I would never refer to African Americans by the terms “colored” or “negro” even though Martin Luther King Jr. used those terms frequently. Times have changed, and the terms we use for the African American community and its members have changed. Many, if not most, African Americans now consider those terms to be offensive, although as I read during the past census there are still a number of older African Americans that still identify with the term “negro.”
I would never call a woman “bitch” either, although there are women who embrace the term for themselves – some women are even attempting to reclaim that word as a positive term.
I would never call a member of the LGBTQIA community “queer” unless a person individually identified themselves as queer. Even though I personally identify my sexuality as queer, I’m so aware that many in the LGBT community – especially those who lived as out gays and lesbians in the ‘70s and ‘80s – had the term “queer” regularly hurled at them as a pejorative. Calling someone “queer” when an individual doesn’t identify as queer can be highly offensive, and yet at the same time many LGBTQIA community members are reclaiming the word as a positive term.
I call those who identify as queer “queer,” and don’t call those who don’t identify as queer by the term. Reclaiming the term for those who don’t want the term reclaimed for them seems to me to be pretty offensive.
Just as “queer” is one of those terms people should be sensitive about using, so is the term “tra**y.”
A few years ago while writing for the blog Pam’s House Blend, a woman who disliked my point of view referred to me as a “house tranny.” The woman who referred to me as tra**y meant it as a derogatory term, and connecting it to the term “house” was meant to evoke the racist meaning attached to the term “house negro.” That’s because the blog mistress of Pam’s House Blend is Pam Spaulding, and she’s an African American lesbian. I’m especially sensitive to the term “tra**y” and that’s just the worst example of many where the term was hurled at me as a pejorative.
In 2009, the Dallas Voice experienced blowback from trans community members over their positive take on Brad Luna, the producer and director of the film Ticked Off Trannies With Knives. The Voice came under fire by a number of trans people for using the term tra**y and supporting a filmmaker that used the term in the title of his film. The Voice interviewed RuPaul during the clamor; at that time he told the publication it was OK to use the term:
“When we say ‘tranny,’ or ‘drag queen’ or ‘queer,’ we’ve taken the word back and owned it again. And that it’s coming from a place of love and respect.”
I don’t feel love and respect when someone uses that term to describe my community peers and me who find the term offensive.
In a letter to the Voice’s editor, former HRC board member Donna Rose responded to the Voice’s embracing of the term tra**y by RuPaul and the publication:
“To limit those who object to both the tone and the content of your story to transgender ‘activists’ would also be wrong and highlights why so many in the trans community feel so distant from our LGB brothers and sisters. For many of us, this is personal. It’s about respect and dignity. The “N” word is still forbidden for African Americans unless you’re African American and talking about other African Americans. ‘Faggot’ is not appropriate in any context. And ‘tranny’ is no different.”
And:
“A far more sensitive way to handle this would have been to acknowledge that these terms are considered offensive to many as pejorative, degrading and dehumanizing, and to have elicited a broad range of opinions rather than to treat it in such an off-handed, mocking way based on one person’s opinion.”
Lena Dahlstrom added this in another letter to the editor on that same subject:
“I do agree with RuPaul that one does need to take intent into account. I’ve got gay friends who’ve thrown around ‘tranny.’ But when I’ve gently mentioned that it’s a term that a lot of trans people find problematic when used by people who aren’t trans (or friends and allies), guess what. They stopped using it. But no, you had to go pissily justify your right to use the term and accuse people who complain of ‘Nazi-like’ rigidity. That’s hardly ‘coming from a place of love and respect,’ now is it? The place that comes to mind is: asshat-ism. Because bottom-line, if you have to ask yourself whether a term you’re using is offensive, that’s a pretty good clue that it’s not a good idea to use it. Words may never hurt me, but they can piss me off.”
To be sure, there are some trans folk who are attempting to reclaim the term. For example, there is a support and social group of trans youth in Los Angeles who call themselves “Tranny Rockstars.” They, like those who are reclaiming the term “queer,” are reclaiming the term for themselves as a positive term.
