On matters of passing

[rm]

I've never been to Wiscon, because it never, ever fits into my schedule. But I go to cons, and, because of the HP fandom, I go to cons that are almost exclusively women. Women who are, among other things, sometimes fat and queer and living with a disability.

Here's the thing, and it's not a thing I've ever been comfortable with: I pass. I have a profound amount of privilege for what I am. I'm thin, my disability is invisible, my appearance is white, and it is very very easy for me not to appear queer or genderqueer, whether I mean this to be the case or not.

It is strange to be both lucky and ashamed of that luck. It is strange to be a chameleon who never got a choice in the matter of all her choice. Looking at me there's so little about me that you would necessarily know. Even my age. I'll probably be able to pass for a socially acceptable 25 for a long time yet.

The thing is, I've never meant to keep these secrets or dodge bullets like the great Something Awful debacle of this year's Wiscon. But what happens to me in person and what happens to me online are often two different things.

Because here I talk about what you can't see, and that makes it not just true for you as well as me, but it also paints a bullseye. For those of you newer to the friendlist, one of the reason so many people are banned from this journal is related to an Internet drama from a couple of years ago, which brought all sorts of creeps to this journal "accusing" me of transexuality.

I have a lot of trans and intersexed friends and even if I didn't, for me to answer judgmental questions about my own biological gender implies that the act of judgment is somehow acceptable and that other people have a right to demand to know what's in my or anyone else's pants. Wrong. I refused to answer, and things that were already unpleasant in the threads got worse. And I took out my big bad ban stick.

Yeah, you can throw rocks in my virtual living room, but I can also throw you out the door. Deal with it.

I am sick to fucking death of dyke or lesbian or man being a way to call women ugly. I am sick to death of bitch and girl and pussy to call down the spectre of cowardice on men. And I am sick unto fucking death of transfolk being treated as if they are somehow unreal, temporary of spirit or the last of the circus sideshow.

Our world is filled with the tyrranies of the flesh. And the discussion of that extends well into the online sphere. Because of what I do and who I am, I deal with this day in and day out. In France, an agent told me, I would actually be beautiful. Lose five pounds. Get stronger. Practice more. A man would be taller. Laughter and a remark on the size of my shoulders. Sir at the bank because I refuse to lower my eyes when I make a request.

My flesh was made for our little binary world more than most people's. But I wasn't. And I try not to hide behind what I have. But sometimes it is so unavoidable that all I can do is be a supporter in what is actually, also my own battle. Because it doesn't show. Because I could have more secrets than I do.

This is one of the more moving responses to what happened at Wiscon. I practically stood up and cheered at the office.

Call me a man. Call me a woman. I don't care. But you damn well better make it a compliment or at least mere observation. Because otherwise, you're wasting your breath. I'm not going to be anything other than what I am no matter what you say. And I'm not going to be quiet. And no matter who you target or why, I am not going to relax into this life of passing.

It needs to be said. And it needs to be said not just because of Wiscon or my fannish life or the vitriol of the LJ Advisory Board election, but because you have more freedom than you think you do. Every single one of you.

Of us.

Don't let anyone EVER tell you otherwise.

Even yourself.

Comments

Re: Issues, Issues

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Okay, I normally don't get into flaps anywhere, and certainly not on other folk's journals, but the sheer audacity & blinding privilege of your comment has filled me with so much rage, I was impelled to post.

Sometimes I think that it's almost like you're living in the South and complaining that people are racist.

Are you serious??? There are so many things wrong with this analogy, I don't even know where to start. It's perfectly acceptable to be enraged about people being racist, you know, anywhere. It is not our responsibility to move out of places that have bigotry and prejudice - a) because that's everywhere, and b) because it's our responsibility as thinking members of society to fight and speak out against these things wherever we are. People sometimes leave places because they don't like or can't deal with a certain environment; no one ought to judge that personal choice, but conversely, how dare anyone judge a decision that involves staying and fighting and speaking up for what one believes is right?

Ultimately, I can't help wondering what things would be like for you if you didn't have these battles to fight. What new issues would engage you and how would you change? Once the fight for respect and basic equality is over, what then? Do you endlessly seek to magnify smaller problems into greater significance - pursuing them with the same vehemence?

