Pullout Jun 25, 2014 at 4:00 am

Banning Words Is Censorship, and Censorship Is a Conservative Tactic

Justin Vivian Bond Liz Liguori

Comments

1
I know some people that don't identify as male or female, that would be extremely pissed if you called them a "tranny." So it's not the catch all type term that is presented here, and it's kind of shitty that Mx Bond presents a false dichotomy of binary or "tranny."

Another frustration is that a lot of the people that are for the use of "tranny" are typically people that only bend gender in safe spaces like in drag bars or in gay neighborhoods (since I know nothing of this author's personal life, this isn't leveled at v). They don't really have to worry about being called a "tranny" in the work place, or when running mundane errands like grocery shopping, or when even using the fucking bathroom. Such glib use of the word by people like RuPaul really undermines my and other trans people's lived experiences.

This line "But if by erasing the word "tranny," they hope to get rid of embarrassing associations with trans sex workers, drag performers, trashy gender fuckers, and other self-identified 'freaks' who choose to live outside the binary gender system, they are in for a big disappointment, and in my opinion, they should be ashamed of themselves" is particularly disgusting. How dare Mx Bond insinuate that people who are against the word "tranny" are embarrassed by our kith and kin. You are falsely ascribing thoughts and actions to those of us against the word "tranny" because they suit your argument. Some people, like Janet Mock, are unashamed of their own sex work history, and are also against the use of the word "tranny." Don't erase those people.

Finally, maybe the word will be reclaimed one day, but today is not that day.

Also, it would have been nice if the editors of the Stranger had reached out to someone to write an article from the opposing viewpoint.
2
I don't give a shit what anybody says. When I refer to someone as a "tranny" I do so with affection. Its only a word and they can only hurt you if you allow them to. Grow fucking up.
3
As I understand it, the word 'tranny' comes from 'transvestite', rather than 'transgender' or 'transsexual'?

That's a whole different set of stuff right there. Not to say that being a transvestite is somehow wrong, it's just not the SAME as transgender, cross-dressing is not the same as knowing you're a woman stuck in a man's body or vice versa.
I can quite see why all the transgender folk I have ever had that conversation with, (granted not that many, but enough to convince me!) would hate to be called 'tranny'.

I am all for reclaiming words, I get that, but maybe it's not even the transgender community's word to have to reclaim?
I know it has become that by default, so maybe that's not much of a valid argument, but I would just like to throw that thought out there.
4
@3 The history of that word is complex because the lines between the groups used to be a lot more blurred. The issue now is that regardless of origin or meaning, transgender people bear the brunt of the bigotry surrounding that.
5
I think that, MX Bond has offered a valuable addition to the conversation and is substantially more generous than their detractors in most cases. Though ascribing motivations for objection to the notorious and contentious 'T-word' is sketchy; it may be incorrect in many cases but may often chafe because it has some truth to it.

There have always been friction and heat and divisions between camps within the trans* continuum but they are now being fanned into flames by the urgency of mainstream attention and the sense that much is at stake in terms of public discourse and perception.

At the core, I generally agree with M's assertion that the conflict over language is a proxy war between the Conservative, mainstreaming camp vs those fighting to preserve and extend a more radical gender-outsider perspective where social acceptability is an existential death-knell.

Above all, the thing that infuriates me the most in these debates is when Gender Fundamentalist of the Transgender variety state with unequivocal confidence that Transgenders and Transvestites and Drag Queens, Etc, Etc. are Completely Different; have different motivations, origins, problems and aspirations. And furthermore that Group A has it much harder than Group B. This mutual othering and implicit or explicit hierarchy of authenticity and oppression has got to come to an end. These bright lines of difference are pure illusion both in the collective and the individual sense.

Let a long season of reconciliation begin. The stakes are indeed high for our community and this is a pivotal time. Our best results will result when all of our scattered efforts are united in mutual support and not wasted by senseless factionalism. All of the messiness of gender diversity is not going to be neatly distilled into simple sound bites or catch phrases or squeezed into 140 characters with a viral #tag. Let each person speak their own truth, tell their own story and be done with it. Celebrate each other even if we use different words to describe ourselves and our world and how we got there.
6
No one is saying people should go to prison for speech. The continued use of the term "word-policing" is therefore hyperbolic, passive aggressive, and untrue. If you want to use the word tranny, use the word. There's nothing illegal about being tacky and regressive (my opinion). People do it all the time.

We live in different world now, one that is highly connected and becoming more so everyday. Modern trans activists, while aware of queer history, are not beholden to the strategies, tools or discourse employed by LGB movement in the past. Breaking with certain long-held beliefs (such as the false, largely bourgeois notion that a minority can "reclaim" hate speech for the good of all) was necessary for both our visibility and survival.

While there are certainly interesting points in this article about the future of gender, queer history, activism tactics and other important, yet highly abstract topics, it does not change what actually happened on the ground: a new generation of mostly young, mostly unknown transgender activists voiced a demand, saying the word tranny was no longer acceptable to them, and that they did not want to see it used on television for financial profit and gain of a (predominately) cis audience and star.

