Trigger warning for the violent assault of a trans man.
From Tumblr, we have this lovely story of a trans man, James Alexander, who was violently assaulted for being trans. (Warning: link contains pictures of his facial injuries. They’re harrowing.)
James walked by the house of a girl whom he had once had a crush on. The girl had virulently rejected him, calling him a “faggot” and “not a real man” and saying that she would consider him if he had a penis. The girl’s boyfriend, who had nine inches on James, punched him in the face repeatedly while asking him if he was a “real man” and calling him a faggot. When James began to cry, they made fun of him for crying, calling him a “little girl.”
The disgusting intersection of transphobia and male gender-policing sickens me. The concept of the “real man” needs to die a slow and painful death, preferably while staked out in the sun with ants eating its honey-covered nether regions.
As long as the concept of the “real man” exists, men will be punished for their inability to fit it. Some men will be teased. Some men will be shaped by social pressure into denying who they really are. Some men will be bullied. Some men will be driven to suicide. Like James, some men will be beaten up. And, God help us all, some men will be murdered.
We have to accept, as a culture, that there is exactly one thing that makes you a man: identifying as a man. Just like there is exactly one thing that makes you a woman: identifying as a woman. And there is exactly one thing that makes you third-gender or genderqueer: identifying as third-gender or genderqueer. Every gender presentation or performance is exactly as valid as every other gender.
Sometimes I feel like creating a list of all the things that don’t make you any less a man:
- Having a pussy.
- Being mistakenly assigned female at birth.
- Crying when you’re being beaten up.
- Crying, ever.
- Not being a violent person.
- Being a “faggot.”*
- Being a gay, bisexual, pansexual or otherwise queer man.
- Wearing items of clothing typically assigned to women.
- Moving in a “feminine” manner.
- Liking My Little Pony, shopping or spending time with children.
- Not liking action movies, football or the smell of your own farts.
But I know that as soon as I create the list, some new sexist transphobic homophobic ass milliners will be along with a new idea about how some people’s taste in fucking toothpaste makes them really a sissy little girl. Bigotry is like Dracula: you just can’t fucking kill the bastard.
And as long as we don’t manage to put the wooden stake in bigotry’s vampiric heart, shit like this will happen. Men will be beaten up because they don’t fit some asshole’s idea of what a man ought to be like. A man will be beaten up for walking by his former crush’s house, just because he doesn’t have a penis and so doesn’t fit into someone’s narrow-minded ideas of what masculinity ought to be like. And, speak for yourself, but a world in which my brothers bleed over something that stupid– that is not a world I want to live in.
People who can provide references to legal counsel or other resources may contact James at ericjames1302 at yahoo dot com.
*I find it kind of sickly amusing that they acknowledge James’s gender identity, insofar as they called him a “faggot” and not a “dyke”, but are apparently too stupid to work out that men who are into women are straight and hence definitionally not faggots (unless, of course, they like men too).
I think the idea of ‘identifying male’ establishes that male is something you act out: a code of behaviour.
How did “milliners” become an insult word? Does this tie in with metaphor of hat a social role?
“*I find it kind of sickly amusing that they acknowledge James’s gender identity, insofar as they called him a “faggot” and not a “dyke”, but are apparently too stupid to work out that men who are into women are straight and hence definitionally not faggots (unless, of course, they like men too).” This just shows how little basis all that hate has in reality. They’re not angry at him because they’re honestly offended at what they see as a woman pretending to be a man, and hitting on other women as if she was a man, they just use it… Read more »
The phrase “real man” sucks, transphobia sucks, bullying sucks and assault really sucks. I had a girl that I barely even knew call me over, asked me repeatedly if I was attracted to her boyfriend because everyone knew I was gay (wrong, but I was a stubborn ass and refused to degrade myself by playing along with that shit) and, when I tried to leave without answering, he decided to beat me up for being the gay kid. I was used to that crap by then and I had specifically asked a friend of mine to come with, but hang… Read more »
In that case, I concede that I’m in way over my head; lacking the ability to DIG up, I GIVE up.
“For anyone you point to and say, “HE is masculine,” I guarantee you there’s someone else somewhere who will point to someone else and say, “Uh-uh, HE is masculine.” Definitions of masculinity have changed over time. To further muddy the issue: as far as I’m concerned, TRAITS, like courage, and strength, and fortitude, and determination, can belong to ANYONE. ”
Except that’s not the contention. It’s more about what makes someone able to call themselves a man, not a masculine person. Women can be masculine without a problem, and men can be feminine, it’s not determinant.
To complete my second sentence:
“I certainly didn’t intend to invoke reception theory as a form of intellectual masturbation, nor did I intend to misuse, misrepresent, or misinterpret it.”
