I want to write a story about growing up and how fucked up it is to assume that trans girls receive male privilege just like all the cis boys do.
Like, I came across the assumption from a blog post a year ago that trans women have male privilege in not having to deal with society's expectations of what a woman should look like - and I came across this shortly after auntysarah described encountering exactly the same attitude and responding with something like "imagine dealing with that while you look like a boy."
So, I mean, there's a lot of male privilege that is based on being cissexual.
(the "but, why?" was a reference to the ever-so-classic bingo card. if you somehow missed it when it took the genderqueeriverse by storm, here it is. blame/thank/hug/dis arion hunter (arionhunter.insanejournal.com) for it:
trans women have male privilege in not having to deal with society's expectations of what a woman should look like
...you know so what was it every time i had to clean up a crying mess of little sister who had entirely lost it over something pretty minor that nevertheless made her feel like shit? i mean, was she asserting her alleged "male privilege" then simply by dint of being a transgirl? was i asserting my alleged passive male privilege for forgetting to have two X chromosomes? i'm curious if they have figured out how this works because as usual when reading such allegedly feminist screeds i'm not really sure how it works because GIRLS DON'T HAVE MALE PRIVILEGE.
The theory assumes that trans girls are just like cis boys (or trans women are just like cis men) until transition, like the outward state of being male reflects an inner state of being a boy or man, and so a trans woman's experience of male privilege is necessarily identical to a cis man's experience of male privilege and please don't talk about passing privilege at all.
And, ah hell, another story about a trans woman that refers to her by her birth name. wtf. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/30/BA37138V7V.DTL) Yes, in this instance, she's the criminal, but that's no excuse.
As usual, most of the comments in that article are horrific. Makes me wonder how many people I see on the streets here in SF think so poorly of people like me.
You know, people tell me "I don't know how you can wade through the stuff you do to write what you write" and I really really really can't stomach those comment threads. :(
And yeah. I guess her crying is just male privilege, because she got you to take care of her - seriously, radfems insist that trans women wanting to be a part of women-only spaces is demanding that women take care of us, just as men have always done....
Gah, maybe I should just bleach all of this out of my brain and live stealth. :(
Yeah- there was a lot of privilege in having the crap beaten out of me every day from 11-15 in an all male school for being different/poofy/weird/small/bright (strike those which don't apply- I make no apologies for the second usage-it was the favoured insult at the time among those 'rugger buggers' whose testosterone slopped out of their ears).
It's not even specifically that stuff, although that's a part of it. I mean, a lot of male privilege is stuff like how there's a lot of positive male role models in the media who get to be more than "love interest" and that men aren't subjected to the same pressures to conform to beauty standards as women - as if trans women were somehow really cis boys who absorbed that just like the actual cis boys.
Yeah, that's part of what inspired The Problem with "Privilege"...maybe I should link to it more explicitly. But I haven't had the sense that they care.
I was actually looking for such a list to be like, hmm, how did passing as/living as male affect my life and shape me? What privilege was that... and that one...I got nothin'. Like, there's nothing (almost nothing) you can look at and be like, yup that happens in my life or nope, it doesn't...
I can read the checklist and identify with the way male privilege has been wielded against me, but the phrasing is pretty awful.
I seriously don't identify with ever having had male privilege, though. It may be time diluting my memories or it may be that I've never passed or presented myself as an adult man. I guess my worst habit is that I tend to physically surround myself with books and bags and purses in public to keep people from sitting near me.
Nod. I mean, you've read BI, I think MP was ascribed to me by others, and while that had some advantages, it doesn't really compensate for heightened misogyny now...
I guess I noticed just how much the way I was treated changed, the frequency of sexual harassment, the frequency of getting shut down in conversations and the power of the statement 'you're talking too much' rising... so, I feel like being treated as such affected my life, but it's def. passing-as-male priv, not actual male priv...
I'll have to formulate my thoughts on this on my next desk shift at work.
But all the reading I've been doing lately...on lj and the like...it just reminds me of a recent experience of cissexual priviledge that I'm going to have to rant about.
As far as "male priviledge" checklist...I'd like to have one, too...make up a grid like the Bingo one above.
