Okay, world, here’s a tip for you. If you are going to retweet something saying *guys with long fingernails are asking to be punched in the face* and then, when you have it pointed it to you that this is problematic because many people do get beaten up for having long fingernails and general gender nonconformity, the correct response is to say you hadn’t thought of that, or apologise, or at least retract the statement. Calling someone ‘emotionally unstable’ and ‘crazy’ for pointing this out to you, saying ‘calm down’ ‘it’s only a tweet’ and moaning to your friends that you can’t say *anything* without it being offensive to someone these days, all the while dismissing that said person *may have beaten up themselves*for having long fingernails before because they are trans? Not good. I expect better in future, world.
A Sticky Situation
In the state of Denmark something is rotten. Our brown gold Marmite is now verboten. It’s not an assault on its salty taste when they eat liquorice that melts your face. I can see the repurcussions to it being banned: Marmite smeared all over Legoland and bacon and Aqua and The Little Mermaid and they will regret the decision they made. The spread will go onto the black market lists as desperate ex-pats get desperately pissed. They’ll smuggle it over from Germany at night across the fjord in boats without any light. The Danes draw Mohammed made the world see red but the Danes won’t draw a knife to slather their bread. Yet there won’t be war over yeast extract we can send Sandi Toksvig to make a peace pact. We shall make our peace as did Nelson Mandela and they shall have Marmite as well as Nutella.
Ever wondered what ‘bindel’ means?
To bindel (v): to cling to harmful prejudiced ideas in face of all reason, to inflict said views on others with complicit institutional support. Example: “The conference opted to bindel their subject group instead of listening to them” Derivation: conjugation of ‘bully’ and ‘swindle’. Any similarities to names of real life figures purely co-incidental.
Think I’m getting more into the swing of this here Tumblr thing now…
I’ll try and do another post tonight hopefully. Last night I was like a walking zombie for some reason. May have to get blood pressure checked.
— Skirts can be a lot of fun! I have some which are long and flowing, some which are knee-length and gothy, and some shorter that I tend to wear only in controlled situations. Most of my smart outfits for interviews and the like have skirts too.
I’m fucking sick and tired of seeing shit like “we love real girls” and “real women have this” and “real women do that”. There’s no such thing as a “real” girl.
Why?
Because saying that there are “real” girls suggests that there are fake girls. And that’s complete shit, okay?
Somebody enlighten me, please: In this fucked-up world of “real” girls, who gets left out? Who isn’t “real”? Thin women? Fat women? Trans women? Women who have had plastic or cosmetic surgery? Childless women? Women who don’t breast feed? Women who can’t cook? Women who can? Working women? Unemployed women? Poor women? Women who shave? Women who like men? Women who have a lot of sex? Women who sell sex?
Here’s the only example i can think of: unicorn women. Mythical, fantastical …imaginary. All other women ARE real women.Seriously. What the FUCK is this?!
I hate this shi
Policing other people’s identities is a bad thing, and suggesting people should match a certain model is equally dehumanising. It doesn’t even need to be overtly said. If all the women who appear in positive media roles are really thin yet have large breasts, wear makeup, cis…that in itself suggests that this is how things should be. Never mind conflating gender and stereotypical gendered behaviour.
Most people don’t even realise how harmful this is. Don’t see the person holding back tears because she keeps being told she (or he, or them, or however they identify) is invalid. Yeah, it’s sickening :(
My history assignment. I should turn it in like this and be done with it.
We totally did that kind of the thing in uni history seminars :D
sigh
Is it too much to ask for people to not make jokes about OCD?
For that matter, is it too much to ask for people to not make jokes about mental disorders at all?
Also, is it too much to ask for people who are normally good about this stuff not to abandon their principles where Glenn Beck is involved?
Apparently the ‘T’ seems out of place to a lot of other people as well, because organizations that examine the depictions of LGBQT folks on television often ignore problematic depictions of trans characters. And some actively celebrate shows for having ‘good representations’ while evidently ignoring the fact that those shows actually don’t have such great representations of the trans community.
