sure think you aren’t, at least socially”). Does this sound familiar at all? Like say feminists asserting that trans women have male privilege? Why yes, yes it does sound familiar.
The best part is at the end, where what appears to be an apology (it’s hard to tell with all the excusing and justifying going on above) is appended as a “all that being said” footnote (my favorite kind of minimizing footnote!):
amandaw (part 2, emphasis, once again, not mine)
[...]All of that said: the initial wording of the proposed feature clearly conveyed to many people the idea that trans men are not men, that trans men are either “really women” and/or some sort of third gender. We are working to correct this: the wording clearly needs to be changed to more accurately reflect the focus on marginalized voices that we wanted to encourage and not risk perpetuating harmful conceptions of gender.
We do hope that this experiment will turn out well in the end: that people will reflect on the attention they pay to different voices and notice the way certain voices always seem to gain a higher profile than others.
So, okay, apparently it was totally okay to say what what was said and that it’s completely justified based on a bunch of trans erasing bullshit (transphobia and sexism combine to make Voltron er um I mean gender oppression, trans guys apparently face sexism in the way women do cuz cissexism is actually Voltron er um I mean gender oppression and therefore is totally all feminist lens, apparently and um hey guise stop talking about this cuz disability is on topic)… except that it’s sorta not okay and they’re all really sorry everyone was fucked over by it? Oh and it was a grand experiment that hopefully we all learned from!
…wtf?
And then of course the thread was closed.
This thread is being closed at the request of 5 FWD contributors. Due to the availability issues discussed in our comments policy, it wasn’t possible to wait for everyone’s consensus before responding.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this vigorous and thoughtful discussion. It is very clear to us that while our intent was to center the voices of feminism and of people with disabilities, the way it was expressed hurt and angered people. We regret and apologize for that. These discussions have made it clear to us that it is impossible to have these discussions with language created by the kyriarchy. We are also aware that there are an equal number of issues to explore around defining “voices of people with disabilities,” as we wish to include voices of people with or without engagement with or belief in the medical system or any of the myriad of models of disability, and we look forward to continuing to explore those issues in the future. Thanks again to everyone for their enthusiasm and commitment to helping us ensure it is a safe space.
Now, the apology itself in there isn’t terrible. But the original post remains intact, no edits, no adjustments and the apology still conflates the issues of trans folk as being explicitly a feminist issue, continuing the trend done with the Voltron powers of gender oppression, which apparently includes both transphobia and sexism (do these people think that the word transmisogyny is redundant or some shit?)
Other folk commented, but the comments didn’t go through.
The text of my comment, which also didn’t go through, (unfortunately, I neglected to take a screenshot because I’m fucking naive and thought that FWD couldn’t possibly go this route LESS THAN A WEEK after Shakesfail) goes into why this kind of shit is not okay. I was more gentle than normal. I regret this as no one ever listens to you when you’re gentle anyways and lo and behold, it happened here. Again. In the same fucking week. Awesome.
Me:
Some words on how to properly achieve what you wanted in the above post without trans erasure:
Cis folk claiming or even accidentally implying that transphobia and/or cissexism is sexism isn’t gonna work. Transphobia is transphobia. Cissexism is cissexism. Neither are sexism. Anything less than that explicit statement is erasure of trans folk. Ultimately what has been conflated as “the axis of gender” is actually two axes, the axis of transphobia and the axis of sexism. Transgender/transsexual are not genders in and of themselves, but descriptive words for genders. Words that describe an aspect related to the gender of the person.
The only time you ought to say a trans person is facing sexism (or gender oppression) is when they’ve just told you they’re facing sexism (or gender oppression). I can not even express how enraging it is to have some feminists tell me to my face that the transmisogyny and transphobia I face as a trans woman is just sexism. What you’re doing here is not equivalent to that but it certainly enables such attitudes. You’re all abundantly aware that the post was misgendering and erasing in its wording but are you all don’t seem aware that the basis used behind that wording is also misgendering and erasing.
I talked with Shiyiya about this on twitter. Combining transphobia with sexism into a conglomerate umbrella category called “gender oppression” (even if you recognize that transphobia is not, under any circumstances, sexism) is dangerous. Trans folk face erasure even with our own developing language to describe our situations, from feminism just as much as from mainstream society. A feminist blog using such an umbrella term (even without intent to erase or misgender) is asking for it to happen. Tempting fate and enabling erasure of trans lives and exp’s of transphobia.
If you want to exclude a certain zone on the basis of avoiding those who are privileged on both the cissexism and sexism axes at the same time (which is what I assume was the aim), then you really gotta say so. Explicitly. It’s the only way to avoid the pitfall that was fallen into with that post and the subsequent comments (most of which came off as apologism, just letting you know). At least, it’s the only way that I’m aware of. Luckily it’s a pretty simple way to avoid it.
Guess not fucking simple enough, huh?
Seriously, fuck feminism for transforming me into an oracle that can predict fuckery that well. That’s the worst damn oracle to be. Couldn’t give me two damn weeks huh? That was too much before y’all had to fuck up and add to the brewing shitstorm, huh?
And of course, because I needed a break from the shitstorm and I know what it’s like to be short on spoons, I let myself get played by these people and didn’t come down on them as hard and as fast as I should have. That always feels really good, getting taken advantage of like that.
Yeah, I hate it when I’m right. FWD’s on the shitlist now.
Filed under: rant | 64 Comments
Tags: cissexism, feminism, fuck this fuckery, kyriarchy, linguistics, privilege, rage, transgender
This post has been crossposted as a guest post at Questioning Transphobia here.
