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eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (cyhmn)
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QotD

posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 05:24am on 2017-11-15

"When I was a child I knew that trans people existed, but I knew I couldn't possibly be one of them. I was going to make history, not be some freak on television. My self-discipline and self-hatred marched in lock-step." "Coming Out as Transgender Made Me a More Effective CIA Officer", The Atlantic, 2017-03-20

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There are 3 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

Some navel investigation sparked by your quote

posted by [personal profile] polydad at 02:23pm on 2017-11-15
This may take some unpacking for me. Unless "trans people" includes "transvestites", which in this usage I don't believe it does (a guy in a dress still being a guy if he thinks of himself as one), I only became aware of trans people less than a decade ago. But coming from an SF background, my reaction was "OK, that's different. Now what?" Which, to the best of my knowledge, we're still working on.

If difference and diversity are seen as positive (and/or necessary) values, a *lot* of things that are currently issues cease to be.

That said, it seems to me that dealing with the value-issues of difference and diversity is not the same thing as dealing with what I think are now being called "justice issues". (whether this is a good label for them is another issue, and in the context of this conversation I think also a red herring.) If Some People are treating Some Other People badly because the Other People are trans, we-as-society need to make the bad treatment stop, and repair the damage from it concurrently with moving on.

I don't think I really understand "self-hatred." I didn't initially understand transsexuality either, but as acknowledging and dealing with transsexuality makes some people a lot happier it seems to be an obviously good idea. Is coming to an understanding of self-hatred a worthwhile investment of time for someone who is not a therapist? (Noting in passing that while some transfolk have had to deal with self-hatred issues, such issues do not a priori define them.)
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blueeowyn: (Default)

Re: Some navel investigation sparked by your quote

posted by [personal profile] blueeowyn at 02:53pm on 2017-11-15
I think that understanding self-hatred a bit can be beneficial even if you aren't a therapist. Self-hatred can come from many sources but I believe that in many instances where it manifests in a way that has a negative impact on self AND society is when the primary source is where a person has a characteristic that they deem evil/wrong/unacceptable usually as a result of societal conditioning and then lash out harder at others with that characteristic. Just as people often are harsher on bad habits that they don't want to see in themselves, they can also be harsher on characteristics. It can be something fairly benign like a woman who doesn't want children trying to hide it from herself by trumpeting loudly that the culmination of completeness for women is to be a mother. When it comes to something more inherent (such as gender preference, gender identity, sexuality, and race) and also more loudly discussed as a negative, then the reactions to self and others can be much worse. How often have we seen politicians who are known for their Anti-Whatever stance then being found to be a member of that camp (be it abortion, marital affairs, partner preferences, etc..)?
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eftychia: Female (Venus) symbol, with a transistor symbol inside the circle part (TransSister)

Re: Some navel investigation sparked by your quote

posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 04:58pm on 2017-11-15
(As originally coined (1980s IIRC), "transgender" included crossdressers and drag queens as well as transsexuals and nonbinary folk. Currently, whether it includes the first two groups seems to depend on context -- I argue for a more inclusive reading when not clear. "Trans" is tricky because it can be short for "transsexual" or the broader "transgender", which is why a lot of folks used to write the latter meaning "trans*", which unfortunately looks distractingly like a footnote. In context here it's unclear, but given the author's path of self-discovery it probably doesn't matter whether it's the narrower or broader meaning in the paragraph I quoted.)

I don't think you can untangle diversity-positivity from "justice issues". The flip side of your observation that making diversity positive fixes a lot of issues, is that it's hard to fix other issues long-term without valuing diversity and inclusivity. Otherwise, when you patch injustices in one place, new ones will sprout up beyond the patch. (Often you have to work on one angle for a while, then use the gains there to work on the other side of the problem for a while.)

I think [personal profile] blueeowyn is right about why understanding self-hatred matters. Also, it helps understanding why some folks fight so hard before "coming out to themselves", and (partially!) explains a lot of fear and skittishness some folks have as they start coming out to their community. Understanding self-hatred makes it easier to understand how much harm community leaders who make anti-trans (or anti-otherstuff) proclamations are doing to younger trans members of their community.
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