You see something absurd. You hear something absurd. You read something absurd = Yeah,TNTG. Posts tagged trans.
person: she--
me: it's he.
person: *condescending smile* well, on your birth certificate--
me: yeah, it also says ' 8lbs, 6 oz ' -- a lot has changed over the years
ya’ll out here acting like racism/sexism/transphobia/queerphobia/etc. is just an inconvenience for us rather than violence against our bodies
“ The question lesbian and gay people need to answer is not “Why are transgender issues suddenly demanding so much attention?” but rather “Why have we abandoned transgender people and their concerns in our rush for equality?”.
—
Transgender Communities: Developing Identity Through Connection
Lev AI in Bieschke et al (2007)
*slow clap* Perfect
(via foreverqueird)
just a lil PSA:
- there’s nothing wrong with people IDing as trans* or queer just because of the internet
- they’re not “faking it”
- because often times, the internet helps them reconcile and put a name (sometimes) to what they feel inside
- and there’s also nothing wrong with transitioning back if that identity doesn’t feel right to you
- and also gender is very confusing and it DOES fluctuate so don’t get irrationally angry if people change their name/identity often
“ Also, the white trans experience has trumped trans people of color’s experience. This is another factor that arrests development for some trans people of color. We go online and do research on transfolks and only get the white trans experience, which isn’t ours–so there’s no way that we could be trans, right? Also there are other issues in being out and trans which seems to be what white transmen push for. As they become visible as trans, there may be backlash…but they are still a white man with privilege. As soon as we transition to be black men, our lives get much more difficult–especially if we are trans organizers. There is a lot of pressure to stay “stealth” and invisible within communities of color because who really wants the added marginalization and discrimination? It is hard enough to be a black man. Now you’ve got to worry about being accepted within your community, church, schools and jobs? Many say, “No, thank you.” And you know…some white transmen call us cowards for that. Cowards. Because they have no idea the experience of intersecting identities of being a person of color and queer among other identities.
“ Society, however, does not see all fat as being equal. A man can be much, much fatter than a woman and still be viewed as comfortably within the standard deviation; most department stores carry men’s pants up to a size 42, which is the rough equivalent of a women’s size 24—a size that a woman would have to visit a specialty big-girl store or “Women’s” department to find. Men are comfortable on beaches with their beach-ball bellies hanging over their swimsuit waistbands, bronzing their fat in the sun, whereas my fat women friends struggle to find swimwear that does not feature a skirt.
So me, I’m transgendered. It means that the gender I present in the world is not congruent with the sex that I was assigned at birth; in practical terms, I mostly look like a man but have a body that some would consider physiologically female. Even though I don’t identify as a man (I am a butch, which is its own gender), I am taken for a man about two-thirds of the time. And when I am taken for a man, I am not fat.
As a man, I’m a big dude, but not outside the norm for such things. I am just barely fat enough to shop at what I call The Big Fat Tall Guy Store, and can sometimes find my size in your usual boy-upholstery emporia. Major clothing labels, like Levi Strauss, make nice things in my size, and I am never forced to wear anything that appears to have been manufactured at Mendel the Tentmaker’s House o’ Fashion. (Although those things do exist for men, too. Those terrycloth shirts with the waistbands? Oy.) I can order extra salad dressing or ice cream or anything else in a restaurant and have it arrive without comment; I can eat it in public without anyone taking a bit of notice, even if I am shoving it into my mouth while walking down a crowded street and getting crumbs all over my chest in the process. I can run for a bus or train without anyone making a snide remark.
As a big guy, I’m big enough to make miscreants or troublemakers decide to take their hostility elsewhere. As a woman, I am revolting. I am not only unattractively mannish but also grossly fat. The clothes I can fit into at the local big-girl stores tend to fit around the neck and then get bigger as they go downward, which results in a festive butch-in-a-bag look—all the rage nowhere, ever. No matter how clearly I order a Coke in a restaurant I must be on a diet, and so I get a Diet Coke—usually with a lemon floating in it accusatorily, looking up at me as if to say, “This is as good as it’s going to get, lardass.” Wait staff develop selective amnesia about my side of fries or my request for butter, and G-d help me if I get caught eating (or even shopping) in public as a woman.
So me, I’m transgendered. It means that the gender I present in the world is not congruent with the sex that I was assigned at birth; in practical terms, I mostly look like a man but have a body that some would consider physiologically female. Even though I don’t identify as a man (I am a butch, which is its own gender), I am taken for a man about two-thirds of the time. And when I am taken for a man, I am not fat.
