my anger is your mirror ([info]tupelo_lights) wrote in [info]debunkingwhite,
2010-03-18 16:01:00
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Trans*Racism, Queer Racism

I would like to call out my fellow white trans* and genderqueer folks on some serious racism and cultural appropriation I see within the trans*/GQ spaces we dominate. This racism carries extra weight when we are educating cis folks on what language to use when referring to trans* people(s).

First: the term "Two Spirit" belongs to First Nation/Native American/indigenous people. Period. White trans* folks should not use it for ourselves nor should we be telling white cis people what it means without explaining who can (and can't) use it. (Note: Saying "I'm kind of like a Two Spirit person" or "I would like to use that term for myself since I think it's really beautiful, oh but I won't" still counts as appropriating that term.)

Second: your birth/government name is not the same thing as a slave name. I was recently in a closed, mostly white trans space when someone made this comparison. Specifically he was suggesting it as a great, snarky come-back for anyone to use when cis people ask "So what's your 'real' name?" General rule: if you want to talk about an overlap between your oppression and someone else's whose oppression you don't share, you should speak from your personal experience of privilege, not your assumptions about their experience of that oppression.

Lastly, and these ones apply to all white queers:
1. Don't write-off the term "men who have sex with men" as being the same thing as gay men. Gay was named for/by white men and lots of MSM of color don't use that term for themselves, for various and diverse reasons.
2. No, your experience of being in the closet in white middle-class America is not the same thing as the experience of being DL in a community of color -- and no, that's not because "people of color are more homophobic than white people." Again: speak from and about your privilege, not for and about someone else's oppression.

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  • 32 comments

[info]pizzuti

March 18 2010, 22:02:44 UTC 2 years ago

Yes! Yes!

And while we're at it can I mention profiles on websites like Connexion where white guys announce they "only date str8-acting white guys, can't control who I'm attracted to" and when pressed they insist it's not about their ideas about race, it's about "their features" as if all people of color have the same features and as if that somehow makes the attitude not racist.

There is so much in the way of making the queer community more friendly to people of color that I want to work on, and learn more about. The queer community is quite oppressive and a lot of LGBT organizations are so blind to it that it makes me sick.

I do want to mention that while I'm with you on the term "gay" being a white-centric word, the issue is a bit complicated... first, I hate the word "MSM." It's ok as a phrase when there is nothing better, but its not as though the people of color we are referring to actually chose "MSM" as their identity, and the term sounds very clinical and reminds me too much of how conservative religious people define homosexuality as behavior. I have heard people of color refer to themselves as "Same-gender-loving" and I think it sounds more respectful, but there are reasons I don't think that would work for everyone either. Perhaps other members of this community can fill me in on where queer anti-racists are going on this.

[info]tupelo_lights

March 18 2010, 22:16:18 UTC 2 years ago

My point about MSM is to let people self-identify without re-labeling them according to your convenience or what you think sounds nice. You will almost always end up using your privilege.

[info]pizzuti

March 19 2010, 05:29:47 UTC 2 years ago

For sure. I do not dissagree with what you said or how you said it; just adding some thoughts and posing questions for you or anybody else.

[info]spacehawk

March 20 2010, 21:28:56 UTC 2 years ago

MSM is also a broader term because obviously not all MSM have sex exclusively with men. Calling MSM "gay" raises several problems.

[info]fire_fly

March 22 2010, 11:49:56 UTC 2 years ago

Except MSM often isn't a self-identification, it's a label that LGBT orgs in the global south often use to denominate the population they're providing services to. Since its uptake by the World Bank and other mainstream development institutions, it doesn't have much of a connection to grass-roots communities or their sexual practices, and has been used to overwrite what those communities want and need.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121649845/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 (You need a subscription for the full text, but I can email it to you if you'd like.)

[info]skywardprodigal

2 years ago

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[info]fire_fly

2 years ago

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[info]dhobikikutti

March 18 2010, 23:04:46 UTC 2 years ago

Many gay men in India have chosen MSM as their preferred term. Please keep a global context in mind when talking about those you identify as people of colour.

[info]tupelo_lights

2 years ago

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[info]sophiaserpentia

March 18 2010, 22:21:48 UTC 2 years ago

Word.

[info]homo_impetus

March 18 2010, 22:49:54 UTC 2 years ago

Great Post

Would you ever post this on one or more of the main trans comms?

I think it would be worth it.

[info]samwhise

March 19 2010, 00:14:02 UTC 2 years ago

Re: Great Post

I second this comment wholeheartedly.

[info]tupelo_lights

March 19 2010, 19:42:05 UTC 2 years ago

Re: Great Post

Feel free to cross-post! Let's just make sure we're there to back each other up if/when the shit hits the fan.

[info]homo_impetus

2 years ago

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[info]tupelo_lights

2 years ago

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[info]dhobikikutti

March 18 2010, 23:07:09 UTC 2 years ago

Good post.

Also, the global specificity of terms should be respected. For example, the term 'hijra' can apply to transvestites, transexuals and intersex people, but it cannot be used interchangably with any person who identifies as such, outside of the South Asian context it has a cultural identity in.

[info]undeconstructed

March 18 2010, 23:35:32 UTC 2 years ago

seriously, thank you for posting this.

[info]pazi_ashfeather

March 19 2010, 00:02:24 UTC 2 years ago

Seriously.

