Posts Tagged: Transphobia
Menstrual Transphobia: Women Aren’t the Only Ones with Periods
Increased awareness and support against period poverty and stigma in recent years is liberating periods — but not for trans individuals. As we enter a new era of feminist history, the menstrual movement (the movement to increase access to period products and combat the harmful stigma surrounding periods) has gained a lot of attention. Since the movement is crucial for the advancement of gender equity, activists and supporters have fervently advocated for policy changes (requiring free period products in public facilities/schools, removing the Tampon Tax, and allowing better access to affordable healthcare just to name a few) and created community resources to ensure that no person has to live in period poverty or with stigma. Despite the rise in interest and discourse around the subject, inclusive language remains a struggle,… Read more »
Easter in Texas: Resurrected Bathroom Bill Now A Sickening Zombie
Part-time Texas Governor and full time conniving Slytherin, Greg Abbott, announced his encouragement of Texas House Bill 2899, which bars transgender individuals from using the bathroom consistent with their gender and overturns any anti-discrimination ordinances passed by Texas localities. HB 2899 is the evil spawn of Texas Senate Bill 6, which had similar aims but is being held up by Speaker of the House Joe Strauss, who is taking his sweet time (probably intentionally) to assign the bill to a committee. Without a committee assignment, the bill has lost traction. This stall apparently concerned hateful lawmakers, who seem hell bent on passing any type of trans-discriminatory legislation before the Texas session is over in May. So how bad is this resurrected bathroom bill? IT’S TERRIBLE! UGLY! NO GOOD! Brainless, decayed and… Read more »
Too Little Too Late, America: The Milo Yiannopoulos Edition
The alt-right poster boy from our nightmares, Milo Yiannopoulos, has been dominating the news for the past few days. Writer at Breitbart News, speaker at universities, and personified air horn, Yiannopoulos has become an online celebrity in recent years, and is experiencing a fall of epic proportions. From his early career as a troll on Twitter and outspoken opponent of the political and social left, he has recently filled his time with outing trans students, inciting passionate protests at his venues, and — most terrifyingly — condoning pedophilia. However, this article is not going to talk about Yiannopoulos. While I could rant about his words and his actions, how they reflect on the larger American social sphere and how they show us the steadily growing bigotry of the country, this article… Read more »
The Pussy March, or the Women’s March?
This year has really shown me the power of the white woman. In a matter of months, they have accomplished some very… interesting things: 1. 53% elected a white supremacist for president 2. cute, nifty DIY safety pins to “show solidarity” (thanks Pinterest!) 3. an endless supply of Tomi Lahren look alikes Unfortunately, in spite of all of this burgeoning creativity, they have been unable to part with their trans-exclusionary (TERF) ways. As demonstrated by the Women’s March, if you want white women to show up and show out, the issue must be malleable enough to make it about them. If it can’t be made about white women’s genitals (and believe me, they will try), they won’t care about it. Following Trump’s well-populated inauguration, thousands of people took to the… Read more »
Slurs Ain’t Cute
The first time I had ever heard the phrase “bitch” I was no older than seven years old. It was a rainy day in Michigan and my mom refused to let a white man over into our lane while driving. This infuriated him, and caused him to roll down his window. Along with a racial slur, the man leaned out of his car and the veins in his neck popped as he called my beautiful and beloved mother, a bitch. Tears formed in her eyes as she rolled up her window quickly, looked at me sternly, and said “Kristina. You are to NEVER repeat those words that you just heard.” The first time I was ever actually called a bitch was in 7th grade math class. After declining to date a… Read more »
Gender and Campus Carry
As mentioned in my last blog post, Campus Carry is going to be implemented in public universities across the state of Texas starting August 1st of this year. I’m trying to explore the intersects of this law and the way that different identities (other than the usual, straight, cis-gender, white male) will potentially be affected by this law. I explored the way that race and ethnicity affects who participates in Campus Carry and who feels safe with it implemented. This time, I want to discuss the way gender may play a part in the implementation of this law. I believe it’s safe to assume that the majority of students who are planning on participating in Campus Carry are men (most likely white men) for two reasons. The first of which… Read more »
Houston Fails to Be a “HERO” for Trans Community
This week the city of Houston had the opportunity to make history in the Civil Rights movement with the HERO ordinance. The city failed to make these important strides forward with a 61 percent to 39 percent vote. The HERO Act stands for the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance and it would have prohibited discrimination in public restrooms, thus allowing trans-people to use restrooms they are comfortable with based on their gender identity. I think it’s safe to say the failure behind this failed ordinance is rooted in transphobia. Opponents of the ordinance said it made women more vulnerable to predators and former Houston Astros player Lance Berkman said transgender women are troubled men in a radio ad. This negative attitude and ignorance toward the trans community is what causes crucial… Read more »
Transphobia in Hollywood: Trans Stories Without Trans Actors
With the upcoming debut of the new movie About Ray where another non-trans actor, in this case Elle Fanning, plays a trans character, I believe it is relevant to discuss trans exclusion in Hollywood. We see this time and time again, cisgender actors being hired to play trans characters. Buzzfeed has an article citing 21 different instances of this dating all the way back to 1975. Some may argue that this is at least bringing light to the trans community, which may be true; but it isn’t okay that they are taking valuable opportunities from an already marginalized group. However, as Mari Brighe of Autostraddle argues, the repetition of Hollywood’s choice of actors shows more than meets the eye. Hollywood is clearly sitting up and taking notice of the increased attention being paid… Read more »
