Transphobic Words and Deeds
I linked to a post by Monica Helms about trans anger the other day, which was really me dodging writing a full post – however, Helen G pointed out that its focus is quite narrow and doesn’t really cover the reasons trans people have to be angry. And, I agree with her. I do not yet feel up to writing that full post yet, so I want to cover something that should help provide context:
I haven’t really done this before, but I wanted to go over what transphobia is and what transphobia is not. Quite a few cis people feel qualified to tell trans people what qualifies as transphobia, which always conveniently excludes whatever transphobic behavior they’re exhibiting at that particular time. It’s not unlike what I said to Uppity Brown Woman the other day about white people defining racism:
. . . white people shouldn’t be the ones to define when a racist act has occurred, because the answer will nearly always be “never,” . . .
What I mean by that is that without any reason for white people to check our privilege, we’re just going to do what we do and refuse to acknowledge that we’re hurting someone else. Part of privilege is that the pain we cause is either invisible to us, or we believe that the target of that pain somehow brought it upon herself or deserved it. Another part of privilege is interpreting events in our favor whenever possible, and expecting the dominant social forces to support that interpretation.
Also, read Uppity Brown Woman’s full post I linked, because it is all about privilege:
A dramatic metaphor:
Imagine you’re riding your motorcycle down the street. The car in front of you slams on their breaks to meet a stop light, and you swerve to avoid smashing into them, only to end up hitting a telephone pole. It’s your bike that’s a goner, but thankfully the other vehicles have no significant damage. You’re also the one bleeding internally from faceplanting. Only one ambulance has arrived so far. The paramedics are trying to help you in whatever way they can. The other person involved in the accident walks over and demands medical attention because they could be bleeding internally as well. They stopped really suddenly! Their airbag went off!
No doubt, they could be injured. Although it is a possibility, the biker is visibly in pain. The driver makes the point, “but sie must have known the hazards of motorcycles!” In this metaphor, the paramedics stop paying attention to the biker and start looking after the driver. The biker uses up a ton of energy just trying to say, “hey, wait a fucking minute! This is supposed to be about me!” and is only met with “when we’re done here, we’ll get to you. Just calm down and quit being so angry.”
This is what happens when conversations about issues surrounding disability, race, trans people, and other oppressed classes of people start: Privileged people walk in and demand to make the conversation about them. They ask to be educated, they demand justifications, they insist that they can’t be good allies if they don’t understand what’s going on. In the three threads I linked, one is about a girl with cerebral palsy whose family denied her life support machines that would improve her quality of life, and also arranged for a “do not resuscitate” order; one is about how white people often make use of work done by people of color without crediting them; one is about how a feminist made a pointed jab at the Transgender Day of Remembrance. In each case, able-bodied, white, or cis people came into the discussion and made it about them. In each case, this was highly inappropriate because the topic matter was itself sensitive to the people it directly affected: The perception of people with disabilities living incomplete lives that leads able-bodied people to think it’s reasonable to let them die; the fact that people of color do so much work and white people feel entitled to claim it; the fact that trans people cannot even talk about the fact that we have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered, at least in America – the victims predominantly women of color. The average person has a 1 in 18,000 chance of being murdered. That we cannot talk about this fact that this is happening, and that we remember our dead once a year, and how we cannot even do this without a cis person begrudging the fact that we do remember our dead – and we cannot have this conversation without cis people blasting into the discussion and demanding that we justify our lives and our decisions and the medical procedures we’ve undergone before they’ll consent to both mourn and express sympathy that our mourning is begrudged.
And that’s privilege, or rather what privilege does to those who do not have it.
Nothing listed past this point is meant to be definitive, the sum total, the limits of the ways that cissexual privilege or transphobic actions manifest. They are examples, and are only the tip of the iceberg.
Cissexual privilege is the privilege of having a body that matches the sex your brain expects. Cissexual privilege is the privilege of having a body that matches what society expects. Cissexual privilege is the assumption that your sex, your gender are superior and more valid than trans people’s sex and gender, that you have the right to tell trans people who and what they really are, what their motives are for transitioning, to deny that their most basic realities are false because you cannot imagine how they can be true. Cissexual privilege is the sense of entitlement that tells you that you have the right to discuss my genitals at any time and then claim I’m the one bringing genitals up all the time. Cissexual privilege is the belief that you can declare what “being a transsexual” really is because you’ve thought about it a lot after rejecting what actual transsexual people and the entire medical profession have said about being a transsexual person. Cissexual privilege is the insistence that you have the right to shift the meaning of what trans people say about ourselves so that you can then use the reinterpreted arguments as easily destroyed straw men. Cissexual privilege is the attitude that you can interrogate and criticize everything a trans person does even though it’s no different from what a cis person does simply because the person is trans, and thus her sex and gender are not as valid as yours. Cissexual privilege is what makes you think that you can berate trans people for reifying gender roles and reinforcing the gender binary while at the same time remaining comfortably ensconced in your life as a man or a woman. A trans person claiming to be a man or a woman is doing it wrong but you claiming to be a man or a woman is only natural.
Cissexual privilege is the insistence that being called cissexual is othering and demeaning and implies that trans people are trying to make ourselves the norm and you the other, when it is simply a matter of equalizing cis and trans, defining both as normal and neither as other. It is no more othering and demeaning than distinguishing straight people from gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.
