I like bingo cards; I did, after all, create the Trans Discussion Bingo Card. They’re great for when you’ve been up against a wall of stubborn privilege for an exhausting discussion and need a quick shot of vindication. But they’re also blunt objects at best when it comes to educating someone about their privilege or for arguments that transend the obvious and enter that murky area between privilege and legitimate concern.
And of those that does require a finer touch, arguments which fuse a bunch of different squares in a jumbled, personalized mess are the hardest to counter. The language of these arguments is not directly transphobic, but hedges its transphobia in terms of the personal, complicating attempts to get at the underlying problematic argument by making contradiction look like an attack.
I bring this up because I recently encountered this in someone who argued discussions of trans issues “excluded” them by not including their experiences as a queer person who had issues with childhood gendering.
What’s funniest about this to me is how much of a reversal it is to my daily life. For all the times in all-purpose queer organizations around here I have to fight for recognition that there are trans people in said groups who’d like to feel like they can talk about themselves and their issues without judgment, one of the more successful discussions I’ve had in awhile focused on trans issues is decried as exclusionary to those who don’t identify at the cisgendered/sexual end of the gender spectrum but are in that fuzzy middle ground of “queer.”
And it’s easier to claim exclusion with issues of gender due to gender’s socially constructed nature. Unlike issues of race, class, or other categorizations, everyone experiences gender. Everyone has probably experienced judgment by others for not fitting into society’s strict gender norms at least once. With gender, everyone can and often does have an opinion. But that doesn’t mean one should necessarily feel it is their right to share said opinion.
Trans people need space to talk about trans issues because of the way our society–and more to the point, the medical establishment–have constructed ‘acceptable transness.’ It’s not just one’s transgender/transsexual identity but the struggle that trans people have to go through to become the ‘right’ kind of trans person or have the right kind of gender presentation that necessitates a safe space. The ideal personal narrative, the process of transitioning, and finding acceptance are issues for all varieties of people, but they have unique connotations for trans individuals. Gender for trans people is not only theorized creation, but the solid reality of restrooms, dressing rooms, and doctors.
As I write this, I feel like I’m retreading ground so many others have covered before. But it’s ground that will keep needing to be re-covered as long as there are days when all I wanted to do was take a piss without destroying the very fabric of society as we know it.
12 responses so far ↓
Lisa Harney // October 17, 2008 at 12:59 am |
Thanks for writing this. This has happened before and is frustrating to deal with.
You may be retreading ground, but still excellent.
Also, blogrolled!
Andy // October 17, 2008 at 11:22 pm |
so, correct me if i’m reading this wrong:
did you just say that you don’t think that genderqueer people have a right to be in transgendered spaces, discussions, or considerations?
averydame // October 21, 2008 at 11:41 am |
I’d ceratinly not advocate their restriction from trans spaces. If so, then I’d be restricting myself. Genderqueer people are on the spectrum that encompasses transgender expression and as such, frequently have something to contribute in many trans spaces.
However, there are certain cases where choosing to not as directly participate or only listen, not speak may be a better idea. In example, if the topic of discussion is a trans issue where the experiences of, say, a transsexcual woman are more relevant than the tangential experience of a genderqueer person. In that case, I’d say it’s more respectful to listen to what she has to say and give her lived experience more value than one’s more ‘theoretical’ understanding.
Andy // October 22, 2008 at 5:28 am |
So, you’re saying that a genderqueer’s experiences are fundamentally different from a “real” transgendered person?
On the one hand, I can see that point. But on the other, no. We all need to understand that “trans” doesn’t come in just one flavor, and refrain from judging someone’s personal feelings and reactions, but because society does work on a binary, society treats middle-gendered people just like transgendered people, in almost every sense. Except of course, transgendered people will eventually pass as the gender they feel, while middle-gendered people have to settle for something not quite right.
I don’t see how my experiences with being uncomfortable in my own body, with being treated badly for not “matching up” right, or my frustration with the medical establishment are any different, or less valuable, than those same experiences of a “real” transgendered person. There are transgendered people who don’t have extreme dysphoria, and there are genderqueer people who do. It’s not the gender we are that makes our experiences relevant.
In short, I can’t think of one area of discussion where a genderqueer’s experience would not be equal in value.
T. // October 26, 2008 at 1:15 pm |
In short, I can’t think of one area of discussion where a genderqueer’s experience would not be equal in value.
Then you don’t understand what it means to have a “safe space” at all, do you?
Lisa Harney // October 26, 2008 at 4:03 pm |
I can think of several circumstances in which cissexual genderqueer people’s experiences aren’t relevant to a discussion about any transsexual person’s experiences.
I can think of circumstances in which the reverse is true.
I think that when the conversation is about – for example – transsexual children’s childhoods, and a cissexual genderqueer jumps in and starts saying “You’re not acknowledging my childhood!” and makes it about hir, that sie’s doing so by way of his privilege, and the way cissexual people in general tend to shift conversations about trans people into conversations about how cissexual people feel about transsexual people. This isn’t to say that a cissexual genderqueer person should have no room to talk about hir own childhood, or the experience of being genderqueer as a child, but it’s privileged to expect that a trans person should have to also take up time talking about her childhood to make space for this other person’s experiences as well.
Cissexual people are always demanding that transsexual people take up less space, to make space for cissexual people because they don’t like it when we have any space at all. Cissexual genderqueer people do this as often as anyone else.
