As an update to my previous post, Cis I want to link to other some other people saying important things in relation to this. You know, just to show that this is not just one or two people being funny, but that this actually does matter! The power politics of words is real and has real effects. The ability of any discriminated group to challenge the default assumption of the majority being just “normal” is a prerequisite for even beginning truly fair discussion around discrimination, privilege and hate. You can’t even begin to talk about them in a way that doesn’t marginalise you until you have language that also doesn’t do so.
So, in no particular order:
- Cisgender Privilege on Queer Subversion
- Counter Offensive on TransCanada
- cis-privilege blindness and cis-normativity in cis LGB folk on “bad moon rising”
- Fun Feminist Says: Transphobia’s Not Funny! on Kittywampus
Go read them too!
I’m sure there are more but these say things I think is important (and I found them and not the others that do too). They all get at this important point. Namely, if you are a member of a majority and you use that privilege to silence a minority by killing off and ruling out of bounds their need to prevent themselves being othered, being perceived as abnormal (and so declaring that you are “normal” and default) then no matter what other discriminated groups you are in, you are acting in just as biased, unfair, and privileged a way as any person who attacks your right to be who you are, free from prejudice and hate, an equal, valued, human being. That you are discriminated against is no get out of jail free card for the privilege you have in other situations. Just because you say you are not privileged doesn’t mean you have none, anywhere, ever. Sheesh! You’re reading this on the internet, that right there means you have some privilege many, many, people do not!
When you get called out on it, excercising the very privilege you’ve been called on to silence that criticism is so clearly going to get an angry response that using that response as a way to say “See? Told you so, nasty unreasonable people are just attacking poor me!” is either naive in the extreme or just plain deliberate and nasty prejudice.
So, you know, instead of projecting your own ideas and fears, stop, take a moment and try a little compassion, empathy and listening instead. I’ll be trying to do the same right along with you for those things in which I have privileges.
Thanks for the shout-out, Mattie.
You keep making so much damned sense over here!
Welcome and thanks! It’s cathartic
[...] followed up on July 1 with And even more cis use and on July 3 with Cis the Third. If your eyes are crossing at this point, go read Cis the Third, [...]