aaskew42

nvm I worked it out

For the instance of male privilege
option A: accept/embrace it, don’t seek to reduce it
results
-> 1) passively hurt lots of non-male people
-> 2) enjoy life
-> 3) thus also benefit friends and family who want me to be happy

option B: reject male privilege/seek to reduce it where possible e.g. by presenting as female, detransitioning, allowing people to use female pronouns / suicide:
Results
-> 1) non-males spared additional oppressor and accompanying hurt
-> 2) become unhappy, dysphoric, etc / dead
-> 3) friends and family hurt by my unhappiness / death

if taking into account moral duty to self (e.g. Nietzsche’s ethical egoism) and moral duty to loved ones exceeding that to strangers, option A is morally superior
Still remains so even if discounting egoism and self interest, because loved ones will still be hurt by option B
Though neither option is completely good because both have people who will be hurt
But there are no alternatives afaik
Ok i can be happy now and not feel so bad about it.

On privilege and morality

I wish there were concrete solutions to the problems of privilege. Just read a tumblr SJ thing on cissexism and how:
1) the existence of privileges actively hurt people without them
2) said hurt can lead to justified resentment or hate from the oppressed
3) but it is highly unlikely or even impossible for the privileged to completely get rid of said privilege as long as they are a member of the privileged group

From other sources,
4) neither is it desirable, because we should be working to extend privileges to the people who don’t have them, rather than stripping them from the ones who have them.

But then this invariably leads to situations with:
Oppressed person: “I hate you because you hurt me, and I wish you would die.”
Privileged person: “What can I do to completely stop hurting you?”
OP: “Nothing.”
or, if they were more cruelly honest: “kill yourself.”
But if said suicide happened, other people would arguably get hurt, possibly much more. Though in every attempt I have made to work this out, suicide is the only way to completely eradicate the hurt of the first problem, if it is not possible for the privileged person to become a member of the marginalized group. (which is why some trans guys refuse transition and hence do not increase their male privilege and hurt women in the process. sadly I did not have the strength to choose that path, because not transitioning was doing terrible things to my mental health and making me actively suicidal. But I’ve often been acutely aware of the moral ramifications of my transitioning, especially since for safety reasons I have to be stealth, which means I also get conditional cis privilege.)

And I don’t find that satisfactory at all, and have been struggling with this for ages, as a member of both privileged and marginalized communities. Is this even a worthwhile moral dilemma? Can we declare something morally wrong if there is no real morally right alternative? (I suppose yes, hence the damned if you do, damned if you don’t adage.) Is it fair to condemn people - to the extent of wishing them dead - for things they cannot help? Or is this a matter of unfair but justifiable? To what extent should we sacrifice our well being to benefit others, and is this a moral obligation? Do we also have a moral duty to ourselves that might sometimes override this?

These aren’t rhetorical questions, and I would be grateful if people could provide answers. Thanks.
Also, obligatory “hi I am aspie and am thus not being clueless on purpose because I have a lot of problems with understanding things like this.”

people scrolling through the SJ tags

Do you honestly want to spend your life being angry? and frustrated, and depressed, and helpless, and afraid, and being upset by other people and making other people upset;

There are always going to be oppressions and unfairness, and you will never fight it all or eradicate it all. I’ve tried. For about seven years. It destroyed me. It destroyed my world and made me incapable of seeing the good in anything any more, because all I could think of and all I could see was injustice and oppression and hatred, even in the things I used to enjoy. I’m still recovering, have been going in and out of therapy because of this, and I’m not sure I’ll ever heal completely, though I hope so.

for you, if you still have the chance now, if you’re still at the stage where you’re all fired up and passionate and overcome with righteous anger, I’m begging you - save yourself and walk away before it gets too bad. Channel that righteous anger into good rather than bad, even if that bad is done in the name of good. Don’t post that hateful retort, no matter how justified, don’t reblog the terrible thing that no one can do a thing about other than have their day ruined by, don’t feed the trolls.

If you are oppressed, you probably have enough troubles of your own and don’t need to fill your mind with all the other horrors that are going on around you to people like you, unless you can handle i. If people are going to beat you up tomorrow in a hate crime for being gay and/or trans and/or black and/or poor, spending a day angrily debating grammar on Tumblr isn’t going to make that any better; spending that same day doing something you enjoy will at least give you happiness in place of that anger. and the world will still go on, and a marginalised person - you - will have had a moment of joy.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to change the world, assuming it’s for the better. It’s a noble cause. As is being selfless. But there are limits, and if you’re constantly in a state of anger and hatred, you’re past that limit, and the bigots have won.

