Trans – Page 5 – Feministe

The Shape of the Problem

What I wanted to talk about today is employment. I am currently unemployed, and have known very few trans people offline who weren’t in the same situation. It’s difficult to really get a true sense of the employment situation for trans people, since most studies are small, and few if any actually separate the sexes (which would give us a much clearer picture of who in our community is unemployed). But here’s what we can say for sure: compared to the general population, it’s really bloody awful.

Read More…Read More…

You don’t get to out me

So far, I have avoided writing about trans subjects. Though that’s what I’m best known for here in Internet Land, it’s far from my only (or even dominant) interest in politics. I have layers, you know, like an onion or a parfait. Still, I have something that probably needs to be said. It’s basic, but so many cis people don’t even realise its necessity.

This one’s for those cis readers who have progressed past Trans 101, who might know and love the trans people in their lives. Sometimes cis people quite innocently out the trans people they know, or sometimes they mention them so as to demonstrate their allyness or even to make themselves more interesting (cos you know, all trans people simply must be fascinating by sheer virtue of existing).

When I out myself, or am outed, I never know what the reaction will be. Before hormones, and early transition, my transness was noticed quite frequently. Now, I have to be outed—by my documents most often, or by my friends, family and acquaintances. Which is where y’all come in. So here’s the deal: if you out us, you can do more damage than you can possibly imagine.

Read More…Read More…

Stop right there, thank you very much

Two new fronts on the immigration fight in the US:

In Nebraska, a small town called Fremont just passed a referendum today that will require tenants who are not US citizens to get an “occupancy license” from the city council in order to rent housing. Even residents of nursing homes will be required to get the license. Further, employers found to have employed “illegal” immigrants will be open to local sanctions as well as the pre-existing sanctions.

And in Nevada, new Arizona-style immigration laws are being considered. However, a coalition of the ACLU, Democrats and businessmen have filed a lawsuit attempting to block the law from going to the Legislature or voters.

What both moves suggest is the depressing fact that a good portion of the country looked at Arizona and didn’t think oh no here comes fascism, but rather, how can we can get some of that over here? I hope that Fremont is not a sign of further new ground being staked out in the move to purge certain areas of undocumented immigrants, though I’m frankly pessimistic about that. These types of laws effectively criminalise the entire Latin@ community, as well as having secondary affects of other groups whose legal status may be murky (ie trans people whose legal sex on their documents may be mismatched with their gender presentation).

Let us all hope that the Nevada lawsuit prevails, as well as the Federal government’s lawsuit against Arizona. Because the spread of these laws must be stopped.

Topless Trans Women Told to Cover Up; But Not Arrested Because of “Male Genitalia”

Your WTF of the day, on so many levels.

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — Rehoboth Beach in Delaware isn’t a topless beach — but a few transgender women caused a stir by treating it like one.

Police say passers-by complained after they removed their tops and revealed their surgically enhanced breasts over Memorial Day weekend. A lifeguard asked them to put their tops back on. They initially refused, but covered up before police arrived.

Even if they hadn’t, though, Police Chief Keith Banks notes they were doing nothing illegal. Since they have male genitalia, they can’t be charged with indecent exposure for showing their breasts. Banks says there’s no need for a specific law to address the issue.

Rehoboth Beach commissioner Kathy McGuiness isn’t so sure. She says the matter will be discussed at a town hall meeting next week.

This kind of thing makes me glad to live in a place where toplessness is equal-opportunity and not illegal. But that aside, the whole story is weird. I always thought that the problem with female toplessness was OMG BOOBS! But here we have female toplessness and boobs, but it’s not illegal because there’s no vagina involved? (As an aside, how does anyone even know what’s in the pants of the topless trans women?). Of course it’s a good thing that the trans women weren’t arrested, but it’s kind of cold comfort when the reason behind it is, basically, “You aren’t really women.” Wouldn’t this be easier if we just stopped freaking out about boobs and bodies, and if we all just agreed that if some people can have their chests on display in public, everyone can?

I’m sure the upcoming town hall meeting on this incident will be a real treat.

via The Frisky.

UPDATE: A commenter says that the individuals in the story are mis-gendered, and that they’re actually transmasculine/genderqueer. Also, it is a good idea to contact Rehoboth to make sure that trans people are treated fairly.

OK, I actually know the folks who are the topic of this story. The truth of the matter is much worse than it seems, because the media has gotten the details COMPLETELY wrong. These people are actually transmasculine/genderqueer, NOT transwomen! Which does mean that they were technically breaking the law, but the egregious failure of the news media to write a story without -sensational “chicks with dicks” viewpoint bothers me far more than anything else. My friends (who are trying their damnedest to stay anonymous in all this) are shocked at the scale this story has taken on, especially at the aspect leading to a potential new transphobic law being created in Rehoboth! Please contact news organizations and Rehoboth gov’t people to help clear this up and get trans-positive voices heard!

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. I’ve had a pretty intense day, so I hope you will excuse the lack of a substantial post, but I thought it was better marked this way than not at all! You can read about IDAHO at the site, where you can find information on the history of the day, events around the world and lots more. I’d love to hear what some of you are doing to mark the day, readers.

