Trans Politics, Trans Activism, also 'rolling is this transphobic?' thread

That's rough, Kate... to see a once-loving parent brainwashed by the level of cruel scapegoating we're seeing these days

it did look like things were getting better for your community, but I think that stupid thing with the Bud Light lit a fire with the knuckle draggers; I'm sure there were other cultural things going on, but the Bud Light 'controversy' seemed like such a step backwards right when things appeared to be moving forward

― Andy the Grasshopper

All I can really say is that it looks different from where I'm sitting. It's not... every marginalized group has this experience, I know. There's a lot of stuff that happens to immigrant that I don't know about. There's stuff that routinely happens to Black Americans that I don't know about. I try to keep myself informed, I try to stay on top of things, but when things get bad for a group, one of the main signs is that you stop seeing _from_ them, stop hearing _from_ them. When you hear about them, that's exactly what it is - you hear _about_ them. What you hear about them might not even _seem_ hostile, might not even _seem_ bigoted. It's not unique to trans people. Other groups have it bad in ways that we don't.

It's important for me to say that because a lot of it is how it's framed. Because when I talk about my experiences, it's easy for it to sound like special pleading, particicularly when the person I'm talking to also has it pretty fucking bad. It's easy for it to sound like me being obsessed with this one thing, with me making way too big a deal out of things. So I don't want to seem like I'm making too big a deal out of it. Sometimes the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

It's what I know best, though, because it's my life. Because I remember how things were framed in the '90s, _The Silence of the Lambs_, which is a great movie with horribly transphobic representation, _The Crying Game_, which is a great movie with horribly transphobic representation. Neither of them were intentionally or overtly transphobic. These were people trying to be sympathetic, but what they were saying didn't come from trans experiences. That's the important point, not _who says it_ but where it _comes_ from. hardcore dilettante's friend, I don't know who he is or what he's written or if he's trans or not. That doesn't matter, his _identity_. What matters is he's trying to tell a story where the main character is a trans girl, a story that draws _from_ trans experience, even if it's not the author's own, and nowadays nobody wants to publish it, nobody wants to promote it.

I was reading or listening to an interview about Torrey Peters. She was talking about what it was like to promote _Detransition Baby_ in the US versus what it was like to promote it in the UK. In the US she was talking to more cis people, but she was also talking to bigger publications. Bigger media outlets would talk about her. In the UK, trans people would come out, but she wasn't talking to the BBC or the Guardian. She was talking to these small presses without the same reach, without the same distribution. That's what marginalization _is_, that's what marginalization _looks like_. The same thing that happened in the UK, it's happening in the US. It's harder and harder for trans stories to get told where cis people can hear them, because those stories are seen as too "divisive" or "controversial". The harder our reality gets, the more "divisive" and "controversial" it becomes to talk about what's happening to us, to point a finger at the people who are _doing_ it.

Nobody wants to believe that what's happening to trans people _could_ happen here, let alone that it _is_ happening here. More than anything, nobody wants to believe that they _can't stop it from happening_. This lady I was talking to last night, she told me, she really believed this, that if all the trans people presented a unified front, if we all stood up and said "These kids need these hormones, it's a matter of life or death", that the Republicans would listen. That's what she told me. What the fuck can I say to that? She's wrong, of course. I hope everyone reading this knows that. I hope everyone reading this knows that the Republicans don't care about the truth, don't care about the well-being of kids. That Republican policy is that trans people _should not exist_. She can't accept that. She's not ready to accept that, even though _she's_ trans, even though _she's_ the one who suffers by trying to assume good intent.

Because we have to stay alive. Because nothing is gained by despair. Because I nearly destroyed my own life trying to make a world where nobody else ever had to suffer like I suffered. I wish I could look away, not always, but sometimes, just sometimes. I wish I didn't always have this thing, both unspeakable and undeniable, resting in the pit of my stomach. It's _normal_, it's _natural_ to want to look away. The people who want us to not exist count on that. They use that. Because they can't make us not exist while people are looking. Nobody would tolerate it. If people knew, really knew, what's being done to trans people in America, what's being done to Black people in America, what's being done to immigrants in America, well, there wouldn't be an America. Because it's monstrous. Someone who sees it, even if we can't fight what's happening effectively, we can't go along. We can't do what's required of us. That's why people are still transitioning, are still taking estrogen, are still changing our names, even though we know in some sense we might be signing our own death warrants. _We do not have a choice_.

