I will no longer be cross-posting my blog entries as diaries on Pam's House Blend. Autumn Sandeen, whom I considered a friend and had frequently passionately defended online against shallow bigoted comments, decided to throw me to the wolves and scold me for a non-existant TOS violation in the comments on one of her PHB posts, for the SOLE purpose of showing a poster with a proven on-record history of baseless anti-trans trolling to whom Autumn needed to prove absolutely nothing that she does not "play favorites" with TOS violation warnings. I understand why Autumn did so. But I neither accept nor approve her decision to cower before a troll attacking her unfairly by sacrificing a friend who stands up for her just so she could "prove" how impartial she is.
Because of this sad act of cowardice by Autumn to appease a troll who will not actually care in the end and will still find excuses to attack Autumn and call her a man regardless if I get a token scolding or not, I have removed PHB from my sidebar and will never again comment on the site nor crosspost to it. I cannot in my personal good conscience support or contribute to a site where such an egregious act of personal cowardice and selling out a friend for meaningless brownie points takes place.
Apologies to Pam Spaulding for my decision. It hurts me deeply to be betrayed by a friend like this so publicly. It hurts worse to realize that at least one of the accusations I so frequently defended Autumn against turns out to be true; That she in fact IS a self-serving person who puts herself above others and will step on good people to elevate herself. I hope Autumn continues to do the good work she does do, but I DEARLY hope she stops to look at whom she hurts to do it sometimes.
Showing posts with label transsexual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transsexual. Show all posts
4/28/2010
Hate Is In Every Group
Today I read such bile.
Of course I read bile every day. Most of it from hateful Christian extremists, Tea-Partiers, Republicans, trans-hating redfems, etc. spouting their various hate-which-isn't-REALLY-hate-honest! crap we all know and loathe. THAT bile particularly bothered me. The author of that piece of tripe is a post-op transsexual woman with a very clear high-horse complex and very strong mad-on for and trans status that is not identical to her own. Sadly, this is very common.
There are a lot of post-op trans women who are intensely and vehemently bigoted against trans women who still have their penises. Any trans woman who has not yet gotten the Lopitoffame is in their eyes still not yet a real woman. This belief is held with a complete black hole of obliviousness to the irony of radfems who say the same thing about post-ops.
This hatred of pre-ops is ESPECIALLY vehement in the case of non-ops. non-ops are trans-woman who, either by personal choice or by medical reasoning cannot or will not get the final operation.
Women like "Josephine" revel in misgendering non-ops and belittling them in the same way much of society does to them. To post-ops of "Josephine's" type, and woman with a penis who cannot or will not get SRS is just a transvestite, a crossdresser, a fetishist. Trust me, the is a WORLD of difference between tv/cd's and non-op transsexuals.
Now there are plenty of post-op women who have absolutely no issues whatsoever with non-ops. Kate Bornstein and Gwendolyn Anne-Smith for example, two women I'm proud to call friends of mine, not only do NOT hate on non-ops, they publicly speak out in favor of full equality and acceptance of gender variance. Women like "Josephine" however have this bitter bigotry towards Non-ops, and I honestly believe it's because they're externalizing their own still-existing deep seeded repression that they thought SRS would magically fix.
A lot of transsexuals focus WAY to much on SRS as what it is NOT instead of what it IS. SRS is a STEP on the path of a trans woman's life. For those who need it to feel more comfortable in their bodies, it's an important and invaluable step, but still only a step. It doesn't change your chromasomes or give you a womb so to many people you're no more a woman than you were before it. Life continues past SRS with many more new challenges to overcome, ups and downs, losses and wins, angels and ends, yadda yadda. For those who do need SRS, passing that milestone certainly helps them find the strength to continue down their path in life. Life doesn't end with SRS.
What SRS is NOT is a magic cure all for everything that's wrong with you. If you had clinical depression before SRS, chances are you'll still have it afterwards. If you were sexually repressed before it, you likely won't be much less so after. If you had low self-esteem beforehand, well, you'd be surprised how little SRS actually dents that.