I, as a trans activist, am not interested in reclaiming slurs. I am interested in reclaiming the power and force of an entire queer movement that has been largely content with throwing us the scraps when most convenient for them.

For this the entire trans community (not just trans activists) were mocked by gay celebrities, made to feel as if we were ruining the discourse relating to queer history, belittled, ostracized, and accused of the oh-so fascist tactic of censorship. We were told to be " good transgendered people" and fight the real enemy, not our LGB family.

Mx. Bond has written an admirable plea for understanding and empathy, though I don't believe it really says anything interesting or new. What it does do is largely neuter the discourse. It's another long-winded, largely redundant semi-apology from a celebrity that could be summed up far more succinctly as thus:

"Hi, I don't care if you call me tranny but please understand it hurts other people, especially those who view their gender identity in more binary terms than me. Thank you, peace and love to all!"

It would have been far more helpful if Mx. Bond would have just dropped the ego and said this from the beginning all along. But better late than never, I guess.
7
So are trans the only minority where one person can give non-members a blanket pass to use words many of us feel are deeply dehumanizing? Sorry, cis people don't get a pass on "tranny" for reading this article.
8
@4, yes, sadly, you're right.

@7, I think it's perhaps a little bit like when African Americans use the N word, something they can do to reclaim it, etc, but as a white person, definitely not ok.. ?
As a cis person, I would never dream of using it!
I (quite proudly!) lost a 'friend' on Facebook the other day when he shared something to that effect, and I stood my ground and called him on it and made the above point about his cisness. Quite happy he's gone, he was an asshat anyway.
9
I would think it's only a problem when used in media or marketing. Anyone should be able to self identify any way they wish. That being said places like drag race and public events don't seem like appropriate places for a word so many find hurtful given the lack of nuanced context the average person might have. I haven't seen anyone saying it's not ok to ask purple to call you the t word, but I have seen a number of complaints about it's use in media that I think have some serious merit.
10
@8 Thanks, you are awesome. If a person who identifies as trans wants to use "tranny" and isn't attacking or labeling other trans people, cool. My concern here it is hard reclaim something for use by allies before it has any real taboo around it or that because one person thinks it is acceptable for themselves it should be so for an entire community.
11
Thank You Justin for being a voice of reason! Yes, We did invent the word & its ours to use as we wish. But not "theirs".... I am claiming BitransfagDykefeminist any way I want to. back in 1990 some fag started screaming at me for referring to myself as "queer"... because he was just enough older to be really upset by any term other than "homosexual"... sigh.
12
So if I say that I hate the term cisgender or cis being applied to me, does that automatically mean I can whine and moan until everyone stop using it?

No. That's a stupid argument from the getgo...similar to this one.

If it's used in a negative manner, then absolutely hate the usage. If it's used in a non-negative manner then I don't see the issue.

For instance when discussing it academically or when using it within a specific group of friends who use it to self-identify and don't have an issue with its usage.

Language is meant to be fluid and ever evolving.
13
@12 There is a difference between tranny and cis. Tranny is and was a slur, and cis means not trans (like straight means not bi/gay).

To make this easier: cis is to tranny, what caucasian/white is to the n word.
14
@13, What if the white person only uses the n word in a friendly manner? After all, maybe they are offended by being called Of European Descent.
15
@13 I have seen "cis" used as a slur and as a dismissive by trans activists whenever somebody disagrees with them. It's been used as invective in both cyberspace and meatspace. For you to deny that is to not listen to the experiences of cisgendered people, and it's hypocritical for you to rally against one word but dismiss concerns about another word when it has the exact same problems, and the same damn history.

Plus, you yourself are actively engaging in erasing people participating in transvestism and drag queens. In your first comment, you glibly and actively erase all the transvestites, drag queens, and other non-transsexual genderqueers by saying their concerns don't matter because blah blah blah. This is pure hypocrisy, and shows you actively not listening to even yourself, as in the next paragraph you're accusing Mx Bond for erasing transsexual sex workers.

I'm not saying you're right or wrong, but you're engaging in the utmost of selfish hypocrisy and you should look at your own positioning before you start attacking the activists who led the way for you to attack them first.

Also, Tranny was claimed first. And it had already been reclaimed. To say "it can be reclaimed someday" is to completely erase and dismiss the work of the genderqueer activists that came before you.
16
Dear Mx Bond:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you especially for identifying this as a conservative vs. progressive issue rather than a generational issue. In the '90s, we had the same fight over the word "queer". Back then it was older conservative gay men telling me what I was allowed to call myself: now it's younger conservative trans folks. Either way, it sucks.
17
@15 "I have seen 'cis' used as a slur and as a dismissive by trans activists whenever somebody disagrees with them." Seriously? In what way is saying you are not trans insulting? Would you also say that "white" is used as a slur?