I don't feel like I can talk about it anymore. Not from where I'm standing. I don't have the podium. I am reliant on allies now, reliant on allies to put _themselves_ at risk for my sake. Reliant on allies to be willing to risk their jobs, their security, perhaps even their physical safety. The best thing I feel like I can do, at this point, is to _not_ make it about me. To try and speak up for other people. Because I know people are doing that for me now. I know people are fighting for me now, in ways I don't know, in ways I'll never know.

-

We're dying, and we're going to continue dying, y'all here - _you can't save us_. It doesn't mean it's futile. It doesn't mean you're helpless. It doesn't mean that you can't be _righteous_.

People here... don't need to know the full reality of what's happening to us. Don't need to know every detail. I guess the things it's important for me to say, the things I'd like allies to know, is:

1. There are so many things happening to us that you don't see, that it's hard to see. Things that are worse than you can imagine.
You don't need to confront the reality of it. You don't need to stare into the abyss. Probably you shouldn't. I try to avoid looking directly t it.

2. Everyone is, by necessity, complicit. You, me, everyone. That doesn't make you guilty. Being complicit in the acts of the oppressor does not require you to identify with the oppressor. There is no collective guilt. None of us are, right now, in a position to take up arms against a sea of troubles and, by, opposing, end them. Do what you can do.

3. Speaking up isn't always an option. There's this feeling I have, always, that I should be able to save people. That I should be able to do more. That I have an obligation to speak up. The truth is, it's increasingly unsafe for me to speak up. I have to be more and more careful what I say and where I say it. That's not something that only affects trans people, but it does affect me. Increasingly I don't tell cis people I'm trans. It's only going to get me hurt. Sometimes, I'm learning, I need to be silent, I need to be stealth, to do the most good - and it's my privilege that I can be.

4. You _don't have to comply_. When all else fails, there is this. This is what the people who want trans people to disappear fear more than anything. They want you to think they don't need you to comply, that your compliance or lack thereof doesn't matter. It does. Even if none of us can stop what's happening, we can choose to not look the other way. Seeing what's happening, knowing what's happening, is painful. It's soul-crushing. It's _necessary_. To live with that knowledge, to bear that understanding, is to be alive to alternatives. Once one sees a problem, one suddenly starts seeing solutions that were imperceptible before.

-

IDK. I talk a lot. I hope this helps someone else. Sometimes I need to talk about it.

i hate to say i'm easily triggered but anytime i read about anything i get pissed off

someone posts a picture of the dress lily james wore in cinderella and i look up the costume designer, because i don't know enough about costume designers and that's a fantastic fucking dress

sandy powell got her start working with derek jarman, costumed _orlando_, _velvet goldmine_

_the crying game_

neil jordan is a great director but he _does not fucking get_ why the way he presented dil in the crying game was _a problem_

(if people here don't know why, i recommend looking into it, lindsey ellis's video "the pop culture roots of transphobia" addresses it pretty well)

turns out she's doing costuming for a remake of _the bride of frankenstein_ directed by maggie gyllenhaal

i haven't kept up with movies. gyllenhaal is about my age it turns out, she's looking great. i was very influenced by _secretary_. course when you're a 47 year old woman you stop getting roles, so i'm glad she's doing good with directing. the film sounds like a great idea and then the music...

jonny greenwood. motherFUCKER.

i mean transphobia is kind of the background radiation of my life, one of the fnords that i guess a lot of people actually don't see, like the pelicot case. how anyone can _not_ be aware of the pelicot case... well, i mean, if nobody tells you something you don't know, right? and if you tell someone, they get mad at _you_ for telling them. i bring up that specifically because it's _not_ a trans thing, because there's a lot of awful shit that has nothing to do with being trans. i know there's a lot of shit i don't know about myself, because it doesn't directly affect me, because nobody tells me, even though i _should_ know, even though _everybody_ should know.

i'm watching a video about legendary old speedrunners, and narcissa is brought up. i haven't kept track of narcissa. there are some things i don't want to look too closely into. the person doing the video does it well. he's respectful, doesn't misgender her or deadname her. the narrative is, well, a downfall narrative. doesn't mention her transition at all, which in context is probably good. because it'd be easy to construct a narrative where her transition was a Problem.

except it is, it's a Problem for all of us, it's just that _we're_ not the ones with the problem. when i read about narcissa losing it and making threats and getting banned from twitch, i mean, she's responsible for that and i _understand_ it. i know the pressure people are under, not just from being visible on the internet, which is a dystopian hellhole, but, well, being visible as a _trans person_ on the internet.

a guy i follow, swolesome, he did a video... youtube always finds ways of hurting people. i've curated my feed enough that it doesn't feed me transphobic garbage. using it at all feels like hanging out at bars while trying to stay sober. because where else is there to go? swolesome is a good guy who's going through, i mean, he's a trans guy, he's going through it. and they got this new thing where they recommend him "inspiration" for making videos. and it's toxic sigma male bullshit and transphobia. well, i mean, if i'm not going to the bars, where do i go? i finally got a nebula account. one year. not sure i'll be alive for the five years it'd take for the lifetime membership to be worthwhile.

i'm just trying to not be isolated. to not carry all this shit without telling anybody. even if nobody can really _do_ anything about it.