1. Don't write-off the term "men who have sex with men" as being the same thing as gay men. Gay was named for/by white men and lots of MSM of color don't use that term for themselves, for various and diverse reasons.

This seems almost on par with renaming someone at your own discretion, in terms of rudeness.

Possibly stupid question here:

"speak from and about your privilege, not for and about someone else's oppression."

What do you mean by this, in the context of responding to bigoted or privileged remarks by cis people?

I ask because the idea of couching it in terms of other peoples' oppression *at all* seems inappropriate, and I'm left wondering whether you mean that, or that there's some non-oppressive way to refer to other oppressions and so make the analogy (and if so, what that looks like) or basically, what it means to speak from and about your privilege when you're not privileged along the relevant axis in the interaction.

(And also what, if anything, that means when a white trans person is responding to such behavior from a cis person of color.)

[info]tupelo_lights

March 19 2010, 19:39:12 UTC 2 years ago

I think the only good way for a white trans* person to make an analogy between transphobia and racism when speaking to a cis POC is to ask whether or not that POC feels there is any overlap, and let them do the talking about racism. But let's not forget that white trans* folks are, can and should be learning all the time from trans* POC - about trans* issues and issues of racism.

[info]pazi_ashfeather

2 years ago

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[info]lt_jim_dangle

March 19 2010, 00:14:58 UTC 2 years ago

General rule: if you want to talk about an overlap between your oppression and someone else's whose oppression you don't share, you should speak from your personal experience of privilege, not your assumptions about their experience of that oppression.

Worth repeating! Wanna pinpoint where conversations get awkward? Right after this rule is ignored.

Also, I've yet to be convinced that people of color are more (or less) homophobic than white people, and I wonder why it seems whites need that to be true. From what I've seen in my town, part of it is to justify gentrification, but I think generally it's more like "Ah ha! You're not so innocent afterall!" letting of guilt that has little to do with anti-oppression.

[info]pizzuti

March 19 2010, 05:50:41 UTC 2 years ago

I think this is because homophobia looks different from community to community, and white people prefer the homophobia they are familiar with to a homophobia they are less familiar with, and use that preference to assume that other kinds are worse. I also think white gay people can sometimes get good at "reedeeming" and learning to ignore homophobia within their own communities in order to hang on to the people and life they are familiar with, but do not extend the same efforts to people of color.

I also think that saying "they're homophobic" can be an excuse for queer people to hang on to white privilege, under the presumption that they hated us first, which I think is close to what you were saying.

Lastly, many gay people are somewhat traumatized by religion, particularly Christianity as it relates to most white gay Americans, and they don't realize that a person of color might have a Christian identity that means something different from the christian identity they grew up in.

[info]estrobutch

March 19 2010, 00:17:39 UTC 2 years ago

"Gay was named for/by white men and lots of MSM of color don't use that term for themselves, for various and diverse reasons."

Your main point and all your other points are fucking spot on but I don't think its our place as white ppl or as ppl who weren't there when "gay" started meaning queer/homosexual to speculate about who invented it. since from its beginning theres been people of color id'ing with the term it seems more fair to say white ppl stole it then that we invented it.

[info]seaya

March 19 2010, 05:22:19 UTC 2 years ago

I definitely agree that people of color have been using gay from the beginning. I went to a lecture on history regarding this, and it was a slide show of primary source letters and photos and the term gay was used in the early 1900s.

Several people in the audience, some of whom went by SGL, were surprised.

This was in like 1997.

This was the woman who gave the lecture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Smith


On the other hand it's not conclusive that white people stole it either. It's just a term people choose to use or not use.

[info]estrobutch

2 years ago

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[info]neo_prodigy

March 19 2010, 02:14:41 UTC 2 years ago

as a poc and an lgbtq, i would just like to say that i'm glad to finally see the issues of trans and queer racism being discussed on a forum like this.

too often in the past when myself or others have tried to speak out against the white privilege and racism we endure in the lgbtq community on anti-racism spaces, we typically get shut down and informed that said discussion isn't appropriate there and it's best left at an lgbtq space and thus implying racism is strictly a a hetero issue.

and of course any poc lgbtq will tell you that we're pretty much sol, because you even so much as try to bring up racism or white privilege in most lgbtq spaces, and all hell breaks loose.

[info]_like_weeds

March 19 2010, 05:23:54 UTC 2 years ago

This is awesome, coming from an often-frustrated genderqueer poc. Thanks for this post, needs to be heard more often.

[info]crumpetsfortea

March 19 2010, 05:56:17 UTC 2 years ago

Word, yes. Have you x-posted this to the trans/GQ spaces here on LJ? This needs to be said.

[info]bcholmes

March 19 2010, 12:54:06 UTC 2 years ago

Well said.

I can't say that I've heard anyone liken their birth name to a "slave name" but I have been seriously disappointed by the lack of cluefulness on the part of some trans communities around the word "Two Spirit".

[info]stingysnoozer

March 20 2010, 18:00:40 UTC 2 years ago

Thanks for this. Also

your birth/government name is not the same thing as a slave name

Damn, people actually say this? And here I was thinking that at this point nothing could surprise me.

[info]hexyhex

March 21 2010, 01:55:02 UTC 2 years ago

So much yes!

[info]cannibal_x

March 25 2010, 04:51:29 UTC 2 years ago

Thanks for posting!
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