Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

From a long thread:

"The impact of the colonial project on First Nations' Peoples, and those forcibly removed from their homelands, is documented by the coloniser, where persistent erasures fail to tell the full picture of our diversities, including the complexity of our genders.

"This can't be surprising, not when they did it in a wholesale manner to their own people, putting them in gender boxes from which they could not escape.

"The info here include ways that these boxes can be challenged by cis people who want to support us.

"A difficult aspect for many who are trans, is navigating how others see us. Not feeling 'enough' is one that many share. Whether its others challenging our gender, asking about surgery/meds, or making assumptions about our pronouns, it can be unending.

"One job in #TransAwarenessWeek is for cis people to learn more, not just assume that they already know because they are supportive. Learning more about our complexities will mean a safer and better world for people who are transgender. It could give us space to breathe.

[...]

"Trans people include people of all ethnicities, disabilities, religion, cultures, life experiences, ages (I could go on). This might sound obvious, but there are assumptions that some people cannot be trans because of some aspect of their lives. Not so.

[...]

"Don't make jokes about our gender. Deciding that those in the binary don't look like your idea of a man or a woman, probably reflects your own insecurities. Deciding that those of us outside of the binary need to be sorted back into it, is not a thing.

[...]

"Affirmation or Transition? I say 'gender affirmation' myself. Some use transition, some both. I like affirmation, makes it hard for transphobes to trot out the 'horrors of detransition' when a 'reversal' of affirmation would...um... also be affirmation!

[...]

"On trans history. Yes, we've always existed. Evidence is potted cos that happens when erasures are homicidal. Instead I ask you for the evidence that people were only cis through our deep shared history. Genital check on everyone who ever lived, much?

[...]

"When I talk about the colonial project of gender, I mean it literally as an act of colonisation. It was - and continues to be - enacted primarily against First Nations' Peoples and those who were enslaved and treated like property.

"Colonisation radiates out, it encompasses and includes and contains. So of course the fallout is that the colonisers make their own 'less than'. They diminish and erase their own too. You can follow our lead, and resist.

"For non-Indigenous folks this doesn't mean co-opting or appropriating. It means getting in touch with your own culture. Find out how erasures occurred in your culture. Because I guarantee you that they did. Don't romanticise ours, it simply won't help you.

[...]

"Actual Awareness 101 is doing work in your day job and your home life to make sure that trans people are accommodated in ways that support affirmation and belonging.

[...]

"Actual Awareness 101 is talking to your kids about gender and listening to them talk about themselves, their friends, or their thoughts or concerns. I get asked for advice all the time, if I don't know I look it up."

[...]

-- Prof Sandy O'Sullivan (Wiradjuri, trans they/them) (sandyosullivan), 2021-11-13

[Trans Awareness Week is basically an educational lead-in to the Transgender Day of Remembrance on 20 November (this coming Saturday), the day we remember and mourn all the trans people murdered over the past year because of their gender. At least in the US, there have been a record number of trans people murdered this year.]