Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

commentary by porpentine

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
the only real feminism is meme feminism

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
if your ideas can't make it viral, you should consider whether you're a real feminist or not, and if those ideas in fact suck?

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
i completely agree that feminism is for everyone. it is for everyone who can generate enough social media buzz, not no-follower randos

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
there are two kinds of women. women who can go viral, and women who are randos

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
but there is a problem when transgendered individuals have male socialized virality and not female socialized virality

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
there are just feminine and masculine ways of liking or faving a post and some people have the socialization for that

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
would i accept a transgendered female identified person as part of a woman and transgendered female identified person movement? absolutely

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
But they need to get the female socialized favs. We need to get on Buzzfeed. On the Atlantic. On Bustle. On the Times. This is core

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
Until people see that transgendereds are exactly like them, they will think they are not like them. Like a dog or opossum.

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
Do you know when the killing of transgendered female people stops? It stops when we have enough articles in the Atlantic, Buzzfeed, Bustle.

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
Do you care about transgendered females not having health care, hormones, housing, food? Make a VIDEOGAME with a TRANSGENDERED CHARACTER

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
Do you know why people were killing & discriminating against transfemales hundreds of years ago? Because there were no inclusive videogames

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
If someone comes up to you and tells you they were "abused" or "assaulted", just stop drop and roll. Roll right out of the building

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
Because you know what's really abusive? Trying to guilt someone with what happened to YOU. Ever hear of TMI?

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
There is a time and a place to be abused and it is by someone who is not well known or important or socially connected!

@aliendovecote · Jul 24
And if you have less followers than them, I'm sorry, but maybe you were asking for it? They are obviously going to out-viral you

is there a point to posting a hostile, sarcastic missive with an indiscernible point (or even POV) itt?

The only point was that I liked it, and I think her point is pretty discernible. As someone very connected to twitter and Internet culture and the blogoverse, she's upset and irritated by well-connected feminist bloggers co-opting and policing trans women's thoughts and identities for clicks. She laments that the discussion and writing she sees most focuses on trivial issues instead of the issues that affect trans women most: violence, housing insecurity, unemployment. I admit that her being involved in game development and writing probably influences what she reads and what discussions are peripheral to her, but her tweets show that she casts a wider net than that, too.

A variety of this click/like/follow visibility thing came up here on ilx after the TN-C reparations article was published. Some guy's tweet was linked to on the thread where the article was being discussed, and the guy was basically dismissed for sort of sub tweeting and also for not having enough followers, but what ilx didn't notice or look into was that behind that guy's tweet was a conversation happening among black women, that the guy, who was twitter-follower-challenged, didn't really originate the conversation, and that the conversation regarding that article that the group of black women were having didn't even register as existing.

What criticisms of theirs that I remember are:

- black women have been writing and talking about those issues for years in the academy and they weren't getting credit
- these same women write painstakingly for peer review while potentially legitimate criticism of TN-C's article is drowned in click bait noise and the usual white supremacist garbage
- TN-C seems to think America is worth saving (some of the black women writing have a different attitude). TN-C is spinning his wheels idealistically instead of focusing on pragmatic means of tactical interest convergence.

That's all I can remember!

Porpentine talking about clicks and follows and the salience of her and other trans women's opinions and identities seems appropriate for this thread. The immense power and noise of the new yellow press and the make-a-buck savior mentality of do-gooder liberalism seems pertinent, too.I don't think this is some tortuous extrapolation.

and that the conversation regarding that article that the group of black women were having didn't even register as existing.

amazing that a bunch of tweets along the lines "How dare TNC speak about women's hair" didn't lead us back to the discussion of which you speak

There's some validity to Porpentine's tweets, but their lack of specificity means they lose some force. Her comments on abuse and invisibility are also complicated, for me, by knowing that at least one friend of a friend, along with several other people, has called out Porpentine as having been emotionally abusive towards her, and I don't feel I have grounds to doubt her or others' claims. (Of course, having acted abusively obviously doesn't exclude having experienced abuse, so it's complicated.)

