I have real, natural 48 F breasts. I did not buy them from a surgeon. There is no plastic, no silicon. I grew them when I turned twelve. I am very proud of my breasts, and very comfortable showing them off.
Yet TERFs will and have repeatedly claimed my being proud of my breasts and willingness to show them off, (because no cis woman has EVER done that or felt that EVER right?), is proof that I am a male crossdressing autogynophile. Despite the APA long ago discrediting Autogynophilia as even being an actual real thing. It doesn't exist. I DO.
I was born with a uterus and a penis. I was born with one testicle and one ovary. I recently had the testicle removed. I was born with a tiny vaginal opening that a doctor surgically destroyed and sealed up.
Yet TERFs, (none of whom are actual doctors or biology experts. NOT A GODDAMNED ONE), will shout in my face telling me "Intersex doesn't work that way liar! You're just a confused man!"
I have no sex drive. I rarely masturbate if at all, and prior to my recent surgery only to make unwanted erections go away. I don't date, I don't pursue anyone, I don't look for sex. I'm a Demisexual, meaning I can only even ENJOY sex if it's with someone I'm already emotionally connected to on a deeper level. I don't do one night stands or casual sex.
Yet TERFs inst I'm a "Pretendbian", that I'm a man crossdressing to con lesbians into hetero sex, to "trick" them into sexually interacting with a penis. Even though I NEVER ask or expect ANY of my sexual partners to even LOOK at it let alone touch it if they don't want to, and even though EVERY woman I have EVER had sex with knew EVERYTHING about my body going in and STILL chose to fuck me of THEIR OWN GODDAMN FREE WILL. But try telling TERFs that. To TERFs I'm just a rapist dressing in drag to trick poor unsuspecting lesbians into my bed so I can sexually assault with my evil penis.
Speaking of my penis, I still have it. This is not by choice. I still have it because a minor day surgery to remove a testicle can be done locally and all related expenses are fully covered by Pharmacare. Full SRS is an invasive surgery that in my state of physical health I would be highly unlikely to survive, cannot afford the non-surgical expenses, and cannot afford the airfare. Pharmacare pays ONLY for the SRS itself, not any travel or hospital costs outside of BC, And I would have to travel outside of BC to get it if I could find a doctor willing to ignore the likelihood of my not surviving the operation. So I long ago made peace with my penis. I'm stuck with it. It's permanent. I can either hate it and end up killing myself in dysmorphic despair, or I can accept it's just a body part and get the fuck over it. So I got over it. Besides, unless I'm aroused it looks like a normal cis female clitoris anyway.
Yet TERFs say that BECAUSE I accept my genital as is and made peace with them, it proves I'm not a real woman, because if I was really a woman NOTHING could make me accept having a penis, even though they don't think trans women who DO have SRS are "real" women either, and are thus directly contradicting themselves by saying so.
This. ALL of this. This is what I deal with EVERY FUCKING DAY. EVERY day TERFs and other transphobic assholes like MRAs attack who and what I am as a person, invalidate my body and my history, deny my personality and experience, and deem themselves more expert in who and what I really am than I myself am.
This is DAILY LIFE for me. And for so many other trans and intersexed women worldwide. This is the kind of derailing invalidating dehumanizing pure raw unadulterated HATRED we face every day just for EXISTING.
Go ahead, tell me I CHOSE to feel this way. Tell me I CHOSE to be a woman with boy parts because it just gets me horny. Tell me I CHOSE to live a life guaranteed to include the risk of being beaten to a pulp or even murdered every single day just by leaving my apartment.
Go on. Tell me that. I DARE you.
No one would EVER choose this. The only choice I ever made about my gender was to stop living in fear and denial and to just be who I really am.
I am a woman with factory extras I never asked for.
I am beautiful, strong, intelligent, compassionate and kind. I am selfless often to my own detriment. I only have sex with people I love and trust and feel safe with, and I HAVE no secrets about my body or who I am. I don't "trick or deceive" ANYONE. The women I've been with are not coerced or fooled or conned. They CHOSE to be with me. And they are not magically bi or straight for doing so, (unless they WERE bi to begin with). A lesbian who chooses to fuck me is still a lesbian because I AM A WOMAN.
