"An open letter to cis feminists:" a guest post by Queen Emily.

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Reposting in full with her permission, as originally posted at Sexual Ambiguities [with some more added hyperlinks]. Also see x-post at Questioning Transphobia with Lisa's commentary.


An open letter to cis feminists

Stop fucking up.*

I have complained numerous times that the feminist blogosphere, such as it is, has one main conversation about trans people, one that is returned to again and again and again - the political implications of our transitioning. Click here** if you want yet another example of pointless bloody "analysis."

I don't CARE about whatever horrible thing some feminist has said anymore. I care that these discussions centre on cis concerns, even (maybe especially) allies respond mostly to the slurs, but rarely address the real issues.

Now, if you want to have those conversations, here's an idea. Subject yourself to the same kind of analysis. Honestly interrogate if and how you might have more or less privilege than trans people. And no, for the millionth time, trans women are not the fucking Patriarchy.

Or how bout this for an idea. Spend some actual time and energy on trans issues. Here is one thing you are barely talking about - the continual violence against transgendered people for being transgendered.

Blog about Angie Zapata. Blog about Ebony Whitaker. Blog about Sanesha Stewart (to name just three trans women murdered this year).

Try subjecting all that torturous analysis to something actually useful - how violence against trans people occurs. Try thinking about the fact that it is overwhelming trans women of colour being murdered. Try thinking about the intersections between race, transness, misogyny and sex work.

Try writing about the way that institutions collude with this violence - that medical professionals may willingly leave you to die, that police may not prosecute, that lawyers use "trans panic" as a defence to justify the death, and then to add insult to injury, the media effectively blames the dead person for their own deaths AND misgenders them.

And for fuck's sake, don't blame the fucking victims.

I DARE YOU.

* if this doesn't apply to you, then it doesn't apply to you.

posted by queen emily



**belledame again. Yeah, it WOULD be better to focus on other things beside what the latest drooling imbecile online said, wouldn't it. Unfortunately, they kind of tend to draw one's attention. Me, I clicked over there when making the hyperlink, got as far as the "no special rights" crap and saw red.

As it happens, I had been planning to write a "dear straight feminists" post myself for a while now. I have no idea what mAndrea's personal deal is and don't much care; but I've seen, like, maybe a handful (ew) of actual lesbian (cis) "feminist" women be able to read, even WRITE this kind of crap and somehow NOT immediately go,

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING SHITTING ME THIS IS HOMOPHOBIA ONE OH FUCKING ONE HELLLLOOOOOOOO

I do not know what their damage is. I will never understand what the fucking disconnect is. One is now over there in the comments quoting Oscar Fucking Wilde. I can't deal with the stupid today, I really can't.

"People: the other white meat"

--Renegade


Mostly, though? The people who actually spout or endorse this kind of bullshit, as opposed to just sort of blipping it over because oo well not my table really? Even the ones who AREN'T total fucking wastes of space like this one? Straight women. (And some straight men, of course, which is, if possible, even more special-er, always). Burbling about: how they want to -do away with gender- (please); how political lesbianism, or whatever the catchphrase for "just avoid men and make sappy noises about how WONDERFUL women are without ever having to have icky sex with them" is these days, is something they humbly aspire to, meanwhile just having to make do with their very own Nigel whilst pointing righteous fingers at everyone else in the entire world; and how TERRIBLE "queer politics" are, this or that kind of sexual act or desire that guess what! is mostly going to affect people OTHER than their crunchy abstinent selves, the ones who are ALREADY being spat at and being called "perverts" and "degenerates" and their internal reality isn't legitimate anyway, much less acting out sexual desires...

Sorry. Got carried away. Where was I?

Anyway. But you know, besides that, yeah, there is another post somewhere here, about the curious place that gay (cis) people/issues and particularly lesbians have in mainstream (het) feminism. Certainly you don't catch this kind of bottom-feeder button-pushing bigotry, -within- feminism as such, just for being queer, usually. And, hell, well, lesbians, at least for some people, there's that dubious pedestal again...well, this is, I suspect, another post.

But yeah. There's really other shit to talk about, here, was the point, other -issues- that aren't all about centering straight women and their needs as well as (even more so, Emily is right) cis women and -our- needs; and I need to get on more of it myself.

I'll be coming back to this.