It's hard to tell how often this happens, but it seems that on the average day, two or three posters start using transgender identities, transsexual identities, and insinuations about these identities or about related experiences to insult people.
Now let me make two things very clear:
- If you use my identity or other trans people's identities as insults, you insult me. It doesn't matter if you are trying to insult Ann Coulter, if the worst insult you can think of is the insinuation that she is one of us, or that she looks like us, you are insulting us, and it has nothing to do with her. It doesn't matter if you are trying to compare the punditocracy to attendants in the Forbidden City, as long as people hurl the same word at us as an insult.
Unfortunately, many insults are based in sex and gender. That reflects a long history of misogyny and transphobia. There's more than one way to be trans. Some ways are simply medical conditions. Some ways are not. But we all have to deal with insults and beatings as we grow up, and so many insults target our bodies, our genders, our sexualities, or some combination of these. We all internalize a sense of shame for who we are and how we were born. And we all have to overcome that to live our lives.
- If one or two of us calls you out on the insult, don't pretend you didn't insult us. This happens most days, and we get too tired to call everyone out. I for one just get angry and frustrated but don't usually respond. When we get offended, it does not mean we want to defend Ms. Coulter or defend the punditocracy. I know I don't.
Now frankly, I'm sick of this pattern. I'd be perfectly happy if cis and other non-trans allies took some initiative to point out transphobia, and criticize it, and educate other members. This only gets at some surface issues, particularly a few recurring insults, and I know it can be harder to recognize and respond to more subtle forms of transphobia.
The same principles apply when people insult any other marginalized group, e.g. sex workers, as when they insult transsexual and/or transgender people.