Why Aren't We Posting About Kellie Telesford?
Caroline answers this hypothetical question with characteristic aplomb:
My answer? I hadn’t noticed no one was blogging about her. I thought that the following all had:
Part of me can’t help but wonder if the real question is, “Why won’t those people ignore all my hate speech and give me a cookie for posting on their pet issue?”
I’m also wondering who, exactly, is uttering the word “transphobic” with every other line?
breathingistransphobic.wordpress.com
imeatingblueberriesthereforeimtransphobic.wordpress.com
Those are real blogs. And when you read them, that’s not really belledame responding.
A part of me cannot also help but wonder why, if calling out these trans-hating radical feminists is a waste of time, why wallowing in all this trans hatred is not itself a waste of time for all these trans-hating radical feminists?
Edit: ;Because I obviously started caring about Kellie on August 15th.
That’s sarcasm, by the way.
Wow. That’s … interesting. In a, “it’s kinda funny how incensed transphobes get when you tell them they’re being transphobic” way.
QoT
17 Aug 08 at 4:47 pm
Sometimes I get the impression that trans women are not allowed to address them at all. Just walk three steps behind with our eyes on the ground, and speak only when spoken to.
Lisa Harney
17 Aug 08 at 5:05 pm
oh my fucking god. Polly, Stormy: you are a moron. I mean, -collectively-, you add up to one moron. Maybe. Half a moron. Three quarters.
Seriously, why do people this disconnected from consensus reality pretend they aren’t? Wouldn’t it just be much simpler to just cut the ties altogether? They could be like Cartman at the tea party (rerun of that ep just last very night!), making his stuffed animals “talk” to tell him how wonderful and cool he is. I think one of ‘em was even called Polly Prissypants…
belledame222
17 Aug 08 at 6:41 pm
and yeah, I know, I think Polly’s been posting about nothing but, lately, pretty much? Is it just an ego thing? “I CANNOT BE WRONG!” yes, christ, please, fap away with your -theories,- don’t let other peoples’ lived experience get in the way or anything…
belledame222
17 Aug 08 at 6:43 pm
I think more people should post about Kellie Telesford and the way the defense assassinated her character during the trial (especially since she can’t defend herself). I’m glad that Polly posted about her.
But that she turns around and claims she’s the only one talking about Kellie is just so fundamentally ridiculous, it’s almost not even worth criticizing.
Lisa Harney
17 Aug 08 at 6:46 pm
WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT
*mind broke, call back later*
whaaaaaat?
Trin
17 Aug 08 at 8:17 pm
That was my reaction when I woke up to an e-mail about this.
Lisa Harney
17 Aug 08 at 8:22 pm
Wow. These people are on a completely different planet than the rest of us, aren’t they?
I’d say “LET US HAVE A MOON-VERSATION” as a certain person puts it, but I don’t think even moonversating is possible with people who are that out of touch…
Trin
17 Aug 08 at 9:21 pm
Lul wut. 0.0
I agree Trin, I think Polly has moved well beyond the moon; she must be somewhere past Saturn by now. Does Uranus have any moons?
PS: Failblog FTW.
drakyn
17 Aug 08 at 10:21 pm
What a surprise — most of the blogs I recognize there are from trans people.
a lot of non-trans people just don’t fscking care about dead trans people (or even alive ones). We had to go around shaming others into it with Angie Z.
I just thought maybe it was because out of guilt because of that, but maybe everyone’s just jaded — there’s that old adage about one person being a tragedy, thousands a statistic — but then shouldn’t cis allies, or even cis non-allies do something about it? You have the n trans people dying what seems like every month and no one seems to give a damn but the trans people who count the dead.
Yes, we do have a responsibility for lobbying for change, but it’s not really the point — it’s arguable that the cis majority in power have the actual power to instigate the change.
z
18 Aug 08 at 1:53 am
Well, there’s two sides to this – one is that Polly Styrene was saying that no one outside her and maybe a couple other people were blogging about Kellie. She specifically referred to “those trans activists who raised a fuss about Angie Zapata.”
