If you are the sort of person who listens to podcasts (I am that sort of person) and you haven’t subscribed to the Trans-Ponder podcast, you really should. It is both refreshing and exciting to hear trans issues discussed by smart trans people. I have been thinking a lot lately about being trans while consuming culture which in its basic form is ciscentric, so as a trans woman it is so very much appreciated hearing my experience be the centering point of the conversation. That hardly ever happens.
Trans-Ponder is nominated for best GLBTQ podcast at the Podcast Awards, so please drop by and vote for them if you are the sort of person who votes for things online (I am that sort of person). Voting closes November 30th, and you can vote once a day, so vote early and often.
I never post this often, but this pissed me off.
Advocate.com has run a reader poll asking whether one would support ENDA if gender identity protections were taken out of the bill again. Now, at last check 93% or so said no, but before anyone starts patting themselves on the back consider what is happening – the human rights of trans people are being openly debated by people who are not trans, suggesting our rights are at the whim of a majority. We are being reminded that our position is second-class and never secure. The gay hypocrisy of suggesting trans rights must wait while they complain Obama cannot act incrementally with gay rights is deeply frustrating.
Contact Advocate.com and let them know debating the human rights of a group of people is crass and deplorable.
Some excellent posts on the recent failure of London’s Reclaim the Night march to represent the interests of all women.
From Feminist Fight Back:
Unfortunately, we faced physical harassment and verbal abuse from some people on the march, and were told on a number of occasions that we were not welcome on it. Worse than this, however, was the fact that we were immediately approached and interrogated by the police on arrival – reportedly at the request of one of the stewards. We understand our support for the rights of sex workers to self-organise is at odds with the views of some other groupings in the women’s movement. Yet we were extremely surprised to find that one of the basic principles of feminism (and all social justice movements) was forgotten in this instance – namely, that we never resort to using police aggression to silence and intimidate members of our own movement, no matter how much we may disagree with them.
DirtySilverEarings had this to add:
This is what feminism is now – it’s a nice, white, middle class movement for nice, white, middle class women. No freaks allowed, yes? Is that right? I think fucking so.
Finally, Bint Alshamsa makes these important points about Feminism’s historical fail at intersectionality:
Actually it’s not that this is what feminism is now. This is what feminism has always been. White, middle class, TAB, cis women didn’t promote feminism as the answer because they have in mind the interests of all women.
What was that about the master’s tools? Calling the Police on women you don’t want to be part of your march? Shame on RtC London.
A preface: This post is not about Lady Gaga. Even though, sure she’s crossed my radar with troubling transphobic/intersex-marginalizing comments in the past, this post is about us/we/people in general: how we consume pop culture and how we politicize those choices. I have absolutely no interest in debating her artistic merit, and will probably ignore your comments if you want to. There are many other places to do that if you like.
I’ll admit this, I have never been much of a fan of the sort of music Lady Gaga makes. My own relationship with dance music hit its apogee during New Wave in the early 1980’s, and once Simple Minds crossed over/was stolen into “bands the dudes who beat the crap out of me now listen to” category I was pretty much done (my own path of consumption wandering off into hardcore, indie, and other genres associated with Chuck Taylors and surly moods). As such, and as with many new artists in that genre, the emergence of Lady Gaga was something I was vaguely aware of but didn’t pay much attention to.
I did take note, however, when she seemed to be gaining a great deal of credibility in the lefty/feminist/queer communities I run in for being an important artist. I began to hear applied to her those terms the media loves to grant female artists who are ‘outside of the mainstream:’ “empowered,” “strong,” “taking ownership of her sexuality,” and so on. Eventually (inevitably?) people began comparing her to Madonna.
Not wanting to remain completely out of touch, last week I found myself watching the video for “Bad Romance” with a friend. Again, to make the point this isn’t a critique of Lady Gaga, I found the song catchy enough, the video was clever (if lacking the strong artistic narrative/vision I’d been led to believe it had from the reviews of peers), and, well, the YouTube feed didn’t underbuffer. Still, I didn’t see how the experience was any different from any number of other songs by any number of other artists. Lady Gaga herself seemed to me just another mainstream attractive, white, thin, cis person with an autotuned voice and a slick video.
