Hello hello hello, time for the next essay in Transgender Marxism!
The PDF is here - https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-07-15_60f0b3d5edcb7_jules-joanne-gleeson-transgender-marxism-1.pdf
The intro discussion with links to all the essay discussions is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/395378
Feel free to join in on the discussion, I hope we all have a chance to learn something new together <3
Today’s essay is The Bridge Between Gender and Organising by Farah Thompson.
Farah Thompson is a Black, bisexual trans woman who lives in San Diego. She advocates for anti-imperialism, LGBT rights, decriminalisation of drug use and sex work, and self-determination of Black and colonized peoples. Her writing is found on longpaleroad.com
Edit: The discussion continues with an essay by JN Hoad here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/424986
"After I left, my abuser sent me a text message saying that my ‘aberrant’ behaviour is the result of me being possessed by a demon that leapt out of my grandmother’s VHS copy of The Crying Game"
Getting possessed by a trans demon that lived in your grandmother’s VHS collection is really a common experience, but cis people rarely understand it.
“She berated me, told me that my name is ‘a fetish’”
Deriving sexual satisfaction from being addressed by your name, the height of kink.
In all seriousness, transness is very often pathologised as a disordered fetishisation of gender performance whereby we’re accused of transitioning to fulfill a personal and disturbed type of extreme sexual gratification, and it’s used an excuse for a lot of violence, one of the most common of which is conversion therapy (often presented under the guise of legitimate mental health help, and frequently practiced by actual licensed professionals).
“I will probably be dealing with people who are like my mother, in varying degrees, for the rest of my life”
Oh my god, this shouldn’t have surprised me, but it was her mom all along, jeeeepers.
For many trans people, the parents are the first line of abuse, which has, obviously, very deep psychological and developmental consequences.
We’ve discussed before how many trans people create their own families and houses, with queer circles providing the nexus of social reproduction in absence of social reproduction through traditional families. Trans people face higher rates of homelessness, abuse, and estrangement from families than their cis counterparts.
“I approached things like Xena: Warrior Princess, Sailor Moon, fashion, and other sources of momentary release out of pure love.”
Xena: Warrior Princess is a powerful tool of queer liberation.
(As an aside) - Xena: Warrior Princess is actually a trans metaphor. Mars (Ares) is the aspect of masculinity. By trying to shape Xena into his disciple, he was attempting to mold her into classic gender role of masculinised warrior, and to subsume her femininity. Through her love with Gabrielle, Xena was able to overcome the attempt at forced social reproduction and embrace her womanly power.
(Someday I will actually write this essay and the world will be shook).
“Sex at a young age with an older girl was supposed to be a source of pride according to friends, and my abuser joked about me finally becoming a man because of it”
This type of despicable behaviour is used to shape and mold cis men. Cis men, in the eyes of the cisheteronormative society, are incapable of being victims of abuse. Cis men are incapable of feeling. Of emotion. These are weaknesses to be culled: alienation and isolation are to be fostered, trauma is to be locked away and never addressed. Is it any wonder that what results is a mockery of humanity? A person crafted to exploit others, to see exploitation as natural, to see empathy as weakness, and to view abuse as acceptable? The punitive nature of gender reproduction levelled at men under capitalism has been abominably destructive for generations. While the oppression of women is a system that has relegated an entire half of society into subservience, it is important to never lose sight of the way that men suffer under the weight of patriarchy, that we might understand how liberation from gender class hierarchies is a liberation for all humanity.
“And as far as I understood it, a failed man like myself is still a man. I was still a probable threat. ‘Self-discipline’ could be demanded of me in ways that could never be reasonably imposed on those readily accepted as women. If I was nothing but a failed man with a fucked up voice, a desire for true love and ambitions to boot, then the least I could do was reduce my collateral damage. That was how I understood myself, in relation to my abuser, to my sister, and to any other woman who stood next to me – even in admiration. Maybe I would never be an outright good person, but at least I could try not to repeat the echo of male domination. I could resist the regulatory violence that has defined my past, and still serves as the focus for my neuroses.”
What a bleak view that is often presented to men as the only way to truly better themselves. Not through liberation, but through being forever afraid of their destructive potential, to know that they are always a threat to the women around them, even those they most love. That they can, through vigilance, contain the monstrosity of “manhood” but never be rid of it. An approach not founded in freedom from class hierarchies, not founded through mutual love; rather an approach that seeks to reinforce gender binaries, that seeks to chain women to the role of victim and men to the role of abuser, founded through mutual hatred (the hatred women feel for men, and the hatred men must therefor feel for themselves).
“After all, if I am really a girl or am really a worthwhile, innocent person, I should not have lived like this. I should not have made mistakes like a man, overshared to a friend and had them tell me how irritating I am to talk to, wore the wrong clothes, said the wrong things, used the wrong tone of voice.”
“Poor and Black, I had a difficult time feeling like a person, much less a woman.”
I kind of said this as a joke but coming back to it, I am more convinced than ever that I could make a real argument here.