Rupaul on WTF with Marc Maron

[Younger Brother]

Somewhere Delta Work is regretting forming "the Heathers".

[Jordan Catalano]

Somewhere, Delta Work should be regretting a lot.

[PalJoey]

Kate Bornstein weighs in, with Tranny Gravitas:


Tranny, Revisited by Auntie Kate

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I dig it. I feel like it's not my word to say but people who are called trannies should say what they want.

[Reginald Tresilian]

I think a large part of the problem in coming to an understanding/agreement about this is that the "T" in LGBT is a really large net, encompassing a whole bunch of people who may or may not have all that much in common with one another.

[FindingNamo]

Justin Vivan Bond is about to celebrate 20 years in NYC with a Tranniversary Concert. I love when people weigh in creatively!

[Liza's Headband]

I do., too!!!!!!!!!

[JerseyGirl2]

People are getting ANGRY on both sides of this.

[FindingNamo]

I don't understand why there isn't a trans separatist movement like the lesbian separatists of the '70s? If so much that's said by people who would seem to be natural allies is wounding, then why are they beating their heads against the wall? As I said before, they should consciously unbind themselves.

[JerseyGirl2]

I honestly think it's coming on a larger scale as visibility and acceptance grow. There are many trans people who want nothing to do with gay folks because they feel there is no common denominator. Others dig being the T in LGBT. Blurred lines!

[FindingNamo]

From Twitter:

"One of the more hilarious things I was called by a 'trans activist' this weekend was an 'Ass clam.' I woke up chuckling over that one." -- Justin Vivian Bond

[strummergirl]

"I don't understand why there isn't a trans separatist movement like the lesbian separatists of the '70s? "

Well, there are the trans exclusionary radical feminists who I am not sure can be out-crazied. Seriously, they got some NSA-level internet people the way they relentlessly harass anybody who disagrees with them.

"I honestly think it's coming on a larger scale as visibility and acceptance grow. There are many trans people who want nothing to do with gay folks because they feel there is no common denominator. Others dig being the T in LGBT. Blurred lines!"

This has been my experience around the trans people I know. Some are completely within the queer world while others just are looking for acceptance by the mainstream of their gender identity, and do not consider themselves apart of the community at all. But to be fair, there are some people of the LGB who want really nothing to do with the T, either. It's the kind of dynamic that was bound to have these kind of intense clashes from both sides, and that is why it is still continuing.

[FindingNamo]

I haven't met gay people who want nothing to do with the trans community but I do know many who never saw what the commonality was supposed to be that made us all part of the same coalition. Then it seemed many of the MtoFs ended up being lesbian and, frankly, these same people still didn't get what the commonality was supposed to be.

I think there was sort of a truce during the short period where the umbrella term "queer" was used but that ended quickly. Personally, I am not moved either way to particularly care if the trans community wants to be part of any coalition I am in. The more the merrier I always say but hell, if it's just too damned painful then it;s not a good match.

[PalJoey]

Posted by Alec Mapa:

"As outspoken transgender advocate Andrea James said in response to the outrage of hashtag activist (yes, there’s more than one of those) Parker Marie Molloy, who is also transgender and claims to “hate” Rupaul, “If it’s a choice between siding with the language police and siding with offensive artists, I’ll always side with the artist willing to risk the consequences of making an offensive joke. The right to offend people is a cornerstone of the LGBT movement, and I will always defend anyone who offends our community’s finger-wagging schoolmarms.”

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Is Parker Marie Molloy someone who is anti-tranny? At least now there's finally some context as to where this recent controversy came from. I was beginning to think it had just sprouted from the platitude farm in RuPaul's brain.

Not having watched Drag Race, it didn't even occur to me at first that RuPaul's word soup that kicked off this thread had to do with this show. I came at this thread from the angle of someone who has been taught that 'tranny' is a slur for a transperson. It never really occurred to me that it would also be a shortened version of transvestite (in fact, I had no idea that drag queens even called themselves transvestites anymore. I thought there was a different, sexual connotation to transvestism). At any rate, I'm more than fine with not using the word myself. There's no hole in my life where my use of "tranny" should be and I think drag trannies and trans trannies and those that straddle both should work it out themselves.

Zinnia Jones - a transwoman who is not trying to "pass," just fyi - comes out against the word. I've linked to her twitter.




Zinnia Jones Twitter

[JerseyGirl2]

I am fairly certain that Parker Marie Molloy began all of this. She started raging against RuPaul's use of the words she found offensive a while back. She tweeted in March: I f*cking hate @RuPaul. Like... there really are very few people I truly hate. He is one of them. Then there were dueling pieces between her and Calpernia Addams after Jared Leto thanked Calpernia in his Oscar speech. At some point, she blasted Carmen Carrera, too. Malloy called both of them out for being "drag queens" and "showgirls" who refer to themselves as transsexual. (I think it's pretty clear both are living as women.) She's apparently judge and jury for all things trans. Calpernia wrote responses that seemed pretty level headed. When questioned, Carmen said she found the use of the words offensive, too.


Calpernia's Reponse

[JerseyGirl2]

[Playbilly]

The following is serious. Not trying to provoke:

Now...do you call RuPaul a "he" when he's bald w/the glasses, and "she" when in a wig and make up? And is the wig/makeup persona only "drag" because of the genitalia.

I came to know "RuPaul" as the wig persona in the 90s, and always considered the bald/glasses persona the "drag" act.

