Quote:
Originally Posted by Kobi
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I keep reading yesterdays postings over and over. Each time, I see something different in them. They all, in one way or another, speak to me and for me.
In another thread, Aj referred to something which seems very pertinent to this one. She said something like, we need to apply the abstractions/theories to the real life experiences of people who have tried to live by them.
Abstractions have their benefits but they sometimes obscure the real life implications and experiences of those who are trying to apply them. Heart also spoke to how our life experiences and our socializations also affect our current realities and perceptions. It rings so true to me.
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Yes, we have to do that hard work because all our theories about gender or how society might be organized in a different manner ultimately will effect the lives of people. Not idealized human beings but actual people--who are a mixed bag on a really good day.
We need to take all of the assumptions that have become part of our language and way of thinking about identity and space and community and ask can they stand up under their own weight. I do not think that gender theory--as currently formulated--passes that test.
It doesn't because it gives cover to some rather misogynistic behavior coming from within the queer community that would never be tolerated if it were coming from a cisgendered heterosexual men from outside of the community. Never. If we would call for the head of a cisgendered man should he behave in manner X then we cannot make any argument that lets a transgendered man off the hook for the same behavior.
I've always felt that true in my bones but one day I had an epiphany that told me I needed to be vigilant because the 'identity = victim and victim = blameless' equation led me to this. It was the 2008 election, near the end-game and I made an off-hand comment about 'crackers'. My wife, who is white, turned on me and said "really? Crackers? Really?" And in that moment I realized what I had done wrong. I used a racial slur. I spoke *as a racist would speak*. If my wife could not use racial slurs, then neither could I. I did not earn the right to use racial slurs because my parents couldn't vote until they were forty-five. I could not justify using racial slurs for the years ancestors of mine were held in bondage. I had no excuse. I apologized, she forgave me but I held myself accountable for that. Since then, I hope that I have never again used a slur like cracker. I don't believe that I have.
I'm not holding myself up as a paragon of accountability but I offer that anecdote as an example of consistency even when it is hard. ESPECIALLY when it is hard. It would have been easier to mumble some words about how, as a black woman, I can't be racist because I don't have power but neither my wife or I would really believe that. We would both be engaging in an illusion. If I would ask for the head of any white person who used the 'n-word' in my presence, then I have no business calling people crackers (unless I am using it in the old-school sense that hackers would use to separate themselves from those who hacked for crime as opposed to those who hacked for curiosity).
THAT ethic I can defend and I can do so robustly because I'm perfectly happy to have that rule applied universally--I won't use racial slur X, if you don't use racial slur Y because using racial slurs is wrong. Wrong for you, wrong for me, wrong for people not yet born.
How much of the ethics of our community can stand under its own weight? Can "I'm a <fill in list of oppressed group membership here> and therefore I should be held to a lighter standard than others" stand on its own? No, it can't. The incidents that several women have shared with us--uncomfortable as that must have been and I thank you, sisters, for doing so--show the *inherent* weakness of the dominant ideology of the queer community of the last two decades. That ideology is if you are oppressed you are a victim and if you are a victim, you are *incapable* of moral blemish. It falls apart under the weight of a person with a penis whipping it out in a women's play space and making all the other women there uncomfortable. It breeds resentment and, quite honestly, makes it harder on women like Cheryl's friend A or myself because WE are seen in that same light.
The trans-woman in Cheryl's anecdote should have been escorted out. It would have been ideal if some older (meaning been on the path longer) transwoman should have, forgive the term, boxed that woman's ears (metaphorically of course) and said "what the HELL were you thinking?! You are invited in, you are given a seat in the room and then you piss all over the carpet? What the hell kind of woman are you trying to be?" At that point, it's on the woman who took the action to ask herself "was that feminist?" or "can I defend that same action if I were a cisgendered woman?" But we haven't given her a language to ask those questions in and we have, even worse, told her that for anyone--ANYONE--to raise the issue is for her to be victimized. The women in that space, who were *also* victimized, were lost in the shuffle. That is how they are paid for being open, inclusive and welcoming? Does anyone here think the organizers would be willing to be so open the next time? I don't. They would be entirely within their rights to NOT be welcoming.
Again, that is not about a transgendered woman being in a lesbian play space. It is about a transgendered woman behaving in a manner indicative of her not having sufficiently questioned the ways in which male privilege operates. The only OTHER reading is that the person DID question, came up with the answer that was comfortable for them which was that they would be damned if they were giving it up. Ignorance or not giving a damn, take your pick but those are pretty much the only ways that situation came to pass. Neither one is pretty and neither one recommends the dominant ideology that has held the queer community in thrall almost all the days I've been out.
Cheers
Aj