I'm a trans man. We don't have a secret agenda – we're just asking you to let us live.
I'm a trans man. We don't have a secret agenda – we're just asking you to let us live.
I didn't have the language growing up to know that I am trans, but I knew I was different. I hope my son never has to face what I did.
I don't know why I was born transgender, but I have no secret agenda. I want my child to live in a world where they are safe and free to be exactly who they are.
…
Fewer than 1 in 3 people report personally knowing someone who is transgender. Yet the American public is saturated with viral social media videos and political news stories, largely generated by a well-funded coalition of organizations long dedicated to making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ+ people to go about their daily lives.
These organizations proudly advocate for the abuse of LGBTQ+ young people through the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy, and they have celebrated their role in influencing Texas to “investigate” parents who’re doing their level best to support their transgender kids.
They’ve succeeded in generating national debates about excluding transgender kids from school sports, banning medically necessary health care and even prohibiting restroom usage – all under a guise of “protecting young people.” But these debates are largely missing the point.
Transgender people are our friends, family members and neighbors. They work in the cubicle next to us at the office, and they pray next to us in our houses of worship.
….
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In a capitalist system money is a weapon. You wonder why gay men have been so successful in shifting attitudes? It's because they have money.
Yet Caitlyn Jenner isn't exactly using her money to help the trans cause... It requires more than just money, there has to be a political movement and adherents to that movement who have the money and other relevant resources to effect change.
Yet Caitlyn Jenner isn’t exactly using her money to help the trans cause
Not disagreeing with that.
Sorry, perhaps I positioned myself as more contradicting what you said when I meant for it to be more like a "yes, and" situation. I agree with your point about money, I was just thinking of all the other factors and got a little too excited XD
No worries. I know I'm stepping into a (rightfully) charged discussion here.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of not just history in general, but specifically and especially queer history.
You know the weapons that got us rights? It was horse archery, the doctrine of special forces, the 20th century incarnation of guerrilla warfare, and fucking bricks thrown very hard at cops by people with nothing to lose. This assimilationist bullshit is going to get people killed, and I might be one if them, so please fucking stop.
Implying money is power isn't urging assimilationism, why are you so quick to accuse them? Money is crucial to funding militant movements, these are not separate tactics.
Historically, queer movements in particular have done without much money. The problem is with what money is and how its kind of opposed to a lot of the virtues of queerness, but that requires I be at least slightly eloquent to explain and I am not right now.
hey no worries, maybe later if you're feeling up for it we can chat more - I'm especially interested in any sources you have about the transfeminine horse archers, I'm having trouble finding anything about it from searching online.
Yes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enaree I think that's it.
so cool, thanks for sharing - I wonder if there was anything more specifically about the use of hormones? Just wondering how that might have been working in ancient contexts (I can only imagine a few ways it might work, such as by trying to isolate hormones from urine and then taking those orally.)
Well, they were horse nomads.
not sure what to take from what you are saying, do you mean they didn't have hormones, or ... that they drank horse urine (like, are you assuming context from the fact Premarin was derived from horses?)
Gah, thought that'd be included in the Wikipedia article, but I remember reading something about them threatening to force-fem one of the asshole green philosophers with whatever it was.
and fucking bricks thrown very hard at cops by people with nothing to lose
I'm in no way discouraging such behavior. But if such acts aren't followed up by financial backing historically they do not succeed.
I'm pretty sure its people with aids physically shackling themselves to pharma execs that hot us prep, not your good-boy points. They literally wouldn't let us spend our good boy points, even those who were personal friends with the president. Not that it would have done much good.
You're telling me if musk, Bezos or gates came out as trans.. what would happen?
You act like there aren't already wealthy trans people.
Not many no.
I'm not sure why you're trying to fight this idea anyway. What makes trans rights immune from the huge influence money has in this country?
So a lot of people think of money as agency, and for a lot of people, in their scope, it sort of functions that way, but it breaks down a bit at the edges, and both edges are pertinent here, because both mechanisms apply and combine to create a big fat fuck you to queer people.
So, an economy is just a system of deciding who does what work and how the fruits of that work are distributed. Doesn't need to have money or authority, but ours use both.
Money is a marker of worth (not necessarily an accurate one, for any definition of worth)as much as or more than a medium of exchange. Most things you buy with money, especially those that aren't explicitly commodities, don't require you to spend money so much as to have it. This is why a sharp outfit, the right accent, and good skin can get you into a ton of shit. In some places its more or less explicit or overlaps with other systems of entitlement, from the evangelical christian prosperity doctrine and credit scores in the american empire, to the concept of 'new money' and noble titles taking up lots of that function on terf island+wales.
