Language lesson for trans allies

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“Transgender,” sometimes truncated to simply “trans,” is an adjective. To illustrate some of the more, erm, peculiar applications of the word “trans,” we’re going to use another adjective like “short” or “white” in comparison. I like to call this the “grammar ghetto.”

  • Transgendered

Shiv is a transgendered woman.

Shiv is a shortened woman.

Shiv is a whitened woman.

As far as I know, there is no English dialect where adjectives are turned into verbs in this manner. I’m reasonably confident that regardless of which specific dialect you learned, “transgendered” is just as wrong in all of them as “shortened” when describing a person.

  • Transwoman

Shiv is a transwoman.

Shiv is a shortwoman.

Shiv is a whitewoman.

Once again, adjectives are typically separate from the noun they are modifying. I am not aware of any English dialect where they are merged. Trans women are women who happen to be trans, not something else entirely, as might be suggested by mashing the words together. “Short” and “white” are descriptors, they do not replace my womanhood any more than trans does. “I am a short, white, trans woman.”

  • Transgenders

Shiv and Jane are transgenders.

Shiv and Jane are shorts.

Shiv and Jane are whites.

I’ll give the tiniest amount of wiggle room for this. There are certain contexts where minorities will self-identify in this manner, but it’s typically understood to be dehumanizing when done by majority demographic members. “Short people,” “white people,” “trans people.” Specific to the trans community, the gender-neutral “folk” is typically given a free pass, i.e. “trans folk” or “cis folk.”

Remember that all the rules that typically apply to adjectives in your dialect necessarily apply to the word “trans,” as it too is an adjective.

There is also the kind of cute nickname “enby” (i.e. “NB”) for non-binary people, but I am cautious to use it on a non-binary person without their permission. Others will avoid associations with the binary through the use of terms like “genderqueer/fluid.” In general I don’t see those terms falling prey to the same bizarre grammar ghetto that the word “trans” is treated to–although that may just be that cis folk don’t report on NB/GNC people often.

Go forth and be less awkward in your speech and writing.

-Shiv

Transphobic opposition to Bill C-16 suspiciously similar to Republicans

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Content Notice: Everything that makes you sick about reading HB2 is present in one pundit discussed here.

We get a sense of deja vu when querying Canadian Conservative pundits on Bill C-16, which proposes to add gender identity & expression to the list of protected entities in the Human Rights Act, as well as to the targets of hate crime in the Criminal Code. In a debate on Bill C-16 hosted on CTV, we can see a range of arguments represented in favour and against the bill, including someone who might as well be reading from Governer McCrory’s public statements on HB2: Charles McVety. A transcript of McVety’s garbage opinion below. Ready your bingo cards:

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#Elbowgate, what passes for controversy in Canada

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Here are my opening comments on this debacle:

wat.

Video clips show the prime minister emerging from government benches, walking toward Conservative Whip Gord Brown, whose path was seemingly blocked by a group of NDP members.

Footage shows Trudeau taking Brown’s arm, leading him away, but in the process he backed into NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau.

At one point, the prime minister stood in a face-to-face confrontation with Thomas Mulcair, the NDP leader visibly angry and shouting at Trudeau, calling him “pathetic” twice.

Trudeau apologized for his behaviour, saying he didn’t mean to hurt anyone.

“I had noticed that the Official Opposition Whip seemed to be impeded in his progress down the hall. And I felt that this lacked in respect for Parliament,” Trudeau said.

Members had gathered in the House for an evening vote on a motion to limit debate on Bill C-14. Trudeau made his way toward Brown in an effort to get the vote started.

But pulling colleagues, or any act that could be interpreted as physical aggression, is a parliamentary faux pas. Trudeau said he did what he did because NDP MPs were stalling the vote.

“So I walked over to encourage the member to come through, and indeed offered my arm — extended — to help him come through the gaggle of MPs standing there impeding his progress down the aisle, impeding our ability to move forward with this important vote.”

Conservative MP Peter Van Loan said Trudeau charged across the aisle “with anger fierce in his eyes and face.”