In a relatively recent example pointed out by Lisa Harney at Questioning Transphobia, Glee won a GLAAD award despite the fact that it uses trans slurs. A show that took care to lecture viewers about how it’s not ok to use ‘r#tard’ or call a gay man a ‘faggot’ has absolutely no problem referring to ‘she-males.’ That award feels like a big slap in the face to the trans community, especially since the citation specifically mentions us: ‘fair, accurate and inclusive representation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives in the media. (emphasis mine)’
‘Glee’ thinks it’s a lot more accepting than it actually is. It hasn’t really tackled anything as substantial as its reputation seems to suggest. The lack of trans inclusion at all is just one example. In fact, there are certain scenes which even equate being trans with being gay: Kurt has a few of these. I hope the series’ producers sit up, take notice, and actually do something constructive regarding trans people next season, because the popularity of the show actually offers a good platform. If they do it right. Which depends to be seen, though I’m not entirely hopeful.
Stereotypes
It used to be the case that trans people, especially the women, were gender policed by those with the power to help them. In the UK, that especially meant the Gender Identity Centres and psychologists, who infamously would mark it against you if you turned up in jeans and not a skirt or dress. It was a classic case of ‘feminine = female’, and many trans women learnt to lie to get past this ridiculous barrier, which was pretty much the only option, but further helped to reinforce this gender policing. Stats such as the sexual orientation of trans women are skewed for this reason, as some trans women will still lie in order to avoid being accused of not being ‘really’ trans.
I’ve even witnessed gender policing amongst trans people. It’s often subtle, but there’s the subtext in some statements that because trans woman A knows how to do her makeup, or has a fashion sense, or loves penis, that she’s more ‘valid’ than trans woman B who doesn’t care about clothes and likes model railways. It’s one more way to be ‘more trans than thou’, which is a damaging and flawed notion I’ll examine at some other point.
Needless to say, this is all rubbish. If a cis woman likes fast cars, she can be considered a tomboy, but if a trans woman does the same, then, well, she’s not really a woman. Thankfully, this attitude is not that prevalent amongst people I know, and psychologists are getting better at recognising that gender stereotypes are by no means the same as gender identity.
I was actually aware of all this at a comparatively young age, and it was quite damaging for me. Not because I don’t fit the gender stereotypes, but rather because, on the whole, I *do*. I’m naturally stereotypically feminine. I do like cute things, I like clothes, and my attitude is generally seen as ‘femme’. It turns out that I do like men (though not solely) and I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Yeah, it’s not complete - I know the UK rail network, for example, which would be a stereotypically masculine trait, but on the whole, I fit the pink side of the binary gender stereotype scale.
I used to beat myself up about it because I figured I could *only* be this way because I was trying to be more of a woman, to prove to the world that I was really female. That was pretty damaging, as I lost a lot of confidence in who I was in figuring that I couldn’t really be that way. I briefly even tried to be elsewise, and it was messy. Eventually, sometime told me that I was the way I was because I was who I was, and I started accepting that I just was stereotypically feminine and that’s that. I’ve not looked back, despite occasional feelings of guilt of fitting the gender police’s model so well as opposed to other trans women I know who may be less stereotypically feminine but are no less female because of it.
Stereotypes are just that. Most people know this, but so few carry it out. There are reasons for stereotypes, sure - British people do drink more tea per person than the French, for example - but they’re *never* accurate for an entire group of people, and expecting them to be so is enforcing an identity on others that they themselves do not accept. It’s demeaning, and it’s damaging. People are individuals are do not fit into convenient little checklists. To expect trans people to match their genders with ‘appropriate’ (read: stereotypical) gender behaviour, when you wouldn’t do the same to cis people, is cissexist, simple as. And it hurts everyone, ultimately.
