oh wow. i just clicked on my messages and noticed this. you might be long gone by now, but hell, i’ll answer this.

i learned Mandarin (want to be specific about the dialect bc you know, politics) at university. my bachelor’s is actually... Chinese, lol. i actually transferred schools to go to a better program, which was a good thing because it gave me the opportunity to learn classical Chinese. 

i somewhat honed my skills by doing a year of university at Nankai University (in Tianjin). 

this was all, sadly, years ago and my proficiency has gone downhill. i can still read classical Chinese pretty well but... modern Mandarin? not so great anymore. turns out i’m terrible at learning other languages. and i don’t particularly like it either. 

so i've logged into this site for the first time in a really long time bc i heard about the porn ban and figured that yahoo would finally be killing this site like its done to so many others. i knew when yahoo bought tumblr that yahoo's kiss of death would eventually work its poison. and here we are :D

i haven't been using social media with any regularity for like... two years now? the reasons are manifold and i've discussed them to death, so i won't go more into that.

i will say that tumblr will always have a special little place in my heart. its where i first really discovered my voice (as a writer and philosopher). i've contributed both good and bad things to teh Discourse.

i'd suggest new places to find me, but i'm not active anywhere atm. so...

so the wordpress site exploded and i don’t even know what happened. my webhost tells me that the site’s traffic was causing instability in the server and suggested cloudflare and cacheing.

which is kind of ridiculous bc no one was actually hitting the site. or not really, according to the stats.

my only real guess is that given that a certain aspect of my notoriety has been recently discussed, is that there is mayhap some sort of ddos thing happening. i don’t know.

i probably could figure it out. but… if i’m too fucking disabled to do my day job at the moment, i’m sure as shit way too fucking disabled to deal with this shit. so. i’m not dealing, lol. here’s me not dealing.

as you can see, i’m back to the octopress blog since its unlikely to buckle under the pressure of some sort of attack given that its a static site. if it even was some sort of attack.

my life this dumpster fire (i’m not ok)

I cried on Friday. Like actually sobbing with tears dripping down my face. c r y i n g. The last time I cried, even a little, was in 2011. I can’t remember the time before that. But with tears? Enough of them to drip? Probably not since I was a kid. My tears have mostly been neglected and abused right out of me. Tears dry out pretty quick when you realize that zero people give any fucks. Then I…

God its been a long time since I’ve written anything. I frequently think about writing… I just don’t actually sit down and do it. My health has been kind of up and down enough that I sort of couldn’t? Or something. As I mull things over I realize that this could quickly become just another rambling update about my health, which I guess its been long enough since anyone has heard from me that…

It was tdor(tm) this week and I forgot.

I probably wouldn’t even have remembered if not for the facilitator of the trans-only CBT group therapy I’m currently doing. Which, I guess, in its own way is maybe Ironic. Or maybe not.

It isn’t that I don’t care. I do.

Amusingly, when the facilitator mentioned that there was a tdor(tm) event happening, she mentioned that it was to remember all the trans ppl who died in the past year. Like. All of them. Even the ones who died from illness.

I laughed to myself and was incredulous.

This. This was the cis woman… the Nice White Lady(tm) who was running my trans therapy group. And its a trans therapy group because they were trying to recognize that some of our bad thoughts might result from real world shit.

Like how you can only see someone’s face twist with disgust at the sight of you before you start thinking that you’re disgusting.

In CBT ‘I’m disgusting’ is the type of self-talk you’re supposed to challenge. Its hard to challenge when you can watch movies and see ppl vomiting at the idea of kissing or fucking someone like you.

Anyway.

I wanted to tell her that at Trans Day of Rememberance(tm) only the people who died violently via whatever secret algorithm has been decided by Gwen Smith are remembered. Or wait. It isn’t a secret algorithm:

The names on the list are people who died because of anti-transgender violence. In the past some have contacted TDoR to ask that suicides or domestic violence victims be added to the list, but the list is specific to those who died from anti-transgender violence. tdor faq

Of course of course the next question is like ‘why not add these ppl’ and she’s like ‘add them if u want’ as if it were that easy or straightforward. From now until the end of time she’ll be remembered as the person who started tdor(tm). She’ll probably be remembered far longer than Rita Hester. Because white women make history by climbing the bodies of women of colour.