Cissexual privilege is the fact that you do not have to pay thousands of dollars for hormones, electrolysis, surgery, a new wardrobe, you do not have to risk losing your job, your family, or your friends. Cissexual privilege means that you don’t have to take hormones or undergo surgery to be comfortable – to be able to live with - your body’s sex.
Transphobia is the exercise of that privilege. It is not restricted to violence. It is not restricted to men. When you refer to a trans woman as a man, or a trans man as a woman, you said something transphobic. When you say that all trans people are fetishists, you said something transphobic. When you say that trans people are mentally ill, that is not only transphobic but also ableist. When you say that trans women should be excluded from domestic violence shelters, you not only said something transphobic, you also said that trans women should suffer emotional abuse, battering, or even die instead of possibly inconveniencing a shelter.
When you say that trans women should be placed in a men’s prison because their male history means they might rape someone, you have not only said something transphobic, but you have also said that the trans woman should be placed into a situation where she will be raped repeatedly. You have profiled all trans women as dangerous to cis women. When you say that trans women reify the gender binary, you absolve yourself of your own responsibility for reifying that same binary by simply existing and hold trans people to a standard that you simply do not demand of cis people. Plus, you said something transphobic. When you make a blog called “breathing is transphobic,” you did something transphobic, and you did it in a way that allows you to blame trans people for being too angry and bullying when we point out that you said or did something transphobic. That positions you in such a way as to dismiss everything that trans people say to you when they criticize your words and actions.
When you say that trans people should be denied access to hormones, surgery, and social transition and insist that we should instead seek therapy to help us stop being trans, you’re ignoring our voices and telling us what our real lives are like. You’re ignoring all the medical literature to date that says that the best treatment for trans people is to allow transition. You also said something transphobic. When you say that trans people are walking stereotypes of masculinity or femininity, you’re applying a double-standard to trans gender expression vs. cis gender expression – where a feminine trans woman is seen as a caricature of femininity while a feminine cis woman who presents exactly the same way is seen as natural and normal. You also said something transphobic.
When you claim that you have trans friends and that they agree with you, you said something transphobic. You also tried to claim that your friends’ voices and opinions should be more important than the voices and opinions of trans people who call you out on your cissexual privileged shit. You’re trying to establish that there are good trans people and bad trans people.
If you’re a trans person, and you participate in the bashing of other trans people, you have done something transphobic. Being trans does not make you immune to playing into cissexist normativity. It does not make you immune to saying hateful things about other trans people.
If you try to raise the spectre of men pretending to be trans women to gain access to restrooms, locker rooms, showers, shelters, or any other space set aside for women, you have not only said something transphobic, you are trying to hold trans people responsible for what other people may attempt to do (and something other people have not yet attempted to do).
If you try to raise the spectre of trans women triggering cis women survivors because of their assumed masculine appearance or penises, you are not only saying something transphobic, you are appropriating survivor voices to justify your transphobic statements. You are also holding trans women – and trans women only – responsible for managing triggers that are not theirs. You are also defining trans women by their appearance, as if what a woman looks like somehow reflects on her womanhood, as if it’s something she can control.
When you grab for a trans person’s genitals to find out what they are, you have committed sexual assault. When you attack a trans person because he or she is trans, you have committed battery. When you kill a trans person because he or she is trans, you have committed murder. These are all transphobic acts, but they are not the sum total of transphobic acts. They do not define transphobia. You do not get a free pass out of saying and doing transphobic acts because you are not out there personally running trans women over four times in a row, or shooting them, or stabbing them, or suffocating them, or bashing their heads in. The fact is that people who commit these atrocities upon trans people believe that they can get away with it because of all of the insults, the denial of trans people’s agency, the belief that trans people are really their birth sex and gender, the belief that trans people aren’t really men or women at all, the belief that trans people are so different from cis people that the accommodations made for cis people cannot be extended to trans people, the belief that what a trans person looks like discredits his or her sex or gender, justifying ridicule and abuse on that trans person.
When you say or do the things I have described here, you are supporting a cissexist society that justifies killing trans people, that justifies slapping our murderers, abusers, rapists, on the wrist. That justifies the idea that we’re not really human. And if you insist that your own words and deeds have no importance because you are not personally out there raping, beating, stabbing, shooting, strangling trans people, then you are part of the same problem that creates Andrade, Oates, Hyatt, Blake, and men who have murdered numerous other women and men just because those men believed that transphobic words and deeds that so much of the world accepts as reasonable justified their decision to erase women and men from the world simply because they existed.
This is the system you support – a spectrum of words and deeds that ranges from “You’re really a man/really a woman” to “Man is charged with manslaughter for deliberately hunting down and killing a trans woman.”
You reify and reinforce the oppression that affects me and all other trans people.
You can’t really help it, mostly. You’re born and raised in a cissexual society, a society that programs you to believe that people who change their sex are less than you. However, once you realize that this is the case – once it is brought to your attention, once your privilege is pointed out to you, once the fact that you – like all other cis people – are complicit in oppressing trans people, if you choose to deny that such privilege exists, deny that you are doing and saying transphobic things, while deliberately increasing the intensity and frequency of these actions? You are no longer at the point where you are simply complicit due to privilege. You are now an active participant.
