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zebra2  ·  3753 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Cis feminism is a failure to the trans community

The thing about transgenderism in the realm of social progress is that it is its own thing. I'm starting to think that trying to latch-on to other movements like feminism or gay rights or whatever is not the right move. Being trans is a very distinct experience, and that's clear to me even knowing little about it.

There's almost a kind of ferver right now about social equality with feminism and gay rights. Depending where you look, media can seem pretty saturated with it. I'd say these topics are very much on the radar of most millennials, perhaps quite prevalently. If you live around a metropolitan area there are probably strong communities promoting a wide-variety of social progress topics. The topic has a lot of buzz.

And somewhere along the line transgenderism has also worked itself in to this buzz. On some level. You'd think that because you see it paired with feminism or LGBT that transgenderism has the same level of intensity and support. You'd think it's as big a topic as the other ones; blogs, coverage, and the internet make it seem that way.

The problem is that, at least for me, I don't think I've ever met a single trans person. I've known them through a degree of separation, but I don't think I've been introduced to anyone trans in my life. I lived in SF, I went to school near the Castro for a decade, I've lived in large cities my whole life. It's not just because I've been under a rock; you'd think I'd run into these people.

A distinct problem with the transgender movement is that it is incredibly fringe. It's easy to overestimate the impact it has when caught up in all the buzz. There apparently aren't even reliable statistics about how many people identify as trans. It's not like other popular social equality movements in that sense.

So the problem mk mentions about empathy becomes an important one, even in the arena of LGBT and feminism. Ultimately I think the trans community will need to fight its own fight. It's ultimately predictable that other movements won't be able to commit on their behalf.