"In your first comment, you glibly and actively erase all the transvestites, drag queens, and other non-transsexual genderqueers by saying their concerns don't matter because blah blah blah." Please quote where I did this.

"And it had already been reclaimed." Bullshit. By what metric do you measure reclamation?

@16 The conservative versus progressive issue is a cheap kneejerk emotional argument. It could easily be reframed that the people who are reaping the benefit from using the word "tranny" are not the people who pay the cost. The privileged expect the nonprivileged to foot the bill. Or it could be like how some conservative people whine about political correctness when they want to use offensive language. Both are apathetically conservative behaviors.

I'm not saying that either is the case for people who want to use the word "tranny," but to use specious arguments to associate people with opposing views with something "bad" is a dumb and cheap tactic.
18
I had a colleague become very angry at me for using the word queer in an email to a gay professional group recently, as part of a list of identity terms: "looking for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer long term couples to participate in a study." Maybe that one is going to go back on the verboten list again. Sigh.
19
Only those who take sexual labels seriously need to work so hard to define theirs. Sexually, you are a you-ite. And whether or not you-ality neatly conforms to some culturally constructed sexual type is rather irrelevant, isn't it?
20
@17 Neither Mx Bond nor I equated "conservative" with "bad". Conservative trans people are simply those who want to move from one gender to another without challenging the two-gender system, and it is perfectly fine for them to do so. But a movement for trans rights that tells those of us who prefer to -- or must -- live outside the two-gender system that *we* are bad is kinda problematic.
21
honestly, i think the rage directed at people who do not fall in with the party line is less a conservative thing and more a factor of : folks thinking being 'political' is about representation, or fitting in, or talkin the loudest smack about The Man, or getting the media to represent trans* & gender non-conforming ppl 'truthfully'-- i.e. positively, and only by trans* people.

what societies and institutions and individuals do to exert control over trans* communities and bodies is fucked up, but all of those things can't be distilled into a word-- the word is ambivalent, it doesn't just do one thing. it can't be just a slur. words, just like people, can't just be one thing.

now, bringing in race and talking about that as if it is directly applicable in this case is complicated; i'd say ideologies about race and whiteness (and class) are tied up in the debate; like how majority white transwomen activists express anger about people calling trans* folkx 'transgenders', but R Kelly's 13 yo trans son referring to himself as 'a transgender' in talking about his mom accepting him 'as a transgender.; or the prevalence of the word in question or others like it in more rural communities as simply the mainstream vocabulary for folkx who ID as gender non-conforming but may not have access to community support like in larger urban centers.

which brings me to my own feelings about this whole word debate: building community and support for eachother is radical. using that community to dismantle the material basis of the systems of oppression that control us is radical. forcing all thats bad in the world to be distilled into words or practices or some Other people so that it can be destroyed or killed or disavowed or scapegoated or attacked is not.
22
Ugh, okay so here's the thing. It doesn't matter how it came about, and I'd like to see a source of where it started from The point is that the people who use the word, have changed its meaning. And despite the fact YOU like the word and it doesn't bother you, it does bother other people. You may use it in a friendly manner, but the vast majority isn't designed as such.

GO and rant on about how you can "reclaim" the word, but Tranny is not queer, and it will never be. It's not about distancing yourself from sex workers, it's about distancing yourself from the people who police who you are, and use it as a term to dehumanize, and boil you down to the jist of what you are. Where you're only identity is that of a sexual object.

You're not a person to them, you're a tranny. And this bullshit unwarranted hate towards trans activist is shameful and self-defeating.

Simply because they see who uses the word (en mass) and what they mean by it, and you don't, doesn't give you more privilege or place to police its meaning than they they do. For Fucks sake, the fact that you people complain about word policing, and then go around and use the same logic to demand to be able to use the word, is astonishing.

This isn't a compromise, its a bottom level assessment of what the situation is. News flash, a LOT of people don't like the word. If you keep using it, despite your own self-righteous political bullshit reasons, you're an asshole. I don't care if you're "taking it back". You're Randal Graves, trying to take back "porch monkey". You're the oblivious hypocritical asshole who demands everyone acquiesce to your personal political view under the bullshit guise of "censorship" while refusing to do so yourself.

You may not be technically wrong, but you are definitely a fucking asshole. Just like all the rest of the bullshit "freedom of speech means i can post photos of domestic abuse and rape victim" assholes on the internet. One more level of subhuman assholes that most trans people already have to deal with, but now coming through a familiar guise because you can't be bothered to think about other people. Do us all, a kind favor, at least one, and fuck, the fuck, off.
23
@17 When you hear, "shut up, you're just cis." Or, "Cis people haven't suffered enough." It has become a slur, and your claiming it hasn't been used as a slur doesn't make it so, because you haven't walked in a Cisgendered person's shoes. Stop claiming things if you're not going to listen.