I wanted to tell her this. But I didn’t. I’m actually surprised I wrote the above paragraph or even this blog post at all.

I didn’t tell bc, as my increasingly redundant posts indicate, I’m fucking tired and burned out.

There’s literally like one thing that is stopping me from torching my entire online presence and disappearing entirely. (its biyuti publishing in case u don’t know – and yes i’m still doing shit for that)

I’m tired.

Tired of pouring out my feelings, ideas, and self only to be harassed and plagiarized. I’m also really tired of feeling watched all the time. I’m unbelievably tired of having to be so very careful about everything I write bc I know which topics = instant harassment and I just don’t feel like dealing with any of it.

In part because I’m not convinced I (at present) have anything to say that I haven’t already said.

This post is me bleating on about the same shit I’ve been writing about for years.

A person I recently cut out of my life pointed out that it looked as if I (and some others) was locked into some sort of stasis. Where I could only spin my wheels and rehash the same shit. (yeah this is one of the reason she was cut)

It was amazing to me because…. I have nothing new to say because nothing has changed. I’m still as oppressed as I ever was (ok maybe less bc my financial situation has improved – but this wasn’t bc of anything i did).

Nothing has changed.

In discussing the question of neutrality and libraries a careful distinction must be made between the descriptive and prescriptive elements. Descriptive: talking about what libraries are; ‘are libraries neutral?’. Prescriptive: talking about what libraries should be; ‘should libraries be neutral?’. Reading that blog post by some white guy about ‘ugly beliefs’ and library neutrality its pretty clear that, at least from the ALA’s bill of rights, that he is talking about what libraries should be.

In so doing he ellides the question (and problem) of whether libraries are, in fact, neutral. There is a lot of different literature out there discussing the issue and most of it concludes that libraries, despite the stated values, aren’t actually neutral. Additionally (and perhaps most importantly) librarians ourselves are not neutral. This is partly the motivation for my article on “Locating the Library in Institutional Oppression”. Only ‘partly’ because my article goes one step further to examine the ways in which libraries are not neutral1.

The reason why it is important to settle the question whether libraries, as they currently exist, are actually neutral is because their current state constrains what they can be (at least so long as we don’t enact radical change). Can non-neutral libraries be the foundation for neutral ones? If so, how? If we understand libraries as being non-neutral what changes must be made in order to achieve the ideal of neutrality?

One of the ways, as proposed by King is that we support free speech, even in cases of ‘ugly’ speech. If you look in the comments of the blog post he makes it clear that he is drawing a distinction between ‘legal’ free speech and ‘illegal’ hate speech. All speech up to that line should have equal place within libraries. Its interesting to me that he points out that these discussions were sparked by events in Charlottesville. Which, I’m guessing, is his example of ‘ugly speech’. Interesting because the ‘speech’ in Charlottesville did, in reality, incite violence. It would seem, then, that discussing free speech in the context of this particular event is a little misguided (but whatever).

Beyond the problems of using laws as moral compass (e.g., the legal system in the US is famous for how oppressive it is), we can see this as an attempt to dodge the moral culpability he (and others like him) bear for giving space to oppression. By pointing to the ‘bill of rights’ and the first amendment he is simply shrugging his shoulders regarding the larger implications of both this stance and the current state of libraries.

However, this stance itself is one of the ways in which libraries become sites of institutional oppression. And, please, recall that ‘institutional oppression’ isn’t about individuals but the system and institution as a whole (that said, we as individuals are morally culpable for what institutions do and are, since we are an integral part of these institutions).

The example I always love to use is when Janice Raymond was invited to speak at an event taking place in the Vancouver Public Librarie’s public space. Both within that press release and the ensuing discussion the legal code is pointed out as the line for what is (and should be) allowable. Also do note that hate speech laws are more restrictive in Canada than in the US. But the point does remain: what Raymond intended to speak about wasn’t hate speech (legally speaking). At the same time, it is also the perfect example of the kind of speech that both causes and expresses oppression.