Women like Josephine are the ones who treated SRS as that magic cure all, that holy grail that would magically fix everything wrong in their lives. The ones who thought having a vagina would make everyone accept them as a real woman, and that they'd stop receiving transphobic bigotry. They can't accept that SRS didn't make EVERYTHING perfect, something else must be wrong.
So they turn their own insecure failings they thought SRS would chase away and turn it against those they see as lesser. They forget that when they were pre-op they felt every bit as much a woman as they do post-op, and they basically misgender and invalidate their own life history by insisting anyone who hasn't gotten srs yet is less real than they are. It's a classic feel-good-at-the-expense-of-others tactic.
It also has to do with sex. A LOT of Trans women buy into the rad fem bullshit that if you're trans, you're not allowed to enjoy sex if you're pre-op. Because in their backwards logic, real women don't enjoy sex unless they're sluts, and since sluts are subhuman in the eyes of radfems, any trans woman who likes sex is a slut by default and therefore represents only the "worst degrading stereotypes of what a real woman is". Well I'm sorry but fuck that. My wife is a cis woman who loves sex and is certainly no slut since I'm her only sex partner right now, but really, a slut is a name tight-assed people give to people they're jealous of. A slut is someone who is happier than they are doing something they deny themselves.
My friend Danielle Foxxx is Post-op. She loved sex when she was pre-op and she loves it now. The only thing SRS changed for her was it made her feel more comfortable with her body image and it changed the technical aspects of how she fucks.
Some non-ops like me, (Granted I'm an intersexed femal, with female chromosomes and a uterus, but to most people since I have a penis I may as well be trans), are non-op only because something medical prevents surgey. In my case a blood disorder means invasive surgery will kill me. Women like me then have to learn to make peace with the bodies we have in conjunction with who we are as women, a traumatizing journey made all the more difficult by the shallow post-ops joining the chorus of hate telling us we'll NEVER count.
Others however, CHOOSE to be non-op for various reasons. Some don't have the obsession with genitals that "Josephine" does. They don't link bodyparts to identity with the same narrow paintbrush that others do, where what's in your panties is the sole condition to determining what you ARE. These non-ops Are comfortable enough in their identity that they don't need SRS to "prove" anything. They look at it clinically and weigh what SRS gains them compared to what it takes away and they make the difficult choice to live as women with a penis. others simply don't accept gender as a rigid two-sided construct that must never stray from either/or.
The main problem for post-ops like "Josephine" is that they want to hide, to blend in, to just be a woman and forget/bury/ignore all the hardships they survived to get where they are. They hate that all these lesser people who DARE to be *gasp* HAPPY with what they are and comfortable with themselves physically, emotionally and sexually, keeping drawing uncomfortable attention to trans issues by being uppity little bitches telling people about trans issues! How dare they???
So any grief they get for being trans as post-op women is the fault of all these lippy mouth men in dresses, because they're really real women now, why would anyone have a problem with them?
I dearly wish all post-ops could be like Kate or Gwen or Danielle. Sadly I've met WAY too many Josephines. If you actually know Gwen, ask her about Dianne some day. OHHHH has Gwen got stories for you!
Post-op does not make you any more or less a woman than any cis woman or pre-op trans-women. Nor do the clothes you wear. The ONLY thing that makes you a woman is your mind and heart and soul. Some people need surgeries to be more at peace with the BODY, but womanhood is in the soul. Don't step on those who found peace on a different path than yours.
If we all found peace on the exact same path it'd be a goddamned crowded picnic, and I can't afford to bring enough beer to get you drunk enough to stop hating yourself so much you need to shit on me.