Don’t let them win.

annamalous:

The concept of someone being “transethnic” has got me thinking. It’s been floating around Tumblr, and it’s getting a lot of criticism. Many say that it’s internalized stereotyping based on race. I don’t deny that.

Since this is the case, isn’t transgender internalized stereotyping based on…

Hi. I got here via seeing your apology while scrolling through the transethnic tag for the lulz, so since you seem sincere I’d like to direct you to a few things:

1) This post: http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=2994
(and actually the whole blog, because it’s excellent)

2) and this thread, where someone asked the same thing and I gave replies:
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000108/flat/199608318

(me = Anakin_McFly; it might be easier for you to view the thread if you get an IMDb account)

Hope this addresses your questions. Basically, being trans is about gender identity, not gender roles.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

this is my apology

i keep getting mad at myself because no matter what i do i always slip up and end up offending someone and i hate it that i can’t be as good as those people who always know the right things to say and do.

and i feel like a disgusting person who shouldn’t be allowed to live, because on hindsight i realise i say and think a lot of fucked up things that no decent person would.

i’m trying to be a better person.

but no matter how much i try, it’s never enough, by my standards or other people’s, and it seems like i spend half my time apologising.

i’m sorry.

i don’t know how other people do it. the ones who are aware enough of everything to be the ones calling out other people all the time. but i envy you for your awareness and your devotion to equality. both you, and the ones on the other extreme of the scale, for whom being a good person just involves not being a dick and trying to be excellent to everyone they meet. where you don’t need to additionally be educated in all the nuances of the english language or be good enough at maths to weigh and analyse oppressions and privileges or up-to-date with the latest politically-correct terms or familiar with the social dynamics of the queer community halfway across the planet from where i live or constantly aware of all possible human identities so as not to unwittingly erase or invalidate or mock someone in the process of discourse.

i’m not asking for compassion or a cookie or to be excused for the bad things i’ve done. i know enough to know that’s wrong.

i’m asking for forgiveness, and for a pardon, because i don’t think i can do this any more. and because i’ve wanted - needed - to do this for a long time, here is my confession and my apology: some of it things i’m trying my best to overcome, others for things that i don’t think i can easily overcome, and would like to be pardoned for in the meantime.

this is, for the most part, genuine. sometimes bits of sarcasm got in, but that’s out of my own issues.

I’d also like to add a note here that I’m on the autistic spectrum, and that sometimes affects the way I relate to people, myself, and social rules.

Read More

yo tumblr SJers

What’s the current acceptable policy for male-identified people calling out female-identified people who are being blatantly misogynist?

Earlier this evening I heard some triggery crap on the radio from a female DJ - referring to a sexual harassment case in which she asked the male DJ “was she hot?”; he said no, whereupon she said that in that case she shouldn’t be complaining and should be grateful that someone actually found her attractive, and that if she were in her place, she’d be happy about it.

and I was freaking out and couldn’t take it and complained to my mother, who said she agreed with me but was completely calm and casual about that, while I was trying desperately to ward off a panic attack because I’d been triggered.

In this case, it was the radio and I couldn’t have done anything if I’d wanted. But similar cases have happened IRL when female peers have said similarly misogynist things and no one seemed to care except me. On one hand, I have problems just sitting it through and pretending that everything’s okay, because I have to say something because people are Being Wrong.

But on the other hand, I’ve been told it would be mansplaining to point it out, and it does seem like a jerk move to tell women that they’re being misogynist when the people who are actually women don’t seem bothered, so I’ve always tried my best to keep my mouth shut. (and usually succeed, except this one time recently when a mixed-sex group was doing a presentation on how people who consider Japan to have a sexist culture are wrong, because it’s the tradition there and everyone sees it as normal and the women are happy to be submissive to men therefore it’s not sexist). And everyone - male and female - was giving me incredulous looks for vocally objecting to that claim and making a big deal out of what they thought was nothing.)

Am I doing the right thing? If the female-identified people present in a situation are okay with Offensive Thing X, does this mean that there’s no need to call them out? I’ve often wondered about that; it seems kind of selfish, because the only person being offended is me, and calling them out would thus be just for my own benefit. Thoughts? Will adjust behaviour accordingly. Thanks.

(More) responses~

appropriately-inappropriate:

I totally understand the differences—however, I do believe that the sort of rhetoric is, if not the same, at least similar. Which may, on a broader level, be responsible for the instinctive recoiling?
I mean, if that’s the sort of rhetoric that’s getting used to convince cis lesbians (and I very specifically use lesbians, because I am one, and consequently cannot speak for queer women—and queer seems to be a much broader category anyways!) to see trans* women as viable partners, it’s not surprising that there’s this sort of backlash? I mean, it does sound very similar (at least to me), and that’s unfortunately the sort of rhetoric cis lesbians have had to deal with from het guys for a long time.