Her topic that time was about sex workers. She (and the intellectual tradition she belongs to, radical feminism) supports and advocates for policies that leads to oppression and, yes, violence against sex workers. The key issue here is the criminalization of sex work. Radical feminists usually advocate for a position that they call ‘abolishing sex work’ which, in reality, means that they openly oppose attempts to legalize sex work. Decriminalizing sex work, however, is the goal for many sex workers (as in: this is what they frequently say they want for themselves).

As it happens, regardless of their theoretical background, it turns out that their opposition of decriminalizing sex work coincides with that of many conservatives. This is also true regarding their stance on trans women (as in how we are not women and, thus, should die). Its important because we end up seeing situations like vancouver rape relief (the same org that invited Raymond) arguing against trans rights, as in the recent debates Bill C-16. Their position on this and the issue of sex work gives fuel to conservatives and other politicians because they get to point to a group of feminists and make it look like there is a broader consensus than actually exists (it helps them to point out that it isn’t only the right-wing that wants sex work to remain illegal).

Okay. Why have I spent so much time describing this situation? Because its an easy example for how ‘legal’ speech can feed into the oppression of others. And, for the sake of clarity, by ‘oppression’ I absolutely do include ‘violence’ as one of the ways ppl are oppressed. So, yes, these ‘ugly’ (but legal!) beliefs incite violence… its just that this incitement is covert. When radical feminists talk about ‘aboloshing sex work’ it sounds good. I mean, it is frequently a very ugly and violent business. It ‘sounds’ good right up until you realize that these translates to radfems actively working against decriminalization – which results in sex workers being exposed to the violence of the criminal justice system (not to speak of all the other kinds of violent oppression it results in).

The thing is: extremist groups have long been aware of the value of propaganda. Which means that their hate is sublimated into other ideas that don’t sound nearly as dangerous as they are. And we know this from history. We know that when people talk about racial purity this translates into eugenics and genocide. We know this and yet…. we also argue that such things should be given space within libraries. That since this kind of speech is legal, we should actively work to protect it.

And we circle back to the issue of descriptive vs prescriptive. We have ample evidence to support the idea that libraries and librarians – as we currently exist – are not neutral. Which means we are biased. And the bias leans towards oppression, not liberation. It takes very little effort to find the ways in which the classification systems most english libraries use (the library of congress or dewey) is biased. It expresses a white supremacist perspective in various ways. It is sexist, ableist, homophobic, and so on. It also doesn’t take much effort to find examples and literature about how librarians have (and do) purposefully deploy classification schemes as a way to hide/bury lgbt books (amongst many others).

I don’t think King (and others) realize that some of us frame the issue in this way: given that libraries aren’t neutral and that the bias is oppressive, we shouldn’t push for neutrality where it doesn’t exist (and may not even be possible). And given that we aren’t neutral and the oppressive bias, we have a moral obligation to both correct the current bias (and all ways it is expressed institutionally) as well as actively working against current articulations of oppression to which we are already biased towards.

As in: as non-neutral libraries and librarians we only really have two positions to support. We are either for oppression or we are against it. And given that our non-neutrality is currently biased towards oppression doing nothing or supporting the status quo means we support oppression. And the idea and ideal of ‘neutrality’ is actually part of our status quo. Neutrality is, as King helpfully points out, embedded within the core ideals of our profession and their institutions.

I mentioned on twitter that I’d be super interested in seeing some other concrete plans and ideas supporters of library neutrality have for acheiving it, given our currently non-neutral state. Its weird to me that neutrality appears to come up most often when talking about free speech and the like but I never see one of these people arguing for a complete rehaul of the DDC (or a complete new replacement). If we have non-neutral libraries and neutrality is the goal, we have a shitton more work to do than simply giving more space to oppressive ideas (and people). Libraries and librarians would require radical and fundamental change in order to even begin to approach neutrality. And yet… its pretty much just crickets from these ppl.2

If I were to write this article now, it’d be a very different paper. In part due to the problems surrounding Andrea Smith herself but also because I’d use different examples. ↩

I still can’t get this press statement from Penn State about richard spencer not being welcome to speak. This paragraph in particular makes my mind boggle:

After critical assessment by campus police, in consultation with state and federal law enforcement officials, we have determined that Mr. Spencer is not welcome on our campus, as this event at this time presents a major security risk to students, faculty, staff and visitors to campus. It is the likelihood of disruption and violence, not the content, however odious, that drives our decision.

