Little Light asks:
Physically, I'm fairly early in the transition, even though socially and emotionally I'm way past the point of no return. So I thought: would it be interesting or helpful to those of you reading for me to catalogue some of those basic things?
Because nobody really told them to me when I wasn't experiencing them yet myself, even though I expected it to be hard; here on this bodiless Internet we're always talking about the big-picture, societal, identity-and-rights stuff, and it occurs to me that I had to do a lot of digging, once upon a time, for the nuts and bolts--including the unpleasant, vulgar nuts-and-bolts. And maybe that's why all these arguments about bathrooms don't connect--because one person is talking about who has what abstract claim on what space, and another person is going, look, I really have to go.
The other stuff is important, maybe more important, but somehow I think the point doesn't get across, sometimes. As I said to my partner not long ago: it's funny, knowing the statistics of sexual assault and violence directed at the demographic I'm entering, considering what I know about my basically taking a massive pay cut for every other job I'm ever going to have and practically waiving insurance, knowing about my future health risks and social attitudes, knowing the price I'll have to pay in travel I can't do, places I can't go and be safe, people I'd like to know who'll assume they don't want to know me, knowing I'll be dependent on medical technology and its attendant costs for the rest of my life...
The little, real, blood-and-bones things a person who's never met one of us--or someone who has, but not intimately enough to be told--wouldn't know about, and wouldn't know to account for in their ideas about who we are and what our lives are like.
Would folk want to hear more about these things, or is this enough?
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Also, for those who were following the discussion developing at brownfemipower's regarding "postcolonial feminism and the impact of colonial history on trans issues and multiracial identities," (or would like to tune in now), little light picks up the thread here.
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7 comments:
Little Light, it is enough. And I would like to hear more. Anything you want to share.
Well, I think I may make a series of it over at my place. It's little, concrete, physical-sensation realities that I think our theories miss, sometimes, and might bring us closer.
There seems to be some interest, anyhow.
I am really lost here.
Is this still over the whole transgender issue/
Anyhow, I tsurised my thing all over your Tsuris post ...
Happy New Year, all.
This post? Yes. Well, more specifically over at little light's, who is a transgendered woman talking about all this from a personal perspective, as well as parallel oppressions/anti-oppression. the bfp post got kind of derailed, yes, which is why it moved over to ll's. this post here is just by way of a head's up for people who want to keep talking, drama-free. and no, we're not talking about you-know-who anymore, i don't expect; it isn't about her.
It's an excerpt from a post of mine, Kim; Belle's first link is to the wrong entry, I think.
The gist is that I spent a few days arguing about the theoretical existence of constructs I'm supposed to represent--and was going to write a post about my theoretical position on the abstract arguments about my right to exist where other people might have to interact with me, and right in the middle of it, my insides fell apart.
And it reminded me that this isn't, in the end, about theory. It's about my guts, you know? It's about the real daily existence of real people. It's a physical phenomenon as much as a cultural and emotional one. It thought it might be helpful to bring up some of those things, and started with the personal, since that's what I know.
oh, whoops, sorry, i must've posted in the same link twice. thanks for the catch; off to fix.
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