Rupaul on WTF with Marc Maron

[TheatreFan4]

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

[FindingNamo]

Basically, the take away message some people seem to want to put out there is: Don't try.

I like Arcade Fire and love Against Me! Laura Jane Grace, as righteous as she is in making her points, has basically told Arcade Fire not to try. Just as the people who were enraged at Jared Leto were sending the message not to try.

Don't try to use empathy in your art. Don't even try.

PS I miss the days Mimi Imfurst used to post here regularly.

[EricMontreal22]

Courtney Act commented on the whole ordeal--and I think I agree with her. To be honest, Ru seems to be fighting a losing battle--the actual issue (as many have said) is being overlooked completely. Yeah it may be PC, but if the use of the word is causing people to get so upset, and I don't believe that the use of the word "tranny" has had any subversive power overall than why bother?

Anyway, her comments which, yes do end in annoying stats and quotes, and she quotes Ghandi...:

"I'm a little surprised by @rupauls recent reaction to trans issues. I understand and apply in my own life the logic about not giving other people power over how I feel, but I am not 1 in 12 trans people in America who will be murdered. As Ghandi said "The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members", so why doesn't everybody say "Love"?

If you're gay, how do you feel about straight people in the media using the word faggot? If you're black, how do you feel about white people using the word N#@$^? At some point we agreed that those words are not acceptable, I can't even type the "N-word", so much as say it out loud. Why are we so flippant about tranny? I don't agree with polarizing the argument either way, but I do think we need to overcome the ego, coming from both sides, and have some compassion and consultation so we can move forward. Let's change the way we are looking at this argument, cause when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

What would be energy better spent right now is focusing on helping trans people improve their quality of life. Here are some facts I'm sure we all can agree are not acceptable and that we need to come together and bring about positive change:

Transgender facts

1 in 12 transgender people in America is murdered. (This one fact alone is more than enough)

Although social acceptance for transgender people is growing, parents continue to abandon youth with gender-identity issues when their children need them most, advocates say.

49 per cent of transgender people attempt suicide.

Transgender youth account for 18 per cent of homeless people in cities such as Chicago, but researchers estimate fewer than 1 in 1,000 people is transgender.

Transgender youth whose parents pressure them to conform to their anatomical gender report higher levels of depression, illegal drug use, suicide attempts and unsafe sex than peers who receive little or no pressure from parents.

Sources: Guidelines for Transgender Care (2006), Gender Spectrum Education and Training, Families in TRANSition (200"

[EricMontreal22]

And Sonique (remember her?) steps into the fray:
""This is all I'm saying today about this. Some people think Ru saying he has been a "Tranny" for 32 years is not correct..."Tranny" doesn't mean just transgendered or transexual, it also means Transvestite which RuPaul is. Trans means to change "tranny" is slag so we dont have to say the whole word. It's not the noun that's the issue it's the adjective behind or in front of it. Drag Queens may not live as women but when they are dressed like the opposite sex for that moment they have transitioned into someone else. Before I was ever on hormones and living as a woman on the outside, I was considered transgendered, but the world seen me as a male. I was still TRANS, even when I was performing as a drag queen.Although we may not all have the same lifestyle we are a minority in the same boat, so what makes one better than the other? Me being a transexual women having breast implants and FFS and living as female makes me superior of the word "Tranny" to a transvestite? No, they get beat up and called names and murdered by the same people. We are a team, not a pie so all this separating each other needs to stop. We need each other more than ever, I mean look at what we are becoming... so hateful over a short-cut word. I understand both sides of the fence, because I lived on both sides, but I think we are taking this just a little to far.Also, I think the people attacking Carmen Carrera and Ru is messed up and wrong. They have a right . To feel the way they do about this subject, its all a matter of opinion. If you don't like the word, don't use it, and if you do like it don't abuse it. It's really that simple. When you take something away and say it's wrong it makes it much more tempting to bullies and haters to use. Please don't give that word no more power than it deserves.Love is the only thing worth fight for.xo- Sonique Love"

[TheatreFan4]

Transgender facts

And the thing to do is attack a show and person who has spent their entire life (and showtime) championing being who you are in any sense of the word because one of the words they use can be construed out of context as Transphobic. And call that person among other things the worst person in the world. I'm sorry, but if Trans people aren't comfortable around Drag Queens then I doubt they'll ever be comfortable.

