100 commandments
…we are recirculating this article by British poet, model and activist Kai Isaiah-Jamal about how allies can make the world a better place for trans people.
But what if we have no ambition to “make the world a better place for trans people”? What if we’re not moved to single out that one particular (very small) set of people for extra concern and pampering? What if, on the contrary, we think they should stop making all these demands for extra special treatment?
Let’s cut the shit – there’s no positive way a cis person can dictate or speak on a life that you do not live and a world you do not have to navigate as a trans person.
See that’s a really bad way to start a plea – let alone a demand – for extra concern and pampering. That kind of start is one reason I have no ambition to single trans people out for extra concern and pampering. They keep demanding extra concern and pampering, in a world riddled with wars and genocides and famines and natural disasters and persecution. It’s ugly. It’s ugly and selfish and precious and utterly clueless. There are literally billions of people on the planet who need extra concern far more than “trans” people in the UK or the US.
There’s that, and then much more trivial but still irritating is this business of starting a “be nicer to us” with “first of all shut up.”
In a world where misconstrued ideas about trans folk – what we need, what we deserve, how we should live – fall from the lips of so many cis people, we need to end the debate on whether trans womxn are womxn, whether we should be able to use the correct bathrooms and changing rooms, and whether we should be parents or teachers. Because it’s not a debate. We are entitled to our human rights just as much as everyone else.
That’s cute, that “fall from the lips” – as if there’s something especially disgusting about “cis” people (meaning women, of course) saying things. Again, great way to persuade us to coddle and cuddle and embrace you.
And the thinking is no good. Of course trans people are entitled to their human rights like everyone else. It’s not a human right to force people to agree that men can be women by saying they are women. It’s not a human right for men to use women’s changing rooms and toilets. It’s not a human right to be a teacher. It’s not even a human right to be a parent in the sense of “no matter what.” If a parent is abusive or dangerous, that parent may lose parental rights.
What we actually need are ears, eyes, and action. We need you to listen to our problems and our voices. We need you to be on the look out for how you can use your privilege for our benefit and not yours, and how to actively respond to, argue with, and call out transphobia in your everyday conversations and the national news.
They need us to give them all our time and attention.
No.
There follows a list of 100 ludicrous demands.
17. If you are called out for being offensive, do not argue. This is not a debate. Apologise. Take a moment to reflect. If necessary, leave or give the space over to those you have offended or upset.
That’s convenient, isn’t it. Trans people are always right and the rest of us are always wrong; no exceptions.
18. Never try to argue with a trans person that something isn’t transphobic.
See above.
29. Talk to the generation above you – your parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. You can’t always change traditional mindsets, but you can give them a new perspective.
People who are older than you are always wrong. There are no exceptions to this rule.
30. Support the generation below; speak to young kids. Make them aware that gender is a spectrum and they don’t have to commit to one gender for their whole life. Educate them on their freedom and choices.
People who are older than you are always wrong except when we are talking to people younger than we are. There are no exceptions to this rule.
39. If you are dating a trans person, try to understand their triggers. For example, me and my partner call my menstrual cycle “Lucifer.” So if I text her to say “Lucifer is here,” she knows to bring chocolate and pillows. You can also try covering tampon or pad boxes and wrapping with cute cartoons or their favourite colour.
40. Buy a whole truckload of pacifiers.
51. Do not make someone feel bad after dragging you for something you have done that is deemed transphobic. Your guilt is not my guilt to feel.
Again – it’s impossible to stress this enough – we are always right, and you are always wrong.
52. Don’t ask what gender dysphoria feels like because it’s a stupid question and there’s no way you can try to understand it.
But you have to act on the assumption that it’s real and powerful and the cause of everything. Clear?
54. Do anything you can to stop trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) from leaving stickers, leaflets etc. Tear down everything you see associated with them.
Feminist women are the enemy. Clear?
63. Offer shelter, money, food etc. The basics of survival are hard for trans folk. If you have enough to spare, try to offer.
Give us all your money. We want it, you have it, hand it over. Now.
70. Decolonise the way you think of gender. Remind yourself that these social constructs are postcolonial issues that the western world have pushed onto people.
Remind yourself that whales can fly and there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.
75. Don’t forget that racism is rife in the queer community and trans people of colour are often the most vulnerable. Protect us.
Wait what? I thought the queer community was the best, the perfect, the only community? It’s rife with racism now? Am I in the wrong classroom?
77. Sex work is a service. Again, this is not up for debate. Do not try to stop trans folk from advocating for and implementing their own safety measures. Do not hide your prejudice against sex workers with fake worry.
This is not up for debate and neither is anything else I say. Shut up and do what I tell you.
