December 21, 2012
also: an Important Thing

When I wrote that post, I was specifically thinking of experiences I’ve had being shamed for being into artists who are homophobic, transphobic, and ableist, considering that I’m a gay, transsexual, disabled guy.

I wasn’t clear about this, which was shitty of me!  I also invoked Waugh, whose political problems were far from exclusive to homophobia and included being a massive colonialist and racist and classist and general massive problem.  I don’t think it is my place to address this stuff outside of my own experience, because my perception is skewed by whiteness, by able-bodiedness, by a lot of things.  So I should have bracketed, made it clear where I was coming from, not talked about Waugh, etc etc.

I was unclear about it because I wrote the post in a very emotional place, and because I have been approximately spoonless since Wednesday.  I’m sorry.

Maybe a good takeaway from this is that on-the-point-of-tears blogging is not the best kind of blogging for me!

If there’s anything anyone would like me to do/say/talk about/read/something else for accountability purposes, please do let me know.

6:31pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwZskVDF
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: tw: classism tw: racism tw: transphobia self documentation 
December 20, 2012
in need of a little advice

genderpoliceman:

chino-tj:

hey guys well, the problem i’m having is that my girlfriend is a lesbian a she dosen’t want to introduce me has her boyfriend she keeps saying i’m her girlfriend and that really gets me a little dysphoric sometimes, besides of that issuse she’s perfect to me she understands me and supports me in everything. but when I ask her why she does that her answer is that she doesn’t want to be seen has a straight person, I tell her that by doing that she makes me look like a dyke when i’m not gay! I’m just a trans guy. I don’t know what can a i do about this any advice?

If your girlfriend is a lesbian woman, I am afraid that she will not continue to be attracted to a man, as she is solely attracted to women. If she is unattracted to men, then your relationship sadly does not have much of a future, as you are a man.

Hey, fuck you, dude.

Hey OP, I’m sorry about this guy.  What a douchey thing to say.  People are really complicated and gender and attraction are really complicated, and this person has no right to make huge statements about your relationship without any knowledge of it.

Anyway, I’m sorry that you’re dealing with this.  I know a really loving sweet couple who both used to identify as lesbian before one came out as a trans guy.  The cis partner now identifies as bisexual—it makes more sense for her because she’s attracted to her trans guy boyfriend.  There are a lot of stories like this in the world.  Things don’t always work out that way, but sometimes they do.

Have you told her that the word “girlfriend” makes you feel dysphoric?  That stuff is hard to talk about, especially with cis people, but it’s worth a try.  I hope she finds a way to respect you and treat you in the way that you deserve to be treated!  If she can’t or won’t do that, you have the right to be angry at her and to express it.

It’s seems like the two of you are dealing with similar issues: you need people to see that you’re a guy, and she needs people to see that she isn’t straight.  Maybe you could use that as common ground?  Say something like, “Hey, I get that it’s important for people to understand that you’re not straight, but it’s also important for people to understand that I’m not a lesbian.  Can we find a way for both of those things to happen?”

Does anyone with more experience in a situation like this have advice?  Non-douchey advice.

6:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwZnpfMt
(Notes: 16)
  
Filed under: trans tw: truscum tw: transphobia queer 
December 6, 2012
on the co-opting of our voices

biyuti:

So. This article about CSI and its continued shitty portrayals of trans women, by GLAAD ass. direct Nick Adams, OP ED How the TV Show CSI is Screwing Us Again | Advocate.com, delivers some fairly good info and whatever.

However, I’m sure you noticed that headline. What the concluding sentence:

We ask CSI to use episodes like these as a model going forward, or if they can’t do that, just stop using transgender characters in the show.  This type of visibility, transgender people don’t need.  In fact, it’s killing us.

Being a deeply curious sort, I tried to find a pic or some info about this person. I also don’t want to make too many assumptions about who they are…

But. The overall tone of the article leads me to believe, at the very least, that Nick Adams is not a trans woman. So…

Who the fuck is ‘us’ re: “it’s killing us”? I’d really like to know. Because unless you are a trans feminine person, it is unlikely that CSI’s generally disgusting and dehumanizing portrayal of trans women is killing you. Or contributing danger to your life in any meaningful way.

I guess what really clues me into just how this isn’t written by someone actually part of the community:

The timing of the current episode is particularly insulting as it occurs one week after the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the (at least) 72 transgender people murdered over the past 12 months: 16 killed in the United States and the 56 killed elsewhere in the world. 

It is true as fuck that the number is higher because, in reality, the *reported* deaths number around 256. But why bother doing your actual research when you can just, idk, co-opt our oppression and stand on our bodies.

Because, I would really like to know how speaking for us (instead of us) on an issue many of us have already discussed a bajillion times (CSI is notoriously bad for this, and only now I’m seeing something from GLAAD?).

Just so we are clear: this isn’t helping. At all. Not even a little. Because co-opting the actual suffering and oppression of trans feminine people is also killing us.