Ugh: https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/01/15/democrats-vicente-gonzalez-henry-cuellar-trans-sport-ban/

(AOC predictably otm)

There are three basic prongs to this attack, and all revolve around the rhetorical trick of making an extremely small and marginalized group of people seem like a threat. There are of course lots of interesting things to talk and think about with respect to trans identity, but whatever cultural conversations may have been have has been hijacked and narrowed down to really just three things: girls/women's sports, girls/women's bathrooms, and whether people under 18 should have access to gender-affirming care. Because those are the three points where trans people — trans women, because as noted elsewhere in conversations trans men and trans boys never appear in these arguments — can be painted as threats. The "threat" in all cases is fictitious and at odds with experienced reality, but since most people don't know or interact with any trans people, those are areas where lurid imaginations can be stoked.

I think about this when I see the growing number of gender-noncomforming young people working service jobs around town — both of the Kroger stores I go to regularly have trans/nonconforming cashiers, as does my local Taco Bell and probably half the coffee shops in town. When people are getting their groceries or tacos or coffee, I wonder how they square whatever Fox News trans panic they feel with the friendly (sometimes very attractive!) people filling their orders. My guess is they somehow compartmentalize it or maybe a lot of people just don't pay any attention at all to whoever's serving them.

oops sorry for the mucked-up sentence. Should read, whatever cultural conversations may have been had have been hijacked...

Great post.

I wonder about these things too: there is a particular store I shop at regularly where the cashier that seems to be there most of the time is this extremely friendly, cheerful (and, yes, cute!) non-binary person with an enby flag and other various anti-homo and -trans phobic buttons pinned to their uniform. Given that much of the clientele at this business (at least through my very limited observation) seems to skew older, I wonder what kind of dynamics might be going on between customer and employee there. I like to think there are at least some people entering this business with silly prejudices spurred on by Facebook and the other bullshit media only to have them challenged by an interaction with what turns out to be one of the most pleasant and certainly least scary human beings they could imagine, but as you say, this may be assuming too much about how much thought or attention people give the people who happen to be serving them.

I think about this when I see the growing number of gender-noncomforming young people working service jobs around town — both of the Kroger stores I go to regularly have trans/nonconforming cashiers, as does my local Taco Bell and probably half the coffee shops in town. When people are getting their groceries or tacos or coffee, I wonder how they square whatever Fox News trans panic they feel with the friendly (sometimes very attractive!) people filling their orders.

We're in mind-meld. I'm writing about this now.

is there a good analysis / comparison between the gay rights landscape vs the trans rights landscape? there are some obvious parallels (such as the asinine "grooming" fear mongering) and i'm particularly interested in the comparison of the tactics / strategies that worked before but don't work now, and why. one obvious thing is that the anti LGBTQ2S groups are much more organized now - and i wonder if that's mostly due to the social network effect, or is it because they learned. but it also feels like the resistance is _less_ organized now.

anita bryant's death was a stark reminder of this. just reading about the protests that erupted because of her - we don't seem to have this organized collective effort anymore. what happened? we have pride parades attended by millions. what's the point?

in regards to what tipsy said - i strongly believe that what really contributed to the advancement of gay rights was the general public learning that their aunt, accountant, next door neighbour were gay, which finally connected the abstract (to them) notion of human rights to real humans.

This 1979 Playboy interview with Wendy Carlos popped up in my feed on Bluesky. Apparently that was the vehicle she used for her coming-out. (As a journalist, the mention of 800 pages of unedited transcript in the intro nearly made me weep.)

Anita Bryant hasn't died: we'e living through her recrudescence.

Trans bathroom bill just passed the Montana House 58-42. Still has to get through the Senate. Fucking idiots.

just want to dispute the idea that most cis people don’t know or interact with trans people. as pointed out above, they do, they just either don’t know it or compartmentalize their hatred.