Well, THAT didn’t go off as planned. If I offended anybody, I didn’t mean to. 🙁 I certainly didn’t intend to invoke reception theory as a form of intellectual masturbation, nor did I intend to misuse, misrepresent, or I suppose what I was really trying to say is that, based on everything I know, there’s no way to download an idea from my head to yours because the idea is a personal construct, relevant only to me. The only alternative is to (metaphorically) put a blueprint of my idea in a bottle (i.e. in symbolic form) and hope to god… Read more »
“I simply use male to apply to the biological sex. ” It also heads off a lot the naive anthropocentrism that can cripple the discussion. “Of course I’ve heard reception theory is just one of those “interpretive” theories for literary texts, so maybe it’s not meant to be applied to the real world of language at all. ” It’s cultural ghettoiszation at its worst, just crippling if you want to make any real sense out of text that doesn’t come out of your own particular little subculture – which is fine f you and some friends are listening to song… Read more »
I simply use male to apply to the biological sex. That sort of avoids these arguments as I find many trans people work that way as well. I also believe everyone can agree that beating on people who have done nothing to you simply for existing (or to clarify even more, oppressing them any other way) is wrong? I’ll double also what Orphan said. Reception theory is retarded if it denies the existence of external reality, or heck, denies that people can find concepts in common. If not, science and engineering (bery technical and precise language)wouldn’t work. Of course I’ve… Read more »
I’d go with the “Heroic” definition of a man (Courage, decency, honour), but anyone who’s anyone qualifies as a man then. Brother Ozy (I hope ya don’t mind being called “Brother” for this demonstration purpose) definitely qualifies for having these qualities. And Courage is more than standing up and letting people hit you, it’s about Moral Courage, sticking to your beliefs in the face of overwhelming opposition. So yeah. There’s that. But I am a man, and not just because I can quote a certain Minnesotan Comic book fan. Why am I a man? I cannot say. But I know… Read more »
Actually, I’d say that someone identifies as a man (or woman, or gender-queer, etc) because he *is* a man, not the other way round. What “being a man” exactly means is somewhat of a mystery, and absolutely subjective (for the person identifying himself as a man). As you can’t give a perfect definition of what “being happy” means which would fit every being capable of being happy, so you cannot give a perfect definition of what “being a man” means. If you know your gender, then you don’t need any tests to confirm your gender identity. It’s like being in… Read more »
You WILL drop the subject and stop offending my friends, or I will banhammer your ass like fucking Thor.(Noah)
Now that shit there is too fucking funny. 🙂
Back in the day when the internet wasnt an option you would generally hear a similar threat go like this. “Stop picking on my friends or a will punch the shit out of you”. Is this how intellectual tough guys now do it?
Screw it. The comments weren’t derailed, the main post was; the comments merely followed suit. Gaius – So what you’re saying is that the moon is only purple on a Sunday. Stolen concept fallacy much? You’re misusing reception theory, too, incidentally. What’s interesting is that TQ never attempted to define manhood, only to assert that it meant -something-, and this was construed as offensive. I suspect I’m going to get banned now, anyways, so a closing thought: In a superficially masculinist blog, asserting that a word which conveys to people the masculine (whatever they personally interpret the masculine to be)… Read more »
Admittedly, I’m coming a little late to the party, but to address the point TQ brought up: A guy named Stuart Hall came up with what he called “reception theory.” The old idea of communication (and the paradigm under which TQ appears to have been operating) is based on the idea of objective knowledge. Step 1). I have an idea; the idea exists as a discrete, objective unit in my mind — a meme, if you will. Step 2). In attempting to communicate my idea to you, I try and find a linguistic way to download my discrete, objective idea… Read more »
Kudos to noah for banhammering over this. Not sure I’d have had the nerve given I’m too harmless usually, even if I can rage about stuff sometimes (and possibly this matter over many others – though usually with radfems).
D3: GAH. I meant female. Stupid word-typoes. XD
@stillinverted: Constantly. Deal. Incidentally, as cretinous manosphere neologisms go, I think their usage of “white knight” is actually stupider than “mangina”, and that takes some doing. I’m not entirely convinced that “white-knight” is the correct manosphere term to apply to this particular thread. White-knighting typically refers to a man defending women. Yet, the subject of the OP, as well as many (most?) of the trans-gendered commentators that I’ve read on this blog are in fact men. I just don’t understand why we have to be identified by the dangly bits between our legs. We’re all people….just people….shouldn’t matter what we… Read more »
🙁 I just don’t understand why we have to be identified by the dangly bits between our legs. We’re all people….just people….shouldn’t matter what we have going on down below. Why we have to hate over something so trivial is beyond me.
noah: white knight much?
@stillinverted: Constantly. Deal.
Incidentally, as cretinous manosphere neologisms go, I think their usage of “white knight” is actually stupider than “mangina”, and that takes some doing.
I like that cartoon.
Best line ever “But what of it? It is a vacuous truth.”
That’s just the huge math nerd coming out in me.
@Darque: I just like seeing someone other than XKCD doing a decent set theory joke. 🙂
Wow. You are close to being the most pathetic person I’ve ever encountered on the internet. And please don’t act like banning me from this sorry, trojan horse of a blog is some kind of a threat. I could not give less of a shit.
I’ve injected some actual logic into the discussion, which is all I intended to do.
Ciao.
Ask and ye shall receive. Adios, TQ.
(To clarify: yes, he’s banned.)
“Your implicit and explicit statements that one cannot define one’s own gender are, implicitly, attacks on these community members and a denial of their right to exist.” You don’t even know what you’re arguing against. All definitions are fundamentally arbitrary, but in order for language to have any communicative power whatsoever, there needs to be some level of consensus concerning semantics. It doesn’t matter how “man” is defined, but it can only function as a term between populations if members of that population use it similarly. Identifying as a man cannot be the sole requirement of being dubbed a “man”… Read more »
@tu quoque: Hey look, it’s a cartoon about all the fucks I give. You WILL drop the subject and stop offending my friends, or I will banhammer your ass like fucking Thor.
@Cheradenine.
Oh, I must have missed the first cruiseliner and started fashioning myself a canoe. My bad.
She said that she can’t be with him because he’s “not a real man,” that she might if he had a dick but she’s disgusted with him the way he is. So basically she’s exactly like the straight men who beat and murder trans women – she’s attracted to him, but repulsed because she’s had it drilled into her that he’s not a real man and therefore that attraction is aberrant. And instead of coming to terms with her attraction and we might hope coming to understand that he is, in fact, a man, she responds with violence. That her… Read more »