As I thought about this Emperor’s New Clothes-like inability to get what the fuss was about, I began thinking about diversity and consumption, and expectations of the viewer. While Lady Gaga might seem like a shift from the standard white/cis/thin/able-bodied/mainstream attractive centre to someone whose own existence is closer to that centre than mine is, from my place out on the fringes of cultural relevance (I’m a trans woman, trust me, I know where I lie on the population distribution chart) I don’t see the shift as being that great. Once I began thinking in those terms it seemed a case of privilege and centering, and I came back to the realization that culture, by and large, is not designed for my consumption.
That Lady Gaga is positioned as a great shift away from, I suppose, less “radical” artists reaffirms the position of cultural consumer as one who exists close enough to those ideals as to see her as significantly different. For those of us who cannot claim for ourselves any part of that position, though, this quickly becomes about disempowerment and reaffirmation of marginalization, because ultimately this is about consumption in its most basic form: the bodies we as a culture declare as attractive or worthy of desire. Even if you cannot check the boxes of privilege Lady Gaga has, if you can check enough of them to envision yourself in the position of viewer/her audience your experience of her is going to be much different from those who cannot. And many cannot.
I’m not suggesting people stop enjoying Lady Gaga, or any of the pop culture they enjoy (I certainly consume my share of it). I do think a more nuanced analysis is always useful, however, and that a far more radical act than declaring something empowering might be to step away from it far enough to see how very little empowerment is has, and for how few.
As I’ve picked up some readers from links and kind words for the piece I wrote on the Trans Day of Remembrance, I thought I should give some background on who I am and – to sound like the child of the 70’s I was – where I am coming from. All that All About Me… tells you, really, is that I love Glam Rock, and named my blog after a Slade song.
I am a 40 year old white trans woman who is queer, androgynous, fat, I have some mental health issues mostly centred around depression and ADD. My politics are far left, and (as it does influence me) I am Canadian. I mostly seem to have cisgender partners/lovers/hookups, which is a challenging discussion sometimes. Like the plot of some flimsy HBO original movie I’m changing the way I live my life, and part of that has been writing here. I think one of the most radical acts I can do is raise my voice as a trans woman and tell a different story.
gudbuytane is written from the perspective of being a trans woman, and when I use such terms as ‘us’ I am usually mean “other trans women.” This of course decentres from the cis default, and is I suppose a useful thing to consider. I find the best writing on oppression and marginalization takes me out of the equation, thus making more clear the experience of the other person.
I sometimes write from the frontal lobe, and I sometimes write from the pulpit. I mostly try to avoid being the Righteous Trans Woman, although I am sure that happens more often than not. That is the danger of oppression politics: to never engage in conversations. We get stuck at 101’s and seeing the world as a set of resources for Getting it Right. That is elementary, however, and it slows us from better understanding each other’s lives. It has taken me to my 40’s to say confidently I even know some other trans women well.
I hope some of you stick around for these conversations we keep missing.
Also, I might sometimes write about Doctor Who, Progressive Rock, and hockey.
I used to distance myself from the Trans Day of Remembrance. It made me angry, and in ways I couldn’t discuss with my mostly cisgender community (as some of that anger was directed at them, inevitably). I would rail against the broader queer community only ever focusing on TDOR, and the implications that had for trans women. I found candlelight vigils a hypocrisy against the marginalizing and tokenizing that happens every day to us in queer communities, and I was infuriated that the only thing cisgender queer culture seemed to have as a comment on my experience as a trans woman was “You might die one day for what you are. Violently. Remember that.”
So I kept away, head down and earphones in as November 20th snuck past my peripheral vision, exhaling only when it was gone for another year. Still, on my own I found myself on the internet, reading the stories of the dozens of trans women who are brutally murdered every year. I learned their names and their faces, and soon this cisgender dominance began to slip. I felt myself reclaiming my own experience of the day, my relationship to these women who died, and ultimately my responsibility to them.
