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

Happy Under No Circumstances Look At Any Comment Threads On Social Media Month!

^^^truer words were never spoken.

pic.twitter.com/M9YnIZxyUI

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) June 1, 2023

also would be REAL NICE if the judge who promised a quick ruling on whether to impose an emergency injunction on some of the recent anti-trans laws passed in FL (in Doe v Ladapo) would fucking rule soon.

Clinton-appointed judge.

This isn't politics, exactly, but a nice essay a good friend of mine wrote about parenting her trans daughter: https://www.hellogloria.com/essays/parenting-trans-teenagers

that's really cool! stories like these are a lot of what keeps me going in these times. thanks for sharing.

The DeSantis of the East... this one is not just about minors, but adults as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/24/vladimir-putin-signs-law-banning-gender-changes-in-russia

xxp that's so lovely :)

I gotta say, it's so nice to see some more positive trans stories on this thread, which is of course mainly full of negative shit about being trans. now of course i do realise that being trans can be very hard indeed but i just want to point out that it can also be absolutely fucking marvellous. since i started my transition i've been happier than i ever have in my life.

I just wanted to point this out because so much of the media coverage of trans issues is so fucking grim - when we're not being attacked the focus is on how awful it is being trans - off the top of my head i can't think of a single piece in the national uk media about trans joy, dunno what it's like in other countries. and again i do realise that there are a lot of ways that life is hard for trans people in a way that it just isn't for cis people, but also being trans is really awesome too :) and i just wanted to point this out because i suspect that a lot of cis people who don't know many trans people don't really get to hear that side of things

right, like, to anyone who reads enough of my posts it's pretty obvious that i'm having a rough time of it right now, and being trans is part of it, but not in the way people think. pre-transition my entire life was kind of centered around me hating myself and thinking of myself as disgusting and worthless, and that kind of thing just doesn't _work_ anymore. i'm being put in this position where i kind of have to learn to like and respect myself and i'm extremely pissy about that.

i do talk a lot about the trans genocide and it is, in fact, very bad and people need to take it seriously and out of all the trans people in the world i'm one of the ones who is probably _least_ at risk from it. the most serious problems i have are a lot more personal and specific than genocide, and none of them are caused by my being trans. well, except for how fucking hard it is for me to get cypionate. i mean i'm sure valerate is fine, but i'm doing _great_ on cypionate and it pisses me off that nobody's fucking making it.

So the Miss Italia beauty pageant has banned trans competitors, stating that entrants must be "female from birth"...and in protest, a bunch of transmen have enrolled to compete.

Trovo geniale che le persone #trans FtM si stiano iscrivendo a #MissItalia avendo come sesso assegnato alla nascita quello femminile. È un vero e proprio atto politico di protesta e visibilità, non scontato o dovuto, che centra il punto rispetto alle affermazioni di #Mirigliani.

— Gianmarco Capogna 🏳️‍🌈 (@gmarcoc) July 22, 2023

Translation: "I find it brilliant that people #trans FtM are enrolling in #MissItalia having female as their sex assigned at birth. It is a real political act of protest and visibility, not taken for granted or due, which hits the mark with respect to the statements of #Mirigliani."

Just popping in to note that the online edition of the Daily Telegraph has Graham Linehan performing stand up outside the Scottish Parliament as the main story in the News Section... and in the Scotland section... and in the Arts section... and in the Culture Wars section (yes, they have a Culture Wars section)... the exact same story with the exact same photograph.

A new-ish acquaintance– I am organizing a reading for her— just had this published. CW: SI, conversion therapy.

https://www.thecut.com/article/what-i-learned-in-conversion-therapy.html

Thanks for sharing table. Indianapolis is... not a great place to be trans. I'm glad your acquaintance made it through.

on consideration, "i'm sorry i told you your queer child is going to hell, my wife has cancer" is the single most hoosier statement i have ever heard in my life. the only way it could be more hoosier is if it was immediately followed up with "so, you going to the pitch-in next week?"

Great, if not surprising, insight into the "conversion therapy" experience. The article felt like it ended too abruptly.

Is there a particular reason that "trans folk" is so often used, as opposed to "trans people"? I can see how "folks" is clearly preferable to, say, "ladies and gentlemen" as a term of plural address, but I've never understood if there was a political or other reason for "trans folk" being so prevalent.

tbc, I have no objection to the term*, I'm just curious if I'm missing something!

*well, I do sometimes think the non-use of "people" feels a little othering, but afaict this wasn't imposed on trans people from the outside (I could very well be wrong about that)

no clue, i didn't know it was used that often. i say it myself but i'm scottish so tend to say folk instead of people :)

I guess "persons" has more focus on the individuality, and "people" more on group / majority, and "folks" has a casual vague all-encompassing "whatever you are" about it that makes it trendy in all contexts right now.

also transes sounds like shit

and people has that annoying extra syllable

it's just the somewhat corny language of online queer communities, not sure there's a whole lot more to it than that

lotta folks and yall out there and as a tennessean it makes me feel at home except when they get deployed passive aggressively like "some of yall really don't get (x)" idk i'm kind of like, it's a term of endearment don't fuck it up

Thanks for the responses! I also advocate for wider adoption of “y’all”

"Y'all" is easy. Try advocating for the broader adoption of "youse."

been using "y'all" for a few years, only got a snarky joke from my boss about going southern.

lotta folks and yall out there and as a tennessean it makes me feel at home except when they get deployed passive aggressively like "some of yall really don't get (x)" idk i'm kind of like, it's a term of endearment don't fuck it up

― Tracer Hand

can "all yall" be used to refer to "some of yall"?

i kept y'all after leaving kentucky in '03, i just think it's a good word, i'm delighted to see it gain more popular currency.