In my politically blood-red neighborhood an out-and-proud trans woman works at our Starbucks and she gets nothing but respect and courtesy from the MAGA Cubans who want to end her.

i strongly believe that what really contributed to the advancement of gay rights was the general public learning that their aunt, accountant, next door neighbour were gay, which finally connected the abstract (to them) notion of human rights to real humans.

― scanner darkly, Wednesday, January 15, 2025 2:51 PM (three hours ago)

i think that, even at the height of AIDS terror, mainstream america may have been scared of gay men and gayness in the cooties kinda way -- i'm scared to touch you physically because it could kill me -- but, and i may be wrong as someone who didn't live thru that time, it feels to me like there is something fundamentally different about transness that makes people feel like humanity as they know it is under existential threat. it took decades for the idea that people don't "choose" to be gay to take hold in society, but i think the acceptance of that idea did as much for gay assimilation as anything else. you can easily absolve someone of a sin, and then begin to embrace their existence, when you can think of them as being victims of some unknown force. trans people don't choose to be born as the wrong gender, but our society does not view trans people as being non-agents of their own circumstances in the way that gay men were eventually allowed to be seen. i think the public at large sees gayness as something that happens to gay people, where as transness is something that happens because trans people decide for it to happen. thus the decision to change genders feels not like the inevitable bursting of a dam that couldn't be contained, but instead an active deliberate attack on the very way of life. i'm not sure that exposure is going to work in the same way because i don't think the concept of forgiveness will (hopefully i am wrong)

i'm not sure that's the difference, and the fact that the exact same lies and same tactics are being used against transgender people that were used against gay people ("grooming", "it's a lifestyle", etc) attests to that. or the fact that the same people who are now transphobic still claim that being gay is a choice.

there _is_ something different, however, and that's what i'm trying to understand. we were able to shut down these tactics before. why is it not working as it did before? social media allowing bigots to organize and coordinate efforts better? gays and lesbians mostly getting what we fought for, so we care less? (or worse, the LGB no T idiots).

we are losing both the angry loud protest battles and the battle for the general public to stop seeing transgender people as an outside group.

trans people don't choose to be born as the wrong gender, but our society does not view trans people as being non-agents of their own circumstances in the way that gay men were eventually allowed to be seen. i think the public at large sees gayness as something that happens to gay people, where as transness is something that happens because trans people decide for it to happen. thus the decision to change genders feels not like the inevitable bursting of a dam that couldn't be contained, but instead an active deliberate attack on the very way of life.

To put it bluntly, the difference is that one of these things involves surgery and the other does not. Like, you can argue with people who claim that gayness is a choice by asking, "Do you remember when you decided to be straight? Tell me about that, and how you came to your decision - what factors you weighed before deciding." But transness involves literal medical transformation in a way that terrifies some people and enrages others, and the "none of your fucking business" argument doesn't work as well against rage and terror as sensible people would like it to.

anita bryant's death was a stark reminder of this. just reading about the protests that erupted because of her - we don't seem to have this organized collective effort anymore. what happened? we have pride parades attended by millions. what's the point?

i was, like, three when all that stuff was happening, but i don't feel like people are doing any worse today at protesting than people were in bryant's day. from what i can tell, there wasn't this sudden mass uprising against bryant. orange juice sales didn't suddenly plummet. the people speaking out against bryant weren't necessarily taken super seriously. my feeling is that in the '80s, things got worse for gay people in a lot of ways - a lot worse.

in regards to what tipsy said - i strongly believe that what really contributed to the advancement of gay rights was the general public learning that their aunt, accountant, next door neighbour were gay, which finally connected the abstract (to them) notion of human rights to real humans.

― scanner darkly

ok so this is the tricky bit. it's the marginalization. yeah, when i passed as a normal, respectable, middle-class middle-aged white woman, i made a lot of positive changes. it's fucking hard to do that with the shit we're going through right now. marginalizing people isn't just about making big speeches and passing stupid, unenforceable laws. i have a friend who was a trans man back in the late '90s, early '00s. he didn't feel like he had the right to use the men's room, until he got kicked out of the women's room for being, well, a man. it's hard to enforce laws that bear so little relationship to reality that they might as well be word salad.

the thing about being trans that i see is that... it's not always direct. it's not something you can point to and say here, this, this is it. it's this slow burden, it's things we can't talk about to each other because we're trying to not spiral, things we can't talk about to cis people because it's so hard for people who haven't lived it to understand. people will accept us if they can look at me and see someone who's just like any other middle-class middle-aged white woman. the things that have gone on for the last couple years, the things that trans people have dealt with... makes that increasingly difficult.

