I just read this piece where Julia Serano (trans activist and author of Whipping Girl) writes, “[T]here is no perfect word: Every term will have its detractors, and so long as trans people are stigmatized in our culture, some people will use these terms in disparaging or exclusionary ways.”
She coined the terms word-sabotage and word-elimination to talk about this. Word-elimination, as you might guess, is when people rally against a particular term. Usually because they find something about it offensive, or inferior to their preferred term. It’s “don’t use this word.”
Word-sabotage is similar, but indirect. It’s when people “sabotage” one term by talking about how this other word is better – in ways that imply negative things about the first term. Or when people decide that one word sucks and is terrible because another word is so great or inclusive.
One example she gave was that when the term “trans*,” with the asterisk, became a popular way to be inclusive, people started saying that “trans” (without the asterisk) was exclusionary. Even though both terms had been used in the exact same way. And, of course, as the asterisk rose to power, people started critiquing it as well.
But she also comes up with the term saving words. Because here’s the thing: words about controversial communities change a lot. We’re constantly under attack, and we’re constantly evolving.
And we tend to turn around and attack the people who are still using the old words. Even when we don’t actively attack them, we’re doing it by implication. We tell everyone not to use FTM and MTF, or trans*, or lots of other terms, when tons of trans people still embrace those terms. And so newbies and cis people come along and assume that those people are exclusionary, or have internalized transphobia, or are practicing some kind of lateral aggression, or are just bad and wrong.
But she explains it better:
“But more importantly, the people who use trans-related terminology the most (by far!) are other transgender/trans/trans* folks. And whether intentional or not, attempts to undermine some specific trans-related term will have the effect of undermining those transgender/trans/trans* individuals who use that term in their activism and/or to describe their experiences.
“It is really easy to condemn a word: to take offense when people say it, to tell others it is disparaging or exclusionary, and that they should not use it. But it is not the only path (or even the best path) moving forward. Perhaps instead, we could try saving words, by calling out the negative or narrow assumptions that sometimes latch themselves onto trans-related language. When someone uses a trans-related term in a disparaging or exclusionary way, perhaps we should challenge the misappropriation of that term, rather than surrendering or undermining the word itself. It is not the words themselves, but the negative assumptions and sentiments behind the words that are the problem—so perhaps they should be our primary target.” (emphasis mine)
I’m all about this. The ideas behind new and changing words are usually great and important, and they’re also often the same ideas that were behind the old words.
We all have different associations with specific words, and usually when it’s a negative association, we assume that the person speaking has the same association and that they’re expressing something bad. What if we all supported each other by listening to and talking about what we each mean instead?
This.
this is very timely BC this is an older post but I have been thinking about it a lot lately
Like, how long before the discourse is “don’t say nonbinary people are trans, that word is only for binary dysphoric people and always has been”
(I’d give that one about a year at the outside, since so many people already think nonbinary people by definition don’t experience any kind of dysphoria ever, and don’t transition ever, and people already say things like “trans and nonbinary people”)
how long until “it’s transphobic to call it transitioning, or to say you want to transition! you’ve always been that gender, you’re not transitioning to it”
how long til “it’s transphobic to use they/them as generic gender-neutral pronouns, because those really are the pronouns for nonbinary people, and you’re implying they could be used by anybody”
(I know the last one excludes neopronouns. I just think a lot of people would use it as a convenient tactic to marginalize and erase neopronouns)
Just want to point out that I’ve seen people already making the argument that the word trans is only for binary dysphoric people.
yeah, I might be splitting hairs here. Because I’ve seen it too, in the form of truscum claiming that nb people just plain aren’t trans – that those of us who transition are “confused” and really binary, and those who don’t shouldn’t be allowed to because they’re “not trans” (??????)
I was thinking that we hadn’t reached “nonbinary people are their real gender (or genders, or genderless) and can transition, but trans isn’t an umbrella term, it only means the binary part of the community.”
But that’s not really all that different.
I’ve seen every single one of these arguments, even the pronouns one. In fact, a while back, there was a blog dedicated to replacing “them” pronouns with their own so-called “universal pronouns” (and appropriating from another religion – Buddhism I think – in the process). I have no idea if that blog is still around or not.
