2010: the year of the clueless, privileged cis. Oh wait, wasn't that last year too? Or is it next year?
Bird of Paradox
14 December, 2010
http://www.birdofparadox.net/blog/?p=9314 (http://www.birdofparadox.net/blog/?p=9314)
Where do I even start? With the cissupremacism embedded in the notion that TS/TG people need cis people's permission to take part in mainstream society? That we only have – had – one year in which we were allowed to be visible to cis people (and then only on the condition that we were young, skinny and pretty)? With the use of transsexual as a noun, not an adjective? Transsexual what, ffs? Not real everyday transsexual people, that's for sure – the entire post is given over to cis people's slack-jawed gawping at, and othering of, numerous high-profile trans people from history; with apparently only one actual trans person quoted verbatim – Lea T, whose main claim to fame seems to be that she works as a model for a fashion company. Sure, there's passing reference to the appointment of Victoria Kowalskias as a superior court judge in Alameda County earlier this year (complete with an old, out-of-context quote); of Candy Darling (an American actress who died over 35 years ago); of Connie Fleming (a fashion model in the early 1990s) – and a lot of mentions of a couple of style magazines – but what about the rest of the world's TS/TG population? Is the NYT really saying that, in its "year of the trans person" (now with only days left to run), it thinks that fashion models past and present are overwhelmingly representative of TS/TG people everywhere?