"It's Giving Me The Death Giggles"

It's really interesting the way this gender realism is manifesting though, because it's trying really hard to manifest through social sciences this time as opposed to the medical sciences of yesteryear. Like, not to be all "back in my day", but back in my day when I was a deeply insecure and uncertain trans teenager facing the first Trump admin, the way we tried to argue that trans men are just like any other man and trans women were just like any other woman was with brain scans, studies on the success rates of medical transitional care, and DSM definitions of gender dysphoria.

Of course we read studies wrong. Of course many brain sex studies have since been debunked because their sample sizes were small and skewed and it has since come out that the human brain is not all that sexually dimorphic in general. Of course we only focused on the transition success rates of binary gender conforming trans people, nonbinary people didn't matter. Of course we loved the DSM, we didn't care about the potential threats of medicalization like eugenics as long as it gave us our HRT. Of course we went out of our way to bully and name call and harass other trans people who disagreed with us, none of us wanted those nondysphoric theyfab transtrender tucutes to steal our precious precious undefined ~medical resources~ from us, the real transsexual victims of society.

Now I'm seeing a bunch of insecure and uncertain trans people facing the second Trump admin arguing that trans men are men just like any other man and trans women are women just like any other woman - actually - are the most women to ever women ever - with passing privilege discourse, studies on income rates in the trans community, and sociological / political concepts like intersectionality and materialism.

And it's just kind of like. Of course you're reading studies wrong. Of course passing privilege discourse is old and has been hashed and rehashed 80 different ways to Sunday over the last several decades and it's been bullshit every single time. Of course many surveys on income only reach certain demographics of trans people with higher income stability, who have more time to fill a nonessential survey, who aren't worried about sharing their information, who feel safe outing themselves even privately, who have other potential privileges like whiteness that also plays a huge part in their income, etc. Of course concepts like intersectionality and materialism are being misunderstood by people who have only just been introduced to those concepts in the last 3 or less years, have only engaged with those concepts online, and haven't actually read a book on the subjects once. Of course people are going out of their way to bully and name call and harass other trans people who disagree with them, they don't want those nonpassing lying transandro bro theyfab birthday boys to steal their precious precious undefined ~feminist resources~ from them, the real transsexual victims of society.

It's fascinating watching the same regurgitated talking points that came alongside this discourse resurface too, like "If someone calls it ~queer art~ it's probably bad and transphobic" (typically in reference to RHPS and other adjacent media) and "Queer is a slur" and really anything that deeply hates a more unified idea of queer identity in general. It's all shit that I used to parrot back in the day with a fresh coat of new gender realist paint. People who want to convince you you're just like a cis person are going to do whatever they can to cut you off from and target you against any sense of queer cultural identity. It's built on the false logic that if you find yourself aligning with queer culture, queer identity, then the cishets aren't going to accept you as normal, as one of them, as safe. Because obviously the path to safety as a trans person is trying to break our backs proving to cis people that we're just like them and we deserve safety because we're just like them, and not with our own broader queer community who has been fighting for unconditional acceptance for us all for decades.

It's the same shit. It's bullshit. It was bullshit when we did it 10 years ago and it's still bullshit now. Appealing to cis authority won't get you anywhere good as a trans person. I know because I tried and I ended up isolated and bitter and I actively hurt every trans person that stayed in my life during that time.

I'd like everyone to read the short essay "Gender, Identity Politics, and Eating Our Own" by Alexander John Goodrum, published in 2001:

I come late to organizing as a transgender activist. In doing so, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned transgendered people truly are everywhere and not just in New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. I’ve learned many want to quietly assimilate into the white, heterosexual, middle class status quo that is the dominant culture of our nation. I’ve learned quite a few of us have no wish or desire for such assimilation — that for some of us, our greatest desire is to shake up that dominant culture, to question gender and identity on every level — social, biological, political and personal. I’ve learned that perhaps right at this moment there is a transgendered person — most likely an MTF transsexual or crossdresser, most likely a person of color, being brutally murdered. I’ve learned people much younger than I are coming out as transgendered in ways I never believed possible when I was their age and are challenging not only the status quo, but also calling on “old” activists like me to take another look around and see the world through their eyes. And I’ve learned that, perhaps like all other communities, we love to eat our own. [...]