the thing about "passing" is that is about appearing to be someone what isn't. when i "pass", it's not as a _woman_, but as _cis_. god, if i'd been able to meet patriarchal expectations of gender performance i wouldn't have fucking transitioned!

so yeah, things are scary for me, things are dark, because popular acceptance feels, like it often has in the past, conditional - conditional on my ability to be the person they _want_ me to be, no matter what crazy bullshit they do to us. if we suffer when they hurt us, that becomes _our_ fault, somehow that gets taken as _proof_ of our deficiency, proof that we're _wrong_.

idk. it's scary. you say the kind of things that bigots are saying about trans people loud enough and often enough, people decide to start taking matters into their own hands. what then? do we still get blamed? maybe. even if we don't... i'm not interested in being a martyr. i don't want my name on a fucking memorial somewhere. i want to live a long, happy, and largely unhistoric life.

i think that, even at the height of AIDS terror, mainstream america may have been scared of gay men and gayness in the cooties kinda way -- i'm scared to touch you physically because it could kill me -- but, and i may be wrong as someone who didn't live thru that time, it feels to me like there is something fundamentally different about transness that makes people feel like humanity as they know it is under existential threat. it took decades for the idea that people don't "choose" to be gay to take hold in society, but i think the acceptance of that idea did as much for gay assimilation as anything else. you can easily absolve someone of a sin, and then begin to embrace their existence, when you can think of them as being victims of some unknown force. trans people don't choose to be born as the wrong gender, but our society does not view trans people as being non-agents of their own circumstances in the way that gay men were eventually allowed to be seen. i think the public at large sees gayness as something that happens to gay people, where as transness is something that happens because trans people decide for it to happen. thus the decision to change genders feels not like the inevitable bursting of a dam that couldn't be contained, but instead an active deliberate attack on the very way of life. i'm not sure that exposure is going to work in the same way because i don't think the concept of forgiveness will (hopefully i am wrong)

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.)

i don't know if it's different or not. fwiw, i don't think, right now, there's a fundamental difference between how bigots view me and how they view you. because the thing is, when they call us slurs, they call us the same ones they used to call gay men, back in the day, the f-slur. if they were really ok with you, ok like they pretended to be, why would they call us that word? why would they act like that word is an _insult_? when bigots ban drag in public... i used to think it was because they didn't know the difference between drag and being trans. it's abundantly clear to me that the truth is that they just don't care. that they don't differentiate.

queer people are a _threat_. you, me, all of us. by our existence, we are a threat to patriarchy, to the idea that men are inherently better than women. if someone's a straight-passing cis gay man, if someone's white, if someone doesn't ever _bottom_ (and i neither know or care which of these are true of any specific person)... maybe someone can get one's name further down the list, but as long as there's a list, we're all on it. it doesn't benefit me to make it out like i'm special or unique or _new_ just because it's a new experience to _me_. patriarchy and white supremacy have been doing this sort of thing for all of american history, and one of the biggest lies is that it's just a small minority, that it doesn't affect anybody else. people being transphobic... they can hurt me, they can hurt a lot of people. they can't ever help themselves. they won't ever help themselves, that way.

ftr i hate how these conversations are defined. like gay ppl are helpless to be gay but trans ppl by contrast have made a decision. i don’t even feel helpless to be trans!!! i did make a decision. i also made a decision to kiss women AND men, when that happened. anyway. this is politics i guess but i hate it

the framing is all just such bullshit

also i just want to say that transness doesn’t necessarily involve surgery!!! is that too nuanced for broad political speech or. i mean i take hormones that’s “unnatural” to some people except that cis people are prescribed hormones all the time

straight people aren’t naturally straight either that shit is due to nonstop social messaging from birth sorry!!!!

because popular acceptance feels, like it often has in the past, conditional - conditional on my ability to be the person they _want_ me to be

i should've phrased it better but yes, i didn't mean that popular acceptance happens when general public goes "oh, frank is such a _normal_ guy, never thought he was gay!" but rather it's a realization that people are different and some people you thought were straight are actually gay, and some people you thought were gay are actually straight, and somebody you thought was one gender is a different gender or non binary and not knowing who they were did not affect your interactions with them as long as you stuck to being a decent human being, so why should it change once you do know?

i hate the word "acceptance". it's almost internalized homophobia to me. i don't give a fuck about somebody accepting me, because the mere requirement for them to exercise acceptance in order for them to just not be fucking bigoted assholes means i don't give a fuck about what they think of me. i fucking exist, whether you accept it or not. "i never dreamt that i would get to be / the creature that i always meant to be" i always choke when i hear this line because it helped me burn down some of that remaining internalized homophobia.

and fuck "i was born that way" also. yes, i was born gay, but if i could choose i would choose it million times over because i would be with the tribe that knows how to exercise compassion, the tribe that cares for its own, the tribe that could be almost decimated yet persevere and laugh in the face of it all and dance on the graves.

they hate us because we got to be the creatures we were always meant to be.