Which, you won't because you're already thinking of what my experiences are so you can erase me or dismiss my criticism. As you did with the activists who came before you by saying, "They don't really have to worry about being called a "tranny" in the work place, or when running mundane errands like grocery shopping, or when even using the fucking bathroom." You don't know who does what when or where and you're inserting experiences where they may not be. The year that drag queens aren't beaten up walking home from the club where they work, then maybe I'll buy your bullshit.

When "Tranny" was originally used by the genderqueer community as it's own term it was already claimed. When it was used as the name of shows promoting genderqueer activities, it was already reclaimed. It's been a term that's been bandied around and used in friendly terms in genderqueer communities long before the new patch of trans activists who decided they didn't like it were in diapers. To claim it isn't reclaimed means that you're reclaiming it as a slur of your own, dismissing that it was aimed at genderqueers of all types long before you came around. It isn't just your term.
24
Insults come in so many different packages. Banning words or making less informed people feel bad for using them isn't terribly helpful.

The "reclamation" of negative words as positive makes more sense to me than the censorship of words commonly used as much in ignorance as malice. There's even a few moments of occasional satisfaction when twisting an intended insult into a compliment.

I do attempt to follow the most current WP rules as best I can, usually just by not making any assumptions... but sometimes I fail spectacularly despite my best efforts.
25
There was a great line back in the original Star Trek series where an illusion of Abe Lincoln calls Uhura a negress (or something like that). Then he back pedals realizing he may have said something inappropriate. Uhura's response was "We don't allow words to have the power to hurt us anymore".

I wish we were that evolved.
26
The people who refer to tranny as a slur, as equated to the N word are adding to (actually creating) the negative associations to the word. Not to mention excluding, drawing lines, throwing shade to their own people .
27
Outside of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, I don't use the word Tranny, and I never use it to refer to transgendered fold. I've dated several trans people, and they all say it's an offensive term. So, I'll respect that.

Even if there are trans people who use the term, so what? I know lots of black people who use the N-word amongst themselves. As I am a minority, some black people have invited me to use the N-word with them-- I earned that right, by being their friend. But random Joe off the street? He hasn't earned it.

Just because I make jokes about my ethnicity all the time, that doesn't mean I'm okay with racial humor, nor is it a double standard when I say I'm especially uncomfortable when white people do it. In the same vein, even if trans folk refer to themselves as "trannies", that doesn't give us cis folk the right to use it-- that's their term for themselves, not for public use. It's an intimate term, and unless they specifically say you can use it, you shouldn't.
28
@23 "When you hear, "shut up, you're just cis." Or, "Cis people haven't suffered enough." It has become a slur, and your claiming it hasn't been used as a slur doesn't make it so, because you haven't walked in a Cisgendered person's shoes. Stop claiming things if you're not going to listen." Again, would you level the same criticism against the word "white" or "man?"

"You don't know who does what when or where and you're inserting experiences where they may not be." Fine, please give me a list of all the drag queens who practice law while in drag, or accountants, or doctors. How many drag queens do you know that always go out in drag? As for invalidating experience, what about all the trans women who have a realistic fear that "tranny" will be the last word they hear before they are murdered, buried as men, and then forgotten by their families?
29
Outside of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, I don't use the word Tranny, and I never use it to refer to transgendered fold. I've dated several trans people, and they all say it's an offensive term. So, I'll respect that.

Even if there are trans people who use the term, so what? I know lots of black people who use the N-word amongst themselves. As I am a minority, some black people have invited me to use the N-word with them-- I earned that right, by being their friend. But random Joe off the street? He hasn't earned it.

Just because I make jokes about my ethnicity all the time, that doesn't mean I'm okay with racial humor, nor is it a double standard when I say I'm especially uncomfortable when white people do it. In the same vein, even if trans folk refer to themselves as "trannies", that doesn't give us cis folk the right to use it-- that's their term for themselves, not for public use. It's an intimate term, and unless they specifically say you can use it, you shouldn't.
30
@28 Yup. Not listening to anything I say, and just retorting. Thanks for proving my point.
31
@30, I'm listening, I'm just not kowtowing. If you want to believe that cis is a slur tossed around by mean ol' marginalized trans people, go ahead. Thanks for proving why we need things like this issue of the Stranger.
32
@31 Actually, I was saying that cis has become a slur slung around by feminists and transgendered activists alike. It has become a means of both denoting and marginalizing. It wasn't in use long before it became a slur.

But, pretend you're listening. You're not actually having a discussion here. You haven't even had a real paragraph-based discussion with me yet, instead just pulling out individual sentences and saying "well, this sentence is wrong, so your whole argument must be bunk" without addressing the whole point. Which, essentially, is how an idiot argues.
33
@32, And I'm saying you're wrong in that it's a slur, and that it is on the same level as "man" or "white." It has no invective power to dehumanize a person. Despite how you personally feel, in the real world cis people still have power over trans people.