The fight for respect and basic equality is nowhere near over, and it amazes me that anyone could speak as if it is either already accomplished, or so close to finished that people should start examining social problems for the next great issue to come upon us. This fight, regardless what someone who "lives in the Bay Area" might think is not even close to finished - your comment, as engulfed with privilege as it is, goes pretty far to making my point.

Your questions, for example: "Do you endlessly seek to magnify smaller problems into greater significance - pursuing them with the same vehemence?" are so patronizing! How do you figure that these are "smaller problems" - have you ever been on the short end of the sexism stick? Do you know what it's like to be a person of color in the white-centric world? Do you know what it's like to walk through the world as a queer person in a monosexual world? And just for the record, it wasn't really all that different in essence in San Francisco than it was in Rome than it was in New York than than it was in Atlanta.

BTW the West Coast can be unbelievable racist and anti-semitic and sexist in ways that just wouldn't fly on the East Coast. Geography doesn't determine these issues - just the manner in which they present themselves.

...

[keith418.livejournal.com]

Well, the question still comes back to the origins of the problems. What makes people exhibit these kinds of attitudes? I am surprised that rm isn't more interested in looking at the relationship between her own values and those of the people around she has a problem with. There is a reason, surely, why a city like Oakland has the highest number of gays and lesbians with families of any city in America, but what is it? Is it because people here are less bound by the kinds of vestigial values systems that perpetuate certain "traditional" sex roles? if that's the case, then what's the "downside"? Is there one?

Sure, the fight isn't over, but what would happen were it to be? Or what would happen if you found yourself in an environment in which these imbalances didn't exist? Are the people that we look down on for being sexist and homophobic themselves expressing an anger at "privilege"? How could that be the case and what forces might contribute to them feeling the need to channel their unhappiness, or rage, or sense of inadequacy, in this kind of manner?

These questions, to me, are far more interesting than "Sexist people and homophobes suck!" We know they suck. But what lies beyond that judgment and what does it really imply?

Re: ...

[gement.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you are having a very different conversation than the one rm started. I disagree with your characterization of what she said, and I think you're missing the point.

I also think you're doing so politely. Thank you! (I'm always happy to discuss things with people who are polite.)

The point, as I read it, wasn't "Sexist people and homophobes suck!" It was "I feel pressure living in the world as it is. I feel pressure because I am a member of groups I see mistreated. I feel that things will not change unless members of those groups stand proudly. I have to go out of my way to stand proudly and be counted because I am not obviously a group member. This is awkward and causes a lot of confusing emotions."

While the question of why people treat these groups badly is an interesting one, it's completely off-sides to rm's internal conflict.

We could have a conversation about the ghettoization of minorities (which, when they organize, can turn into empowered communities like the SF area). We could have a conversation about the relative merits of standing up and protesting or moving to a more hospitable culture. We could have a conversation about the history of bigotry, cultural norms, cognitive dissonance, gender expectations, so on and so forth.

We could have a conversation about the concept, explored in some science fiction, of removing the circuit responsible for bigotry from people's mental wiring. Bigotry of one kind or another has been with us since there were people. It's fear of the Other, and there are good historical survival reasons to be suspicious of the Other. But we could talk about the ramifications if it Just Went Away. That might be an interesting conversation, though not one that will be applicable in our lifetimes, if ever.

None of these were the conversation RM was starting, which was about personal conflict and activism by showing one's identity in one person's life.

Re: ...

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying all that so succinctly, intelligently and dispassionately.

In my response to keith418, I was just responding to the tone and content of his comment, without addressing the issue that the comment seemed to almost entirely miss the point of rm's original post - and thus the conversation went even further in the "new" direction.

...

[keith418.livejournal.com]

Well, again, I wonder what would happen if she was living in an area in which had more people were all together standing proudly, or were simply accepted as normal so that their need to stand proudly against a common foe, or disrespect, had diminished to the point that other issues had arrived. There, are, after all, plenty of gay and lesbian people to who these are not the same kinds of issues they are to rm and I am interested in why they no longer seem so pressing to some of the ones I know when compared to her. Are they ignoring the daily homophobia all around them? Or are they not getting the same sort of abuse she is for some other reason? Are they simply choosing to focus on other areas? What might prompt that decision?

