By Joe Palmer
Cisgender. Trans ally. Entitled. Privileged. Ableist. CAFAB. CAMAB. FAAB. MAAB. These and other words and phrases were brought to the forefront for me recently when a person contacted me to express their dismay and anger regarding Glamazonia, the use of the word “tranny” in the title, and the positive review I gave the work. From this person’s point of view there was a choice of one of three options for me to do. One was to remove the review. Another was for me to give it a negative rating, and the last was to include a trigger warning.
Neither of these options were ones that I could act on. The first was censorship, which I don’t believe in. The second required that I lie about my opinion of Hall’s work. And I don’t believe in the use of trigger warnings. As an alternative, I offered the idea to this person of writing an opinion piece in response to the character and Hall’s use of the word in question to which the review would link. I also offered, which I did, to make Hall aware of this person’s thoughts and comments. As best I can tell, my suggestion was ignored in the subsequent reply which also contained a link for Hall to a blog post in which the author discussed the hurt and damage of “cisgender intent”. As I passed that along to him I began to wonder if this was a situation in which I’d be stuck in the middle, which reminded me of the dysfunctional way my parents and family members have long communicated. In turn I informed this person that I couldn’t comply with any of their suggestions and their reply was to inform all the people they know of this.
Should I have engaged in emails more with this person? Perhaps. Should I have been less terse? Yes, though I believe no amount of word dress up would alter their opinion, which wasn’t a goal on my part. Do I believe for this person that the word in question creates or reminds of some traumatic experience? I do and I also know that to say hurting anyone was and is not my intent will be considered by this person and possibly you reading this now as an example of cisgender intent and privilege. I am sorry they were hurt, hurt by the word, by the meaning and ugliness and violence attached to it by meanspirited people in the cis world aimed at them and others. And to clarify, my references to this person in gender/ name unspecific terms is not an attempt to dehumanize them. I simply do not know how they identify and present themselves.
Words and symbols which have horrible, painful meanings can be reclaimed, though the effort is not always successful. The pink triangle, part of a whole coding system for undesirables, was a symbol to mark homosexuals in Nazi Germany and occupied countries. It was taken back. There was a time when the word fag was used by some gay men to describe themselves. Howard Cruse put the word in his characters’ mouths in his Wendel comic strip in the 1980s. The word is widely considered to be a slur now and is off limits. Is a cisgendered person allowed to help reclaim this word from being a slur? The answer will depend on your point of view and perhaps the person, and in this instance, the work in question.
So this feels like a rock and a hard place situation in which, on one hand, I think Hall’s work is good and understand that he’s had interactions and relationships with variously self-identifying people in the San Francisco Trans community — two out trans creators contributed their work to this book — and alienating and hurting one person in particular and likely others. And even this smacks of ableism, entitlement, and cisgender intent.
Below is a verbatim copy of an afterward by Hall from his book. Would this have made any differnce to have originally included it my review?
“About the word ‘tranny…’
The word is a tricky one.
From the mouths of bigots and assholes, it’s undeniably a hate word. Even coming from well-meanin folk, it can be clumsy and insensitiv. And yet, as with the word ‘queer’,it’s been reclaimed by many as a term of empowerment and humor.
Where I come from, the queer underground of San Francisco, ‘tranny’ is used by everyone from trans women and trans men to third genders, cross-dressers, drag queens, drag kings, faux queens, and other gender queers and gender radicals. The Uncanny Super-Tranny is meant to stand alongside such creations as the Tranny Film Fest, Tranny Road Show, Tranny Fag Health Project and Trannyshack.
Glamazonia the Uncanny Super-Tranny is intended as a work of (at times sarcastic) humor, and ultimately a celebration of the compokex, wondeful, and fascinating mosiac of queer identities and expressions.”
Tags: bisexual, cisgender, gay, lesbian, LGBT, transgender, transsexual
I really appreciate this post, Joe! Although it is near impossible to use language, especially humor without hurting or offending people, it is good to take a step back every once in a while and see how our language works in the larger world.
I’ve lived in SF and think there is simply more awareness there around how our language works, and in this sort of safe space of a city words can be reclaimed and used… but when we step back (again) and see how our words echo in the larger world, we see that the rest of the world isn’t as safe.
On the flipside, you can’t take on responsibility for complete strangers’ baggage or issues. I think you entered into dialog, and are now opening it up to the world. None of us can be perfect but if we recognize our faults, this is the greatest step we can take.
Sabin,
Thank you for taking time to post and share your thoughts with me. Your comment about language and words working differently in different spaces, even spaces as large as a city or a community within a large city, is very insightful. Yesterday I came across a couple new sources that gave me information new to me to consider and incorporate.
Joe