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So y'all I was thinking, right. And it seems to me like a lot of you (like all of you) avoid some of my more ranty posts. And I figure it's like, you don't agree with me but I sound like I might hunt you down and bite your face for disagreeing with me? And I won't do that. I mean, I do like debate, I really don't mind people disagreeing with me, as long as you're respectful and not patronizing about it.

(I assume none of you are going to express an opinion like that I should be checking myself into a mental health hospital for being trans or else you would not be reading my journal and getting trans cooties on your eyeballs and digital feelers? But yeah that isn't an opinion it's bigotry)

So yeah. I won't rip you apart for disagreeing, promise. Like

anobjectinspace disagrees with me sometimes and you know OBVIOUSLY HE IS WRONG AND WILL AGREE EVENTUALLY e u e but he's still alive, for the most part.

Also, I feel like I should follow this post up with a bit because it seems in retrospect like it might not have been entirely comprehensible to cis readers, because like...there's some things that I've realized almost all cis people just do not know or have any way really of knowing, and this in particular is one of the things, pertaining to that entry:

There is absolutely no way to know how dangerous a cis person might be to a trans person in a situation until they're in that situation.

It isn't this like, easy thing where if a person is generally an asshole, you know to stay away from them, and if they're generally nice, you can be assured they are to trans people as well. You can't even really guess based on other prejudices. Yeah, a homophobic person might also be transphobic, but they also might not actually be at all; and somebody with no other apparent prejudices or bigotry might be downright violent if they find out somebody they 'trusted' is trans.

I don't know exactly why this is. I just know how it effects me; basically, I can't know if someone will hurt me until they do it. And I thought at one time that after several years of friendship I would have a good handle on how a cis friend stands wrt trans stuff, but, like many, many trans people I know, I got slapped in the face with that assumption; not once, but twice, with people I thought I knew very well and who I never thought in a million years would think it's okay to start telling me how the trans community needs to adopt certain semantics to endear themselves to the cis population, or that trans people are by nature less attractive.

Being a self-proclaimed ally doesn't mark a cis person as 'safe', either. Hell, the victim-blaming, transphobic assholes I got into it with in

sf_drama - most of them called themselves 'allies'. Even cis people who really are trying to be good allies aren't necessarily educated on the issues; so many of them are operating on their assumptions, and something one trans person they know told them once, and despite their good intentions they come out with terrible shit sometimes.

(I also think I should take a moment here to point out - I'm aware I'm very privileged, as far as trans people go; I was very fortunate that my parents support me at all - and didn't kick me out! - and I'm a trans man, making me much less likely to be actually physically assaulted; and I live in an area where that would be somewhat more unlikely, on the whole. For the most part, what I'm referring to here is emotional or social injury)

So yeah. It's not that I assume all cis people are dangerous to me. It's that I just can't tell who's safe and who's not; it's not as easy as so many cis people seem to assume.

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Cisgendered people aren't the only dangers to transcended people, though. Transcended people can be just as damaging to other transcended people and failing to acknowledge that isn't doing either group any good. People aren't dangerous because they're Cisgendered, they're dangerous because they're Assholes. Why does my phone randomly capitalize?

Also, I totally feel you on people avoiding real posts. I HAVE MOAR THOUGHTS ON YOUR POST, but I'm at work and on my phone. So. TO BE CONTINUED.

Ahaha I'm assuming 'transcended' was auto-correct from the phone? xD

And yeah that is true, but generally trans people are more willing to learn what they're doing wrong IME.

And TBH I've found cis people who are otherwise very nice people can be very dangerous to trans people. Although - living in America - I sometimes define 'dangerous' as just 'voting Republican' since conservatives in a lot of places are doing their best to take rights away from minorities lately. But anyways ignorance is a big part of the problem IME, so a very nice person can end up unintentionally hurting trans people (by outing them, unintentionally supporting people who attack trans people politically or legally, etc.) just because they know very little about the situation. And it is true that a trans person can do these things as well, but overall they're likely to be more knowledgeable about the situation, just because it directly affects their lives.

