Questioning Transphobia: Transphobic Tropes #6 - Transition is Mutilation
http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/transphobic-tropes-6-transition-is-mulitation/2/5/09
This is a guest post in the series by Drakyn, who's added a really good take on a common theme.
I've been thinking on this transphobic trope that gets thrown out: being trans* and/or medically transitioning as a type of self-harm and/or removing "healthy" tissue.
Sometimes this is expressed in a more more subtle manner: concern-trolling about poor lesbians and/or masculine girls who might get confused and transition, people who are anti- certain body modifications comparing medical transition to those body mods, or even throwing out a comment about how trans-related surgeries don't look/function well. Sometimes, they are very, very obvious: talking about chopped up or mutilated bodies, outright saying that ev0l doctors and trans* people are coercing lesbians/butches into transitioning, that we're just delusional freaks, or that trans* people are like anorexic folks and medical transition is like liposuction or gastric bypass surgery.
