when the status quo frustrates.

My wall is covered in idiots.

My friend’s wall, actually.

I’d link there, but linking into Facebook is an exercise in frustration.

So, instead you get to read it here! Fully imported from shit-vile.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Punkass!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

27 Responses to “My wall is covered in idiots.”

  1. Antigone says:
    April 21, 2009 at 10:29 pm

    So disturbing you need to kill someone? That’s fucked up, and shows a less protection for trans-people. Urg indeed.

  2. violet says:
    April 21, 2009 at 10:31 pm

    Read on, Antigone. It just keeps getting better and better, logic getting swirlier and swirlier until it, finally, eats itself.

  3. ann says:
    April 21, 2009 at 10:47 pm

    I can’t read past any of the “read more tags.”

    You’re not in bed : – p

  4. Antigone says:
    April 21, 2009 at 10:57 pm

    I can’t click “read more”.

  5. Jenn93 says:
    April 21, 2009 at 11:01 pm

    Now that’s some grade A trolling. Don’t say what you actually mean, just do a little song and dance to try to make it as complicated as humanly possible until, as violet hit the nail right on the head, eat itself.

  6. Aishwarya says:
    April 21, 2009 at 11:02 pm

    *wince*

  7. MH says:
    April 21, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    It doesn’t really work without the “read more”…

  8. laterose says:
    April 21, 2009 at 11:25 pm

    Personally I don’t really want to “read more”

  9. ann says:
    April 21, 2009 at 11:27 pm

    Antigone, I can totally understand why you find law school problematic. There’s a special kind of arrogance that only lawyers can exude. When coupled with misogyny, it’s intolerable.

  10. violet says:
    April 22, 2009 at 4:33 am

    Fixed. You may have to shift-reload.

  11. Jix says:
    April 22, 2009 at 10:13 am

    I read the whole thing, through bloody, bloody tears.

    May I be your facebook friend?

  12. Bird says:
    April 22, 2009 at 10:51 am

    Ugh. I hate being reminded that these people are out there, and even worse, that they are the people who will hold so much power over the rest of us in the future.

    I don’t understand how people can justify *murder* because a person didn’t have the genitals someone was expecting.

  13. Antigone says:
    April 22, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Ann-

    Yep, and it’s part of (though not the majority reason) I’m giving up the law. I’d rather be a wage slave then put up with this (or even worse, be forced to give this defense).

  14. violet says:
    April 22, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Luke also commented on [Friend]‘s link:

    “Jeremy, would it freak you out if I tried to kiss you? Don’t worry, I’m all man.”

    Classy, classy.

  15. violet says:
    April 22, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    Footnotes: I did it in that thread, but I should mention that I generally find the argument by analogy to race problematic. It reinforces, if slightly, the notion that racism is six feet in the ground.

    Then again, can you imagine getting that crowd to understand that racism still exists? It probably would have resonated more to ask, “what if he’d killed her because she was rich and white?”

    Also, I just now noticed that I mis-typed Andrade’s name a bunch of times. I do not know why.

  16. gnaddrig says:
    April 23, 2009 at 5:37 am

    Violet, I don’t get how being pissed at finding out that a woman you were making out with is really a man can be seen as transphobia. It is simply being pissed because you were being lied to. Trans people are not disturbing horrors. Sleeping with a trans woman as such is neither humiliating nor shocking. But finding you were having sex with a man when you thought you were having sex with a woman certainly can be both humiliating and shocking. Lying to someone, not giving them the full picture, deceiving them for whatever reason is the problem here, not being trans.

    I (a hetero man) for one would have been pissed to some degree in a similar situation. If I were going to have sex with a woman and found out (after she had given me several blow jobs) that she is really a man, I would definitely be shocked. After all, I am not gay, and I don’t want sex with men, whatever they dress up as, and this does not make me homophobic or transphobic, either. I do see how people come to speak of ‘Zapata’s deception’, although there was no reason to go berserk like Andrade did. The bastard should have just left, and left Zapata alone.

  17. Jix says:
    April 23, 2009 at 9:16 am

    Dear GOD what about the cismen?!

  18. Antigone says:
    April 23, 2009 at 10:40 am

    gnaddrig-

    She. Considered. Herself. A. Woman. She. Was. NOT. A. Man.