Let's start at the lower end. If you have money, but aren't the kind of person who's 'allowed' to have it, money can be a liability. If your societal markers are incongruous, it can make you a target, because youre seen as having done something 'bad' to get it. If a homeless guy walks into your store mumbling to an invisible person next to him and tries to spend a million dollars, even if he has it on him in cash, you're not gonna let him. Even at the lower extreme, you probably need to pay 2k/mo rent because the bank doesn't trust you to pay a 1k/mo mortgage. They don't actually distrust you, it's more a class solidarity thing.
So an undesirable with money may as well just not have it. Its useless, you can't spend it 'legitimately' if you try. Nobody will let you. I've lived this.
At the higher end, you don't actually spend money, and you get it more for things you are than things you do. At that point your worth is not diminished by consuming luxuries, because the luxuries, the whole economy, exist for your benefit, so you don't have to spend money on them. The math is just an excuse, if anyone even bothers to crunch the numbers (its not like you check), its the image and class solidarity that matter.
And that's where queer people (and other minorities) get fucked with moloch's giant granite cocks and endless balls.
See, the wealthy aren't unaccountable to the masses, and they have to keep the people they exploit (because they don't actually make fix or discover anything ever; They get their money for being) from doing a 'red terror' and taking what's theirs. They usually do this with culture war shit, and, at least since the fucking Victorians (the protestant Reformation? Emperor who-gives-a-fuck sacrificing rome's only real virtue on a Christian altar to win a popularity contest?) that means talking shit on us.
And no amount of service to these institutions, real or social, no amount of worthiness, buys exception. That's why I brought up Alan Turing (cut years off world war two, and did so staggeringly much for computer and information science. Caught sucking a dick behind a pub in a sting, fired from everything, put on non consensual hormone therapy, driven to suicide) and Rock Hudson (literally a personal 'friend'1 of the Reagans from their Hollywood days, asked his friend for permission to try an experimental treatment some people thought might work for HIV at... I forget the exact circumstances, but it was at a naval hospital or required a special visa or something, and he was snubbed. It wouldn't have saved him, but reagan didn't know that, and didn't literally wave a hand to try and save his 'friend'¹).
So when you have money, your solidarity tends to be with your class peers, to fit in, and the easiest way to do that is selling out other queers. It supports the whole project of your status-which if you got there, probably matters more to you. Notice how all the rich gender and sexual miniroties (thiel, Jenner, etc) support really awful homophobic transphobic bullshit.
I could point to the work of researchers like Paul piff about why having money makes you a vicious sadistic piece of shit goblin, and they basically never do any good unless they hard defect early and probably die young (shit.) but I'm gonna come at this from the other direction.
When you try to use your status within a system to fight that system (and remember; that's all money is. Money is good boy points. You can claim good boy points for producing 'value', but you're not disagreeing that its good boy points-not immutable physical reality) that system, and point out errors in all the other big moneyed interests, they will choose to recognize you having money as the error.
You will find the more you push, the more your money becomes difficult to spend, or worth less than everyone elses. And then you'll get a facial of solitude, filth, ugliness, ash cans and unobtainable dollars. And maaaybe a trip to wherever america puts its Auschwitz for your good intentions (and gay).
You can argue about life boats, but life boats are not liberation, and your life boat does nothing for my interests, so I might be in the crowd tearing it down out of spite. Plus, if youre already dealing with precarity and huntedness, why not just do crimes? They feel great, go really really well with gay, and let you shoot for real change, aside from all the rules that are supposed to stop that.
Sorry, still a little incoherent and rambling, wrote this from bed, haven't had any stimulants yet. Tell me if it isn't much good and I'll rewrite it when I'm both awake and doing writerly chemistry, instead of just 1/2. If you think there's anything here youre interested in. The topic probably deserves a better effort, but I wanted to spit something out as soon as I was remotely capable.
¹fascist monsters don't have friends, but I'm sure he thought they were friends.
What about Caitlyn Jenner?
Do you feel like Caitlyn Jenner uses her influence to support the trans community?
Absolutely not. My point is that wealthy LGBT people aren't what changed the dialogue. Some of the rich gay men also turned out to be libertarian tech bros who didn't seem to care much for the rest of the community.