You can always choose to stop.
Edit: I forgot to write about what transphobia is not: Just having cissexual privilege does not mean that everything a cis person does comes from that privilege or is transphobic. For example, treating trans people with respect, treating trans people as normal human beings? That’s not transphobic, and I see cis people do it all the time.
Thanks for this, and other posts like it. When I was reading the argument that erupted on The F-Word, I didn’t really understand why people were angry/frustrated — simply because, as a cis person, it’s easy for me to decide that something isn’t transphobic while ignoring the very real way it impacts on trans people’s lives. I’ve read quite a few posts here and hopefully I understand a little better now.
Fran
24 Aug 08 at 5:32 am
Thank you for the comment.
Something I need to go back and edit into the post is the fact that just doing and saying transphobic things and falling back on privilege isn’t something that only “bad” people do (whatever “bad” people means). People do it because society’s built to enable it, and saying “Hey, you just stepped on my foot!” isn’t really a sign of hostility – frustration, yes, but not hostility.
But often, people react defensively when their privilege is called out, like they feel that they’re being told that the fact they have privilege is somehow their fault, and that sets up a feedback loop, because you get a disagreement about intentions, and what the actions really mean, and all it really boils down to is someone accidentally (usually) got hurt.
Part of what happened at the F Word was part of a larger conversation that spun out of control approximately 30 years ago and has continued to spin with no end in sight, which is also part of the anger and frustration. That is to say, it was about a couple of people who dragged a long-standing argument to the F-Word, and in fact made everything related to the argument about them.
Lisa Harney
24 Aug 08 at 5:52 am
Wow, brilliant post – thank Lisa.
Debs
24 Aug 08 at 6:14 am
[...] Lisa from Questioning Transphobia: …trans people cannot even talk about the fact that we have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered, at least in America – the victims predominantly women of color. The average person has a 1 in 18,000 chance of being murdered. [...]
Are Transgenderd People Over a Thousand Times More Likely to be Murdered than the Cisgendered? | Feminist Critics
24 Aug 08 at 6:36 am
Lisa,
Why are you so awesome?
Trin
24 Aug 08 at 7:20 am
“These are all transphobic acts, but they are not the sum total of transphobic acts. They do define transphobia.”
Shouldn’t that be “do not” ?
—-
And now for the more polemical part.
Of course I do agree that “transphobia” is broader than physically assaulting trans people and that in most cases saying e.g. “trans women are not women” is transphobic.
But I have a bit of a problem with basing it on the excercice on “cissexual privilege” and defining it as “Cissexual privilege is the privilege of having a body that matches the sex your brain expects.”
First because transsexuals can be transphobic too, unfortunately, so I think transphobia doesn’t only comes from someones priviledge but can also be an internalisation of cis domination.
And second because, as I said in another post, I am (more or less) a cissexual according to it.
Now I don’t want to make it just about me, but I also have trans friends (uuh yeah now I sound like the cissexual who have trans friend agreeing with me, argl /o\ ) who are quite in the same case.
And while I agree that there can be some advantages to it (like economizing ~10000$ for surgery, which has also some drawbacks because it means in my country I can never (well, at least not until law changes) get a legal ID matching my gender) it doesn’t prevent from undergoing transphobia. (And it also sometimes gives a difficult position in trans community, because not only you are not seen as a “true man” by socety but not even as a “true trans” by some trans)
So I would rather formulate the “cissexual” (or cisgender, don’t know) priviledge as “having a body that matches the one society expects” or something like that.
Elly Rouge
24 Aug 08 at 8:33 am
“and that in most cases saying e.g. “trans women are not women” is transphobic.”
in what cases wouldn’t that be transphobic?
i don’t really understand the rest of your comment.
jayinchicago
24 Aug 08 at 9:40 am
I don’t have time to address most of your points, but:
I’m primarily talking about cis people exercising their privilege in oppressive ways. I did mention one bit about trans people, but that was more of a digression, and I can edit that part to clarify. I wasn’t really trying to write a “How cis people can identify internalized transphobia and call trans people on it” guide because it’s not really their place to make that call.
When I get back I’ll edit the definition, because I did leave out that part, and I want to rewrite it more carefully than I did.
Lisa Harney
24 Aug 08 at 9:40 am
Also, yeah, in every case “saying trans women are not women” is transphobic. That’s practically the definitive exercise of cis privilege – to define a trans person’s gender or sex as invalid in comparison to the cis speaker’s.
Lisa Harney
24 Aug 08 at 9:43 am
Great post! Thank you. …But would you shift the cissexual privilege link over to its new home? I’ve updated it a little bit, though obviously it needs more work.
Cedar
24 Aug 08 at 11:12 am
““and that in most cases saying e.g. “trans women are not women” is transphobic.”
in what cases wouldn’t that be transphobic?”
I was thinking in cases where you don’t mean to deny the way a person identify, but when talking about more therotical concepts.
For example Monique Wittig said “lesbians are not women” but she was not being lesbophobic.
“i don’t really understand the rest of your comment.”
Well, ok, to put it differently, I find that it is a bit excluding for “non-transsexual trans”, or at least (because the definition of “transsexual” is variant), trans’ who don’t fit in “not having a body that matches the sex your brain expects”. Because it doesn’t prevent us from suffering transphobia.
