Cheerful Megalomaniac

I have been going through my old blog posts and adding them to categories, cos many of them are simply marked ‘uncategorised’. While I do this, I have been reading some of them. I’m up to about January of this year, and I have to say that I am HORRIFIED by some of the things that I thought and said.

For example, in my first post about pansexuality, I not only called intersexed people ‘hermaphrodites’, but I also said that I was more interested in dating cisgendered women than any other demographic. My head nearly exploded when I read the post. I felt a strong urge to flame myself in the comments thread. I said some moderately dumb things in my more recent post on pansexuality, but nothing as appalling as I said back in January.

I think the point that I am trying to make with this post, is please take anything I say on this blog with a grain of salt, especially if I said it more than 2 weeks ago! I change my mind radically and frequently. (And I am also prone to being a douche)

I also want to say… sometimes people say stupid things cos they don’t know any better, not because they hate a particular group. For example, I have no problem with fucking trans women, although it certainly looks like I’m an ignorant transphobic dickwad in that post, and in some of the others I’ve written. Sometimes people need to learn things before they can be a good ally. Thankfully I’ve had a bunch of lovely commenters on this blog who resisted the urge to flame me, and have been gently prodding me in the direction of becoming a better ally.

I’ve had some experiences that were extremely alienating, where my very identity was brought into question because I said some dumb things.
I was no less trans 5 years ago when I was still a fundamentalist Christian. I was no less trans 3 years ago when I was deeply misogynistic and hated my womanhood. I was no less trans 1 year ago today, when I was considering killing myself, and was still 24 hours away from hearing that I could transition.
Over the last 12 months my explorations of queer theory and gender theory have made me much more open minded, but that said, I still fuck up. I say dumb shit, especially about sexual orientation and women, and feminism. Like, the other day, I was wanking lyrical about something, and my girlfriend had to tell me I was being stupid, and I was like ‘Oh yeah… ergh, so stupid!’ cos I hadn’t been thinking. She didn’t call me a misogynistic prick and dump my arse right there on the spot though, because she understands that I am stupid, not malicious, and that I *am* learning.

I think that its important to keep in mind that someone might be lashing out because they are feeling frustrated, and marginalised and oppressed, and that if you *do know better than them*, then it is really not productive to flame them, attack them, and in the worst cases, get them kicked out of the only communities that can help them come to grips with their issues.
Two alternative choices are to either choose to leave the conversation, because is it really worth the stress? Or, more helpful, is to open a discussion where you teach the newbie how to be a better ally. If you don’t want the role of teacher, and not everyone does, and no one should ever feel obliged to teach an newbie ally, then you could just redirect them to other resources, or again… leave the conversation.

I have been watching people flame others in LiveJournal communities, and I started to wonder, why do they bother? I think that some people are just bullies. Some people are just intolerant. Some people are just grumpy. Some people have clearly misinterpreted the original post.
Its not productive though. No one learns anything, other than not to piss of certain individuals or cliques, cos they have the power in the trans livejournal communities.

I am glad that I didn’t get flamed when I was still teetering between feminism and misogyny. If I’d been roasted for saying something stupid back then, I’d have run terrified from the feminist community. I understand that it is not a minorities job to educate their allies, but get serious people… if we don’t educate them, then who will?
If I don’t tell my (straight & cisgendered) colleagues what is inappropriate behavior regarding trans people, who will? They can’t work it out for themselves, though they get most of the major points (pronouns, names, not outing people etc) without being told, less obvious things need to be brought to their attention, and without rudeness, or they just get shy about asking me questions.

Sure, sometimes people are just stupid, and need to be called on their shit, but calling someone out doesn’t have to mean questioning their identity, insulting them, insulting anyone that defends them, or calling on your attack dogs to take them down. It means saying ‘Thats stupid/problematic/wrong because…’.

I’m still suffering from hurt feelings, as is no doubt somewhat clear. I have experienced 22 years of misogyny… I don’t pass nearly often enough to be so removed from the female experience as to not understand it. I try my best to be loving, open and accepting or all kinds of people.
I do however have my own minority status as an FTM, and I feel that those that would ask me to ignore my own communities needs in favour of being an ally to another community are showing a huge sense of entitlement to my time and energy.

That said, I am still learning, and I do want to be called out for saying shitty things when I say them, just in an understanding way. Cos you know, if someone hadn’t told me that hermaphrodite is an inappropriate way to refer to intersexed people, I *still would not know better*. But if I’d been flamed for talking about hermaphrodites, I might have decided to simply pretend that intersexed people don’t exist to avoid offending people, instead of trying to learn more so I could avoid being a dickhead.