. i think the public at large sees gayness as something that happens to gay people, where as transness is something that happens because trans people decide for it to happen. t

idk these straight people, way too prominent about defining the conversation and terms, may say so but they're in denial about how they regarded gays in, say, 1986.

straight people aren’t naturally straight either that shit is due to nonstop social messaging from birth sorry!!!!

plz do not tell me who I am or what is natural to me. I promise to accord you the same ability to define yourself and frame it any way you please.

omg fuck off!!! if you told me my transness wasn’t natural i’d be like “yeah you’re right it’s better living through chemistry!” we’re all fucking brainwashed and trapped, accept it!

straight people are always taking shit so personally. it’s a compliment when i say you’re not really straight

just want to dispute the idea that most cis people don’t know or interact with trans people. as pointed out above, they do, they just either don’t know it or compartmentalize their hatred.

Yeah that’s what I went on to say in that post. But it’s also true that I know a lot of straight people who have never (knowingly, anyway) talked in any meaningful way with a trans person. I think that will become less true as more trans people are out, but it’s still true now and it feeds the demonization. My mom e.g. asks me questions about trans people because she’s never met one that she knew of. And she’s not even prejudiced, just curious.

The first trans person I met was a co-worker in an office job when I was 20, in 1990 in Seattle.

(As far as an "overtly trans person" with a name change and HRT and so on.)

Yeah, I have worked in two different newsrooms with trans women. The first person, I actually knew pre-transition but she came out while I worked there and was about to begin transitioning. The company and the whole newsroom were very supporting, I was happy to see that. This was 30 years ago.

The latest Pew Center survey on this was in 2021, when 42 percent of Americans said they knew a transgender person. That was up 5 percentage points from 2017, which is a pretty big jump in a short time. It will keep growing I'm sure. But for now that still leaves a lot of people who don't.

I've always thought of the "born that way" line as a tactical shortcut for normies that won't be able to handle more. I agree with ivy that it's bullshit (everythinh else is socially constructed, why wouldn't this be), it's just sometimes it's not worth it to bust out the Judith Butler for grandma.

plz do not tell me who I am or what is natural to me. I promise to accord you the same ability to define yourself and frame it any way you please.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

The thing is that what ivy is saying isn't about you _personally_. There are systemic factors, systemic biases, and I honestly didn't fully appreciate the extent of those biases or how they were affecting me for a long time. There's an idea called "comphet" - "compulsory heterosexuality" - that talks about all of the pressure patriarchy puts on people to think of ourselves as cishet, to _perform_ cishet stuff.

Well, here's an example. Do you wear dresses? Is there a reason you don't wear a dress? There's nothing wrong with wearing dresses, there's nothing wrong with men wearing dresses. They're just clothes. It's an arbitrary social distinction, but one that's instilled really, really strongly in anybody patriarchy defines as "men". Maybe that's a personal preference, but God, I know how hard it was for me to allow myself to actually wear a dress. I know the messaging I heard about what it means to wear a dress. None of this is _personal_, that's the thing. It's not a choice individuals make in a vacuum.

i should've phrased it better but yes, i didn't mean that popular acceptance happens when general public goes "oh, frank is such a _normal_ guy, never thought he was gay!" but rather it's a realization that people are different and some people you thought were straight are actually gay, and some people you thought were gay are actually straight, and somebody you thought was one gender is a different gender or non binary and not knowing who they were did not affect your interactions with them as long as you stuck to being a decent human being, so why should it change once you do know?

I think I'd agree! I also think, though, by those standards... a lot of people _weren't_ ever accepting of gays. I'd say that not only - agree with Alfred here - is a large percentage of the population in denial about how they regarded gays in 1986, a large percentage of the population is being less than honest - with others and, I think, to a significant extent themselves - about how they regard queers, or racial minorities, or _women_, now. The whole "I'm not racist, but" thing - people trying to, like, self-identify as "not racist" or something, like bigotry a matter of _self-determination_. No, it doesn't actually work like that. I don't think racism is the _same thing_, or has the same _effect_, or manifests in the _same ways_ as homophobia, but I do think there are certain commonalities among various diverse forms of bigotry.