Elly Rouge
24 Aug 08 at 11:31 am
Monique Wittig was speaking as a lesbian, deconstructing womanhood as a heteronormative expectation.
If a heterosexual feminist said the same thing, I would not take it the same way – speaking as a lesbian. In fact, given all the talk about lesbian feminists and political lesbians and how women should choose to not sleep with men and call themselves lesbians, I don’t take it the same way when women who are themselves not lesbians talk about what the lesbian community is or should be.
I’d prefer, if one is not part of the group one is talking about, that statements be modified. I don’t mind if a cis person says “trans women are not commonly seen as women,” but I really don’t care to see anyone who isn’t a trans woman who isn’t trying to illustrate a point say “trans women aren’t women.” And if the point is “trans women aren’t women,” I don’t care who says it, cis or trans. I especially don’t care to see cis women making statements about what kind of roles trans women play politically because those statements are nearly always about what cis women can get from us, and not what’s actually useful for us.
Lisa Harney
24 Aug 08 at 12:30 pm
Elly,
Also, I added in the the “you do not have the body society expects” line.
I try not to use “cisgendered” because I’m not able to pin it down and because people use “gender” as an excuse to stop listening. Of course, they use “cis” and “transphobic” as excuses to stop listening as well.
Cedar, fixed – thank you.
Lisa Harney
24 Aug 08 at 12:33 pm
ok thanks for the modification :)
Concerning cisgender/cissexual terms the problem is also they are not very defined, which sometimes makes things a bit difficult.
Elly Rouge
24 Aug 08 at 12:57 pm
I think cissexual is pretty easy to explain, but as seen here today, it’s difficult or impossible to fully define. Thank you, Derrida.
Anyway, I just plain find cisgender harder, even ignoring the fact that cis people tend to hate it more and see themselves as not fitting it.
I need to find some of Monique Wittig’s books.
Lisa Harney
24 Aug 08 at 1:02 pm
This was a great post. You have given me, and hopefully a lot of other cis people, much to think about. Our privilege allows us to be complacent…
uppitybrownwoman
24 Aug 08 at 9:27 pm
Thank you – your post and the mutual venting we did helped me sort things out a bit for this post.
Next will have to be my rage post, and then hopefully my ally post. I found a couple of essays about allies, although most writing is directly about white anti-racism, and I’m uncomfortable drawing a direct parallel there. Someone who’s done a lot of anti-racist work and is a trans woman has drawn a parallel, though or at least part of one.
Lisa Harney
24 Aug 08 at 9:42 pm
[...] transsexual As some of you may have realized, I am all about talking back to privilege. Check out this post at Questioning Transphobia on cissexual privilege. I wasn’t sure what to quote, since all of it is important. Cissexual [...]
Link: Transphobic Words and Deeds « Uppity Brown Woman
24 Aug 08 at 9:43 pm
Cut, print it. Great fucking post, as is the link to UBW.
belledame222
24 Aug 08 at 10:28 pm
You do not get a free pass out of saying and doing transphobic acts because you are not out their personally running trans women over four times in a row, or shooting them, or stabbing them, or suffocating them, or bashing their heads in.
Women who are consistently and consciously transphobic, yet hide behind the “I’m not doing violence to them, those [cis] men over there are” defense ought to realise what they are really doing here – they are just simply using cis men as their proxies to commit the violence that they are too embarrassed to commit themselves. They get to keep their hands clean cos someone else is doing the killing for them. How that can be a part of feminism, I just don’t understand.
GallingGalla
25 Aug 08 at 9:47 am
Excellent and enlightening post. Thanks for writing it.
WordK
25 Aug 08 at 12:47 pm
[...] This is the best definition I’ve ever read of how oppression, especially transphobia, works. Please go read it and let’s talk about it, especially the awesome motorcycle illustration which comes over from Uppity Brown Woman: A dramatic metaphor: [...]
ministrare » Great Definition of How Oppression Works
25 Aug 08 at 1:59 pm
Thanks, Word.
I added this to the end of the post:
GallingGalla, I wish I’d thought of saying that.
Lisa Harney
25 Aug 08 at 2:29 pm
[...] Transphobic words and deeds – from Questioning Transphobia [...]
Just some links I’m posting to keep track of them. « Bloggity Blog Blog Blog…
25 Aug 08 at 2:47 pm
Great post; it really made me think. And honestly, I still don’t get wherein people don’t understand this simple rule: if you’re not part of the group under discussion, you do not get to define it, tell that group what it ‘should’ do, or otherwise make sweeping generalizations about it. I wouldn’t dream of trying to define a trans person’s gender/sex or a POC’s experience with racism, because that experience isn’t mine. Not that I’m saying “I’m so perfect! I deserve cookies”; it’s a simple idea. It just stuns me how many people I talk to daily don’t seem to grasp it.
But thank you for writing this.
Screaming Lemur
25 Aug 08 at 4:57 pm
Because people will do everything they can to ward off the knowledge that the benefits society accords them simply for being believed to be part of the “norm” are unearned and harm people who don’t fit into that same assumed norm.