[JerseyGirl2]

It's basic drag etiquette to refer to a performer in a dress and heels as "she" and in male clothing as "he."

Oddly, though, I have trouble ever referring to Chad Michaels as "she" because of the name. RuPaul also uses his real name, but I don't find that difficult to switch up.

[broadwayguy2]

Traditional / proper use of pronouns for a drag queen are "she" was in character / drag / female persona and "he" was not in character, or in "boy drag".
Naturally, many gay mense "she" when referring to friends anyhow,

[strummergirl]

I only became aware of Parker after the Grantland-Dr. V incident, which a lot of people had every right to show righteous indignation against Caleb Hannan's creepily detached piece that outed a transwoman who committed suicide. I followed her briefly on Twitter but it became way too exhausting and depressing. She has her own set of issues and, arguably, one of the last places she should be is on the internet where she is easily vulnerable to attacks and yet it seems to be her life as a writer. But she can write and communicate well when I have heard her speak unlike that #CancelColbert hashtag activist which is why her whole social media approach is so frustrating. I would say she has gotten worse since the Dr. V incident, which speaks more for her mental state, I'm afraid.

Laura Jane Grace came out against Arcade Fire and Andrew Garfield for making a music video that was supposed to speak for trans people yet it was just Andrew Garfield in drag with the most boring, by the numbers, Red State-Blue State coming out story ever told. She hated it and sounded off. But it was level-headed and LJG came out easily on top with a well-reasoned critique of the video, especially speaking as somebody who grew up in the South which came off so cliched and stereotypical in the video. Parker's method is more on exhausting the other side with Twitter wars and repeatedly going on id that is bound to catch up with her when she is attack members of the community. I think she even attacked Christina Kahrl, one of the major trailblazers in journalism and I think for many people who follow baseball the first trans person people ever became publicly aware of, for somehow not wanting to burn down ESPN, Kahrl's occupation, for the Grantland incident. Well, duh she can't. Any journalist worth his or her salt knows that nobody can and will do such a thing.

[Reginald Tresilian]

I'm not saying she may not have a valid point, but she seems unconcerned with collateral damage. I get the impression she doesn't care who she hurts. It is exhausting; it's also dispiriting.

[PalJoey]

In the light of the infighting, we should all take a moment and read this obituary of Storme DeLarverie, a pioneer trans activist who died on Staurday at age 93.

Storme was a black drag king and one of the fighters at the Stonewall riots. She may have even been the cross-dressing lesbian said to have been first clubbed by the police, which is said to have tipped the incident into a riot. (Or it might have been another black lesbian--in the haze of riot memory, there are conflicting accounts.)

But whether she was or not, she was there. And back then there was no disagreement between gradations of trans. Everyone reversed pronouns and used self-mocking phrases like "girl" and "Mary" and "tranny." And NO ONE would even think to use "showgirl" or "drag queen" as a put-down.

Stormé's life should be a lesson to everyone involved in this debate. I hope the hashtag activists are aware of Stormé's legacy.







TOWLEROAD: STORME DELARVERIE, WHO FOUGHT POLICE AT STONEWALL RIOTS, DIES AT 93

[FindingNamo]

amen

[PalJoey]

Some rational discourse from the Facebook page of Mimi Imfurst:

Mimi Imfurst
May 26
I just got an email from a fan calling me uneducated.. and transphobic... This was my response, and I have no problem sharing it publicly.

Here's the thing...... "Tranny" Shamale" "Faggot" "Men in a Dress" ...These are the same words that I get called every time I step out of the house in drag. To assume that I do not understand what it is likeis absurd. The are real issues facing the trans community and trying to get drag queens to change their language is NOT the fight that needs to be happen. Drag Queens are transvestites and they are a part of the trans community.

For me this battle is a more or less, a distraction from the real issues. This fight is happening within a small marginalized corner of the word and for the most part going unnoticed by the people who we need to change their mindset- the actual transphobic people in the world.

Most people do not know this- but I've struggled with my gender identity for a long time before coming to a place that I was comfortable with. There was a time when I was 16 I dressed as girl.... went to school as such, went to work as such at the mall of all places. I am very much aware of the experiences that many trans people face.

This issue is particularly complicated. A little history goes a long way. Drag Queens and Trans women have worked hand in hand FOREVER. We're cut from the same cloth. Some people are accusing us of RECLAIMING A WORD that others have created for us to abuse and shame us us in a negative way. This is NOT the case with the word TRANNY. Tranny (originally spelled TRANNIE) was created by the drag community (which includes both gay men and transgendered entertainers) as a word to describe anyone who transgresses their gender. It was an all inclusive word, created from a celebratory place. It is not word that was invited by our oppressors that we're trying to reclaim. It is our word that we created to celebrate us.

I also firmly believe whole hardly the rights afforded to us by the 1st amendment of the US constitution. I will stand by that right and defend anyone who is being persecuted for their words. The right of free speech is afforded to each of us and we should be free to exercise that right. I don't care if you're using sexist, racist, anti-trans, or even anti-gay language. I will defend that person. I will defend their right to say it.

Words only have the power you give them. If you believe that a word is so powerful that if effects your self-worth- you are in for a long bumpy road. People call me names all the time, I used to be bothered by it and I'll admit, still do from time to time. I'm not perfect and my journey to security in myself is still unfinished. I can not judge my value as a human being and sense of happiness by the words and actions of others.

[TheatreFan4]

TS Madison just shuts it all the **** down... AGAIN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo9LGSCLprs&feature=youtu.be