I am NOT a crossdressing rapist. I am NOT a confused crossdresser. I am NOT a "Pretendbian". I am not ANY of the hateful transphobic narratives TERFs lob at my head every day.
I am Penny, hear me roar. And feel free to stare at my tits because FUCK the haters, my tits are EPIC.
Showing posts with label transmisogyny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transmisogyny. Show all posts
8/01/2014
Why Cathy Brennan and her TERFs are, in fact, TERRORISTS
Terrorist.
ter·ror·ist [TEAR-er-ist] noun
1. a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.
2. a person who terrorizes or frightens others.
Terrorism.
ter·ror·ism [TEAR-uh-riz-uhm] noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
Terrorize.
ter·ror·ize [TEAR-er-rise] verb (used with object, ter·ror·ized, ter·ror·iz·ing.)
1. to fill or overcome with terror.
2. to dominate or coerce by intimidation.
Read these definitions. And then read these quotes. (Source; TERF Quotes)
TERF Activist and blooger Bev Jo: "They expect we’ll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and don’t realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead."
TERF Blogger Luckynkl: "The male-born are biologically incomplete mutants, useless and obsolete; walking viruses on two legs and a cancer, spreading disease, death and destruction wherever they go. They are the walking-dead and the antithesis to life. Gyn-energy sucking vampires who have to plug into women and feed on them in order to survive. No different than a parasite who sucks the life and energy out of its host."
TERF Blogger Bonobabe: "Personally, I think we should do away with circumcision and replace it with castration."
TERF Blogger WhiteTiger: "If we’re going that road, why not just cull boy babies for awhile? Re-establish a sane balance. Then we can start selective breeding programs for donor males…" [To cull means to reduce the population of by selective slaughter.]
TERF Blogger JourneyMistress: "It might be well and good to “educate” them [males] but that seems to take decades. Only if you are dedicated to educating the Terminally Stupid should you embark on this…Detachment is the key to emotional survival in a world plagued by males. Otherwise you really do just want to shoot them on sight."
I'd paste more from TERFQuotes but I'm already nauseous just from those. If you have the stomach, click the link for more.
Other examples of TERF terrorism include fallout from having a conference cancelled in London once the venue owners realized the message the TERFs were promoting.
On that page you'll see TERF leader Cathy "Bug" Brennan engage in blatant terrorist tactics by trying to incite fear against trans women, ally men and women, and generally ANYONE contradicting her, including calling trans women "all men", and calling an enlightened young man a "rapist" for "violating her boundaries" by simply replying to her PUBLICLY POSTED HATE TWEETS.
Here, from Rational Wiki, is a collection of examples of Cathy Brennan's terrorist campaigns against Trans Women.
One example from that page; "The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) is the ex-gay organization that stirred up the right wing world by claiming that a trans kid (whom we will refer to as Jane Doe, for reasons of privacy) in Colorado was harassing cisgender girls in the restrooms. Right wing media outlets jumped at the story without conducting any fact-checking, prompting members of the right wing community to call for the death of the trans kid. Cathy Brennan's Gender Identity Watch site jumped in to help the PJI attack the trans teen. The Pacific Justice Institute claims that "a male student, NAME CENSORED, who claims to be transgender, has allegedly harassed female students in the girls room at Florence High School." Even after Brennan learned that the teen was on suicide watch, she has left the teen's real name on her blog as well as updating it recently."
Here, Bitch Media examines the harm and hypocrisy of Brennan's tactics.
I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
One doesn't need to Strap on a bomb vest or fly a plane into a building to be a terrorist. One only needs to actively engage in campaigns of fearmongering to knowingly and intentionally incite a higher risk of violence against your chosen target. Like a KKK Grand Wizard never had to dirty his own hands with the blood of black folks because he incited other more gullible people into such fear and rage that they'd go do it for him, Brennan and her TERFs, however few they are, are doing that exact very thing; Appealing to the fears of gullible people with the intentional and malicious goal of getting trans women hurt or even murdered, while smugly believing their own hands are clean.
Now go back up to the top of the page, and reread those definitions.