On topic, though, I agree with this post entirely. As long as those same people don’t apply it to people who don’t want it applied to them personally, it should be fine for people to use the terms they see fit. After all, we all should have the right to define our own experiences and language, no?
Perhaps that’s a given, though? Or at least one would hope.
-Ryan
my personal opinion is that nonbinary people are inherently included under trans and there’s no need for the asterisk to be there (we’re represented by the white stripe on the trans flag after all)
but i’m not going to flip shit (anymore, haha thank god i smartened up) if someone uses trans* with the intention of including enbies (plus there are nonbinary people who don’t ID as trans, this includes them)
language is important and in a perfect world we’d be able to seriously sit down and talk about all these words, and even come up with stable definitions- but that’s not really how language works. Words evolve and change and fall in and out of use over time.
People on here love to talk about stuff like who is and isn’t “allowed” to use x or y term or which terms are Valid and which are Problematic but I’ll tell you right now ask a fairly supportive cis person how many genders they know and they’ll probably say male, female, nonbinary/agender/genderqueer/both/neither, and maybe genderfluid.
(Same for sexualities: they’ll say gay, straight, bi, potentially pan and ace)
Gender and sexuality are amazing and diverse experiences, of course people are going to make tons of words in an attempt to describe theirs. Can it get confusing and complicated and risk freaking some people out because they can’t find a label that fits them just right? Yup. Does that mean we should do away with the whole system entirely?
Nah.
So some words will be more popular. Some will only be known by insiders. They’ll change as our collective understanding of gender and sexuality changes. Try to keep this in mind when you hear someone using outdated terms; sure they could be a dick, but they could also just be ignorant, or y’know, from a time when that was the Correct Word.
Normally it’s seen with older people but with how fast information spreads now you can have people less than 10 years apart with completely different lexicons about gender + sexuality.
Basically, chill and try not to jump on someone just because they used a word that you think is Wrong.
(disclaimer: words that are slurs should obviously be used carefully, and only to refer to people who are comfy being called that word. people, especially older people, may make this mistake, be kind but firm in correcting them. and if they’re just being assholes, let ‘em have it if you feel safe to do so)
^^^ This is a really good addition and one we agree with. A lot of things are said here that we wanted to say, but didn’t know how to quite put into words.
(Thank you.)
especially the part about how fast it changes. @rainbro-stache at 37 years old, once said to me: “did you know that FTM is outdated now?!” I was like “yes bc I’m on Tumblr” but like… We used to be able to say things like “on the FTM spectrum” to indicate that someone was not binary but shared life experiences with binary trans guys. And the same for MTF.
And now we’re stuck with things like “AFAB/AMAB,” which describe the person solely in terms of what they were born with (and doesn’t overlap well with a lot of intersex experiences).
Or “transfem/transmasc,” which… to me implies that people on one spectrum are inherently “masculine” and people on the other are inherently “feminine” or “femme”? Which I fucking haaaaate: because I’m fairly high femme… because butch trans women and butch “transfems” need support and visibility really badly… and because where does that leave people who are gender fluid or agender?
Right back in “what’s important about you is what binary box we want to assume you’re in,” that’s where.
/rant
What fascinates me about the “trans*” thing is that I was on tumblr around that time, and I very clearly remember people being really excited for that at first! People loved it and really made a case for using it all the time! …and then, suddenly, somehow, all the same people who were praising it were saying that it’s terrible and no one should use it because “trans is already inclusive of non-binary people, if you have to make an extra show of being inclusive then you’re not really.” The turnaround time seemed to be like…a few months, too?
What’s even worse is that it actually ended up making the whole thing very Americanised, because a lot of British documents and guidelines (for things like the NHS and helplines and other decent trans services) STILL use “trans*” and make notes about its inclusivity. So it’s like the official guidelines are trying to be helpful, and then people are seeing on the internet “actually they’re not helpful, that’s SO outdated and they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
So yeah, this sudden rushing around, creating and then abandoning terms is just…wow is it not actually helpful in the slightest.
Omg yes. I’ve seen posts, that flatly state that anyone using “transgendered” inevitably turns out to be an ignorant bigot. And… maybe if they’re cis?