Lisa Harney
25 Aug 08 at 5:02 pm
And I think that this knowledge makes people deeply uncomfortable, not that most people are actively invested in hiding the fact that they benefit from any kind of privilege. But this attitude, this reaction is what fuels racist and homophobic ideologies like white supremacist movements or Westboro Baptist Church. And there are people who are actively invested in refuting the idea that privilege exists.
Lisa Harney
25 Aug 08 at 5:06 pm
[...] Transphobia and Cissexual Privilege 26Aug08 I aspire to the kind of clarity, thoroughness, and right-fucking-on-ity of this post. [...]
Transphobia and Cissexual Privilege « Smart Angry Women
25 Aug 08 at 5:28 pm
I came here via feministe. It is the best definition I have ever read about the nature of privilege, cis, white, male or any other type. A great article.
Nia
25 Aug 08 at 5:36 pm
Here from feministe as well. Had a vague clue about transphobia for a while now. And as for cissexual, it was more of a smile and nod thing to which I got the gist of its meaning. Thanks deeply for the immense clarification. =)
Juan
25 Aug 08 at 5:56 pm
This post is seriously great. I have nothing to add. But: seriously, seriously great.
Isabel
25 Aug 08 at 7:19 pm
Here from feministe. This is a great post, and I’m really happy to have somewhere to link people when I get into arguments about whether transphobia even exists!
lilacsigil
25 Aug 08 at 8:39 pm
People will argue that any privilege or oppression doesn’t exist, including racism or sexism. What’s kind of funny in a gallows way are the reasons they use to dismiss their existence.
Lisa Harney
25 Aug 08 at 9:08 pm
This is such a great post. Thanks!
Jo
26 Aug 08 at 4:53 am
[...] is Transphobia? Cissexism? 26 08 2008 Lisa, at Questioning Transphobia, has a really important post that everyone should read. “When you say or do the things I have described here, you are [...]
What is Transphobia? Cissexism? « Avowed Virago
26 Aug 08 at 4:56 am
Also here from Feministe. Incredible post. Will be linking to it whenever necessary.
Faith
26 Aug 08 at 10:56 am
I can’t believe miss Andrea proudly refers to her blog as “Transphobia Central”…
She’s proud of it. What else can one say?
Treat her like the klan. They were proud too.
Pretty soon, she’ll start posting the photos of murdered transwomyn with a big red X drawn through them, like that famous anti-abortion site did for the murdered abortion doctors. I mean, it’s transphobia central, right? Isn’t that the logical result?
Swine.
DaisyDeadhead
26 Aug 08 at 2:56 pm
Maybe she thinks this post is about her. It’s not. Oh, sure, I drew on her actions as examples, but she’s far from the only one. I drew on several examples to write my post.
But aside from that, I am a fan of truth in advertising.
Lisa Harney
26 Aug 08 at 3:00 pm
Came this way from Hoyden and just wanted to say that this post and this blog are a great resource. Kudos to you, Lisa.
Bene Gesserit Witch
26 Aug 08 at 4:24 pm
Thanks much. :)
Lisa Harney
26 Aug 08 at 4:26 pm
[...] first, please be aware that Lisa has something to say about transphobia, oppression, and the nature of privilege. I realize that’s been linked all over tarnation, but tough shit. My blog, my posts, you [...]
the shattered glass « feminism + fandom = attitude problem
26 Aug 08 at 6:09 pm
Wow. This is a great post!
arrossisco
26 Aug 08 at 6:56 pm
Transphobia is also assuming that someone who had sex reassignment surgery identifies as transgender or considers themselves part of some agenda driven identity.
Transsexualism is what I was treated for not who I am.
I am a woman and the many years have resulted in my being much more like other old women who were born female than being part of some imaginary transcommunity.
SuzyQ
26 Aug 08 at 9:22 pm
Which I hope the above post does not do.
The trans community (two words, yay!) isn’t imaginary, but you’re not a part of it, by choice. I don’t see that as problematic at all. Lots of trans men and women aren’t a part of it. Being a part of that community doesn’t mean that trans is an identity for you, so much as it’s a common experience, however.
I do agree that it’s transphobic to force labels on people that they don’t identify with, especially when those labels are used to misinterpret and misrepresent who they are – something that cis people do trans people far more often than trans people do to trans people.
And “trans person” is only an identity to those who define it as such for themselves. I’m not one of those people, but I use it because it’s shorter than all the other ways used to distinguish cis people from trans people, it doesn’t exclude people who are transgender but not transsexual – who have to put up with a lot of the same shit we do – and it doesn’t require me to use someone else’s appropriation of trans people’s language (womyn-born-womyn as a gender identity?).
Thanks for dropping by.
Lisa Harney
26 Aug 08 at 9:31 pm
Also, something is necessary to decenter the idea that cis people are the norm and trans people are the other, since these conversations are happening with and around cis people with people who acknowledge their trans histories or identities.
Lisa Harney
26 Aug 08 at 9:33 pm
“When you say that trans women should be placed in a men’s prison because their male history means they might rape someone, you have not only said something transphobic, but you have also said that the trans woman should be placed into a situation where she will be raped repeatedly.”
I would add, “sexist to this.”"