There was an incident a few weeks ago. It didn’t happen to my face but it still was a direct invasion of my privacy.
First, some background: If you don’t know me, I’m polyamorous. I date, love and am intimate with multiple people (or well, I would be if I had the energy to find a second partner. That and I’m still recovering from an abusive ex partner). My partner is also poly, they (my partner is nonbinary, hence the pronoun “they”. I swear to god if any grammar cop feels like whining about that I will comment shred with no mercy for degendering and drop you in the spam queue so fast you’d think your name was “meat in a can”) are dating me and a guy currently. This is referred to as a pivot branch poly relationship. Pivots among groups of three are also commonly called V poly because of the V shape of the dating connections. Normally what we do is triads, where all three date each other, but I’m not into my partner’s boyfriend in that way. He’s a good guy, puts effort into stuff regarding our disabilities, our poverty, my partner being a nonbinary trans person and me being a trans woman, and puts a lot of work into the family-like nature that me and my partner tend to have for poly groups, even in pivot or zig-zag poly relationships. Still, he screws up sometimes, as many cis, abled folk do.
He asked my partner what size penis I have.
I’m not going to go into the why of it. In the end, reasons and intent doesn’t matter, what matters is the harmful results. My partner read him the riot act before they told me and he’s worked his ass off to make amends, apologized and hasn’t screwed up similarly since so you don’t need to worry about my well being around this guy. Now, if you’re trans, chances are you know exactly why his question was fucked up and transphobic. If you’re cis, it’s a safe bet that you’re now fairly confused. Allow me to provide some enlightenment. Do try not to get your underwear in a twist over the snark.
My genitals are none of your damn business. They never have been, they never will be. No, I don’t care how curious you are. No, I don’t care about how interesting you find us. No, I do not care how much you care for/try to help/are attracted to/are interested in/feel like you’re an ally to us. They remain, steadfastly, none of your business.
It isn’t just my genitals. Every part of my body is intensely outside of the zone on the Venn Diagram that shows what your business is. In fact if you made a Venn Diagram of your business and my body, there would be no overlap, just two spheres hanging out together platonically, almost prudishly, no touching (see figure 1).
And every time your business’ sphere touches my body’s sphere, the latter slaps the former and tells it to fuck off. Too bad your sphere doesn’t learn. And therein lies the problem. Cis people seem to have a hard time grasping the concept that my body is none of their business. This applies on a ton of other intersections, not just being trans, which really shows this blatant disregard for our personal space and privacy in the name of “curiosity”, “interest”, “inquiry” or whatnot for what it is: a symptom and an example of marginalization.
I often ask cis people whether or not they would make inquiries regarding the genital states of other cis people, the bodies of other cis people and so on and so forth without knowing them really really damn well and having that sort of open relationship where that talk is encouraged. Very few do and they always have some sort of half assed excuse or silly rationalization for it too. And of course, those other intersections come up too, where cis men ask privacy invading questions of cis women, abled folk ask privacy invading questions of people with disabilities and so on and so forth. This is likely applicable to nearly every single intersection imaginable. But when it comes to being around people just like you*, you’ll find that burning urge to ask questions that invade and strip privacy fading away (*you being cis people, but it applies to really anyone who happens to be a privileged ass).
Invasive questions aren’t just annoying, uncomfortable and awkward for trans folk. They’re oppressive. They contribute to the idea that we don’t deserve privacy, that our bodies are public property and public knowledge. And since one is subconsciously stripping us of the basic level of agency of being able to keep our genitals, medical history and other parts of our body private, it’s a lot easier for them to do it and still feel like they have a claim to the word “ally”. It’s also harder to address the issue without a whole bunch of cis privileged whining (although really, are we ever spared cis privilege whining based on the type of call out? I can’t think of a single type that doesn’t pull the “BUUUT I DUN HATE YOU, I HAVE TRANS FRIENDS!” or “I SWEAR I’M NOT TRANSPHOBIC, SERIOUSLY. I’M AN ALLY” from the failtastic types that won’t own their privilege). They’re also dangerous. Cis people often ask them without thinking about who they’re around. A good chunk of cis people seem to really like killing, doing general violence unto or at the very least acting shitty to trans folks. Might be cool to avoid asking your stupid invasive question in a mixed crowd that may contain someone who wishes to harm people like me. Actually, would be cool not to ask your asinine invasive question at all.
And really, that’s what it comes down to. The questions? Not even remotely necessary. For one thing, if you’re looking for abstract or general info regarding trans people and our bodies, or how stuff works, there’s enough of us talking about our experiences online, our bodies, the process of hormonal changes and what it does and doesn’t do for us, etc that there is absolutely no reason for you to ask any single person who doesn’t invite you to ask them (or yell out the question to a group of trans folk, yes this has happened before).
Are you an internet user but you’re worried you can’t find these resources and blogs? Use this magical new innovation called a search engine. I hear Google is pretty cool as far as search engines go. Hell, we call using those wild search engines “googling” now.
Don’t have or use the internet? (You probably aren’t reading this post then, but…) Check out your local library and ask for resources on trans people. Don’t have a local library? Find an educator who can send you in the direction of resources. And likely no one reading this blog post right now lacks access to those things, so use those search engines.