Being the baby TG activist I am, I come to this drama late. Long after the battle lines were laid down. Long after sides were chosen, opinions formed and set in stone. Long after wounds (both real and imagined) were inflicted. I’ve watched carefully for the past couple of years as the battle has played out online, in internet chat rooms, and on mailing lists. I’ve read statements from individuals and organizations that have taken a stand on the issue. I’ve received press releases and announcements from one camp or another; a battle of media propaganda that would make the veterans of the Cold War proud. And through it all, I’ve tried to be a rather casual observer, if one can be casual as they watch some of the best and brightest of their community consumed in an internal battle that threatens to tear the entire community apart. Of course my being a casual observer hasn’t stopped a few folks from demanding to know where I stand. I’ve been pulled aside at conferences and been given “information,” primarily innuendo and accusation, so I am up to speed on the situation. I’ve been directed to websites that were little more than character assassinations in badly laid-out HTML. And I’ve been emailed privately and off-list by those concerned I was going to make the “wrong choice.”

Want to know what my answer to these people is? Okay, here it is — I really don’t care. That’s right. I DON’T CARE. You see, I believe almost everyone entangled in this controversy is acting in what they believe are the best interests of the community with which they feel most closely aligned. I believe they’re doing the best they can with what they have. I believe mistakes have been made by everyone involved, that the personal has become political in the most destructive of ways. I also believe in change and evolution; that even organizations that have had to be forced to listen to me and to consider my issues can learn from their mistakes and realize they must make a seat for me at the table if they are to truly realize the dream of civil rights for themselves and for others. But most of all, I believe in hope. I was asked point-blank whose side I was on. This is my answer: I am on the side of whoever has the guts and initiative to end this thing and make a real effort to move our community forward out of this debilitating and destructive conflict. I’m on the side of anyone who is more interested in healing the wounds than in proving who is right. I’m on the side of those who have the ability and the willingness to put aside their personal and political animosities and seek some way to bring together everyone involved to begin a healthy dialogue, one without finger-pointing and name-calling. Until that happens, I guess I’m on the side of those who are the most negatively affected by this dysfunctional family feud. In case anyone needs a refresher course as to who those folks are and the issues they are dealing with, allow me to introduce just a few of them. The transsexual FTM who has lost custody of his child when he began transition; the butch lesbian who lost her job because she refused to wear makeup or shave her legs; the crossdresser whose wife is seeking a divorce and custody of the children he adores; the effeminate gay man beaten to death and crucified on a fence on a lonely Midwestern plain; the 17-year-old MTF doing tricks in the back alleys of San Francisco because her parents kicked her out when they found “him” wearing dresses; the FTM who died of uterine cancer because he couldn’t get insurance approval for a hysterectomy after he had completed sexual reassignment. Ultimately, it is these transgender, transsexual and gender- variant people who have the most to lose if someone doesn’t step up to the plate to end this.

Goodrum was a trans activist who founded TGNet Arizona, a vital advocacy organization in Arizona, as well as being on the City of Tucson Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Commission. He was a Black trans man, bisexual, disabled, low-income, and he died by suicide a year after this essay was published.

For those of who you know about the recent loss of Ansel @transfaguette, I'm sure the similarities are as harrowing to you as they are to me.

He said yes.

It is really not all that hard to get away with murder. A basic amount of foresight and prep will get rid of enough evidence that the police either won't find the killer or will be unable to make the charge stick.

Despite this, most murders do get solved, because someone who decides that murder is the solution to their problems is probably not the kind of person to be levelheaded and careful enough to avoid getting caught.

I think something very similar is true of sockpuppet accounts. It's not that hard to make a convincing sockpuppet. However, people almost always make sockpuppets as a way of defending their egos, of making it look like they have more support than they actually do. And this passionate defense of someone the sockpuppet ostensibly doesn't know and has no reason to care about is a dead giveaway. So if you want to validate a sockpuppet you have to lose an argument to it. You have to get owned. Once it makes you look like an idiot, basically no one will ever suspect it again.

this will kill people and they know it, because they prefer us dead and out of sight. the government, the NHS and even the opposition have made this clear again and again. a twenty-five year old can have sex, get married have children, join the military, earn a living, be halfway up the corporate ladder or highly successful in their chosen career field by that age, but they can’t transition under NHS rules. this is a death sentence for trans teenagers and they are going ahead with it. it’s trans genocide, same as across the pond.

Well, shit, now I'm crying.