Happy February, and welcome to some changes. While mostly cosmetic, I’m expanding the range of things I’ll be writing about on this blog. My new tagline is “a trans woman on gender, feminism, and glam rock (among other things),” which, while not exactly a leap forward in clarity from “another trans woman talking about stuff,” it nonetheless gives a slight bit more information about what one should expect here. I should note at this point “other things” will most definitely include my obsession with Doctor Who, and other UK television. This also means that any music writing I do will be here, too, and I’ll be deleting my music blog, which never got off the ground. Apart from the fluffier stuff like TV and music I hope to write more about my experience with mental health issues and other intersections of my experience I don’t often touch on.
To begin this glorious new era of the gudbuy t’jane blog, I give you this: Slade performing their original, far superior version of “Cum on Feel the Noise” on Top of the Pops in 1973. Listen to drummer Don Powell, he’s actually using brushes! Compared to the fumbling stomp of the 1980’s Quiet Riot cover (which, admittedly, did suit a generation of homophobic white rocker dudes at school dances – there’s no way you could be confused for being a fag while rocker dancing/posturing to Quiet Riot), Slade positively swings.
In other news, I’ve finished my month of guest blogging at Questioning Transphobia. I had a lot of fun, and it was an honour writing alongside such smart trans women.
It’s rare that I get to report on two pieces of good news in a row. First was the news about Lu’s Pharmacy in Vancouver, and now about an artist in London stepping up and showing solidarity with trans people.
Ste McCabe was recently scheduled to play at Queer Question Time, an event involving outspoken transphobe Julie Bindel. Helen at Bird of Paradox has covered Julie Bindel for some time, and has this post on the protest (more analysis of the event here). Other artists had already stated to the organizers their intention to boycot the event (one open letter), so I was glad to see this notice on Ste McCabe’s MySpace page:
“Due to the overall understandable anger towards Julie Bindel appearing on the panel, I have decided to show solidarity with the trans community and have pulled out of appearing at QQT.”
Over the years, having heard so many artists I otherwise respect fumble for answers when asked why they continued to play transphobic events a clear comment like this is so appreciated, especially as it was backed up by action. Canceling a gig isn’t easy, especially when you’re a younger artist, and it definitely must have taken dollars from his pocket. It warms my heart to see that the idea of solidarity transcends that, however.
This hasn’t always been, nor does it often tend to be the case. One of the more common excuses I’ve heard for artists playing transphobic events like MichFest was how not playing would affect their bottom line. Of all the dismissals of trans people’s concerns this has always struck me as the most crass: In a subculture which otherwise pays lip service to progressive ideas and anti-capitalist activism it stings to have one’s rights equated away in the context of monetary value.
Trans-positive artists who make sacrifices for solidarity get a lot of love from me, and I hope if you like his music spread the word. I believe doing the right thing deserves comment and when possible compensation, and Ste McCabe did the right thing. I hope more artists take his lead.
Ste McCabe’s “Militant Disco,” with David Hoyle (I’m loving this song, BTW). You can buy Ste McCabe’s music at Cherryade Records.
I’ve been hearing about this from friends in Vancouver for a few weeks now, and it would seem according to a note posted to the Facebook group Lu’s Pharmacy Women-Born-Women-Only Policy is Discriminatory & Oppressive, Lu’s pharmacy in Vancouver, BC, has quietly ended their no trans woman policy:
I just wanted to share the good news. Lu’s has de facto removed their women-born women policy! This has been in effect for about two weeks.
I went into Lu’s today with a few friends, one of which is a trans woman who moved her prescriptions to Lu’s. They were aware of her trans status as her old name is on her health care card. It was a complete non-issue, the pharmacist was very friendly, as was the volunteer who gave us a tour. They were very sincere, and I must say that I rather like them. The pharmacist even gave my friend a hug on the way out!
They have not made a press release or similar announcement as their Executive Director resigned recently, and I get the sense that they are expending quite a lot of energy filling her duties. They did promise to change their Political Agreements on their website, and it seems that they have to make changes to quite a lot of their documentation.
Lu’s Pharmacy was opened last summer in Vancouver, BC, by the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective. From its opening the pharmacy had a woman-born-woman policy, which immediately brought negative response from trans and cis activists and agencies in Vancouver’s downtown east side.
This is fantastic news, and a great change in direction for trans women in Vancouver, a city with a long history of trans women being marginalized by transphobic policies at women’s organizations. Much thanks must be given to the agencies and individuals, especially those in and serving Vancouver’s downtown east side, who kept pressure on the VWHC to change their policy. Congratulations, too, to Lu’s and the VWHC for this progressive change, despite the urging of many to remain an exclusive service.
