We need desperately to start celebrating the overlap of identity instead of hyper-scrutinizing whether or not someone overlaps fully.
Marsha P. Johnson never called herself a trans woman--she called herself a drag queen, or a transvestite--yet we recognize the impact she had as part of trans history. Of trans women's history. There is so much effort to re-imagine her influence as being the one who "threw the first brick" at Stonewall and less effort to remember her as one of the co-founders of STAR, an org dedicated to the protection of sex working transvestites. (Which took influence from both queer orgs and revolutionary orgs like the Black Panthers). Whether it's a lack of terminology or her transness was not under such a narrow definition (the P. in her name stands for "pay it no mind" because when people asked if she was a man or woman she told them to mind their business, and said "I think of myself as me.")--she is part of trans history because drag history, transvestite history, female impersonator history, gnc history is trans history whether the participants would consider themselves trans women or not. It's transfeminine history.
Stormé DeLarverie, the person whose violent arrest sparked the Stonewall uprising, is described as a drag king, and as such, every publication--including queer coverage of her involvement--lump her in with cis women's history and never also transmasculine, despite the fact that while she didn't identify as anything to those who knew her, she preferred to be assumed to be a Black man. That's transmasculine history. That's lesbian history. These two histories are not mutually exclusive, yet we act like they are.
Leslie Feinberg described hirself as a trans woman--zie was trans and a woman. Queer coverage tries to decide whether that makes Feinberg a cis woman or a trans man. Neither. Leslie has influenced transmasculine history and transfeminine history, and has been part of women's history with hir feminism. Leslie was a pivotal voice in trans movements, and focused much of hir work on the overlap with "female" identity. Leslie has arguably moved the needle more for trans women than trans men due to hir focus on women, but those are not separate categories--victory for trans people of any type is a win for us all. Transmasculine history is not wholly separate from "women's" history.
Emi Koyama is responsible for popularizing the word "transfeminist" and was (and still is) a deeply influential voice in the trans and transfeminist movements. Emi is also intersex, and her identity has been used to discredit her status as a "real" trans woman. Her influence is in intersex history and trans history and women's history. These communities are not non-overlapping--Emi occupies all three!
Kate Bornstein has been one of the most influential trans theorists since the 90s, yet her work has been largely erased as time goes on. Her focus on nonbinary identity and attempts to break us out of a binary seems to be the cause of the strife. A writer, speaker, poet, whose work focuses on the overlap of many trans identities and the empowerment of the individual to find the language that suits them ought to be the single most talked-about style of transfeminism...and it isn't. Her name is fading from people's reading lists.
Riki Anne Wilchins created one of the most influential groups fighting against the exclusion of trans people from pride--and other queer events--alongside Denise Norris: Transexual Menace. She created the term genderqueer. She has written countless influential pieces about trans life and those of us who exist even in the margins of trans identity--and she wrote often about the overlap with nonconforming cis people, whether they later come out or not. She even founded GenderPAC.
Nonbinary people, intersex people, gnc people, genderweird--those who never had the language and those who didn't use it for whatever reason--are part of TRANS history. We do no one any favors to assign labels to people who didn't use them to legitimize their already-legitimate existence in our minds as part of the movement. And we do no favors to narrow our eyes and block the door until the folks who bled, cried, fought, and died for us--the trans community--call themselves what we prefer to hear.
The murder of Brandon Teena galvanized countless trans women. Trans men were some of the first to issue fundraisers for Miss Major when she first fell ill. There are so many trans people who do not see separate niche groups but recognize the collective under this big umbrella of transness--we desperately need for those groups to not be in the minority. Trans is a collective, not a club.
And what does trans men? Anyone who doesn't fit the cis narrative of gender.
Quotes from trans folks about what transgender means to them:
Dana Turner: "...you are a person that feels, in your spirit, your mind, your soul...different than your physical anatomy--your biological anatomy."