I’m unsure as to how the cognitive dissonance in this didn’t jump out and bite him, but whatever.

The problem: Penn State’s president appears unwilling to make a connection between the ‘odious’ content of Richard Spencer’s speech (and that of other blatant white supremacists) to ‘the likelihood of disruption and violence’.

Its a problem because this is pretty much literally the definition of hate speech. Even in the US where ‘free speech’ is a lot more broad than here in Canada, hate speech is distinguished by its likelihood to incite imminent violence. Doing a risk assessment and determining that a person can’t speak on camplus because of how likely ‘disruption and violence’ is the real and actual line between ‘free speech’ and hate speech. My god he even says so himself:

But the First Amendment does not require our University to risk imminent violence.

My main problem with this is that people on my twitter TL were acting as if Penn State was doing something good by not allowing Spencer to speak. Which, yeah, sure. But not really. Not if they aren’t courageous enough to connect that threat of imminent violence to Spencer’s (and his ilk’s) speech.

In other words, spending so much time talking about how you believe in free speech without explicitly identifying Spencer’s speech as hateful ends up being an empty gesture. The president states that he doesn’t agree with spencer but he never condemns it as being hateful.

Instead he talks that awful liberal stance of acting like this is just ‘opinions’ (the actual word he uses). So no, this isn’t hate speech because its simply an ‘opinion’ we don’t agree with. Just one opinion amongst many in the market place of ideas. It’s just that because of the imminent threat of violence Penn State can’t allow spencer to speak this one time. Maybe later, not so soon after charlotesville, spencer will be allowed to speak.

I just watched this video telling white ppl that white culture isn’t under attack and how the narrative needs to end. Amusingly the video is exactly the unhelpful kind of discourse that attempts to placate whiteness more than it challenges. The video goes on to say how white supremacists push a narrative about how white culture is under attack (along with white ppl) and this is Wrong bc white culture is fine and will be fine.

Except that one of the very few things that white supremacists have right is that we (people of colour) are actually seeking to dismantle whiteness and white culture. White culture is under attack. More to the point: it ought to be under attack. You cannot be against white supremacy without being against white culture and all that entails.

The reason being: white supremacy is white culture. White culture is white supremacy. These two things cannot be separated. They are, indeed, the same thing.

‘White people’ and all the other races were specifically created as a way to legitimize white supremacy. I know its a bit weird for me to say that white supremacy existed before race but it did. Rather, the notion that certain colonial powers were superior to those they subjugated existed before race codified it into scientific ‘fact’.

Part of the motivation behind a lot of colonisation was to ‘civilize’ the Other. And do note: it wasn’t like England tried to colonize France in order to ‘civilize’ it. It did, however, do this is in a very large portion of the world…. The portion that, coincidentally, wasn’t white under the budding science of race1.

This sense of superiority, of supremacy was embeded into what would become ‘white culture’. Fueled by the seemingly endless expansion of whiteness across the globe, white culture (and white people) had no reason to think that anyone else could be their equal. Indeed, that others weren’t equal became motivation to expand. It was a cycle that fed on itself.

Example: Look at [Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”][rudyard]. This particular piece of literature is interesting because it not only makes colonization a moral obligation but frames it as a cumbersome duty. But the poem itself helped justify the American colonization of the Philippines. Then the expansion into the Philippines convinced America that it could (and thus should) be a colonial power. Their superiority confirmed by the fact that they ruled over others.

This is white culture. And, yeah, it is under attack as many of us actively seek to dismantle it. The fact that it is under attack helps extremist groups recruit. And, yes, please note that I used ‘extremist’ group. It is critically important that we understand that, say, neo-nazis are only different by degree, rather than kind, from organizations like the ACLU2. Or to use another American example: that the democratic party is only different by degree, rather than kind, from the republican.

So yeah. White culture is white supremacy. As such it should not be preserved or defended. It should be, in fact, dismantled and attacked3.