“What took place in this House was physical violence,” NDP MP Niki Ashton said later, adding that people outside would “call it assault.”

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White Feminist TV

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Zeba Blay summarizes problems with White Feminism (and its TV products) over on huffingtonpost:

It’s White Feminist TV.

If White Feminism is feminism that isn’t intersectional, then White Feminist TV is television that filters the world through the prism of the white female experience in a way that suggests it is not just an experience, but the only experience. On White Feminist TV, whiteness is universal. On White Feminist TV, llana’s rampant use of AAVE on “Broad City” is quirky and hilarious, blackface-as-satire is a frequent plot point (as on “30 Rock”), and New York City can be the land of a million white folks, where black and brown people are almost always on the periphery (as on “Girls”).

…

Except this isn’t about apologies. There’s this idea that to not to find some of these racially-charged jokes funny is to be deeply offended by them or, even more egregious, to not “get” them.

I “get” the joke. As a black person consuming media in a society built to accommodate white people, you learn to “get” the joke quickly. I can reach out and touch the low-hanging fruit that Fey offers up, the pseudo-satire that attempts to edgily poke holes in gender and race. That’s not the issue. The issue is that it’s not clever enough to rise above the entirely off-putting concept it’s based in.

…

At some point, you stop caring. You train yourself not to expect much. You gloss over the off-color moments that make you sigh, or cringe, or raise an eyebrow. You decide, like Tina Fey, to stop giving a f**k. But there comes a frustration in letting go, because you understand that part of letting go means conceding.

Blay references the tendency for White Feminists to subscribe to the concept of a “universal womanhood,” despite the observation that should be obvious: womanhood ain’t universal. What they view as a bid to unite women against oppression is ironically dividing, because any woman whose experiences differ from the white, cis, able-bodied, comfortably middle-class life are told their oppression only exists as women, or that conversations about how one’s other demographics interacts with sexism are “distractions.”

My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit, indeed.

-Shiv

Thursdays were rope nights

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Well, I finally saw a publicly covered therapist. As it turns out, her job is just to refer me to another resource. Another appointment, weeks away.

Ah, public health. Because I’m not suicidal, I get shuffled along. Probably will be a few more times. I’m glad that various levels of government will intervene if I’m in a major crisis, but I’m kind of annoyed that my slow death isn’t treated as seriously. I’ll have a job and go to private practice again by the time I finally get my face-to-face with someone from Alberta Health.

Still no job prospects. Interviews that are now 2 weeks old, “they’ll call me,” so at this point they’re not calling me. Plenty of applications since, but no callbacks. Rent is very overdue. I don’t want to test my landlord’s generosity any further.

Still can’t sleep for longer than a few hours without having nightmares.

Still spend half my days trying to reconcile my judgement with the notion that I trusted a walking, talking bottomless well of an ego.

Putting my ex in 100% No Contact has had some unfortunate side effects. I’ve exhausted my kink options–one dungeon shields my rapist, the other my narcissistic ex. I think a few of our mutual friends have caught on to my ex’s behaviour, but as contacting them puts me peripheral to her, I haven’t reached out to find out if they’ve taken any action. Not that it would make the abuse go away. But at least I wouldn’t be so isolated.

I know before I started full No Contact, my ex was screaming my name from the rooftops in a prolonged smear campaign. I don’t know how well it worked. The genius part about her strategy is that fighting it would precisely play into her hands, making me out to be “shrill and unbalanced” if I dared to object angrily about stories spinning me as unreasonable for asserting healthy boundaries (which, as a narcissist, she can only interpret as a personal attack, because I’m no longer serving up unquestioning loyalty. For the narcissist, who clearly deserves everything, it’s all quid and no pro quo).