So. Fuck you.

5:45pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwYooAX5
(Notes: 36)
  
Filed under: trans women transmisogyny nick adams glaad transphobia violence transphobic violence transmisogynistic violence queer lgbt tw: violence tw: transphobia tw: transmisogyny tw: transphobic violence tw: misogyny misogyny racism whiteness 
December 3, 2012
(tw: for transmisogynistic bathroom panic_) Which Public Bathrooms Should Transgender People Be Allowed To Use? - curtiscrx25's column on Newsvine

biyuti:

SO. More cis bathroom panic. Boring, yes? 

But I’m only posting this link ‘cause they are running a poll on whether or not trans people should be able to use the washroom. Go vote ‘yes’

Go. Tumblr, Go!!!!!

Time for a tumblr bomb.

“One part of the problem is that any guy could put on a dress and a wig and then claim to be a transgender.  There is no national registry with photo IDs to identify true transgender individuals.”

two options:

a) it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a discussed possibility for legislation

b) it already has and I haven’t heard

seriously, this would suit the interests of so many scummy people, HBSer types who want “true” transsexuality preserved and cis people who—want to be cis people and generally spoil things

9:57am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwYa7gDW
(Notes: 59)
  
Filed under: trans queer transmisogyny tw: transmisogyny tw: transphobia transphobia 
December 3, 2012
your reminder that not only is ex-trans therapy still legal

but that the APA hired Zucker, ex-trans therapy’s premiere practitioner, to head the committee on transness for the DSM V, which just came out

there is a waiting list for cis adults to put their children into Zucker’s “care”

this “care” involves punishing them when they do “gender inappropriate” things and rewarding them when they do “gender appropriate” things

there is a waiting list, you heard me kids, literally a waiting list for medical abuse

and if you don’t think that makes Zucker dubiously credible, guess who he’s totally coauthored stuff with before? J Michael Bailey, notorious transmisogynist and also the fucksaw guy

I feel comfortable calling Bailey “the fucksaw guy” because he’s the first result when I google “fucksaw,” which is a feat considering that this is the internet after all—google it if you’d like an explanation, but be forewarned, it’s exactly as ludicrous as it sounds

the evidence for cis people not having their shit together and being generally incompetent and rapacious and a bit evil—

the evidence is becoming compelling

9:53am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwYa78GM
(Notes: 157)
  
Filed under: kenneth zucker tw: medical abuse tw: child abuse child abuse medical abuse tw: transphobia tw: cissexism cissexism transphobia transmisogyny tw: transmisogyny 
December 2, 2012
(tw: for shit re: trans children and his awful cis mom) - 'I Boy': A family's challenge to understand gender

biyuti:

Long time followers will be well aware of just how much I fucking hate stories like this. I *hate* them. There are so many layers of fuckery here, I can’t. 

How about the use of the common trans origin story (tm)? How, just because this kid doesn’t want to do ‘girl’ things, this is what makes his ID legit. And not the fact that, idk, he says he is a fucking boy? Literally the first words that come out of his mouth and, yet, we need to hear (and his parents require) all this other anecdotal evidence of his behaviour to just… idk, accept that he knows his shit well enough? fuck. 

What to say about the random and irrelevant introduction of Intersex stuff? Or the HBSer shit? Look. If you are talking about kids, maybe just *don’t* put shit up that invites adults to speculate about their genitals? Hmm? Sound good? y/y?

Or. What about the introduction of this additional appropriative bullshit? 

Izzy has been given a narrative. Borrowing loosely from American Indian legend, Jennifer told her child this story:

Twin spirits, a boy and girl, were waiting for a body.

Only one was available. The boy said, You go first. You have the body.

I can’t be without you, said the girl.

The boy pushed the girl into the body, but at the last moment she dragged him in with her. The child was born with a girl body and a boy heart. The parents could see the girl.

They did not know about the boy inside.

What ‘American Indian’ legend is this? No exact source? What is this? Why do white people do shit like this? ?????

And… the cherry on top of this bullshit sundae is really this part: 

One of those choices was the decision to tell Izzy’s story. She wanted there to be a story out there for other moms that would tell them, “Here’s what you have to prepare for, but don’t worry. It can be OK.”

At the same time, she thought about Izzy at 15, at 18, at 21, and imagined a potential employer running a computer search of Izzy’s name, finding this article and discriminating against her child. She realized that in trying to help other families with transgender children she might harm her own. The idea upset her terribly. She changed her mind. She insisted that the Journal Sentinel not include the family’s last name.

THIS ISN’T YOUR FUCKING STORY TO TELL. DON’T TELL IT. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. OMG. YOU KNOW YOU ARE DOING SOME AWFUL SHIT. YOU CAN SEE THE POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES TO YOUR ACTIONS. AND YOU STILL DO IT? 
FUCK YOU.