I'm just saying wealth isn't a big factor.
I’m just saying wealth isn’t a big factor.
Why? It's a big factor in everything else in this country. What makes trans rights immune from monetary influence?
Campaigns for trans rights, sure. But wealthy people being trans, not so much. I just don't think the latter has a big impact.
We need a cultural zeitgeist like we did for gay marriage, but Republicans are standing in the way of that. They're purposely persecuting trans people so they're less likely to come out -- which in turn increases the number of trans people that the average person knows, and raises pro trans rights sentiment.
It's actually devious on Republicans part, I didn't realize until now. They're trying to prevent what happened with gay rights. Thankfully Democrats aren't having it.
Campaigns for trans rights, sure. But wealthy people being trans, not so much.
Campaigns funded by... who?
Wait wait, what's wrong with assimilating? Isn't that the goal? That being LGBT is so normalized as to be unremarkable?
It's why you don't see "no Irish allowed" signs anymore.
Its why american Irish people are all fucking cops, and people actually from Ireland tend to think they're deeply fucking cringe at best.
Queerness has created a culture worth keeping, a culture of virtues exploration and living off script. Its beautiful. And we cant really be straight anyway; the cultural abyss of heterosexuality is made around controlling and regimenting the straights. We donct canct and honestly fuvking shouldn't fit there. If you want to genocide us, you go ahead and start with yourself.
And fuck the term "lgbt", such neoliberal exclusionary positivist bullshit.
Jesus you're just angry at everything huh
Queerness has created a culture worth keeping
You think the American Irish lost their culture by assimilating?
You can't be serious.
About what? Money being a weapon in a capitalist system?
That it's the reason gay men changed minds or something?
Minds shifted long before those in power did.
It was a bit of a cultural zeitgeist in the 2010s. A lot happened with popular culture being more pro LGBT, and that translated into more people becoming LGBT.
It makes sense. When more people are comfortable to come out of the closet, more people end up knowing gay people. And that leads to people realizing gay people are no different from everyone else, which leads to pro LGBT beliefs.
What I find fascinating is that we're seeing what the natural distribution of sexuality is for people. Based on Gen Z it looks like it's much higher towards bi and gay than we previously thought.
The first hormone treatment for trans women, that we know of, is from nomadic horse archers. The terror of the Eurasian steppe. We don't own it, but we were there.
The first use of special forces and high autonomy fire teams was not in world war one, it was the sacred band of Thebes, who were institutionally and officially fucking each other. No straights allowed. These guys, only like 200 of them in service at a time, absolutely changed the face of ancient warfare.
T.E Lawrence, the guy the offensive 'subby bdsm obsessed gay man who's too kinky to torture' stereotype was based on, invented the modern doctrine of guerilla warfare that firmly kicked the ottoman empire in the dick with basically no resources, then was used to successfully crush the most extravagantly bloated military that has ever existed not once but twice over the next century.
But sure. Begging, and having a big armful of tickets after the counter closes down, is our strength. Ask all the old German fops how that went for them. Hell, ask rock Hudson or Alan Turing; I'll wait.
Nevermind the history of queer militancy in the western world. The people who got us our 'rights' birthed them out the barrel of a gun onto the counter of a dive bar in a fucking condemned building, and that gun was pointed at a cop, maybe supplied by somebody's panther bf/gf.
But sure. Begging is our strength
I would never suggest anyone beg for their right to live. I have no idea how you got that idea from what I said.
Money is begging. Its saying how much of a good boy you are. It will not save you, even if youre lucky enough to have it, even if the effects of widespread disinheritance and bigotry didn't mean we statistically have less of it.
Money is begging
I'm not disagreeing with you but I'm having a really hard time grasping this perspective when literally nobody would consider gates, Bezos or musk to be "beggars".
Oh, so you think peter thiel will save us?
I think farther discussion here requires an explanation of what money fundamentally is that I'm far too high on all the wrong drugs to give eloquently, and I think you might have strong motivations to not hear anyway.
Bruh.
Edited this while you were responding, but:
I think farther discussion here requires an explanation of what money fundamentally is that I’m far too high on all the wrong drugs to give eloquently, and I think you might have strong motivations to not hear anyway.
I don't think you tjinkmoney will save us though, I think you're desperate to feel, for whatever possibly very sympathetic (possibly not)reason, to believe it will save you. I'm telling you it wont, but if you want me to explain, ask again when ive had sleep and/or different drugs.