88. Fight for our rights. Block and report pages or people spreading hate, too.
Rights are for us. Blocking and reporting is for everyone else.
96. Do not deny your privilege. If you tell me that being a cis heterosexual white man doesn’t mean you haven’t “had it rough,” I will tell you that you are wrong.
And if you tell me that I am wrong, you will be wrong. I am always right, you are always wrong. See above.
98. Not everything needs labels. As my grandmother would say: “Baby, some things just be as they be.”
Which is the opposite of 1-97 but never mind that – avoiding contradiction is for cis people.
“30. Support the generation below; speak to young kids. Make them aware that gender is a spectrum and they don’t have to commit to one gender for their whole life. Educate them on their freedom and choices.”
Yes, fill their heads with trans doctrine, teach them about TERFs and Cis People. Tell them about how wonderful it is to question your sexual identity, and how boring it is not to. Help us spread The Word of the trans cult. Holy Grooming, Batman.
“…young kids.” Right, preferably before they reach puberty or anything approaching mental maturity. That’s the low hanging fruit. That’s when they are compliant. Patronize parents, indoctrinate kids — we must validate the ones who promote this ideology. Malicious bastards.
Jamal’s pronouns on instagram are Dey/Dem. Gives it kind of a breezy, Caribbean flavor. So cool.
It’s all funny ’till you make someone snort coffee from his nostrils :-))
twiliter, #2:
Those parallels with religion just keep on coming.
This is the shit that skepticism was meant to address — the idea that extraordinary claims should be given a pass if they’re deeply believed by individuals who think they’re living examples of their truth. There are those who Know God, of course, as well as self-proclaimed psychics, multiple personalities, and people who were conscious and aware of their alien abduction. Now we add in people who just know they have the inner thought patterns of someone exactly like themselves, except a different sex.
None of them want anyone analyzing and critiquing the extraordinary aspect. All of them want to be accepted at face value. No kidding.
“51. Do not make someone feel bad after dragging you for something you have done that is deemed transphobic. Your guilt is not my guilt to feel.”
“Transphobic” means what we say it means. If we accuse you of it, you are guilty. Once you are outed as a “transphobe” your goose is cooked. You must accept the dragging and are not allowed to defend yourself in any way. If you do defend yourself, this will also be deemed “transphobia” by the trans cult deeming committee (self appointed of course). The mighty Trans Cult Community has spoken.
Convince yourself that the middle class white males with important jobs really have survival problems because they have no home, no food, no money. In that way, we can convince you that denying us is the same as denying the needy poor you are already primed to support.
Convince yourself that “transphobia” is the same as racism, so you will believe that denying us is the same as denying the people of color you are already primed to support.
And you are required to believe me when I tell you that you are wrong, even as you sleep in the streets in the middle of December because you have no home, no food, no shelter, and no money. You have it great with all your privilege, and we have convinced those who might have given to homeless shelters to give us their money instead, so no more for you, you privileged asshole.
Lost your arms and legs in the war? Well, let me just tell you how hard it is to be trans! Dying of cancer? Well, let me just tell you how hard it is to be trans! Had an anvil dropped on your head by a roadrunner that missed the coyote and hit you instead? Well, let me just tell you how hard it is to be trans!
Having “white privilege” is not the same as not having any problems. It just means you have one less obstacle to deal with. As for ‘cis’ privilege, I will go out on a limb and say there is no such thing. Perks are accruing to the self-identified trans and non-binary because we must celebrate the braveness of them for following an incoherent doctrine. Those perks are being taken from “cis” women…in other words, women.
I will accept the concept of heterosexual privilege, though it has been lessened at least somewhat thanks to the hard work and bravery of the gay and lesbian activists who were willing to put their lives on the line to support what they believe in. They didn’t spend their time calling people names on the equivalent social media of the day; they got out there and did shit. Now the trans, like the typical privileged males they are, want to suck up all that work without doing any of it themselves. They want to identify as being at risk without being at risk. They want to identify as marginalized without suffering the challenges of being marginalized.
It’s not that they want to have their cake and eat it too (they do, of course); it’s that they want to have their cake…and your cake…and my cake…and my neighbor’s cake…especially if you, I, and my neighbor are women.
Roadrunner, lol.
George Carlin managed to whittle the Ten Commandments to one. I’m guessing this batch could be edited down in a similar fashion. Here’s my go (before having read no more than the preamble):
1) Shut up.
2) Give us what we want.
I think we construe pretty clearly; it’s their ideas that are unreasonable.
Like these ideas. “trans women” aren’t women. Your idea of the “correct” bathrooms and changing rooms is insultingly appropriative. You need to “end the debate” so that you don’t have to defend your demands.