Amber Thompson
27 Aug 08 at 12:25 pm
Because I Just Had To Say It…
…The thing is, he’s not the only person like this. And I know anyone who’s been in the blogosphere for longer than 10 minutes knows it, but I still don’t fucking get it, as observed by my comments in this excellent post over at Questioning Transph…
Screaming Lemur: Femme-inism and Other Things
27 Aug 08 at 9:25 pm
Hi Lisa,
I, like Bene, came here by way of Hoyden. I had to stop commenting as I was getting overwhelmed with frustration. I don’t understand this ‘quick, I don’t understand, grab the nearest trans person and make them ‘confess’ for us, so we can get to the ‘truth’ and make a theory of it.
I tried to make the point that this is violence, but I was so beyond tired by then…and my friend is transitioning, and yes, all I could think about is that her life is so much more likely to be taken, her rights disrespected, she’s more likely to face discrimination and harrasment and humiliation because of transphobia. I was getting tangled and confused in that thread, and have decided to bail in order to come read here and other links I picked up, and at some point post on my own blog about this.
Longwinded comment, sorry. This is a sensational post. Would you mind if I link to it from my blog?
fuckpoliteness
28 Aug 08 at 12:35 am
To bail on that thread, not on Hoyden as it certainly wasn’t tigtog or lauredhel causing my angst
fuckpoliteness
28 Aug 08 at 12:36 am
Please link it, like the other 50 million blogs that have linked so far. :)
Lisa Harney
28 Aug 08 at 6:40 am
[...] of my favorite pieces is Transphobic Words and Deeds, which beautifully outlines what transphobia is and what it isn’t, and delivers plain talk about [...]
Babeland’s Blog» Blog Archive » Questioning Transphobia
28 Aug 08 at 1:50 pm
This is the kind of silliness that makes me never want to be identified as “transgender.” This is identity politics at its peak of absurdity. Sorry, but if one is truly a woman, then all of this becomes moot. It is only when you are playing games that you have to worry about sematntical games such as is presented here. To be quite honest, I truly pity those who feel it necessary to enage in this sort of self-flaggelation.
Just Jennifer
28 Aug 08 at 3:15 pm
Hey, thanks for dropping by, Jennifer. It disappoints me that trans women are willing to participate in transphobia and transmisogyny, but since you’re here:
Do you really truly honestly believe that being truly a woman with a transsexual history makes it impossible for you to experience transphobia or transmisogyny? Do you really? Do you honestly believe that transphobia only comes to those who believe it exists?
Okay, anyway, back in the real world…
Lisa Harney
28 Aug 08 at 3:33 pm
I’m sorry Jennifer, are you not familiar with the concept of law?
To choose just one example from the millions, the US government actively excludes marriage where one partner is transsexual (pre-op, post-op, doesn’t matter) from being allowed visas.
That’s institutional discrimination of the sort Lisa mentioned. Which yes, even includes women like you, petal.
queenemily
28 Aug 08 at 4:16 pm
Countdown to accusations of “shemale,” “crossdresser,” or “fetishist,” starting at 4:28:05 pm, Pacific, August 28, 2008.
Lisa Harney
28 Aug 08 at 4:28 pm
Hello Jennifer,
I’m wondering, do you generally blame words for the actions of others? For instance, I wasn’t aware an adjective (like transgender) could walk up and verbally insult someone, among other things. I’ve been under the impression (and correct me if I’m wrong) that it is the person who is being an ass who is at fault, instead of a word. I’m also interested (if you’d be so generous as to answer) on why you seem to feel a pressing need to shove the blame on people who use transgender as a word. I might be mistaken, but I’d hate to think others’ use of a word would make someone so defensive about their identity that they’d go so far as to declare that whatever happens to said people who use the Word That-Shall-Not-Be-Named ~ must ~ be the result of self imposed punishment-by-stupidity. Please, indulge me. Can words – really – get up and walk and why are you so insecure as to blame a victim for transmisogyny or transphobia?
arrogantworm
28 Aug 08 at 4:31 pm
Jennifer: Also, y’no, White Lens?
And Cis Lens?
Yeah.
Betcha those pats on the head from the cis radfems feel good, eh?
GallingGalla
28 Aug 08 at 6:58 pm
How is this self-flagellation? I mean HOW?
fuckpoliteness
28 Aug 08 at 11:47 pm
Pointing out the real ways that trans people are dismissed and harmed is just like “playing the victim card,” I think.
Personally, I think this is more of a manifesto. I’m not wallowing in misery here, and I think that’s why this post grabbed people – hence this page getting linked as far as Lithuania (although I have no idea what they were saying about it).
If I were just saying “look how bad things are for us trans people, please pity us” I don’t think I would’ve garnered any interest.
But then I don’t write like that because I don’t want anyone’s pity. It’s never about pity, it’s about having a voice.
I don’t know why Jennifer Usher doesn’t want others to have voices, or why she feels entitled to attempt to assert control over trans discourse…or why she thinks she has any room to tell anyone who’s really a woman and who isn’t, but no one ever said trans people were one big happy family.
Lisa Harney
28 Aug 08 at 11:57 pm
Although I must admit that I am amused by the idea of a form of self-flagellation that involves calling people out on their privileged shit.
