“Humor is an effective tool in attacking misguided views and we all used it generously because, in simple terms (...) demands that it speak over you and your politics.” Mehreen Kasana; “Feminisms and the Social Sphere”
It’s funny, because it’s true. You know that laugh, that pained cackle? That comes deep from within a feminist’s gut after they hear or see an act so heinously wrong, or reads an article that is so full of vitriol that that’s the only real reaction they can have?
I think, here, that Kasana uses it as meaning that herself and the women behind Queer Brown Girls Doing Things (plus many other blogs) poke fun at the discourse that surrounds their everyday existence, but I’m pretty sure it can apply to the way they laugh.
What better way to share in that painful hilarity than to make a song about it?
Vlogger Ty Turner, self identified trans-man and Izzy-identified cool dude, covers subjects from Testosterone Shots Gone Wrong, to chest workouts; from vaping, to how trans people have sex, to how it feels when other ‘queer’/ally YouTubers talk about trans people (Arielle Scarcella, looking at you).
A look through the comment sections of his videos can be largely affirming, and at times as funny as the video itself-- but, as seen in ‘IRL comment section’ ‘American Reflexxx’ things can go really bad really fast, especially when it concerns a person of non cisgender identity/appearance.
I mean, really. Filipovic addresses the harassment of, and violent sexual attitudes towards female law students-- but that’s the sort of online environment faced by trans bloggers/vloggers every time they put themselves out there.
Humor becomes not only a tool, but a sort of weapon. This weapon is not to be beaten into plows to sow the seeds of submissiveness, but to fight against the popular theory that people of all genders’ lives, sex lives, genitalia, gender expression, etc are up for the scrutiny and criticism of all.
Invasive behaviors from normative groups (cisnormative, heteronormative, and even sometimes transnormative) don’t solely target women/female identifying groups. They target those identities and narratives that differ from their norms, tear them to shreds, and try to build them into images and lewd fantasies that are more pleasing.
But ya know, it helps to laugh.
