Hello, and welcome back to Trans 101 With Julie. I am the titular Julie, she who must be fed Skittles.
Let's begin.
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Being a person of a certain age, I am having somewhat of a difficult time trying to fully comprehend the massive blue screen that is #tsraincrew. I could mull this over internally...in fact, I'd gather roughly 99% of you would prefer that.
Too bad.
Here's what I have pieced together from my reading, which is as wide and deep as their movement. read into that what you will. Anyway, as a sort of thesis, I present this statement: #tsraincrew is a movement that is not gender critical but is totally gender critical, which isn't about truscum but totally is.
Please allow me to make an comparison here. TERFs, as a reminder, are gender critical feminists, biological essentialists, witch shifting goalposts as to what defines a woman, but which always boils down to two things:
XX chromosomes
A vagina
Unlike TERFs, #tsraincrew believes no matter what happens, you still will have XY chromosomes (probably), not XX, and until you have a vagina, you're not really trans. So, you see, they're not at all like TERFs in any way shape or form. Now, I know what you're saying. "Julie," you are saying, "those things seem pretty similar to me." And I admit, I thought that too. But reading #tsraincrew posts, they tell me they're not anything like the TERFs who're already seeing how they can be used to further TERF goals. so, I mean...it's got to be true.
Right?
There is, I think, an extreme generational gap here that is part of the problem. As a still unhatched egg, I was fully aware of the requirements to jump over:
The year of therapy.
The letters.
The year or two socialising as a woman.
The eventual and inevitable surgery
"the surgery"
Because it's all about "the surgery"
And a vagina
Now, please understand, I have no issues with anyone getting any surgery if it helps them lessen their discomfort and feel better about themselves. In fact, I'd be all about it for me. except...except. I have certain requirements for what said procedure would achieve for me, and they are as of yet unattainable. as such, well...I'll cope. I still want stuff done, but it's more to reduce one of my meds to a lower level.
Point is, there were hurdles.
Gates.
And gatekeepers.
(I typoed that as hatekeepers and very nearly decided to keep it jftr)
And you had to meet their requirements before you could move forward. and they could hold you in place forever if they wanted to. I honestly believed these were bad things. I don't need a doctor to tell me what I already know. I don't need external agreement in order to know that certain medications will help me. I am informed, and I should be able to make my own medical decisions.
This is informed consent.
And this is a model so many of us have been fighting for for years to become the standard. I know of dozens of people working on exhaustive resource lists for trans men and women to find trans friendly physicians who also believe in informed consent. This is because we all have been victimised, in one way or another, by a system designed to pathologise and medicalise us. We are not disorders, we are not illnesses, we are human beings who know who we are and should have the same right to health care without jumps through hoops.
This, really, is at the core of what we've appropriated through our theft of the #peaktrans hashtag. This is what the #transcult is about. it's about informed choice. acceptance. support. and inclusiveness. Some people can't have surgery...they're still trans. Some people have medical issues that preclude hrt, or hrt to the same degree as others. Guess weehat? Yes, they're still trans. Anyone who identifies as a gender unlike the one they were assigned at birth has the right to call themselves trans, in my mind.
But #tsraincrew says no.
#tsraincrew says you have to go through the gatekeeping...and for the record, lots of them don't even know what gatekeeping is. They are in favour of transmedicalising the condition. In fact, I would feel somewhat safe in offering up the following: #tsraincrew is so traumatised by the sheer fact of being trans that they cannot comprehend the notion of a transgender person who doesn't feel the exact same way. They see being trans as a disability, one to be overcome through surgery. They see transition as a destination, not an ongoing evolution. They cannot conceive that a trans person may be perfectly fine without hormones, but want to have surgery. Or perfectly fine without having surgery, but want very much to be on hrt. They can't see that others experience being trans differently then they do. #tsraincrew already feels we are appropriating transness, thus diminishing what they feel is the one true way to...to what? Not...being...trans, I guess? I guess the entire goal is to stop being trans, to become...cisgender.
I guess.
I mean, I'm just, like, extrapolating.
And I think, despite their arguments to the contrary, they are proud to consider themselves truscum. They feel they are the elite, they are the one people transitioning properly. We see that in how they ruthlessly mock people who are early in transition or don't present femme. We see it in how they, much like the TERFs which they are totally not at all like, latch on to the more vulnerable and push and press and all to what end? To stop them from transitioning? To stop being...fake?