And then tell me Brennan and her TERFs are not Terrorists in the purist definition of the word.
Click here to sign a petition to have Brennan's group Gender Identity Watch classified officially as a hate group.
ter·ror·ist [TEAR-er-ist] noun
1. a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.
2. a person who terrorizes or frightens others.
Terrorism.
ter·ror·ism [TEAR-uh-riz-uhm] noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
Terrorize.
ter·ror·ize [TEAR-er-rise] verb (used with object, ter·ror·ized, ter·ror·iz·ing.)
1. to fill or overcome with terror.
2. to dominate or coerce by intimidation.
Read these definitions. And then read these quotes. (Source; TERF Quotes)
TERF Activist and blooger Bev Jo: "They expect we’ll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and don’t realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead."
TERF Blogger Luckynkl: "The male-born are biologically incomplete mutants, useless and obsolete; walking viruses on two legs and a cancer, spreading disease, death and destruction wherever they go. They are the walking-dead and the antithesis to life. Gyn-energy sucking vampires who have to plug into women and feed on them in order to survive. No different than a parasite who sucks the life and energy out of its host."
TERF Blogger Bonobabe: "Personally, I think we should do away with circumcision and replace it with castration."
TERF Blogger WhiteTiger: "If we’re going that road, why not just cull boy babies for awhile? Re-establish a sane balance. Then we can start selective breeding programs for donor males…" [To cull means to reduce the population of by selective slaughter.]
TERF Blogger JourneyMistress: "It might be well and good to “educate” them [males] but that seems to take decades. Only if you are dedicated to educating the Terminally Stupid should you embark on this…Detachment is the key to emotional survival in a world plagued by males. Otherwise you really do just want to shoot them on sight."
I'd paste more from TERFQuotes but I'm already nauseous just from those. If you have the stomach, click the link for more.
Other examples of TERF terrorism include fallout from having a conference cancelled in London once the venue owners realized the message the TERFs were promoting.
On that page you'll see TERF leader Cathy "Bug" Brennan engage in blatant terrorist tactics by trying to incite fear against trans women, ally men and women, and generally ANYONE contradicting her, including calling trans women "all men", and calling an enlightened young man a "rapist" for "violating her boundaries" by simply replying to her PUBLICLY POSTED HATE TWEETS.
Here, from Rational Wiki, is a collection of examples of Cathy Brennan's terrorist campaigns against Trans Women.
One example from that page; "The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) is the ex-gay organization that stirred up the right wing world by claiming that a trans kid (whom we will refer to as Jane Doe, for reasons of privacy) in Colorado was harassing cisgender girls in the restrooms. Right wing media outlets jumped at the story without conducting any fact-checking, prompting members of the right wing community to call for the death of the trans kid. Cathy Brennan's Gender Identity Watch site jumped in to help the PJI attack the trans teen. The Pacific Justice Institute claims that "a male student, NAME CENSORED, who claims to be transgender, has allegedly harassed female students in the girls room at Florence High School." Even after Brennan learned that the teen was on suicide watch, she has left the teen's real name on her blog as well as updating it recently."
Here, Bitch Media examines the harm and hypocrisy of Brennan's tactics.
I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
One doesn't need to Strap on a bomb vest or fly a plane into a building to be a terrorist. One only needs to actively engage in campaigns of fearmongering to knowingly and intentionally incite a higher risk of violence against your chosen target. Like a KKK Grand Wizard never had to dirty his own hands with the blood of black folks because he incited other more gullible people into such fear and rage that they'd go do it for him, Brennan and her TERFs, however few they are, are doing that exact very thing; Appealing to the fears of gullible people with the intentional and malicious goal of getting trans women hurt or even murdered, while smugly believing their own hands are clean.
Now go back up to the top of the page, and reread those definitions.
And then tell me Brennan and her TERFs are not Terrorists in the purist definition of the word.
Click here to sign a petition to have Brennan's group Gender Identity Watch classified officially as a hate group.
7/10/2014
The Bug Brennan & Friend Comedy Hour!
So... according to a pair of TERFs on Twitter, (one of whom I'm
pretty certain was Bug Brennan on a sock account), my Twitter Avatar
somehow proves that I'm really an "Autogynophile Man".