Anyway, Julia Serano has some useful critical comments on the recent New Yorker article on TERFs here: http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2014/07/two-articles-related-to-femininity-and.html

I was going to post this to the Butch/Dapper Style thread until I realised that is actually on the Style board and presumably primarily for style tips and links to stuff you can buy or at least style blogs, so, uh - recent PBS segment on dapper/genderqueer style which also touches on a few recent fashion advertising campaigns with trans models:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/right-handsome-clothing-gender-non-conformists-rise/
(video, though there is a transcript, which reads OK on its own but is a little confusing in places without the video)

These people all look awesome but they are all also v skinny and I am still struggling not with lacking the right to be handsome but with the right not to be handsome or pretty or anything in between, but hey, more power to those people

xps: ok, I understand now but when I first read them I couldn't even determine whether it was a trans woman speaking! So I was very confused.

She seemed to be shooting in every direction and I couldn't determine which tweets were genuine and which were sarcasm.

Spacecadet, that link would have been fine on the Butch/Dapper thread ("style", to me, is so much more than just photos of clothes and where to buy them, it is about the semiotics of clothing itself, what it means, etc. which that link certainly goes into.) But I guess it also certainly belongs here... Though, to me, the most interesting but disconcerting bit to me, which I suppose is just because it is an American programme, is talking about pushing a growing acceptance of Trans/genderqueer people and issues because of the growing *financial* clout of the LGBT demographic. Which on one level is Market Capitalism showing how "Neo-Liberalism" *can* in point of fact have a liberalising effect on a society, because it's impossible to ignore how lucrative that certain market is. But also showing exactly how *gross* the "liberalising" effect of Neo-Liberalism is, because it seems to imply that only demographics which are perceived as lucrative will be tolerated, and the whole thing gets turned into a ~lifestyle~ for the positioning of consumer products, rather than an exploration of gender and identity and meaning, and just... wow, no, gross.

And yeah, the message that comes through the filter of Class, is that the current class signifier is to be very thin, and you can be accepted and marketed to if you look rich, thin, attractive, can afford a $1500 suit. Which is something that other people are fighting on multiple fronts to keep the fuck out of this. (The link, I can't remember if I put it above or on the dapper thread about the perception of genderqueers as "fancy" and highly Classed.)

I mean, it's a conversation worth having, but I don't know about having it here or having it on the other thread. When Viceroy and I came up with the idea of this thread, I didn't see it turning out the way it did. Like, I wanted a space for genderqueer and trans* persons to share our own experiences and discuss the issues affecting our lives. Kinda like the Girl thread or the Gay thread but for genderqueers. Except it hasn't really turned out that way, and I guess ILX maybe needed a general "Trans Discussion Thread" where people could dump links and discuss news items or, y'know, Cis people can perform "caring about Trans* issues" or "shout at trans people" or whatever.

But that does crowd out individuals wanting to discuss the minutia of their lives, and that issues of "how do I get away from performing pretty OR performing handsome and just have the right to BE" seem trivial by comparison with "Here is the latest Outrage and 50 blogs discussing it". But I do actually think that those trivial "how the fuck do I work my life in this space" questions are also important, and deserve a space for discussion. But maybe not in a place where people are link-dumping outrages, because it can be uncomfortable to have try to address our small and very personal issues in a room full of Big Important Political Issues. (The Personal *is* Political, yes, but... rooms full of strangers demanding explanations and Debate! versus rooms full of friends who have been through the same thing and are facing the same issues and just talking about them.)

This quote from that piece kinda gets at that tension, though:

RACHEL TUTERA: Yes it has been emotional for sure. Shopping or wearing clothes seems like a really mundane thing. But actually it’s, like, incredibly meaningful and incredibly powerful and it can really, like, make or break an identity.

S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G. I mean, it's so trivial, because it's what girls do, it's what gays do, and should not be afforded attention because it's mundane. (That attitude can go fuck itself in orifices.) S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G. and turning our most personal and intimate details into the driving forces of market capitalism, that's a different question, and one I'm still not sure how to resolve.

so yeah, I posted this on fb last night. I didn't really plan to, it just all came out, and I'm feeling very emotional today.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10203677555634170&id=1075536484

its amazing

I'm out as a trans woman, not as genderqueer, but I can relate to a lot of what you've written, especially about the gradual process of self-recognition. Congratulations on being able to share this, Rev! (And I'm so glad your friends are supportive!)