As for why I'm only picking out sentences, if your premise is wrong, why should I bother responding to the rest of your post. Half of your entire argument is that you don't like when some frustrated people use the word "cis," and because of that you are equating the word "cis" with "tranny."
34
@33 Actually, that isn't my argument at all. I'm not even arguing against cis. I was, instead, commenting on how your arguing in support of cis is completely hypocritical to your arguing against Tranny, given that both words have very similar histories. Tranny was either developed by or reclaimed by genderqueer activists in the long ago. Cisgendered was developed by gender studies writers as a way to label and categorize non-trans. Tranny became a word used with invective at transgendered people. Cis became a word used as an invective at non-trans people. Transgendered people claim the power of the word Tranny makes them feel bad. Non-trans people claim the power of the word Cisgender makes them feel bad.

The only difference here is that transgendered people feel the threat of violence in public, while cisgendered people only feel the threat of isolation and exclusion in supposedly safe spaces.

I don't give a shit about Tranny or Cis. But, I do care that your arguments are ignorant, hypocritical, and deaf to anybody who isn't you..
35
@34, one word has a history of violence associated with it, and the other doesn't. Cis people don't need to worry about that word being used to fire them. Cis people don't need to worry about having that word be the last one they hear. I have heard the words "man" used exactly the same way as you say the word "cis" is used, but you don't see people comparing "man" to "bitch." You are comparing apples to oranges.

"The only difference here is that transgendered people feel the threat of violence in public, while cisgendered people only feel the threat of isolation and exclusion in supposedly safe spaces." This is a HUGE difference, and one that makes all the difference.
36
I'm sorry but if you go out in public all busted looking people are going to call you something. When planning a transition people should take that into consideration and make sure they are passable if they don't John Doe to shout obscenities at them. If you stick out then people will call you on it. Sad to say but that's human nature , there is always an asshole everywhere we go. Not using the word Tranny will NOT stop people from getting beaten or killed every day, gays, lesbians, drag queens and yes trans people too.
37
I think this word is similar to "slut" and "nigger." Both of these were once mainstream and acceptable but we are learning history is no excuse for insult.

In some cases there have been postitive connotations attached to both, but i don't have the right to choose what other people like to be called or identified as; only they do.

Like a lot of words, after the raw has rubbed off a bit and the insult implied by these words is generally accepted these words become powerful again, and many who identify under these negative-labels take them up again to wear them with pride and remove the stigma and shame once associated with them in their insult form.

i feel unless i have experienced direct harm or had these words pointed at me they are not mine and it is insulting and assumptive of me to use them even in support....without an invitation.

On that, there is no universal "Tranny Bro Code" that i know of, or no club of people for those other words that could be find to all agree. You have to decide on a case by case basis, within each relationship with each person what their wishes are. Because if you think all Cross Dressing persons agree even in a positive way, they are still entirely dismissed as individuals.

There is no easy answer except make a friend and let them show/tell you the way they like it. i have a friend who would call this a disgusting word and never want it applied to themself and another that would take a "grrr, sexy Tranny pants" as a funny joke and an acceptable use of the term--even from cis/straight me.
38
I think this word is similar to "slut" and "nigger." Both of these were once mainstream and acceptable but we are learning history is no excuse for insult.

In some cases there have been postitive connotations attached to both, but i don't have the right to choose what other people like to be called or identified as; only they do.

Like a lot of words, after the raw has rubbed off a bit and the insult implied by these words is generally accepted these words become powerful again, and many who identify under these negative-labels take them up again to wear them with pride and remove the stigma and shame once associated with them in their insult form.

i feel unless i have experienced direct harm or had these words pointed at me they are not mine and it is insulting and assumptive of me to use them even in support....without an invitation.

On that, there is no universal "Tranny Bro Code" that i know of, or no club of people for those other words that could be find to all agree. You have to decide on a case by case basis, within each relationship with each person what their wishes are. Because if you think all Cross Dressing persons agree even in a positive way, they are still entirely dismissed as individuals.

There is no easy answer except make a friend and let them show/tell you the way they like it. i have a friend who would call this a disgusting word and never want it applied to themself and another that would take a "grrr, sexy Tranny pants" as a funny joke and an acceptable use of the term--even from cis/straight me.
39
@36 I completely disagree. I don't know about destroying the concept of gender, but I think it needs to be vastly expanded. People aren't all going for the same thing, and self-definition is all the rage these days--even more than big wigs and sequins.

" When planning a transition people should take that into consideration and make sure they are passable..." well, ouch Diana, but we know your stand on it.

For my own part I think there is something fascinating in a clearly masculine person in a stunning dress. For that matter, I think it's awesome when someone goes down Izzard style and rocks a pants-suit.

The point here is that there are many shades of what the Hell they want to call that now.

I can't say what Trans identifying people aim for, and I suspect that there are a plethora of answers, but I don't think for my part a Trans is a person of one person imitating the opposite. I have never thought a Drag Queen was attempting to be a woman, but that the best took the boldest, hottest, strongest, sexiest parts of woman and put on a very "Womanesque" interpretation of their own out.