Can ANYONE explain this chasm-like leap in logic to me? Do only trans women have breasts and show cleavage or pose sexy? Have
cis women NEVER done this EVER in the history of womankind? Is this one
of their sad deluded "Only a man would pose like this" disconnects from
reality?
I know one of the accounts tweeting TERF hate at me was a Bug sock, because she claimed I was a "famous violent autogynophile".
1) I'm nothing CLOSE to famous. I'm barely "vaguely heard of"
2) I'm not violent. I haven't been in a fistfight since my mid-teens. I have NEVER threatened a TERF with harm of ANY kind, nor have I ever taken their bait and harmlessly wished they'd die in a fire so they could twist it into proof of my "violent nature". For Bug to say I'm violent is a pure unadulterated lie to pad her false narrative.
3) I'm not Autogynophilic. Autogynophilia is the act of being sexually aroused by dressing as the opposite sex or imagining being them. It is more common among cis women than cis men, and, despite the claims of bigots, not prevalent among trans people AT ALL. I have never in my life been sexually aroused "by the thought of being a woman". I AM a woman. With next to zero sex drive. On the rare occasions I DO get aroused, it's because a woman I love is getting my motor going. Taking the pic above was NOT done for MY own sexual gratification, it was taken for the benefit of people who love me.It was one of the rare times I felt actually beautiful and so I took pictures for my beloveds.
Bottom line, TERFs have, yet again, proven that they're sad bald-faced liars, and that they need to lie to make their case because proven facts are simply NOT on their side.
If by any chance Bug is reading this, (And I KNOW she is because she's proven she stalks me now, trying to make me one of her poster girls for how Trans Women are "All Violent Men in Drag Out To Rape Women"), I'll make you a challenge.
I will give you my birth name, and leave you free to go digging all you like. You will not find ONE violent incident to my name outside of sealed Juvey records, and I've already publicly discussed the fights in my teens that put me in Juvey. You can dig until you hit molten core and will NEVER find ANY facts to prove your claim about me.
But we both know you won't accept my offer. Because you're a Doxxer. You've likely ALREADY picked through my life with a fine tooth comb looking for something to attack me with. You already KNOW your "Penny is violent" claims are bald-faced lies Bug. If there had been anything you could find that you could actually use, you'd have posted it all over the place.
I scare Cathy Brennan. Not because I'm "violent" as she falsely claims. But because she doesn't know how to discredit me. She doesn't know how to deal with me. My being intersexed is a pertinent reminder that she's wrong about sex and gender being immutable black & white constructs. By just EXISTING I prove Bug a liar and a bigot. And she doesn't know how to dismiss me.
She blocked me on her primary Twitter a few years ago, NOT because she was scared of me for harassing her, as she claims on her "I'm a Victim!" blog. (See my last blog entry for further details on that.). Twitter Records prove SHE was harassing me.
No, she blocked me because I was refusing to play along with her childish goading. She was looking for another "Oh go die in a fire!" tweet she could twist to fit her narrative, goading me with simplistic "your penis proves you're just a man" tweets. I kept replying "But I have a uterus too. By YOUR definition that makes me a "real woman" right?"
She couldn't figure out how to respond to that. And blocked me. And yet since then she's tried AGAIN to pick fights with me on Twitter TWICE, through her sock accounts. And always with her sad ridiculous claim that I'm a famous violent fetishist crossdresser. And every time I completely trounce her, not with fists, but with FACTS.
Because I HAVE the facts. And she does not.
I've said it before, I'll say it again; If you have to make up blatant lies to pad your argument, your argument was never valid in the first place.
 |
| My Twitter Avatar |
I know one of the accounts tweeting TERF hate at me was a Bug sock, because she claimed I was a "famous violent autogynophile".
1) I'm nothing CLOSE to famous. I'm barely "vaguely heard of"
2) I'm not violent. I haven't been in a fistfight since my mid-teens. I have NEVER threatened a TERF with harm of ANY kind, nor have I ever taken their bait and harmlessly wished they'd die in a fire so they could twist it into proof of my "violent nature". For Bug to say I'm violent is a pure unadulterated lie to pad her false narrative.