Events in Remebrance of Amanda González-Andújar

You may have heard of the recent murder of Amanda González-Andújar. A man has been taken into custody in connection with her murder, which is undoubtedly good news, but González-Andújar is still gone, and hers is sadly yet another name to add to this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance list of the dead.

This Saturday, April 24, there will be both a memorial and vigil in NYC to honor and remember her.

For those who can’t read the flyer, it’s transcribed below the jump.

Read More…Read More…

We Are the Dead: Sex, Assault, and Trans Women

This guest post is a part of the Feministe series on Sexual Assault Awareness Month. C. L. Minou is a blogger and writer inhabiting a Great American Metropolis. In addition to her work at the Second Awakening, she has written for Shakesville, the Guardian’s Comment Is Free, and is a co-blogger at Tiger Beatdown.

She is also, in no particular order, a redhead, a trans woman, an anarcho-syndicalist, a player of RPGs, a reader of science fiction, and a consistently poor speaker of foreign languages.

Trigger Warning

So here’s the thing. I want to talk quite seriously about the whole issue of sexual assault and trans women, bring in all kinds of good scholarship, talk quite soberly and calmly about the facts, weighing each one with all due rational consideration. In fact, as I type this my browser has a forest of tabs open to anti-violence centers, studies on the incidences of violence in the LGBT community, articles, policy papers, and citations to more of the same.

But I really can’t be scholarly and rational, I fear. I really can’t sit back and give you the statistics that will horrify for a moment, break up your day with some hideous imagery for however long it stays in your memory. I can’t do this because for one thing, the studies are practically non-existent–not too many people have bothered to investigate the prevalence of sexual assault in the trans community (and, as we’ll see, there’s probably a lot of underreporting anyway.) That’s one reason.

The other is that for trans women especially, sexual assault rarely stops there. In a depressing number of cases, the assault isn’t even mentioned. Because the victim is dead.

Read More…Read More…

Transgender Day of Visibility

Today’s International Transgender Day of Visibility. Started last year as a movement on Facebook, the goal of today is to increase visibility and celebrate transgender identity:

“I went on Facebook and I was thinking… whenever I hear about our community, it seems to be from Remembrance Day which is always so negative because it’s about people who were killed,” [Rachel] Crandall, who heads up Transgender Michigan, recalled. “So one night I couldn’t sleep and I decided why don’t I try to do something about that.

“I thought, ‘why doesn’t someone do it?’ Then I thought, ‘why isn’t that someone me?'” –PrideSource

You can learn more about it at PrideSource and TransGriot.

Some are celebrating the day online by sharing their thoughts and experiences, while others are taking it into real life by hosting rallies, fashion shows, and other events. There’s also a Facebook event page for today for folks to keep track of what’s going on where.

Be sure to share your events and posts there, but also feel free to do the same in the comments to let us know how you’re celebrating International Transgender Day of Visibility.

The Angry Tranny: Tone Arguments and Trans Women

This is a guest post by gudbuytjane.

(Note: This essay is not about Lady Gaga, and I will not discuss the telephone video or any of the commentary surrounding it. If you want to discuss the video, there’s an entire internet to do that in. This essay is about derailing, so as such I’ll probably be on guard for that in the comments.)

Despite being a mostly-unknown trans activist and blogger whose target audience is usually quite small, I recently found myself at the centre of some internet drama over a piece I wrote at my blog critiquing Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video for what I perceived as transmisogynist content. My arguments were initially picked up and discussed on a few feminist blogs, Twitter, and the typical places I was used to seeing these kinds of ideas debated. A few days after I put up the post, though, it was cross-posted in its entirety to Oh No They Didn’t, a pop culture community on Livejournal. Almost immediately, my page hits increased by orders of magnitude. With the shift from academic/queer/Feminist/oppression politics sites to a mainstream audience came a nearly complete disintegration of argument, and my inbox and comment queue began to fill with hate mail. In almost every letter the author concluded with an accusation like “And maybe you ****ing trannies would get somewhere if you weren’t so ****ing angry!”

I get the irony.

The Angry Tranny trope is a variation of the classic tone argument aimed specifically at trans women (it is used against trans men too, but as I suggest later I see the implication is specifically to de-gender trans women as angry men), a derail which suggests people would listen to you, if only you were nicer. This is never attainable, however, as the dominant groups retains the right to decide what is and isn’t acceptable tone, and dissenting ideas are inevitably considered impolite, rude, or angry. Angry Tranny takes this one step further, and beyond merely classifying arguments as angry trans women themselves are framed as threatening.

Read More…Read More…

Lady Gaga’s Prison-Yard Make-Out

Sady basically said everything there is to say about the Lady Gaga and Beyonce Telephone video, but I wanted to direct Feministe readers to this interview with Heather Cassils, the Lady’s prison-yard make-out partner. She has some interesting things to say not just about Gaga, but about gender and queerness — and her interpretation of the “does Lady Gaga have a dick?” rumors, and Gaga’s response, seem fairly at odds with what we’ve discussed. Her comments about her own body as a tool of subversion, and her thoughts on how to create social change by inserting yourself into the machine, particularly struck me (even if I don’t necessarily agree that the second one is entirely correct).

Check it out, it’s worth a read.