If women can be hippies and not shave legs, or princesses in pink and sparkles, and business suited and professionally sexy, why must all Trans people try to be the same woman? I almost feel like your comment implies that without makeup applied to your personal taste they fail at whatever they are attempting to "do." More kinds of women and men in trans means more real, and a broader mindset.

I also think that because I associate Tranny with the more Drag Queen and Trans with the more standard implication today of the sex change. I know that there is only one T in LGBTQ, but I don't know that what I consider DragQueen or CD would align itself with Trans...and on that note this is a confusing topic to address.

I do think passability should not be a concern. I do feel androgyny is beautiful and mentally stimulating. I actively want to see me hairy men in frilly things. (sorry to ignore the fem-male transition, I just don't know as many of you in that context) I strongly feel that no one's appearance should never be construed as an open invitation to criticism. The only time I feel a person should be directly approached with regards to appearance alone: to compliment respectfully, to offer assistance, or to identify a likeminded person to ask for help or directions. Maybe I'm too limited tho.

40
Jesus fuck dude, you want a better word than tranny to describe yourself as outside the binary?

Genderqueer. Agender. Non-binary. There's three off the top of my head that've never been used to attack someone. If you really want to identify as a tranny, go nuts, just don't play dumb about language and how it triggers trans people, and don't be shocked if you find that decision's distanced you from the trans community, which is not a "gay subculture." Did ya hear? We've got our own little letter after the LGB now. We're outside your experience homie.

Maybe if you'd bothered to listen to any of us you'd know we had this conversation a long, long time ago.
41
Political correctness--banning words--censorship--these are conservative tactics? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen a single Fox News troll complain about the word tranny.
42
As individuals who are known for their wit, it's time for an update to all this out-dated lexicon. Call me, perfect, or love or greatness, delicious or nurturing. There is no need to try to find a new word that can be used against us. I personally think our umbrella is a large one where we are frankly all of the above.
43
I identify as a chicken lady and I would be very offended if anyone called me a chicky.
44
@23 makes really strong points in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs.

Tobuild on those points anyone who says drag queens only exist in safe spaces is ignorant. Drag performer Miles DeNiro / Heidi Glum was recently beaten in drag at a McDonalds and the video of the hate crime went viral.

Also its not uncommon for transexual and transgender individuals to use drag to open the door for them. Its small minded to force people to draw lines. Its also turning your back on history to not see the love that has been associated with the word tranny. Tranny is legendary. Do your homework.

Trans and Tranny apply to transvestite, transsexual, and transgender. One does not speak for all. Maybe as a community it would be more beneficial instead of focusing on classifying, separating, and essentially assigning rights and discounting experiences, the focus was shifted to unity abd acceptance.

Life is hard enough, if you choose to throw barbs at allies and eachother you're picking and choosing your battles poorly and your making the struggle A LOT harder than it needs to be. This wasnt alwsys the case, and I strongly feel it shouldn't be now.

Everyones experience is valid. In fighting benefits no one but the forces that work against the community as a whole. There are bigger issues to focus on.
46
This is probably the best article I've read on this since the controversy erupted several months ago. Many thanks, Justin. I am sorry that I did not have a chance to speak to you when you performed in ATX with the Poo Poo Platter, last year. Hopefully, next time.
47
@45 If an individual told me not to call them a faggot or a queer (regardless of the endearment I put behind those words in my life) because they were offended by it, I would totally respect that. But, if they told me that I had to stop using faggot or queer in my life because it was offensive to them, that's another. Because I self-identify with those terms amongst others, I don't feel that they have the right to take that term away from me.

Which is why I don't have any skin in the game with the word Tranny, but I love reading about it as long as both sides make some sort of intelligent arguments (unlike Just the Same, who is rather selfishly hypocritical in their thinking). Drag Queens self identify with Tranny, and use Tranny with love. Older genderqueer folks sometimes identified with the term as well. New transsexual activists ripped that word away from them, claimed it as their own, and then said it was offensive and nobody gets to use it. Say what you will, but I think that's rather offensive myself. But, it's not my game to be played. I'm just the Statler and Waldorf of this fight.
48
@6: "Modern trans activists, while aware of queer history, are not beholden to the strategies, tools or discourse employed by LGB movement in the past."

No one person can speak for all "modern" trans activists. It is a privileged insinuation indeed that mxbond is not "modern" because v chooses to contextualize an issue differently than you, and part of that contextualization includes v's own lived experience and evolution, which (I have no idea of your age but I'm guessing young) you may not share, or which you did but processed and now contextualize differently.
You don't and can't own a broad term like "modern" and assign it to others at will. There are plenty of people who disagree with you who, yet who also identify as "mostly young" modern trans activists. And news flash, there are plenty of people who are way older than you who self-identify and are described by others, as modern.

