Transfeminism defends Nikki Haley from the racists

Wait, what?

“I call her Nimarata because that’s her name. I just think it’s funny because it drives her nuts when you say that,” says [Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA].

Of course, all people who were raised well by decent parents — not Charlie we guess — are aware that if somebody says “I go by Nikki,” you call them Nikki, you fucking antisocial waste of DNA.

Wonkette has a post up about racist fucks racistly denying that Nikki Haley could possibly have been subject to racism as a child, or that if she was she could not have suffered racism to any harmful or even significant degree. (Read it, it’s good! Hell, read all of Wonkette and give them money.) Racist fucks are racist, color me surprised (in a brownish shade of surprise, just for Matt Walsh). That post sands more than well enough on its own, but I’d like to address this other thing, the specific tactic of calling Nikki Haley "Nimbra" or "Nimarata" or even the technically-correct-at-birth "Nimrata." And because I’m just that devoted to woke, feminist, critical race DEI-litterboxes full of intersectionality, I’m going to address it as a trans rights issue.

My concern with calling Nikki Nikki is related to why I will type out a long internet name. It might confuse some why I'm opposed to twisted nicknames when I will happily call people who deserve it, "fuckface wafflebrained asshats." To be trans is to have millions of people who think it is their solemn duty to tell you that your name is anything but what you have named yourself. Mock Nikki if you don't like her policies or consider her incompetent, sure. I can't treat someone with respect when they want to kill immigrants with razor wire or ban books or act both stupid and ignorant just to avoid condemning a rapist as a rapist. (Heaven forfend!)

But I don't fuck with the very identity of a person. It's happened to me and people I care about far too much. Even if you make a case that, "Yes, this person actually deserves it," the more people who care about trans folks use the tactic, the more futile will be our condemnations of it when turned against the people we love.

I am who I am. Love me, hate me, insult me, fine. But to deny who I am is to erase me entirely. It's the metaphorical anti-trans murder. I know of many who were subject to violence far beyond what was necessary to cause death because the cissexist murderer sought to damage breasts or genitals beyond recognition. The central idea is that no evidence of transness can be allowed to exist. Though the tactic is different -- dramatically so, I do not neglect the moral significance of actual murder and actual mutilation -- the motive of erasure is hauntingly similar. I will oppose Nikki as Nikki, not Nimrata or anything else, because I do not want to feel that spirit in the room.

If being able to name oneself is a human right as I and so many other trans people argue, then one doesn’t lose it as long as one is human.

So sure, the racist fuckfaces are racist. But it’s not a coincidence that they’re also cissexist as hell. I’m not going to follow their example. I have a vocabulary quite sufficient to construct satisfyingly cathartic insults for Nikki Haley as Nikki Haley.