You are correct, too, though, and Kellie’s trial didn’t get nearly as much attention, despite it happening at the height of Angie awareness, and despite the fact that her trial was basically a victim-blaming farce.
Lisa Harney
18 Aug 08 at 2:00 am
Heh, I left a comment pointing out everyone who had written about it. Didn;t get through and wasn’t even acknowledged. Funny that, but then I was ruining her point, so best to deny it, eh? :/
Caroline
18 Aug 08 at 3:33 am
comment 53:
“It is very weird how they read our blogs, but we don’t bother reading their blogs. Very strange.”
i think that pretty much sums up the problem.
nexyjo
18 Aug 08 at 8:19 am
There was also some ranting about americans not giving a shit about UK people (since my french post wasn’t cited, I would personally tend to think that you anglo-saxons are all the same, UK, or US :p)
Concerning the thing about the term “transphobia”, I’m a bit puzzled… I mean, I also believe that sometimes there are some qualifications of “transphobia” which aren’t justified (personally I prefer using “cissexist” unless it is really, well, transphobic) and I can even understand making some fun about being called “transphobic” when it is not justified but… this goes farther, it is just denigrating the notion in a way that wouldn’t even be thinkable for, e.g., “racism”, “sexism”, “anti-semitism”, etc.
Elly Rouge
18 Aug 08 at 11:47 am
Elly: yeah, exactly. The UK may come in second to the U.S. when it comes to being centric ’round these online (Anglophone!) feminist/etc circles, but it’s got plenty of representation. the idea that the -UK- is now some minority demographic is just…oy. Polly, honey. just put down the shovel and back away slowly, all right? I mean, I know it -really- stings to learn you’re not the Most Oppressedest Of All, but you’re just going to have to soldier on like the rest of us who also don’t have that dubious prize for one reason or another, I’m afraid.
also? reading what other people actually have to say before spouting off about what they are and aren’t saying might help with the whole credibility thing. Just noting.
belledame222
18 Aug 08 at 12:32 pm
The other thing is, as far as -doing something- about it: see, Polly was pretty adamant that she is NOT repeat NOT part of the problem in any way shape or form, and that calling out transphobia (which she mocks the very idea of the word, especially as applied to herself and her radfem cohorts) is a useless exercise unless someone’s actually getting murdered. She, now, did NOT murder anyone; therefore she is off the hook. Therefore, there is no point in noting that dismissal of other peoples’ subjective experience, making like “deception” is some terrible crime (hi, Heart), refusing to let people into shelters, refusing to listen to them as subjects rather than objects, and just generally “othering” them, are all -necessary-, if yes we all agree certainly not -sufficient- of themselves, components of the mindset that leads up to someone deciding “super, I can kill this person and nothing bad is going to happen to me, because they don’t actually count as people.” I mean, the whole “murder is bad, mkay?” I think most of us here were already pretty much there. Not very -radical- to note that; and say, isn’t this an awful lot like men whining about how THEY never raped anyone so stop criticizing anything they say or do that’s misogynist ever?
belledame222
18 Aug 08 at 12:37 pm
Elly,
Who decides that it’s not justified?
Surely not the people who benefit from cissexual privilege and don’t have to live on the receiving end of transphobia on a regular basis, I should hope.
I think there’s some confusion between pointing out that an action is transphobic and that a person is transphobic. I don’t think Polly and the other anti-trans radfems really believe there’s a difference.
Regarding your post on Kellie Telesford – if you have a link to it, I’ll add it to my post. I quoted Caroline’s post in which she listed several (but not all) of the people who posted about Kellie’s trial, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t check back to November to find everyone who posted about her murder.
Lisa Harney
18 Aug 08 at 1:12 pm
“Who decides that it’s not justified?”
Good question, thanks for asking it :)
“Surely not the people who benefit from cissexual privilege and don’t have to live on the receiving end of transphobia on a regular basis, I should hope.”