Take it one step further and go with "yinz".

West of Scotland has "youse".

... often rendered as "yiz/yeez".

Yiz as a plural pronoun is found most notably in the Philadelphia area and Delaware Valley (including Southern New Jersey), especially among working-class communities.

“yiz/“yous” also work in Ireland (with some regional variation as to what the vowel is). “Folks” is recommended as an inclusive alternative to “guys” in my (large, American) company.

been using "y'all" for a few years, only got a snarky joke from my boss about going southern.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 August 2023 14:20 (three hours ago) link

how much further south can you go though!

la gente

I've lived in Tennessee long enough that I use y'all unselfconsciously in certain settings. Not any time it would seem fake-folksy tho. I also use "folks" a fair amount, I think it's warmer and friendlier than "people."

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about addressing a group as either "people" or "folks" (or y'all, yinz, youse, or, the most inclusive of them all, tout le monde for that matter).

The usages that made me wonder about this were things like: "The organizers changed their recruitment plan and now the conference is much more diverse. This year there were way more people of color, disabled people, trans folk..."; in that kind of context it struck me as possibly deliberate, but I couldn't guess why, and now that I was overthinking it, I started to wonder if it was not-good. But as ufo said, it does seem like a turn of phrase that arose organically and has stuck without necessarily having any larger import.

for a while i think "folx" got used a lot in queer spaces, i think it's just language being language tbh

So I saw a meme excerpting a FOIA act document about Leslie Feinberg, and it kind of confused me. It said "As of April, 1974, FEINBERG had apparently shaved off her beard and was beginning to dress in a more feminine manner and to assume the appearance of a girl." The meme was about the FBI in 1974 respecting a trans person's pronouns, but I'm reading it going like "Wait, Leslie Feinberg was _MTF_?" I had to look it up to confirm. Applying categories like "MTF" or "FTM" Feinberg is, I think, missing an essential point about hir life and experience, but zie was not, in fact, AMAB.

Transphobes: I CAN ALWAYS TELL! FBI in 1974: Apparently have no idea what Leslie Feinberg's AGAB was. Although to be fair, this is the same FBI that spent three years trying to find offensive language in "Louie Louie" and completely failed to notice that the drummer yells "Fuck!" at one point during the song.

Here's a piece about it from Dr. Amanda Weimer at the National Archives:

https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2023/06/20/leslie-feinberg-the-fbi-and-gender-pronouns/

youtube just showed me a trailer for "G3nd3r Tr4nsf0rm4tion: The Unt0ld R34lities" ...WTF???

The MSN homepage on my new laptop kept showing me transphobic content aggregated from various sites. Titles like "school board member shuts down trans "woman" who was protesting recent decision" or some similar shit.

whatever the documentary about I guarantee that "untold" is false advertising

xxp I'm just seeing this but it's really telling and I think every trans man online today has frequently had the queasily validating experience of being told by terrible people that they will always be men. it reminds me of people spreading rumours about Wendy Carlos being (in cis logic) "secretly a woman pretending to be a man" which was more right than they knew

if there's an option not to see headlines I'll take it but some apps/sites/devices don't give you that

it's hard to say anything new about the media at this point

The documentary is anti-trans specifically talking about the indoctrination of kids, it's got a really long trailer. I was very surprised to see it (unrelated to themes in an innocent comedy video it followed when in incognito mode)

always best to browse youtube with an adblocker on, that way you never see any trailers or shit

well yeah, I was more surprised to learn about the existence of the thing overall vs. being upset about the ad. Mentioned the context of the encounter cause it implies it's being advertised same as any netflix doc or movie trailer?

yeah I have no idea how youtube decides what ads to show and what not, but the few times I've had to use it without a blocker I've been horrified at some of the shit I've seen. It's clearly not based on any affinity scores I've built up for certain kinds of content. LIke nothing about any profile that's been created by any data mining companies would lead anyone to believe I'd be a prime candidate for right-wing nonsense and yet I will see it if I don't block it.

well yeah, I was more surprised to learn about the existence of the thing overall vs. being upset about the ad. Mentioned the context of the encounter cause it implies it's being advertised same as any netflix doc or movie trailer?

― Evan

i've talked about this in the past, but yes, my experience has led me to conclude that youtube _does_ systemically promote transphobia. transphobic media, such as matt walsh, is what comes up when you search for trans content, and content supporting trans rights doesn't. this has been going on for years and years now. and what can any of us actually do about it? i watch shit on youtube. it's the hegemon. i have all kinds of add-ons installed to that it doesn't recommend me videos at all. this minimizes the personal harm browsing youtube causes me, but it does nothing to address the systemic issue, which is that youtube is one of the major media outlets spreading anti-trans bigotry. they _could_ keep this from happening, but they aren't. instead, they profit from transphobia.

just in case any of y'all are wondering why i'm anti-capitalist.

the few times I've had to use it without a blocker I've been horrified at some of the shit I've seen

I keep youtube history turned off so my browsing doesn't affect what gets listed and there is always shit like "jordan peterson destroys a feminist" or whatever showing there.

Yup - watch any feminist content and you'll be served ebdless clips of dudes DESTROYING feminism, doubt it works the other way around.

I know someone who works at YouTube, I should ask her what the thinking is internally there, because I imagine there are people who are exasperated with how this algorithm works (or doesn't work).

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/25/eternal-90s-stars-cancel-full-band-reunion-over-reported-trans-rights-clash