Of course I read bile every day. Most of it from hateful Christian extremists, Tea-Partiers, Republicans, trans-hating redfems, etc. spouting their various hate-which-isn't-REALLY-hate-honest! crap we all know and loathe. THAT bile particularly bothered me. The author of that piece of tripe is a post-op transsexual woman with a very clear high-horse complex and very strong mad-on for and trans status that is not identical to her own. Sadly, this is very common.
There are a lot of post-op trans women who are intensely and vehemently bigoted against trans women who still have their penises. Any trans woman who has not yet gotten the Lopitoffame is in their eyes still not yet a real woman. This belief is held with a complete black hole of obliviousness to the irony of radfems who say the same thing about post-ops.
This hatred of pre-ops is ESPECIALLY vehement in the case of non-ops. non-ops are trans-woman who, either by personal choice or by medical reasoning cannot or will not get the final operation.
Women like "Josephine" revel in misgendering non-ops and belittling them in the same way much of society does to them. To post-ops of "Josephine's" type, and woman with a penis who cannot or will not get SRS is just a transvestite, a crossdresser, a fetishist. Trust me, the is a WORLD of difference between tv/cd's and non-op transsexuals.
Now there are plenty of post-op women who have absolutely no issues whatsoever with non-ops. Kate Bornstein and Gwendolyn Anne-Smith for example, two women I'm proud to call friends of mine, not only do NOT hate on non-ops, they publicly speak out in favor of full equality and acceptance of gender variance. Women like "Josephine" however have this bitter bigotry towards Non-ops, and I honestly believe it's because they're externalizing their own still-existing deep seeded repression that they thought SRS would magically fix.
A lot of transsexuals focus WAY to much on SRS as what it is NOT instead of what it IS. SRS is a STEP on the path of a trans woman's life. For those who need it to feel more comfortable in their bodies, it's an important and invaluable step, but still only a step. It doesn't change your chromasomes or give you a womb so to many people you're no more a woman than you were before it. Life continues past SRS with many more new challenges to overcome, ups and downs, losses and wins, angels and ends, yadda yadda. For those who do need SRS, passing that milestone certainly helps them find the strength to continue down their path in life. Life doesn't end with SRS.
What SRS is NOT is a magic cure all for everything that's wrong with you. If you had clinical depression before SRS, chances are you'll still have it afterwards. If you were sexually repressed before it, you likely won't be much less so after. If you had low self-esteem beforehand, well, you'd be surprised how little SRS actually dents that.
Women like Josephine are the ones who treated SRS as that magic cure all, that holy grail that would magically fix everything wrong in their lives. The ones who thought having a vagina would make everyone accept them as a real woman, and that they'd stop receiving transphobic bigotry. They can't accept that SRS didn't make EVERYTHING perfect, something else must be wrong.
So they turn their own insecure failings they thought SRS would chase away and turn it against those they see as lesser. They forget that when they were pre-op they felt every bit as much a woman as they do post-op, and they basically misgender and invalidate their own life history by insisting anyone who hasn't gotten srs yet is less real than they are. It's a classic feel-good-at-the-expense-of-others tactic.
It also has to do with sex. A LOT of Trans women buy into the rad fem bullshit that if you're trans, you're not allowed to enjoy sex if you're pre-op. Because in their backwards logic, real women don't enjoy sex unless they're sluts, and since sluts are subhuman in the eyes of radfems, any trans woman who likes sex is a slut by default and therefore represents only the "worst degrading stereotypes of what a real woman is". Well I'm sorry but fuck that. My wife is a cis woman who loves sex and is certainly no slut since I'm her only sex partner right now, but really, a slut is a name tight-assed people give to people they're jealous of. A slut is someone who is happier than they are doing something they deny themselves.
My friend Danielle Foxxx is Post-op. She loved sex when she was pre-op and she loves it now. The only thing SRS changed for her was it made her feel more comfortable with her body image and it changed the technical aspects of how she fucks.
