Who are you? How did you happen, and why haven’t I?
All trans men are potential gender theorists.
On “Tranny”
My first Aidan was an undergraduate at Mills college sometime around the turn of the century. He was as angry and articulate as the entire generation of Theory-happy trans boys he heralded, and I was his paralytically indecisive teenage genderfucked fangirl. He tossed around the word “tranny” with carefree abandon, and even had this hilarious series of adbuster-style parodies called “spokestranny”. I adored him for it.
That was my first exposure to the word - not spoken at me in anger or branded across a porno DVD cover, but as a reclaimed word. It doesn’t even make sense to me as a slur. It has all the wrong phonetic structure to be spat out like a hard-consonant word-dagger. It sounds cute. Teasing, but friendly. “Tranny”. “Meanie”.
But it still bites people, and I guess our community has decided that the people who reclaimed it had no right to do so, so now it’s back to being taboo. But I still like the word. I giggle when my wife sing-songs “my little tranny, my little tranny” at me. I mock myself for getting lost in my “angsty tranny bullshit”. I don’t really think words are offensive by themselves - it’s the intent behind them that sharpens the edge.
But I don’t ever use it to talk about anyone but myself anymore. I hate the stifling language policing in our community, but pissing other people off is not on my agenda. And I really don’t want to give some gender theory major the chance to remind me that my ability to rise above being offended by little bits of language is yet another of my unchecked privileges.
I still think this is the most homosexual character ever and he is straight… why does rent make no sense.
Mark is obvs. a hipster trans dyke, but RENT is set in 1991 and those don’t exist yet, so he just confusedly hangs out with queers and pines after lesbians.
Electrolysis, Hour 73.5
I quit 80 minutes into today’s session. Tired; was up ‘til two last night. What’s my motivation again?
I’m bored of spending five hours a day having a gender. I never wanted one anyway. I remember when my mom first told me about how you could tell the sex of a human by their skeletal proportions — I think we were talking about “Lucy”, the Australopithecus. I wasn’t jealous of girls having hips; I was offended that there was any difference.
And with every zap and pluck I thank my lucky stars and every god I ever prayed to that this is even a technologically and financially possible thing for me to do. My friends talk about oppression, but I know that I am the most privileged person in the world.
TIL A New Word
“Kyriarchy”. Apparently this is what we call the patriarchy when there are patriarchs in the room who might potentially be offended. As near as I can work out the etymology, it means “rule by lords”.
How completely wonderful. At last the trite dichotomies of identity politics have come crashing down into one perfect, terrifying tautological singularity. This is the chant we will cry in the streets as we cheer on the heat death of the universe.
My Oppression Diary, Part II
I was openly stared at by the McDonalds staff for almost fifteen seconds before they took my order!