I do not always read my whole f-list, nor do I always comment.

I try to be a good ally. I read

transgender, I follow your LJ and several other journals of trans folks. I was the third person my friend Cara came out to, and I'm trying to help her with her transition, though a lot of the time I give her blank looks and remind her that a tomboy is a bad person to ask for things like makeup help!

And I occasionally screw up, calling friends by previous names or putting my foot in my mouth. I always apologize, though occasionally they have to point out what I did wrong. It's reprogramming on many levels, and it's not easy.

I do not always read my whole f-list, nor do I always comment.

Yeah, I figured that's the case with some people; I tend to be kind of arbitrary with what I comment on or not, depending on my time, mood, etc. But I have noticed that certain posts get no comments, which now is kind of unusual for my journal; or only comments from trans people/fellow extreme activists, which seemed kind of telling to me. I certainly don't expect everybody to comment all the time though :P I have trouble seeing myself as intimidating, but being incredibly shy myself I figure at least some people might see me that way.

It's reprogramming on many levels, and it's not easy.

Yeah, I know it's not easy. I don't expect anybody to be superally naturally; nor do I blame cis people for, on the whole, not knowing much about us, since we're a very low-visibility minority group ATM. And I'm aware how hard it is to find good information without really knowing how to judge whether the site you found through google is reliable, or if it was written by one of those less savory 'SOFFA' groups. That's why I spend a lot of time sticking my neck out to try and educate people, both IRL and online.

I just wholly suck at checking in on my lj account. I rarely post on my own journal, and when I do, it's just random rants that aren't really politically safe for facebook. And I'm even worse at commenting on other people's journal. It's not that I'm not reading, it's more that I'm reading entire weeks of f-list stuff at a time and it tends to make me feel like a jerk if I'm commenting on a post from two to three weeks prior to me reading it.

I'll also sadly admit that because of my work/child/normal life crap, I'm way out of the social activism loop. I guess you could say I'm one of those aging activist types who silently supports from the sidelines. Basically, I try to comment when I've got something relevant to add, but most of the time, someone's already hit my points way before I get a chance to comment.

But I'm still here! I'm still reading. And besides, isn't the beauty of blogging and journaling mostly as an outlet for you?

I don't think I've been here long enough to hear/read a rant. I showed up to be creeped out by fae. ngl, I knew you're a guy, but cis or trans hadn't really been mulled over because a haunted tree tried to eat you.

I just had you mentally noted as "dude who fae chase and evil trees eat"

LOL yeah I guess that's something to take into account, most people I think found me through

ontdcreepy so you're probably not the only one just here for the faeries :P which makes me wish I had more to post, but nothing interesting has been happening lately. Not really surprising since it's winter.

It's WTF o'Clock and I've had nini drugs and pain meds for a sore wisdom tooth but the thought occurred: maybe the fae are fascinated by you because you're not cis?

Dude eating tree though, SO MUCH DNW

IDK; it might be possible. I've heard before that supposedly us trans people are supposed to be more 'spiritual' and have stronger energies and so on but it's all very vague and, I think, based on certain cultures (ex. Native American) where that's a cultural/religious belief. But honestly...I don't know if they're actually any more interested in me than anybody else; it seems to be more a matter of me being able to see them. I definitely know some people they're more interested in than they are in me.

And yes, that tree was very much DNW D: D: D: oh, I suppose I do have a post after all, since I have an update on that...I'LL GO DO THAT.

Well, it's true that sometimes I don't post because I disagree with you. But I'm not exactly a prolific poster anyway, so it's really nothing personal :P

As for the transgender/cis thing, I can totally see where you're coming from in regards to having added dangers in confiding things to people who may not see things from your viewpoint. But I also think that any minorities who intentionally ghettoize themselves by only sticking to people 'of their own type' aren't doing themselves any favours either. They tend to become extremists because they all agree with each other, they all bolster each others' angsts and opinions, and other points of view tend to get dismissed out of hand or, worse, never heard in the first place.

