Response: "Learning about Trans People"

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I respect when people are willing to admit when they have excluded trans people from the LGBTQ community, but it is certainly not the responsibility of trans people to educate everyone on planet earth about our issues.

Of course I would be willing to spend a little bit of time informing others about trans issues, but only if asked. I am not going to approach every person I meet and expect that I will have to explain myself to them. The same goes for white people who expect POC to inform the world about their issues.

Everyone has to do their part.

Again, I respect Eric Marcus for owning up to his exclusion of trans people. I just do not have any patience for this statement: "I think trans people should in general speak for themselves." Yes our voices are important and we should be listened to...but we should also have allies who are willing to put in the time and energy to familiarize themselves enough about trans people, issues, concepts, terms, etc in order to confidently and accurately speak on our behalf.

It is just not enough to say "sorry, I didnt know...better ask a trans person." Mr. Marcus' post would have been so much more meaningful had he said something more like "Sorry I failed to recognize and address the issues unique to the transgender community. I am attempting to educate myself in order to better represent all the members of the LGBT community."

Audre Lorde once stated:

"Our future survival is predicated upon our ability to relate within equality. As women, we must root our internalized patterns of oppression within ourselves if we are to move beyond the most superficial aspects of social change. Now we must recognize differences among women who are our equals, neither inferior nor superior, and devise ways to use each others' difference to enrich our visions and our joint struggles." (Sister Outsider, 122)

Lorde is basically asserting that we need to stop focusing on how our differences separate us and embrace how our differences strengthen our movement. She speaks mainly of women here, and I am attempting to speak of all marginalized groups. We have a repsonsibility to re-define the LGBT movement as one that addresses the needs and issues of all its members. bell hooks redefined feminism as a struggle to end sexist oppression, which essentially helped the movement to become more inclusive of all women instead of just reflecting the needs of white, upper-class women. The LGBT movement, in comparison, reflects mostly the needs of white gays and lesbians, especially those who are more financially stable. This excludes POC, the poor, trans people, bisexuals, and more. Exclusion will only lead to divisions in the LGBT community and it will eventually cause more damage than success. The passing of prop 8 showed us just how divided our community already is, especially on issues of race.

We need to recognize that the LGBT community has a multitude of identities...there are endless possibilities of intersecting identities in the LGBT community. Not only must we address issues pertaining to sexuality, but also how race, class, sex, age, dis/ability, etc intersect with such issues...it's all relevant and interconnected.

I call on all members of the LGBT community, especially those who have more privilege (and are willing to recognize it), to embrace our differences, to stop obsessing over the heterosexual lifestyle, and to start fighting against the patriarchy that will always function as a system of oppression whether or not lgbt people remain the oppressed. We have fought too hard and too long to settle for the status quo... Demand a revolution, demand radical change, demand liberation!

Thanksgiving and family Prejudices

Must I always have to explain? Must I always have to be silent in order to maintain the peace at home? That's what my family wants. They want me to listen to their prejudice comments and be silent, even when it directly oppresses me.

It happens every holiday and always ends with me ranting, crying, yelling, banging, or some combination.

They were having some conversation about the trans man who got pregnant and had a baby. Okay fine. But then my grandmother goes off about how SHE still has reproductive organs and SHE is not really a man. Okay grandama but HE identifies HIMself as a MALE and yes grandma the media does exaggerate how its a miracle that a man had a baby, BUT stop disrespecting this person by referring to him as a she when he simply does not go by female pronouns. So I explain this not only to my grandmother, but to my sisters, brother, and mother.

Of course, my mother must interject with a sad excuse to make light of the situation. She says " well, how about a SHE-HE?" WHAT?! Now it has officially become a prejudiced conversation at which point everyone is laughing and re-assuring me that they are just teasing and having fun with me. Well, guess what everyone I'm Transgender and you have successfully insulted me. Still, though, they are just teasing...right? And still they have not apologized or even tried to learn about trans issues.

My family, like many other families and individuals, use laughter and joking as an excuse to dehumanize marginalized people in our society. They never want to listen and they always want to re-assert their power and privilege. They will never admit that they are prejudice...they are too ashamed.

They are my family and they will always be my family. No choice. And of course, It is too difficult to escape...I love them so much and they mean so much to me that I will stick around and holiday after holiday I will attempt to transform their narrow minds in hopes that one day I will succeed... :sigh:

Recognizing privilege and dismantling oppression

I've been tricked, played, pawned, scammed, misled, used, and manipulated by the very people and organizations that I once believed would save this country from its inherent oppression. I could not have been more wrong about these things...yes things.

It has become very clear to me that the only way the United States will ever begin to transform into a free and just society is when we stop re-enforcing and perpetuating the system of democracy, capitalism, and patriarchy under the slogan of "non-profit organizing." These institutions are, in reality, founded on hierarchical models that reflect the authoritative characteristics of capitalism. Following such a model is not progressive nor trans formative. Spending millions $$ on marriage equality is not going to save the downtrodden of our society. At the very least it will increase the privileged community while simultaneously shifting the oppression and exploitation of one group of people onto another. And that is how patriarchy and capitalism flourish.

Everyone needs to recognize their privileges and stop using them to disadvantage others. Every single person is privileged in one way or another (some more than others) and in order to have justice we can not aim for equality. The goal of equality is to strive to become the dominant and hence oppressive class. We need to strive for liberation, freedom, and justice. This must begin not with legalizing marriage for same-sex couples, but with dismantling historically oppressive institutions, such as marriage.

My privileges as follows:
White
College-educated
Wealth
Non-disabled

Next post I will discuss why the above are privileges, how they can disadvantage others, and how I will use such privileges to empower my fellow human beings rather than oppress them.