This has been a bad week for trans-butches like me and my friends.
A few days ago, right-wing groups and a psychiatrist warned American families not to watch a trangendered man, Chaz Bono, dance on TV. They say children will be confused by Chaz Bono.
But the children are already confused. A 14 year old young white boy, Brandon, had taken a gun to school and killed classmate Larry, a mixed race boy, aged 15—with a gun he got from Dad. The case ended in a mistrial a few days ago.
The reason: Larry dressed in girl’s clothes.
Chaz dresses in boy’s clothes.
Do conservative parents realize that by stigmatizing queer kids they give permission to their kids to bully and kill—the queer, the mixed race, the effeminate, the butch, the Other?
I’m a cross-dressing butch that has managed to stay alive long enough to write this. No easy trick, since I’ve been assaulted by straight white men several times in my life — for wearing the wrong clothes.
Now Chaz is brave enough to be on TV. Larry is dead. And Brandon may face a retrial and get 50 years — tried as an adult for premeditated murder. The lives of these young people and their famous and not-so-famous family and friends will be forever changed, mostly for the worse, because children hate other children who don’t wear the right clothes.
I wonder who’s really teaching such “values” to their children?
I wear the wrong clothes.
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6 comments:
As far as I can see, you are wearing exactly the clothes you should be!!!
I thought that you were a Female Identified Butch, not trans....my biggest problem with Chaz(who in my opinion before transitioning was never Butch to begin with), is advocating for children to have their hormones blocked at a young age, and then have hormones to transition to the other sex at age 16, infecting a whole new generation with the whole trans agenda, RATHER than fully accepting themselves as the young boys/girls they are: hardcore tomboys like myself, like the one in the pool with Chaz, would be told instead 'that you really are male and can be a dude too', rather than to struggle as I did, with the budding of the Feminist movement in 1969, that 'you can be anything you want to be as a woman/female', which means ALSO wearing the clothes that make you or myself most comfortable. Any clothes on a woman are by rights, 'women's clothes', and I ONLY shop in the men's section/stores anymore these days, so completely crossdressing, and yet, as a Butch Dyke, I'm still ALL FEMALE and REFUSE to be pushed to the fringes of womonhood, as has been done to us for eons!
Now I see that you're putting out an entirely different message, sadly. No, NOBODY should be killed around any of this, but when I look at Chaz I see basically a Butch without breasts, the way Chaz dresses...but it's in the way Chaz acts that is so male and reprehensible to me, yes I saw that documentary, and I couldn't stand how Chaz treats his girlfriend just like any prick in the kitchen, and screams and yells at her on and on...how embarassing to have millions watch that whole dramarama. There is nothing 'brave' about Chaz, only a desire to conform and gain male privilege, because Chaz could not be Butch as a Dyke and as a Female, but now Chaz can be...and be just as pricky and assholish as any bio male, and just as sexist!
-M.A.
MasterAmazon - thank you for all your comments on my blog. Yes, I am most proudly and thoroughly a womyn-identified butch dyke. I use the terms "trans butch" in the Dr. Judith 'Jack' Halberstam sense--meaning I've been walking between the genders all my life...in transition...a woman in bois clothing.
No changes in my body, no desire to join the male gender. I believe we need to stick to our feminist principles but also widen our lens to recognize that our daughters are growing up in a world where their paradigms, identities, and core issues are so different from us who came of age at the birth of the women's movement. Clearer?
MasterAmazon-I think the reprehensible thing is insisting that you are better able to determine someone's gender identity than the person himself. Chaz Bono is not a woman without breasts, he is a man. It is not up to you to identify for him. And yes, he is sexist, but not because he is a man. Male does not automatically equate to misogynist, nor does masculinity.
I think we can recognize and condemn an individual's misogyny while still opposing intolerance and hatred that leads to the type of violence Jeanne describes. I do not like Chaz Bono. But even more so I dislike bigots who insist that Bono's appearance on a silly reality show will somehow damage children.
Sexism is sexism, and now that Chaz identifies as 'male'(not all of us don't have to buy that surgeries and hormones do anything more than induce secondary sexual characteristics, but the hormones DO change personality), he has completely identified with the WORST of male sexist behavior, and YES sexism comes from men and is foisted on ALL women. Don't smoke screen the issue 'owning'. It all is a matter of degree, even the most so called 'feminist oriented' man or soft gay man, has sexism within him to one extent or another, and certainly more privilege. It is Chaz's attempt to use his new found privilege as well as his well off background against his girlfriend that is exceedingly sexist.
And you haven't addressed, like so many others, unto the next generation of the trans cult insanity foisted upon children who don't yet know who they are and herded into categories with hormones, surgeries and psychiatrists because they dont' fit into heterosexist gender roles appropiate for males or females. NOT the liberation from those roles as Feminism has promised for ALL Females originally, and even for effeminate boys/men.
Jeanne, I challenge you personally as a Butch Dyke Feminist, and still have great respect for you, that I don't buy Judith Halberstam's queer theories, and almost ALL Butches I know, myself included have been women in men's or boys' clothing, and absolutely censured for it, and put outside womonhood as a result, or shamed horribly if we don't consent to feminization, especially forced upon us to either get a job or in childhood. I can't tell you how many arguements I had with my family when they tried to put me in dresses and skirts, this is VERY MUCH part of the Butch Dyke, and Female Proud Butch Dyke experience as well as others, to resist just that type of feminization. But, we're still All womon, and all Female despite others trying to take away our womonhood and/or Femaleness and state 'you just want to be a man'. I hope you reconsider this stance, because you would have so many Female Proud/Female Identified Butches behind you. And as you know, Butchness goes far beyond clothes...it's all about who we are inside and the way we walk in the world, and our OWN unique brand of Femaleness, which is often denied by others.
-In Female PRoud Butch Dyke Sisterhood,
-FeistyAmazon
I just get so tired of those who constantly state that if you're butch, you're automatically 'trans' of some variety. I DON'T BUY IT, and neither do MANY Female Proud/Female Identified Butches, rather we are another aspect of Femaleness/womonhood. And there is less and less space for us to just be ourselves without that pressure to identify as more male, transbutch, transmasculine, genderqueer, male, FTM ect. in other words MALE, rather than FEMALE, and outside of womonhood rather than within it. AND that, is in many of our opinions decidely anti-feminist. There are those too who are detransitioning as well, and wanting to once again claim their dyke and/or female identities again, and terribly shamed by the trans movement for doing so.
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