This isn’t framing transsexual experiences as being better than genderqueer experiences, but it helps for conversations if everyone acknowledges their privilege.
Andy // October 26, 2008 at 5:00 pm |
allowing everyone their own time to talk about their own experiences, and respecting the fact that everyone’s personal experiences are going to be different is a privilege issue, but it’s not cis vs trans privilege or genderqueer vs trans privilege.
every person, especially in america, believes that somehow they are better than everyone else. that their voice and their opinions deserve to be heard over everyone else’s. that’s not about trans or cis or genderqueer.
i mean, i’ve had a trans friend be run out of trans support groups because her experience as a child didn’t match up with everyone else’s. she’s no less trans then them, but was told she wasn’t a “real” transsexual because she was transitioning earlier than they had the chance to. i’ve had trans friends be run out of trans support groups because they were ftm, instead of mtf, even though the support group was supposedly welcoming to both mtfs and ftms. it has nothing to do with being trans or genderqueer or cis.
it just has to do with general respect for others. saying that somehow genderqueer people are “more likely” to be disrespectful like that is pretty crap. saying that of cis people is pretty crap to, but i understand where that one comes from. it’s not that any particular group is more or less likely to be disrespectful dipwads, it’s that there’s more cis people overall. 5% of 50 and 5% of 100 is still 5%. what you’re saying about cis people is just as much stereotyping as saying all blacks are criminals, or all asian people are smart. I won’t even go into how genderqueer people aren’t cisgendered by definition unless they were born intersexed or non-sexed.
everyone, including trans people, have some degree of privilege. i’d say that “trans friendly is for transgendered people, not genderqueers” is just as privileged as “women born women” is. telling genderqueer people to stick to their own discussions and spaces, when they’re just as much of a threat to the binary gender=sex society we live in, is no different from telling transwomen to have their own feminist rallies, or blacks to have their own water fountain.
that’s basically all i have to say about that at this point.
Lisa Harney // October 26, 2008 at 5:14 pm |
I get the impression that you do not understand what “privilege” means in this context.
jayinchicago // October 27, 2008 at 12:14 am |
Andy, I think you are having trouble seeing how cis privilege plays in all of this and in fact aren’t even acknowledging that some/many non-transsexual genderqueer people *do* have cis privilege. I wasn’t going to comment at all, but your comment about michfest and waterfountains is ridiculous. Trans people do not have the privilege to systemically oppress genderqueer people.
Personally, I think a cissexual genderqueer person who was being honest with themselves and understood their privilege would know when to select out of spaces (or not take up too much space in) meant as resources for transsexual people. Your examples of women born women and water fountains are offensive, not just because of what they mean, but because you are placing transsexual people in the oppressor position. Transsexual people do not have the institutional privilege/position to oppress genderqueer people.
I have experienced silencing and “cis-centering” (that is, centering trans concerns back on cis people) when, for instance, I did a presentation a few years ago about gatekeepers and the HB/WPATH standards of care. These were not gender nonconforming people who were interrupting me–just a few people who could use their experiences with the gender binary to try to argue against a system of sis privilege.
jayinchicago // October 27, 2008 at 12:16 am |
whoa, awful/funny typo. damn homophones.
Ariel Silvera // October 29, 2008 at 10:02 am |
I also want to make the distinction between gender and sex, because it seems like we’re getting a bit sidetracked here.
Yes, Gender Identity and Sex, as concepts, overlap. Sometimes? I doubt one could compile stats on that one. There’s certainly an overlap between the larger transgender community (which I would define as anyone with a non-normative gender/sex) and the specific transsexual community.
When we speak of transgender experience, growing up and being socialised as well as being an adult that is transgender, what’s talked about is the whole spectrum of experience that doesn’t follow cisgender norms. Norms, by the way, which aren’t absolute.
When we talk about the specific experiences of transsexuals, there is also a spectrum, but it’s a more specific one. I am not justifying any mistreatment that Andy’s friends may have had, but that sounds more like anecdotal evidence to me. It’s an experience and it’s valid, but Andy is extrapolating a generalisation from those anecdotes.
Moving on, the ‘cis’ issue. First of all, ‘cis’ isn’t an insult. It’s not meant as an insult. It’s meant to point out that there are people that do not have a trans experience, either those who don’t have a transgender experience or a transsexual experience.
When we say that most cis people, as a class, don’t ‘get’ transsexuality, we mean exactly that. Yes, there are people who get it, but the majority don’t, and trans people (both transgender and transsexual) are at the mercy of cis people in positions of power. Or hell, even in the street! Just like one can say most straight people don’t get queerness. It’s not an insult (although some may use it as such).
The problem here is that we have classes but we also have spectrums. I consider myself genderqueer. I’m transsexual. I learned a lot in the past years not by putting out uninformed opinions, but by reading and listening a lot, and not taking up space that wasn’t mine to take (when I saw myself as a straight man). If a transsexual person is talking about their experience, and a cissexual person chimes in to say how they relate to that, in a space that is conductive to that conversation, I say fine.
But if the cissexual person’s response is “your alleged experience for the majority of transsexual people doesn’t include me”, that’s privilege in action.
averydame // October 29, 2008 at 8:25 pm |
I do want to say that while I haven’t commented, I have been following the discussion and appreciate everyone’s input on the topic at hand. It’s by no means an easy discussion to have.