Another gem that’s highly demonstrative of cis people’s attitudes:

“The two little words foretold a struggle over a fact of her birth.”

The words in question are “I boy.”  Apparently these words foretell a struggle over the fact of this kid’s birth, not their gender, but the fact that they are alive.  This is because cis people believe that to be trans is to be dead, as evidenced by discourse of grief.  (“I’m grieving the daughter/son I lost,” etc.)

Like Biyuti, these articles set off a particular anger button for me, especially the discourse of grief thing.

12:18pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwYVny2F
(Notes: 36)
  
Filed under: cultural appropriation queer trans trans kids trans youth transgender tw: cultural appropriation tw: racism tw: transphobia tw: cissexism transphobia cissexism 
November 30, 2012

noetherian:

What you are looking at is person who has been defined and indoctrinated into a culture polarized by fucking. What you are looking at is an archetype, a survivor, a living history, a dying history. Who does that bitch think she is? They say she’s too low for the dogs to bite. She should find a sewer and jump in. It is part of the peculiar tyranny of our taste for perfect and singular truth that difference cannot be ignored but must be stamped out and made to fit the model. If the model and the body disagree, it is the body that must pull itself from this pile of filth or take it lying down like the fuck nasty gutter stank trash you are. We need to allow other kinds of meaning to emerge and other experiences of the body. We need to find truths that resonate with ourselves. To do this, many of us need to transcend and transgress the kinds of knowledge that are out there. The debate over naturalness of binary sex is circular. You deserve to swim forever in the sludge of rotten semen and scum. Sewer rat, your hatchet pussy is a cum dumpster. Whatever reproduces must be one of two sexes because there are only two sexes to be. Dick fiend down on your knees like a dirty dog pumping it till your rubber twat falls off

and as long as i cannot question the existence of normative sexes and gender it will be my body and my gender that are on the firing line and i will be forced to define, defend and make art about over and over again.

One Fist by Zackary Drucker

8:29pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwYOSttM
(Notes: 29)
  
Filed under: trans trans art tw: violence tw: transmisogyny tw: transphobia transphobia misogyny violence transmisogyny 
November 29, 2012
search terms people have recently found my blog with

why would a son become a misogenist?

happy trans porn

transgender is narcissim at its worse ridiculous a man will never have a uterus

i feel dumb when i pronoun wrong

stright man is also trans in fantasy

and that all adds up to my writing, somehow

6:29pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwYJn2f1
(Notes: 13)
  
Filed under: tw: transphobia tw: transmisogyny transphobia transmisogyny 
November 18, 2012
life is so weird and hard and awesome

Last night I was standing around talking to some folks outside a college house.  At one point, I said, “Is there anywhere I can pee?”  This woman said jokingly, “You have a penis, you can pee anywhere!”  A bunch of people I’m good friends with began to laugh.  I explained that I was transsexual.  Then she told me her bong was the T-slur.  I said, “Your bong identifies as trans?”  Then I explained it was a slur.  She apologized and kept saying it.  Another guy tried to get me into a long conversation about why it was okay to use slurs because it’s about intent.  I laughed at them a lot and stood there with my hands in my pockets.  Then the woman and I talked about how much we both like Louise Glück.

The Glück part is the “awesome” part.

9:18pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwXZz213
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: tw: slurs transphobia slurs tw: transphobia tw: transmisogyny 
November 15, 2012
watching death happen

I just read Ann Cvetkovich’s An Archive of Feelings, which is really interesting and is getting me into trauma theory but also has gross stuff like lengthy discussion of Mich Fest without any acknowledgment that Mich Fest is transmisogynistic and pretty reductive discussion of how transness relates to the butch/femme dynamic in Stone Butch Blues.

But it’s mostly about archives and history and witnessing, and that stuff I love.  Cvetkovich talks about various narratives of care, work, and witnessing by lesbian women involved in caring for people with AIDS during the 1980s.  It reminds me of being a teenager and watching other trans teenagers die or almost die.  Witnessing, communal trauma, sometimes discussed, mostly not, only discussed in certain spaces, only speakable in the most dryly academic or disproportionately rhetorical of ways.

I just have no idea how to talk about this stuff in public space at all.  I think it’s murder and I think it’s premeditated murder and I don’t know where or how I should be mourning it or raging against it or avenging it.

I think that when white trans guys take up space in TDOR it’s this kind of murder they’re trying to talk about, but they can’t name it because at best everyone’s decided to pretend that it isn’t murder.  At worst, everyone’s decided to pretend that trans teenagers of all classes, races, identities, etc., are not dealing with coercive suicide or going through traumatic mental health related near death experiences. So white trans guys appropriate something else as though it had to do with them.  And it’s a racist transmisogynist disaster.

This post is a cry for assistance?  Help me think?

5:21pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZAAEXwXLjucp
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: queer trans tw: suicide tw: death tw: transphobia 
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