But for years, in the late 90s, we used both transgender and transgendered. I remember vigorous debate about this on several trans listservs. I still have a trans anthology FROM 2006 where at least one, maybe several, of the authors calls themself “transgendered” in their own bio.
I was rooting for “transgendered” myself. I know, we lost, the community has clearly gone with “transgender.” But I am not a fan of the unilateral “this word and everyone using it is Problematic” bullshit. (Especially since I’ve also seen that said about MTF/FTM, and there are still a LOT of trans people on Tumblr using those terms for themselves!)
Like, I love discussion about what different words imply, what connotations different people have with them, what people personally like to use and why.
It’s when we get into “and therefore this term is Right and these terms are Wrong and if you use them you’re also Wrong” that it gets… “Problematic” to me.
b) you do not have to experience dysphoria to question your gender, feel your gender does not fit your assigned gender at birth, etc.
c) experiencing dysphoria – and/or degree of dysphoria – should not be used as a measuring stick for who does and does not deserve care (hint: everybody deserves care)
When you see an otherwise decent post containing “cishets” or “LGBT”
when you openly hate lgbt people so much that seeing “lgbt” on someone’s blog will stop you from following them
Obviously they said that because people who use LGBT instead of LGBT+ or LGBTQ+ etc are leaving a lot of people out. It’s not clever to intentionally misunderstand something like that.
^^ what??? That’s not even close smh did you drop an /s or something??
So what’s wrong with cishet then in that case?
Nope. It’s unfortunately a dogwhistle on this site at this point. I have found, much to my chagrin, that I’m usually better off checking to be sure that someone who just uses LGBT isn’t using it to exclude people on purpose, the same way that I would check to be sure that someone using ‘female’ or ‘male’ in a post isn’t a fucking TERF.
It sucks, but there it is. It’s not consistent – not everyone who uses ‘female’ in a post is a TERF, not everyone who uses ‘LGBT’ is trying to leave people out, but it’s common enough that I usually think it’s a good idea to check before following or reblogging.
(And the fact that @ghostqueenofthesun was responding to one of the best-known anti-ace blogs, who literally take their name from a joking conversation between myself and @scribbleowl where one of us mistyped ‘gatekeepers’ as ‘hatekeepers’ and I posted laughing about it, is preeeeetty much all you need to know about how very intentionally they are misunderstanding, and why.)
Oh – and the thing about cishet? It’s been appropriated by the REG crowd, which sucks. They deploy it against ace/aro folks of any persuasion, but are glad to slap it in the general direction of anyone who thinks ace/aro folk are part of LGBTQIPA or Queer communities. (I cannot count the number of times I’ve been called ‘cishet’ by exclusionists, despite being neither.) So if I see it? I check to be sure they aren’t just dogwhistling for ‘ace/aro ppl or people who disagree with me about including ace/aro ppl.’
I feel it’s time we stop pretending like dogwhistles aren’t being used, and also stop pretending like people don’t know they use ‘em.
People are most definitely manipulating and skewing these conversations a lot, and they fully utilise dogwhistles to do so.
And will deny any such a thing when it’s brought up – and even resorting to use more dogwhistles. Which we see exemplified above.
People are wary of dogwhistles, so when people see that, they respond by using more, and pretend to mistake the wariness of dogwhistles, with what they’re pretending the dogwhistles mean.
So when someone is wary at “lgbt”, these people clearly often mean “not nb/pan/ace ppl” a huge chunk of the time, but people shut that critique down by trying to paint you as actually being distrustful of what lgbt literally stands for (and not the context of its use), so being wary of lesbian, gay, bi, n trans folks.
And I really thought by now that this was apparent and obvious, that these people are clearly being manipulative, because, I mean, it’s manipulation being criticised to begin with.
Also, the other point, cishet, when people show wariness over that, again, people will act like you’re wary of people talk of their oppressors, and not the context and intent of its use – where the person believes this includes people who aren’t even “cishet”.
See their tactics. Recognise them. And don’t take their manipulative rhetorics as genuine critique, but as simply shit to try to paint you as vile and immoral.