To address your other point: What then of pre- or non- op trans women? I mean, it’s their absolute right to do whatever they need to do to feel comfortable in their bodies. However, say someone has no attraction to phalluses whatsoever, and no desire to test that boundary. What then? Is it transphobic of them to avoid sexual relationships with trans* women?

As a thought experiment, that might actually explain a lot. Like, okay: it’s very hard to guess what’s in someone’s pants—it may be a phallus, it may be a vagina. Say someone doesn’t want ANY contact with a phallus, regardless of the gender of its owner. So: wanting to avoid the awkwardness of initiating sexual contact only to find out that they can’t follow through (and maybe get called transphobic/hateful), maybe said individual chooses not to engage in the first place?

That might explain the hesitance— but it’s also a very valid concern, because the individual would be caught in a seriously untenable situation. Leave, get called nasty names and have their motive misconstrued— or stay, and do something they’re not comfortable with.

I’d love to hear your opinions!

“However, say someone has no attraction to phalluses whatsoever, and no desire to test that boundary. What then? Is it transphobic of them to avoid sexual relationships with trans* women?”

It would be transphobic of them to avoid sexual relationships with trans* women who don’t have phalluses, but perhaps not with those who do.

The difference lies between declaring “I don’t want sexual relationships with trans* women” and “I don’t want sexual relationships that would involve a phallus”.

(and even that is questionable; how would you classify a ‘phallus’? Would you date a cis woman with an unnaturally large clit? or a castrated cis man? To some extent, our ideas of gendered body parts are social constructs.)

Fewer people would have problems with the latter; it’s the former that usually causes the most problems, because apart from assuming that all trans* women have phalluses, you’re also assuming that they’re into the kind of sexual acts that would involve them, which can be especially hurtful for trans* women who are extremely dysphoric about their genitalia and prefer sexual acts that don’t involve penetration or even them being completely naked.

There’s also the huge amount of negative connotations involved in blanketly declaring a refusal to date trans* women as opposed to specifically people-with-phalluses, because there’s little difference between that and genuinely-transphobic sentiment.

“So: wanting to avoid the awkwardness of initiating sexual contact only to find out that they can’t follow through (and maybe get called transphobic/hateful), maybe said individual chooses not to engage in the first place?”

From what I know, the vast majority of trans* people usually disclose things like the state of their genitals prior to initiating any sexual contact, or if things look like they might lead to sex. Which can be problematic in its way (because it places an added obligation on trans people to be upfront about bodies in a way that cis people are not, and can often lead to rejection). So I doubt this hypothetical is common. If someone is truly concerned about their sexual partner not having a phallus, then… just ask, in much the same way that you might be unwilling to date people who might be of a particular religion or political leaning.

Not to mention that: “maybe said individual chooses not to engage in the first place” -> if most cis people thought and behaved in such a way, there would be barely anyone who would ‘risk’ being open to trans* people; where all the cis people go off to have sexy funtiems and leave the trans* people to be forever alone (potentially also isolated from each other, because cis people far outnumber trans* people) until a pansexual wanders by. And that makes me sad.

out of curiosity - have you actually been in a situation where you were interested in a woman only to turn her down upon discovering that she was trans?

and since I thought this was interesting in further illustrating the variety of ways in which sexual attraction manifests for people, I’m leaving this quote from a faab genderqueer friend, currently dating a trans woman: “i have realized: i am interested in people who like their vaginas or want to have them, regardless of their actual gender identity or physical configuration. …  i am attracted to mind vaginas. i can be with trans guys who like their vaginas. and i can be with trans girls who are pre-op but want vaginas, and who can only rly get off by considering their penis a clit. but with a trans guy who is all about having a penis and nothing else, or a trans girl who likes her penis, i can’t do that”

I see people writing wholly warranted posts about how men are sexist pigs, and i agree with them, and then i feel disgusted at myself for effectively wanting to be male as long as i can remember, not just in body, which is defendable, but in all those non-physical aspects of gender, which isn’t likewise defendable, and i hate myself and feel like a jerk for my persistent fantasies of being a regular guy. because i know what regular guys are like and what they do to people. and what kind of sick person must i be to want to be like that.

sometimes i wish i were a woman

that way i would be cis, and also i wouldn’t have male privilege causing my existence to be inherently oppressive to women no matter what i do or how much i try not to hurt anyone