But the embracing of the term tra**y isn’t universal, and RuPaul isn’t trans. He doesn’t get to reclaim the term tra**y for a subcommunity of the LGBTQIA community where a significant number of that subcommunity’s members find the term offensive.
I’m sure RuPaul wouldn’t wish to be referred to by the n-word by someone who isn’t African American; he probably wouldn’t want to be called “fa**ot” by someone who isn’t gay. Respecting him as a human being means not referring to him by those terms.
I deeply respect Commissioner Ramirez, and it’s certainly not my place to school such a community icon on any LGBT community matter. And, he is right that the term tra**y has to be looked at in context, and in a lot of contexts the term isn’t a negative. But with all due respect too, it’s not OK for Commissioner Ramirez to say it isn’t a trans negative for RuPaul to use a term that he knows a significant number of trans people find offensive. That’s especially true considering he doesn’t identify as trans himself; that’s especially true when, as a media figure, he’s teaching people outside of the LGBTQIA community that it’s OK to use that term for trans people that a significant number of trans people find degrading and dehumanizing.
When it’s appropriate for a non-gay person to call all gay people queer it’ll be about the time when it’s appropriate for a non-transgender person to call all trans people tra**ies.
I agree with GLAAD when they labeled the term tra**y as “problematic.” I also agree with GLAAD’s take on words and images when they say “Words and images matter. With those two thoughts in mind, I just can’t “chill out” over language that a significant number of trans people find problematic.
Ah, but do you agree that the term “transgender” should not be forced on people? And if you do agree, why do you never speak out against those who insist on forcing it on others?
The hypocrite Sandeen puts foot in mouth.
So how does it taste Autumn, you and your friend Monicah Helms insisted a friend was tas and will always be transgender in spite of her moving on to live a normal life. I believe this was when Helms was here in San Diego for the DOR observance. I was there when you and your friend uttered the words that she and everyone else who transitions will always be transgender.
Is it the great all knowing Autumn Sandeed who the only person allowed to label people?
Stop talking out of both sides of your middle aged mouth and get a life.
Anne
Speaking of getting a life, Anne, would it be ridiculous to ask why you focus so much energy in your self-identified normal life to follow my columns online and comment on so many of these columns?
If you’ve put enough time in trans community space that you’ve attended Transgender Day of Remembrance memorial services, then you should know already that the label of transgender is used to describe the kind hate that results in antitransgender violence.
If you don’t like my point of view, you have my permission to ignore my commentaries. You get to define yourself, and you know there are quite a number of people who identify with the labels of trans & transgender. If you want to label me with the label of tra**y then I would assume you’d knowingly embrace an antitransgender pejorative to describe me.
And, as you know, the GLAAD Media Reference Guide identifies tra**y as a problematic, dehumanizing term–just as former GLAAD boardmember Donna Rose described the term in the reference I cited above. This is not just about me having been called a “house tranny” previously as a pejorative, but about a significant number of trans people who find the term to be an antitrans pejorative.
It is dehumanizing to call people who transition and don’t identify as transgender, it is a projective and it is hateful. You have been guilty of that on numerous occasions in the past. Perhaps my friend will come here and share here experience with the world how hateful the San DIego Tee-Gee community really is. She says you use to know her before she left a community that was more interested in marginalizing itself than actually moving forward into mainstream society.
If it wasn’t for a few of us who keep tabs on what you people are doing to destroy the lives of young transsexuals they wouldn’t have any hope of leading normal lives. Why is it you people have to stick marginalizing labels on TS who want to transition and live lives free of the oppression the Tee-Gee community forces upon them.
It was you Autumn Sandeen who said in a commentary over on Pam’s House Blend “Once transgender always transgender”.
And now you are trying to pawn off some kind of lie about labels,
shame on you for being two faced.
Anne
Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you really miss the point. I see nothing where this person tried to call you “tranny.” The issue is, are you willing to show us the same sort of respect that so many of your closest allies refuse. For example, the person who is now the editor of “The Transadvocate” insists that people who are transsexual MUST accept the label “transgender,” and attacks “transsexual separatists.” And yet, you seem to be very fond of this person’s posts….
