la violette pensée

Glass & Stone

From the article by Toni d’Orsay:

I’m told by people that Autumn Sandeen isn’t a transsexual, that Monica Roberts isn’t a transsexual, that Ashley Love isn’t a transsexual, that  Hexydezimal isn’t a transsexual, that Donna Rose isn’t a transsexual, that anyone who disagrees withtheir view of who is and who isn’t a transsexual isn’t a transsexual, and they all point fingers and yet all of them forget one very, very important thing:I don’t give a flying fuck who is and who isn’t a transsexual.

I read stuff like this:

Transgender goals are completely flipped from ours in that they seek to entrench gender as a pseudo-replacement for sex (pretty much at the beck and call, as well as a *great* side effect of their laziness for the psych institution end of things), whereas we are looking to have sex representation and work with allies like intersex people to build a sex centered community.

and I have to wonder if they truly understand just how wrong they are, and when I try to correct them, I’m told no, no its absolutely the case, and that I’m just spouting more dogma.
It doesn’t matter that this literally flies in the face of the fact that as a sociologist, everything I’ve ever written about is very specific — female/male is sex, masculine/feminine is gender, and the two are separate.  And I can say, absolutely, that I have asked them pointed questions, and been given answers that indicates they literally do not understand what sex and gender are. That they do not understand the very semantic arguments they are using, that they are at best half informed and meeting the old standard of a half educated person is worse than a fully educated one.

But if anyone were to push me, they’d find out that I’m likely to describe as not a transsexual anyone who spends any amount of time saying that so and so isn’t a transsexual. And *mean* it. Especially when the modus operandi of the inquisitors seeking purity is to shoot them all and let god sort ‘em out.

And here’s why I don’t care: it doesn’t make a diffference. One can argue about who’s who and who’s what and what name to use and how many different desriptions and who couts and who doesn’t until the cows come home to nest in hell.  That is, after all, how it came to be that one 64th meant you were black. It is, after all, why I’ve had to deal with internalizing racism and why I’ve had to face the painful and often abusive aspects of colorism. This is just more of the same, an ongoing series of purity tests that no one can ever possibly meet unless they match the ideological measures.

In the end, its still people crapping on you.  In the end, it is supposed to be all about making the laws fairer and the society more tolerant for people who’ve already gone through the hard part. When what people like myself are working towards is making that stuff happen so that no one has to go through the hard part.  The hard part is wrong.

Also excellent article is also excellent.