In the face of a cisdominant culture that enforces false narratives to keep trans women marginalized, it is imperative we make our voices heard. I’ve written about this before, and I believe it is an essential process for dismantling cissupremacy. The most important voices to be heard are our dead, and the responsibility for those voices lies with those of us who are still alive. Not for cis culture to consume, not even for ourselves, but for these women who are no longer with us; By giving them dignity we give ourselves dignity, and demand it from a culture which withholds it from us. Even if it is only knowing their name or a tiny bit of their story, it gives back to them some of the humanity their killers took.
Although cisdominant media inevitably focuses on the murders of these women, pieces of the stories of their lives nonetheless get through. This is how she died is supplanted for brief moments by This is how she lived. Amplify that. Know the stories of their lives, and tell the stories of your own. Not just on November 20th, but every day.
This open letter to Feministing from meloukhia’s this ain’t livin’ blog is well worth repeating:
Dear Feministing,
I’ve been reading you guys for a while now. I haven’t always liked everything you do or say, but I think that you bring some important issues to my attention and sometimes some good conversations happen on your website.
But, you know, in recent months I’ve become increasingly disturbed by the exclusionary language and attitudes I see on your site, most particularly in reference to people with disabilities and people in lower social classes. You have a pretty poor track record on even covering disability issues, and the casual ableism which I see in your comment threads and sometimes in your very posts is extremely grating. It is especially irritating to see dismissive responses from site administrators when this issue is brought up.
Today’s post on chivalry was the last straw. Courtney used the line “If having my car door opened makes me feel like lover man thinks I’m an invalid, not so feminist.” This is offensive.
I’d like to point you to a piece I wrote recently, “Why Inclusionary Language Matters,” because I think you need to read it. Using ableist language is not just offensive, it’s antifeminist. And I would really appreciate it if y’all would stop doing it and stop tolerating it in your comment threads. I would also love to see y’all including more posts talking about topics related to disability and disability issues.
Please address this. Feminism includes people with disabilities. Disability is a feminist issue. Please make Feministing more inclusionary.
Thank You,
s.e. smith/meloukhia (meloukhia at gmail dot com)
I couldn’t agree more.
ETA: Facebook group, Ableism, Racism, Transphobia: Feministing is not my Feminism
ETA: If you haven’t seen it yet, quixotess‘ call for boycott.
Or Hollywood Actress Gains Serious Acting Cred by Doing Tranface, Yet Again. So Nicole Kidman is the latest in a series of cissexual Hollywood actors who have stumbled down that path of ignorance and bigotry which leads to playing a trans person. In The Danish Girl she will star alongside a number of other cissexual people in the film adaptation of a fictionalized account (by a cis person) of the life of an actual trans woman, Lily Elbe. Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about Lily Elbe, by the end of this film you won’t either.
From Variety’s item on the film:
One afternoon in 1920s Copenhagen, Greta, a portrait painter, asked her husband to stand in for an absent female model. Slipping on a dress, stockings and woman’s shoes began a metamorphosis into Lili. When the photos became wildly popular, Greta encouraged her husband to do more, but a harmless game evolved into something deeper that threatens their marriage.
Oh, my stomach already hurts. I could do a sentence by sentence deconstruction of why this is transmisogynist and cissupremacist (“metamorphasis”, the list of clothing, etc.), but that would just make my stomach worse. Of course there is heteronormativity – THREATENS THEIR MARRIAGE!!! – but before you cis queers hop on that bandwagon, remember it is heteronormativity done in the service of transmisogyny. I’ve seen and heard more than my share of heteronormativity come out of the mouthes of cis queers at the expense of trans women, so I’m feeling a bit conflicted about sharing this platform with you right now (I’m looking at you, Mr. Cis Gay Man at the Pride parade who had to loudly opine “Why would you get a sex change and be a dyke?” as the Dykes on Trikes rode by).