Oh, and if you are going to post on certain issues, you should expect that there will be those who disagree, vehemently in some cases. You have a history of engaging in heavy handed censorship. Perhaps we don’t care to ignore your commentaries, and feel they should not go unchallenged.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been beaten or harassed while being referred to as “transgender.” A very different statement applies regarding the word “tr*nny.” To try and compare the usage or the implications of the two terms is utterly ridiculous.
Sorry, but that is a rather clueless response. Yes, people have been beaten and most assuredly harassed while being called transgender. But even if they had not, you are just trying, rather desperately to avoid the real issue, which is that some of us find the term transgender highly insulting, just as some find the term “tranny” highly insulting. If you want to be able to make demands about how you are referred to, then you should extend that courtesy to others.
That’s not the point, some of us have been forced to acccept that label.
Transgender is to us just as bad as N*:g(er, fag or tranny.
Transgender Queer or any of those other names imply there is something not normal about the person wearing the label.
We seek to live a normal life, we are women or men, we are not transgender trannys queers or anything that implies we are lass than a woman or a man.
Anne
One cannot change the history of their past…it’s locked in…forever in the “Akashic records” In this respect yes, once a trans person, always’ a trans person. However, I do understand that to live a normal life of the gender that has been affirmed in oneself, is the desired outcome…without repercussion, and that is your right. I do take exception though that the term Transgender by your claims is a pejorative. In a whole class of people who are somewhere along the lines that are outside the “considered norm” one has to have a defining term. without a term such as Transgender, we would never be able to obtain equality. As for myself? I prefer the term “Gender Mosaic”, or “Two Spirit!”
You just confirmed my assertion the tern transgender is a pejorative with your ” once a trans person, always’ a trans person” bigotry.
Unlike you and your kind we strive to be normal and we take offense to your hate filled name calling. I suppose you feel a man born paralyzed who regains his ability to walk after birth is still a Gimp, or someone who has corrective surgery to restore their eyesight is still blind. It is attitudes like yours that prove transgenders are still living in the stone age and have a KKK streak within.
Anne
Well, I never identified as a “trans person,” so please refrain from trying to impose that label on me.
And yes, “transgender,” which is a highly subjective, artificial political/social construct is an offensive term to some, and can thus be seen as pejorative. It has no objective definition.
Hey,l ya know what? there was absolutely nothing in what I said that was hate filled. You young lady are incredibly deluded, and your reading comprehension is just about nill. No you cannot change your past! Did I say that you cannot make a new life in your future? No.. You are a very hate filled person with very little understanding. Maybe even a morAn!
Trying to force an unwelcome label on someone is not exactly an act of love. Perhaps hate is a bit of a strong word, and I do feel it is often misused, but simply put, it is offensive. And, it appears, you wind up by resorting to personal attacks and insults. Typical.
no I do not feel insulted by these terms” Trans, Transgender” In fact, I feel gifted, and quite proud to be who I am! Why are you Hateful towards yourself? Why can’t you accept who you are? Are you in the closet, and ashamed of your history? That is indeed a sad state to be in!
Ah, classic… We don’t accept your labels, so you start with the personal attacks. You are certainly entitled to feel as you do. We do not share your views concerning what is, for a true transsexual, a medical condition that we seek treatment of, and then move on from. We do not cling to our past, and because of that, you attack us.
Thank you, you have proven, again, our point.
I really don’t give a tinker’s damned what you think, you are forcing a label on me and that is hate speech at its most basic.
You call yourself what you will.
Keep your name calling and your retarded labels to yourself.
As for being young, only in my heart, I remember seeing the news reports of Sputnik right after it was launched.
I corrected my birth defect when you were still in grade school.
The word transgender wasn’t even invented then.
You and your Tee-Gee friends keep your silly names to yourself.
I am a woman, a female nothing more or less.
Anne
The sad thing is, we get called “self-hating” because we choose not to accept the label that they feel the need to force upon us. But it seems to me that the need to force others to accept a label you identify with is more an indication of insecurity born of self-hate than declining that label.
We get called names because we won’t drink the Kool-Aid and won’t sit in the back of the big blue purple and white bus.
Anne