- we just want people to acknowledge their privilege in conversations with marginalized people and try their best to set it aside and listen to what we are trying to say
Not too long ago b_b made a post asking How Will History Judge Us http://hubski.com/pub?id=15752 I think that my daughter will look back at how our society treated people that were not Cis and think to herself "how barbaric they were". -Congruent to how we now think of people that advocated slavery or Jim Crow. The good news, from the privileged seat that I inhabit (full acknowledgment of privilege), is that I think there is an ever increasing tolerance and even acceptance. -Am I right? I sure hope I am.
You know a trans person now :) >The good news, from the privileged seat that I inhabit (full acknowledgment of privilege), is that I think there is an ever increasing tolerance and even acceptance. -Am I right? I sure hope I am. I hope so too, your comments so far give me some hope. I already like this place more than reddit.
I think that the whole "knowing someone" thing is invaluable. Many of the prejudices and bigotry in the world stem from fear of the unknown. -Not justifying it, just saying. For example, I have no idea if transgender, transexual, tran etc is the sensitive way to refer to this? No idea. Does that make me ignorant? Probably. But I'm a product of my experiences. Some of the examples in the post might be caused by a lack of experience rather than malicious intent. In which case, unfortunately patience on both sides is the only solution. It's going to take time for people to get to know the transgender people in their community and realize that like all of us, they're just humans. That said, glad to meet you :-)
Of all places, I learned about the privilege I have through Reddit. Of all places - transphobic, racist, misogynistic Reddit. Having grown up in a very closed, extremely religious household, it took me a while to completely understand what an unfair advantage I've been given in this life, just by chance of all these things: sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, birthplace, etc. etc. I really wish no such thing as privilege existed. The voices on Reddit that talked about privilege and related topics, such as you and others, really opened my eyes. You would think I would have learned this already considering I attend a fairly liberal university. It was tough to acknowledge - after all, the just world phenomenon is a very pleasurable thing to believe when you are the one with the privilege and success. So... thanks for being that voice! Glad to see you're on Hubski and I'm looking forward to seeing what you contribute.
I'm glad you've joined us, Laurelai; you will undoubtably bring some new perspectives to hubski and I think you'll find that it's a nice community to be a part of. :) Question: what does the asterisk (*) next to trans denote? This is the first I've seen it.
And I do understand people are ignorant but googling "trans 101" brings you to this http://www.t-vox.org/index.php?title=Trans_101 as literally the first result, we have collectively put a lot of hard work in pushing correct information out there about us and overtaking older more prejudiced views on the matter in search engine results so you would be surprised how much good information is available on the internet on trans issues. But I do plan on adding transgender related content here in the hopes people will want to know and will read it.