3) I'm not Autogynophilic. Autogynophilia is the act of being sexually aroused by dressing as the opposite sex or imagining being them. It is more common among cis women than cis men, and, despite the claims of bigots, not prevalent among trans people AT ALL. I have never in my life been sexually aroused "by the thought of being a woman". I AM a woman. With next to zero sex drive. On the rare occasions I DO get aroused, it's because a woman I love is getting my motor going. Taking the pic above was NOT done for MY own sexual gratification, it was taken for the benefit of people who love me.It was one of the rare times I felt actually beautiful and so I took pictures for my beloveds.
Bottom line, TERFs have, yet again, proven that they're sad bald-faced liars, and that they need to lie to make their case because proven facts are simply NOT on their side.
If by any chance Bug is reading this, (And I KNOW she is because she's proven she stalks me now, trying to make me one of her poster girls for how Trans Women are "All Violent Men in Drag Out To Rape Women"), I'll make you a challenge.
I will give you my birth name, and leave you free to go digging all you like. You will not find ONE violent incident to my name outside of sealed Juvey records, and I've already publicly discussed the fights in my teens that put me in Juvey. You can dig until you hit molten core and will NEVER find ANY facts to prove your claim about me.
But we both know you won't accept my offer. Because you're a Doxxer. You've likely ALREADY picked through my life with a fine tooth comb looking for something to attack me with. You already KNOW your "Penny is violent" claims are bald-faced lies Bug. If there had been anything you could find that you could actually use, you'd have posted it all over the place.
I scare Cathy Brennan. Not because I'm "violent" as she falsely claims. But because she doesn't know how to discredit me. She doesn't know how to deal with me. My being intersexed is a pertinent reminder that she's wrong about sex and gender being immutable black & white constructs. By just EXISTING I prove Bug a liar and a bigot. And she doesn't know how to dismiss me.
She blocked me on her primary Twitter a few years ago, NOT because she was scared of me for harassing her, as she claims on her "I'm a Victim!" blog. (See my last blog entry for further details on that.). Twitter Records prove SHE was harassing me.
No, she blocked me because I was refusing to play along with her childish goading. She was looking for another "Oh go die in a fire!" tweet she could twist to fit her narrative, goading me with simplistic "your penis proves you're just a man" tweets. I kept replying "But I have a uterus too. By YOUR definition that makes me a "real woman" right?"
She couldn't figure out how to respond to that. And blocked me. And yet since then she's tried AGAIN to pick fights with me on Twitter TWICE, through her sock accounts. And always with her sad ridiculous claim that I'm a famous violent fetishist crossdresser. And every time I completely trounce her, not with fists, but with FACTS.
Because I HAVE the facts. And she does not.
I've said it before, I'll say it again; If you have to make up blatant lies to pad your argument, your argument was never valid in the first place.
5/25/2014
So Long Aunty Kate
So Kate Bornstein favourited tweets that were directly attacking me
using blatant lies because they supported her "Tranny is okay to say and
you all need to chill" narrative.
That was the final straw to do what I should have done years ago; Excize her from my life. I've been putting it off for the longest time because of her cancer. I didn't want to be the girl who "abandons a friend over a philisophical disagreement". I wanted to be a supportive friend while she fought cancer regardless of how vehemtly I disagreed with her "Tranny" apologism.
That was the final straw to do what I should have done years ago; Excize her from my life. I've been putting it off for the longest time because of her cancer. I didn't want to be the girl who "abandons a friend over a philisophical disagreement". I wanted to be a supportive friend while she fought cancer regardless of how vehemtly I disagreed with her "Tranny" apologism.
But the EwPaul fallout has shown me that you can't be the nice girl
when your friends are actively shooting your legs out from under you.
Kate still, even through her cancer battle, actively promotes myths,
mlies and utter bullshit to defend the use of the word tranny and is
frankly condescending and dismissive of anyone who disagrees. Had she
been ANYONE else that wasn't a friend I'd have blocked her for that shit
YEARS ago.