Of course, then there are things you really just don’t need to know (unless we both think you should). At all. Ever. No, not even remotely. No seriously, shut the fuck up, you don’t. For instance, you don’t need to know how I have sex unless you plan on having sex with me and I actually want to have sex with you. Asking me how I have sex at any time that isn’t when you and I are discussing how we’re about to have sex so my dissonance doesn’t floor me and kill the mood (or if I have not explicitly invited you to ask) is not acceptable. If this isn’t quite clear enough then I’m basically telling you that beyond those two reasons you have absolutely no reason to know about how I have sex. At all. Ever. No seriously, shut the fuck up. Same goes for any other invasive question regarding personal stuff. Unless I say, “hey, I’m totally okay with answering so and so question” or “ask me anything, literally, I won’t hold it against you” or it is directly relevant to something we both have mutually decided it is relevant to, you have absolutely no call to ask it.
This should be common sense. It generally is, when people are with people who are just like them. Would you ask your cis neighbor (who’s the same race as you, has the same disabilities if any, etc etc) what her genitals look like? Probably not and you’d probably regard someone who did as a disgusting douchebag. Being that, yes, a person who asked that question would definitely be a disgusting douchebag, making your instinct there very accurate. Likewise, if you ask your trans neighbor what her genitals look like, you are now that disgusting douchebag (and perhaps several other different archetypes of douchebag) and no, us being trans doesn’t change that. In fact, it makes it a tad bit worse, considering you’re now engaging in oppression.
This whole not asking invasive questions thing? Yeah, it isn’t hard. It really, seriously isn’t. It’s actually less effort to keep your ignorant trap shut then spout useless, invasive questions that make us feel unsafe, gross, awkward, othered or even endanger us. It’s especially less effort to keep your trap shut than to defend your previous decision to invade our privacy with your oh so cat-like “curiosity” when we tell you that hey, that wasn’t cool, wtf. The best part is that I get that tone argument off the rails reaction from people even when I’m sweet as delicious gumdrop candy about the fact that they just treated me like less than a person. So if you really want to pull the “omg you’re being so ANNNGREEE about an INNOOOCENT question!” shit with me, do me a favor and just don’t bother. I tend to not approve of defensive privilege apologism and derails.
For those of us stuck hearing this blatant cis privileged tomfuckery (a far worse cousin of tomfoolery), there’s many ways to deal with this swiftly and snarkily (provided you feel your safety will be intact when doing so). My personal favorite is asking a ridiculously personal and absurd question in response like, “that depends, have you ever gotten anal from a horse?” Or and I really like this one, giving an absurd and ridiculous answer like, “well actually my genitals are a highly realistic golden statue of Jeff Goldblum holding a cigar and wearing a silver tiara. Priced at 40,000 USD.” (bonus points if you can convert the pricing to Pounds, Yen and Canadian on the fly). Because really, invasive questions not only don’t deserve an answer, they don’t deserve to be treated in a serious fashion. You can certainly answer them or treat them seriously if you want (and many of us feel an obligation or calling to educate, so I get how that goes) but me? I’m going to snark the fuck out of them and then when they inevitably cry their cis privileged tears (which would happen even if I was serious or did anything but cave and say,” sure you can invade my privacy all you want”) I’ll point out, “hey, if you don’t like getting a little sarcasm shot your way, don’t fucking ask invasive and asinine questions.”
Because really, it isn’t okay. I deserve privacy. My body is my own. Information about my body is my own. I deserve this just as much as any cis person. We all do. People damn well need to show it.
Filed under: personal, rant | 52 Comments
Tags: bullshit, cissexism, expectations, gender, kyriarchy, marginalization, privacy, privilege, transgender
Addendum: When I say I’m pro self employed woman controlled sex work/porn work, I should have said that I’m pro self employed worker controlled sex work/porn work. Men do get exploited in both porn and sex work and it was short sighted of me to ignore that. Also the statement didn’t account for porn companies or sex work outfits where a woman is in charge but is exploiting the workers (which also does happen.) I apologize for the slip up.
Well, being that I’ve been getting more notice from the internet (surprising for only 8 months) and especially recently, what with the wonders of Shakesfail and the vultures that invariably come a swarming to watch the trans woman get treated like crap, it stands to reason that my blog would come under more scrutiny. And since I’ve taken on a lot of groups and people about transmisogyny, general transphobia and ableism, it isn’t surprising that not all of that attention is good. Especially the notice from the more scummy parts of the internet (like the “Anti Misandry” Trapdoor Misogyny Trolls, Privilege Wank Trolls and the Internet RadFem™ HateWank Circles).
With such scrutiny comes mostly failtastic comments. Of course, with my habits of editing people’s comments when they leave slurs or other problematic language in there, the trolls and Hatesterbators (a brilliant word that you may indeed use, free of royalty charges) may not get their “fuck around with marginalized people” fix. That and sometimes I just spam queue the comments, which they probably don’t like much either. So they’ve learned of the magic of email.
This is the beginning of a series, by request (from Voz), that concentrates on fisking the emails and mocking cis and/or abled and/or middle class and/or etc privileged “wisdom”. Mostly to pull some hilarity out of what would normally be a hateful stab. So without further ado: Fail Mail number 1 (first of this new series, of which I will only share the most hilarious emails as the volume increases): “GTFO of Feminism LOL”
Our first installment comes from an email from a (presumably) “radical” (because really, since when has transphobia and cissexism been radical? It’s run of the mill. Normal. Standard. Boring.) feminist named Allison. You’ll notice that the link in her email leads to my post on Prescriptive Feminism (technically, all feminism is prescriptive, it’s just a question of degree. Ah well, that post was written before I left that toxic movement so excuse the apologism I engaged in for feminism as a movement by separating it into Feminism and PF) which she seemed to not read. At all. In fact, she was responding to a comment that she didn’t like, which she also appeared to not fully read as not a whit of her email showed that she even noticed the talk of prescriptivism (ironically, she engaged in prescriptivism in the email). Literacy may not be her strong point OR she’s just blatantly and willfully ignorant. Guess which one it is? Well, let’s give it a whirl.