Videos like the one I linked to are a great example of how even well-meaning white people fail. The video, of course, assumes a white audience. And, as such, the impact of the video is that it attempts to placate and comfort white people that their culture isn’t under attack. That they are fine and their kids are fine. It fails to be helpful because it doesn’t tell white people that they should also be doing their best to dismantle white culture. That white culture isn’t worth preserving and defending. Rather it helps white ppl be complacent by reassuring them.

Admittedly I’m not being entirely accurate here, depending on your source. Blumenbach, who was the acknowledge authority on race for a long time, used his white pain more liberally than what actually happened in practice… By, for example, including South Asia within whiteness, despite no one really thinking that they are white. ↩

Beyond the ACLU’s active defense of fascism and extremist hate groups, they embody a different kind of white supremacy by legitimizing the current state of things via the belief that incremental change via the very racist judicial system is a good approach to ‘equality’ or whatever. This isn’t to say that incremental changes are bad, because they do result in real and immediate changes in people’s lives right now. Recent events, however, also make it very clear that they aren’t so much about being anti-racist as ensuring that ‘everyone’s’ human rights are protected (everyone inclusive of neo-nazis). ↩

between the conversations that exclude me but that i helped start

the plagiarism and harassment

and the fact that most ppl (read non-twoc) still don't give any flying fucks about the things i care most about.

essentially communicating to me that they thought i was emotionally stunted bc i've been blogging about the same thing for years on end.

and i'm like:

maybe this is bc nothing in my life has changed?

i'm still plagued by various oppressions and none of them have gotten any better.

So I’m looking at this audiobook and trying to decide if I want to get it. Looking at the reviews the most common description for the overall tone of the book is… ‘dark’. One person mentions that it was nominated (or won?) some kind of award for best dark mm novel (or whatever). Some of them just use ‘mental illness’ as a catch all and some mention that its depression in particular that the protag deals with.

I can’t help but be arrested by all the metaphorical entailments that attach to the idea of ‘depression as darkness’1. At this point no one should be super surprised by the idea that no metaphor is an island. That is, using a metaphor like ‘depression is dark’ isn’t only about a lack of light. I mean… even in this context you can tell they aren’t talking about a literal lack of light but rather the overall emotion/tone/texture of the novel.

And of course, once we start talking about darkness as an emotional tone, we are really talking about something that is ‘bad’. This novel is ~dark~ because it deals with mental illness (in this case depression). Based on the reviews, it isn’t dark because of some tragedy or trauma but simply because of the character’s depression (and part of the book is told from his point of view).

I’m not trying to say that depression isn’t dark/bad (particularly from the perspective of a depressed person) but rather…. the inevitable moral valuation that adheres to this metaphor: if depression is bad, then depressed people are bad.

See what I mean?

I’m sure ppl can think of a bunch of other examples where mental illness, on its own, is considered a ‘dark’ thing in media (I’m talking about examples where the mental illness isn’t given any additional context like trauma or whatever). I’m also sure that ppl can think of a bunch other disabilities that are likewise ‘dark’.

(um… my brain just pooped out on me and i can’t remember what else – if anything – i was going to say…)

for what its worth.

sincere expressions of gratitude like this for the work i’ve done in producing hundreds of blog posts in an effort to communicate my understanding of the world

actually make me feel like it wasn’t all wasted effort.

part of why i’ve been in a writing funk is bc i started to feel (and realize) that i could only re-iterate things i’ve written before.

bc (it seems to me) most ppl can’t move past certain things forcing a person to belabour their first concepts over and over and over

(i see this in some of my favourite ppl online. they are forced by ignorance and circumstance to always circle back to shit they wrote about four years ago – or longer even – and its so disheartening. this. this is part of why my words ran out. bc i don’t want to have to keep repeating myself.

how many times must i go over the history of scientific racism and eugenics ppl actually start to get the way these ‘archaic’ discourses have structured modern racism and white supremacy.

its exhausting. i’m tired.

but of course. this isn’t the end of the story. in the cases where you do manage to successfully communicate an idea and the ~discourse~ takes a step in the right direction.

but suddenly you look around and hear echoes of your voice everywhere yet nowhere do you see yourself. you’ve been forgotten by a discourse that you helped shape.

u get to see rich white trans women regurgitating your words to thunderous applause.

and you? when you were shouting. when you were ripping yourself open and bleeding on the page. all this did was bring the wolves to your door. and now ur a broken, bloody mess.