Some non-ops like me, (Granted I'm an intersexed femal, with female chromosomes and a uterus, but to most people since I have a penis I may as well be trans), are non-op only because something medical prevents surgey. In my case a blood disorder means invasive surgery will kill me. Women like me then have to learn to make peace with the bodies we have in conjunction with who we are as women, a traumatizing journey made all the more difficult by the shallow post-ops joining the chorus of hate telling us we'll NEVER count.
Others however, CHOOSE to be non-op for various reasons. Some don't have the obsession with genitals that "Josephine" does. They don't link bodyparts to identity with the same narrow paintbrush that others do, where what's in your panties is the sole condition to determining what you ARE. These non-ops Are comfortable enough in their identity that they don't need SRS to "prove" anything. They look at it clinically and weigh what SRS gains them compared to what it takes away and they make the difficult choice to live as women with a penis. others simply don't accept gender as a rigid two-sided construct that must never stray from either/or.
The main problem for post-ops like "Josephine" is that they want to hide, to blend in, to just be a woman and forget/bury/ignore all the hardships they survived to get where they are. They hate that all these lesser people who DARE to be *gasp* HAPPY with what they are and comfortable with themselves physically, emotionally and sexually, keeping drawing uncomfortable attention to trans issues by being uppity little bitches telling people about trans issues! How dare they???
So any grief they get for being trans as post-op women is the fault of all these lippy mouth men in dresses, because they're really real women now, why would anyone have a problem with them?
I dearly wish all post-ops could be like Kate or Gwen or Danielle. Sadly I've met WAY too many Josephines. If you actually know Gwen, ask her about Dianne some day. OHHHH has Gwen got stories for you!
Post-op does not make you any more or less a woman than any cis woman or pre-op trans-women. Nor do the clothes you wear. The ONLY thing that makes you a woman is your mind and heart and soul. Some people need surgeries to be more at peace with the BODY, but womanhood is in the soul. Don't step on those who found peace on a different path than yours.
If we all found peace on the exact same path it'd be a goddamned crowded picnic, and I can't afford to bring enough beer to get you drunk enough to stop hating yourself so much you need to shit on me.
3/21/2010
Looking For Clouds In A Silver Lining
EDIT 04/24/2010 - I have since seen the actual film and am utterly horrified by much of it. But i stand by my opinion that we can use it to our advantage as a tool to teach people what NOT to believe about us. Therefore i'll leave this blog entry as is, with this added note that i think isreal luna is a fucking hateful little moron and needs his ass kicked.
************************************************************************************
Yesterday, on Twitter, my friend Autumn Sandeem from the always effervescent blog Pam's House Blend brought a movie trailer that she found horrifying and offensive to my attention. Video below.
Now, I love Autumn and she is a very smart cookie, but I look at this movie trailer and think something completely different than she does. Autumn's complaints are as follows.
- The film looks to be exploitative and trashy
- It potrays Trans Stereotypes
- It trivializes real trans violence
- Using real trans murder victims in the marketing is offensive
Now a lot of my trans sisters have openly admitted to being awed by my ability to stay positive about my hope for the world regarding trans issues when we still get so much shit just for being us, but I watched this trailer and I saw something completely different, and I'd like to take this time to explain to all my trans sisters why I think this movie is a good thing and should be supported and celebrated actively, not shunned and villified.
First of all, yes it's trashy and exploitative. It's an Homage to trashy sexploitation revenge movies from the 70's. It bloody SAYS so. But that's a good thing. Because the audience for cheesy trash like this is generally made up of cis folks who otherwise wouldn't pay much attention to trans issues. Seriously, do you know how many men realized how evil rape really is after watching I Spit On Your Grave? This is EXACTLY the kind of subversive message movie that changes minds. People who watch this movie will subtly be persuaded as they watch it how wrong transphobic violence is.