But when a cis gay male drag queen started concern trolling me oin Twitter over my tweets to Kate imploring her to look at the harm she causes by pimping the word, expressing sympathy for my being hospitalized by a trans bashing but STILL insisting the word was positive despite how my bashers used it, who then started accusing me of "erasing Drag Culture" and somehow bashing Genderqueers and black gay people despite my ONLY ever having talked about the word tranny being a hate word and literally NONE of the shit he started pulling out of his ass, Kate Bornstein, my supposed friend, the woman who rode me like a racehorse to start writing an autobiography because she felt my writing was charming and intelligent and needed to be shared with the world, favourited three tweets where this man was directly personally ad-hominem attacking me because they pimped Kate's "Drag Invented Tranny so Tranny is Okay To Say" meme.
And that was when I realized. Sometimes you CAN'T be the nice girl.
Kate HAVING cancer was not a good enough reason for me to turn a blind eye and overlook her BEING a cancer to trans women. However much I care about her as a person and friend, she clearly cares more about pimping her Tranny narrative than about her friends. She saw me being attacked and she CHEERED THE ATTACKER. Because the attacker supported her narrative and I did not.
And I can no longer blind myself to the cancer of Kate Bornstein's beliefs, and I had to excise it. And so I did.
But when a cis gay male drag queen started concern trolling me oin Twitter over my tweets to Kate imploring her to look at the harm she causes by pimping the word, expressing sympathy for my being hospitalized by a trans bashing but STILL insisting the word was positive despite how my bashers used it, who then started accusing me of "erasing Drag Culture" and somehow bashing Genderqueers and black gay people despite my ONLY ever having talked about the word tranny being a hate word and literally NONE of the shit he started pulling out of his ass, Kate Bornstein, my supposed friend, the woman who rode me like a racehorse to start writing an autobiography because she felt my writing was charming and intelligent and needed to be shared with the world, favourited three tweets where this man was directly personally ad-hominem attacking me because they pimped Kate's "Drag Invented Tranny so Tranny is Okay To Say" meme.
And that was when I realized. Sometimes you CAN'T be the nice girl.
Kate HAVING cancer was not a good enough reason for me to turn a blind eye and overlook her BEING a cancer to trans women. However much I care about her as a person and friend, she clearly cares more about pimping her Tranny narrative than about her friends. She saw me being attacked and she CHEERED THE ATTACKER. Because the attacker supported her narrative and I did not.
And I can no longer blind myself to the cancer of Kate Bornstein's beliefs, and I had to excise it. And so I did.
2/08/2011
Dealing With Classic Derailing When Teaching About Trans Lives
Crossposted on Pam's House Blend
For the past two weeks I've been all over the damned net trying to maintain my temper while dealing with a very depressingly high concentration of white middle to upper class gay men posting comments on various websites in reply to articles or blogs about the SNL Estro-Maxx sketch or the Craig Ferguson "My long lost half sister Peg" sketch. There are reasons so many trans folk are losing faith and trust in a large chunk of the gay community, feeling like we're conveniant tools to help fight their pet causes but to be discarded or thrown under a bus when WE need them. Honestly I actually have less issues with femisogynist lesbians bashing us the last two weeks than with smug dismissive gay men.
The general consencus among these white Gay en is that we in the trans community should just lighten the fuck up because these two skits were all in good fun, just harmless jokes doncha know? We're just too damn oversensitive, we need to lighten up and grow a funnybone.
Yadda yadda yadda.
I've cited Derailing for Dummies so many times the past two weeks I almost have the whole bloody thing memorized.
So I'm going to paste a couple things here. The comment of mine that got the most likes on Disqus and got the most people saying "Okay maybe you're right" of the hundreds I've posted the past two weeks, and the classic derail attempt it was in reply to.
The Derail attempt. (After I'd been pushed to start cussing in frustration at the bullshit lengths these guys were going to to avoid admitting the harm being done. 500 points if you can spot the classic derail attempt).
"It's really too bad that you can't keep a civil tone and refrain from the profanity (and that goes for everyone)--it would really give more credence to your arguments. That said...do you happen to notice that "Peg" seems pretty happy with herself? So, if you're taking the leap to casting her as transgender, she's out and proud. But I agree with the previous posters who equate this to Milton Berle, Flip Wilson and I'll add Jonathan Winters and all the Kids in the Hall and Catherine Tate (look them up). The comic conceit of "obvious bad drag" does not a transgendered character make. So before you cast stones at CBS and Craig Ferguson, consider what you're really criticizing. (In this case, it's simply a monotonous skit."