It’s too funny that I recently posted about needing accommodations for accomodations. Turns out that I should’ve figured out some way to ask for accommodations for accommodations since I failed in my attempt to get proper documentation or some such bureaucratic nonsense.

The situation was this:

I dutifully fill out the forms. See my doctor. He writes up a note about how I need a fragrance-free environment (which my supervisor has been really great about and no further action is needed) and ergonomics for my mouse and keyboard.

A week after I turn in my form I get a phone call. The person tells me that my doctor didn’t include enough details.

I responded with: I didn’t think we needed to include a diagnosis.

The reply: I don’t need a diagnosis but if my doctor could include some details about the muscular-skeletal whatever the fuck so that the ergonomist (!) knows what to look for.

Me: Um…..

Person continues: So I’ll call your doctor and get more details. The form you turned in authorizes me to do so.

Now. I’m not sure if I’ve made an explicit blog post about this but ppl who’ve been reading my stuff for a while will recall that I have extraordinarily slow processing speed. I process information s l o w l y. So it took me about a day to realize that, no, I didn’t want mpow to call my doctor. I end up sending an email withdrawing my request for accommodations.

See the thing that gets me about these processes is that there is always some hidden trap designed to discourage you. And, sadly, I always seem to fall into these traps. Which isn’t difficult given how difficult it is to find clear instructions on how to do any of this.

You know what my thesis supervisor once said? That the application process for PhD programs was purposefully difficult as the first round of weeding. As in: An inability to correctly follow the application instructions was a red flag indicating that you’re unsuited. I’ve heard the same thing said about job applications.

Inasmuch as I can stomach those situations, which is not at all, I’m pretty sure this also applies to situations like this. In the past I’ve written about the free-loader problem.

To refresh: the freeloader problem is about we tend to work collectively to benefit not only each member within the group but the group as a whole. Except that there are usually some members in the group who do not contribute but still reap the benefits of collective good.

Now before anyone starts thinking of lazy, good-for-nothing ppl who are scamming the system, there are a lot of reasons why a person may not be able to contribute. Perhaps they are disabled and simply cannot. Maybe they are too young do too much at all. Or too old. That said, yes, there will always be some who are lazy.

Now the crux of the problem here is that it can be difficult (perhaps impossible) to distinguish between those who do not contribute because they can’t and those who don’t because they don’t want to.

You’re probably getting the picture now. The freeloader problem is at the heart of pretty much every debate about social services. You’ll probably also recognize that the usual solution (besides simply cutting the service) is to create ever more checks on the system and/or ever more surveillance. The bureaucratic processes essentially are designed to labourious for the very fact that they are intended to weed out the illegitimate freeloaders from the real.

And I’ve just been weeded. Which is the main reason why the common ‘solution’ isn’t a solution at all. A social service that results in more false-negatives than false-positives is essentially failing its intended purpose.

One other solution (and this is the one I favour) is to simply not care if there are false-positives. In other words: if a person chooses to be lazy and just reap the benefits from everyone else’s labour, that’s okay. Because something like ergonomic keyboards and mice should be available to everyone (at work) without the need for a doctor’s note. The harm that can come from using standard mice and keyboards is well-documented. So if you want them, you should get them (recall I’m speaking in the context of my workplace).

I know a lot of ppl are going “that’s bullshit”. But honestly? Most of the counter-arguments to this position assume a framework of capitalist productivity. As in: every person capable of work must work for ever increasing productivity.

I’m also somewhat basing this off of human behaviour and history. Most people like doing stuff. Pretty much everything we can tell from the sum total of human history is that our existence has never been about survival only or some kind of social darwinism. The existence of art/music/etc basically demonstrates that labour not strictly related to survival was valued. I can’t think of any culture that advocated killing off the elderly because they couldn’t contribute to the survival of the group.

