Yesterday I had a reminder of why I share my story so publicly. An old acquaintance shared a link to a satirical article posted by the website babylonbee. (I won't link to it here. It doesn't deserve the dignity of further views.) This website satires a number of behaviors from a Christian slant and has previously published other pieces that were derogatory and demeaning of transgender people. In the past I have shied away from responding to such provocations, not wanting to feed the trolls. But this time I felt the need to respond, in part because being silent contributes to our continued marginalization and in part because this is someone I've known for fifteen years and whom I would hope for more respect from because of that.
This person made a point of stating that the article was satirical, even joking that readers should look the term up on Google if they didn't know what it meant. While I'm quite familiar with satire, I went ahead and looked it up anyway just to be very clear in my response.
My acquaintance responded with this:
To which I responded:
At this point another acquaintance of my acquaintance, a man I do not know and have no connection with, jumped in with some juvenile remarks. Apparently he has since withdrawn them as they are no longer in the conversation thread on Facebook. Perhaps he realized how asinine his comments were. I don't know. But he essentially explained gender as directly tied to anatomy using rather crass terminology, then informed me that a swift kick in my genitals would make my gender clear to me. I told him that I really appreciated his clarification of the issue and suggested that he could learn something from hearing the stories of others who were not like him, but that he probably was not willing to think beyond resorting to abuse and violence. I coined the term (? maybe. I haven't seen it used elsewhere but am not claiming exclusive rights to originating it!) "cisplaining" to describe the dismissive, demeaning tone he took toward me. Mansplaining also describes an aspect of his attitude.
My acquaintance came back with this statement of how I could not understand his perspective and how my worldview needed to accommodate his own. (I like the way he starts with "Dear friend" which he probably intends to communicate a certain bond between us but which came across as dismissive, like a parent trying to dismiss a child).
To which I responded:
He has not taken me up on my offer for personal conversation on the issue.
This acquaintance is a reasonable, educated person; someone whom you would think of as a "nice guy" if you met him. He's a good husband for all I know, respected in his profession, a leader in his church. And he would dismiss my very identity with a few simple words and a piece of cheap satire. This is on the one hand relatively mild. At least he doesn't threaten violence against me as his other acquaintance did. But by dismissing the very identity of transgender people (and probably others outside of his acceptable worldview), he makes it acceptable to dismiss us, to exclude us from the rights, privileges and opportunities of society. He marginalizes us which allows us to be abused, victimized, dismissed and discriminated against. It's not a small matter. By accepting us as human beings like himself with full rights to dignity, worth and equality in society he would not lose anything of his own ability to participate in that society. But by insisting on his narrow perspective as the only acceptable one he would exclude me and others like me. And that is not acceptable.
So I will keep telling my story because I want people like this man to know that I am a human being with as much worth and value as any other, and I will continue to expect that society treats me accordingly.
This person made a point of stating that the article was satirical, even joking that readers should look the term up on Google if they didn't know what it meant. While I'm quite familiar with satire, I went ahead and looked it up anyway just to be very clear in my response.
My acquaintance responded with this:
To which I responded:
At this point another acquaintance of my acquaintance, a man I do not know and have no connection with, jumped in with some juvenile remarks. Apparently he has since withdrawn them as they are no longer in the conversation thread on Facebook. Perhaps he realized how asinine his comments were. I don't know. But he essentially explained gender as directly tied to anatomy using rather crass terminology, then informed me that a swift kick in my genitals would make my gender clear to me. I told him that I really appreciated his clarification of the issue and suggested that he could learn something from hearing the stories of others who were not like him, but that he probably was not willing to think beyond resorting to abuse and violence. I coined the term (? maybe. I haven't seen it used elsewhere but am not claiming exclusive rights to originating it!) "cisplaining" to describe the dismissive, demeaning tone he took toward me. Mansplaining also describes an aspect of his attitude.
My acquaintance came back with this statement of how I could not understand his perspective and how my worldview needed to accommodate his own. (I like the way he starts with "Dear friend" which he probably intends to communicate a certain bond between us but which came across as dismissive, like a parent trying to dismiss a child).
To which I responded:
He has not taken me up on my offer for personal conversation on the issue.
This acquaintance is a reasonable, educated person; someone whom you would think of as a "nice guy" if you met him. He's a good husband for all I know, respected in his profession, a leader in his church. And he would dismiss my very identity with a few simple words and a piece of cheap satire. This is on the one hand relatively mild. At least he doesn't threaten violence against me as his other acquaintance did. But by dismissing the very identity of transgender people (and probably others outside of his acceptable worldview), he makes it acceptable to dismiss us, to exclude us from the rights, privileges and opportunities of society. He marginalizes us which allows us to be abused, victimized, dismissed and discriminated against. It's not a small matter. By accepting us as human beings like himself with full rights to dignity, worth and equality in society he would not lose anything of his own ability to participate in that society. But by insisting on his narrow perspective as the only acceptable one he would exclude me and others like me. And that is not acceptable.
So I will keep telling my story because I want people like this man to know that I am a human being with as much worth and value as any other, and I will continue to expect that society treats me accordingly.
No comments:
Post a Comment