Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

Having just read that article on Microaggressions on the Race thread, I'm rethinking some of my suggestions. It's a hard line to walk, to show individual support, without seeming like you are singling a person out for their difference. It's kinda like 1) stuff aimed at supporting the person individually vs 2) stuff aimed at educating the class/parents/others and helping them to be more accepting/welcoming of her are two separate tangles. Hmmm. I don't know.

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This was quite good on Facebook and "why do we even have to have gender options at all?"

http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2014/02/facebook-introduces-choice-50-genders-why-cant-we-write-our-own

(I far prefer things like Twitter or Tumblr where you don't have to specify at all, TBH, but if I *have* to (and why? if it's a marketing thing, dude, market to me as if I were a gay man, you'd probably have a better chance of hitting me) then I'd rather have too many options than not enough)

OK, I generally try to avoid twitter kerfuffles and the like these days, because who has the energy or the attention, but this one just crossed a line:

http://www.redlightpolitics.info/post/76999881939/today-gia-milinovich-as-mainstream-and-well

http://aoifeschatology.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/the-biggest-gamete-as-troll-bait/

It's depressing because Milinovich, in her insistence on making a gender land-grab based on "periods and reproduction" or whatever, is falling straight into the kind of biological reductionism that most feminisim has spent the past century trying to debunk.

But really... eugenetic selection against people with "trans markers"? (What, even the ones of us that suffer from "periods and reproduction", too?) There's so many layers of wrongness on this one I can't even begin to untangle them. Just a reminder of how *gross* discussion of these issues can get out there, and often even from people you thought of as broadly "on your side". (Nice point in the second blog about this being where "Science without the Humanities" ends up leading.) Ugh. Not what I wanted to read first thing.

OTM. Even before Milinovich started getting into eugenicist territory (at least as a rhetorical flourish), I was already depressed by her smug refusal to see why maintaining the sex/gender distinction doesn't mean much if gender is relegated to the mush of oppressive or meaningless convention, above which biology (not at all constituted as a science within concrete social formations by a set of socially agreed-upon practices) is set up rhetorically as the stern Real mandating that trans women are Really Male. (And where exactly are the trans women who want to stop feminists from talking about abortion access, FGM, or the division of reproductive labor?) It's her unwillingness to actually listen to any of her critics in good faith that's most irritating. Anyway, this is why I should stay away from twitter.

Yeah, absolutely.

I have got to the point where I try to avoid the outrage-generation-machine effects of twitter for the sake of my mental health, but this one came over the parapet. I guess the whole nature of twitter really solidifies that kind of adversarial approach into intellectual bunkering. The advantage of longer form conversational approaches in opening debate and dialogue, in place of that "deluge of shit" which twitter delivers, yields better results in addressing nuanced situations, if that's what the intention is. (I don't think that's her intention, though; she seems like she is so deep in her ideological defence of the ~SCIENTIFIC!!!~ position that she doesn't care who she takes in collateral fire.)

She just has this kind of cartoon approach to ~What Trans Women Are Like~ which seems more deeply informed by the Julie Bindels of the world, than ever actually, y'know, talking to any trans women. (And I mean, actually talking, not just engaging in twitter potshots.)

From where I'm sitting (and this is someone who has waded maybe knee-deep into trying to talk with other trans* people) I do sometimes get frustrated with this occasional flare-up of what I call "OMG, the trans* narrative is not ~perfectly centred~ around trans women!!!" - which is a tangential thing to what she seems to be representing (and my complaints more about the sidelining of trans men and erasure of genderqueer/agender people, rather than any inherent problem with trans women) - but what she seems to be complaining about is just this bizarre thing that never actually happens. NO ONE EVER SAID you can't talk about periods or pregnancy or abortion or FGM and the like. What people say is that you can NOT just assign "the reproductive process" to "the female" and define womanhood by the presence or absence of egg cells. That's just dragging us ass-backwards back into everything we've been trying to escape for the past century, out of this paranoia about "what a few imaginary trans women (who exist only in the fevered imagination of a few TERFs) might do to womanhood." Mighty walls of projection. AFAIC, the trans* narrative is the best thing that ever happened to feminism.

I've been suspicious of her for a while, because of her whole "SCIENCE IS THE ONLY MEASURE OF THE ~REALLY REAL~!!!" schtick, and if I feel personally let down, it was because she was one of the first people I ever followed on twitter. It's just this kind of blind science bod insistence that things that are socially constructed somehow aren't 'Real' in the same way that, like, quantum mechanics is 'Real' (ha!) to which I always want to say "Social constructs aren't real? Try living without money for a week."

