Thursday, March 31, 2016

The Dark Side of Trans “Visibility”

The "transgender tipping point" was a welcome milestone—it's also made trans adults and youth more visible targets

...one of my close friends, who is trans and who hadn’t heard of the holiday (International Trans Day of Visibility), responded with a scowl when I told her about it.
“My goal isn’t visibility, my goal is survival,” she said. “The Jews were extremely visible in 1930s Europe, how much good did it do them?”
Please read the rest of Arthur Chu's thought-provoking article on Salon.

Source: Boston Proper
Wearing Boston Proper.
Dave Thomas Brown
Dave Thomas Brown on stage in The Legend of Georgia McBride (NYC 2015).

4 comments:

  1. just read the Salon article and the link to RepublicanNC. what a load of ignorant bollox from the RNC about sex and lavatories. Requiring proof of DNA/chromosomes to be allowed to use a particular loo can be fraught with difficulty. If you have to have two X chromosomes to use the 'ladies' what will women with only one X chromosome do? this is the XO condition, or those persons with XY who are brought up as female because of AIS(testicular feminisation syndrome)whose body is unresponsive to testosterone and have female body habitus?
    Chris1

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  2. Tough topic but..."Chu's" comments about the Jews in the 1930's should be an example of not running and hiding. Plus his use of Jenner as any example, most of us know is highly speculative. As is his whole article.
    What isn't speculation is half the country is fighting to pass highly discriminatory to the LGBT community. We are as close to being in a war as the Jews were. Arthur Chu..with attitudes such as yours, things will never get better!

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  3. I could not disagree more with the article. Growing up, visibility for me meant bad transvestite caricatures on TV, over-the-top drag queens played for comedic effect in movies, and tiny trashy shemale phone-sex ads in the back of men's magazines. Society taught me that being trans was either something shameful or perverted.

    I love visibility. I love feeling that I'm not alone. I love that there are role models out there. I love knowing that somebody else understands.

    There will always be bigots and bullies looking for a target, whether it's based on sex, gender, religion, culture, the color of their hair, etc. It's not like they need an excuse to crawl out of the woodwork. Given a choice between feeling alone and ashamed again or helping to fight a bathroom bill, though, I'll celebrate visibility and accept that battle every time.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, haters got to hate. Transgenders are their target du jour.

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