Its really a capitalist notion to think that ‘labour’ that doesn’t contribute to productivity isn’t actually ‘labour’. And that people who can’t labour at all become burdens since they no longer contribute to productivity.

So Riki Wilchin dropped another hot turd of an article where she muses about whether or not nonbinary ppl are cis (and not trans). This is very much in line with the other article I remember of hers, the one about trans dinosaurs (where she takes a dump on early transitioners).

The long and short of the article is that Wilchin’s, as a True Transsexual(tm), wonders about what happens when nonbinary ppl identify as trans. Like, clearly being trans means you have to transition since trans means crossing. One must ‘cross’ to the ‘other’ side in some physical way. Being trans is about hating your body (or at least being very dissatisfied).

I mean. We have nonbinary ppl who are okay with their body and, more or less, change nothing about their gender, gender presentation, or sex. Like.They don’t change how they dress. They don’t try to get legal documentation that aligns wth their gender identity. They don’t have to worry about accessing public accommodations like restrooms. How is such a person trans?

And if such a person isn’t trans, they (of course) must be cis.

Because those are the only two options. You are either cis or trans.

This somewhat amuses me because the very first post I ever wrote was about how this binary falls apart when seen through a decolonized lens. Some Wilchins herself even mentions in passing (how there are some ~third sex~1 ppl in “manmy places” who identify as trans and whose political interests might overlap). Its possible that she isn’t speaking globally but I’m reading it that way.

Strangely, if you have the stomach to make it to the end of her article, she does say that the possibilty of nonbinary cis ppl is the end of gender and that’s a good thing. Put another way, her basic claim is that a destabilization or even a dismantling of the cis/gender binary is a good thing.

I happen to agree. The difference, however, is that my motivations are and always have been different. I don’t see the modern emergence of nonbinary people as evidence that this binary ought to be dismantled. Rather, I think the historical and modern existence of ‘third sex’ ppl (like myself) have always challenged and necessitated a rethinking of this particular binary.

Viewed through the lens of a non-white logic (specifically Indian logic) instead of looking at cis/trans as a dilemme we can understand it as a tetralemma. So the reality becomes: a person is either trans or cis or neither or both. Those of us who are an indigenous ‘third sex’ are most likely neither trans nor cis or both.

Our existence has always disrupted and challenged the varying gender binaries constructed and enforced by white ppl. The first and still most damaging binary being the man/woman one. I’ve discussed the relationship of the gender binary and colonialism in many other places2. Its not a real big surprised that a ‘trans movement’ constructed within this context likewise erases and harms us.

And this does harm us. In many other countries ppl of the ~third sex~ have been and continue to be targets of extreme violence. Indeed, globally the majority of deaths are in Latin America (especially Brazil). We were early targets for extinction during the ‘golden’ age of colonialism and we remain targets today as we live in societies fundamentally changed bc of colonialism.

All of this and Wilchins wonders what possible political interests of ours could intersect with that of white ppl and the mainstream trans movement. It would be laughable if not for the real fact that ppl are dying.

How’s this for political interests: we want to live and be free.

This means, yes, being able to change our legal documentation to whichever gender we want (a third gender option like some places in South Asia or ‘crossing over’ to the ‘opposite’). This means, yes, we’d like access to public accommodations. It means (shockingly) that we want protection from discrimination in the workplace. It means that we need targetted efforts to reduce HIV in our communities (rather than being lumped into MSM). It means access to healthcare. This means, sure, we need targetted efforts to reduce intimate partner violence. It means an end to incarceration for flimsy means (or abolishing prisons altogether).

But golly. I wonder if us ~third sex~ ppl have political interests that overlap with teh trans movement3.

Please not that I’m using ‘third sex’ bc she does but this is really about any indigenous gender. ↩

In reality the contemporary non-academic discourse on the gender binary has been heavily influenced by my writing on this topic. These are some of my most popular posts. And yet… me and my contributions have largely been erased from this. Instead, a lot of trans ppl (included twoc who don’t like me) cite academic resources that I bundled up and shared. If ur wondering whether or not I’m bitter about this, the answer is ‘yes’. My erasure by other twoc is particularly galling. ↩