As a man, I’m a big dude, but not outside the norm for such things. I am just barely fat enough to shop at what I call The Big Fat Tall Guy Store, and can sometimes find my size in your usual boy-upholstery emporia. Major clothing labels, like Levi Strauss, make nice things in my size, and I am never forced to wear anything that appears to have been manufactured at Mendel the Tentmaker’s House o’ Fashion. (Although those things do exist for men, too. Those terrycloth shirts with the waistbands? Oy.) I can order extra salad dressing or ice cream or anything else in a restaurant and have it arrive without comment; I can eat it in public without anyone taking a bit of notice, even if I am shoving it into my mouth while walking down a crowded street and getting crumbs all over my chest in the process. I can run for a bus or train without anyone making a snide remark.
As a big guy, I’m big enough to make miscreants or troublemakers decide to take their hostility elsewhere. As a woman, I am revolting. I am not only unattractively mannish but also grossly fat. The clothes I can fit into at the local big-girl stores tend to fit around the neck and then get bigger as they go downward, which results in a festive butch-in-a-bag look—all the rage nowhere, ever. No matter how clearly I order a Coke in a restaurant I must be on a diet, and so I get a Diet Coke—usually with a lemon floating in it accusatorily, looking up at me as if to say, “This is as good as it’s going to get, lardass.” Wait staff develop selective amnesia about my side of fries or my request for butter, and G-d help me if I get caught eating (or even shopping) in public as a woman.
— S. Bear Bergman, “Part-Time Fatso” (via wretchedoftheearth)
Ongoing on Twitter right now, people are tweeting their negative experiences with doctors and other “authorities” in the medical profession when it comes to transgender issues.
There is a LOT of this.
Everyone should go read up on this because it is a HUGE deal. Trans people seeking treatment do so because they NEED that treatment, and having it denied, or being HUMILIATED and de-humanized while seeking or receiving treatment takes a very large toll on our psyches. The psyches of a group of people with a 50% attempted suicide rate, and who are several orders of magnitude likelier to be killed than the average person. And no, it’s not getting better, because the homicide rate for transgender individuals increased by 20% last year.
Was sent to a Christian therapist and told that it’s sinful and I had to change #transdocfail
(I actually convinced him later that it was ok. At least he was willing to learn.)
1) Be willing to confront instances of transphobia, cissexism, cisnormativity, cis-centrism, cis privilege and other forms of destructive bias where you find them (especially when you find them within feminist, activist or queer spaces), not through “call outs” or other toxic, self-defeating or abusive strategies, but by taking the opportunity for genuine discourse.
2) Don’t take a purely passive, reactive approach. Rather than waiting for things like someone saying something overtly cissexist, or a trans person bringing up a particular concern, be willing to proactively introduce trans issues, or trans-relevant aspects of broader issues, to feminist discourse. Likewise, proactively treat possible consequences, perspectives and concerns relevant to trans people and trans experiences as being not only significant but essential to all feminist issues and conversations.
3) Don’t assume any given issue is strictly, or even primarily, relevant to cis women. All feminist concerns are also transgender concerns, and vice versa. There are no feminist dialogues in which trans voices “don’t belong”, or to which trans voices have “nothing to add”. There are nosocial issues related to gender that don’t have consequences for trans people.
4) Proactively seek out transgender voices, perspectives and input on all issues, not simply what you regard as “trans issues” or situations where the value of such perspectives is immediately obvious to you. Come to us, rather than waiting for us to come to you.
5) Don’t treat the larger social conflict of gender as being dialectic or binary in nature. Don’t assume a unidirectional model of gender-based oppression.
via loversintransition, (original source is Natalie Reed).
Alladat right there.
“ I do not need to stress the importance of Transgender Day of Remembrance as a viable act of visibility and resistance. However, it is not enough for us to simply mourn these victims–we have to take the necessary steps to destroy the racist institutional barriers that perpetuate their deaths–and not leave the burden of responsibility on communities of color. Instead, predominately white led transgender advocacy organizations, which undoubtedly have the greatest access to resources financial and otherwise, must begin to seriously consider the lives of the most vulnerable members of our community by developing and enforcing policy that takes an intersectional approach to the identities of trans people of color.
“ Ze said unto Hir people ‘You do not have to celebrate those who use your proper Words and recognize the validity of your existence. You do not have to be grateful for them. No more than you are grateful for and celebrate the Stranger you passed the other day because they did not punch you in the face simply because you were there. These are the behaviors of Basically Decent People. They are a starting point. Not a special goal to be achieved.’
— The Universal Holy Scripture of Angry Trans* Individuals, 24:3
(via gospelofangrytranspeople)