If you find misgendering of someone else to be triggering, do not continue reading.
(No Subject)
From: alison f (alifortune21@gmail.com)
Medium riskYou may not know this sender.Mark as safe|Mark as junk
Sent: Sun 1/10/10 12:19 AM
To: recursiveparadox@live.comRe: your comment on this post
To be fair to feminism, not all of it is PF. Unless you believe it to be completely unsalvageable as a movement overall, it’s a bit unfair to feminism and good feminists to abandon the movement due to the fanatics in it.
You should abandon the movement.You can complain about feminism all you want. But it is what it is.
Being a male, you will never be completely accepted by feminism. There will always be those of us who challenge the presence of males in our movement. If you can’t accept this, then it is time for you to leave.
Regards,
Alison
“abandon the movement”
Now, initially, she actually said something reasonably logically sound and wise. After all, I already have abandoned the movement since it is forever toxic to any woman who isn’t cis, white, middle class+, childfree, hostile to femininity, hostile to sex work and sex workers, hostile to porn and porn workers or willing to engage in prescriptivism and try to deny other women agency because it doesn’t match your ideology.
“But it is what it is.”
True words, although certainly not the way she meant it. Feminism is toxic, the rot is in the roots, in the core, in every feminist. It is indeed what it is. Sometimes, trolls accidentally say very wise things, which tends to be hilarious when taken into consideration with the rest of what they say.
“Being male…”
Oops! Suddenly the accidental wisdom train jumps off the tracks, a fatal crash is witnessed. It’s amusing to watch women who hate the concept of gender essentialism so much apply the same broken and largely failtastic concept and logic with sex essentialism. We already know that male and female as terms are broken language, nonfunctional and largely cissexist constructs built on entirely arbitrary lines. This is remarkably similar to the fact that gender essentialism puts forward gender elements built on entirely sexist (and cissexist too) constructs and arbitrary lines. So really this is a light form of hypocrisy, light only because she likely doesn’t grasp the concepts (likely through willful ignorance, cuz let’s face it, this is not hard shit to find and learn) well enough to realize the hypocrisy.
So she uses a word that’s cissexist and arbitrarily defined (and ergo nonfunctional for human terms) to segue into a claim. The fail train has left the station.
“…you will never be completely accepted by feminism.”
This is true, but not in the way she thinks. In reality, the place where male and female is broken language and a place few Internet RadFems™ are acquainted with, I won’t be accepted by feminism because I’m trans and especially because I’m a trans woman (and fuckheads like Daly, Raymond, Greer and Steinem pushed for genocide of us). But I also won’t be accepted by feminism because I’m a person with disabilities, sex positive, pro self employed woman controlled porn, pro self employed woman controlled sex work, pro lifestyle choice (want to be a 1950’s housewife? I will not stand in your way), pro mother (while I myself am childfree, motherhood is always a valid choice that I will defend for others) and I don’t hate men or regard them as requiring elimination (despite what the “Anti Misandry” fuckjobs will tell you, I seriously don’t hate men). All of which is unacceptable to feminism. Fuck, pretty much the only thing I’ve got going for me is my whiteness there. Feminism loves whiteness. Like candy.
“There will always be those of us who challenge the presence of males in our movement.”
This one is funny from the standpoint of the fact that there are feminist/profeminist guys out there, depending on who you ask. But even profeminist guys are technically a part of the movement, even if not definable as feminists for the simple fact that they work entirely for its aims, within its subgroups and processes. And of course, it’s a giant red herring of irrelevancy to me, being that I’m not “male” and that the word “male” itself is a product of sex essentialism and just as failtastic as gender essentialism, perhaps moreso even.
“If you can’t accept this, then it is time for you to leave.”
She’s very behind. I’ve already left. She’s also a bit confused. What does accepting anything have to do with leaving? Not accepting how something works doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll book. It can also mean that you’ll just fight harder to fix it. Of course, feminism isn’t fixable, it is a total loss. But just because I won’t accept something in it doesn’t mean I can’t stick around and fight it out.
“Regards”
See, this always confuses me. She comes in, basically shooting to maim (because they know, and we all know they know, that misgendering and threats are effective weapons against us. They don’t seem to realize/accept that it’s because their cis privilege gives them power as the oppressor. But they do know that they have that weapon and they use it) and then leaves a cookie behind, as a goodbye gift. It’s passive aggressive to say the least but it makes little to no sense. If you’re emailing with intent to harm, don’t pretend to be nice. It just makes you look foolish.
Heh, not that she could look much worse had she signed it with a nasty remark like, “no love”, “from”, “with distaste” or etc. Maybe it helps them feel civilized, like they aren’t pulling the trigger but just dispensing some “friendly” advice. It’s interesting how cis people deal with guilt.
Anyways, that was your first edition of Fail Mail, a fisking of sad, pathetically hateful yet hilariously bad emails from the fail trolls of the Internets that don’t like commenting anymore.
I hope you enjoyed.
Filed under: personal | 25 Comments
Tags: fail, fuck this fuckery, hate mail
Updated at the bottom (twice), considering the updates only further drive home the point that Shakesville is an enemy to trans women and Melissa can’t handle a privilege call out without crying cis privileged tears.
