local cat(?)

If blacksmiths make things out of metal, what do other colors of smith make?

Adult conversation often involves subtle mechanisms of assignment. Z Nicolazzo describes cases in which Black non-binary trans students are pushed into binary gender assignments by subtle dismissals from predominantly White queer student groups. These dismissals tend to characterize the Black non-binary students as not “trans enough,” leveraging racialized social power to police what is and isn’t “trans enough,” and illustrating the dominant conception of queerness as White queerness. One case focuses on Silvia, a Black non-binary trans college student who identifies as agender and multiply disabled, and who uses “she/her/hers” pronouns. Silvia is talking to a binary trans man in the mostly White student group TransActions, which focuses on trans issues and gender activism. As Silvia describes a date she’s been on, the other student says, “This conversation really proves that I’m not a woman.” The implication is that Silvia is a woman, and the differences between the speaker and Silvia revealed in the story suffice to establish that the speaker is not a woman. But Silvia isn’t a woman either. She’s agender. Nonetheless, when she tried to describe aspects of her life to a predominantly White trans group, she was subtly pushed to interpret her experiences as those of a cis woman. Prima facie, binary gender norms and racial norms that position queerness as White conspired to preclude the possibility of Silvia’s being Black, trans, and non-binary. When she tried, she was assigned to cis womanhood by her White peers’ subtle dismissals—dismissals deriving their power partly from mutually reinforcing mechanisms of misandrogyny, White supremacy, and ableism.

I work with kids and sometimes we have to do safety lessons with them about like, not telling strangers on the internet your home address or something. And sometimes the kids wont understand why, so you have to impart upon them that, well, some adults want to hurt children. And thats kind of difficult to do, because you have to beat around the bush, both because you dont want to scare them (while still making them understand how serious it is) and because you might lose your job if you explain it too straight forward.