Cross-posted at Questioning Transphobia.
Dear Editor and Publisher of Briarpatch,
Recently you published an article by Mandy Van Deven, titled “From invisibility to stability: Transgender organizing for the masses” (online: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/from-invisibility-to-stability-transgender-organizing-for-the-masses/). This article’s assumptions are numerous and often wrong (for a clear critique of the piece see Lisa Harney’s “Digital Ventriloquism: The Ethics of Speaking About Minorities,” online: http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/digital-ventriloquism-the-ethics-of-speaking-about-minorities/).
As a Canadian, a social justice activist, and a trans woman, my own concerns with the article are many, but most glaring is why a magazine with its roots in poverty activism would engage in such crushing class dominance of giving a platform for a cissexual person (with a history of writing on oppression dynamics she is not personally affected by) to publicly scold trans people, with factually incorrect claims? The dynamics of cis privilege over trans lives are complex and deeply ingrained in our culture, and this article is as privileged as anything I see from the right in its belief that cis people have ownership over trans lives and may comment on them as they see fit.
This kind of writing does harm to trans people, because it asserts cissexual dominance over us. Regardless of the author’s intent, or what population the editorial board believed was being served by such a piece, this reflects poorly on Briarpatch. I hope the magazine takes steps to correct the damage brought on by this piece, and make space for actual trans voices to be heard. Maintaining hierarchical dominance of a majority group over a minority is always wrong. By choosing to have cis people speak for trans people Briarpatch actually continues trans oppression.
(signed)
Boosting the signal:
TransProtect is “a community dedicated to protecting the rights of transgendered people, their partners and families. We have created TransProtect in response to seeing members of our community, unable to advocate for themselves after serious injury, placed in positions that are directly contrary to their wishes and the way they lived their lives.”
This is a fantastic project for trans people by trans people, I’m really proud of how the community has come together. Check this out and support however you can.
From Genderbitch’s guest post at Questioning Transphobia, “‘But I Was Just Curious!’ The Fail Of Invasive Questions“:
She’s really got to put that on a T-shirt.
There is some really great writing going on over at QT this month, if you haven’t been over yet you should!
I am guest posting at Questioning Transphobia this month, so if you want to read what I’m going on about now, get yourselves over there.
For the first time in fifteen years I am spending the holidays with my family. As Anglo/Irish Catholics our version of the holidays is Christmas, and I am sitting by a blinking, decorated tree as I write this. There are presents under that tree with my name on it, I’m sure (I haven’t looked), and something in the kitchen smells good. While that cozy image might seem typical, perhaps even cliched, keep this in mind: I am a trans woman.
Trans people are marginalized, discriminated against, and abandoned by their birth families on a scale well beyond other groups. This is true every day of the year, but it is especially apparent during the holidays. Against the system of cissupremacy in which western culture operates this makes obvious sense, as holidays provide amplification for the cultural ideals we’re inundated with. The further you are from those ideals the louder you are reminded of that fact.
So even with the myriad of issues family brings for me, the wrong pronouns, the occasional use of my birth name, against that I am still lucky, still privileged, and even thankful. What I can’t seem to get over, though, is this feeling of anger. Not for my own situation, but for the fact this is remarkable for a trans person, that the expected narrative is abandonment, and that so many of the trans people I know and have known have never experienced this sort of family event (at least not after they transitioned). I’m angry that so many families are poisoned by cissupremacy and transphobia to the point of abandoning their friends, children, spouses, parents, or whatever relationship they feel cissupremacist shame in. I am angry that, beyond trans people, no one ever seems to acknowledge this.
Dismantling oppression requires acknowledgment of privilege, which is a difficult thing to do. We’re trained to evade it and to feel emotions such as anger and defensiveness when presented with it, because to acknowledge our privileges as individuals acknowledges the system from which that privilege arises. Still, if we are truly invested in change and seeking progressive alternatives to the way things are, we must be willing to engage that discomfort.
Acknowledge your privilege this holiday season. Not “in the spirit of the season” – that phrase is couched in the hypocrisy of the public moralizing of an oppressor culture – but against the notion of a culture that abandons those who most need love and acceptance while promoting empty images of family and community. Acknowledge that, as you sit down to dinner with your family or loved ones, there are those who are not welcome to do the same with their families, and that a disproportionate number of those people are transgender or transsexual.
Even if our acknowledgment yields no apparent immediate change, saying so shatters the silence which enforces denial. Please take a moment to write something on your blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook walls… just a few words to the effect that this holiday season you are spending it with family, because you can, because you’re not trans.