Lisa Harney
29 Aug 08 at 4:44 am
Yeah…that had me stumped…and…your writing has such power, so I just…self flagellation…HUH??
fuckpoliteness
29 Aug 08 at 5:01 am
Yes, and I also write my blog posts while sitting on a bed of nails.
Lisa Harney
29 Aug 08 at 5:06 am
It’s all about the asceticism.
Lisa Harney
29 Aug 08 at 5:06 am
I lay on a bed of nails once at a science museum. It was sorta cool. Just a bit prickly, like me!
Bene Gesserit Witch
31 Aug 08 at 9:55 pm
I started to translate the post to german to post it (with link to the source) in blog. Is that OK by you Lisa (its a lot of work by the way, so well written and a joy to read, but translating it is a whole nother story ;-)
Sarah
Sarah
5 Sep 08 at 11:45 am
Go for it, Sarah, and thank you. :)
Lisa Harney
5 Sep 08 at 1:05 pm
[...] passage seems to get at the core of my problem here: Cissexual privilege is the privilege of having a body [...]
One Utah » Blog Archive » Transphobia, Transacceptance, Transgender
14 Sep 08 at 12:00 pm
[...] nothing – not one thing – you mention above has anything to do with your cissexual privilege. It’s like white privilege – you cannot simply decide you’re not white one day and [...]
Unclear on the Concept: You Cannot Renounce Cis Privilege « Questioning Transphobia
17 Sep 08 at 1:49 am
I have some thoughts about a small part of this post. Specifically, this:
“Cissexual privilege means that you don’t have to do anything to be comfortable – to be able to live with – your body’s sex.”
Because when I hear things like ‘you dont have to do anything to be comfortable with your body’s sex’ I cannot help but think of the origins of gynecology, the birth control pill, the mississippi appendectomy, depo provera, quinacrine, hysterectomies without consent, and the like, and how they were used so consistently on women of color. Having a female gendered not white body comes with plenty of risks that white women can remain largely oblivious to.
I am starting to wonder how much of the criticisms of cisgender privilege are really based on criticisms of white anti-transgender feminism, and also a view of cisgender women that holds white women’s experiences as the standard for all women.
It would be really nice to see an examination of ‘cisgender’ privilege that involved a more detailed analysis of these issues.
Anonymous Woman of Color
17 Sep 08 at 1:22 pm
Okay, you have a point about that – and there’s a reason that even since writing my post I’ve been thinking of white cis privilege rather than unqualified cis privilege.
The majority of my statements are anecdotal – based on interactions online or in the real world, as well as reports of violence. Which is to say that only some of the examples relate to white cis feminists.
Anyway, I don’t think my point is wrong in that cis women of color do not need to change their sexes to be comfortable with their bodies’ sex. I totally agree that society punishes cis woman of color bodies and has done so for a very long time. I’ll edit to make the distinction clearer, and I apologize for writing it in such a way that diminishes what cissexual women of color have experienced.
Lisa Harney
17 Sep 08 at 3:38 pm
Also, how do you consider the intersection of being trans and being a person of color wrt your criticism above?
Lisa Harney
17 Sep 08 at 9:18 pm
And I suggest reading this post by Tobi Hill-Meyer.
Lisa Harney
17 Sep 08 at 10:33 pm
How do I consider what about the intersection of trans and people of color? I am not sure I understand what you are asking, but I will say this:
I think that in many respects the issues of transgender people of color, and where they stem from, are ignored by a lot of white transgender activists. For example, I think that a lot of transwomen of color, especially Black, are assumed to be sex workers for the same reason that a lot of non-trans women of color are stereotyped as freely sexually available.
I’ve already read the post by Tobi Hill Meyer. Is there something in particular about her experience as a Lost Bird you wanted me to respond to in that post?
A Woman of Color
18 Sep 08 at 12:22 pm
What I mean is – society is violently uncomfortable with women of color as you point out, and trans people are uncomfortable with their sex at birth – and how these are distinguishable for a trans woman of color.
And yes, I agree that is a problem for white trans activists as well as the rest of society. I didn’t realize how bad this was until last year, when a friend of mine was telling me about her participation in activism in Washington DC to get police to stop viewing “being a trans woman of color” as probable cause for being a sex worker. I’ve been stopped twice in 20 years for walking while trans, and I didn’t realize until then that trans women of color were profiled as sex workers by the police and harassed on a continual basis.
I guess a vivid example of how racism and trans misogyny intersects is Victoria Arellano, a Latina who was to be deported because she’d been convicted for drunk driving, and was left in prison without access to necessary antibiotics to control AIDS and was abused by the prison staff until it was too late to save her life. I’ve been having a hard time writing a post about her, but I want to finish it in the next couple of days.
I guess in the early morning hours I thought Tobi’s post made a point about this conversation here, but I might’ve been misremembering what her post said.
Thank you for coming back.
Lisa Harney
18 Sep 08 at 2:01 pm
And also how society is violently uncomfortable with trans women’s sex and gender and how that intersects with society’s violent discomfort with women of color. Which comes out as the majority of murder victims being trans women of color, and often assumed by the press to be sex workers before the full story is out.
Lisa Harney
18 Sep 08 at 2:45 pm
[...] Transphobic Words and Deeds [...]
