Yeah, that's one thing I noticed about that post. Cis people automatically have more "credibility" when talking about trans issues.
I didn't link to it on my blog because of three reasons. (1) The people who read my blog already know (or should know) that from reading what I wrote, and they don't need some nice cis lady to explain it to them. (2) I don't want to endorse the idea that we need cis "interpreters" to be the good cops and explain things rather than letting trans people speak for ourselves.
And (3), which may be ironic, I really can't endorse the way in which she told off Autumn Sandeen. Autumn was clearly wrong and I said that, but it's also cis privileged -- in a post about cis privilege -- for a nice cis lady to take the role of scolding a trans woman and saying "it’s way too early in the trans-movement for a scab whose willing to sell the rest of the movement upriver just to keep the peace with the oppressors."
Yes, that's what Autumn was doing -- but coming from a cis person, this is again a cis person telling trans people they're doing it wrong in fighting oppression. Autumn's fuckups should be dealt with by trans people, and not by cis people saying she's hurting The Cause (which the nice cis lady admits to not being very aware of, due to her privilege) and sanctimoniously lecturing Autumn.
Even if that nice cis lady is correct, it's still wrong, just like it's wrong whenever I get worked up with my own white privilege and stupidly think I can lecture POC about being "house negroes" or whatever. It's not my place as part of the privileged oppressors to condescendingly tell the oppressed people that they're Doing It Wrong by not fighting (my!) oppression and instead going along with it to maintain what few perks are allowed to them under a bigotry-driven system.
And likewise, it's not cool for a nice cis lady, in the middle of making an excellent point about cis privilege, to launch into a criticism of how Autumn has chosen to maintain her status at PHB by appeasing the cis people with power. It's out of place and she has no standing (personal experience) from which to castigate Autumn on this point.
Re: Thanks for the repost.
I didn't link to it on my blog because of three reasons. (1) The people who read my blog already know (or should know) that from reading what I wrote, and they don't need some nice cis lady to explain it to them. (2) I don't want to endorse the idea that we need cis "interpreters" to be the good cops and explain things rather than letting trans people speak for ourselves.
And (3), which may be ironic, I really can't endorse the way in which she told off Autumn Sandeen. Autumn was clearly wrong and I said that, but it's also cis privileged -- in a post about cis privilege -- for a nice cis lady to take the role of scolding a trans woman and saying "it’s way too early in the trans-movement for a scab whose willing to sell the rest of the movement upriver just to keep the peace with the oppressors."
Yes, that's what Autumn was doing -- but coming from a cis person, this is again a cis person telling trans people they're doing it wrong in fighting oppression. Autumn's fuckups should be dealt with by trans people, and not by cis people saying she's hurting The Cause (which the nice cis lady admits to not being very aware of, due to her privilege) and sanctimoniously lecturing Autumn.
Even if that nice cis lady is correct, it's still wrong, just like it's wrong whenever I get worked up with my own white privilege and stupidly think I can lecture POC about being "house negroes" or whatever. It's not my place as part of the privileged oppressors to condescendingly tell the oppressed people that they're Doing It Wrong by not fighting (my!) oppression and instead going along with it to maintain what few perks are allowed to them under a bigotry-driven system.
And likewise, it's not cool for a nice cis lady, in the middle of making an excellent point about cis privilege, to launch into a criticism of how Autumn has chosen to maintain her status at PHB by appeasing the cis people with power. It's out of place and she has no standing (personal experience) from which to castigate Autumn on this point.