I stumbled across a well researched diary by Fish out of Water showing the dangerous ignorance that is infecting our schools. Well my verbose self found a question that I seem to have good authority to respond to and the thread became it's own diary. A question raised by Dr. Jeremy so here it is; What is "transphobic"?
The rest after the jump:
My words are not blockquoted and I will attribute to whom ever it is I am responding to. Any editing errors are my own.
The Question was originally asked of CayceP and I had to put in my two cents.
For the most part this is question and answer for Dr. Jeremy:
What is, "transphobic"? I looked it up, and couldn't find it.
Phobia of Transgendered or Transexual individuals, much more violent and pervasive than homophobia or racial/ethnic bigotry. The spectrum of offenders is much broader due to it's social acceptability.
Thanks. Yes, that is another step.
Here is a link from an Australian educational website.:
Transphobia is the irrational, persistent fear of those who are gender atypical to any degree. It is often accompanied by an inability to deal with gender ambiguity and discomfort with, or hostility towards, people who do not conform to stereotypical gender norms.
Here is another well thought out definition from CayceP:
Transpersons
particularly male-to-female transgendered people may adopt beauty rituals or other traditionally feminine behavior as a survival mechanism in order to "pass" in day to day society. Such behaviors will occasionally be attacked by branches of feminism as anti-feminist, like wearing makeup, feminine clothing, or other rituals seen as feminine.
Male-to-female transgendered persons have a unique experience with what it means to be female. A quote from the Wiki on Transfeminism explains the difference and why it's important (at least to my comparason):
...Some critics of mainstream feminism say that as an institutionalized movement, feminism has lost sight of the basic idea that biology is not destiny. In fact, they argue, many feminists seem perfectly comfortable equating sex and gender and insisting on a given destiny for trans persons based on nothing more than biology.
Some feminists argue that only women who were born women (and therefore socialized as women) can have a legitimate opinion on the experience of being a woman. This is transphobic, but I have to consider it when I discuss this particular aspect of feminism.
In the same way, the so-called "real Christian" must consider their fundamentalist peers's behavior. It is too easy to disregard their actions and values as not genuinely of Christ. A teacher covering their classroom with Bible verse and branding crosses onto students probably believes very much that their actions are justified by religious fervor. Note: I am neither Christian nor a gender scholar, any anyone who is either is free to correct me.
My continuation of the meme:
And FTM Female to male transgendered individuals are also seen by some in the feminist movement as being traitorous to feminism in acquiring male privilege. Although I can tell you from experience that all it takes is one person in the social group for that privilege to become a liability because males are fierce in their protecting their privilege. You seem to have gotten your MTF portion of feminist transphobia down well.
CayceP has more:
Thank you, I did not want to comment on FTM because I have far less experience with it. I do know the same calls of 'traitor' are levied at the BD/SM community as well. The notion that women who participate are somehow 'collaborators'. Very strange.
Dr Jeremy wants to learn more:
BD/SM? Sorry. I thought I wasn't as clueless as I am, apparently
.
That is shorthand for bondage and domination and sado/masochism.
Dr. Jeremy:
Interesting (t)o me, and I'm obviously quite clueless, I would have thought that was just your preferences regardless of gender. It's sort of like which position you prefer. I mean, isn't it quite normal to experiment with that? And if you like it, to continue with it? Is that a political issue in the same vein as homosexuality or transgendered people? I don't see that, because one is how you like it, and the other is who you are, but maybe I'm wrong?
Gender and sexuality are not cut and dried binary concepts. I gender identify as male but sexually identify as lesbian. And the Feminist objection to BD/SM is quite uneducated because it is the passive partner that controls the scene or activity involved. If the partners do not understand and subscribe to that dynamic then the "Top" partner could injure the bottom or passive partner. It is very structured for obvious reasons.
This is a common error in my travels when discussing my gender status:
So you are a man, genetically who feels she/he should have been born as a woman, which is why you are sexually a lesbian? I get the rest. But if you gender identify as a male, then aren't you just a heterosexual male? Sorry if this is too personal.
You have it backwards in my case. I am FTM Female to Male transgendered. Female bodied but I have passed as male throughout my life. Also sex and gender are two different concepts. My gender is who I am as my everyday self and how I present myself to the world. My sexuality is my attraction and what stimulates my pleasure centers more effectively. For me having sex with another female bodied individual and in my case because I am also comfortable being passive sexually with a woman I identify as lesbian sexually.
There are FTM's that are what in lesbian parlance are considered 'stone' meaning they have very little or no sexual contact occurring with their own erogenous zones and derive all of their sexual satisfaction through providing sexual pleasure to their partners. I'm capable of deriving such sexual satisfaction but it is not my primary outlet.
I guess I gave Dr. Jeremy TMI:
Ok, got it. Wow. And I thought it was a big deal when my friends in college came out as gay. I can't even imagine how difficult your life must have been. People can't even begin to understand the kind of courage involved in just standing up and being who you are when society just doesn't even have a place for that. I can't. I can only imagine, and I"m sure it doesn't even come close. I have nothing more to say, other than, wow, courage.
It actually took more effort on my part to try and fit in as female. I took the easy way out and transitioned making myself and those I interact with more comfortable.
Dr Jeremy is impressed and quite right about how my existence is not a threat to anyone:
Still. Amazing courage. We should all be who we are. That is not a threat to anyone.
Dr Jeremy wants to determine if the terminology is accurate and I try my best to explain:
But is that phobia? I mean, I'm afraid of spiders and really, really afraid of closed in spaces, my heart starts to pound and my palms start to sweat and if I'm in a closed in space, I run for the exit, and I WILL knock down or aside anyone I have to to get out. Does that apply to women who think that MTF transgendered women don't get what it's like to grow up as a girl?
I see that there's an issue to be discussed, and a really interesting one that I have never thought about before - if you're really a girl, but no one treats you like one, do you get what it is to be a girl? And what happens when later you become a woman? Are you maybe more outspoken, not only because you have had the guts to be what society told you you shouldn't, but also because you never had the experience of being a teenage girl? But is that a phobia?
The phobia comes in when it is an irrational fear Hence the brutality involved when we are attacked and murdered. I have watched people's eyes dilate, they begin to sweat, and they become flush as their heart rate increases when I am outed to them and the panic sets in.
Oh, Jeez. That's nuts. But is that fear or hatred? I mean, was the KKK afraid of African Americans? Yes, but was it a phobia? I'm sorry, I'm arguing words when there is a much bigger problem. I'd just call it more prejudice and hatred than phobia. Of course, much of prejudice stems from fear, but not phobia. If they were phobic, you would out yourself and they would run away screaming. I think we'd all like that, especially if they went home and never left.
It is accepted terminology, and from my experience the hatred part is learned behavior that society uses to address the fear.
But that's hatred not phobia. I don't hate spiders, I have no malice towards them at all, they just scare the shite out of me. I also feel no ill will towards enclosed spaces, but you won't catch me in one. At the end of the day, hatred and prejudice sucks and that's all there is to it, I was just confused by the use of the phobia term.
As I commented before the fear is quite obvious in these individuals.
Fear of ideas versus fear of people. When I canvassed for Obama, I saw a lot of fear of ideas, not so much fear of me, as a person. They were afraid of what I stood for, not who I was. That's why I got them to listen to me, because I didn't embody what they were afraid of, I was a small, white, blond woman canvassing with a kid who looked like her son. Yes, he was out and proud, and no, he wasn't my son, but it got us enough time to talk. I'm not saying these people don't suck, a lot. I'm just saying that it's not phobia, it's teh stupid.
Teh stoopid hurts literally.