ETA: Two more perspectives on the holidays, from trans women -
“I Hate This Season,” Genderbitch
“The Belonging Kind,” Bird of Paradox
I really dislike the term “allies.” Not just because historically allies have done a very poor job of looking out for the rights of trans women, but because I think it is an ineffective model. Alliances are by their nature transitory, creating relationships that exist only in relation to some other factor. Whether or not this factor is selfish or egalitarian it sets the context of the relationship between the marginalized group and their allies within that other factor. The only connection these two groups maintain is opposition to an other.
This is why cis LGB fails like Ronald Gold continue to happen: while we focus on allyship we fail to create community. It is easy for a cis gay man or a cis lesbian to discount and erase trans lives, because in cis theories of queer identity (and against factual evidence to the contrary) trans people are othered, apart from cis communities. Allies actually further the erasure of trans people in queer communities by only admitting to a related relationship, an abstract, and not a real and inherent one. The relationship between trans and cis in queer communities is stuck in the realm of ideas, and prevented from existing in bodies and lives.
So, maybe I won’t seem all that excited when you tell me you’re my ally. Don’t take it personally, it just doesn’t work for me. If, however, your goal is creating stronger, cohesive, and more diverse communities, and to not position us in a model which clearly doesn’t help me… then I’ll be interested in starting a conversation.
Yesterday the trans blogsphere/twittercloud exploded in frustration at a post published at the Bilerico Project, a self-styled blog for LGBTQ “community.” Written by Ron Gold, an ageing cis gay rights campaigner from the 1970’s, “No to the Notion of Transgender” (ETA: The post has been removed by Bilerico) is a hateful screed, based not on the lived experience of trans people (let alone empirical evidence), but rather taking the stance that trans people are delusional and self-mutilating. It recycles many dated and fabricated prejudices against trans people under the guise of being a “challenging” opinion.
The tragedy here is that to see this sort of hate expressed in the queer community is not surprising. I’ve linked to sites before (a practice I’m not going to do anymore, as I don’t want to increase someone’s site traffic for being bigots), and it doesn’t take much effort at all to find examples of blatant hate speech existing in queer or feminist spaces without any analysis or outcry from cis people. In the process of alerting people to the problems with pieces like Ron’s trans people are inevitably called hysterical or over-sensitive by those whose goal is not to allow us to respond to the hate we face, but to silence us and leave the original message unchallenged. Often someone will apologize, half-heartedly, or give disclaimers for intent on behalf of the transphobe (as site editor Bil Browning did, after the piece went up), but only after the transphobe has had their say. This happens again and again, so I don’t see the point of deconstructing this specific incident (the many smart commenters on the original post did that far better than I could hope to).
For the past week or so I’ve been writing an article on domestic violence, specifically on my experience of having been abused in a queer relationship by a cis woman and how it has taken me several years to speak out about it. It has been a challenging piece to write. As I’ve been writing I’ve realized a strong undercurrent about my reluctance to talk to cis people about it, especially cis queers, because except for very few individuals I don’t trust cis queers to not erase my experience. Hate commentary by people like Ron Gold and Julie Bindel, held up by a community as ‘discourse’ or ‘challenging,’ adds to my assumption ignorance and hate, or at best ciscentric privilege. According to people like Gold and Bindel I am both delusional and a self-mutilator, so how could I be expected to provide an honest account of my life, let alone an honest count of abuse?
You might not see the connection there, but that is fallout from unchecked hate speech and erasure. Ron Gold’s commentary doesn’t just disagree with any particular point about trans people, he outright denies we exist. It is worth noting the page is named transgender_a_disease_that_doesnt_exist.php, which leaves me wondering if Bilerico’s editors thought that simply renaming the article made it responsible commentary. Look at that original post name – Transgender: A Disease That Doesn’t Exist. That suggests to me far more clearly than the watered down “No to the notion of transgender” Ron’s real ideas about trans people. This is the the most basic tactic of dehumanizing a group, and justifying violence against them – deny they exist, and violence against them seems less real, because they’re less real. To see that printed on an LGBTQ site, and to be justified as “challenging” commentary is appalling, and no amount of reactive editorializing will make it better.
Ultimately this isn’t about Ron Gold or Julie Bindel or any of the many hateful anti-trans voices out there, this is about a community which does not condemn the idea of transphobic hate at its core but instead responds to incidents of it. I suppose this allows cis-LGBQ communities to believe it isn’t a deep, systemic issue, but just the ranting of a few hateful cranks. It isn’t isolated, however, and until that is accepted by all queers, cis and trans, all we’re going to see is a cycle of hate, reaction, repeat.