As for using the names of real trans murder victims in the trailer. This too is a GOOD thing. Why? Because at least half of the people watching this who aren't Trans are going to be curious about those names. Some guy for example who's never really been exposed to news about Transphobic violence, will see Angie Zapata's name and get curious. So he's going to go and Google her and read about an innocent vibrant young woman who was brutally murdered by a bigoted asshole who targeted her just for being different. He's going to read statements from her mother and siblings tearfully lamenting what that asshole stole from them.
He's going to learn about a real flesh and blood three dimensional young woman whose loss has hurt people and he's going to be horrified and he'll learn to be more sensitive to trans people.
That is a GOOD thing.
I'd also like to point out, however trashy this movie is going to be, the trailer makes it a point to call the acts it draws from, and the attack in the movie that sets up the revenge plot, HATE-CRIMES. It's not whitewashing it. It's not for a moment suggesting we deserve it. It never comes CLOSE to saying "These people are freaks and it's okay to hurt them".
No this trailer is saying "These women are going to go get revenge on some hateful douchebags who hurt them just because they were different".
Another point I'd like to bring up is that while, yes, most of the ladies starring in this movie look like drag queens, there's still diversity here. There's a fat one, there are a few different races among them, and a few of them just look like plain average women. The one who got hospitalized and comatose for example, NOWHERE in the trailer, even once she dresses to kill so to sopeak, does she ever look like any "tranny" stereotype. She always just looks like a woman, period.
I DO understand why some of my sisters hsave a problem with this movie, but I honestly think they're looking at this all wrong. This movie is a HUGE opportunity, if we react to it right.
Instead of screaming "TRASH! STEREOTYPES! EXPLOITATION!", which will just make a lot of people tune us out, here's what we all SHOULD be doing.
Support this movie. Get it played as often as possible to as many audiences as you can reach. And BOOKEND the movie. Explain what this movie gets right about us and then close with a Q & A. This movie WILL make people more curious about our real lives, and it WILL make a lot of people more open to seeing us as worthwhile and deserving of respect.
The truth is, the loud hateful bullies are NOT as numerous as you think. You just see more of them because they ARE loud. Most cis people don't hate us, they just don't understand us, and no one is educating them about us in a way that they can relate to. This movie will open that door for a LOT of people, and instead of screaming about how the door itself is decorated, we should be the concierge, showing people through that door and helping them to a comfortable table.
This is a situation we can use to our benefit. Kneejerk reactions to the trashy stuff won't help any of us in the long run.
For now let's just help as many people as we can through that door. You can complain about the paintjob later.
************************************************************************************
Yesterday, on Twitter, my friend Autumn Sandeem from the always effervescent blog Pam's House Blend brought a movie trailer that she found horrifying and offensive to my attention. Video below.
Now, I love Autumn and she is a very smart cookie, but I look at this movie trailer and think something completely different than she does. Autumn's complaints are as follows.
- The film looks to be exploitative and trashy
- It potrays Trans Stereotypes
- It trivializes real trans violence
- Using real trans murder victims in the marketing is offensive
Now a lot of my trans sisters have openly admitted to being awed by my ability to stay positive about my hope for the world regarding trans issues when we still get so much shit just for being us, but I watched this trailer and I saw something completely different, and I'd like to take this time to explain to all my trans sisters why I think this movie is a good thing and should be supported and celebrated actively, not shunned and villified.
First of all, yes it's trashy and exploitative. It's an Homage to trashy sexploitation revenge movies from the 70's. It bloody SAYS so. But that's a good thing. Because the audience for cheesy trash like this is generally made up of cis folks who otherwise wouldn't pay much attention to trans issues. Seriously, do you know how many men realized how evil rape really is after watching I Spit On Your Grave? This is EXACTLY the kind of subversive message movie that changes minds. People who watch this movie will subtly be persuaded as they watch it how wrong transphobic violence is.
As for using the names of real trans murder victims in the trailer. This too is a GOOD thing. Why? Because at least half of the people watching this who aren't Trans are going to be curious about those names. Some guy for example who's never really been exposed to news about Transphobic violence, will see Angie Zapata's name and get curious. So he's going to go and Google her and read about an innocent vibrant young woman who was brutally murdered by a bigoted asshole who targeted her just for being different. He's going to read statements from her mother and siblings tearfully lamenting what that asshole stole from them.
