Need some proof before you click? Check out an excerpt:
If you hate, dislike, or mistrust trans women, you’re misogynistic. Trans women are included in the big ol’ group known as women. Want proof? Well look at their name, silly. We call ‘em trans women, not trans chia pets, not trans beach towels, not trans schmeggeggies. Remember high school algebra? Oh hush, yes you do. Let me remind you of this lovely little mathematical rule:
If a=b and b=c, then a=c
If trans women= women and hating, disliking, or mistrusting women= misogyny then…then what? Solve for c.
Ok technically that would be trans women= misogyny but you know perfectly well what I mean and I hate that you even questioned my math.
But I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “But Gus, I think trans women=/= women so therefore it’s totally not misogynistic to hate, dislike, or mistrust trans women.” And I understand that. Really, I do. But here’s the thing. Now listen carefully, my little chickadee, cuz I’m about to blow your mind.
You’re wrong.
Not only are you wrong, but even thinking that silly, silly, thing is unbelievably, incredibly, fantastically MISOGYNISTIC. And it offends me as a woman. Yes, yes it does. And here’s why.
This image comes from an awesome blog (click the picture to check it out) created by someone who posts inspirational post-it notes all over Singapore!
This particular note is one of my favorites because it reminds me of one of the major things we teach people when talking about green dots. Basically: no matter how small your action, it is so much better than having done nothing because, together, those small actions add up to change a culture!
To employ a sort-of metaphor, college is a great illustration of this. When I started at my school I felt as if I was going to be working towards my Undergrad degree forever because 128 credits just seemed like so many; each semester’s work seemed impossibly small in the face of 128 credits. Now that I have about nine classes left to go those same semester-long steps still seem small (and sometimes I wish they were bigger so I didn’t have to graduate so soon!) but I can see how much power there is in stacking up one class at a time… together they make up that “impossibly” big 128. The irony of all this is that getting a graduate degree (which I hope to do one day) still seems impossibly big.
All of those impossibly big tasks: a huge paper, saving for a home, changing a culture… they may seem intimidating but really, they’re not because at the heart of all of those huge tasks are many, many tiny tasks. A few paragraphs or sentences at a time will get you a paper, a few dollars in the bank on a regular basis will eventually add up, a few mindful actions from a dedicated group of individuals can make major steps towards changing a culture… you get the picture.
Its a powerful thing to remind yourself of from time to time, in any context. I know I personally often feel discouraged and as if I am not doing enough, especially in the face of horrific tragedies like what is currently happening in Japan. Remembering that the supplies and money that you and I donate are going to come together to make up a much larger relief effort that actually will help other people to rebuild their lives makes me feel that much more powerful than I did before. (Though I still wish I was capable of doing more than just donate money.)
So please, never hesitate to help out because you “can’t do enough” and never talk yourself out of a dream because it is simply “too big.” Just keep reminding yourself: small & persistent is the stuff that changes the world.
I find this video pretty funny & I was excited to post it up here to keep the Planned Parenthood conversation going… but then, it made me sad.
“You can tell [I am a woman] because of the whole vagina-having thing.”
Except… not all women have vaginas, and not all vagina-having people are women because sex (your anatomy) and gender (your identity ie. “woman”) are two totally different things!
This line is problematic, because it conflates sex and gender and ignores the existence of the trans community. Yet, at the same time, I still think this is a fairly effective video… and I have no idea how I’d want them to rewrite that line (“You can tell by the whole… shit, there is no universal marker of a woman now is there?“)
So what the heck am I even trying to say here?
I guess, what I am trying to say, is that being inclusive of all people is important.
I want to take a moment to make it clear that I am not saying that this video or the people who made it are somehow wrong or bad. How could I be saying that when if you comb through this very blog long enough I guarentee you would find posts that engage in erasure because there was a time where I honestly wasn’t aware that making statements like “all women have vaginas” left many trans women out of the picture.
Its somewhat ironic that this post was sparked by a video in support of Planned Parenthood, because Planned Parenthood as an organization has a reputation for being inclusive (as far as I’ve been informed)!
No one is perfect, but I think that the important take away, for me and for you, is that we should be trying to minimize if not totally do away with the amount of erasure that we engage in.
