I find it infinitely refreshing to hear any non-dominant cultural perspective when it is centered and normalized, and just talked about like it's normal and every day.
I would love to read, for example, a trans centered newspaper, by and for trans people, partly to just be informed about what YOU think you need to say from your perspective, but also as a touchstone or reminder that OK, as fucked as so much is, at least there is space for this perspective to exist.
We had a perfect example of a Black centered paper here in Spokane called Black Lens. It was mostly put together by one person, but she had some help. It's being re-issued as a monthly insert in our main daily paper (after she died in a plane crash! Is that what it takes? Creators literally dying to get a better seat at the table?) with deeper resources and we hope a longer legacy. This kind of outlet is vitally important for everyone, and especially the marginalized people being given the space to be centered and normalized.
Another example or centering what I experience as a minority view is the way Indian people think about vegetarian food. In India, when you got out to eat, menus are organized by "Veg" and "Non-Veg". Such a cool flip of the narrative. I'm so used to menus that just list Entree and then maybe throw in a Veg section down by the kids menu, or worse, add a footnote that "many dishes can be made veggie, ask about it". A whole country who sees Veg as the norm, and everything else is defined in relation to that center assumption.
Imagine a world where the out trans viewpoint was fully centered, and the token cis viewpoint was a sub section, a half page at the back of the paper "non-trans" news. What does that look like?
I feel like I'm suffocating in this arrogant stench of assumed white cis male baseline default for all systems western society has built over centuries. I'm so fucking over it. Sure, I'm nominally part of that default baseline, but I don't feel like I belong to it. I can't be comfortable in it, knowing there are so many people I love dearly that don't have the luxury of their whole self being assumed to be part of that default baseline in the day to day space in their life.
I've lost trans friends to their struggle, some very close. I've also had the opportunity to provide space for other trans friends to have a house to live in while they literally transformed their lives, had to move out of toxic places and had no place to go. Nothing gives me more happiness than helping people this way.
If I could I would clear off the table and make space for anyone who needs it, shoving aside any dominant culture taking up too much air in the room.
I'd love to read more about everything from your explicified implicit perspective, on any and every subject. Subscribed, and not just to your substack, to your whole world view.
I have been thinking about that post and I’m glad you added more. As a cisgendered white woman I find myself sometimes struggling to understand implicitly a trans perspective, and it helps to have an adult voice talking about it. I can name...four? trans people in my circle of acquaintances, and only two are adults, and of those only one is geographically close to me. And neither of them would be comfortable confronting the truths you do here, to me. (Well. I know a bit of you via this Substack, but not enough to say “acquaintance.”)
I had not looked into the Ohio bill at all, just getting my info secondhand, and I find myself wondering how it would be enforced with the wider than single state organizations of a non-governmental agency sport. I’m not in Ohio, but for the activity I’m thinking of, there are branches in Ohio. I find myself pretty troubled at what would happen under the bill at a group regional competition where one of my young trans friends might want to compete. How gutting would it be for that friend to have to drop the sport or competition completely or participate as the wrong gender, despite organization rules that outline participation rights? It hurts to contemplate.
Anyway. Thank you as always. And I will work to be more attentive to the perspective of the news sources I visit that talk about trans issues.
>> I have been thinking about that post and I’m glad you added more <<
It's wonderful you've been thinking about it, and it's nice to hear that this post helped you continue that thinking. I'm also hoping that for some people who found the tone of the last post hard to hear, this might be more accessible. But mostly I was just wanting to talk about how societies tendency to focus on a single perspective makes it hard to even imagine what good coverage, alternative coverage, would look like. The smaller the minority, the harder it can be. We're making progress on women's issues, hell, we're making progress on lots of issues, but it's always easier when there are more people coming from that perspective that are able to speak up.
I think the other thing - on top of everything you've articulated about the extra work the targets of "-isms" must do ... is hinted at in your comparison of the burden on women vs men of colour when it comes to combatting racism.
For trans people ... in my limited experience ... NO ONE gets to take a shift off. The fight is there for every single trans person. They may not choose to fight back, but the exhaustion of facing those aggression (both micro, major and unintentional) is there every single time.
And while I consider myself an ally, I'm well aware that at BEST I can understand that burden intellectually ... I have zero frame of reference that can actually make it meaningful and real and anywhere near as painful as it must be to actually try and live true as a trans person.
The bravest people i have ever met - bar none - are trans people who live out loud. And by that I mean they just live their lives - they work, they eat, they sleep, they poop, they play, they do all that "normal" stuff. Not living over the top large (drag folk behaving like they do on tv), but just living in a way that is average, or mundane, or ... boring. That is bravery. That is strength.
>> For trans people ... in my limited experience ... NO ONE gets to take a shift off. <<
I thought about saying something like this. It's true in my experience as well, but it's hard to prove a universal like that. Closeted people aren't expected to speak up in some of the ways that out people are (the number of times people have asked me about my genitals, whew! Glad this has gotten better over the decades), but while closeted you're cut off from community and the pressure just builds with no one to help you relieve it. Also the closeted often **can't** speak up, even if and when they want to, which has its own costs.
Thank you, as always. Even with being part of the LGBTQIA community, even loving my friends and family who are Trans, even with me being gender-nonconforming, I still have work to do to erase my own cis-central bias. Thank you for that reminder.
You're welcome. And you're welcome here, always. BTW: I've been wanting an excuse to tell you how much I like your big, gay opera house. What a great photo.