He's going to learn about a real flesh and blood three dimensional young woman whose loss has hurt people and he's going to be horrified and he'll learn to be more sensitive to trans people.
That is a GOOD thing.
I'd also like to point out, however trashy this movie is going to be, the trailer makes it a point to call the acts it draws from, and the attack in the movie that sets up the revenge plot, HATE-CRIMES. It's not whitewashing it. It's not for a moment suggesting we deserve it. It never comes CLOSE to saying "These people are freaks and it's okay to hurt them".
No this trailer is saying "These women are going to go get revenge on some hateful douchebags who hurt them just because they were different".
Another point I'd like to bring up is that while, yes, most of the ladies starring in this movie look like drag queens, there's still diversity here. There's a fat one, there are a few different races among them, and a few of them just look like plain average women. The one who got hospitalized and comatose for example, NOWHERE in the trailer, even once she dresses to kill so to sopeak, does she ever look like any "tranny" stereotype. She always just looks like a woman, period.
I DO understand why some of my sisters hsave a problem with this movie, but I honestly think they're looking at this all wrong. This movie is a HUGE opportunity, if we react to it right.
Instead of screaming "TRASH! STEREOTYPES! EXPLOITATION!", which will just make a lot of people tune us out, here's what we all SHOULD be doing.
Support this movie. Get it played as often as possible to as many audiences as you can reach. And BOOKEND the movie. Explain what this movie gets right about us and then close with a Q & A. This movie WILL make people more curious about our real lives, and it WILL make a lot of people more open to seeing us as worthwhile and deserving of respect.
The truth is, the loud hateful bullies are NOT as numerous as you think. You just see more of them because they ARE loud. Most cis people don't hate us, they just don't understand us, and no one is educating them about us in a way that they can relate to. This movie will open that door for a LOT of people, and instead of screaming about how the door itself is decorated, we should be the concierge, showing people through that door and helping them to a comfortable table.
This is a situation we can use to our benefit. Kneejerk reactions to the trashy stuff won't help any of us in the long run.
For now let's just help as many people as we can through that door. You can complain about the paintjob later.
2/28/2010
9/04/2009
It was just a joke...
DISCLAIMER; I am not angry at Meandering Muse. She's a cool badass chickie and I consider her a friend on the internet. I'm posting this blog entry to answer her confusion in her most recent blog, here, as to why some of her trans readers got upset that she chose to use the word "tranny" instead of "transgendered" in what she believed was a cute funny way. Now I know some of my sisters, (you know who you are), would immediately write off Muse as just another privileged cis bitch who doesn't understand us and blah blah hate hate etc etc, but I know Muse is a cool intelligent woman who honestly meant well. Not understanding why a word hurts is NOT the same as intentionally seeking to hurt you with it. I love my grumpy T-sisters on Twitter but not every cis woman who makes a verbal fuck-up is out to bury us. So after reading Muse's latest blog, read as follows my polite and calm explanation to her as to why someone got pissed off at her over the word "tranny".
To my friend Meandering Muse
Since you aren't a transwoman hon you don't have the first person experience to understand this, but, the problem with "tranny" is that it's Nigger. Kike. Gook. Fag. It's a hate word, a weapon word. It cannot be reclaimed or disarmed, and you cannot use it as a joke or a cutesy shortcut because "transgendered" sounds too "clinical and scientific and boring."
If you, as a cis woman use it, no matter how light-hearted your intent sweetie, you're GOING to piss transfolk off.
Secondly, "transgender" does in fact cover those who never transition or have surgery, because it's a blanket term invented by Crossdressers to co-opt the gender issues of various transsexuals and intersex folks, in order to pass off their silly harmless sexual fetish as something they cannot control the same way a transsexual can't change the gender gap between their body and brain without medical assistance.
