maevele | damn. from voz

I was thinking as I was reading it that it really was just a rephrasing of what you had said over and over, with a new metaphor, but it might seem more palatable for the privileged coming from the privileged point of view. Because that's just always how it works, innit? someone in the oppressed class says something over and over, and people don't listen, or claim they're too angry, or whatever. But once someone who shares the privilege in question says the same thing, boom, they get it.

I've been the white girl repeating things POC keep saying that gets it through to white folk before, so i'm kinda used to the pattern, and will use it, even though it pisses me the fuck off.

and it helps to have a privileged voice carry them.

One of the privileges I think people don't think much about, is the privilege of just being heard.

that's why I did the flawed maneuver of invoking a cis voice to say what trans women had said 1000000 times before.

Kynn makes alot of sense below. really. i knew this, and did it anyway, because, cis people are reliably stupid about trans women. Always.

For us, it's the cost of doing any business with you.

Hard words are often necessary ones..
and it helps to have a privileged voice carry them.

Yeah, I'm honestly pretty ambivalent about having played "cis chick explains it all" on that thread, but once the OP started talking more about Oliver's tone than his argument, it seemed like it was going nowhere fast. :c/

But hell, this is coming from the one who had to tell my boss that paying the cis chick to co-facilitate the campus "trans people and allies" group and not paying the trans guy was seven kinds of fucked up. Because when the trans guy said it, he was just being greedy. So I should be used to saying obvious things to stupid people, even though they should have heard them the first hundred times, when the right people said them more eloquently and from personal experience.

Sorry. I'm vomiting my irritation all over this thread, and I probably shouldn't be, but I'm coming off a migraine (partially Femmessay induced) and having trouble thinking of a more coherent way to put this.

Bottom line, privilege is a signal-booster, and while it disgusts me that it should be necessary to use it that way, I feel like cis people who are capable of doing so non-stupidly have an obligation to amplify the message where needed.

(We also have an obligation to shut up and realize when it's being broadcast load and clear without our help, which takes more work, at least for me.)

Well, you have seen my posts on microwave lenses, haven't you?

If there's one thing I know, it's how and when to bust out the high gain equipment. Not getting myself nuked by the sidelobes is a lil harder.

Anyway, woman is engaging the trans men and not the trans women, for all the stupid, usual reasons.

Yeahs...who the fuck is your boss, and what is her major malfunction, anyway?

Well, you have seen my posts on microwave lenses, haven't you?

Don't think I've gotten that far in the archives yet. Too busy savoring the image of gloves+heels+skirt+lathe. ;c) (And popping Darvocet, instead of going to bed and stopping staring at the screen like a smart person.)

smiles...I will definitely post piccys.

Oh! You meant *literal* microwave lenses. Well, hot damn.

Also, I missed this the first time around:

who the fuck is your boss, and what is her major malfunction, anyway?

... but I expect by now you won't be wanting the list. ;c)

[This, btw, is Boss 1. Boss 2 is Deaf Professor Lady, who is a total rockstar.]

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.

damn. from voz

Re: Thanks for the repost.

Hard words are often necessary ones..

Re: Hard words are often necessary ones..

ayup

Re: Hard words are often necessary ones..

Re: Hard words are often necessary ones..

Re: Hard words are often necessary ones..

Re: Hard words are often necessary ones..

Re: Hard words are often necessary ones..

Re: Thanks for the repost.