The media gives a very limited view on what it means to be transgender. Assuming that it is evident we are supposed to view the transgender character in question sympathetically, said character almost always fulfills all or most of the follow categories:
* Binary-identified
* White
* Heterosexual
* Adheres to a ‘traditional’ gender expression (i.e. trans men will be masculine, trans women feminine)
* Well into transitioning, or has finished doing so
* ‘Passes’ as cis
* Conventionally attractive
* Has had (or at the very least, intends to have) GRS
In effect, we’re meant to be sad that the person in question is ‘trapped in the wrong body’, and be glad that they’re ‘really a man/woman now’. In other words, these are the transgender people that are ‘least threatening’ to society’s conventional views on gender.
The gender binary isn’t questioned, the idea that ‘sex = gender’ is left mostly intact, and the way it’s portrayed even subtly endorses heterosexism (for the logical extreme of this, see Iran). These people are not seen as a threat to the status quo.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with a transgender person who does fulfill all of these criteria. What is wrong is that the considerable diversity amongst transgender people is rarely explored, thus fueling many of the misconceptions that exist about people who are transgender.
Not every black person is on food stamps.
So tired of people that think they’re white knighting for food stamps to ‘the help the black people’. The majority of people on food stamps aren’t black. Please check the census records. Just a quick search on Google found one from 2009:
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Households and Participants—Summary: 2009
White, non-Hispanic… … … … .Number: 10,586, percent: 32.2
Black, non-Hispanic… … … … . .Number: 7,393, percent: 22.5
Turn off the television and do some research away from the boob tube. Fox News isn’t your friend. If people are brainwashed into wiping out nutritional assistance, a whole lotta white folks in Oregon are gonna starve.
Census of Oregon, just in case you don’t know:
White persons, percent, 2011 (a) 88.6% 78.1%
Black persons, percent definition and source info Black persons, percent, 2011 (a) 2.0% 13.1%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent definition and source info American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2011 (a) 1.8% 1.2%
Asian persons, percent definition and source info Asian persons, percent, 2011 (a) 3.9% 5.0%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander persons, percent definition and source info Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander persons, percent, 2011 (a) 0.4% 0.2%
Persons reporting two or more races, percent definition and source info Persons reporting two or more races, percent, 2011 3.4% 2.3%
Persons of Hispanic or Latino Origin, percent definition and source info Persons of Hispanic or Latino Origin, percent, 2011 (b) 12.0% 16.7%
White persons not Hispanic, percent definition and source info White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2011 78.1% 63.4%
And this is data I found in a pinch. If I want to waste more time proving a painfully obvious point, I would but I shouldn’t have to. The easiest way to get the majority of people in this nation, who are white, to go along with the dismantling of this social program is to make it seem as is only black people or most black people are on food stamps. The opposite is true. Politicians only want to cut this federal program to have that money for themselves, not to hurt black people (although they wouldn’t be upset at all if that happened as well, of course). Cutting the funding would hurt more whites than blacks. This is really just some kind of crappy sort of race-baiting and the sad part is, even though the data is out there on the Internet/library as public record, most people will not take the time to research it.
If we let these rich politicians cut our social programs the 1% wins.
Okay, straight white cismale nerd friends.
I get it. We all get it. You, personally, are not a misogynist, homophobe, racist, transphobe, whatever.
But when you read an article about privilege problems in nerd culture and feel the need to talk about how you personally are not a misogynist, homophobe, racist, transphobe, or whatever, it is derailing. It doesn’t add to the conversation and it’s not addressing the the problematic acts or environment. It’s not making anyone think. Worse, it reads like you’re trying to say that the issue is not your problem and you’d prefer that the conversation stop. This is probably not your intent, but what ARE you bringing to the table, if not desired absolution from wrongdoing?
Even if you are not a perpetrator of problematic behavior, helping to raise awareness and bring change to a hostile environment is good work. This isn’t about ‘political correctness’, this is about making nerdy stuff fun for everybody.
Just more of what this world needs: oppression paradigms as applied to otherkin power structures.
Ya’ll, preferring cats over snakes is speciesist and part of the kyriarchy.
Men, it is said, do not express their feelings—or if men do, they do so only with great difficulty. Both women and men believe that men are unemotive and unemotional, that inside men’s tender psyches is a wellspring of feelings, stonewalled and speechless. Men respect and fear other men whose feelings are undisclosed and well defended. Women also respect and fear such men whose feelings lie dormant beneath a permafrost of mastery. And women who live with them implore them privately to emote just a little, begging them to say what they are feeling, begging them to warm. But men do not express their feelings. Or so the story goes.
In fact, throughout history, men as a class have always expressed their feelings, eloquently and extensively: Men have expressed their feelings about women, death, and absent fathers and turned those feelings into religions. Men have expressed their feelings about women, wealth, possession, and territory and turned those feelings into laws and nation-states. Men have expressed their feelings about women, murder, and the masculinity of other men and from those feelings forged battalions and detonable devices. Men have expressed their feelings about women, fucking, and female rage against subjection and formed those feelings into psychiatry. Men have institutionalized their feel ings, so that whether or not a particular man is feeling the feeling at a particular time, the feeling is being expressed through the institutions men have made.
| — | John Stoltenberg, “Men’s Self-Interst and Abortion Rights” in Refusing to be a Man: Essays on Sex & Justice (via darkjez) |
Rape culture is having to read news articles about accusations of rape and sexual assault that use the phrase “sex scandal.”
It’s being told an assault accusation is not a tragedy or a crime, but a “scandal.” It’s having something that has absolutely nothing to do with sex re-branded as a fit of passion or all-consuming lust, so that the kyriarchy can try to make you believe the victims need receive some portion of blame.
Rape culture is being told that something that has everything to do with coercion, power and abuse, is somehow remotely equitable to taking a picture of your genitalia and sending it to someone who isn’t your spouse.
Rape culture is being told that the most vicious and disgusting crime - one that happens every day, often unreported and unfruitful in prosecution - is nothing more than a salacious news story when exposed to the public.
…especially when it’s people who are constantly being told that, such as women. After a while, though, it does get kinda depressing when liberal dudes line up to support women’s rights to wear as little clothing as they like, but then don’t bother to show up to support women’s rights to wear as much clothing as they like (especially when that clothing is burqa-shaped). Their silence is as loud as the angry voices they attempt to separate themselves from.