I also wanna highlight here that I'm not categorically immune to bigotry. The whole idea of "internalized transphobia", it's something I continue to struggle with. There are certainly transphobic trans people. One of the insidious things about bigotry is the way that the targets of bigotry are co-opted into being agents of their own oppression, both systemically and individually. I don't think it's a personal failing. I was an agent of my own oppression for a long, long time. I was taught to hate myself, and I did, and now I've outsourced that responsibility back to them. And the people responsible for bigotry are taking it badly. It's fucking hard work, bigotry and hatred. It's _not_ natural, it's _not_ normal. You've got to be carefully taught, and we are, we all are, because, haha, solidarity works both ways. The more people they can convince to adopt their bigotry, their hatred, the less work it is for them to be bigoted and hateful. You could almost say that bigotry and hatred is, well, a _social contagion_ of sorts. It's memetic, as noted bigot Richard Dawkins, back when he passed as a legitimate scientist, once phrased it.

i hate the word "acceptance". it's almost internalized homophobia to me. i don't give a fuck about somebody accepting me, because the mere requirement for them to exercise acceptance in order for them to just not be fucking bigoted assholes means i don't give a fuck about what they think of me. i fucking exist, whether you accept it or not. "i never dreamt that i would get to be / the creature that i always meant to be" i always choke when i hear this line because it helped me burn down some of that remaining internalized homophobia.

I strongly agree with... well, here's how I'd put it. We're strongly encouraged to frame things in ways that privilege and center a white patriarchal cisheteronormative worldview. "Acceptance", "toleration" - like, what, saying that I have a right to _exist_? Like, why is that even a question? Why is it something these motherfuckers get to _decide_ and _enforce_? What gives them the right to control and police my body, the right to control and police _anyone's_ body but their own? My queerness isn't up to them, isn't something I have to justify to them. There's a scene from X-Men 2 that's well-loved among a certain subset of people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXtccnXt21Y

The way I define "transition" isn't about surgery or hormones or clothes or any of that stuff. These are just external manifestations, the ways we make ourselves intelligible to others. All "transition" is, the way I see it, is learning to value yourself more than who other people want you to be. And you know what, yes, that is a choice I made. And the reason I did it was because, well, I had to. Because not doing that was fucking killing me. It wasn't a one-time decision. It's still a choice I have to make, to put into practice, every day, and it is _hard_, it is _hard_ for me to love myself when Facebook and Youtube and all of these different powerful voices, all of these people who patriarchy says _matter_ more than I do, tell me I'm a monster, I'm a "groomer" (for, uh, supporting and encouraging other people's right to self-determination? not sure how that works tbh), that all the things _they're_ doing to me are _my_ responsibility, my _fault_.

Shout-out to my homies on the Neil Gaiman thread. Because he's not the only one doing that shit.

The first trans person I met was a co-worker in an office job when I was 20, in 1990 in Seattle.

― braunschweiger winter (Eazy)

the first trans person i met was in 1997, a lady i was on a usenet group with from... seattle!

that's not a _coincidence_. it's not a _coincidence_ that i transitioned shortly after moving to portland from indiana. what bigots call "social contagion" i call having _healthy role models_. it's not like i was gonna come out as trans when my role models for gender non-conformity were people like buffalo bill! who the fuck is gonna do that, "oh, you know that serial killer who hates women in that one movie? that's who i'm like, that's me." people see me and they are more accepting of trans people, and often that means that trans people see me and are more accepting of _myself_. i'm not always a great role model haha, but my being visibly trans has helped and encouraged other people, cis and trans, to be their best selves, just things like eliza d. talking about _her_ transition back in the day encouraged _me_.

i made myself invisible for a long time because i didn't know there was any other choice. now i know there is another choice. now i know the _cost_ of invisibility, the _cost_ of trying to be the person they wanted me to be. they want me to be invisible and silent. radical queer activists like avram finkelstein taught me from a young age what silence equals. i'm grateful that i was able to learn that lesson young, even if it took me a lot longer to truly undrstand what it meant, how it applied to me personally.

