Guest post: This is the point that cis people miss

Jun 18th, 2015 12:48 pm | By

AMM’s very powerful follow-up comment:

Rob @14

@9: It’s like when my father convinced me (for an afternoon) that I could sell stuff door-to-door. I went out and canvased the neighborhood. And I realized: it’s just not me. I am not, cut out to be a salesman

@10: AMM, I love that analogy.
I don’t. Facile as it may seem this is because being a salesperson (in the widest sense) is a learnt skill, not a state of being. People we call naturals at sales simply have personalities that better enable them to quickly get over the hump of sucking at it and finding it hard. They probably learn how as kids. It’s closely linked to performing (acting). For the rest of us we practice, try and eventually get at least tolerably good at sales, but never actually enjoy it, even if we get satisfaction from our success.

You missed the point. Could I have learned to be a salesman if my life had depended upon it? Probably.

But I would have hated it. I would have had to spend every day stomping down my revulsion at what I was doing. I would have died inside, and at some point felt like dying was better than living. At some point, it wouldn’t have mattered whether I killed myself or not. I figured that out in a half-hour. And Rob, if you don’t believe I could figure that out in that short of a time, you simply have no clue, you are one of those “knows not, and knows not that he knows not.”

This is the point that cis people miss. They don’t seem to understand what it is like to feel revulsion at having to live as one’s assigned sex to the point that one has to deaden oneself and become an empty shell and maybe come to the realization that being alive is worse than being dead. Most trans people learn to act out their assigned gender role and to believe that that’s what life is like. Many go to extraordinary lengths to silence that inner voice and squeeze themselves into being what everyone tells them they are. But at some point, it just doesn’t work any more. At some point, there is nothing that society and life can reward or threaten you with that makes it worth going on that way.

How much of it is biology? How much is social gender BS? How much of it is one’s nature? Would I feel less alienated from myself if I lived in some sort of feminist gender-free utopia? Who knows? And who cares? We are what we are, however we got that way, and we have to live (or not) in the world as it is, not as we wish it would be. If transition (medical and/or social) makes us feel less alienated from ourselves, if living as genderqueer or asking to be referred to as “It” makes us feel less revulsion at ourselves, then I don’t care what the theorists and scientists and feminist pontiffs and Dr. Knowitalls have to say, we’ll take it.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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Guest post: A person, not an abstract

Jun 18th, 2015 12:04 pm | By

Next, a comment by besomyka.

We seem to conflate sex and gender in these discussions even though we know better. When we say I feel or don’t feel like a woman, for example. Do you mean woman in the social constructed sense, the stochastic physical sense? What?

When I say I’m a woman, I happen to mean both. I think that if you considered me a woman, that your mental shortcuts about what that meant would be more true about me than the other option. Is it perfect? No, of course not. I’m a person, not an abstract. But it IS more accurate.

I also mean it physically. I am quite sure that if we destroyed the concept of gender completely, that I’d still have dysphoria centered on my body. My heart would ache seeing a pregnant woman, knowing that it could never be me. I would have still felt so rigid hugging people without a bosom of my own. I know I’d still feel like a hollow mannequin when I looked in the mirror.

I know that within 3 weeks of starting HRT, even when other people still saw me as ‘a guy’, my depression and dysphoria all but vanished. Instead, over the last few years, I’ve grown into myself. I’ve become real. A person.

Here’s what I know is true for me. When society said pretty girls shouldn’t have body hair, something deep inside whispered, “Hey, they are talking about you.” Like everyone, I internalized the messages that society forces on us, and like everyone some of those applied to me, and some didn’t. What I, instinctively, applied to myself is remarkably similar to what other women my age applied to themselves.

To say I’m not a woman is to deny that essential part of me. I mean, look, I spent literal DECADES trying to deny that part of myself, to rationalize it away… all that did was cause me pain. I am a woman, that’s the truth.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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Guest post: That something just doesn’t fit

Jun 18th, 2015 11:22 am | By

Now I’ve caught up somewhat after the conference, so I can do what several people requested and make guest posts of some of the comments from the Discomfort with the more social aspects of gender discussion last week.