Mutter mutter. I could say something about this generation of "science spokespeople" and how poor they are compared to Carl Sagan, because Sagan understood the power of myths and symbols and the humanities and how socially constructed meaning is also Real, in a way that these people completely miss. But just... meh. This was probably the wrong thread to complain about this, but really, just... meh.

Ill thought out and ill considered and apologies for how this comes off.

I should not go on ILX when I'm feeling kinda cranky and ill. :-/

(I really wish ILX came with a delete button sometimes.)

No need to apologize! I hadn't been following Milinovich (probably as a result of different media exposure in the US) before this fracas, so I didn't really have expectations of her work that could be deflated, but I agree that we need more people who can popularize scientific inquiry without falling back on crude scientism. I'm not in favor of centering trans* discourse around any one social group, either; I was focusing on her rhetoric about trans women partially for personal reasons, but mostly because they seemed to take the brunt of her hostility in her essays on sex/gender and attendant twitter storm.

Yeah, I totally understand why we were focused on her shitty statements on trans women here, because she specifically went after trans women.

(But in her lumpen attacks, she also tangentially sidelined a whole bunch of other people in the process.)

True enough.

Just popping in to say that redressnyc.com is stocking masculine and butch clothing styles cut to fit plus size curvy people - http://www.redressnyc.com/masculine-butch-styles/. Pretty limited selection so far, but it's a start and seems like it might be of interest to some here.

Maybe it's time we had a dedicated Butch / Dapper / Q / Weimar Lesbian style thread... :D #RelevantToMyInterests

You know what they say about girls who wear ties. They hang out here:

Butch / Dapper / Q / Boi / "Weimar Lesbian" / Style for the discriminating masc-presenting Genderqueer

A substantial interview (video and transcript) with CeCe McDonald, Laverne Cox, and Alisha Williams from the Sylvia Rivera Law Project:
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/19/black_trans_bodies_are_under_attack
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/2/19/cece_mcdonald_laverne_cox_on_facebooks

Thanks for those links!

Will read them when I'm in a better emotional place.

Bruce Weber short on creating a transgender ad campaign:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wp2iilgykA

really good interview with janet mock by brooke magnanti: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10665128/Piers-Morgan-sex-work-and-feminism-transgender-activist-Janet-Mock-unloads.html?placement=CB1

intellectually, I know that piers's show getting canceled probably wasn't related to how terribly he treated janet mock, but I'm happy to pretend it was and feel SUCH satisfaction about it.

Has anyone read Annabel by Kathleen Winter? I just learned about it tonight as part of a Canadian literary event that's going on at the moment, but it sounds like something people here might be interested in. I'm hoping to get the chance to squeeze it in between semesters.

http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/sarah-gadon-defends-annabel-by-kathleen-winter.html

just ordered the book, thanks for the suggestion.

OK, I take it back. Because I have now witnessed a non-binary dude basically throwing a hissy fit because an International Women's Day event featured depictions of vaginas.

And this is one of those moments where big words like "intersectionality" stop being just words and start being this big ugly knot of emotions which are, admittedly, too complicated and thorny for the level of discourse on ILX/the internet. But there's a bundle of sympathies which come from "being a non-binary person" and there's a bundle of sympathies which come from "having a vagina and all the ways in which you are treated as if this *means* something, and all the ways in which other people try to control and police the uses and even the expression of your own vagina" and I just want to turn around to this person and just say "You know what? NO."

But this is not shit that I am ever going to change their mind on. And this is where I need to just follow mine own advice and use the block button, that is what it is there for.

But mostly I just wanted to tell mine own self of a few weeks ago, actually, there is no cartoon so over the top that someone will not be behaving like that somewhere. This applies on all sides.

Having a rough couple days where I've been completely consumed with the idea of being a woman. I feel like w/o my gf to reassure me I would have gone completely nuts last night. :/

Hang in there! I don't have any experience in this area but would it be okay to say, ride the feelings out: it's not your sanity that's straining, it's the lessons we learn too well. So well that unlearning them is a trauma...maybe even...a birthing? This is over-reaching even for me but I feel like you have the sense and self-knowledge to steer yourself through!

<3 to Rev. You are a great person.

I know these feelings can be really scary and vertiginous, but in orbit is right. I hope you can have faith in yourself, and open up to the people you're comfortable talking to. I find dysphoria can be much scarier when it goes unexpressed.

I think about being born and giving birth a lot, for reals and as metaphors for change and renewal, and it strikes me that giving birth to yourself could be...an intensely womanly act? I can't actually unpack that, but I had that stray thought.

