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Arrrgh.

piny

Even the Vicodin can’t take the edge off this one. I’m watching Without a Trace on TNT. It’s the Tranny Episode, about a transwoman who goes missing. I have a strong suspicion that she won’t be one of the lucky victims to emerge alive from her ordeal. There was the requisite boyfriend in the dark who had a violent reaction to the big reveal. I was actually really excited, because when they questioned him, he said he regretted turning on her like that, and said that he wished he had her back.

But then. The hot young FBI agents went to talk to the surgeon who performed surgery on this woman. They notified him that they were worried that she might have been the victim of a hate crime. He responded (I might be paraphrasing, but not too much), “That doesn’t surprise me. A lot of men and women in transition are desperate for love and attention and they look for it in all the wrong places.”

Victim-blaming motherfuckers. It is true that transpeople–largely transwomen if we’re talking about hate-motivated murders–do sometimes get killed by intimate partners and by johns–Gwen Araujo was murdered by men with whom she had been intimate. Her behavior is not the issue, which should go without saying.

We get killed for the same reasons, and in much the same circumstances, as the victims of other hate crimes. Whenever we are visible, we are in danger. Whenever we are known, we are in danger. Other queer people are also the victims of hate crimes involving family, friends, spouses, and sexual partners. Trina Schart Hyman’s husband broke her jaw when she came out to him. We don’t get murdered because we trust the wrong people or have the temerity to try to fuck like normal people. We don’t get murdered because we hate ourselves–internalized transphobia is not the problem. We get murdered because there are people out there who murder transsexuals.

Here’s hoping she’s not going to turn up dead.

21 thoughts on Arrrgh.

  1. In better transpeople-in-the-media news, Queer Eye had the transguy episode tonight. I missed the first half, but the second half was pretty good.

  2. Ooh, do tell! I missed it! Does that mean they’re rerunning it tonight? I’m on the West Coast. I’ll check the teevee listings.

  3. You might just be able to catch it. It was on at 8 here, and will be re-run sometime during the week.

  5. I had no idea that Trina Schart Hyman was queer! I remember her illustrations from Cricket magazine, they were so exquisite.

    Not to spoil too badly, but she turns out okay and the ex-wife brings the kids to the hospital at the end. So … yeah.

    Other than the transperson-in-the-media-itis, I do hope the pain is responding to Vicodin!

  6. Funny how Piny writes a post about a missing and feared dead transexual woman, and mentions the blame-the-victim mentality that enrages us when someone says that about a rape victim, that this thread turns into a chat about a TV show.

    Just sayin’.

    Yeah, I’m a little bit ticked off.

    If the missing woman were not transexual, would we be hijacking the thread?

  7. My (trans) boyfriend taped the Queer Eye episode and we watched it tonight. It was excellent. Gay men can be very transphobic, but the “Fab 5” were not — they were actively supportive. They went out of their way to pepper the episode with subtle and not-so-subtle teaching moments, and to support Miles’s transition. Even their trademark teasing was done in an appropriate manner (never cracking jokes about how Miles is “not really” a man, for instance). And at the end they had a brief mini-PSA on how tolerance is good but acceptance is even better.

    It was wonderful to see a show where being transgender is presented as at both perfectly normal and also very difficult and requiring courage. An amazing show, and y’all should catch it if you possibly can.

  8. RachelPhilPA, I dont think there was intent to hijack the thread – Without a Trace is a tv show and the missing woman is fictional.

    The point piny made about victim-blaming is sadly not fictional.

  9. If the missing woman were not transexual, would we be hijacking the thread?

    Before your post, there are three comments between piny and zuzu being excited and sharing times for the trans episode of Queer Eye, one post wishing piny a good recovery (a sentiment I wholeheartedly second), and one about the episode of the show piny mentioned (specifically, mentioning that the end was not the worst-case-scenario mentioned in the post) that also wishes piny a good recovery. How is that hijacking the thread?

  10. Rachel: Sadly, Trina died a year and a half ago. I used to work for Cricket, but not in the Trina heyday. More like reading Cricket then . . .

  12. If the missing woman were not transexual, would we be hijacking the thread?

    Absolutely not. But since she’s a fictional character in a television melodrama (Without A Trace is about the missing persons unit of the FBI, it’s a Jerry Bruckheimer production if I remember correctly), I don’t think it’s hijacking to, well, talk about the TV show on which the fictional character appeared.

    oudemia, I still have all my Cricket magazines. I love that magazine.

  13. I watched the Queer Eye episode and it made me tear up a little. And I’m not a cryer, really. Miles was so appreciative and I just got a warm fuzzy from the whole thing. And I also really liked the message at the end about people wanting to be accepted, not tolerated. Hear hear.

  15. The Queer Eye episode with Miles made me cry a little, because I thought he was so brave to come out to his family and friends on national television. Saying, “No, this is really who I am” is scary enough without inviting people in to watch, but he did and it was just beautiful. Seeing his dad dance at the party somehow just summed it all up.

    But the fact that the first thing they showed Miles doing with the Queer Eye guys was taking a self defense course broke my heart a little.

  17. I didn’t know that (the jaw-breaking attack) about Trina. Jesus fuck. She’s one of my very favorite illustrators, and I was heartbroken when I found she had died last year. I didn’t know it for a fact but I was kinda clued in that she was a lesbian, as one of the dwarves in her Snow White is obviously a self-portrait, and also obviously in love with Snow White—in one painting playing with her hair, with the most incredible expression on his face. It’s really sweet.

  18. or have the temerity to try to fuck like normal people

    Kind of an interesting point; I’ve never had sex with someone new without a two plus hour conversation (“Oh my god, I’d never have known you were trans…”). Yet I’m still supremely grateful that my queerness was both pre and post transition; the degree of hateful bullshit I’d have to deal with from men otherwise is just distressing.The idea of just doing whatever, without that whole dark cloud hanging over my head about how people will react, is still kind of novel, and this is despite the fact that I don’t have to plan to tell my partner in a public place with some kind of escape plan as needed.

    Anyway, I’m just venting really- for some reason this post just made me think about all the unexciting stuff associated with being trans; particularly the never ending status as an object of curiousity (and this is speaking from a position of privilege such that that position is one of curiousity rather than physical vulnerability). I’m kind of sick of being interesting I guess, even though that’s a whole lot better than being hated.

    I hope your recovery’s going well. For me it was a strange combination of pain and rightness; particularly the feeling that despite the fact that my body was badly wounded that it was also right in some fundamental and miraculous way that it hadn’t been before.

  19. Pingback: BlogWonks: Your Alternate Daily » No, nothing I do is wrong..

  20. Hey, look. That stupid mouthbreathing transphobe with the shitty mullet has been kind enough to trackback his ill-informed, slimy, hateful opinion to a blog he claims to hate. And the fucknaut doesn’t even know the difference between transsexuality and cross-dressing. Luckily, he’s kind enough to say that a transsexual who “rapes” a straight man by not disclosing her surgery probably doesn’t deserve to be brutally murdered. Just viciously beaten.

    And, hoo boy, there’s this fantastic poster there making a most righteous claim that in his particular case, he’d consider the transwoman in question lucky if he just walked out. Because, gosh darn it, sometimes a man’s just got to act like a disgusting thug and beat someone up.

    piny, best of luck in your recovery, and I hope you’re feeling well. If you don’t want to even have to consider the haters right now, please delete my post and the dickhead’s trackback.

  21. No, you can stay. Thanks for responding. I’m feeling fine, by the way. Except I have half a dozen maxi pads shoved down my shirt. It’s making me feel a bit nostalgic.

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