i know you think you’re so fantastic being a dude who’s running a feminist blog and whatever, but keep in mind that your ass is still the privileged one so maybe you should shut the fuck up and refrain from writing incoherent shit on posts that you clearly know nothing about. you are the still the most privileged person in this discussion, so don’t tell us about whose fucking privilege to care about and whose to ignore.

fuckin A.

I find it dismissive that you think transgendered people are a relatively small and unimportant population that social justice seekers should ignore for the sake of a larger picture of violence against women by men. In fact, it sounds like you’re insinuating that transitioning genders has nothing to do with gendered violence, when actually, it has everything to do with gendered violence. Trans people face high amounts of violence simply for being trans. It’s not a different onslaught of violence. It’s the same one, and it surely is not straining gnats while swallowing camels.

If we enter into a place where a discussion is happening about a particular subject – again, say, police violence against transpeople – it would not be appropriate to suddenly interject with “what do you mean by cisgender?” if that is not supposed to be the point of the conversation. That’s what this post was about – feminists whose transphobia was challenged, and all they could respond with (repeatedly) was “what’s cisgender mean?”

In other offline contexts, it might be okay, if it’s not a word you’re familiar with. If it’s a casual conversation, you can ask what the other person means in a way that signifies you want to know it so that you can understand more, not because you want to make the conversation about that particular term.

Although, I’m of the opinion that online, if you’re able to ask what ‘cisgender’ means or ‘people of colour’ means, you’re able to search it without disrupting a conversation in a blog post or a forum thread.

It’s the organizational interaction that makes it iffy. If you show up at a gathering of x people, and you show up out of the blue just to “support the cause,” you come off as awfully condescending. Like in univ when everyone in my “international” house was required to attend one event each trimester hosted by a group we didn’t belong to. Everyone knew why we were there and it was nasty all-around. On the other hand, if we voluntarily went to things with people we knew, or were genuinely interested (and not just because it was exotic to us), things went much better.

There are some things that can’t be googled. I just feel extremely uncomfortable now with discussing things because I am left feeling that I’m either offensive or not understanding completely.

I absolutely agree with you… the slanty eye is OUTRAGEOUSLY bigoted… it’s not even borderline bigotry.

Most people engage in bigoted behaviors and thinking and no one calls them on it…and therein lies the problem… bigotry is normalized and whenever someone DOES identify it then all of the weak defensive comments surface to try and diminish the damage that has been done…

Thanks for sharing this point of view. It is absolutely a crucial discussion to have!

Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa

If gender roles are largely a cultural construct, both social and political, designed overall and in general around the globe to keep women as an underclass to global male dominance — and I believe this is in fact the global function of gender roles, see images at http://thelongestwar.wordpress.com/ — and if I hope that all inherently oppressed people achieve greater freedom on this planet — as a practitioner of energy and other “alternative” healing, any re-construction of gender roles by use of surgery or other painful medical “treatment” seems ill-advised from the standpoint of the overall sexual politics in which we all live.

In other words, and with all respect due, surely you can appreciate that most people with a concern for social justice would put any discussion of relative degrees of “privilege” revolving around the relatively few people choosing physical re-construction of gender roles (from male to female or from female to male) — which sidesteps the continuing and chronic global onslaught of violence by men against women as women — in the category of straining at gnats while swallowing camels.

5.3 % were re-arrested:
3.3% where a child was involved
2.2% where two adults were involved.

In contrast, 2004 Bureau of Justice stats. study shows that the recidivism rate for other crimes is at 69%.