    This has been another episode of short responses to weird-ass people.

  19. ann says:
    April 23, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Also…you assumed that Angie was dishonest with him, ie, either by not disclosing her trans status or by claiming to be cisgendered. Angie’s family claims that she was always honest. When and how Andrade learened that Angie was trans was a major point of debate during the trial. Of course, we’ll never know what really happened because Angie has been permanetly silenced. Assuming that there was deception involved is transphobic. The “transpeople are lying liars” narrative does a lot of damage by implicitly blaming violence on victims.

  20. ann says:
    April 23, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    Just to be clear, I’m not implying that transpeople must come out to their partners, or else they are lying liars. In a perfect world, everyone would understand that gender is something we write on to bodies, rather than vice versa. Unfortunately, we live in this one, and the threat of violence is very real for transpeople whether or not they come out.

  21. Lisa Kansas says:
    April 23, 2009 at 9:24 pm

    Antigone–

    To be fair, if one presents oneself as a certain gender but has the genitalia of the opposite biological sex, that is something that should be revealed to a sex partner prior to the initiation of sex, period. I have a friend who is a transgender dyke and she would never, ever in a million years fail to disclose to a woman she was about to have sex with that she has a penis. She would consider that wrong, deceptive and cruel, and I would agree. Would you really think that would be perfectly okay?

    Hopefully it goes without saying, though, that it is a hell of a lot more wrong to lay a finger on someone who you find out hasn’t been totally honest with you prior to getting naked with you. It is even so much more wrong beyond that to kill someone, whether they lied to you or not, that I can’t even make a meaningful comparison. But homophobia-induced homicide’s hardly a new phenomenon. :( Massively depressing and enraging, though.

  22. gnaddrig says:
    April 24, 2009 at 4:41 am

    Antigone: Considering yourself something or someone doesn’t make you that something or someone.

    When you think ‘woman’, do you think of someone with a penis? Do you see the difference between a person with a penis who thinks he is a woman, or who may indeed have the mind of a woman but somehow ended up in a male body on the one hand, and a person with a vagina who thinks she is a woman on the other? The latter is your standard issue woman, the former at least a special case. I would want to know beforehand which kind of woman I am getting involved with. And as for ‘whatever they dress up as’ (I guess this is the bit you took offence at): For all practical purposes it doesn’t make much of a difference to most potential sex partners whether someone with a penis honestly thinks he is a woman, or whether he just dresses up and pretends to be a woman.

    I didn’t intend to imply Zapata just pretended. Apparently she did consider herself a woman. I simply don’t think this is relevant. She knew she had a penis and must have known that some or probably most people would not see her as a woman because of this. So, ann, there would really be a bit of deception if a trans woman kept this fact from a (potential or real) sex partner. This has got nothing to do with being or not being understanding. I would not have a problem having trans people as close friends, only so far I haven’t personally met any. But probably I wouldn’t want to have sex with them. And I think most people wouldn’t. So this is something that needs to be understood before it gets to that stage, and everyone involved should have a chance to know what they are letting themselves in for. Why is this a problem?

    Does my previous comment make me a weird-ass, or was that aimed at someone else?

  23. ann says:
    April 24, 2009 at 9:56 pm

    gnaddrig,

    I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re not a troll, just in case. Naive of me, I know.

    A crash course in Gender Studies 101: gender is not an immutable biological fact. Across time and culture, ideas and practices of gender vary immensely. Gender is not binary; thousands of people are born every year who are are intersexed, not to mention people who self-identify as genderqueer. A lot of cherished assumptions about gender don’t hold up to academic scrutiny. Gender is socially constructed, an identity we write on to our bodies through our behavior. Transwomen are no more, or less, female than ciswomen; the same goes for transmen and cismen.

  24. ann says:
    April 24, 2009 at 10:54 pm

    Lisa,

    I’m not sure if you meant to address that to me or Antigone, but here’s my two cents.

    Yes, coming out to a partner prior to sexual contact in that instance would be the right thing to do. The shape of one’s genitalia could be triggering. I don’t think failing to disclose that information is necessarily deceptive. If someone had eczema on their genitals, or was a narcoleptic, and they didn’t disclose said details before initiating sexual contact, potential partners might be understandably upset. However, I don’t think anyone would call them deceptive, even though having someone fall asleep in the middle of sex could be problematic or triggering too.