I’m “entitled,” because I called out her consent violation for what it was, and her ensuing non-apology which tried to shift blame on to me for having buttons I don’t want pushed. I’m “needy,” because I proactively negotiated additional aftercare with some of our friends prior to playing, which for some unfathomable reason she decided to antagonize when we fought after the scene. I’m “oversensitive,” because she gagged me without giving me a safe signal, and that caused me to panic. I’m a “liar,” because I pointed out that she added to the scene while it was in progress, which ethical kinksters don’t do because once someone is in subspace they are no longer capable of giving consent. These mistakes, from an allegedly pro Domme, with 3 years of experience. Assuming that wasn’t a lie, too. I’m “toxic,” because I told her her behaviour was unacceptable and I would not trust her with another private interaction again.

Although at this point, I don’t trust her with a public interaction either. Now that I’ve seen the puppet strings she pulls, I realize she’s got them attached to a lot of people. Our then-mutual Top. Most of our mutual friends. Everyone I care for at the Thursday night rope practice. I don’t know who bought into her story, who didn’t. I do know I’m at a delicate point in my life, with little to no security, and a chance encounter with her would likely induce a panic attack. And I do know that if I try to share this with the community, I’ll be written off as an ex with a jilted ego.

Here’s the jilted ego speaking: my ex was a stupid hippie who spent exorbitant sums on organic groceries and thinks yogurt is a skincare product and slept on the floor because something something chiropractor. Okay? That’s the petty shit that we can kind of laugh at. That’s what “jilted ego” looks like. Oh, and her moisturizer smelled like a skunk being bludgeoned to death with rotting hamsters.

The complaints I’ve listed here? That’s emotional abuse. My ex manipulated, intimidated, coerced, and devalued me on the regular. That night was just the night I started to notice. That’s not my ego speaking. I don’t gain anything from listing this, especially since my ex has been setting me up as someone crazy who has a grudge to settle and an axe to grind. Jilted egos look like red cheeks and averted eyes. Her presence makes me so sick to my stomach that I have to excuse myself to vomit in the toilet.

There’s supposed to be a play party tomorrow. I’m supposed to be volunteering, front and centre, as I have every single time this party gets hosted. I love this dungeon, its community, but if I bump into my ex (which is pretty well guaranteed), I’ll fall apart. It’ll cut me up from the inside, because she’ll be chatting someone up, digging in her hooks and setting the strings. I’ve had to deactivate my Fetlife (kinky Facebook), because pictures of her play would pop up on my feed even though I’ve blocked her. Seeing someone else under her influence… I can’t deal with it. And trying to warn people means confirming the “crazy ex” bullshit she’s been spouting since our break up.

I think I have to go in early tomorrow to tell the dungeon owner that I can’t attend their venue anymore. Not for a while, at least.

-Shiv

Bill C-16 proposes to add “explicit protections” to trans Canadians

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We saw in a previous post that the Canadian Liberal government announced its intentions to add gender identity & expression to the list of protected entities in the Human Rights Act, as well as to the possible targets of hate crime in the Criminal Code.

Today the government announces Bill C-16:

This enactment amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination.
Le texte modifie la Loi canadienne sur les droits de la personne afin d’ajouter l’identité de genre et l’expression de genre à la liste des motifs de distinction illicite.
The enactment also amends the Criminal Code to extend the protection against hate propaganda set out in that Act to any section of the public that is distinguished by gender identity or expression and to clearly set out that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance that a court must take into consideration when it imposes a sentence.
Il modifie également le Code criminel afin d’étendre la protection contre la propagande haineuse prévue par cette loi à toute section du public qui se différencie des autres par l’identité ou l’expression de genre et de clairement prévoir que les éléments de preuve établissant qu’une infraction est motivée par des préjugés ou de la haine fondés sur l’identité ou l’expression de genre constituent une circonstance aggravante que le tribunal doit prendre en compte lorsqu’il détermine la peine à infliger.

There is also a less legal and more accessible explanation of Bill C-16, provided on the government website:

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Breaking news: Trump contradicts himself again; the sky is blue

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On today’s breaking news, we cover the shocking possibility that Trump is a AAA-grade expert in compartmentalization (emphasis mine):

In an interview with the Washington Post Monday, Trump said that if elected president, he would rescind these directives protecting transgender people. With Republicans leaders across the country overwhelmingly opposing the trans student protections in particular, this is no doubt what the Party wants to hear from their candidate.