And my reply, the one which got the most Disqus likes and got through to people.
"Nope, sorry, but you're just classic derailing again to be able to dismiss me so you don't have to acknowledge you're completely wrong. Using a tone argument, "You're being too angry/hostile/profane therefore nothing you say is of any import" is classic derailing done by privileged idiots who don't want to have to expand their worldview to include the lives of marginalized people. This is how you convince yourself you'e better than me and therefore your inherant superiority automatically disempowers my justified rage in your mind, and you can dismiss me as overreacting.
So the only one losing ANY credibility here is YOU. Especially given the examples you cite, which back up NOT your arguments but mine. Earlier you argued that men wearing women's clothing didn't automaticaly equate to trans bashing. I agreed but argued that in the case of the SNL sketch and the Ferguson sketch it did because gender variance was the sole and only point of the "joke" in these cases. By citing comedians like Berle, Wilson, KITH and Winters, you're only strengthening MY argument, because NONE of those comedians were playing gender itself as the joke. They were all always portraying actual women when they crossdressed for comedy. Flip Wilson's Geraldine for example was NEVER played for "Man in a dress" laughs, she was played for "Angry black mother" laughs. The character was a straight-on woman, and the jokes were rooted on her attitude, NOT her bodyparts.
SNL and Ferguson cannot say the same. The entire point of both sketches was to mock gender variance, and you CANNOT argue it away or deny it in Craig's case just because the guy playing Peg has come out before as male characters and tried to disgust the audience.
Both sketches relied on negative demeaning stereotypes of trans women to get their laughs. Both mocked trans women as silly freakish people who are just weird and abnormal and there to be mocked or treated like sexual deviants. Both used facial hair to emphasize the whole "This is just a man in a dress" meme.
So sorry asshole, but your derailing attempts have failed and so has your lameass privilege based argument. And my very justified anger, amplified by your staggeringly self-absorbed ignorant arrogance, does not dilute the fact that I am RIGHT, you are WRONG, your privilege has made you ignorant of what trans people have to truly put up with, the damage shit like this does us, and the damage YOU do by perpetuating it rather than educating.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. YOU are not trans, so YOU do NOT get to tell US what is or is not offensive to us."
I wish it didn't take me being pushed to the limits of my already pain-reduced patience to drive me to a point where I can articulate myself enough to actually get the fuck THROUGH to people, but sometimes anger can be a good tool if you find the right lens through which to focus it.
I just wish I could've gotten through to more people. The bulk of those I've been dealing with still think we're all just uptight humorless trannies who need to take a joke.
But if SNL or Craig had done a sketch with a white guy in blackface singing Mammy, or a guy playing a hyper effeminate gay man looking for 10 year old boys to show his "lollypop" to, these assholes would be first in line out for blood demanding SNL/Ferguson apologize for the bigotry and that they remove the offending sketch.
But hey, we're just silly trannies, we just need to learn to take a joke. Right?
Wrong.
And I don't care who I piss off by having the nerve to stand up for myself and my sisters. Our lives are NOT material for bad comedy.
For the past two weeks I've been all over the damned net trying to maintain my temper while dealing with a very depressingly high concentration of white middle to upper class gay men posting comments on various websites in reply to articles or blogs about the SNL Estro-Maxx sketch or the Craig Ferguson "My long lost half sister Peg" sketch. There are reasons so many trans folk are losing faith and trust in a large chunk of the gay community, feeling like we're conveniant tools to help fight their pet causes but to be discarded or thrown under a bus when WE need them. Honestly I actually have less issues with femisogynist lesbians bashing us the last two weeks than with smug dismissive gay men.
The general consencus among these white Gay en is that we in the trans community should just lighten the fuck up because these two skits were all in good fun, just harmless jokes doncha know? We're just too damn oversensitive, we need to lighten up and grow a funnybone.
Yadda yadda yadda.