Personally, I consider myself depressingly normal. I have a single partner, I'm straight, I have no real gender issues or phobias, I don't have any disabling neuroses or personality disorders and, apart from being child free, I can pretty much get by in the 'normal' world. It doesn't make me of the opinion that being different is the same as being evil or dangerous. And yeah, I'm aware that, in some peoples' opinion, that puts me in one of the smallest minorities of all :P But still, it feels a little insulting to be clumped in with all people of the label 'cis', since, in my experience, no one group of people is all the same. Or even remotely similar.

I've known a lot of 'freaky' people throughout my life (their word, not mine, before anyone jumps on the bandwagon about it), and from what I've seen, the ones who get on best are those that strike a balance between A) announcing what/who they are to the entire world and B) being ashamed and silent about what/who they are. My most successful 'freak' friend had a way about him of announcing the truth calmly and without apology to those that needed to know. Somehow, it became their problem if they didn't understand, not his. I've never quite got the hang of that calmness-in-the-face-of-the-storm attitude of his, but I admired it a lot at the time. And it seemed to work. Then again, he was a very clever guy, he developed a lot of coping strategies to get him through life. Which, I think, if you're different, you need to do. Having said that, I think everybody's different in some way or another. Some people just hide it better than others, that's all.

Have I said what I want to say? I dunno really, I lost track a couple of paragraphs ago. But at least it's a reply, right? :P

They tend to become extremists because they all agree with each other

IME it's actually the other way around, extremists are more likely to seclude themselves. But that is admittedly limited experience :P but I'm already as much of an extremist as I can be, I think (taking into account my morals). I agree though that it's easy to surround oneself with yes-men and say it's just a matter of protecting oneself, so it's something I'm very careful about, and it's part of the reason I get involved so much as an ally for groups I'm not a part of, to help myself keep perspective.

But TBH I think it's really my extremism that come out of my learned trust issues, personally. I really don't know if that might be the case for other people, because the fact is that I associate with very few extremists. But those that I do know come from a similar social past that I do, i.e. having been very badly bullied for a very long time, with no support. Which is definitely something to think about (I'm discussing it with someone right now actually) but I don't think particularly means anything either way; it could mean that I'm still repeating patterns I learned in a different social context, or it could just mean that I've incorporated what I learned there about people's natures into my view of the world today.

But still, it feels a little insulting to be clumped in with all people of the label 'cis', since, in my experience, no one group of people is all the same. Or even remotely similar.

Is anybody doing that though? I'm fairly certain I didn't say anything to that effect, nor have heard any sentiment like that from any except violent extremists...it's very confusing to me because you're certainly not the first person I've heard express this sentiment. It seems like a lot of the time, if a minority says anything about feeling safe with regards to being around people with power over them, at least one person reads it as them all being tarred with the same brush; I also see it really frequently in feminist discussions of the 'potential rapist' concept. And it seems to happen regardless of how carefully things are worded. So I'm at a loss.

My most successful 'freak' friend had a way about him of announcing the truth calmly and without apology to those that needed to know.

How are we measuring 'success' here? I'm assuming something along the lines of confidence, apparent quality of life, and so on...but I'm also wondering if your other friends would actually agree with your evaluation of their success vis a vis his. After all, not everybody has the same goals in life...it seems impossible, to me, to try to compare how successful people have been at...hmm...living as a freak? I guess part of the problem is I'm not sure what exactly it is that he's supposed to be being successful at :P

But regardless...it's not always so cut-and-dry, as I'm sure you know. Trust me, we are all aware of that balance; finding it is one of the struggles of being trans, along with many other minorities, and it's a different place for everyone...and TBH in the case of trans people, that place will ALWAYS make SOMEONE uncomfortable. You just have to look at the 'rules' some cis people make up about how trans people should conduct themselves on dates - they all conflict. No matter whether you're always out about who you are, or choose to wait until after one date or two dates or until you get intimate - some cis person will be very uncomfortable with your choice. So - this is why I think, personally, an individual's choice as to how to address their own differences should probably be only their own business, inasmuchas it's not hurting anybody else; you can't make everyone happy, and some people's goals aren't to make anyone besides themselves happy, which personally I think is fine too as long as they don't expect to make friends easily, which I'm sure they're aware they won't.