I find it infinitely refreshing to hear any non-dominant cultural perspective when it is centered and normalized, and just talked about like it's normal and every day.
I would love to read, for example, a trans centered newspaper, by and for trans people, partly to just be informed about what YOU think you need to say from your perspective, but also as a touchstone or reminder that OK, as fucked as so much is, at least there is space for this perspective to exist.
We had a perfect example of a Black centered paper here in Spokane called Black Lens. It was mostly put together by one person, but she had some help. It's being re-issued as a monthly insert in our main daily paper (after she died in a plane crash! Is that what it takes? Creators literally dying to get a better seat at the table?) with deeper resources and we hope a longer legacy. This kind of outlet is vitally important for everyone, and especially the marginalized people being given the space to be centered and normalized.
Another example or centering what I experience as a minority view is the way Indian people think about vegetarian food. In India, when you got out to eat, menus are organized by "Veg" and "Non-Veg". Such a cool flip of the narrative. I'm so used to menus that just list Entree and then maybe throw in a Veg section down by the kids menu, or worse, add a footnote that "many dishes can be made veggie, ask about it". A whole country who sees Veg as the norm, and everything else is defined in relation to that center assumption.
Imagine a world where the out trans viewpoint was fully centered, and the token cis viewpoint was a sub section, a half page at the back of the paper "non-trans" news. What does that look like?
I feel like I'm suffocating in this arrogant stench of assumed white cis male baseline default for all systems western society has built over centuries. I'm so fucking over it. Sure, I'm nominally part of that default baseline, but I don't feel like I belong to it. I can't be comfortable in it, knowing there are so many people I love dearly that don't have the luxury of their whole self being assumed to be part of that default baseline in the day to day space in their life.
I've lost trans friends to their struggle, some very close. I've also had the opportunity to provide space for other trans friends to have a house to live in while they literally transformed their lives, had to move out of toxic places and had no place to go. Nothing gives me more happiness than helping people this way.
If I could I would clear off the table and make space for anyone who needs it, shoving aside any dominant culture taking up too much air in the room.
I'd love to read more about everything from your explicified implicit perspective, on any and every subject. Subscribed, and not just to your substack, to your whole world view.
I have been thinking about that post and I’m glad you added more. As a cisgendered white woman I find myself sometimes struggling to understand implicitly a trans perspective, and it helps to have an adult voice talking about it. I can name...four? trans people in my circle of acquaintances, and only two are adults, and of those only one is geographically close to me. And neither of them would be comfortable confronting the truths you do here, to me. (Well. I know a bit of you via this Substack, but not enough to say “acquaintance.”)
I had not looked into the Ohio bill at all, just getting my info secondhand, and I find myself wondering how it would be enforced with the wider than single state organizations of a non-governmental agency sport. I’m not in Ohio, but for the activity I’m thinking of, there are branches in Ohio. I find myself pretty troubled at what would happen under the bill at a group regional competition where one of my young trans friends might want to compete. How gutting would it be for that friend to have to drop the sport or competition completely or participate as the wrong gender, despite organization rules that outline participation rights? It hurts to contemplate.
Anyway. Thank you as always. And I will work to be more attentive to the perspective of the news sources I visit that talk about trans issues.
>> Thank you as always. <<
You're welcome, as always.
>> I have been thinking about that post and I’m glad you added more <<
It's wonderful you've been thinking about it, and it's nice to hear that this post helped you continue that thinking. I'm also hoping that for some people who found the tone of the last post hard to hear, this might be more accessible. But mostly I was just wanting to talk about how societies tendency to focus on a single perspective makes it hard to even imagine what good coverage, alternative coverage, would look like. The smaller the minority, the harder it can be. We're making progress on women's issues, hell, we're making progress on lots of issues, but it's always easier when there are more people coming from that perspective that are able to speak up.
I think the other thing - on top of everything you've articulated about the extra work the targets of "-isms" must do ... is hinted at in your comparison of the burden on women vs men of colour when it comes to combatting racism.
For trans people ... in my limited experience ... NO ONE gets to take a shift off. The fight is there for every single trans person. They may not choose to fight back, but the exhaustion of facing those aggression (both micro, major and unintentional) is there every single time.
And while I consider myself an ally, I'm well aware that at BEST I can understand that burden intellectually ... I have zero frame of reference that can actually make it meaningful and real and anywhere near as painful as it must be to actually try and live true as a trans person.
The bravest people i have ever met - bar none - are trans people who live out loud. And by that I mean they just live their lives - they work, they eat, they sleep, they poop, they play, they do all that "normal" stuff. Not living over the top large (drag folk behaving like they do on tv), but just living in a way that is average, or mundane, or ... boring. That is bravery. That is strength.
>> For trans people ... in my limited experience ... NO ONE gets to take a shift off. <<
I thought about saying something like this. It's true in my experience as well, but it's hard to prove a universal like that. Closeted people aren't expected to speak up in some of the ways that out people are (the number of times people have asked me about my genitals, whew! Glad this has gotten better over the decades), but while closeted you're cut off from community and the pressure just builds with no one to help you relieve it. Also the closeted often **can't** speak up, even if and when they want to, which has its own costs.
It's ... intense.
Thank you, as always. Even with being part of the LGBTQIA community, even loving my friends and family who are Trans, even with me being gender-nonconforming, I still have work to do to erase my own cis-central bias. Thank you for that reminder.
You're welcome. And you're welcome here, always. BTW: I've been wanting an excuse to tell you how much I like your big, gay opera house. What a great photo.