9tailedflame said:
It's a lot to ignore, sure, but let me ask you this. What happens if/when transgendered people get more accepted into society? If more closeted transgendered people feel comfortable enough to reject conformity and be who they are?
That's a pretty big "if" on a lot of levels. But I think the most cromulent point is that we've gone from "how can I know?" to talking about the future. The issue of reasonable assurance and of context relies on the past and present. We can't really guess the context of a future we ascertain. Fair enough if you want to talk about the future, but this is a fair departure from the current line of reasoning.
Will you still so adamantly defend anti-cis philosophies?
We're not talking about anti-cis philosophies, though. We're talking about things which I suspect have, as they usually are, been greatly blown out of proportion. We're talking about that which has been explained to you as the outcropping of frustration and anger and fear and pain.
Neither are we talking about defense so much as understanding. You feel threatened by what seems completely unreasonable put in any perspective.
Once upon a time, no african americans ever dared speak out of turn to a white man, but now, it would not be unwise for a white person to choose their words carefully in an environment where they were the only white person.
It was something you wouldn't want to do any time post-emancipation, really. But I think this sort of downplays the level of treatment black people get and by extension of the comparison, trans people both past and present. Black people still need to watch themselves around white people unless in very specific situations. A white person can still shoot a black person and claim he felt threatened and society will rush to his aid. Black people still have issues with employment and equal treatment. I absolutely get why a black person might still want to vent about white people and I have listened to this before without complaining that I felt threatened or that my feelings were hurt.
I will never know what it's like to be black, and that ,may not be a bad thing. I'm already a minority like six times over. Scott Thompson once said "if I were raised in the ghetto, I'd be ripping off whitey and forgetting the capital of Maine, too." It's glib, sure, but there's a massive amount of frustration associated with being a group that's constantly shit on. It's worse when people insist on being outraged at even the most imagined of slights. Like when Paragon compares "cis" to "******" because he ostensibly heard someone use it negatively (which he has transformed into us poisoning it).
We live in a reality fifty years post-MLK where people still pitch a fit because Chris Rock dares to address white privilege, or where Blackish is enough to cause a white tizzy. Which brings me to the next thing:
This is a good thing, the point i'm trying to make is things change with time, and eventually we'll be in the future, and if things do get better for trans people, then one of two things happen. Either you reject this hate-accepting philosophy, and you hold everyone to an equal standard, or you hold on to your philosophy that hostility towards cis people is perfectly fine.
It is immensely frustrating to have a philosophy thrust upon me by someone who has not only lived my life, but is unlikely to have shared the experiences that would have led to the formation of such a philosophy. No, my "philosophy" was not "hate-accepting," and I'm honestly taken aback that you would offer up such a strawman. I have made every effort to be frank and open and honest with you, and that sort of response is really disheartening. I considered not replying, but I said I would. So here I am.
My "philosophy" has nothing to do with accepting hate. I have nowhere in this thread called hate acceptable. The question you asked, how you could tell the difference, was met with a fairly straightforward response: context. The whole thrust here was that it's not hate. It's not dangerous. That you're comparing apples to oranges.
because there's a third option (more, really, but I'll just focus my efforts here): I don't live to see your hypothetical new world.
I have endured some pretty severe trauma in my life. Physical trauma, bullying, harassment, and this all led to a fairly self destructive streak. The damage that a transphobic society did to me is pretty severe, as is the damage I've done to myself. This is excluding external damage. The police still don't tend to investigate trans hate crimes or deaths unless there's pressure or an open and shut case. But I could be dead tomorrow or in ten years and never see an environment where trans people are even remotely accepted.
That's how good transfolk have it.
Do you have an idea what it's like to live under that sort of scenario? I'm part of a minority that's .3% of the US population at the most liberal polling I've seen. I'm in a minority everywhere. I have to watch my ass everywhere. I have to watch my words everywhere. And yeah, I bite my tongue because I don't want to upset the cisgender folks, both because of how fickle they can be as allies and because of how threatening they can be. I don't hate cisgender people, but I do fear a good chunk of them. And you don't know how they're going to react until after the fact. Someone I chat with on here described it as a "reverse lottery," a "chance to lose big." It's worse though, because even if the hateful assholes are the minority, the inertia of the rest of the body, the apathy, the casual transphobia continues to allow it to happen. This is so pervasive I flinch away from telling my own friends when they make me uncomfortable.
Do you know what that's like? Do you really fear for your life when you get called "cis?" Do you fear your gender identity will leave you dead or raped? Do you know that if that happens, the police are unlikely to do anything? Do you know what it's like to hide behind humour because you are utterly terrified that a group of trans people might practically beat the life out of you?
I try and keep things light and fluffy and use self-depricating humour because the reality is I want to scream constantly and this is the only way I know how to cope. And worse, I'm expected to be that way. I'm the one who has to defuse situations. Because as you've already been told, we have to be perfect. I don't have the luxury of getting angry or upset or showing my frustration, because that becomes "hostility" to a general public that treats us like shit. I want to know what about being cisgender carries with it that baggage.
But the sort of change you're asking about takes generations. Even if I don't get murdered because the .3% of the population I belong to is so terrifying that so many cisfolk feel we shouldn't even exist, I'm unlikely to be around to endorse or condemn any actions.
At the same time, the population could increase an order of magnitude and we wouldn't be sufficent to form a practical threat. Unless we make our own Israel-like nation. I'd suggest Transylvania as a name, but I hear it's taken.
But if you're going to sit back and take umbrage and call frustration "hate," what is even the point? Een as it's explained to you that it's not, you have decided that my philosophy is anti-cis and accept hostility.
This idea that "hostility begets hostility" is great, except it's a one-way street. Transfolk are expected to deal with cis hostility in stride. When cis hostility begets hostility, it's ammunition. It sounds very "it takes two to tango," except we're talking about disproportionate elements. Acting as though we should take equal burden for being shit on is like asking a kid to accept half the blame for being bullied. You know what we do to get hostility?
We exist.
If hostility is the understandable reaction to hostility, why is it even a problem if you get trans people who actually do say "die cis scum?" You've set up an environment where not only is this okay, but it's apparently encumbent upon only us to stop it. Except even when we take hostility and violence in stride, it doesn't go away.
Hell, I'm not even black and I take issue with your black comparisons. Racism's not over, black people aren't safe, and yet there's this "no harm, no foul" attitude from totally not racist white people. "Racism is over" is the sort of thing white people tell themselves to sleep better at night. It's not a lived reality for blacks in this country. Or hispanics or Arabs, or....
Black still have every justification for being angry and frustrated. And speaking only for myself, as a white person, I'd feel like a total asshole if I started taking umbrage because a group that's treated like crap got frustrated or mad or upset.
That is my question to you.
A question you can't have seriously expected me to answer.