While I know enough to know that you as a cis lesbian woman probably did genuinely believe you were being cute and can't understand why anyone would be upset, because of your own privilege, (and yes, even lesbians have privilege over transwomen), I sadly know several embittered transwomen (whom I love anyway) who've gotten the shaft from life more than I have in regards to dealing with the privileged assumptions of cis women, some openly haters, some who just don't fully understand their own language mistakes.
You cannot use "tranny" to crack a joke or be cute. You're not trans. You haven't earned the right. You may as well be a white man cracking nigger jokes. Would you think he was really just trying to be cute? And even if in his ignorance of how it really feels to a POC to be called nigger he honestly did think he was only being cute and funny, would that excuse his misinformed use of the word?
No one can ever safely use a weaponized hate word a funny cuteness. Someone will always take offense to it. There IS no safe way to use a hate word cutely. I hope you can understand why the other person or persons got so upset with you now that I've explained it to you calmly without yelling.
I greatly appreciate your supportiveness to trans/is issues, but that supportiveness is not an excuse to use a word that hurts us as joking cuteness. There is no free pass for hatespeech, not even that which was genuinely intended to just be funny.
It's the little things sweetie. The little things like this are a big part of what stops people from changing.
After all, doesn't it horrify you every time some idiot college jock cracks a "joke" about rape like it's really no big deal?
A non-trans saying the word tranny as a cute joke is a very big deal to transfolk. And no matter how good the intention, no good can come of doing it.
PERSONAL ASIDE; As I was typing this, I find it very disturbing that the spellchecker happily identified tranny as a possibly misspelled word, (which is good), but it never once flagged nigger or any of the other racist words I cited as examples of how hateful a word Tranny is. So.... does this mean "Nigger" is actually in the goddamn dictionary??? WTF???
To my friend Meandering Muse
Since you aren't a transwoman hon you don't have the first person experience to understand this, but, the problem with "tranny" is that it's Nigger. Kike. Gook. Fag. It's a hate word, a weapon word. It cannot be reclaimed or disarmed, and you cannot use it as a joke or a cutesy shortcut because "transgendered" sounds too "clinical and scientific and boring."
If you, as a cis woman use it, no matter how light-hearted your intent sweetie, you're GOING to piss transfolk off.
Secondly, "transgender" does in fact cover those who never transition or have surgery, because it's a blanket term invented by Crossdressers to co-opt the gender issues of various transsexuals and intersex folks, in order to pass off their silly harmless sexual fetish as something they cannot control the same way a transsexual can't change the gender gap between their body and brain without medical assistance.
While I know enough to know that you as a cis lesbian woman probably did genuinely believe you were being cute and can't understand why anyone would be upset, because of your own privilege, (and yes, even lesbians have privilege over transwomen), I sadly know several embittered transwomen (whom I love anyway) who've gotten the shaft from life more than I have in regards to dealing with the privileged assumptions of cis women, some openly haters, some who just don't fully understand their own language mistakes.
You cannot use "tranny" to crack a joke or be cute. You're not trans. You haven't earned the right. You may as well be a white man cracking nigger jokes. Would you think he was really just trying to be cute? And even if in his ignorance of how it really feels to a POC to be called nigger he honestly did think he was only being cute and funny, would that excuse his misinformed use of the word?
No one can ever safely use a weaponized hate word a funny cuteness. Someone will always take offense to it. There IS no safe way to use a hate word cutely. I hope you can understand why the other person or persons got so upset with you now that I've explained it to you calmly without yelling.
I greatly appreciate your supportiveness to trans/is issues, but that supportiveness is not an excuse to use a word that hurts us as joking cuteness. There is no free pass for hatespeech, not even that which was genuinely intended to just be funny.
It's the little things sweetie. The little things like this are a big part of what stops people from changing.
