Blog Against Racism Day
December 1, 2005 – 9:14 am
Opportunity to Prove Yet Again that White Transmen Don’t Get It ~ Priceless
And this same guy will wonder why “transsexuals don’t get any support from people of color!”
Or
State: “People of color are more homophobic or transphobic.”
Which begs the questions, than who? White people?
Own one’s white privilege means living in the world in our bodies, aware and present. Until white queers understand how our race enhances our position in the world, even as transsexuals, all the better things we want for ourselves will only happen piecemeal, if at all.
Like I asked earlier this week: how does the position of this white transman in the cartoon serve him, and us other white transsexuals? How does the belief that people are more homophobic or transphobic than us, serve us?
And in the end, I come back to paraphrase of my new favorite quote. What bodily instincts do we kill for the glory of the Great White Transsexual?
4 Responses to “Blog Against Racism Day”
Did something–I mean, a discrete event, rather than a noticeable tendency–happen to inspire the cartoon?
I have in the past noticed and aired similarities between isolation and tokenism on the basis of race and trans identity/history, but I try not to _equate_ the two positions, never mind forgotting the existence of the former.
By piny on Dec 1, 2005
Piny, it could just be the result of being around too many so-called educated liberals who still display shockingly ignorant and racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic behavior on a daily basis - and sometimes at the workplace!
(Jay, please correct me if I am putting words in your mouth, but since we work at the same place…’nuff said. :grin:)
By Jennifer Gee on Dec 1, 2005
piny and Jennifer,
Jennifer, indeed, I agree!
piny, a particular incident crystallized the cartoon in my head and it came out of listening to women of color who are down with the trans cause talk about ftms. I will go out on a limb here and say that the ftms exhibiting the behavior reflected in the cartoon seem to a one to have been newly on hormones.
Still, I think the cartoon reflects an overwhelming piece of white privilege. By this I mean that among white ftms (usually former lesbians) and I include myself in this group, we are primarily concerned with how our gender changes but rarely examing how our race impacts the ways in which we understand gender.
As one lesbian of color put it, “I just chalk it up to you guys being former white lesbians.”
Jennifer speaks the truth about where we work. A seemingly liberal college town in the midwest, where, when pushed, white liberals let their privilege out all too quickly.
By jay sennett on Dec 2, 2005