rehearsalsdepartures

Well. It happened again. I am so incredibly tired of white academically educated people being the voice of my community outside of my community, in professional situations. Their incredible experiences of privilege around whiteness, housing security, access to medical care, food, etc--not to say that POC don’t exp these things, too (do I get to identify as POC when I’m so light-skinned? that’s a whole ‘nother debate that’s complex), but race, color lines,  institutional violence, they all do what they do in those contexts.

I went to [professional retreat] today, and I opted not to attend the “caring for trans*/gender expansive youth” portion, and instead attended a concurrent session on utilizing data to improve our practice in [community health nursing specialty setting], in part because it’s too uncomfortable to let someone else, usually cis, straight, AND white, likely with a BA from a private university (or two) and a master’s degree, explain what the needs of the youth of my community are. And let me tell you, I will be the first to admit that I am still sometimes stymied by the needs of the youth I care for, or delighted by the kind of self-knowledge they exhibit, the ways that they are assertive or have language for things that I didn’t have language for until my mid to late 20s--but damn, I think I have something to add, and I also think that these white folks need to SIT THE FUCK DOWN, and invite in other voices.

Then after that long day, a friendquaintance had posted to the local Queer Exchange group asking for referrals for their trans* trainings that they give--trainings that I know they charge upwards of $200 PER HOUR for. You know how much I got paid for the last talk I gave? $0! And this person has told me that their rates are trending upwards as they gain more experience. This person is trans, granted, but they are also transmasculine, and pay only lip service at best to the privilege that being a white transmasculine person from an upper-class background affords them in the world. Their utter and complete lack of humility is just astonishing to me.

After ranting about said friendquaintance to my partner, all I could do was satisfy myself by praising them for being One of the Good Ones (tm) in terms of race and equity and white allyship, through constant querying and self-education, and a font of humility that trends *away* from white guilt/apologism (although we all have our moments, don’t we?).

Have reached the awkward point in my transition where I am trying harder than before to be OBVIOUSLY MASCULINE-IDENTIFIED to the cisfolks I meet, and so of course I overcompensate by putting on a ridiculous Barry White-deep voice whenever I meet a whole passel of them, and introducing myself with my full first name (bonus point: I usually don't end up getting called "Hobby" or "Jobby" by some clueless anglo).

Not sure how to get over this before work starts in a few weeks :/ :/ :/ but at least there's a safe place to pee at new workplace? ...but not where I'll be training in the weeks beforehand. Le sigh.