One of the worst transphobic haters in feminist history died in 2010. Mary Daly. I’m not one that gets pleasure out of people dying and I don’t find her death to be a good thing. I would much prefer if people like her stopped hating, recanted their statements and worked on our behalf to try to make amends for those they killed through their words enforcing the exclusion of us from jobs, rape shelters and attempting to deny us what we need to survive. But the fact is, now that she’s gone, she can no longer strike out with her transphobic genocidal ravings against trans women (and really all trans folk, although it seems she especially hated us). Sure she did some things for cis feminism but largely she encouraged our destruction and the destruction of cis men (which she equated). Sort of like how Polanski’s amazing movies don’t really change the fact that he raped a 13 year old girl and that he is scum. So while I don’t gain pleasure from death, even that of a dangerous transphobic icon, I’m relieved that one can no longer hurt us.
Of course, it seems that hating on trans women, encouraging our extermination and calling us “Frankensteinian” isn’t enough to keep cis feminists from showing her some post mortem love.
Yes. That’s Melissa McEwan, commemorating the passing of a woman who felt that trans women should not only not exist but literally be eliminated. Wiped out. Melissa, who had once been someone I personally trusted to decenter cis privileged views and give trans people the respect we deserve. Someone who I had once had in my bookmarks, someone who’s blog had once been one of my “checked every week” blogs. Who I have linked to, whom I would have considered doing guest posts for, before this had happened. She was called out, lightly and fairly ineffectively by IraeNicole and just_another_trans_guy (although he later brought in the heavy guns after Voz came in), more heavily and far more honestly by Voz, Criss and xpanasonicyouthx.
I’ll quote them in case the thread gets deleted:
Voz:
Wow, melissa. Eulogizing one of the most hateful cis women on the planet. She endorsed genocide, yet you hypocritically say “we just don’t [celebrate people's death here.]
I beg to differ. You put up full page articles glorifying genocidal cis women and then plead ignorance.
You ultimately do not care about trans women, and it shows by this post. Actions, not your own belief in your..intentions.
I doubt this will get published, but, hey, I already know where trans women stand here now.
Just Some Trans Guy:
Re: what alexmac said … how horrible DOES a feminist (or other activist supposedly on “our” side) have to be before we (the general we, humanity, not necessarily Shakesville) condemn hir rather than laud hir? Surely even the most terrible people have done some good in their lives, and we rightly do not laud them. What makes the difference between a post saying “This person was bad for X, Y, and Z reasons, although they were right about issue A” and a post saying “This person was awesome! Oh, but they WERE wrong about issues A, B, and C”?
Re: voz’s note on “genocidial cis women,” I’d like to bring attention to a post Lisa Harney left on Feministing’s Daly obit (http://www.feministing.com/archives/019528.html…), which quoted from a Daly interview:
“If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males. People are afraid to say that kind of stuff anymore.” (http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j16/daly….)
This is, quite plainly, genocide language.
Criss:
Isn’t the “yeah, we know she effed up here, but this other thing over here that she did was pretty good” mentality the same one the Catholic Church uses to defend and protect pedophiles? Sure, they abused their power to rape young boys, but they are such strong religious leaders!
Daly may have done great things for cis women, but her hate towards women who did not look like her, her transphobia and her racism, trump that. As just_some_trans_guy said, we don’t forgive Hitler the Holocaust just because he was a gifted artist in his youth; I don’t forgive Roman Polanski raping 13-year-olds because of his “great” movies.
I knew nothing of Daly until yesterday, when I clicked on a link on Twitter about her death. Since I didn’t know her, I Googled her, and read her Wikipedia entry. Clearly highlighted in that Wikipedia entry (and I hate Wikipedia, but it’s good for quick, start0ng-point info) were many problematic aspects of Daly’s life and ideals, including her transphobia.
This is my first time on this blog and I know nothing of Melissa, but as a writer and blogger I feel it was irresponsible of her to post this eulogy without researching her subject more — or at all, it looks like. The transphobia was not hard to find; it’s not like it was obscure, she seemed to be damn proud of it! I’m new to feminism (“formal” feminism) and women’s studies, but I’m quickly learning that many feminist leaders did, unfortunately, have issues with racism and transphobia/transmysoginy. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves on those women, and if you’re going to post something like this, it is imperative that you present the actual truth, not the PR candy-coated one. Maybe she did some great things for cis women, but she did great harm at the same time. This needs to be noted and documented — and much more prominently than a short aside tacked on to the end of a post.
I agree that Melissa was quick to add the new information to the post to “correct” it and that she was not defensive, but all she did was copy what was already in the comments. She did not do any further research (at least, I saw no evidence of it). I feel the responsible thing would have been to add something to the post noting the new info, then research the matter fully to present this other, harmful, un-feminist side of Daly.
We (cis feminists) need to own our history, and it is our responsibility to work overtime to overcome what women like Daly have done to trans women.
There’s not much more I can say on the matter. Voz, Criss and JATG said everything that could be said. No what I have to say goes beyond just Shakesville.
You’ll notice a familiar update on it. A famously missing the point update, a footnote regarding transphobia in a post that still commemorates the passing of a genocidal transphobe. This all being on a site that refuses to allow others to do the same with people like Polanski and his art. You’ll also notice the huge amount of accountability dodging, “omg I/she had good intent!” and tone argument derails interspersed through the comments. It was mostly the other Shakers pulling the apologist bullshit but had Melissa had any interest in owning her actual mistakes (not just a strawperson of the call outs raised by Voz, Criss and others), she would have instructed them to stop, put the edit at the top of the post basically stating that, “hey, we don’t honor those who advocate genocide here. I apologize.” Instead Paul Spudd closed the comments on the thread, stating that he wouldn’t “tolerate further bad faith attacks on Melissa” (paraphrasing lightly, as that was in a previous comment).