I'm not sure all of that was actually coherent :P you've got me thinking about a lot, it's usually not a good idea for me to try and type and think at the same time.

There seems to be a small but vocal trans community that wants to turn "cis" into an insult, and of course cis people are going to sense that and dislike it. However, most of us use it as a simple descriptive term meaning "not trans." It's not a generalization about an individual. It's no different than being called white or straight (if you are those things).

There seems to be a small but vocal trans community that wants to turn "cis" into an insult,

Really? TBH I've up to this point only heard of this concept of cis as an insult from cis 'allies', so I was assuming it was just coming from discomfort of being given a label they didn't really understand. But I guess it does make sense that there would be anti-cis radical extremists out there somewhere. I tend to avoid the more hate-filled pockets of the community, so I often have no idea wtf they're saying.

But yeah, in general it's just a descriptor.

I was mainly thinking of one trans woman and her supporters on Twitter. She loved to talk about "the cisgays" who oppressed her (in retrospect, she was one of the most homophobic people I've ever encountered) and always managed to make "cis" sound like a slur. Unfortunately, there are others out there, and it's too bad ... but my sympathy for cisgender people's butthurt abut it is limited. ;-)

Ahh yeah. I wouldn't be too surprised to hear stuff like that coming out of the more homophobic trans groups. They like to spread the hate around.

but my sympathy for cisgender people's butthurt abut it is limited. ;-)

Ahahaha yeah xD

I think the note about never knowing when a cis person may be threatening to a trans person is an important one. Not to make false equivalencies or declare "oh this is exactly this same situation" because I recognize that they aren't, but it's similar to the idea of a woman being cautious around men, or other marginalized groups being cautious around members of the dominant group.

And I'd say that an important part of being an ally (though I'm speaking AS an ally, so I'm not the expert) is realizing that the mistrust isn't about us. It's not about "omg how dare you not trust me! You're so mean! You think I'm an awful person!" It's about something that's a very real threat to you that as a cis person I don't have to deal with.

I strive to be a good ally, and I appreciate the queer and feminist allies that I have in my life. But I think a lot of people get too self-involved with it, and forget that being an ally is about the people you're being an ally to... not yourself as an ally.

Idk, that seems like it maybe got off of your original point somewhat. But I haven't been around your journal long enough to encounter many of your rants, so it's not that I've been avoiding them. :P

Yeah, I definitely agree that there's similar thoughts in other marginalized groups. It's especially visible in feminism, because women are caught socially between being told that if they trust men, they deserve to be victimized; but if they're not nice enough to strange men, they're being cold, mean, jaded, etc. and there's just this expectation that a marginalized person should be able to know, just by looking at someone else, whether or not they're a threat.

And I can understand...feeling a bit dismayed, to realize people suddenly see you as a threat, when you're not the kind of person who would do that to someone; after all, I am FtM, and suddenly I am a threat to a lot of women. But understanding it myself makes it easy for me to confront and deal with; and as you say, allies have to remember it's about those they want to help. So even when it does make me feel uncomfortable, sometimes, to realize I'm being seen as potentially dangerous - that's nowhere near as uncomfortable as the woman who's being cautious of me probably feels - and it's my responsibility to put her at ease, whatever that might mean in that situation; nobody owes me their trust.

And there's no problem with going off-point, tangents can be illuminating :P

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