listen up

[potato_head]

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.

Comments

[pwalkeri.livejournal.com]

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.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

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.

[content-chaos.livejournal.com]

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?

[dreadpiratekurt.livejournal.com]

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"

[dashytoast.livejournal.com]

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

[darkangel-wings.livejournal.com]

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