As if they have a monopoly on what the truth is.
Here's the thing about truth; it is not simply objective.
There are objective truths. The sun will rise, the sun will set. Estrogen will feminise, testosterone will masculinise. These are things that are verifiable, measurable, predictable. Truth gets dicier on a micro level. Your truth may state that I am simply a transtrender and an autogynephile because I don't plan on having the surgery, but am totally OK with just being on hrt. my truth is you're full of foetid dingoes' kidneys. whose truth is true?
(answers on a postcard please, dms preferred)
The thing that makes me most incredulous about all of this is how the #tsraincrew feels they are reclaiming TWU TWANSNESS from us. They feel they have been graced with the one truth about the malady that is transness, that which must be overcome, which must be cured. In doing this, they are doing two things. The first and most obvious is that they are playing right into the hands of the TERF crew, who are already busily beavering away at mumsnet about how they can take advantage of these gendercrit trans people to help them. They already see easy meat, quislings they can use to show how unhinged everyone else is.
Look, they will say. Look, even the transes know they're sick and need fixed!
And they will manipulate and twist words and use every little thing the #tsraincrew says to do just that.
The other thing is that they are, quite possibly with full understanding of what they are doing, allying themselves with the right.
...inb4 everyone you hate is a Nazi
Here's the thing tho:
Neonazis rebranded as alt right
TERFs rebranded as gender critical
Conspiracy theorists rebranded as truthers
And so it goes.
Truscum rebranded as #tsraincrew. they're gender realists, which is totally not like race realists and not at all like gender critical. And they'd rather be in the rain, they say.
Yeah cos pneumonia is totes better.
And I'll lift a page from my friend Lycha: they sound like a bunch of water sports fetishists. And hey, I don't kink shame, but I really hope they don't fuck up a perfectly good fetish in their search for the one truth.
Now, let me say a few positive things:
#tsraincrew has done something really good. They've made the rest of us take a look at ourselves, and what our purpose is. That boils down to a few easily digestible, easily understandable points:
1) we are here because of those who came before us.
2) while things are better than they were for our transparents, there's still work to be done.
3) our job is to try and take things further.
Our job is to make the world better for the eggs and fledglings to follow.
There is nothing wrong with being inclusive. After all, as saint Motoko Kusanagi said, "It's simple: overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death." The fewer people you accept as acceptable, well...the less support you have when shit goes south...and if there is one thing I have learned, it's this: shit goes south. all the goddamned time.
There is a truism in tabletop gaming, it bears out in fantasy mmos, and it's true in real life as well:
Never split the party
And...well...we're seeing that happen. And it's for no good reason other than perhaps spite and a sense of superiority.
I don't feel I'm a truer trans person than any of them. hell, I don't think I'm a truer trans person than anyone else. I'm just a trans person. Some days it's a struggle, some golden days it's joy. but that's life, isn't it? The thing is, I don't look at another person and tell them omg you are transing wrong. After all, what does that achieve for me? Does it make me feel better about myself? Does it make me a better person. Does it level me up in transness?
Not the least bit.
I have an inbox of messages from people who have told me how my vulnerability on twitter has helped them come to grips with their identity. I have a hard time believing that, but it warms my heart, because I want to help. I want to inform. I want to be there. None of that makes me a better trans person. It does make me a good person tho. I think. I mean, others would have to judge that, not me.
There were things I wanted to talk about in the midst of this little thread, but I kind of flew past them, and going back just...naah. won't make sense now. not really.
I don't see how this is going to do anything other than drive scared trans kids deeper in the closet.
I don't see how this will do anything other than hurt people early in transition. I don't see how this will do anything but add to an already astronomical amount of pressure newly out trans people will be under. I mean, to feel as if a part of your community hates you? How does this help anyone other than the people who hate all of us equally, no matter how we sidle up against them like mewling puling obsequious puppies greedy for a snack and hoping to avoid the rolled up newspaper?
Hint: it really doesn't.
But it makes a few dozen people feel better about themselves, at the expense of others, and in that it's a perfect exemplar of modern society self-replicating in a smaller community. I just presumed, ignorantly, that we could avoid it.
Those of us labeled as transtrenders, tucutes, umbrella holders, flopping mopsies (i just made that one up)...all this means is we need to be more welcoming, more supportive, more inclusive than ever.
And I think we can do it.
I really think we can.
Join me?
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