But everything else Trump said in the interview sounded like he actually supports transgender people. He made the segue in a line denying that trans protections were a civil rights issue: “I don’t view it as civil rights or not civil rights. I think it’s something where we have to help people — and hopefully the states will make the right decisions.”

The Post summarizes that Trump “repeatedly said transgender people should be protected under the law.” He even seemed understanding of why it’s become a big issue. “You’ve got to protect all people, even though it’s a tiny percentage of 1 percent. I think from that standpoint, [states] should come up with a policy that’s going to work for everybody and protect people.”

They are, Donny Drumpf. They’re protecting the women and children, see. (As long as they’re cis)

Republicans have stated on numerous occasions why they oppose nondiscrimination ordinances for trans folk:

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The Transgender Dating Dilemma

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Content Notice: My thoughts below the article speak frankly of my sexuality as a trans woman.

Lauren Tamaki writes on The Transgender Dating Dilemma:

I’m surprised at how often I encounter people — typically cisgender men — who don’t understand what transgender means, even in a world where Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox make headlines. Despite the slowly turning tides, dealing with these potential partners is difficult because I often have serve as both and therapist and a teacher.

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Sometimes the response has been positive. A few people — both men and women — have had a sense I was trans before I even told them. Other times, potential partners seemed to feel pity for me and quietly congratulated themselves for deigning to date me; I’ve had to check the value I’ve placed on cis people who dared to consider me worthy of their attraction. Still other times, the response — particularly from cis men — has been overwhelmingly negative: “If I had known, I never would have wasted my time” or “How could you think I’d be interested in that?” or the misguided “I’m not gay.”

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Then there are the “experimenters.” The ones who say, “I’ve never been with a girl like you, but I’ve always wanted to.” I knew one guy who hoped to hook up with me as his first-time fetish, but when we discussed if he’d ever seriously date a trans woman, it was a whole different story. He had no problem having sex with or hanging out with a trans woman, but didn’t really see their value as actual partners. Aside from worrying about what his family and friends would think, he had decided that since trans women couldn’t have children, he didn’t want to date one.

I can relate. Ugh.

There’s no respite in Queer dating, either:

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Good music to have stuck in your head: Ori and the Blind Forest

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As a game, Ori and the Blind Forest probably qualifies as an exercise in sadomasochism. It’s one of those brutal unforgiving platformers in the vein of Super Meat Boy.

But as a soundtrack, OatBF strikes me as something that was legitimately composed to be listened to as a standalone epic. Now, its function as a game OST means that it has to represent a variety of environments, so most OSTs probably deliver a fair variety of musical attitudes. Yet Ori represents such a diverse range: anxiety, fear, mystery, curiosity, playfulness, tragedy, joy, PANIC.

The production quality of the game in other fields is also spectacular. The environments are hand-painted, and the cinematic direction manages to tell a hard-hitting story, enhanced, of course, by the soundtrack. Most critically, it has good controls for the controller, which is an important gameplay feature of a platformer! (It’s kind iffy on keyboard and mouse, but what platformer isn’t?)

You can see it all come together with this clip:

Your suggestions from the last thread have been heard, as well! Keep ’em coming. 🙂

-Shiv

Polyamory and Kink as Trojan Horses for Abuse

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I first encountered the concept of a “Relationship Bill of Rights” in BDSM. In a Dominant/submissive pairing, submissive partners are understood by the community to be in a process of negotiation with dominant partners, wherein all parties collaborate to have some (or in rare cases, nearly all) of the submissive’s “rights” to be subsumed by the dominant partner, until such time as either partner requests the arrangement to be withdrawn. But what, exactly, are said submissives surrendering? When I asked this question, I was introduced to the Submissive’s Bill of Rights, which was a guideline that suggested how s-types ought to advocate for themselves in a manner that fostered their psychological and emotional growth while submitting–in other words, what was unhealthy to surrender, and what no psychologically sound Dominant partner would ask of you. A brief sample below:

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