Have you noticed any familiarity here yet? For one, there’s CaitieCat, who’s playing the brilliant role of Trans Person Sell Out, a must have for any major meltdown of a major blog on respect for trans people. There’s the ridiculous tone arguments, like from my favorite fake ally in the whole world, Renee of Womanist Musings, where she claims Voz is just looking for a fight (good to see she didn’t learn shit from the last time). There’s the, “but she did so much good for the world! Can’t we brush this little detail under the rug a little?” comments and especially, “hey look, this can make discussion, so discuss it in the comments thread! After all, putting up trans haters or trans hate is fine as long as people discuss it!” comments. Does any of that seem like deja vu to you? It should, because it’s happened again and again and again and again and again. And that’s just since May 2009, when I started blogging. I can safely bet you shit like that, following this exact same pattern has happened over and over before I appeared on the scene.
There is this ongoing trend, from Failerico to PHB to Womanist Musings, of groups (womanism, feminism, cisGLB, liberals, progressives, etc) who claim they’ve got trans folks’ backs and then they fuck up intensely, get called out and show just how much of a lie that was. Most of those tropes are present. The Sell Out, the apologism, the intent excuses, the tone arguments, the claim that it fosters “discussion” and is ergo good or that “we’ve done so much for you, can’t you let this slide!?” So at this point, I’m done. Eight months of this bullshit from multiple zones and I’m done having hope any of these groups are any good. And for the ones I actually have a claim to? Feminism and cisGLB being the only two? My hope that I can salvage them from the inside, reform them, make them fail less and succeed more? It’s gone.
Shakesville was still trusted. I still had hope because of sites like that. I still thought maybe, just maybe, we could make feminism into something worth it. I was wrong. I was so very very wrong, not just because of this betrayal, but like with the other cases, I didn’t see the ongoing set of betrayals before. The racefail, the hate for sex workers, Islamophobia, ableism, etc each one of these groups who betrayed us now, showed one or more of those zones before I became aware of and even often transphobia before I came onto the scene. Well I’m done now. I’m finished with feminism.
I am officially no longer a feminist. That was the last one left. The last thing I was holding onto desperately, hoping that it wouldn’t turn out to be as hateful as the others. No more. So many cis feminists have tried to tell me I’m too harsh on feminism in the past. Too many of them have tried to spoon me the bullshit that feminism is salvageable and even improving significantly. And I bought it. No more. Try and spoon me your bullshit now, cis feminists. Try it now that one of the sites I thought could never follow this path of fail has done so. Try it now that Shakesville, of all goddamn places, has shown its true face of trans erasure, cis privileged apathy and apologism. Try it now that Shakesville, of all fucking places, has gone the way of Failerico, almost exactly. Make sure to use a teaspoon for the bullshit when you try, it’ll be more fitting that way.
Goodbye my hope for feminism. Goodbye my membership in the movement of feminism. It has gone the way that my trust in womanists (with their lofty but unkept promises of supporting trans women) and GLBT as a group community (with their actual name being GL…..b………..[t?]). It is dead and gone. It’s time to mourn and move on. I no longer trust feminism. I have no reason to.
RIP my hope for feminism. You lived long but you were likely doomed from the start.
UPDATE:
Oh look, an oh so boring and done before fauxpology wherein Melissa whines about how everyone was so mean to her and she cares oh so much. Boring, old, run of the mill fauxpologies do not fly with me.
My comment response (that may or may not make it through the censors):
See, before, I didn’t think you were acting in bad faith. I saw you make a mistake and then fail to fix it. Definitely killed my faith in feminism in general, the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak, that even Shakesville could mishandle an error of trans oppression so horribly. But I didn’t regard you as acting in bad faith, just wrong, ignorant and privileged, with wrong, ignorant and privileged or sell out defenders. But this post? Centering your hurt feelings as a cis person above the lives and well being of trans people? Continuing to ignore the wrongdoing that you have not fixed, while whining about how mean we are? This post added to how you handled the previous is what makes me feel you are acting in bad faith now.
I also simply can not grasp how you find a privilege call out to be “mean”. If a guy used a tone argument derail on you about feminism, you’d be wicked upset.
And yes, before anyone disputes that, she did fail to fix her mistake. Didn’t even really admit to what her mistake actually was. Hint: It wasn’t the fact that her eulogy for a genocidal bigot didn’t have a footnote at the bottom mentioning, “oh gee, she kinda racefailed and cisfailed a bit here and there. Oops golly!”. Bigger Hint: The Eulogy being posted at all for a genocide advocate is a problem.
Mary Daly is to Feminism what Polanski is to Film. I’ve seen this community shred the hell out of people talking about how great Polanski’s work is and then leaving a footnote at the bottom about him raping a 13 year old girl (and good gods have people done that a lot with Polanski). Yet you all hypocritically defend the exact same actions towards Daly? That is abhorrent. The post itself should have been affixed with an edit at the top disavowing the eulogy, apologizing that it was ever posted at all, stating why the mistake was made and then stating what was learned from it. And the battle lines should not have been drawn between Liss’ feelings and the fighting of oppression against trans folk. Especially not with so many centering her feelings over our lives.
