Monday, January 16, 2012
More on the Trans* Umbrella
http://www.womanist-musings.com/2012/01/more-on-trans-umbrella.htmlBiyuti is a Bakla Filipina living on stolen Algonquin land. He works to sustain and increase the biyuti of the world through decolonization and through her explorations of the intersections of race with queerness/gender. He also blogs at The Biyuti Collective.
Over at TransGriot, there has been a very fascinating and educational series of posts about the trans* umbrella. The first part details the origins of the umbrella term and why it was chosen, while part two discusses why an umbrella term is needed.
In the first part the transgender label is described in the following way:
We understood that to be transgender is to have a non-conforming gender expression regardless of one's gender identity. Transgender therefore is a meta-group consisting of many distinct groups, each sharing common causes but each also having unique challenges. Together we are stronger then we are when we are alone.
Which is, of course, how bakla ended up being part of the SF Trans March's original call out. My first post on Womanist Musings called into question the applicability of such a rubric when removed from its cultural context and put into other contexts. I still think that this argument fails.