Dunno if this will be helpful to you, but it is to me: when I get in those overwhelming "can't cope" moments (days/weeks/etc) my therapist has these ways of stepping back and getting perspective. And she usually asks really deceptively simple questions. One of them is "What do you feel right now?" as in, not the big, tumultuous emotional BLLAARRRGGHH but actually a physical kind of sense check, am I hot, cold, hungry, drunk, lonely where is the physical lump that is me, at? The other, which I think might be more helpful in this case, is when she asks "tell me, what do you need right now?"

That's a much harder question for me, because either I need such intangible or impossible things - "I need to have been born and raised, as a man, and have been treated as one my whole life" is not an achievable goal, and I can't *need* something that's impossible. But I can *need* other things. I can *need* someone external to agree with me "this is real, your emotions are real, your observations are true, your statements about the inside of your head are drawn from the truth of your experience." Sometimes working out what you actually need, at a more base level, can give you something to pull you through that sense of going crazy?

Really feel like the blind leading the blind here, though, and I'm sorry if none of that is helpful, which it admittedly probably isn't.

A discussion of North American trans women's writing, which also touches on the reception of Annabel (mentioned upthread): http://cwila.com/wordpress/trans-womens-lit-an-interview-with-trish-salah-and-casey-plett/

I posted this in the Against Me! thread but worth crossposting here: http://youngist.org/post/77692828622/laura-jane-grace-crucified-trans-woman#.Uwtm0w1Gs_4.twitter

Really feeling this:

http://mediadiversified.org/2014/03/17/first-boi-in-dressing-queer-in-the-corporate-world/

Nice! I felt fortunate that the last time I worked a corporate dress code job, it involved having to lift 50 lb objects over my head, so I basically had to adhere to the male dress code, because forcing employees to do this while wearing heels would result in a lot of workplace injuries and/or sexual discrimination suits.

Some legislative progress in Maryland:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/md-lawmakers-pass-legislation-banning-discrimination-against-transgender-people/2014/03/27/c455b43a-b5e8-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html

yayyy

the trans student i mentioned upthread competed in debate yesterday and did great for her first time and had fun!!!

she has/had a lot of anxiety and she OVERCAME, it was wonderful!

Hi! How is everyone doing? I'm doing great! I've been pushing my gender presentation more and more toward the femme side and now I'm pretty much wearing 90% clothes made for women (except for underwear, I get uncomfortable without the support that boxer-briefs provide) and the reaction I've been getting has been 95% positive. :)

I'm thinking about getting microbraid extensions so I can have long hair, maybe with an undercut on one side? Also I've started shaving my face regularly and I need to learn more about makeup.

Hope you're all well!

That's awesome, Rev! I'm really happy for you. I'm in a weird space, myself, where almost all of the important people in my life know that I intend to transition and some of them are already using my preferred name and pronouns, but I haven't really started presenting in a more femme way, and am not really sure yet where to start. I'm considerably more at peace with myself than when I started posting in this thread, though. I'll join you in wishing everyone well!

mentioned this in the 77 teacher thread, but i asked my trans student if he wanted to be called a different name and he said yes and i am calling him that name now (and sir and him and he) and it feels p special

That's great, m bison! I'm really glad he's had your support, especially if his family isn't accepting.

xxp: Yeah, I've been kind of doing the opposite and openly changing my presentation in front of everyone while only really stopping to explain myself if asked other than a few confidants. On the other hand, I've started to reverting to introducing myself by my more feminine middle name which I was known by as a kid, rather than the more masculine first name I started going by in HS.

This gets a bit confused though, because I decided I'd continue to use my first name at work for simplicity's sake, but then I work for the tiny LGBTQ services component within a larger organization and it's like the other day I was tabling for them at a transgender film festival and I felt forced to use the name on my work materials I was handing out exactly when I would most like to use the other name. :/

(also btw, I bought my first pair of heels today and they're thiiiiiiiis cute)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnaHl--CUAAz9AD.jpg

the rest of my outfit today (which I wore at work and to see my dad, since my sister apparently absconded my mom to the mountains without telling me and I wasn't able to see her on mothers day even tho I went to visit her, heh) although I wore flats, rather than the heels

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnZaW1qCEAEnzD5.jpg

jic you miss it, make sure u peep my <3 earring

Yeah, names are tricky for me right now too; I still mostly introduce myself with my birth name when I don't feel like talking about being trans with people I've just met, which feels like backsliding, but hopefully that will change when I have a better sense of what I want to do with presentation. <3 the <3 earring, and the pattern of your heels seems to go really well with that of your jacket.

you look fly as fuck!