    Also, do you think post-op transpeople must disclose their gender identity to potential partners? What about intersexed people, or people with other medical issues that can affect sexual perfomance? I’m not trying to be antagonistic towards you or other PunkAssers, so if I’m coming across that way, I apologize. I’m just ranting because I’m pissed about the prevalence of transphobia, particularly within certain so-called “feminist” communities.

    I take issue with the amount of attention devoted to how and when and why transpeople disclose their gender identity to potential partners. Focusing on the tired, unrealistic narrative of “trans-deception” takes the focus off perpetrators of violence. The ways the media, including many cisbloggers, cover these issues implies that transpeople are being deceptive simply by living their lives in the gender they identify as. We’re all performing gender, so if transpeople are guilty of deception, so is everyone.

    There was no proof that Angie Zapata lied to Allen Andrade, either by omission or by claiming to be cisgendered. AsI stated previously, Zapata’s family claimed that she was always very careful to come out to men she was seeing. There was also no proof that Andrade and Zapata had sexual contact, although Andrade claimed that Zapata had performed oral sex on him. Andrade’s DNA, but not Zapata’s, was found on a dildo owned by Zapata, but Andrade’s DNA was not found on Zapata.

    Yet gnaddrig and the facebook swarm assumed not only that Zapata and Andrade were sexual, but that she deceived him. They also failed to understand why this assumption is transphobic. The next time I have a romantic interest, I’ll be sure to disclose my cisgender status before I get horizontal with them. I have been mistaken for trans before. Although it’s almost certainly a marker of my cisprivilege, I thought it was cool to be read incorrectly.

  25. Lisa Kansas says:
    April 25, 2009 at 1:32 am

    “There was no proof that Angie Zapata lied to Allen Andrade, either by omission or by claiming to be cisgendered.”

    I totally agree. The only thing I was addressing in my remark was this remark of Antigone’s–

    “gnaddrig-

    She. Considered. Herself. A. Woman. She. Was. NOT. A. Man.”

    And my only modification of that stance was, anyone with genitalia that is standard to the opposite biological sex from what they consider themselves to be, still needs to share that with their partner prior to sexual intercourse.

    I tried to make as clear as possible that I think that argument is irrelevant in terms of what happened to Angie Zapata. She was murdered. The only reasonable defense that can be made to a murder charge, in my opinion, is that the person doing the killing was in fear of their own life or serious physical maiming or in fear of someone else’s. Period. I believe Angie Zapata’s gender or lack thereof should never have been considered as a factor at all.

  26. violet says:
    April 25, 2009 at 9:47 pm

    I don’t get how being pissed at finding out that a woman you were making out with is really a man can be seen as transphobia.

    I don’t even know what to do with this. It’s like one of those sentences you tell robots to make their brains explode.

    She would consider that wrong, deceptive and cruel, and I would agree. Would you really think that would be perfectly okay?

    I don’t think it’s something most trans people would do, but I wouldn’t consider it wrong, deceptive, or cruel, certainly. I might consider it queer (heh, heh), or inadvisable, but that depends on the context. As Ann pointed out, we don’t generally think we need to describe everything about our bodies to our partners. In a sense, people probably ought to tell their patners if they’re trans, or cis, or intersex, or if they have scars, burns or other disfigurements, PTSD, unusually large labiae, unusually large penises, unusually small penises, etc. Any of these things, and many others, can be triggering. People don’t always talk about these things, though, and I think the only reason to single out trans bodies as needing disclosure (I’m not saying you are, but it certainly happens often enough) is if we believe they are inherently problematic, disturbing, or triggering. Which both requires and perpetuates transphobia.

    In this context, it also has a ring of “if she hadn’t been out walking after dark” Not just because it shifts focus from the attacker’s actions onto the victim’s “provocation”, but because it mischaracterizes the systematic nature of the crime. Most rapes do not occur when a stranger jumps out at you in the dark; most trans murder victims, similarly, are not killed by lovers driven mad at the first sight of their genitals.

  27. gnaddrig says:
    April 27, 2009 at 2:46 am

    If you want to see me as a troll, go ahead, you’ll never hear from me again.

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