and often that means that trans people see me and are more accepting of _myself_

more accepting of _themselves_, words are hard

To shift to policy/law for a moment, this week The New England Journal of Medicine published a legal perspective on the Cass report. The authors, Daniel Aaron & Craig Konnoth, say: "Our concern here is that the (Cass) review transgresses medical law, policy, and practice, which puts it at odds with all mainstream U.S. expert guidelines." "The Review’s departure from the evidentiary and procedural standards of medical law, policy, and practice can be understood best in the context of the history of leveraging medicine to police gender norms." No idea how impactful this kind of thing but thought it worth sharing. Full piece is here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp2413747

pushing back on the idea that Portland or the west coast is better for trans people or gay people. if you’re white, sure. otherwise, i would argue that from Sacramento north to the border is as dangerous and racist as many other parts of the country.

there are tons of trans people in Philly. it’s cheap, lefty-liberal, and there aren’t roving gangs of white nationalist thugs always roaming around the city.

also fwiw ivy, i agree with you about what you’re saying about the framing being endlessly frustrating, but do think Daniel’s point about how to get grandma to understand transness is well-taken.

there are tons of trans people in Philly

including a few good friends of mine! not that a couple of them haven't made Canada-related contingency plans

yes, imago, my best friend here is trans.

oh yeah i understand we gotta get grandma on board, i just always experience this profound dissonance when ppl are generalizing about the trans experience in order to appeal to the heteropatriarchy. i guess i will for quite a while!!!!

I like to think my late grandmother would've understood Judith Butler.

what i was trying to get at with my earlier posts about why i think transness provokes a deeper bedrock prejudice in people (compared to homosexuality) is like — i think it is telling that on a national level the convo over trans issues has so often played out against the back drop of sports, because i think it provides cover for people who feel existentially threatened by transness to portray being trans as unfair. in the context of a game you can more easily launder your argument that transness is breaking the rules and it can’t be allowed to happen. but i think this is how these people view transness in general — rules are being broken, fairness is not being upheld. i think this dynamic was obviously true for gay people — being held back from upending marriage as a male-female institution — but transness takes the “rule breaking” further in destroying the binary system of gender that human history is based on in ways that cis homosexuality simply does not. americans are obsessed with the concept of fairness, the idea that someone over there doesn’t get to do something if i don’t get to do it too. it drives so much of our politics as it pertains to marginalized people — welfare would be the most obvious example. the idea of transness flies in the face of the notion that if i can’t/won’t/don’t then you aren’t allowed to either. it’s connected to the pro-cop backlash to black lives matter, the proliferation of ring cameras etc — most americans want people monitored for how they are adhering to rules and norms, and visible, open transness is a complete repudiation of that worldview and way of living. and i think that’s extremely destabilizing to a lot of people even if they don’t even realize exactly why they feel that way

i’m not attempting to appeal to the heteropatriarchy, only trying to interrogate why it fees like, to me, trans issues touch the deepest rawest nerve with some people, and how that is informing the politics around it

"human history"? you mean "history as viewed through the western colonialist views of the enlightenment," right? because trans people and non-binary genders have been integral parts of human history since well before the written word.

like, i get what you're saying, Jord4n, and think you're right in many ways, but i think that terms like "human history" aren't neutral in this case, and it's worth pointing that out rather than using shorthand.

xxxp

queer people are a _threat_. you, me, all of us. by our existence, we are a threat to patriarchy, to the idea that men are inherently better than women.

transness takes the “rule breaking” further in destroying the binary system of gender

I'm sure everyone is tired of me saying "I saw that on Tiktok!" but there's a very good video about this by a transwoman creator on Tikok, about why trans people are treated like such a threat to established order...because they prove that gender isn't binary or immutable, and that means that ANY gender-determined thing can't be real. Considering how much of America/the world is influenced by Christianity and the gender essentialism that derives from it, that does rather expose the underpinnings of a lot of what is keeping cis men in power in every way.

sorry cis straight men, you know the drill, white Christo fascist hetero patriarchal capitalism, the whole thing.

The creator is @decolonizationcoven if anyone is interested in these waning days

Considering how much of America/the world is influenced by Christianity and the gender essentialism that derives from it, that does rather expose the underpinnings of a lot of what is keeping cis men in power in every way.

Somewhat related, there's apparently an article in the Wall Street Journal today (their paywall's impregnable, I haven't read it) talking about how corporations' retreat from "DEI" programs/policies removes an excuse mediocre people have used to justify their own lack of success. It's not DEI, Ralph, you're just bad at your job.

Also, to give credit where credit is due, it was a queer ilxor who blew my mind years ago by saying that maybe trans-ness isn't about physical bodies or body parts, maybe you can just be the gender you know yourself to be and say that you are. To whoever that was, thank you! That idea was transformational to my thinking, and has had so much more generous, expansive, beautiful potential within it than the thinking that I had before.