Sunday, November 14, 2010
A Trans Man Speaks Out Against The Trans Men Who Appropriate The "T Word" Despite The Women The Slur Is Usually Thrown At
Ashley Love

http://transformingmedia.blogspot.com/2010/11/trans-man-speaks-out-against-trans-men.html

There seems to be trend where trans men are fighting to reclaim a hurtful perjoartive that has always been used to dehumanize and misgender trans women, not men.

Bianca Lynne, a transgender woman and advocate for the human rights of trans people, responds to trans guys supposedly "reclaiming" the T word: "For trans-male spectrum folks to "reclaim" the word over the objections of people who are actually called the word seems more like appropriation. I've never ever heard trans men called "->-bleeped-<-" - except among themselves and by their partners. Even so, when the term is used by cis people, it is mostly used against trans-female spectrum people or to tell cis women they look ridiculous ...- like a man in a dress trying too hard."

Golly gee, I've never EVER heard a trans guy called a ->-bleeped-<- by a non-trans person...not Thomas Beatie or Buck Angel or Chaz Bono or the trans guy who came to my men's group a couple of weeks ago and who invited lots of whispering and speculation about "her" status and "maybe she's a ->-bleeped-<-"--that is, as one guy put it, "a woman trying to be a man."

Nope, never heard it. Ever. Not even once.

While I fully agree that the term has been used almost exclusively to refer to trans women in the past, I also know that trans men, up till quite recently, have been nearly invisible. Too invisible to even earn the doubtful privilege of having a specific pejorative term attached to them. That status has its own set of disadvantages and advantages.

I have heard trans men called "->-bleeped-<-." Why don't we agree that it's usually transphobic when used by outsiders, and let these trans men self-identify in their own way?

I personally hate the word. I don't even like it when trans people reclaim it for themselves, but I don't get in the way of their right to self-define.

For me, the argument on this blog is sort of like, "Well, you're only one quarter black and look completely white. Nobody calls you '->-bleeped-<-' because they don't read you as African American. So you can't reclaim that word for yourself." Or "Nobody calls you queer as a pejorative because you're straight-acting. So you can't reclaim the word 'queer' for yourself."

Okay, these are not quite full parallels--I know that--but you get the idea. Anyway, I know the history of the term, so I see why people are upset. But I also support people's right to define themselves.

I certainly hope that Oprah Winfrey and Rev. Al Sharpton would respect a person's right to call himself or herself "->-bleeped-<-," no matter how distasteful and offensive it is to the people who don't use such labels for themselves. After all, a lot of outsiders object to trans people's calling themselves by names that WE consider to be gender appropriate--the trans woman called Sally, the trans man called Fred--some people call our names offensive, incorrect, in-your-face. Such people refuse to use our preferred pronouns, even if those pronouns are fully consistent with our legal gender markers. Who's the ->-bleeped-<- now?

They don't get to define me that way, and I don't get to define these "->-bleeped-<-" men.