:)

so Justin Bond had some words on Facebook for the LGBT Word Police:

A Missive to My Community: I'm writing this because I want to be very clear on where I come down on the recent controversies around the language issues with regards to our trans-narratives. I've been an advocate for finding new, inclusive, thoughtful and evolved language for those of us in the trans and gender non-conforming communities for some time now. Therefore I feel personally compelled to weigh in on these latest dramas that are really annoying the shit out of me. In my opinion there is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with Heklina changing the name of Trannyshack in an effort to "rebrand" her legendarily inclusive, irreverent celebration of Queer fabulousness. But keep in mind that the reason she has "evolved" is because she's been forced to due to harassment from a group of people who have decided that instead of learning from our queer history of re-appropriating, owning, and disempowering words that ACCURATELY DESCRIBE WHO AND WHAT WE ARE -instead of taking those words that are sometimes used to hurt us by those who WILL HATE US NO MATTER WHAT and making them a part of what makes us wonderful, a small group of vocal "queers" has decided it's better pursue a shame-based agenda. Therefore, it seems, Heklina has decided it's easier to "rebrand" her party to avoid any more grief. That's her decision and I applaud her for doing what she feels she needs to do. It still makes me sad. I also think there was nothing wrong with the whimsical "Female or Shemale" game played on RuPaul's Drag Race -especially because the contestants couldn't even tell the difference. Hello! That's revolutionary!!! Not to mention the amazing talent displayed later in the episode by the transgender artists on the show which has now been pulled from the air. So. In lieu of standing up to the haters who seek to diminish us and our accomplishments and standing UNITED IN PRIDE IN OUR DIVERSITY these thoughtless "word police" instead go on the attack and achieve easy victories by harassing, silencing and shaming members of their own community and the allies who are thoughtful and sensitive enough to the reasons and feelings behind their anger that they are willing to listen and -as usual, blame themselves and make the changes because it's just EASIER to "evolve" back into silent, bullied shame. What they fail to recognize is that by banishing the use of the word TRANNY they will not be getting rid of the transphobia of those who use it in a negative way. What it does do is steal a joyous and hard-won identity from those of us who are and have been perfectly comfortable, if not delighted to BE TRANNIES, but the fact is WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY. In case you didn't know it WE'RE TOUGH! A reality check, if people think you are a tranny it's because you are perceived as one. OWN IT! If they think that's a bad thing then THEY ARE STUPID! If you don't wish to own that word or any other word used to describe you other than "male" or "female" then I hope you are privileged enough to have been born with an appearance that will allow you to disappear into the passing world or that you or your generous, supportive family are able to afford the procedures which will make it possible for you to pass within the gender binary system you are catering your demands to. If you're capable of doing that then GO ON AND DISAPPEAR INTO THE PASSING WORLD! Otherwise quit using your big, privileged -yet ignorant- mouths to make the words used to describe who we are a shameful thing. It is not shameful to be a tranny, a she-male, or any other word used to desctibe a gender variant individual. It's shameful to harass people for being comfortable with who they are and the words they choose to use to describe themselves when you aren't. That is my opinion on this ridicuous subject. As you can tell I'm angered by this trifling bullshit. We should be working on unifying our community and getting ourselves basic protections under the law. If everyone who is expending so much time and energy harassing their sisters about this word would harass their elected officials with the same amount of verve and fervor we'd be on the way to a much more trans-inclusive society. These words were written in love and anger.

Mx Bond

As a brief counterpoint, Red Durkin on sexual assault and the ambiguities of the language debates v is alluding to: https://www.facebook.com/reddurkin/posts/10152428660888599

Do we really have to have the argument about the right to *self*-identify however a person damn well wants, vs the right of people who are called that epithet in anger, objecting to outsiders who are not part of that group throwing that term around?

Because I feel like ILX and indeed the whole internet has really already covered this in depth.

One would hope so, but the debate goes tediously on.

In more consequential news in the US, Medicare's blanket exclusion of coverage for transition-related procedures has been overturned, although the ruling doesn't affect Medicaid or private insurance plans: http://transequality.org/news.html#Medicare2014

xp - some of the people using that term are not outsiders! That is the crux of the complexity of the issue

http://www.lgbtsr.org/2014/05/30/the-truth-about-trans-slurs/

If we are looking at the use of trans* slurs through the lens that says people should be strong enough to stand up for themselves, that this is just a joke and people shouldn’t take it seriously, we are casting aside those people who are not strong enough. We have chosen strength as a measure of worth. Is that not the same exact choice that is made by bullies? Have we not, ourselves, become bullies to the ones who are harmed by the use of words like tranny and shemale?

Do you think in the last year that no gay teenagers took their own lives because they were repeatedly referred to as fags; that no young trans* person ended their life because someone was calling them tranny? Should I consider these tragedies to be unimportant? Is someone’s life less valuable because they are harmed by words that we don’t find personally offensive?