Thank you! How is everything going with you? (If you care to share.)

Rev I was crying and smiling all over your post this morning, thank you for sharing it.

<3 u Rev

(yr post inspired so many feelings, and a lot of recognitions, but ILX is not the place for them, for me)

Rev I never ever talk about my gender with anyone, largely because it's been my whole life so mercurial. When you described how variable these factors had been for you, both in terms of sexuality and gender, it rang so true

Rev, if I liked posts on FB I would like yours so hard.

awesome

10/10 rev

Sorry I didn't see your post sooner to reply, Rev--my internet access is intermittent these days. I'm actually doing really well--I've been on hormones since May, out to pretty much everyone in my social circle since June, and going exclusively by my chosen name and female pronouns since coming out. It's been almost shocking how little friction there's been socially (at least insofar as I'd been mentally amplifying the stigma involved for most of my life)--my father's uncomfortable about it, but everyone else has been really supportive. At times it does feel like my gender only exists for myself and my friends, because I still get read as male pretty constantly, but I haven't been on hormones long, and haven't done much to change my presentation yet, so I just have to try to be patient (not that I'll ever pass as cis, and not that "passing" is at all useful to think about). That's a really minor frustration compared to what I'd expected when I started being honest with myself, though. I'm probably moving to Seattle late next year, after finishing some academic work in my current town, since I have a few friends in the queer community there and it's supposed to be one of the more trans-friendly cities in the US (among its other qualities). Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread. Congratulations (again), Rev, and thanks for your openness!

p.s. OWS, this is not derailing the thread, this is what the thread *is* (or at least its intention was).

I mean, there's a part of me that wants to say (without a hint of irony or sarcasm or anything that is not genuine) "welcome to womanhood" because when you start to apologise for taking up space, or apologise for expressing yourself or even for being on topic on a thread, that is an aspect of Becoming A Woman that most of us born with innie genitals and turned into women are unfortunately all too familiar with. Like "passing" is not just about appearance, it's about demeanour. And that demeanour of apologising for talking or being loud or taking up space or even existing is part of the expectation of womanhood, for cis and trans women. (And it's a fucking trap.)

But this shit isn't helpful, so I'll shut it. But basically, congratulations and I hope that moving to Seattle is wonderful and life-expanding for you!

Really good post, Rev, and glad to hear things are going well for you, ows.

rev, that was so thoughtful. Thank you for sharing it.

<3 rev

Rev, you are awesome and brave for writing this. I especially love:

I hate how the closet narrative presupposes that we step into this world with full knowledge of ourselves, our gender, our sexuality, and doesn't allow for the process of self-discovery. Some people are very certain of these things from the jump, but oftentimes that's not how it works. Consequently, it is often assumed that the person coming out was hiding their true self, rather than taking time to work out who they really are for themselves. Never mind that these factors are variable, not fixed, and may shift over the course of a lifetime or an hour. It's hard to reveal these sides of ourselves to people when we don't fully understand them.

hey rev, i saw this come thru on twitter yesterday; i found it very moving and i'm grateful to you for writing it. all love and happiness to you.

Thanks, emil.y and Branwell! (Branwell, my not wanting to derail the thread was specific to my not wanting to digress from Rev's post, but you're otm about the way that discomfort taking up space is gendered, and how poisonous that gets.)

That's cool. :) I just wanted to say, gurl, this is yr space too. <3

Thanks, Branwell! <3

Thanks all! OWS you rock and I'm glad you're doing well and Branwell OTM this is definitely your space. I live in Seattle and it's a really great place to be queer or trans, if such a thing exists. Definitely hit me up when you get here. <3

A close friend of mine (also in Seattle) just celebrated a two-year anniversary of being out as genderqueer, one-year anniversary of being out as trans, and is abandoning what she terms "boy mode" starting this week. She's also consistently happier than I've ever known her to be.

Belatedly, thanks, Rev! I'd love to eventually hang out. I'm really happy to hear about your friend, JoeStork!

hiiiiiiiiiiii

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/10313742_10203713429450993_3754619771575169115_n.jpg

hmmmph

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/10313742_10203713429450993_3754619771575169115_n.jpg

:(

facebook is trifling and not letting me post the photo of me and Janet Mock

love to you, Rev, esp for your FB piece.