Anyway, it’s pretty reasonable in an lgbtq+ context, when there’s so many polarising and hateful ideologies in the bunch.
People are trying to twist dislike of ideology, to be about dislike of a minority. To make themselves seem more in authority in this, thus more in the right. Conflation of identity and ideology is pretty common thing to do as well to skew the conversation.
This is also the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING as TERFs constantly screaming “lesbophobia” and “just say you hate lesbians go on admit it” any time someone mentions, for example, that they check for TERF posts when they see a URL like vulvacentric or clitoridyke or lavenderlesbian.
Us: So many people in this community use these words as dogwhistles to signal to each other that they hate us, and want us to fuck off and die, that now I check before I follow someone using them
People who want us to fuck off and die: JUST SAY YOU’RE A BIGOT WHO HATES EVERYONE IN THE GROUP WE’RE BOTH IN
Most of the color is gone, the hillsides are mostly bare, and what’s left is brown. But in the evening sunshine, even the brown seems to glow. As sad as I am to see summer gone, I’m excited for winter adventures! It’s time to explore the depths!
I relate on a spiritual level with the absolute fury in that cat’s face in the last gif
No no no, that is not an angry cat, that is a patient cat!!! Look at that relaxed body language! That cat is letting that puppy chew on its ear–I guarantee you it does NOT have to put up with that. Puppo’s excited paws are flailing all over kitty’s face yet all we get is a patient slow blink??? No thrashing tail, either, please note.
This is not an angry kitty. This is a VERY GOOD KITTY who is being super duper patient with a very young pupper and has probably been around puppies all its life. A Very Good Cat indeed!!!
Blogging this tweet because this explains SO MUCH about the mindset of pretty much all the folks I’ve known who’re against single-payer, it’s not even funny…
This….
This never occurred to me. Not once. That Americans are against Health Care because they think it actually costs tens of thousands of dollars for a broken arm, hundreds of thousands for a complicated birth, millions for cancer treatment.
Because they’ve never known anything different. The idea that a broken arm is only a couple hundred bucks; a complicated birth a couple thousand; cancer treatment only tens of thousands; all easily covered by existing tax structures.
This explains a lot. And it’s a good example of what I was talking about in my post on scarcity being used to prop up ableism – always question the idea that a resource is genuinely scarce. Even if it seems obvious that it is, quite often that’s the result of careful manipulation and misconceptions that you’re not even aware of.
And never think you’re too smart to be fooled by that kind of thing, it doesn’t work like that. Similarly, don’t think people who are fooled by something are stupid. Nobody can have all the information about everything, and nobody has the time and energy to investigate and put together conscious conclusions about every piece of information they’re given. It doesn’t take being stupid, or even just gullible, to believe something like this.
I currently live in a country without free medical care and still, it’s enormously cheap compared to the USA. An American expat wrote a piece for our English language paper about how she paid more for parking at the hospital than giving birth to her baby that’s pretty interesting:
This is something that is very important to pay attention to, and if you are an American I implore you to do everything that you can! Contact your representatives, research your ISPs, and keep a vigilant eye on this! The FCC is likely to make this ruling close to Thanksgiving in an attempt to squeak it by without anyone noticing.
Net neutrality is the reason why you can visit any website confidently. It’s why you don’t have to pay a premium to be able to access YouTube. It’s why you don’t have the internet bundled into different packages like TV is.
If they remove net neutrality protections, then there is no benefit to the consumer. Put simply, your ISP could choose to charge you more in order to visit specific sites, and not every town in the United States has the option to switch to a new ISP because some ISPs hold a monopoly in some areas.
This is what the internet looks like without net neutrality:
They’re trying to fatigue public resistance by trying to repeal net neutrality as often as possible. We have to stay vigilant. Motivate yourself by assuming no one else is calling/writing. Don’t assume other people will do it.
I’ve posted similar things before, but it bears repeating. Social Security is not bankrupt. Congress has stolen our Social Security savings.
TRUE!
Medicare also “For SMI, the Trustees project that both Part B and Part D will remain adequately financed into the indefinite future because current law provides financing from general revenues and beneficiary premiums each year to meet the next year’s expected costs. “
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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