You already commandeer our eyes and ears more often than we’d like. Many of your problems are self-generated (see above “unreasonable ideas). Your biggest problem seems to be with Women Saying No.
Sorry, I’m too busy dealing with the dishonest manipulation and communication pushed on us by trans-captured institutions.
I don’t see you doing this, so why do you expect me to? Your lot seem fine with threats of rape, lynching, decapitation, immolation, stabbing, punching and unspecified methods of killing women. Yet in your eyes “misgendering” is much worse. I’m not sure I trust your standards of what constitutes “offence.” They seem to be pretty fucked up.
Wait. Isn’t gender innate and fixed, known from birth, etc? MAKE UP YER GODDAM MINDS!
It would be really great if you could get past your DARVO-laden narcissism and stop holding everyone else up to a standard of behaviour that you haven’t the slightest intention of meeting yourself. It’s haughty and off-putting.
HAHAHA! Oh, that’s a good one! Now say this while standing in front of a mirror. Don’t forget to turn the lights on and open your eyes.
Funny, this is exactly what many women say to cis heterosexual white men who wear dresses and lipstick who are trying to gain access to women’s facilities, claiming they are doing so in order to escape male violence. Are these men wrong too?
This thing is just built for a hundred rounds of reductio ad absurdum. It’s so self blind that it couldn’t find its own asshole with a flashlight and a roadmap. I guess Jamal had no friends outside the bubble willing to advise her against pressing “send.” If she’s not going to drop her pacifiers and earplugs long enough to listen when Lucifer informs her every month that she’s a woman, she’s unlikely to pay heed to anyone else telling her things she doesn’t want to hear.
“46. Record transphobic incidents. (Caveat: This is only if your immediate assistance is not needed and you have checked you can use this footage by the person involved.) Share this with everyone you can. It may lead to prosecution or people in positions loosing their job. Nobody should still be allowed to be a CEO and use offensive slurs.”
(But it’s ok to use “cis” and “terf”)
CEO’s must comply! We want “people in positions” loosing their jobs! Yes loosing, because their jobs are too tight, like a pair of shoelaces! Let’s loosen them!
It’s a lot of suck for one article, I’ll give “dem” dat.
Trans people are priests, holders of the new ecclesiastical law which must now dictate all life.
If it were very very important to me that nobody thought I was a woman, I would simply refrain from a) giving cutesy names to female bodily functions, b) requesting chocolate and pillows using a codeword, c) thinking up kitsch craft projects to disguise tampon boxes. Now I know where TIMs get their little wank-fantasies about what periods are like.
Also wtf does chocolate have to do with periods? The thing about periods is that they tend to make you feel blrrggh because of the abdominal cramping. Chocolate is beside the point at best and extra blrrggh at worst.
I would absolutely hate to receive such nonsense when I had my period. Just buy the tampons I need, bring them home, throw them on the bathroom counter where I can get them. Or I’ll stop by the store on my way home from work and get them myself. Don’t bring me stupid, childish stuff and don’t condescend to me. I am an adult human female, and I can manage a period.
One of the worst things about the goddamn trans ideology is how it portrays women as needing to be treated like infants or small children. Perpetuate stereotypes much?
It’s not privilege if someone else tells me how to use it.
I’m wondering what special use pillows have in relation to periods. Also, why this person doesn’t own any pillows, and has to have them brought in by the girlfriend. How do they sleep?
(Honestly, I’m mostly wondering what kind of maniac doesn’t have chocolate in the house at all times)
Trans people are systematically denied pillows by an unforgiving transphobic exclusionary cis world that wallows in its luxury of feathers while trans people have permanently bent necks.
I don’t know where it came from, but there’s this pervasive stereotype that menstruating girls and women desperately crave chocolate, and that it has almost medicinal properties. Never could figure it out, when I’m on my period I want umami proteiny foods. Give me charcuterie and ramen with extra eggs and a bloody steak.
That’s interesting; I never thought of it that way. Do you want them in the head, i.e. replacing what you’re losing via bleeding, or do you just want them the way one wants ice cream or a bloody steak or whatever?
When I had cramps as a teenager my comfort food was cream of mushroom soup for some reason.
Honestly I think it’s mainly because those are the kind of foods I crave all the time, and what you call “the blrrggh” does a number on my self-control.
Ah!
Well the good news is, as I understand it the current wisdom on healthy eating is protein & fats are good for you & carbs should be kept in check, so go for it.
There does seem to be some science suggesting that chocolate can help some women with period symptoms. I wouldn’t know, I ate chocolate pretty much 24/7. I did, however, hit a particular local burger place regularly once a month – I was never much of a burger eater but always craved one a few days before my period.