You insinuate that by contextualizing a word in a way that includes v's lived experiences, that v is "beholden" to the past, and by leaving off the T in using "LGB" as a descriptor, you (again) assume the privilege of gatekeeper, categorizing v's statements with musty old antiquated LGB (but not T because you say so)discourse, effectively rewriting v's own history, waving v over to the LGB circle because if v disagrees with you or interprets history differently, v's tactics, discourse, etc cannot possibly be described with a T, no matter what v might think.

"We live in different world now." And the world is different today 6/28 than it was on 6/25 when you assumed the privilege of speaking for all modern trans activist and made a lot of sweeping generalizations about who got to stand in what circle on your private map of the world, according to you and the people who agree with you. And a year from now, two years from now, a decade from now, people who should be learning from each other and treasuring each other and fighting the real enemy (and yeah, we'll still have enemies) will still be fighting about fucking words.
Words do not equal speech.
Speech is an action. Hate speech is a type of action. A slur is something employed by someone who hates someone else and intends them harm. It's an action. No one I know wants to reclaim the action of hate speech, or its result, the slur.

"Tranny" is a word. Saying it doesn't equal hate speech. Your bold assumption that trans people reclaiming it (or LGBTs reclaiming any word, or anyone ever reclaiming any word ) is "largely bourgeois" is an ahistorical misperception of LGBTQ cultural experience over time and its multifaceted, fluid,and continuously shifting rhetorical linkages to lived experience, resistance to opression and evolving ideologies.
49
@6: "Modern trans activists, while aware of queer history, are not beholden to the strategies, tools or discourse employed by LGB movement in the past."

No one person can speak for all "modern" trans activists. It is a privileged insinuation indeed that mxbond is not "modern" because v chooses to contextualize an issue differently than you, and part of that contextualization includes v's own lived experience and evolution, which (I have no idea of your age but I'm guessing young) you may not share, or which you did but processed and now contextualize differently.
You don't and can't own a broad term like "modern" and assign it to others at will. There are plenty of people who disagree with you who, yet who also identify as "mostly young" modern trans activists. And news flash, there are plenty of people who are way older than you who self-identify and are described by others, as modern.

You insinuate that by contextualizing a word in a way that includes v's lived experiences, that v is "beholden" to the past, and by leaving off the T in using "LGB" as a descriptor, you (again) assume the privilege of gatekeeper, categorizing v's statements with musty old antiquated LGB (but not T because you say so)discourse, effectively rewriting v's own history, waving v over to the LGB circle because if v disagrees with you or interprets history differently, v's tactics, discourse, etc cannot possibly be described with a T, no matter what v might think.

"We live in different world now." And the world is different today 6/28 than it was on 6/25 when you assumed the privilege of speaking for all modern trans activist and made a lot of sweeping generalizations about who got to stand in what circle on your private map of the world, according to you and the people who agree with you. And a year from now, two years from now, a decade from now, people who should be learning from each other and treasuring each other and fighting the real enemy (and yeah, we'll still have enemies) will still be fighting about fucking words.
Words do not equal speech.
Speech is an action. Hate speech is a type of action. A slur is something employed by someone who hates someone else and intends them harm. It's an action. No one I know wants to reclaim the action of hate speech, or its result, the slur.

"Tranny" is a word. Saying it doesn't equal hate speech. Your bold assumption that trans people reclaiming it (or LGBTs reclaiming any word, or anyone ever reclaiming any word ) is "largely bourgeois" is an ahistorical misperception of LGBTQ cultural experience over time and its multifaceted, fluid,and continuously shifting rhetorical linkages to lived experience, resistance to opression and evolving ideologies.
50
When I see or hear the word F*gg*t, it triggers some old memories of being gay and hated as a child, so I hate the word. I assume the t word is the same for some trans folk, so I will never use it. When I hear that word used not as a slur but as slang by other gays or gay allies, I'm ok that it makes me uncomfortable, because over time it's loosing it's ability to make me feel bad. You might consider that successfully stopping allies from using the word just might make it all the more potent when used by someone who really intends to be hateful, increasing it's power as a slur. But that is your (the trans communities) call to make.
51
@3: Same. I see a lot of transphobia arising from the conflation of cross-dressing with gender transition, the difference between a man wearing woman's clothes and a woman stuck in a man's body.
52
Dear Mx Bond. First off, please don't use" cunty". As a woman, with one- a cunt , that is, I'd like that this word is not used as a slur..it's a great word to describe a great part of female anatomy..
And good on you for not being bullied out of using " tranny", as a word that you'd like people to call you. If others don't want to be called that, of course one must respect their choice.. As your choice to be called a tranny, should also be respected.
53
Sorry, I'm just not going to call myself a cis-woman. I'm a woman. I have xy chromosomes. I have given birth thru my vagina, I have bled thru same. I have breast fed children ..
My experience with trans * people is very limited. I respect the trans* communities rights to call themselves as they wish..
54
If Dan was not the arrogant and took the high road, the Stranger wouldn't have to publish the political damage control bullshit posts like this one.