Melissa, you made a mistake. You had a chance to fix it. You failed to do so (in that affixing a footnote at the end of your eulogy doesn’t change the fact that you’re eulogizing a genocidal bigot). And this post shows that you have no intention of owning your mistake or being an actual ally at all. But it isn’t just that lack of accountability and lack of respect for our lives from you making this site no longer an ally of the community, yet another betrayal among many from the likes of Bilerico’s Ron Gold fiasco, Pam’s House Blend’s Cis as a term fiasco and others. It’s the fact that people came to the defense of your actions and the defense of your hurt feelings instead of to the defense of trans people who still suffer because of what Mary Daly said and did. Had you used this post to apologize and announce an intention to edit the post in a way that would have addressed your mistake? I would have considered this water under the bridge.
I trusted you and your community here. Well no more. You lost your chance to make amends with this post. I’m done with you, Melissa and I’m done with Shakesville. You do not deserve my trust. You’ve merely proven it to a greater degree with this post.
As a note, I will be crossposting this comment to my blog in case any of you decide to silence what I’ve said here by dropping it to the spam queue or whatever.
Subsequent to that comment, Melissa’s pet trans woman sellout CaitieCat made some failtastic snark about flouncing and then I was banned and my comments removed. Not that I’m surprised or anything. Cissupremacists and their sellout helpers don’t like uppity trans women.
UPDATE 2: Comments on her second thread are closed, as once again, Melissa can’t handle her privilege being called out. Pattern, I see you.
Filed under: personal, rant | 139 Comments
Tags: "ally" betrayal, cissexism, feminism, fuck this fuckery, paradigm shift, rage, transgender
So I did something kind of foolish. I asked for advice on how to deal with my depression on twitter. I was a bit desperate really, I’ve been reeling and I don’t have a whole lot of help here. So I asked. I got a good chunk of good advice from other folks with depression. And then I got this gem:
“Stop [self] hating”
Really, asshole? It’s that easy? I can just magically stop my depression? Well gosh, I wish I knew that before. If only I realized that PWD who have mental, emotional or personality based disorders and/or mental illness had magical powers. That we were all sparkly pixie dust dispensers and could douse ourselves in that dust and magically stop feeling depressed or stop having trouble focusing or stop whatever is going on in our heads.
What is it that makes abled people think that we can just magically stop hurting? What is it that makes abled people so damned ignorant about how various mental disabilities and disorders work, to the point that they would think the words, “stop being depressed”, “stop being unfocused” would actually be a fucking help? I don’t know if abled folk do this with psychosis and hallucinations but I can solidly bet they do. Oh wait, I know what makes them think that. Privilege.
This bs from abled people is a big reason why asking for advice on depression on twitter is such a ridiculously bad idea. But the part that really upsets me, that really pushes me past the bounds of civility, is how these people will defend saying this bullshit to me after I’ve told them how unhelpful it is. And the fact that when I need help, comfort or I’m hurting, I’m stuck educating a bunch of ignorant wire chewers when the powers of google lie at their finger tips.
Here’s the thing, abled folk. We can’t just stop this shit. We can’t magically make our disabilities disappear. I can’t just stop being depressed. There are ways to cope, to deal with it, ways to treat the pain and the depression. But no amount of willpower and new age hipster fuckjob positive thinking is going to change what I’m dealing with.
And that’s really what it comes down to isn’t it? It’s that new age hipster fuckjob positive thinking thing. Thinking positivity has its uses. For one, thinking negatively can be very draining and harmful, so thinking positively is a way to avoid the risk of that. And thinking positively is a good way in some cases to gain the confidence needed to go after what you want. But thinking positively does not cure depression. It won’t make disabilities of any kind go away, not chronic pain, not depression, not ADD, not any of them. It really doesn’t even improve them. This whole, “thinking positive will magically solve your problems” bullshit has been all over the United States for a while now. And it’s feeding right into ableism and able privileged bullshit.
Could I just have one day where no stupid assholes tell me to just stop being depressed? Or that it’ll all be okay? Or that other people have it worse and I should feel lucky? That one especially does not fucking help me. Because then I feel guilty for feelings I can’t control, which in turn feeds into the depression. Thanks a lot, fucking asshole. I feel real lucky now, you douchenozzle.
Real advice. That’s all I’m asking for right now. Real, actual advice. If you don’t have a goddamn clue about how depression works… don’t talk. It really is that easy. Just don’t open your fucking mouth and let ableist bullshit flow forth like a river of useless fail. It is so fucking unbelievably easy for you not to give this useless, terrible, ableist advice. It is so much easier for you to keep your trap shut and do a little googling research, then it is for me to take one more abled person’s ignorant bullshit on my back when I’m already pretty fucked mentally.
So no, I’m not a damn pixie. I don’t have magical powers. I can’t just snap my fingers and make my depression disappear. Learn this, for fuck’s sake.
Filed under: personal, rant | 45 Comments
Tags: ableism, depression, disability, privilege, PWD, rage, self esteem
Goodbye 2009
What a year.
2009 was a year of rapid change, battles fought, won and lost, abandonment, harsh lessons and pain, growth, empowerment and self love. One wouldn’t think so much could fit into one single year. “Life’s been busy” is an understatement.