Re: ...

[gement.livejournal.com]

I am going to make a guess here, based on what you have said. I may be wrong. I am guessing that you identify as at least 95% straight male, with no gender identity issues.

The reason I guess this is that, even in the Bay area, bad things happen to gay people sometimes. Custody fights. Random violence. Very pointed looks if they stray outside queer zones holding hands. Many people have decided to take a deep breath and live obviously as themselves every minute anyway. That doesn't mean it's easy for them.

On top of that, people who are genderqueer still face significant suspicion, bias, and ignorance even in the gay community. They don't get mentioned in the history books. There was a lesbian hero of the Stonewall era who came out as trans later and was promptly dropped from the historical accounting. (I'd give you a reference, but I need to dig up his name again.)

I'm glad to hear that you have friends who don't seem to worry about these things. I wonder if you have talked directly with them on the subject, though.

I don't have patience with martyrs. I don't have patience with people who want monetary reparations from the descendants of their oppressors 100 years down the line. I don't have patience with people who can't talk about anything but their cause.

But some of us are living with these conflicts, and these fears, every day. The impression I get from your words is that you think this isn't a big deal, and if it's a big deal where she is, she should just move. I live in Seattle, one of the most trans-friendly cities in the country. Trust me, I live with this every day, and there's nowhere for me to move.

Some Nuance Please

[keith418.livejournal.com]

It's really easy to play this game with "noble victims" and "evil oppressors." If that's the only game you see here, or the only scenario, then that's one thing. And, yes, people in the Bay Area suffer from all kinds of injustices and problems. It'
s not Shangri-la 24-7.

But even my gay and lesbian friends do not insist on this kind of unrelentingly narrow description of their situation. Instead, they open up the discussion on to a more nuanced level. They look at other things and other problems - and they can see some contradictions and inconsistencies on their own "side" too. When you move beyond establishing the simple moral right and wrong issues, what do you get? After all, many people cite the way the bigoted Christian Right needs to draw very strict and unambiguous moral lines all the time as one of their big problems. Do the people on our side need to do the same thing and what does it say about us if we do? Do we need to "right" in the same way they do - and for the same reasons?

Re: Some Nuance Please

[gement.livejournal.com]

I am sorry that you are reading me and RM as playing absolutes or giving this issue an "unrelentingly narrow description." That is not my perception.

I need to stop responding here now. It has been interesting talking with you.

Re: Issues, Issues

[idunn.livejournal.com]

Hello, friend, you spoke my mind and raised a number of good points, particularly on the stereotype about isms existing in contained boxes. I'm from north Jersey, which is a melting pot of colors, religions, sexualities and income. We're a short train hop from Manhattan. Are we perhaps more open-minded than a small Southern town of predominantly white Christians? We've certainly had more exposure to people of all backgrounds. But while my family may be more tolerant of black people, they've still told their daughters to not bring one home. This may not be as inflammatory or obvious as when friends of mine visit Georgia and can't get service in restaurants or gas stations because of their skin color, but it's still racist crap. It may just take on a more subtle tone.

Or not, such as in the last ten years when "driving while black" became a topic of conversation in New Jersey.

I agree with you, discrimination and hatred know no geopolitical boundaries. Perhaps the forms vary, but it'd be wishful thinking to imagine it's gone, or that if one doesn't like it, they need to move.

Re: Issues, Issues

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I think people are really invested in hierarchy and power, and that's not going away. That doesn't mean we shouldn't self-analyse in an effort to overcome it. The project might ultimately be doomed to failure, but trying to address it is, in my opinion, the measure of the best and only success.

Re: Issues, Issues

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

Dude, I love you, I really do, but I just can't.

I'm sick to death of straw man internet arguments, and this whole thing is so trollish it KILLS me. I started typing a long response, and then realized it would fall on selective listening ears, and deleted it.

Thanks for fighting the good fight and defending our city. South my ASS.

P.S. saw a black guy in his 20's with a boondocks shirt on and a triangle rainbow armband on the 1 uptown the other day. It made me smile lots :)