That’s not always easy though. I have several blog posts that honestly may never see the light of day because the writing in them has gotten so clunky and weighed down with qualifying statements intended to make sure I am not leaving anyone out (or including anyone in a statement that doesn’t really apply to them.) It’s not always pretty and its not always eloquent but at this point in my blogging career I’d rather sit on a fully written article until the right words fall into place than publish something that has the potential to make someone feel unwelcome here.
Inclusion isn’t always natural and easy and eloquent because society has not trained us from birth to be aware of the existence of people who fall outside the gender binary. We haven’t been given a language or a frame of understanding for many things… which is why we have to seek them out from the communities in question, and start using the words that they claim.
It isn’t always easy, but it is important to be mindfully inclusive because this is honestly the only way we can change the tides and make it so that future generations are just naturally inclusive. This means a lot of things: it means not leaving trans women/men out when you are talking about all women/men but it also means not including trans people when you are only talking about issues as they effect cis people. (For instance: when talking about DADT I would not call it a victory for the LGBT community so much as the LGB community… because trans people still aren’t protected, so it would be inaccurate for me to claim this as a victory for that group.)
Part of being an ally is making a conscious decision to learn about the issues of the community that you are trying to advocate on behalf of. This takes a conscious effort, as society will continue to affirm various isms thus ensuring that those of us that have undeserved privilege seldom consider the true cost of the social hierarchy that we have naturalized.
Being an Ally to the Trans Community 101
To help that mindful inclusion along I’ve done my best job to compile some of the most common trans* related foot-in-mouth situations here as sort of an etiquette guide for the uninformed. A small disclaimer: I am a cisgender woman (meaning my gender identity is congruent with what society would expect, based on my sex.) I am coming at this as an ally to the trans community; a person who has trans friends and acquaintances, but (obviously) no experience living as a trans person. This means I am not immune to fucking up and if I have done so I would ask my more knowledgeable readers to please drop a comment or an e-mail correcting me so I can amend the post. That said, I see this as one small way that I can help as an ally… by educating other allies to the movement, and making a small dent in the frustrating erasure and ignorance that trans* people have to deal with. So, here we go!
Through the magic of Netflix for the Nintendo Wii T and I rediscovered the joy of the Rugrats today… and in the handful of episodes we choose at random, we overturned a surprising amount of formerly-missed feminist messages. On one hand, I am not surprised (watching old kid-stuff as an adult almost always reveals subtle points that once went over my head); on the other hand I am honestly amazed at just how feminist this show was. Take two of the episodes we watched:
In the Clan of the Duck episode Phil and Chuckie decide that it is not fair that only girls can wear dresses (especially since Phil’s mom gets to wear pants!) So Phil and Chuckie thrown on Lil’s skirts, have a blast, and then pass out… only to awaken at the International Food Festival taking place at the park where they are mistaken as girls by a couple of toddlers, offered candy, and then chased when their true sex is revealed (by the fact that Chuckie has on blue underwear.) Not only does this question the idea of a gender binary, it also teaches tolerance for people who break that binary since the angry boys who chase after Phil and Chuckie are eventually defeated by a group of Scottish babies who are all wearing kilts (skirts)! As a child I found this episode amusing but, beyond that I can also remember feeling very angry for Chuckie and Phil and Tommy over the fact that they were not allowed to wear skirts. I’m not saying that this show made me a feminist or anything… but I do believe it planted some serious seeds.
(Not to mention this episode also contains a one-liner from Lil’s mom that made me crack up as an adult: when asked what she and Lil were doing at their Mommy & Me ‘Female Empowerment’ class that day she responded with, “jumping, tumbling, and a ‘Lets take the Senate’ Sing-Along!”)
Even more impressive in my opinion is Angelica’s Last Stand where Susie helps the babies to revolt against Angelica’s tyrannical rule as the lemonade “boss.” My mind was just blown when Susie told the babies that they had to choose a leader to go speak with Angelica, and then refused to allow them to elect her because she said, “it has to be one of you.” This is a concept that goes beyond feminism-101 (obviously, since plenty of of activists don’t get it) but its something that has made innate sense to me since I started calling myself an activist… the revolution has to come from the group of people in questions. Allies can play an important role (like Susie did, when she helped the babies to organize a protest) but the true power of any revolution comes from voices that were once silenced being free to speak out. I can’t help but wonder if the seeds for this understanding came from moments like this, slipped discreetly into my childhood television.
This post over at Transgression is simply amazing.