He and the staff would realize the difference between respect and not respecting, and where to draw the lines of personal privacy that separate public spaces, as those are the things that frame a space where people of all types of beliefs and ability to exercise their freedoms, can all live in a peaceful, civilized society.

These political pundit journalists really should put a little more faith in simply doing the right thing. If a person asks you to not use a specific word to describe the gender they identify their life with, it's probably best to swallow pride and refrain

at least until it becomes so blatantly obvious that they are simply trying to shut down the dialogue, as had you waited til that point, there likely wouldn't be any outcry.

Perhaps if sloggers took a day or two, getting a better idea about what kinds or basic rights they believe each and every person should be entitled to, and what amount of respect they are willing to show those whose beliefs system does not align exactly with your own set, and then how much respect or disrespect you believe people should be subjected to

Exaggerating the circumstances and playing it off as if one person asking you to not use a word offensive to them, to describe them, is going to stifle or even halt all progress of intellectual higher learning

is complete and utter bullshit

it's not only stupid, it's assholish, the same as it to condescend the offended person again, in publications such as this, while being a prick about it, pretending you are calling for respectful behavior with the whole

"...For now, please don't call anyone "tranny" who wishes to be seen only as the man or woman they are..."

get a spine and just spit it out if you don't give a shit about how the concerned person feels. Going the spineless journalistic route of employing passive aggressive subtlety, makes you not only appear as an asshole, but also one that has a hard time accepting responsibility for there words or actions, as well as having a little trouble with honesty.

Try being a real person, as opposed to a fuckwit journalist (which is essentially, a journalist)
55
Ugh. If you want to continue using words that hurt people, that's your prerogative, but you might have to consider the fact that you're a douche.
56
if you weren't a journalist, or the insult was coming from anyone other than a journalist, I would be offended.

Hell I might even be offended if it came from someone who believed we landed on the moon, however the common journalist's words don't carry much weight with me, Luker
57
"tranny" = not good usage
"trans person" = OK?

any other term? ("trans person" sounds awkward, stiff)
58
It's struck me, in recent months, that the wing of the trans movement that's largely made up of white transwomen who prefer sex with women is fundamentally extremely conservative, and that they're the ones getting the most up in arms about the use of "tranny".
59
What @41 said: Progressives are at least as guilty of trying to play language police. To suggest otherwise in the middle of this particular discussion is at best ironic, at worst totally lacking self-awareness.

60
@53 Sorry LavaGirl,
I like what you say and agree.
Idea that I am a "Cis Man" (especially said aloud) won't work for me.

61
@58, Then I would suggest you get to know more trans women. Monica Roberts is a good starting point.
62
It would hurt a lot if someone called me a tranny.

It hurts me when I hear people use the word even if they're not referring to me. @2, if you think that words only hurt if I allow them to, you can consider yourself lucky. I guess maybe you just don't understand what some other people's lives are like.

If I were told I was doing something that hurt people, I'd stop, but apparently some people are different.

Still, I don't want to police anyone's use of any words, though I'd ask people not to use it with me.
63
I love you, Mx. Justin Vivian Bond. I have seen you move through and rise above enough $%#* to bear witness that you have earned your right to feel and speak as you do. Thank you for your kind, courageous honesty. You are one who has survived that bleak era of the 80s and 90sโ€” before this young generation was bornโ€” and blossomed. You haven't forgotten our Trancestors, and I thank you for naming them here. May this sometimes painful and mostly enlightening public conversation continue to forge the changes that bring healing, equity and joy to all of us.
64

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65
The trans community insists it's wrong for anyone to tell them what is offensive. Is the flip side of that statement that people must be offended by what the trans community tells them to?

This is a unique situation. The transgender community and the drag community are two very different groups that get conflated. Many of the slurs that the transgender community must deal with are the very same drag performers face.

This is a truth and it must be respected.

For the transgender community to insist they get to overrule the drag community on the use of these terms is insulting. It's fine and proper for the trans community to insist no one use these terms against them. However, the drag community is founded on the idea of refusing to be shamed by such terms. They own them. And that is their choice.

Never in the history of the show has the word tranny been used to degrade or insult the trans community. All of these "offensive" terms are used by and on drag queens.

The only time transgender people have been discussed on the show has been when contestants have come out as transgender and at those times Ru has shown only love and respect.

So to insist that Ru is an enemy of the trans community simply refuses to acknowledge context and also denies the validity of the drag community and its right to decide for itself what is offensive in its own world.
66
In my interaction with the British trans community, particularly the excellent http://www.transtastic.com, I've noticed that they own the word "tranny" moreso than Americans. The latter--Americans, that is--are the ones who take such vociferous exception to the term. I think the difference may be the ironic and dark gallows humour so typical of historically strife-torn and culturally traumatized Britons and Europeans. The same humour that makes a joke out of The Spanish Inquisition...that we weren't expecting ['DAH-H-H-H!'] (And then there's Mel Brooks...)

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