<3

srsly that is amazing :)

Rev you are awesome for that FB piece and now double awesome for meeting janet mock.

Trans* people of ILX, I have a question for you.

I mean, I've asked this on twitter, but the only answers I have got have been from helpful cis people, who, although I appreciate their input, it's not really an issue they face.

The dreaded "gender" box on forms - especially on job applications. Now, when it asks "Sex" and provides only two options, I bite the bullet and tick F because that is indeed the body I was assigned at birth. (If "prefer not to say" or (ugh) "other" is an option, I usually take that.) Today, I've got a form where it asks for "Gender" and specifies four options: Man / Woman / Transgender Man / Transgender Woman

What the hell do I do with that?

On level I do feel like, "thanks for acknowledging that trans people exist" but also b/w "thanks for erasing the experiences of nonbinary people".

On a personal level, I have no right to tick "transgender man" because I am not, and it would be absurd to tick that one. I am not a man, and I will never be one. But I also feel like ticking "cis woman" would be a lie, that is not my gender or my identity, I do not want to represent myself as something I am not, nor create expectations in them of my being something I am not. On a wider level, I feel like "why the hell do you need to know whether a person is transgender or not, for a programming job? In fact, for *any* job not directly involving genitals?"

What sets off my alarm bells is this: the job is at a women's charity. It's a charity whose work I respect enormously, and I would be honoured to be an employee of. But looking through their website, everything is extremely gendered, and extremely binary. There are 3 results in a search which acknowledge the existence of trans people, but no resources for them. I understand the reasons for things being so gendered when it is, specifically, a women's charity, but I am also deeply suspicious of women's organisations that use binaries, because they are often used as a way of excluding people who don't fit neatly into them. (Smell of TERF in the UK feminist scene is strong. This just really makes my spidey-senses tingle.)

So I guess the questions are: 1) am I being paranoid? (probably, yes) and 2) how the hell do I handle a form like that (short term solution is just to skip that question, or, better yet, the whole diversity section with a giant "prefer not to answer at this time."

its deeply strange to offer no nonbinary options alongside trans options imo

Yeah, it seems like they're trying to sound inclusive and failing badly out of ignorance or apathy (besides the nonbinary erasure, there's also the implication that binary trans people aren't really their genders). I might skip that question and talk to them later about revising that section (ideally, at least--this may not be feasible in practice).

Yeah, I guess "trying to sound inclusive and failing badly" is a more charitable explanation, but yeah, I agree totally with why you find it problematic.

I ~do data~ for a living, and trying to gender data and trying to find non-offensive ways to collect gender data* is one of those issues that I wrestle with.

*One of the major issues I raise is, *why* do you need this data gendered? When working with e.g. medical data, sex and gender (and cases where they don't align) might be completely legit pieces of data to be looking for. For diversity records... um, do better than this. Please.

It's the kind of thing I would raise as a concern in the job I'm interviewing for, but right now I'm having trouble with a stumbling block of "we need these forms filled out" vs "I cannot fill this form out as it stands, there isn't a legitimate option for me" and them coming across as a totally inflexible employer and me coming across as 'special snowflake' (good god, when you're working with data, identifying potential snowflake data issues is half the battle! How do you handle non-binary data in a binary database is part of what my job is about!!!)

Grrrrrrr. Feeling not very posi about this whole experience rn.

Leslie Feinberg has died: hir last words were "Remember me as a revolutionary communist." (Hir writings weren't quite as important to me as those of Julia Serano, maybe for generational reasons, but I always respected hir refusal to separate resistance to gender coercion from anti-racist and anti-capitalist struggles.)
https://www.autostraddle.com/leslie-feinberg-transgender-lesbian-activist-author-and-revolutionary-dies-at-65-264663/

drummer from a Western Australian rock band: I Don’t Know If I’m A Boy Or Girl, But That’s OK, Right?

Julia Serano was in a really crappy power pop band. I am glad that she is doing something better with her life atm

Ha! I was aware her band once existed, but that's a fairly distant association for me. Her analysis of transmisogyny in her first book of essays, Whipping Girl, has been pretty foundational for me and for a lot of trans women over the last several years.

cool.