Before I get into the nuance of discussing portrayals of trans people in cisspremacist media let me make this point clear: A cis person performing as a trans person is bigotry. There’s no “good” way to do it, it does trans people nothing positive, and it is at best ignorantly complicit with a system which at its extremes kills trans people to keep us in line. Apologists need not bother engage me on this.
We’ve been through this before, of course. Transamerica was the product of a cissexual writer/director, a cissexual producer/director, with a cissexual lead, all allegedly telling the story of a trans woman’s experience. I’m sure the special effects artists who prepared the silicon penis for cissexual lead Felicity Huffman to wear was cissexual, too. It was given awards and praise from the cis LGB community, but I didn’t know what exactly I was supposed to take from this film that couldn’t miss the point of my experience any further if it tried. That’s not the point, though, is it? Films such as Transamerica (and as The Danish Girl will be I am sure) are for cis audiences, to reinforce their fears about trans women, and to laud their own for acting out their culture’s bigotry.
I have made the point before: Cis dominance and control of the narratives of trans lives is the central mechanism through which trans people and trans women especially are marginalized. It provides the framework for apologists to our assaults and murders, and justifies cis fear and hate. Whether it is a Hollywood film with real movie stars, or the straw man ranting of transmisogynist feminists making effigies of lives I never come across as described by actual trans women, it denies us real experiences and voices to keep us apart and othered, less than human. It sets an acceptable standard for often fatal violence to reinforce this system.
Think about that before you pay one dollar to see films like these, please?
p.s. And just for the record, my transition was at no point anything that became “deeper” and threatened my marriage, although I suppose when I realized I was a dyke and left the guy I was going to marry that did threaten marriage. That’s not about me being trans, though, so I don’t see how it would be of any interest to cis audiences, and it might threaten the hater radfems to realize trans women have experiences – gasp – like cis women. Thank god, then, I’m just preaching to the choir here.
When will the point get through? You can’t reclaim violent language used against another group of people. It’s wrong, it is entitled, and it is tired. Most of all its consistently angry and silencing defense of use by trans men and other queers says some pretty scary things to trans women: it makes clear that our status is secondary to any cis queer or trans man’s desires. That there is no solidarity or even simple respect on this one word casts us out further, and makes your claims to being radical hollow.
From http://bearsir.livejournal.com/346600.html:
Call For Submissions
GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION
Kate Bornstein & S Bear Bergman, edsDeadline: 1 September 2009
In the fifteen years since the release of Gender Outlaw, transgender narratives have made their way into cultural locations from the margins to the mainstream and back again. Today’s trannies and other sex/gender radicals are writing a radically new world into being.
Let me make this very clear, I will not be submitting to this publication, and I will not be supporting it in any way. I will make this position abundantly clear to the people in my world, and I hope other trans women will take the same stance. We can longer pretend to have voices in a community which so clearly works to silence us.
We will write our own radical new world into being, we don’t want the one you’re writing for us.
This is cross-posted from Bird of Paradox and Questioning Transphobia.
I can’t emphasize enough how important discussing this issue is – far too many of us try to kill ourselves, and far too many succeed. I have had a number of suicide attempts in my life, some not as far in the past as I might like or as those who know me might realize. I’ve struggled with depression and PTSD, substance abuse and self-harm. This is not because I am trans, mind you, I am as proud to be what I am as who, but rather it is because I live in a world which openly hates, marginalizes, and kills women like me. This is also why I write here, why I raise my voice against marginalization and systemic hatred of trans women, and why I don’t accept half-measures from “allies.”
No shame, just love. If you are thinking of suicide, please read these pamphlets, and please stay with us. We need you.
- gtj
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Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) has available for free download the following two brochures addressing the issue of trans suicide:
- Saving Our Lives: Transgender Suicide Myths, Reality, and HelpInformation for transgender people, family, friends, and allies. Includes warning signs, do’s and don’ts, helpful tips, contact information, and myths and realities.
- Preventing Transgender Suicide: An Introduction for ProvidersIncludes definitions, warning signs, victimization and PTSD, systemic stressors, protective factors, where to learn more, and references.