I’ll start with one by AMM:

There’s something that a lot of trans people report and I’m becoming aware of in myself that doesn’t get mentioned in feminist discussions of gender.

It’s that feeling that at some fundamental level, you just don’t belong with the people you share a birth gender with, and in many cases you don’t feel right in your body. That something just doesn’t fit, no matter how perfectly you may seem to fit. And when you transition, medically and/or socially, you just feel right for once.

I haven’t transitioned yet, so I can’t say for sure how I’ll feel, but I know that I have _never_ felt at home with being a man or having a male body, and I’ve tried every way I can think of for 60 years. It’s like when my father convinced me (for an afternoon) that I could sell stuff door-to-door. I went out and canvased the neighborhood. And I realized: it’s just not me. I am not cut out to be a salesman. It’s the same thing with being male. I have yet to find anything about being a man (as opposed to a generic human being) that I can relate to. I can intellectualize it, but I can’t feel it. Whereas when I read about or hear women’s experiences, it fits.

Julia Serano describes this a lot better than I can in her book (Whipping Girl), and besides, she’s transitioned, so she can compare before and after.

I get the impression that cis people don’t experience the same sort of not-rightness. Maybe there’s something deep inside, independent of all the social constructions, that just works right for cis people and doesn’t for trans people, and, for lack of any better language, we call it gender.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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Mr Pinckney came from a family of civil rights activists and leaders

Jun 18th, 2015 10:44 am | By

The BBC profiles pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney.

A church pastor and a state senator, Clementa Pinckney spoke of his politics as an extension of his religious mission, as another way of serving the people around him.

“Our calling is not just within the walls of the congregation,” he said. “We are part of the life and community in which our congregation resides.”

On Wednesday evening, Mr Pinckney was shot dead among those he had pledged to serve – one of nine victims of a gun attack on the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

…

The 41-year-old pastor had begun preaching at the age of 13. He was also a rising star of Democrat[ic] politics in a state long dominated by Republicans.

He was the youngest African-American in South Carolina’s history to be elected to the legislature. He had been a student at the state university, a Lutheran seminary, as well as at Princeton University.

Now all that’s gone, thanks to a young racist whose daddy gave him a gun for Christmas.

We’re right up there with Bangladesh for hateful murderous targeted violence.

Mr Pinckney came from a family of civil rights activists and leaders. Among them were campaigners for the desegregation of school buses and for electoral reforms that would pave the way for the emergence of black politicians.

In 1998, the veteran Washington Post political reporter, David Broder, met Mr Pinckney and described him as a “spirit-lifter”.

“Our people expect the best of us,” the young politician told the reporter. “They send us to take care of the people’s business, and those of us who take hold of that responsibility understand that’s what it’s really about.”

Earlier this year, Mr Pinckney appeared at rallies to protest at the death of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man shot dead by a police officer in Charleston.

So the young racist with the gun executed him, just as the theocrats with machetes executed Avijit Roy and almost executed Asif Mohiuddin.

Mr Pinckney left a wife and two children.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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TyWanza Sanders

Jun 18th, 2015 10:31 am | By

Murdered in the Charleston AME church shootings.

Shaun King ‏@ShaunKing 24 minutes ago
This is TyWanza Sanders. Killed in the #CharlestonShooting.

A great young brother. Recent Allen University grad.

I’m reminded of the photos of the Garissa victims – so many young vibrant hopeful students with plans and dreams.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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In custody

Jun 18th, 2015 9:29 am | By

Dylann Roof has been arrested. As many of my friends are pointing out on Twitter and Facebook, he won’t be tortured or raped or murdered in custody. He’ll be safe and sound.

The Post and Courier ‏@postandcourier 2h2 hours ago
.@FBI confirms that Dylann Roof, 21, of #Columbia area is suspect in #CharlestonShooting. #chsnews

Embedded image permalink
 The SPLC has been providing information:
2 hours ago

Photo of #CharlestonShooting suspect Dylann Roof shows patch of South African apartheid era flag