Do You Use The “T” Word?

There is a debate in the trans-community over the use of the word “Tranny,” some see it as a slur while others have no problem when it is used within the trans-community but they do not think it should be used by someone outside of the community and some see it as a word with no negative connotations. One of the problems is that the word is sometimes used people it as a pejorative slang term.

Many time people use the simply because other people are using it and do not know the problem that the trans-community has with it use; such as when Actress Gabourey Sidibe used it on The Arsenio Hall Show.

Gabourey Sidibe: There was a bar that we would frequent and every time we'd go, when we were leaving every single time there was always like a gang of cops arresting trannies.

Audience: [Laughter]

Sidibe: Specifically trannies.

Arsenio Hall: Yeah…

Sidibe: And I don't know what goes on with trannies but that tranny on tranny crime needs to stop!

Arsenio Hall and audience: [Laughter]

Sidibe [chuckling]: It is tearing our nation apart!

She later apologized saying she didn’t realize that it was a pejorative (I have another problem with the audience; I don’t think violence by anyone is a laughing matter.)

In an op-ed article in the Advocate by Parker Marie Molloy writes about the use of tranny by the gay and lesbian community,

Last year I wrote a piece on The Huffington Post titled “Gay Dudes, Can You Just Not?” that generated digital eye rolls, nasty comments, and even threats from readers. It was critical of use of the word “tranny” by gay and bisexual men. The central idea was that the word, which I’ll now simply refer to as “the t slur,” is, in fact, a slur. It’s a term tied to a history of violence, oppression, anger, and hate. It’s a term I’ve been called by those who wish to harm me. And frankly, it’s a term many trans women, like slain New Yorker Islan Nettles, hear immediately prior to falling victim to physical violence.

I dared to inform those who use the word, who think they have a “pass” on account of themselves being part of the “LGBT community,” that it’s not their word to use, and it’s not their slur to “reclaim.”

The way I see the use of the word Tranny is like the use of the “N” word by the black community, it is theirs to use or not to use and non-black people have no rights to use it ever.

Ms. Molloy goes on to write that RuPaul said he has never seen the word used in a derogatory way, Ms. Molloy replies,

Is that so? So when I sat in the only open seat on a crowded train in the months after coming out as transgender, when the woman next to me said into her phone, “Some fucking tr*nny just sat next to me” and decided to stand rather than remain next to me — that wasn’t her being derogatory? When a group of college kids called me a “tr*nny faggot” as I waited for a bus, triggering a panic attack that left me home sick from work for two days — that wasn’t them being derogatory? If only I knew that they meant it in a loving, happy way, oh, how things could have been different!

The fact of the matter, Ru, is that words do hurt, and when you continue to use words that are frequently used to dehumanize people like me, that are used as precursors for assault, after you’ve been informed how hurtful these words are, you’re no better than a racist who uses the “n word,” the homophobe who calls gay men “faggots,” or the misogynist who refers to his female coworkers as “bitches.”

She is right, words do hurt. It is one thing for us to use the word but when other people use the word it raises our hackles and puts us on the defensive, the fight or flight response kicks. She finishes the article by writing.

In the meantime, RuPaul, you dehumanize us, and you teach the public that it’s OK to do the same. Once we’re no longer people, once we’re simply t slurs, it’s easy for society to toss us aside, to discriminate against us and beat us, to deny us care and send us to the streets.

I’m a human being, not a tr*nny. Knock it off.