Leslie Feinberg: "--whether that be transexual women and men, or masculine women and feminine men, or bearded women who allow their beards to grow, or women weightlifters who can't use the women's bathroom because they've been pumping iron--it can mean everyone who doesn't fit that Ozzie and Harriet paradigm of sex and gender."
Kate Bornstein: "Transgender is just a big ol' umbrella term that includes just about everybody I know.
Martine Rothblatt: "To me, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the gay and lesbian and transgender movements all really are one and the same. These are all movements to respect people as individuals rather than as a body type that their genes determine for them."
today is the ten year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting. a full decade ago, i lost a friend and a coworker. i was lucky. i had friends that lost several people. today, please remember and fight for all those that have died to live the live they should have been free to. i'll always remember you, Cory.
On one street, hundreds of masked men carrying bottles and bricks set bins on fire and shouted "foreigners out", our reporter says.
i really don't have the words for how things have escalated to outright race riots in the last few weeks. just to collect a few of the stories the bbc is reporting in their live thread:
Families led to safety through flames (Dan Johnson)
Homes were targeted and burned. Families had to be led to safety through the flames - rescued by emergency services risking their lives in the most dangerous situation.
It’s what the authorities feared all day. What they warned against and pleaded not to see. The condemnation came quickly and was widespread.
It wasn’t just homes, cars were also torched by young masked man in these predominantly unionist streets but the target here was immigrants and the message to entirely innocent families was: "You’re not welcome". In the north of the city, more people were forced to flee including an African family who’ve lived here for 20 years.
People being put out 'because they're black' - pastor
A pastor who has been helping those in houses targeted in tonight's violence says people were being put out of their homes "because they're black". Pastor Jack McKee was at the scene where multiple houses were on fire around the Crumlin Road in north Belfast - he says some members of his church "who have been with us for 20 years" were "getting put out of their home, had their house attacked, windows smashed, houses beside them burned".
"They're good Christian people and they're getting put out just because they're black," he says. "I'm doing my best to help them, it's as simple as that." [...]
Masked men shouting 'foreigners out' (Kelly Bonner)
Last night on the Lower Newtownards Road in Belfast hundreds of masked men walked down the street carrying bottles, bricks and masonry. They set bins on fire and shouted "foreigners out".
As they walked street to street, they were banging on doors, kicking doors down and breaking windows. Masked man set cars alight and at one point I witnessed them trying to burn a car until a woman came out of her home and told them it belonged to a "local and not a foreigner" and they stopped.
A young family had to be moved from their home by police. The scenes of this young family fleeing their home were really quite shocking.
We're seeing a 'race-based pogrom' in Belfast, MP tells BBC
Claire Hanna, Belfast MP and leader of the Social Democratic & Labour Party, has spoken to Newsnight about the "nightmarish" attack on Monday, which she says has "understandably revulsed and shocked" people in Belfast.
However, she condemned the scenes that erupted on Tuesday afternoon, suggesting that "negative actors online and politicians locally who don't really care what communities in north Belfast have been through" have used the knife attack to incite violence and seed division.
"What you're seeing is a race-based pogrom. We are seeing men going door to door asking to get the foreigners out based exclusively on the colour of their skin," she has said. "It's not based on what they're contributing to society, what their status here is and it's terrifying for people in Belfast who want this sort of politics to be far beyond them."
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i think more people should know that cj jackson has had not one, but two post-collegiate sports careers (baseball and hockey) - at one point literally wrapping up a season with the toronto six (hockey) and going immediately to training camp for team nova scotia baseball.
im not going over "no kink at pride" again. leather daddies and topless dykes on bikes are not gonna hurt you. pride is a time of free expression and celebration of our rights that were hard fucking won, and many are still fighting to win.
if you're gonna police pride, fucking leave. no cops at pride.
once you get over your ass and realise you will never get some people and that’s ok you are basically immune to right wing fearmongering. otherkin? none of my fucking business
I must not fall victim to disgust. Disgust is the heart-killer. Disgust is the little-death that brings total apathy. I will face my disgust. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the disgust has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
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