TW: transphobia, rape mention, murder mention
Despite not identifying as ace anymore, I still have an account on Aven. And there's been a debate on the Hot Box of said site about otherkin and whether they should be treated as validly as "transgenders" are (if you can't tell, the thread mostly had cis people in it and they're usually the ones advocating for otherkin).
So trans people are treated as valid, apparently????? There's no conversion therapy, no job discrimination, nobody staring at our bodies or fleeing in fear when we're in public facilities, no kids being kicked out of their homes or harassed at school, no corrective rape, no trans women of color being murdered basically every goddamn week? I might have a life expectancy of eightysomething instead of around 40??? Like, holy fuck. I had no idea. Why didn't someone tell me, so I could cash in on this sudden wealth of privilege I have?!
Really though, I have no problem with the otherkin and therian communities as a whole. I believe in reincarnation and the multiverse theory, if only as possibilities that I have never been given conclusive proof are incorrect. So sure, if that's how being otherkin works...it could be possible for them to actually exist.
My issue comes when they (especially the cis ones) consider kin/therian/fictive identity an axis of oppression or compare themselves to trans people. The ONLY experience comparable to being transgender (except possibly being intersex or gender nonconforming) is being transgender, and to imply otherwise is transphobic.
Yes, even if you're trans. I don't consent to having my gender compared to being otherkin. Nor do I consent to having my gender compared to a white woman wearing blackface or an abled person identifying as "transabled". Neither does most of the trans community, as far as I know. Comparing our identities, without our consent, to those of ableist, racist transphobes is...well, ableist, racist, and transphobic.
I was peacefully reading through the thread, rolling my eyes at the ignorance surrounding trans identity and the usage of the words "transgendered" and "transgenders", when I came across a comment from a cis man that actually ate away at my patience a little. Blah blah blah how can trans people complain about being misgendered when they do the exact same thing to otherkin...
And the minute I pointed out why this was transphobic without censoring my anger like a good little freak, every cis person on the goddamn thread lost their shit. Cissplaining, whining, feeling entitled to an opinion on transphobia, telling me there wasn't anything transphobic in the comment even after I fucking re-analyzed it for them. At one point someone reported me to the admins and one of them came in and helpfully advised that we "not make personal attacks". Really? When a trans person tells you, a cis person, that you're being transphobic, your first response should not be to run to mommy and daddy crying about how the meanie transgender called you a name.
Something else that pissed me off was that there was just so much cis privilege and such a double standard in this comment. Cis people, especially cis men, have the luxury of being as nasty and awful as they damn well please and still never being misgendered for it. Trans people can't do that. Our genders, according to cis people, are something they grant to us - if we earn it. Namely by kissing their collective ass and being white, abled, thin, and conventionally attractive according white cis norms.
Don't tell me that this is just the internet. I KNOW it's the internet.
I also know that the internet is where the privileged feel free to express views they know feminists won't let them get away with in real life. It's where cis men sexualize and slut shame teenage girls and rail against Planned Parenthood and feminism with barely any consequence but cis women and trans people are called transphobic and sexist slurs if we fight back, where white people commiserate about affirmative action and immigrants stealing our resources without fear of retribution from the big scary black people, where cishets whine about how LGBTQ people are just too offended by homophobia and transphobia, where Nicki Minaj and Beyonce are shamed for showing off their bodies but Miley Cyrus is praised for doing the same thing with hers, and where "autism moms" complain together about how fucking hard it is to be a class-privileged allistic white cishet woman with a disabled kid.
The things cis people say about trans people on the internet are the things they think about us in real life. And as much as I don't want to care, as much as I'd like to believe that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about people like me, I know it does.
Trans people aren't the legislators who have the power to change my life and sign away my rights with just one document, or the administrators who prevent trans teenagers from learning about our cultural history in school, or the ones correctively raping us, or the ones who care more about their petty feelings than about our physical safety.
Trans people aren't the ones not caring about trans lives until they're just a hashtag on that same internet that has the power to make so much change.
