Don’t Ever Say This
“I support trans people one-hundred percent, but [litany of situations where I refuse to support trans people].”
It’s odd how cis people only ever emphasize the “100%” when their support is closer to zero.
How Privilege Actually Works
While I don’t entirely agree with the article, I think it is very important to remember that many (not all) aspects of cisgender privilege and especially heterosexual privilege are limited to men.Personally, I’ll have to say being harassed for being perceived as a trans woman versus being harassed for being perceived as a cis woman is pretty eye-opening…
This is not how privilege works. One axis of oppression does not rule out another axis of privilege. All cis people gain from cis privilege, but cis men gain from male privilege in addition to cis privilege. White cis men gain from white privilege in addition to the rest, straight white cis men gain from straight privilege in addition to the rest, and so on. Straight white cis women gain from straight privilege, white privilege, and cis privilege. There’s no weaseling out of this one.
(Source: anarchistsoup)
I’m pretty sure that DIE CIS SCUM tattoo
…doesn’t literally mean they want to round up and shoot all cis people.
The fact that cis people are so offended just shows their cis supremacist thinking. Obviously if you can’t bear for a moment to let the oppressed have a way to express their anger against their oppressors you’re really the one the tattoo is aimed at. If you can’t imagine why a trans* person would feel so aggressive towards the group whose privilege results in their lives being ignored, invalidated and violently cut short - then you need a fucking wake up call.
- Systematic violence towards trans* people - people barely say a word.
- One lone trans* person gets an aggressive tattoo - oh shit, now’s the time to speak up against hate!
Maybe some trans* people don’t want to assimilate and blend in quietly with this binarist society, maybe they want to be aggressive separatists from all the cis bullshit and make some bigots wet their knickers when they roll up their sleeves. Let them have their badass tattoos.
That is all I’m going to say. I’m not going to join in the main discussion but I am angry so I had to write something.
*offer of safe hugs* I love you in the least creepy way that can be taken.
One thing that really pissed me off abuot that was the word “scum”. That is usually indicating a bad person, it did not say “die cis people” it specified “scum” as in “cis people who are also scum”. So, just fucking like when we complain about things some cis people are doing and they whine “BUT WE ARENT ALL LIKE THAT”- this can very, very easily be taken to only be “targeting” the part of the cis population who are cis supremacist douchebags. But, no. This is against “all cis people”
What the fuck does it say about cis people that they think the word ‘scum’ applies to all of them? How about, instead of reacting like that, you fucking work so that people stop considering you ‘scum’?
I’m pretty sure that if a person got a “Die Tr**ny Scum” tattoo, they’d be getting a lot more back-pats than this trans person who gets a tattoo that uses no slurs and is just fighting back from that very viewpoint.
How many records are there of trans people going out and beating cis people for no reason than “they’re a cis freak”? Vs the number of cis people who have killed, raped, beaten, tortured, and otherwise treated trans people like shit just because we’re trans. (and, of course, other things come into play such as race)
So, really cis people, think about it:
1. We live in a world where people can freely express hate about trans people. This hate adds to a disproportionately high rate of abuse and attack against trans people.
2. We live in a world where cis people are the norm, are regularly reaffirmed and protected, and very, very, very rarely is hate ever shown towards them.
3. No trans person has lived without knowing cis people, but a fucking lot of cis people are completely unaware that anyone around them could be trans. They have had no close personal friends who were trans, never been taught by an openly trans person, wasn’t raised by trans people. I don’t know of any trans people who weren’t raised by at least one cis person, who doesn’t have cis people in their family, who didn’t primarily or exclusively have cis teachers, who haven’t had any cis friends. Certainly none who all of the above is true for. And then they’ve still read books, watched movies, been surrounded by cis culture.
This tattoo does not exist in a bubble. The tattoo exists where those 3 things are true- the tattoo exists in a world where cis people are protected at the expense of trans people and where trans people cannot live life without knowing and loving some cis people at some point in their lives while cis people dont’ necessarily ever really personally know a trans person. If you think that a trans person saying “I hate cis people” is at ALL comparable to a cis person saying “I hate trans people”, you need to fucking get check your goddamn privilege and get a reality check.
Types of cis bigots I am quite tired of (a bit of a rant, this)
[warning for cissexism]
The Fundiegelical: “You may think you’re ‘happy’ by wearing the clothing of the opposite sex, but you’re living in sin and you’re going straight to hell! Jesus loves you.”
The “Enlightened” Liberal: “But gender doesn’t even matter, because deep down, we’re all the same. So why is it such a big deal what I call you?”
The TERF: “By embracing a gender role opposite your assigned sex, you are reifying gender/privilege and thus making it that much harder for us to smash gender. I know that sounds contradictory but, if you’d been a feminist for as long as I have, you’d understand.”
The Proto-TERF: “Of course I don’t have anything against trans people, but abortion/sex work/breast cancer/ovarian cancer/whatever is and has always been a women’s issue! Why do you want to take it away from women?”
The Ungendering Fetishist: “Hey, I don’t have anything against sh*m*les! I think you’re hot! I watch sh*m*le porn all the time.”
The Clueless Oppression-Olympian: “Transness is just a white/abled/Western issue, so why should I care about it?”
The Incrementalist: “Look, people just aren’t ready to accept trans folks yet. So instead of arguing about what pronouns to use for you, we should focus on something we can actually accomplish, like [insert other tenuously-related SJ cause here].”
The Genital-Focused: “I totally respect and support trans people, but I would never date one. Because ewww.”
The Broad-Stroke Painter: “I once met a trans person who was selfish/mean/creepy/bad in general, so you’re all like that and I won’t respect any of you.”
The Inveterate Essentialist: “But… you can’t be a woman, because you have a PENIS! And chromosomes! And… a PENIS!”
The What-About-Teh-Cis Whiner: “I know my refusal to call you ‘she’ hurts you, but you have to understand that your demand to call you ‘she’ hurts me, too. What about my feelings?”
The Pig-Headed “Skeptic”: “Do you have actual evidence that you’re really a woman? No, of course you don’t, because it’s impossible by definition. No, shut up; I’m right and you’re wrong, PERIOD.”
The “Free Speech” Whiner: “Don’t you think that, in the spirit of free and open discussion, you should listen to my side of things instead of just dismissing it out of hand as ‘bigotry’?”
The Devil’s Advocate: “I’m not saying prejudice is right, but, to be fair, it is a little weird for someone to present as a woman and yet have a penis.”
The Self-Proclaimed “Ally”: “How dare you say I’ve been cissexist? Don’t you know how very supportive I’ve been of you and your causes? Why aren’t you grateful?”
The “Edgy” Comedian: “Look, it was a joke. I’m sorry you’re too unsophisticated to understand why it’s funny; I guess I’m just too edgy for you. Maybe one day, when you grow up a little, you’ll stop trying to censor humor.”
(Hint to cis people: don’t do any of these things.)
For the love of god, this.
NSFW: Red Hot Summer
Red Hot Summer ≡ Photographer Brigham Field
Free Sample Gallery: Here
Smut under the cut.
Re: Normative Gender is a Social Club
When you’ve grown up not being able to take anything about gender for granted, having to consciously process it and negotiate it, it’s really difficult to understand how people could be so completely oblivious to this. I’m a college student and aside from the queer space in the union, I’m surrounded all the time by cis heteronormative kids. It’s alienating as hell. It’s like being in a foreign country, almost. Gender normativity hurts everyone, but the task of actually convincing these people they’d be better off without it feels impossible.
In complete agreement.