Delicious Links 3-9-08 « Shut Up, Sit Down
22 Sep 08 at 3:25 am
Well, it’s been 12 days and no return from anonymous, so I’ll just make the connection that I was working toward.
From the post:
From Anonymous’ first comment:
So, it’s both “What about the cis people?” and an invocation of hierarchy of oppressions – heck, a hint that I, as a white trans woman, am not qualified to write about my own oppression.
I appreciated your feedback, Anonymous, but I didn’t appreciate the usual gimmick.
Lisa Harney
30 Sep 08 at 3:36 pm
Hello Lisa, I finaly finished the translation and postet it at:
http://badhairdaysandmore.blogspot.com/2008/10/transphobe-worte-und-taten.html
Sarah
Sarah
7 Oct 08 at 2:36 pm
Hrm. And here I thought the definitions of ‘transgender’ and ‘transsexual’ were tricky.
First, let me quote Will & Grace on the hierarchy of oppressions. Grace: “We both know the girl card beats the gay card. And there’s my lesbian friend, and we both know that the only thing that beats the girl card is the gay girl card.” Will: “Well, I know a differently-abled transsexual with split ends, and that one takes the house.”
I’m so glad we’ve got a name for this particular speck of horseshit, because people playing into the idea that their oppression is holier than thine are basically glorifying suffering as something to look up to (rather than something to avoid). It’s simply self-destructive, and it lets an oppressor’s ghost do more damage than the original oppressor.
Anyway, about the cis privilege thing. First, we do want to be careful about…well, frankly the concept is probably as useless as ‘male privilege’ applied to trans women. A cissexual may be George W. Bush, Gloria Steinem, a straight white male quadriplegic, or a streetwalker lying dead in a Castro gutter. The term really loses any application outside of a clinical or statistical context.
It refers to such a broad range of people (probably 95-plus percent of humanity), that culturally the term can’t have any possible application. One woman complained that it was somehow attempting to label her. That’s not our problem, but it’s still something to avoid.
That said, trans people are still surrounded by people who hold their lives in zero regard. I strongly advise against using the term ‘cis privilege’ to refer to this – it implies too many things about too many different people, and implies that the chosen behavior of insulting trans people is part and parcel of not being trans. It says, “If you’re not trans then, genetically, you have to be the oppressor.”
Also, the idea of ‘cis privilege’ is again centered on the ‘advantaged’ group – basically giving nontrans people their own equivalent of white guilt, which they can then bemoan to the exclusion of real action. This guilt, when taken out of the context of specific transphobia, will also lead to further stereotyping of what ‘the trans community’ as a unit is going through.
Keep it about us and let the word ‘transphobia’ do its job. When we’re being hunted for sport, it’s counterproductive and (very subjectively) immoral to care about a transphobe’s feelings and reasons for being a transphobe. They don’t need to examine themselves that much – they can just sell us proper health insurance and pass laws to stop people from raping and killing us. That goes farther than hand-wringing and self-obsessed guilt trips.
I love you.
MC
27 Dec 08 at 2:36 am
[...] understood as male or female, furthermore disciplining a failure to conform is yet another way in which cisgender privilege is maintained. We have so over valued hierarchy that we have allowed it to control what bodies truly matter in [...]
Trans Hate Continues To Lead To Violence | Menstrual Poetry
12 Mar 09 at 1:16 pm
[...] I’m taking to make the blog seem less overtly exclusive and to actively work to challenge my cis privilege. And I wanted to share this because it’s important to openly note the gaps in feminist [...]
Making Changes: Categories : The Curvature
16 Apr 09 at 8:07 am
OMG!!!! I just saw this!! SOO BRILLIANT!! you have taken all the words i can’t express and placed them brilliantly exceeding everything i am thinking!
thank u so much for this!
it really helps.
Andreia
1 Apr 10 at 7:06 am
[...] continuacion un fragmento de la entrada, “Palabras y Acciones Transfóbicas”, por Lisa Harney, publicado originalmente en ingles en el blog, Cuestionando la Transfobia [...]
Cuestionando tu Transfobia
4 Jun 10 at 1:58 am
[...] de la mejor manera que pude, al español. el texto citado forma parte de la entrada, “Palabras y Acciones Transfóbicas”, publicado originalmente en ingles en el blog, Cuestionando la Transfobia -Questioning [...]
Volteando la tortilla: del sufrimiento de las discriminadas a la comodidad del opresor, “Palabras y Acciones Transfobicas” un ensayo acerca del privilegio cisexual
4 Jun 10 at 2:10 am
[...] just some food for thought: “Transphobia is the exercise of [cis] privilege.“ privilege, quotes activism, awareness, community, equality, identity, language, privilege, [...]
Uppity Brown Woman « Chroanagram
14 Nov 10 at 3:59 pm
[...] continuacion un fragmento del ensayo, “Palabras y Acciones Transfóbicas”, por Lisa Harney, publicado originalmente en ingles en el blog, Cuestionando la Transfobia [...]
Cuestionando tu transfobia
5 Dec 10 at 10:18 am
[...] If you felt at all defensive upon reading this, then I recommend you read Transphobic Words and Deeds at Questioning Transphobia and think a bit about where you fit in the picture of oppression and allyship with trans people. Do [...]
Pronouns and privilege « Avoid the Inevitable
6 May 12 at 7:09 am