Well, I agree that it is always problematic when someone bluntly says “no, what I said isn’t racist/sexist/transphobic”.
Now, OTOH, I think it should be possible to have discussion, even on heated subjects (like , say, xxx-only spaces ? or gender analysis wrt transgender ?) which isn’t really possible if one “side” says that the opposite point of view is just “transphobic” (or, “anti-feminist”, by the way). Which isn’t to say that there aren’t arguments which are transphobic (e.g. “trans women are men who want to infiltrate us”) or that they shouldn’t be denounced, but I have a problem when there is the idea that the whole discussion shouldn’t take place.
(Now, of course, it is a bit different when this kind of discussion takes place on a completely unrelated topic concerning, e.g., a trans murder)
“Regarding your post on Kellie Telesford – if you have a link to it, I’ll add it to my post.”
Well, thanks, but I was just kidding about the uk/us thing ; I don’t see the point linking to a french post which barely no-one will understand :) (What I would really like is some french blogs talking a bit more about these subjects…)
Elly Rouge
18 Aug 08 at 2:38 pm
I want to unpack the way people react to having their privilege called out – for example, the assumption that pointing out “You just said something transphobic” is an automatic block to discussion. It’s not, privileged defensiveness blocks discussion.
This is something that is talked about in anti-racist circles all the time – how to call white people on their privilege. To point out that they just said or did something racist. Some people can take that and say “Oh, I’m sorry,” and even ask for clarification so they know where they screwed up. Some people make it about them rather than the people they just hurt, regardless of intention.
It’s like if I step on your foot, and you say “That hurt!” and I respond, “You shouldn’t have been standing where I was going to walk, and I didn’t see you there in the first place,” I made the fact that I caused you injury both about me, and your fault.
And that’s how calling out privilege turns out. Calling out privilege is not an attempt to silence discussion, it is an attempt to point out the power dynamics at work in a discussion, and how that power relationship is affecting the discussion and the assumptions the participants are making. People with privilege, who make it about them, tend to characterize it as silencing because they do not wish to examine their privilege.
And it’s not the extreme words that do this – while many will claim that saying “racist” or “transphobic” or “homophobic” or “misogynist” immediately characterizes them as black-hatted mustache twirling villains, I’ve found that using apparently milder words gets the same response. Further, with trans-exclusive radfems, they insist that “cis,” “cissexual,” and “cisgender” are extremely misogynist slurs intended to “other” women, deny their womanhood entirely, and are labels imposed upon them to cause harm. And talking about cis privilege (or non-trans privilege) gets responses about all the oppression women experience that men do not (and please ignore the fact that trans women experience that oppression too, and that non-trans privilege is about the oppression that trans people experience for being trans).
It does not matter what words you use, people will resist examining their privilege with every rhetorical device and logical fallacy at their disposal. This is not something that can be reasonably laid at the feet of the people calling out the privilege.
The worst mistake one can make when calling out privilege is saying “You are racist,” “you are transphobic” instead of “You said something racist” or “you did something transphobic.” And even when you don’t, people will twist it around – you can tell someone “You said something racist,” making it about what he did, and he may very well respond (and they often do) with “I do not have a racist bone in my body,” making it about whether he is racist.
You use two examples of discussions that should occur: Gender analysis re: transgender and xxx-only spaces.
In the first case, I’ve never seen gender analysis regarding transgender or transsexual people. What I have seen are feminists who say they’re engaging in analysis, and then start talking about how since gender is a social construct, we can’t possibly be truthfully describing our lives. That’s not a conversation. That also centers cis perspectives as the only valid perspectives, and our own words are not acknowledged at all or viciously attacked.
In the second case, the discussion on including trans women in women-only spaces (and trans men in men-only spaces, although I’ve only actually seen one regarding play parties for gay men) derives from the assumption that trans people’s gender and sex are less valid than cis people’s gender and sex.
