40 years ago, transfolk had an uprising.
You wouldn’t know it from reading a piece by Frank Rich, but being erased is something that happens to transfolk within the GLB community all the time.
But its a good peice because it shows, in part, *why* transfolk were erased. And its pretty simple: those outside never got info about our part, our reason, our efforts.
And yet it inspired an entire movement that claims it.
ITs a bad piece, because, like David Carter’s “Stonewall” it denies our very existence in it.
There is a tremendous degree of cisprivilege in gay people — so great that they themselves consider being called cis a sort of insult.
And yet, they *are* cisgender.
Today, 40 years after protesters who were fighting to be allowed to be themselves were silenced, I was silenced.
By one of our own.
Because I dared defend the use of the word cis- as an apt descriptor for people who are not gender variant.
Well, no, that’s not fair. I was silenced because I pissed her off by noting that she was being uncivil in a thread where she asked for civility.
She popped into the the thread and said this:
Please stop. (2.50 / 2)
This is going nowhere, and is starting to offend people at
The Blend.And in a post that’s theme is about behaving civility, I’m not having any of it.
Public warning in this thread — next person who uses this thread to make comment defending “cis” terminology gets a trap door drop.
Understand, dyssonance?
So I did.
But I also went to her facebook page and wrote this:
No.
Autumn, ya threatened me.
I am being civil.
And if you want to ask me, civilly, fine.
But you threatened me.
That proved an underlying point I was making.
I understand, though. No hard feelings, either — I know you’ll ban me in the next moment, but that’s life, and that’s the price I will have to pay.
But you threatened me. With banning, of course, but its still a threat.
Because I was pretty offended she decided to use a threat against me. She may have decided “no, you stupid bitch, its a promise”, or decided that I was asking for it.
I wasn’t going to bitch about this too much, but it really irks me that she used a threat — its putting truth the the oft stated thought that she bans people as an abuse of power for disagreeing with her. And I’ve defended her — used the fact she hasn’t banned me as proof of that.
And that she dropped me from her facebook is really meaningless — but still, in light of this, there was a less than civil intent behind what she was doing.
It was vengeful.
But what’s interesting is that she’s denying me the ability to defend use of a word because she doesn’t believe I genuinely find other words offensive.
Which is wrong. I do. Indeed, I find the general tone to be extremely lacking in civility there.
And so, in honor of those who fought 40 years ago, instead of a spech to inspire or something, I’m going to rebel against the stonewalling of trans perspective and voice from a woman of color by someone who is allowing cisfolk to control the dialog.
Using arguments that are the same arguments we see in feminist circles when we try to assert ourselves there.
Its rather, well, annoying.
And, of course, banning me isn’t exactly an easy thing, but I can be quiet a couple days. Yet I shall, indeed, return, and when I do, I will be a bit crazier than dissonant.
And even harsher.
And I will probably start on a day where civility is the point of conversation.
An Update: I finally got a chance to catch up on my email today.
In it was an email from Autumn explaining why it was I was banned. She’s *very* hurt by my actions, and so unlikely to want to talk to me about them.
But, here’s the gist of it:
1 - It had nothing to do with my using the cis terms (my banning) directly — she recognized that I did not use them after her post in that thread.
2 - in her words, this was the *major* part of the offense:
No, my problem with your behavior is you took those two terms and hijacked two front page threads to defend your use of the term. And, the second thread was one about being civil to other blenders – Being civil to others has nothing whatsoever to do with your use of the terms cisgender and cissexual.
Now I didn’t see it as *I* derailed the convo, but rather “Lane” did. And we had a discussion regarding how straight and such are generally offensive to me (’cause I’m as bent as the next gal an proud of it). Lane and I. But ok, fine, I hijacked it.
I call that thread drift. But one person’s thread drift is another’s hijacking, so that’s understandable.
3 - the other part of this was my posting to her FB page:
I thought the terms cissexual and cisgender really were neutral terms prior to this weekends threads, but it seems to me that a few of our trans peers — you included — worked very hard to turn those terms into extremely contentious terms to describe “the other.” And then, when multiple of “the others” began taking offense at the way the terms had been weaponized against them, you kept going on about how the terms were neutral.
And then lastly, after doing my job — my job of publicly shutting down the hijacking of thread about civility into a second front page thread where again we were contentiously discussed the terms cisgender and cissexual – you “shit” on the front doorstep of my Facebook page.
You can read the shit I placed on her doorstep above. Now, I do believe that I included a note about how Rangers react to threats as part of it, and if she comes by, she can share what I did, but that’s relativly minor (I believe I wrote that we usually get shot).
Now, what I see she’s saying is that *I* hijacked the thread on avarosis, and *then* I went to the enough thread and hijacked it. Which is basically, from my perspective, telling me that I should not have taken the time to correct the percptions of those people who were taking the term as offensive and that my doing so — my standing up for the expression of our rage, our community, and our language.
I should have shut the hell up.
Well, ya’ll know I never shut the hell up.
I was being “uncivil” she says — and yet, in reviewing the posts, the only time I’ve been uncivil lately was the time she had already smacked me for — my comment to Brandi Parker.
That comment was:
Now now, Brandi
I’m sill cuter than you are, and I’m putting the lie to everything you just said, simply by existing.
Care to explain that one?
Yeah, that was a pretty harsh attack given she’d just said that people who passed didn’t stick around to be activists like her.
I had recieved a warning for that already. Did not repeat it. And got hit again for it as the justification.
In the end, I am told I am not welcome there. To wit:
So there you have it. I am no longer welcome because I have done what was being done to me to one other person in an especially grievous sense, and as a result of my doing something she directly disagrees with, I am banned from The Blend.
Not because I defended the usage of Cis, but because I used it when it was offending cispeople.
You get to decide. Autumn doesn’t, to my knowledge, know that I’ve even got this up here. So be aware that I am indeed blindsiding her by publishing significant portions of her email.
I will not be at PHB anymore.
Guess I’ll have to make my own coffeehouse. Except I drink more tea. Maybe a teahouse?
Anyone up for a glass?
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