Being The Pejorative

[Shana A]

Being The Pejorative
March 22, 2012 at 2:11 pm Natalie Reed

http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/03/22/being-the-pejorative/

But trans women? Oh, we've got it made. We exist as an insult that can be directed towards anyone. Compare a man to somewhere on the AMAB (assigned-male-at-birth) trans* spectrum, or suggest he is AMAB trans* himself, and you successfully deride his masculinity, even more so than calling him "->-bleeped-<-". Compare a woman to an AMAB trans* person and you've successfully insulted her "purity" and "desirability" as a woman just as well as if you've called her a "whore".

While the use of ->-bleeped-<- as a pejorative and insult isn't quite as ubiquitous as "gay", "bitch" or "slut", it makes up for it in universality and punch. We end up being a go-to insult for any occasion, with a little extra heft for when you want to show someone you truly disrespect them.

Meanwhile, the open ridicule of trans women, in its non-insult form, remains constant, inescapable and explicitly tolerated.

[Gretchen]

Nothing easy about life, especially if you are trans. I worked for 13 years in construction and 11 years as a mold maker in a tool and die shop and not once in twenty four years did I hear one guy tell another guy that he was a transsexual woman, not once. Maybe this is a new trend but what I did hear often was you got your panties in a wad, or why don't you grow a testicle, or quite being a chick, there's all kinds of nasty ->-bleeped-<- said to one man to another man at the expense of a genetic woman. Maybe I've just been living in the mountains to long.  This blog seems a little over the top to me but maybe Natalie deals with some really nasty people.