When these discussions come from a privileged perspective, from people telling us who we really are, what we really think, and what our true motivations are before we even have a chance to speak for ourselves, why is it required that they occur? What are they highlighting? What insight is revealed?
I’m not saying that there’s no room for gender analysis regarding trans people, but I wonder why cis people are not subjected to the same microscopic analysis, to conversations that freeze them out and frame them as lying about their experiences? If people want to talk about gender without privileging cis people as the default and trans people as the other, or if they want to have a conversation that analyzes gender manifestation and performance in everyone, not just trans people, sure. But what’s the value in conversations that supposedly examine trans people’s relationship to gender, but mainly assert that we reify the gender binary or that we’re deluded because social constructs are apparently not real?
I’m not sure why there should be conversations on xxx-only space at all – I’m not sure why the question of whether trans women should be allowed in women-only space should even be a question at all – of course they should be, they’re women. The mere act of starting the conversation states that trans women aren’t really women, or that if some trans women are unpleasant in certain ways, that this should reflect on all trans women everywhere. What is the validity of such a discussion?
Lisa Harney
18 Aug 08 at 3:12 pm
“I want to unpack the way people react to having their privilege called out – for example, the assumption that pointing out “You just said something transphobic” is an automatic block to discussion. It’s not, privileged defensiveness blocks discussion.”
Yeah, you’re probably right. Maybe it’s “capitulating” not to point transphobia in a sentence in order to continue the discussion. Thing is, it’s true that I am a bit reticent to use “it’s transphobic” partly because I know the only effect is that it will be hostile reaction (and even when I do because I am hurt by a sentence (e.g. “women don’t want to share a room with a men, even if s/he is trans”), I am being pointed out as the bad girl to use terms like transphobia :/ )
“I’m not saying that there’s no room for gender analysis regarding trans people, but I wonder why cis people are not subjected to the same microscopic analysis,”
Hum, I don’t know. Personally what I am feeling is that there has been lot of writings on gender analysis regarding women/men, then regarding lesbians. There is much less regarding trans people : there seem to be only room for “trans are bad, they reinforce binary” and “trans are soo subversive, that’s so cool”. And I must admit the interesting analysis I saw were coming from trans people (or at least “trans-neighbour”, even if I am not sure this is a valid term :p)
“I’m not sure why there should be conversations on xxx-only space at all – I’m not sure why the question of whether trans women should be allowed in women-only space should even be a question at all – of course they should be, they’re women.”
Well, honestly, the question of women-only space is a bit awkward given its long history, but I don’t think the only question which can be asked is whether excluding trans women or not. Personally, for me, yeah, if it is “women-only” it should include trans-women. But I know I asked (and still ask some) myself questions, like: what about ftm ? and people who are identified by others as women but don’t self-identify as this ? people who are not “100% time” women ? is it ok to have “people without penis”-only space if they don’t pretend being for all “women” ? (and if it is for nude spaces ? ) should it be the same thing for all type of spaces (e.g. music festival and rape relief center?) and what about trans-only spaces ?
I don’t intend to launch a debate on all those questions, but it’s just to say that I think this discussion can be a bit broader than saying trans women are not women.
Besides, of course, the interest of the discussion is that there is always the possibility that you convince the other side >:) (yeah, we all live in hope)
Elly Rouge
18 Aug 08 at 4:28 pm
I was talking about the conversations where “transphobic” come up – which are the ones where trans people get analyzed and cis people get a free pass, and less so where gender is analyzed more generally. And also where someone decides it’s clever to use trans people as a metaphor for discussing cis people’s gender. Which I admit is a bit restrictive, as well as I didn’t clearly say that.
Anyway, it’s not that I don’t have these conversations, but I’ve rarely seen them work out well, largely because one side’s getting demonized and the other side is getting (justifiably) offended.
BTW, I think your trans-neighbor lives across the street, and your cis-neighbor lives right next door.
Lisa Harney
18 Aug 08 at 4:35 pm