After all, doesn't it horrify you every time some idiot college jock cracks a "joke" about rape like it's really no big deal?
A non-trans saying the word tranny as a cute joke is a very big deal to transfolk. And no matter how good the intention, no good can come of doing it.
PERSONAL ASIDE; As I was typing this, I find it very disturbing that the spellchecker happily identified tranny as a possibly misspelled word, (which is good), but it never once flagged nigger or any of the other racist words I cited as examples of how hateful a word Tranny is. So.... does this mean "Nigger" is actually in the goddamn dictionary??? WTF???
9/03/2009
New Hedon Word of the Week; Femisogynist
Here in the Trinity of Hedon, we have our own words and terms for some things. And sometimes in life, something hurts your brain so much that no existing language appropriately explains it. So I as the Shaman invent a completely new word to define the brain hurting idea.
My first weekly entry in this series is Femisogenyst, a combination of Feminist and Misogynist. It was inspired by the mind-bogglingly stupid exclusionary policies of Lu's Pharmacy For Women here in Vancouver B.C. Canada.
Explanatory Links for background information on the Lu's issue.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
With the background information out of the way, I proudly present the first ever Musings From Hedon New Word of the Week!
Femisogynist, (feh mih SAW jeh nist), Noun; A woman practicing a severely outdated and extremely aggressive form of exclusionary feminism that, instead of seeking true universal equality like true feminism should, instead redirects the sexist, bigoted and misogynist oppression they often face in life onto marginalized and vulnerable groups they view as lesser or not counting. A Femisogynist is a very narrow minded and hyper hypocritical woman who in their bigoted and hateful exclusion of transsexual and intersexed women, often citing a "women born women are the only REAL women" philosophy, fail to realize that they are treating these marginalized and vulnerable women with the exact same hateful, dehumanizing, belittling sexist patriarchal repression that they claim to be against, hiding behind gender priveledge as having been biologically female with no genital defects from birth as their excuse and justification for refusing to allow any possibility of accepting or including transwomen in their definition of who counts as a woman.
Example - "The Vancouver Womens Health collective thinks they are a progressive feminist organization, but their Femisogynist policies excluding transwomen show them to be hateful, shallow, narrow-minded and hypocritical because they inflict upon transpeople the same oppressive sexism they claim to fight."
This has been your New Hedon Word of the Week. Use it proudly and often when dealing with loud hateful cissexual women.
My first weekly entry in this series is Femisogenyst, a combination of Feminist and Misogynist. It was inspired by the mind-bogglingly stupid exclusionary policies of Lu's Pharmacy For Women here in Vancouver B.C. Canada.
Explanatory Links for background information on the Lu's issue.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
With the background information out of the way, I proudly present the first ever Musings From Hedon New Word of the Week!
Femisogynist, (feh mih SAW jeh nist), Noun; A woman practicing a severely outdated and extremely aggressive form of exclusionary feminism that, instead of seeking true universal equality like true feminism should, instead redirects the sexist, bigoted and misogynist oppression they often face in life onto marginalized and vulnerable groups they view as lesser or not counting. A Femisogynist is a very narrow minded and hyper hypocritical woman who in their bigoted and hateful exclusion of transsexual and intersexed women, often citing a "women born women are the only REAL women" philosophy, fail to realize that they are treating these marginalized and vulnerable women with the exact same hateful, dehumanizing, belittling sexist patriarchal repression that they claim to be against, hiding behind gender priveledge as having been biologically female with no genital defects from birth as their excuse and justification for refusing to allow any possibility of accepting or including transwomen in their definition of who counts as a woman.
Example - "The Vancouver Womens Health collective thinks they are a progressive feminist organization, but their Femisogynist policies excluding transwomen show them to be hateful, shallow, narrow-minded and hypocritical because they inflict upon transpeople the same oppressive sexism they claim to fight."
This has been your New Hedon Word of the Week. Use it proudly and often when dealing with loud hateful cissexual women.
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