Words. Do. Not. Murder.
Words. Are. Not. An. Act. Of. Violence.

This is not about Trans people. Trans activists MADE it about them. THEY are the ones who twisted it into an attack.

[Kad]

I am genuinely curious as to when "tranny" became interpreted as a slur. It doesn't have the historical precedence of the most reviled slurs- in fact, if the anecdotal evidence is true, the term originated within the lifetime of many people posting here and within the queer community. I, personally, can't reasonably place it on the same level as slurs like "nigger" or "kike" or "faggot" - all historically used as a part of systematic oppression. Those words carry specific weight that I just don't believe "tranny" does.

I can't help but feel that this is parts of the trans* community, a minority group that has very little power in society, attempting to hit a very easy target that will ultimately reward them little.

What's the ultimate goal? Defining a slur? Is this going to secure the rights they really need? Or is it just going to alienate the groups most sympathetic and willing and able to help?

Laverne Cox, one of the most visible trans people out there, has been pretty silent on the whole issue, instead focusing on talking about the disproportionate rates of suicide, homeless, and unemployment within the trans community.

And that's what the focus SHOULD be on.

Defining tranny as a verboten slur seems like it would be at best a nominal victory, and at worst a Pyrrhic one.

[JoeKv99]

If no one ever says "Tranny" again, what will the trans murder rate be then?

[FindingNamo]

"1 in 12 trans people in America who will be murdered"

This stat comes from where?

[PalJoey]

The final word on the subject belongs to Calpernia Adams:





ADVOCATE: Op-ed: Burning Books, One Word at a Time

[FindingNamo]

After the oceans have risen and there have been mass extinctions and a permanent Hurricane Sandy is swirling over the remains of this nation, we STILL will not have heard the last word on this issue.

"Sandy is an OFFENSIVE name…"

[JerseyGirl2]

Calpernia has come such a long way from the kid who used to work lights at the club I loved.

[Jordan Catalano]

Laverne Cox Talks To TIME Magazine

[Kad]

And not one word about "tranny." Laverne knows what is really worth talking about.

[Jordan Catalano]

Well, she's not a hashtag activist like everyone who's so up in arms about it.

[PalJoey]

I saw on someone's FB page that we are now supposed to spell the word "tr@nny."

[Jordan Catalano]

Oh JESUS.

[Reginald Tresilian]

That should be Je$u$.

[FindingNamo]

Wouldn't that be "tratnny?" What's a tr@nny? Does it have something to do with Trotsky?

[TheatreFan4]

Welp... Carmen dun ****ed up.

http://www.reddit.com/r/rupaulsdragrace/comments/26sb8r/shemailgate_megathread_all_new_discussion_on_the/churg4e

[JerseyGirl2]

Google "Carmen Carrera Nigga" and you'll see tons of tweets. It's apparently a favorite word of hers. Of course, she also referred to very talented performers as "boogers". She uses hurtful language. It's only bad when it's hurtful to HER.

[Kad]

IS it even hurtful to her? She gladly rode the RuPaul gravy train for a while. Coming from her, this all seems like a ploy for some visibility.

[JerseyGirl2]

I don't think it is. I think it's a way to get her name out there.

[Jordan Catalano]

That's so f@ggy.

[TheatreFan4]

Is that a fat gay slur?

[Kad]

I like people that censor one letter of a word, and then use the word in context, and pretend like they're not actually using the word.

[Jordan Catalano]

Kad, you're such an @ssh0le.