Storify is shutting down in May and has informed users that we have to migrate our content elsewhere if we wish to save it. This is one of my old threads.
This was written in the wake of one trans woman writing an article criticizing a call to ban women from gay bars, while another trans woman was being harassed for suggesting straight men examine their genital preferences in sexual partners to determine whether those preferences were genuine or reflexive assumptions they'd made (thoughtlessly associating genitals with gender, for example).
If people could stop piling onto trans women for discussing their experiences with misogyny from cis men, that would be great? I don't really give a rat's ass if people agree / disagree with trans women talking about straight cis men or gay bars, you can jog on??? "Well, that's certainly an opinion!" people can think before going on to talk about literally anything else than a Trans Woman Is Wrong!
Men--especially cis men, and regardless of sexual orientation--live and breath misogyny. Trans women do not have institutional power or privilege over cis men. Stop defending cis men from trans women's opinions!? We know for a fact that trans women are given less space to talk in our communities AND are torn down for smaller mistakes. Sometimes the best way to ally with a marginalized person you disagree with is to talk about something or someone else.
Whatever you think about genital preferences, you lose NOTHING by letting trans women talk about their experiences with cis men.
Whatever you think about gay* bars, you lose NOTHING by letting trans women share their opinion over being kicked out of them.
* I have also seen no discussion wrt "gay bars" about how "gay" is often used as an umbrella term within the queer community?? I am honestly unsure how people are supposed to know which "gay bar" is Just For Men and which includes all Queer people. I've seen "well, trans women can go to lesbian bars" which okay great where are the aces, aros, bisexuals, pansexuals, and enbys** welcome?
** I see people defending gay man against a "mean" trans woman sharing her opinion, and a LOT of erasure of nonbinary trans experiences. We are NOT going to pretend that I wasn't harassed for the ENTIRE PRIDE MONTH because I wouldn't call myself "gay", but then pretend that OBVIOUSLY the "gay" in "gay bar" means Gay Men And Only Gay Men.
Do not think I don't SEE how many people were upset about women's spaces ("but enbys!!") when it was ONE women's movie showing of Wonder Woman but when a trans woman argues that gay bars should be gender inclusive, it's all either criticism or crickets.
Folks are so happy to pick up enbys to wield against women having ONE Wonder Woman showing, but we aren't welcome in gay bars. Thanks. But if we call ourselves "Queer" instead of "Gay" because gay isn't welcoming to us, we're harassed and doxxed and told to kill ourselves.
Y'all can talk about BAD BEHAVIOR at gay bars without banning women. And all the questions we had about "wait, HOW are they telling gender???" with women's spaces don't stop being valid for gay spaces. I need folks to interrogate why they get so antsy about women's spaces, but don't get antsy about (gay) male spaces. Hint: The answer is misogyny. Which is what the trans woman writing that article wanted to talk about.
Furthermore, I am upset at the total erasure and non-discussion of enbys with regard to gender-segregated queer spaces. Which is jarring as fuck, because we DO talk about enbys whenever the "no men allowed" signs come out. If you defend enbys against women-segregated spaces but leaping on the "gay bars are for men-only" train, we need to talk.
I'm also not going to pretend that enby bisexuals aren't routinely erased and told we're anti-trans bigots for using the Bi word. What the fuck are we supposed to be? Lesbians and Gays don't want us, and we get attacked for using Bi and Queer. But I guess carry on defending gay bars from trans women and trans enbys--even though none of us have privilege over cis gays.
Sorry if I seem salty after being harassed for the entire month of Pride because I won't treat Gay and Queer as interchangeable. This is *why* I won't treat Gay and Queer as interchangeable. I'm just supposed to *know* that "gay bar" means "not ME".
Anyway, if allyship people could stop defending cis men from the opinions of trans women, that would be great. I see it & it hurts. Part of being a cis ally is realizing trans people may have different perspectives from you. You don't have to agree, but you can listen. At the very least, you can choose not to contribute to viral discussion which is just going to end in harassment for more trans people.
The sheer irony is that a LOT of these threads are cis women defending cis men from a mean trans woman, but thinking they're allies. Gold star for defending cis men from a trans woman with an opinion about her own experience with misogyny in gay spaces!
OH AND ALSO this is happening in a week where cis men are joking about killing trans women for being trans. Like. Do... do y'all not see how INCONGRUOUS it is for folks to tell me that gay men don't feel safe with trans women in their bars?? I see people slamming a trans woman for saying women shouldn't be banned from gay bars & the SAME people ignoring [a viral "joke" about a cis man killing a trans woman if she 'tricked' him into dating her] thing.
How many cis men kill trans women? How many trans women kill cis men? But folks are defending cis men from trans women in their spaces. Not even defending men from trans women BEING in their spaces. Defending men from a trans woman SAYING their spaces should be inclusive. It hurts when you roll out big threads to defend men from trans women asking for inclusion, but are silent about men killing trans women.
So please leave that woman alone. She asked for inclusion in an online article addressed to her queer community. Point your outrage at the people joking about killing trans people and the people calling us rapists for asking that cis people examine their genital preferences for a few introspective minutes.
0 comments:
Post a Comment