Despite not identifying as ace anymore, I still have an account on Aven. And there's been a debate on the Hot Box of said site about otherkin and whether they should be treated as validly as "transgenders" are (if you can't tell, the thread mostly had cis people in it and they're usually the ones advocating for otherkin).
So trans people are treated as valid, apparently????? There's no conversion therapy, no job discrimination, nobody staring at our bodies or fleeing in fear when we're in public facilities, no kids being kicked out of their homes or harassed at school, no corrective rape, no trans women of color being murdered basically every goddamn week? I might have a life expectancy of eightysomething instead of around 40??? Like, holy fuck. I had no idea. Why didn't someone tell me, so I could cash in on this sudden wealth of privilege I have?!
Really though, I have no problem with the otherkin and therian communities as a whole. I believe in reincarnation and the multiverse theory, if only as possibilities that I have never been given conclusive proof are incorrect. So sure, if that's how being otherkin works...it could be possible for them to actually exist.
My issue comes when they (especially the cis ones) consider kin/therian/fictive identity an axis of oppression or compare themselves to trans people. The ONLY experience comparable to being transgender (except possibly being intersex or gender nonconforming) is being transgender, and to imply otherwise is transphobic.
Yes, even if you're trans. I don't consent to having my gender compared to being otherkin. Nor do I consent to having my gender compared to a white woman wearing blackface or an abled person identifying as "transabled". Neither does most of the trans community, as far as I know. Comparing our identities, without our consent, to those of ableist, racist transphobes is...well, ableist, racist, and transphobic.
I was peacefully reading through the thread, rolling my eyes at the ignorance surrounding trans identity and the usage of the words "transgendered" and "transgenders", when I came across a comment from a cis man that actually ate away at my patience a little. Blah blah blah how can trans people complain about being misgendered when they do the exact same thing to otherkin...
And the minute I pointed out why this was transphobic without censoring my anger like a good little freak, every cis person on the goddamn thread lost their shit. Cissplaining, whining, feeling entitled to an opinion on transphobia, telling me there wasn't anything transphobic in the comment even after I fucking re-analyzed it for them. At one point someone reported me to the admins and one of them came in and helpfully advised that we "not make personal attacks". Really? When a trans person tells you, a cis person, that you're being transphobic, your first response should not be to run to mommy and daddy crying about how the meanie transgender called you a name.
Something else that pissed me off was that there was just so much cis privilege and such a double standard in this comment. Cis people, especially cis men, have the luxury of being as nasty and awful as they damn well please and still never being misgendered for it. Trans people can't do that. Our genders, according to cis people, are something they grant to us - if we earn it. Namely by kissing their collective ass and being white, abled, thin, and conventionally attractive according white cis norms.
Don't tell me that this is just the internet. I KNOW it's the internet.
I also know that the internet is where the privileged feel free to express views they know feminists won't let them get away with in real life. It's where cis men sexualize and slut shame teenage girls and rail against Planned Parenthood and feminism with barely any consequence but cis women and trans people are called transphobic and sexist slurs if we fight back, where white people commiserate about affirmative action and immigrants stealing our resources without fear of retribution from the big scary black people, where cishets whine about how LGBTQ people are just too offended by homophobia and transphobia, where Nicki Minaj and Beyonce are shamed for showing off their bodies but Miley Cyrus is praised for doing the same thing with hers, and where "autism moms" complain together about how fucking hard it is to be a class-privileged allistic white cishet woman with a disabled kid.
The things cis people say about trans people on the internet are the things they think about us in real life. And as much as I don't want to care, as much as I'd like to believe that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about people like me, I know it does.
Trans people aren't the legislators who have the power to change my life and sign away my rights with just one document, or the administrators who prevent trans teenagers from learning about our cultural history in school, or the ones correctively raping us, or the ones who care more about their petty feelings than about our physical safety.
Trans people aren't the ones not caring about trans lives until they're just a hashtag on that same internet that has the power to make so much change.
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