My standard comeback is always something like 'yeah, because people perceived to be feminine males never have any trouble because they're so privileged'.
Btw, I bahleeted the tranny_rage post because I didn't want people to think that I was bashing SCC. It really is a great conference, it's just that a lot of things are run by older or more traditional binary-ID'd t-women and crossdressers. There was actually a guy who was complaining about the 'political humor' of some of the presenters. This sounds shitty, but the logic of how a guy with red painted toenails and French-tipped fingernails and earrings can still be a Republican eludes me. Hell, how any trans person or CD can be okay with either party eludes me. The Dems aren't much better, but some are better than others. The GOPers will tell you one thing but when it comes to putting up or shutting up, they'll shut up or cut and run.
Oh, no they weren't at all. But a lot of those concerns were addressed. The handout thing...I didn't even go there because so many of the organizers and board members are over 50 and tend to be traditionally binary and don't understand all this academic stuff about privilege and so on. I just didn't want my intentions to be misread as bashing the conference as a whole and I didn't want it to go that route. The environment of it is supportive and I definitely plan to go back next year and there are a lot of people who feel similarly wrt privilege and gender expression and not stigmatizing sex workers and so on.
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...but why?
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Like, I came across the assumption from a blog post a year ago that trans women have male privilege in not having to deal with society's expectations of what a woman should look like - and I came across this shortly after
So, I mean, there's a lot of male privilege that is based on being cissexual.
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trans women have male privilege in not having to deal with society's expectations of what a woman should look like
...you know so what was it every time i had to clean up a crying mess of little sister who had entirely lost it over something pretty minor that nevertheless made her feel like shit? i mean, was she asserting her alleged "male privilege" then simply by dint of being a transgirl? was i asserting my alleged passive male privilege for forgetting to have two X chromosomes? i'm curious if they have figured out how this works because as usual when reading such allegedly feminist screeds i'm not really sure how it works because GIRLS DON'T HAVE MALE PRIVILEGE.
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The theory assumes that trans girls are just like cis boys (or trans women are just like cis men) until transition, like the outward state of being male reflects an inner state of being a boy or man, and so a trans woman's experience of male privilege is necessarily identical to a cis man's experience of male privilege and please don't talk about passing privilege at all.
And, ah hell, another story about a trans woman that refers to her by her birth name. wtf. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/30/BA37138V7V.DTL) Yes, in this instance, she's the criminal, but that's no excuse.
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I don't even read comments in articles about trans people. The people who post them are evil.
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And click thumbs-down on every single evil one.
Maybe I should follow your advice.
I assume any cis person I don't know is a transphobic asshole.
I usually assign them into provisional "likely asshole" and "likely well-meaning but ignorant" groups.
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OTOH, it's pretty easy to get out of the "transphobic asshole" category!
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Strange how I once though SF was more liberal than that. o.O
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Sympathies.
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Gah, maybe I should just bleach all of this out of my brain and live stealth. :(
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It stopped when I cut and ran at 15.
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And yeah, pretty much all of those applied to me.
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I was actually looking for such a list to be like, hmm, how did passing as/living as male affect my life and shape me? What privilege was that... and that one...I got nothin'. Like, there's nothing (almost nothing) you can look at and be like, yup that happens in my life or nope, it doesn't...
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I seriously don't identify with ever having had male privilege, though. It may be time diluting my memories or it may be that I've never passed or presented myself as an adult man. I guess my worst habit is that I tend to physically surround myself with books and bags and purses in public to keep people from sitting near me.
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I guess I noticed just how much the way I was treated changed, the frequency of sexual harassment, the frequency of getting shut down in conversations and the power of the statement 'you're talking too much' rising... so, I feel like being treated as such affected my life, but it's def. passing-as-male priv, not actual male priv...
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late to the party, as usual...
White Privilege and Male Privilege:
A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies
By Peggy McIntosh
http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/White-Male-Privilege.html
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But all the reading I've been doing lately...on lj and the like...it just reminds me of a recent experience of cissexual priviledge that I'm going to have to rant about.
As far as "male priviledge" checklist...I'd like to have one, too...make up a grid like the Bingo one above.
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Btw, I bahleeted the
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I'm not okay with the Democrats, but I want Obama to win. Much preferable.
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