oppressive – GenderTerror

Righteously Mad

This originally appeared on In Our Words Blog. The website is no longer available so I am posting this previously published piece here. It has been edited slightly to fit into my more recent words and writing style (such as an added paragraph) but 95% of the post remains the same as it was when it was posted to IOWB.

Why do trans people act so sensitive when you discuss trans identities? Why do they get so uptight and righteous when you start talking about the obviously fake trans people and not them? Why do they get so upset when you misgender someone out of spite? It’s not like you were talking about them! You’re just talking about the bad trans people who give queer people a bad name! People shouldn’t get so upset about that!

When you talk about people as a collective, you are talking about them. You are telling people it is ok to do these things as long as someone sees them as bad, wrong, or incorrect. You are telling others and setting an example of behaviors that are never OK to do to anyone. You are tone and identity policing people.

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The Tokenization of Relationships

“But I have Black friends!” “My cousin is gay.” “That’s not true! My uncle is transgender!” We’ve all seen it before, the tokenization of relationships in order to prove a fact. Someone with friends, relatives, or ever partners who belong to a marginalized community cannot be against that community or hold ideas that are oppressive against them, right? Of course they can. The tokenization of relationships to prove a point even solidifies this point. How?

We’re all the same.

By saying you are friends, related to, partners with, etc. X marginalized group and thus cannot hold beliefs that harm other members of the group, you are saying that all members of the group are like your friend, family member, partner, etc. This is erasive and simplification of the complexity and variance of the group. In order for you to be supportive of the entire group, you are saying their identities and lives are just like that of the person you know.

Get Out of Jail Free Card

This tokenization also uses said relationship as an object, proving that there is nothing you can do or say that would be problematic because you have some relationship to this marginalized group and they have never said anything. This goes back to the fact that it holds the idea that these groups are all the same and cannot hold varying, let alone conflicting ideas or beliefs. If one person of a group believes something, all other beliefs must be incorrect. Interesting how this only applies to the ones who agree with the person who is defending their actions, beliefs, thoughts, etc.

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Fire Fighting Fire

Fire is destructive. Fire is consuming. Fire is all encompassing. Fire utterly destroys and devastates. When you complain about people fighting fire with fire, you are complaining that people are fighting destructive forces. It implies that, like the fire we are fighting, it consumes and destroys. It implies that the fire we are using has the power to utterly destroy at a massive scale. It doesn’t. At most, you get a burnt fingertip, like when you snub out a candle with your fingers, or you touch a too hot tea cup. We are not fighting fire with fire, we are fighting a blazing inferno named society with lawn sprinklers, the kind kids play in.

We are using these sprinklers to clear out whatever small semblance of safety we can claw together for a brief time, because as fire does, it intrudes and forces its way back in, only to engulf that space once more. We are clawing through the ash in an attempt to make a small comfortable bed among the rubble. It’s us trying to make this burning building somewhat comfortable for a mere second. Even if we all grabbed buckets and pails, fighting this fire together, our numbers would not be enough. Our efforts are but small and useless in comparison to the raging inferno we are facing. You don’t try to put out high rise with buckets and pails. You need more force, you need more power.

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Dear Cis People

Let’s talk about the word cisgender (and it’s abbreviation cis) and the discussion of cis people and their reactions. If you are cis, I suggest you read this post for it’s entirety. The links provided are there as more evidence and support of the reality that trans people face in their lives when it comes to how society perceives and treats them. These are meant to remove any doubts of the points I bring up in this piece. I would also like to ask for the duration of this piece that swallow your emotions and personal feelings about the topics discussed until the end. If you cannot do this, this piece is not for you.

Trigger warning: violence, transphobia, cissexism, transmisogyny, homophobia, rape, violence, slurs

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Experience Versus Being

Trigger Warning:: Transmisogyny, violence, trans*phobia, homophobia, assault

Privilege is something that is granted and gained. Privilege is something that is given, and taken away, by other people and society. People do not just roll over and decide to be privileged one day. If it was that easy, there are a lot of people in the world who would love to hit that privilege switch. Privilege is something that is handed to people society deems worthy, mostly white, cis, straight men who aren’t poor. Just as privilege can be given, it can be taken away, almost in the blink of an eye. A trans* person who is perceived as cis has passing privilege that can be easily removed the moment they are known to be trans*. A queer person who is perceived as straight can lose their ‘straight passing’ privilege the moment their identity and status as a queer person is known. Take it account how many people do not know of their privileges until the moment it is taken away.

One of the better examples is when a person of privilege is a victim of a hate crime for being perceived as a queer person. A trans man who is perceived as a woman by his attacker and is assaulted as such in a misogynistic attack; a straight man that is perceived to be gay and thus is the victim of gay bashing or a verbal assault. People can experience the violence of being perceived as queer without actually being queer due to the perception of another. Denying this experience strips the victim of their assault, whether verbal, physical, sexual or a combination of such. Take the first example. This man has become a victim of misogyny due to his attacker perceiving him as being a woman. While the attack may be tinged with cissexism, trans*phobia, and maybe even homophobia, the attacker still carried out the attack as one meant to be rooted in misogyny. It is almost as if the other causes are accidental. Denying this denies the impact that such violence has not only on queer people, but on the majority as well.

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Compliments and Intent

Listen up cis people, I want to talk to you today about intent. However, not in the intent isn’t magic sort of deal. Well, that might be a lie. I want to focus on compliments though, especially the one that goes a little bit like, “I would never have guessed!”. I get it. I understand the intent. It’s meant to be a compliment. Now, I want to address that this is my opinion on the subject. It may not be shared by you, and that is ok! I just want people to know that there are many people who take offense to statements like this and other statements like it.

By telling someone you would have never guessed they are trans*, you tell them they are passing. That’s great! Many people want to hear that. However, you are also implying that being visibly trans* is a bad thing. That to be visibly trans* is not how that person wants to be seen. That being visibly trans* is something that no one wants. You also enforce the idea that cis is the norm and the default for people. There is another companion to this quote, one just as well intentioned (insert quote about Hell and good intentions), but infinitely worse.

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