December of 2008 was when I started testosterone blockers, but 2009 was the year I started estrogen (February). A year of change even on the biological level, 2009 was the beginnings of my second puberty, the journey experienced by so many women in the early teens. It was the year I turned 25 and began serious work on my thesis, as well as other major projects over the summer (that I can’t go into in case those projects are visible enough to out me and they very well may be)
09 was the year I started blogging. Specifically in May of ‘09 on Dreamwidth. The url is still active, even if my public blogging isn’t there. It’s mostly used for private things that my DW people can read now. It was the year I refused to hide within the cis world any longer, but to raise my voice in some way. I’m still hidden in many ways. My identity and name are not public knowledge. This may change at some point, as I become secure. I first started blogging when I met RMJ of Deeply Problematic and she inspired and encouraged me to speak out, so I made a tiny little blog on DW. She’s one of the few people who know my name and one of the few cis folk I trust with that information.
2009 was a time of realizations and empowerment. A time that I realized that I can be strong and that having been raped and abused (trigger warning) may have left scars but has done nothing to diminish that strength. If anything I believe I’m stronger now because I survived. I realized that I’m PWD and cut through the denial I had regarding my disabilities. From there I became a fighter against ableism and joined a community I had long been avoiding due to my denial. This year was also a year that I realized how beautiful we are, that ugly is a word that is absolutely never applicable to any woman, ever, no exceptions and the power of self affirmation for me and my sisters. I also learned how to fight the deadly power of self directed hate and shaming that we are struck with every day, beyond even what cis women face. I also came to realizations about the cissexism and binarism of sexuality terms and evolved my own identity to purely queer as a result. This year saw my first forays into the systems that I am privileged in as well (like white privilege and racism), attempting to deconstruct them, see past them and the denial they forge, while quantifying their effects using the knowledge I have of the motivations created from being within them.
But this year had hardness and pain in it as well. I was cut down by depression and the loss of my family and finally spoke out about the harshness of my worsening disabilities coupled with my partner’s own progressing disabilities as well. I faced the continuing pain of my past trauma from abuse and rape as small reminders came to bear at the worst possible times. (trigger warning)
And 2009 was filled with strife and battle. Entering into the blog realm meant dealing with a much wider array of people than in meatspace. Which meant that trans hate (something that is quite common even in meatspace for me) became a sea I was swimming in. From “ally” betrayal and fauxpologies to the hateful vitriol spewed from the mouths of Internet RadFem™ trolls I was at war for much of 2009. Not all of my opponents are still such. Even though 2009 saw the time wherein our own betrayed us and attempted to strip from us the words that protected trans folk from othering it also saw the time that all of the same opponents involved in that line of fiascos learned, grew and abandoned the cause of stripping away the word “cis”. One can hope that even the most recent battles, like the continuing failure, fauxpology and trans hate mongering of places like Failerico, will have a happy ending to them for trans folk as well.
One can hope, although not much. >.<
Not all of the battles were forged by cis, abled, classist or sexist aggression against me. Other battles I started on my own, jumping into the fray against those who seek to police and destroy, like the HBSer separatists and WBT TG haters. And not all of the battles saw me on the right side either. I’ve made my own past mistakes this year, said some truly stupid shit, done some truly foolish and awful things. I have, hopefully, managed to own and make amends for where I’ve failed this year as many have done for me (and many more have failed to do, from all zones and walks of life).
But it isn’t just blogging or experiences I’ve felt I could share effectively through blogging. This year truly was a self discovery, change and growth year in so many ways. Not all of the discoveries were pleasant. Much of the growth I experienced was painful, sometimes even horrible. And there was love and wonder this year as well. People took me under their wing and aided me, even as others fought to stomp me down. Even though I was betrayed many times, even by my own kin (blood kin, made kin and trans siblings alike), others fought by my side through thick and thin, even those I would not have expected to. I reconnected to old friends and came out to many. I was also revealed to some against my will and lost friends this year. I dealt with the good feeling of having a good paying (if temporary) job doing something I love, to the pain of (hopefully temporary) unemployment and increasing poorness. While my blog grew from a tiny DW journal into a semi well known wordpress trans blog, my life also changed, shifted and grew.
I discovered myself for the second time this year. Previously I had just struggled with my dissonance and my womanhood. Not knowing what I was, why I was hurting. Even when I finally identified as a mtf transsexual person, I didn’t identify as a woman so much as a male to female genderqueer and really wasn’t sure where I was going in the end. The abuse of my ex was also a big stumbling block to my self discovery as that ex tried to force me into a box of femininity that didn’t fit, in order to turn me into the trans girlfriend that ex wanted (or even possibly just making assumptions about what I wanted or was afraid of based on experiences with other trans women, I’ll never really know as I never intend on speaking to that ex ever again). But now, with my loving and supportive partner, who just supported me no matter what direction I grew in, I blossomed into a beautiful woman and discovered my own self expression.
A sometimes indie chick look, often grunge tomboy look, I stepped away from makeup and preppy chick styles. I re-embraced girl masculinity and my grunge/metalhead roots and found a mixture of styles and expression that truly fit me. 2009 was the year that I fully realized it and finally found my way in terms of how I wanted to look and live life.
Amid this, 2009 was also the year that decimated my support structures and left me flailing. As friends graduated and moved away, and my trans support group was scaled down and presided over by cisgays who thought nothing was problematic about running a support group for trans youth, I found myself lacking in what I needed to get through the problems I faced here. 2009 didn’t see a resolution to this problem. I’m still isolated and alone in a lot of respects, depending more and more on my partner and the few friends I have left here. One can hope that 2010 will see a solution to this problem.
And with that, enough looking backward. 2009 will be done and past in only a short bit of time and 2010 will be upon us. It’s time to continue to grow and discover. It’s time to love and fight, heal and live.
Goodbye 2009. Hello 2010. Thank you to all who helped me get here. Be radical, stay alive.
Filed under: personal | 7 Comments
Tags: random
