Bridge-Building

Because I can feel the psychic pressure of much confusion over my motivations for this blog, let me take a moment to explain what is going on here.

I am very clumsy when it comes to politics. All the politics of sex, gender, class all that stuff, spins me around a bit. In March of 2011, I discovered something I thought had gone away before I was even born, and that is transcriticism. Most transpeople probably call it transphobia, but I just don’t see the phobia. I do see skepticism and criticism, and I must admit that much of it seems warranted.

Until very recently, I had never had the luxury or the privilege of learning about humanities, or women’s studies, or feminism, in an academic sense. This means that my ‘stance’, my views and positions about these things, may not be very completely thought out, may be rough at the edges or lack the ‘nuance’ that you would encounter if you were well-versed and practiced in these things.

At first, I was confused about all the rf anger. And I thought maybe I would criticize some of you for hurting my special snowflake self by saying some rough but definitely true things about us. I thought I might look for holes in armor, points to debate. But I quickly realized that it was me, us, our kind, transpeople, who needed to be debated, poked, criticized, shined a spotlight on.

I am not an activist. I am not trying to be a rad fem, (although transwomen who visit here seems to think I am selling out us and trying to be you). I am most definitely not a trans-activist. You can totally own me here. I don’t even get lefty, righty, right wing, lib, con, whatever, I don’t get it! Maybe that sound boorish of me to admit, but I can and am admitting it. I am new at posturing in politics.

I am really upset about what an entitled pack of demanding maabs we transwomen seem to be to you, and I get, I mean I truly GET what lived experience means. And why ours is not comparable to yours, no matter what we do to bridge the gap, due to the P and XX biological stuff, and tons of other things that add up over the years from day 1.

I love women. Females. Wbw. And I always have. Emotionally and mentally. If that makes any sense. I have always and still do, want to be one, but I know Plastic is as good as it is going to get in this century. I have reason to believe that some radical feminists already understand that this is my most heartfelt and genuine if not blunderingly maabbish attempt to use honey instead of the vinegar that wafts off other trans blogs. The table is set for a one-sided talk. That is one level of frequency that I am broadcasting from this blog.

However, it is not the only one.

I also, love transpeople. mtfs, and ftms. And I am absolutely emotionally devastated to only just recently find out how badly we are doing it wrong. In the arenas of the politics of ‘space-entitlement’ (or whatever you want to call it) I empathize more with wbw than wbt, perhaps due to my love of wbw and how much I’ve tried to get it.

There is another level of frequency that I am sending out from this blog. Another undercurrent or level. And that is this. Our public image is continuously moldable but usually blatantly obvious to people. It is out of my love of transpeople, that I want to show you our mistakes, and entertain suggestions of how to correct them.

It is because we are so stubborn sometimes, as some of us have completely demonstrated for everyone, that I do get a little angry at transpeople. I want things to be better and some of you people are fraking it up for me. So if you are a mtf and you come to my parlor, you are subject to being webbed. I can’t make it any clearer than that.

I really do love transpeople. I married a transwoman whom I love dearly. But loving you TS/TGs as a class, as a group or an idea, is not the same as liking any given one of you. And due to way more drama and boundary crossing than you can ever imagine always happening whenever I encounter transwomen, I don’t trust any of you.

 

Plastic Girl, March 2011