I’m still mad about something that happened on tiktok last week and I want to do a post about it and explain an aspect of transphobia I’ve observed.
A cis user made a video asking that trans people share more banger music that they make, but clarified saying “by trans people, I mean trans women” because trans men only make that “sad ukulele” music. There was much discourse, he doubled down and said trans men couldn’t take a joke, other trans people threw the offended transmascs under the bus, or insisted that they can also make club music, yada yada.
I want to know if the queers who haven’t been queer as long as I have know that this exact drama was had with gays and lesbians. Do you know that some transphobia is repackaged homophobia and lesbophobia? I feel like that’s something we should be allowed to say and examine without someone shutting you down and insisting you’re conflating the gays and transes.
But yeah, for decades the joke has been that gay men are the fun flamboyant ones that make good art and dance music, and that lesbians are angry and dress ugly and make sad folk music. It’s pretty much an identical bias and resulting disrespectful jokes.
And it’s shit! I’m not going to let anyone, let alone a cis person, get away with transphobia just because it’s directed at trans men. It’s rude and harmful to devalue our art, and our art doesn’t need to be easily consumable to you. We’re allowed to be pissed and offended when you write us off, minimize the harm you’ve done, and exclude us from the conversation. It’s obvious when you only tolerate the queers who can serve you, and that you don’t actually care to listen or learn about our lives, struggles, and art.
Clips from the Oklahoma House floor concerning anti-trans legislation, original linked in source
Edit: I see this post is popping off again, thank you for sharing! Reminder to our youth watching this video (operationally defined as those 14-25), @bfpnola is an international, Black-, queer-, woman-, and youth-run organization. We’d love to have some new volunteers, especially from Oklahoma in particular because we don’t have any! If you’d just like to meet everyone first, this is our Discord Server. Why not start there and then you can decide? 🫂
"I don't care if you think it's weird. I think it's weird you give a fuck about someone else's medical care so badly when you don't know the first thing about it!"
oh my god. this tiktok, in which a lesbian is speaking up against “genital preference”, has 2.3k likes so far. and all of the comments are actually POSITIVE. nature is healing. lesbians are waking up. there is hope!!