Sorry for the following wall of text. I just kind of rambled on. Additionally, I apologize if parts are incoherent. I'm tired and want to stream an episode of Daria before going to bed.
Quote from: sororcaeli on July 23, 2014, 02:55:42 PM
When you're any kind of minority in the world and expect special treatment, you need to seriously re-evaluate your situation. Instead of showing hostility to your oppressors, be the better example. If you don't then you're just risking further abuse and division. I'd rather co-exist with everyone than sequester myself into one little community.
While it is cis people who are going to treat others like vampires, it's not all of them, and it's not mature or helpful to show the same attitude in return. Think up some helpful, inclusive solutions, and be active toward the goal of equality. It cannot be forced, but it can be learned with the right approach and a positive attitude. I refuse to be on the defense my whole life. I'd rather be a beacon of love and truth.
I feel you might be a bit mistaken about the history of civil rights movements. As we know, the "winners" write history, and it is no different in terms of marginalized people gaining civil rights. The reality of the situation is that for successful movements, you need the carrot and the stick. You need someone to be polite and explain the situation as well as someone ready to kick some teeth in.
I think the civil rights movement of the 60's is a great example. What we hear today is that Martin Luther King Jr. came along and pointed out how African-Americans had it poorly because of a few bad people. In response, white people listened and learned the error of their ways and things changed, and civil rights are over.
In reality, Martin Luther King was quite radical. But for Bayard Rustin and Fred Gray, he would be in the same league as the Nation of Islam advocating black people to carry guns. King did have ties to communists, he did plan out the Rosa Parks situation and the Montgomery bus boycott to agitate the majority (neither of which I learned in school, it was whitewashed as "Rosa just had a long day at work"). King outright stated that the biggest obstacle to African American rights was not the frothing at the mouth racist, but the white moderate who cared more about a negative peace than a positive justice. He wanted black people to be bit by dogs and sprayed with hoses so as to face their fears and mobilize support for the movement. He wanted to piss off white people so that white people would just give into African American rights.
But we don't hear these things today. Indeed, we lose a lot of things from the civil rights movement: Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Bayard Rustin (though, that is mainly due to homosexuality not being in vogue at the time). Regardless, as demonized as the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers are, there is little denying that those groups were a huge factor in the social movement. They mobilized and empowered black people when it was necessary. They spread news of police misconduct or hate crimes when the mainstream media at the time was more than happy to turn a blind eye. They organized marches to show white society the choice it had: listen to "peaceful" King, or prepare for war. And even after all of this, I still believe it is a fallacy to say that African Americans attained equality. White people no long say the "n-word," but African Americans are still discriminated against by the criminal justice system, employers, and society. In essence, I'm skeptical that any minority group will attain true equality. Instead, minorities will simply get to a point where the burdens they endure are bearable.
Before you say that I am the one revising history, you see this in other movements as well. The British leaving India is largely associated with Gandhi and non-violence, but there is a bit more to the story. Gandhi was at best an agitator, a troll if you will, whose sole mission was to aggravate the British into just throwing their hands up and leaving. We also forget the extremist party and Bal Tilak (the Indian version of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X, respectively).
Additionally, while the queer rights movement has been relatively peaceful, let us not forget Stonewall and Compton's cafeteria riot. Two very prominent examples of queer people being so fed up with being bashed, that they bashed back. My main gripe is that since then, the gay rights movement took a more subversive approach of "show society that we're no different," which brought us sassy gay characters in movies and television. It worked over time, but made the movement more unequal. Drag queens and transwomen were the first people to fight back against the police (we were after all the only groups likely to be arrested). Ironically, since Stonewall, we've been the first group dismissed as a bargaining chip so that Gay, white, middle-class, men could advance their interests. I mean, ask a gay white man in west Hollywood if society accepts him. Then ask a black lesbian in Texas or a Hispanic trans-woman in the Florida Pan Handle and see if you get the same results.
In contrast, I think the recent Occupy movement is a great example of why you need a stick with a carrot. Occupy did a great job of remaining peaceful, too great a job. While they sat down chanting slogans, the police rushed in with nightsticks and pepper spray, beat down the protesters and then falsely charged them with BS crimes. The result is that nothing changed. The only thing left of Occupy are the small pockets that still do great things (squatters' rights) and "the 1%" has now entered society's vernacular.
Taking this full circle, and returning to the OP's quote about "not all cis-people being hateful," cis-hate doesn't bother me. Nor does the tumblr slogan "die cis scum." I'm not part of that camp, but I'm not bothered by it either. I do not see it as my job to be my sister's keeper and police her language. I have more important things to focus on and I'm not going to spin my wheels policing the language of someone else. If anything, I am going to spend more time on how to craft my narrative to cis-people to change minds while focusing my energies on helping the trans community. My personal view on the matter is that if you've seen cis hate here or elsewhere, call the person out directly and state your opinion in as non-confrontational a way as possible while being clear about who the message is directed at (I hope this is within the realm of the rules, cause I was about to say "be confrontational, it'll funny." And that's just bad advice).
I talked a lot King, and would like to restate his quote about white moderates being the biggest obstacle to African-American success. It's the same thing today. Cis-people don't all have to be evil, trans-bashing, kitten-punters. They just need to turn a blind eye to injustice. Or worse, hold trans folk to a BS double-standard that is not applied to any other group in a similar situation. The reality is, as long as most cis people continue to think of us as the butt of jokes or "traps," they are part of the problem, even if they're not actively bashing us or saying nasty things to our faces.
And to make a post on a trans forum concerning cis-hate seems a bit backhanded. I have never seen any form of cis hate on this forum. Thus, the only purpose for the post I can assume is that some onus for ending cis hate falls on us. This is a BS double-standard. German people are not expected to apologize for the Nazis. Podunk towns are not expected to apologize for the klan. Bearded math professors are not expected to apologize for the unibomber. Catholics aren't expected to apologize for child-raping priests or Jew-murdering inquisitors. Canadians are not expected to apologize for Justin Bieber. But some how, a board that I have seen zero cis hate on over the past five years should now concern itself with cis hate and hostility.
Adding a thicker layer of confusion, cis hate has no real harm to society. People actually died in all of my prior examples (nazis, the klan, unibomber, the catholic church, J-Biebs). Transsexuals do not gather into posses and kill cis people. It's the other way around. Cis hate is harmless and the only reason it gets any kind of attention is because it hurts the majority's feelings. In many ways, our existence hurts cis feelings (the 2005 New York case of Hispanic Aids forum v. Estate of Bruno is a good example, where defendants terminated the lease of plaintiffs for holding a trans-support group which made cis people uncomfortable. The court found for defendants while doing mental gymnastics to ignore a NY law providing equal protections to trans individuals). Just like how the civil rights movement was whitewashed, our narrative has to appeal to the majority and stroke their ego. That's why there are cis people who focus on this hypothetical threat or hostility to cis people, while glossing over the real threats and hostility we face every day. That's why men's rights activists and blaming rape victims are things: because the majority's right to be comfortable supersedes the minority's right to be equal.
In closing, I don't think that the onus for curing "cis-hate" or "die cis scum" or "hostility to cis people" should be put on the trans community, this forum, or even the people spreading cis hate. Instead, I think it should rightfully be put on the cis community for creating an world that hurts gender variant people to the point they harbored that hate. Just my opinion.
