Comments for Kate Harding's Shapely Prose

Comment on Transgender Day of Remembrance by alibelle

alibelle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:17:23 +0000

And by “those fuckers in society” I meant people who would attack someone simply for their gender presentation, just to be clear.

Comment on Transgender Day of Remembrance by alibelle

alibelle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:16:04 +0000

As an immature asshole not so long ago, I wasn’t so kind to transpeople, in a vague mocking way. Reading this I realized that my attitude was worse than I had thought, I had been providing the foundation for these fuckers in society, allowed them to feel more accepted with their hatred than transpeople ever have. I’m so sorry now, and the first thing I did was change my status on facebook to an announcement about TDOR and a link to the list. Maybe someone else can come to same conclusion I did and it will make things a little bit better.

Thanks for posting this, it needs to be seen.

Comment on Transgender Day of Remembrance by fillyjonk

fillyjonk — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:15:16 +0000

Thanks, JSTG. I’ve also noticed a perverse commitment (sometimes in otherwise reasonable people) to believe that people don’t “count” as transgender until they’ve had SRS. Trying to draw a bright line between “transsexuals” and “crossdressers,” entirely unaided by input from the individuals themselves, shades quickly into this kind of scorekeeping.

Comment on Transgender Day of Remembrance by snarkysmachine

snarkysmachine — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:12:32 +0000

The assholes who kill my sisters do not distinguish between transsexual women and crossdressers.

Exactly.

Things folks can do:

1. Insist the rape crisis/domestic violence shelters in your area provide services to Transwomen and call them OUT when they do not.

2. Insist that spaces marked “female” are INCLUSIVE to all females PERIOD.

3. Unpack cisgender privilege (me too!).

4. Speak up, particularly within queer spaces, which actively silence and exclude Transwomen. Force them to deal with their hypocrisy.

5. LISTEN. (me too!)

6. Deconstruct your language. I don’t say “folks” cause I’m folksy, but with an awareness the feminist discourse as had a long, disgusting history of excluding Transwomen’s voices with essentialist perspectives as it relates to gender.

Not looking to be Ally Goodkind. I’m working on this shit myself and fuck up, but I am committed to being of some damn use.

Comment on Relax, He Wants You to Maw Down and Wear Cheap Chonies by Lu

Lu — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:11:42 +0000

Also, hey, Glamour, men have always had body hair, too! But somehow for them it’s not pathologized—at least, excluding the recent, brief “manscaping” fad, which seems to have been fleeting.

Comment on Relax, He Wants You to Maw Down and Wear Cheap Chonies by Lu

Lu — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:09:28 +0000

“Once I dated a guy who was positive that a woman’s urethra and vagina were the same thing, so he thought sex was kind of gross.”

Yeah it is*, dude, but it’s because it’s the man’s sexual organ is also used as a conduit for urine.

Dear god, how ignorant. Sorry, amy, I hope that doesn’t make you feel like I’m criticizing your involvement with him at all. Basically, I blame the patriarchy.

*by his standards, I mean.

Comment on Transgender Day of Remembrance by Ayelle

Ayelle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:08:30 +0000

Thank you for posting.

Comment on Transgender Day of Remembrance by MissPrism

MissPrism — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:56:25 +0000

Thank you for this post.

Comment on Transgender Day of Remembrance by Just Some Trans Guy

Just Some Trans Guy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:53:04 +0000

Thanks for posting this.

“(Though I do want to mention that transsexual and transvestite are two different things, though, and there seems to be some conflation of the two on the website.)”

The inclusion of all transgender people, and of people who may not have been transgender but who were killed due to gender presentation, isn’t a “conflation” but a recognition that the same basic hatred and bigotry motivated the killers. The assholes who kill my sisters do not distinguish between transsexual women and crossdressers. (Also, just as an FYI, in the U.S. the term “crossdresser” is preferred to “transvetite.”)

Comment on Relax, He Wants You to Maw Down and Wear Cheap Chonies by rachel

rachel — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:48:40 +0000

littlem, it’s not just men that are that ignorant, sadly…I dated a girl who thought that when a man and woman have sex, the penis goes inside the cervix. She also insisted that having “too much sex” would cause one’s labia to grow longer.