I've cited Derailing for Dummies so many times the past two weeks I almost have the whole bloody thing memorized.
So I'm going to paste a couple things here. The comment of mine that got the most likes on Disqus and got the most people saying "Okay maybe you're right" of the hundreds I've posted the past two weeks, and the classic derail attempt it was in reply to.
The Derail attempt. (After I'd been pushed to start cussing in frustration at the bullshit lengths these guys were going to to avoid admitting the harm being done. 500 points if you can spot the classic derail attempt).
"It's really too bad that you can't keep a civil tone and refrain from the profanity (and that goes for everyone)--it would really give more credence to your arguments. That said...do you happen to notice that "Peg" seems pretty happy with herself? So, if you're taking the leap to casting her as transgender, she's out and proud. But I agree with the previous posters who equate this to Milton Berle, Flip Wilson and I'll add Jonathan Winters and all the Kids in the Hall and Catherine Tate (look them up). The comic conceit of "obvious bad drag" does not a transgendered character make. So before you cast stones at CBS and Craig Ferguson, consider what you're really criticizing. (In this case, it's simply a monotonous skit."
And my reply, the one which got the most Disqus likes and got through to people.
"Nope, sorry, but you're just classic derailing again to be able to dismiss me so you don't have to acknowledge you're completely wrong. Using a tone argument, "You're being too angry/hostile/profane therefore nothing you say is of any import" is classic derailing done by privileged idiots who don't want to have to expand their worldview to include the lives of marginalized people. This is how you convince yourself you'e better than me and therefore your inherant superiority automatically disempowers my justified rage in your mind, and you can dismiss me as overreacting.
So the only one losing ANY credibility here is YOU. Especially given the examples you cite, which back up NOT your arguments but mine. Earlier you argued that men wearing women's clothing didn't automaticaly equate to trans bashing. I agreed but argued that in the case of the SNL sketch and the Ferguson sketch it did because gender variance was the sole and only point of the "joke" in these cases. By citing comedians like Berle, Wilson, KITH and Winters, you're only strengthening MY argument, because NONE of those comedians were playing gender itself as the joke. They were all always portraying actual women when they crossdressed for comedy. Flip Wilson's Geraldine for example was NEVER played for "Man in a dress" laughs, she was played for "Angry black mother" laughs. The character was a straight-on woman, and the jokes were rooted on her attitude, NOT her bodyparts.
SNL and Ferguson cannot say the same. The entire point of both sketches was to mock gender variance, and you CANNOT argue it away or deny it in Craig's case just because the guy playing Peg has come out before as male characters and tried to disgust the audience.
Both sketches relied on negative demeaning stereotypes of trans women to get their laughs. Both mocked trans women as silly freakish people who are just weird and abnormal and there to be mocked or treated like sexual deviants. Both used facial hair to emphasize the whole "This is just a man in a dress" meme.
So sorry asshole, but your derailing attempts have failed and so has your lameass privilege based argument. And my very justified anger, amplified by your staggeringly self-absorbed ignorant arrogance, does not dilute the fact that I am RIGHT, you are WRONG, your privilege has made you ignorant of what trans people have to truly put up with, the damage shit like this does us, and the damage YOU do by perpetuating it rather than educating.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. YOU are not trans, so YOU do NOT get to tell US what is or is not offensive to us."
I wish it didn't take me being pushed to the limits of my already pain-reduced patience to drive me to a point where I can articulate myself enough to actually get the fuck THROUGH to people, but sometimes anger can be a good tool if you find the right lens through which to focus it.
I just wish I could've gotten through to more people. The bulk of those I've been dealing with still think we're all just uptight humorless trannies who need to take a joke.
But if SNL or Craig had done a sketch with a white guy in blackface singing Mammy, or a guy playing a hyper effeminate gay man looking for 10 year old boys to show his "lollypop" to, these assholes would be first in line out for blood demanding SNL/Ferguson apologize for the bigotry and that they remove the offending sketch.
But hey, we're just silly trannies, we just need to learn to take a joke. Right?
Wrong.
And I don't care who I piss off by having the nerve to stand up for myself and my sisters. Our lives are NOT material for bad comedy.
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.
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