I totally agree that in conversations centered on transgendered experience, other queer folk should shut up and listen, and sometimes different portions of the trans umbrella when another parts are speaking. I could be wrong, and if you think so, please say, but my impression was that the conversation on PHB was an intra-queer discussion, and therefore a perfectly appropriate space for gay men to voice their concerns as well.
I'm a little confused on who your Us and Them are here. As far as feminine/femme passing privilege, I've got that in droves. And that is a very different privilege from masculine passing privilege. It's one of the frustrations I have with the use of the term heterosexual privilege, because heterosexual privilege for men and women is very, very different--the woman's being the privilege to be fully accepted as a second class citizen, which is a privilege over someone who doesn't even have that--but it really is a very different realm of privilege from male heterosexual privilege. My time spent in bi communities gave me a lot of food for thought over the variants there. And it's among my concerns with a blanket term like cisgender, which reduces a realm of experiences of gender into one term--in the ways I have most seen the term be used. I do think it's important to mark the unmarked--maybe I just need the term cisgender problematized more. I think gender identity is problematic for more people than not in a variety of ways, and a term like cisgender helps pave that over instead of opening it out.
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Re: I wasn't going to say this but I changed my mind....
Date: 2009-07-06 03:50 am (UTC)I'm a little confused on who your Us and Them are here. As far as feminine/femme passing privilege, I've got that in droves. And that is a very different privilege from masculine passing privilege. It's one of the frustrations I have with the use of the term heterosexual privilege, because heterosexual privilege for men and women is very, very different--the woman's being the privilege to be fully accepted as a second class citizen, which is a privilege over someone who doesn't even have that--but it really is a very different realm of privilege from male heterosexual privilege. My time spent in bi communities gave me a lot of food for thought over the variants there. And it's among my concerns with a blanket term like cisgender, which reduces a realm of experiences of gender into one term--in the ways I have most seen the term be used. I do think it's important to mark the unmarked--maybe I just need the term cisgender problematized more. I think gender identity is problematic for more people than not in a variety of ways, and a term like cisgender helps pave that over instead of opening it out.