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comment by Saydrah
Welcome, Laurelai. Good to see you on Hubski. I notice quite a few parallels between current attitudes toward trans* people and the old "angry woman of color" stereotype; take whatever the majority dishes out, and WHATEVER you do, don't be ANGRY about it! Good to see that there are places online where trans* people do have the opportunity to voice anger, and do so. I'm as privileged as female persons get on (middle class, white, cis, hetero, yadda yadda) so I certainly have felt the occasional, "Hey, I'm not LIKE that!" at posts angrily denouncing oppressive bullshit from white/cis/whatever privileged persons, but honestly I invariably find at one time or another I HAVE been like that without trying. I think it's important to listen to the anger; gentle "please don't do that" posts aren't really enough to cut through patterns that a privileged person didn't choose or adopt consciously.




Laurelai  ·  4642 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Thanks for that, it is ok to have privilege and I don't think any of us trans* people dislike anyone simply for having it, 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, your comment here seems to be doing just that.
thenewgreen  ·  4642 days ago  ·  link  ·  
    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
-You have my ear. I shared this post because I imagine that I'm not the only one on Hubski that is unfamiliar with the struggles that a transgender person encounters. I'm completely in the dark regarding this, in fact I had to look up "Cis". I don't know any trans but should I ever meet someone I'll be wary to avoid the expectations put forth in the post.

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.

Laurelai  ·  4642 days ago  ·  link  ·  
>I don't know any trans but should I ever meet someone I'll be wary to avoid the expectations put forth in the post.

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.

thenewgreen  ·  4642 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Yes! I can cross that off my list ;-)

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 :-)

Laurelai  ·  4642 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Glad to meet you too, trans, transgender, transsexual are not offensive terms but they do have specific meanings. Offensive terms are ones often used in porn and i don't feel like repeating them as im sure you can figure out what they are and ive had to hear them said to me far too many times on reddit.
thenewgreen  ·  4642 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Got it. Thanks and welcome to Hubski.
Laurelai  ·  4642 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Thanks for having me here. :)