I hate the whole ‘the group that experiences the oppression can not reproduce it’ mode of thinking. Ya know, the ‘women can’t be sexist’, ‘trans people can’t be transphobic’ bullshit. Like, the idea behind it is that since trans people do not have the kind of privilege that cis people have, they have ‘no social power to oppress others’ and therefor any ‘internalized’ transphobia that they act on has no consequences.
But like,
- trans people can have many other kinds of social power as white, rich, abled, educated, etc people. Trans people have less power because they are trans, but they can still have power and that influences what their opinions can do.
- trans people can have systematic power like the power to employ or fire someone, give someone a loan or not,impact politics, etc.
- most importantly: cisgender society specifically rewards transphobia by trans people and destributed their words as support of transphobic opinions. These transphobic opinions consequently have more weight because cis people can quote trans people saying them.
The most common example I’ve seen is Blaire White, a transgender youtuber who broadcasts some extremely transphobic and sexist opinions interlaced with fascist rhetoric and code words and is all around horrible. Blaire White is extremely transphobic but whenever point this out some annoying cis dipshit will go ‘but
Blaire White is transgender’ as if her transgender status changes the extremely transphobic nature of her words. If anything, her words are more harmful because they can be used by cis people as ‘but a trans person said it’ defences. Do they come from a place of self-hatred and pain? Probably. But there comes a point where we can not allow someone to be so so harmful without calling their shit what it is: transphobia.
(By the way: I am not going to start a debate about Blaire White in the notes below this post, I have had enough debates about her for the rest of my life and if you act shitty and try to bait me into a debate about her you will just get blocked.)
So yeah, I am all for being more gentle with each other when we encounter internalized transphobia in our own communities because we know that it comes from a place of self-hate and pain, but let’s not forget that it is still transphobia. It still hurts people. It often hurts more coming from another trans person. Just because something is ‘internalized’ does not mean it is harmless or that we are not responsible for what we do with it.
If you’re trans and transphobic, it has consequences. When cis people start using your words to defend their transphobia, it has more consequences. When they offer you social rewards in exchange for uttering more of what they want to hear, you’re a collaborator. Being transgender does not get you a ‘get out of being called transphobia free’ card, at all.
I totally agree, I would just add – in this complexity of intersectionality we are all trying to embrace -, that the fact that all kinds of oppressed people can reproduce their own oppressive behaviors can also be used as a way to deny oneself “oppressed agency” (defining oneself oppression and dealing with it). For example when white feminist deny black men’s agency to talk about their oppression as black folks because they are men. Or the way TERFs deny trans reality so as to deny both their oppressive situation and agency. Same with SWERFs and sex workers, etc, etc.
I would also add that this particular kind of oppressive behavior is often linked to class privilege in my experience. Which is to say most people I’ve met who deny other folks oppressions and agency were class privileged and educated.
Truuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeee. The most common thing I have seen (often white and abled) trans people do is a state that “all people that are not trans have the same cisgender privilege” in a way that denies not only gender nonconforming people but also, silences and ignores the experiences of disabled people who are often degendered as they are dehumanized and of people of color who experience that their genders are always considered deviant by default because the gender norms of men and women are white gender norms.
QueerAnarchism 