Quote from: agfrommd on June 30, 2012, 11:48:23 AM
Why is there so much hate and anger toward people who push society's gender limits?
Openly expressed anger is common, and violence and even murder exists. Most of this seems directed toward males who dare to do something feminine (though there are exceptions, Brandon Teena, e.g.)
I honestly think that's a dangerous idea that's been perpetuated for way too long. I don't actually think that its as overwhelmingly toward male-assigned at birth people as people claim it is. I think part of it is that female-assigned people already have high rates of sexual assault/physical assault statistics already, and part of being female-assigned at birth is being socially programmed into believing that its "ok" or "normal" to receive all sorts of disgusting treatment.
I would say that the people who get the brunt of it are low income trans people of colour. To me its a problem that many people in society see that it's fit to kill or severely beat people who they don't think anyone in society cares about. Usually sex workers who, unfortunately, are seen as "disposable." And since law enforcement already treat sex workers like ->-bleeped-<- anyway, it takes a while for anyone to do much about the harassment they get. Being a trans sex worker makes it that much worse, and makes people feel like they have a license to take out their transphobia/gender anxiety on sex workers. Because, hey, society doesn't care
You really can't compare the experience of middle or upper class transwomen to that of transwomen who are sex workers or low income...and the same with transmen who work as sex workers.
One example of the media not paying attention, here in the GTA, for years lesbians have been targeted victims of rape in the York region. Masculine lesbians attacked by male patrons while entering women's bathrooms because these guys think they're "too masculine." In many of these cases bouncers witness the beating, yet somehow these guys rarely get caught. Yet this rarely gets any press despite that it happens fairly regularly and is clearly both homophobia and gender policing. Yet every time a gay male (usually feminine presenting) gets beaten up its all over the papers. I think part of it here is social bias, and perhaps people assigned female at birth being so frequently victimised that its barely as "abnormal" anymore as when a gay man gets beaten or otherwise assaulted.
As far as transmen, I know plenty of transmen who have been victims of rape/sexual assault even after coming out as trans. A lot of them are reluctant to report it or to talk about it and there are no official statistics on it. I think its more an issue of victim silence than that its not happening. The other thing to is, because transmen are less visible in society (as far as if being on T, not visible as transmen, when not on T many are identified as "lesbians" or simply not trans by law enforcement or others in society...only very recently that transmen are being recognised by society as even existing and not being lesbians), that also makes it hard to have any real statistic on the rate of assault and harassment against transmen.
Now that's starting to change, like with the recent report about Jayce McClerkin actually being recognised as a transman by the media (and another example of a trans person being charged for defending themselves against gender-based harassment). That's rarely the case, usually we're shoved into the "lesbian" box and in those cases the media rarely reports on them.
As far as why people like to bash people because their trans or gender-bending...homophobia, transphobia and sexism are still rampant in all societies. Sexism and misogyny means that there are still standards of "what it means to be a man" or "what it means to be a woman." Society peddles it as "natural" and anything that varies as "unnatural," which creates generations of people who believe that not being cissexed or straight-identified is "unnatural," but also threatening to people's sense of themselves as men and women. So work on getting rid of misogyny, homophobia and transphobia would help a mega->-bleeped-<-ton.
