Sunday, August 09, 2015

Yes.

Is my answer to this,
     Are you a transgender women who has experienced hostility from the transgender community? I would dare to say that a lot of transgender women have been the victim of bullying and pigeonholing into the brutally enforced “hierarchy” of transgender women through cyber-bullying, ostrification and deadly gossip. I use the word deadly because I believe that this behavior is directly related to the skyrocketing transgender suicide rate. We don't we just add to the suffering and feeling of isolation that most of us feel. Some of us take their own lives; could this hostility among trans women be a factor? Perhaps something to think about the next time someone is being persecuted by our very own. We are doing it too ourselves people! It has to stop if we are going to get anywhere in society as a group of oppressed people. I asked my doctor about this phenomenon and he simply relied “it's called lateral violence”; he continued “when a group of people are singled out and ridiculed in society and have no place to put the anger and frustration they feel so they put it on the closest people to them who are on the same social rung as themselves"
That is from an article on InfoBarrel by Michelle Spicer about “Lateral Hostility and the Transgender Woman.” Someone posted this on Facebook recently about how they hadn’t had a problem with lateral hostility. The article goes on to say,
    It kind of makes sense to me but it does not explain the competition over hormones, surgery and boob size, etc. Do trans women bring the competitive nature of men with them when they transition? It would appear so. A pecking order does exist and in my experience with trans groups is that most of the time is spent attacking each other. And why no cross talk in trans support groups? Perhaps that would help. There is a rather offensive joke that I have heard about trans women; "you're not trans unless your insulted five times a day". I was offended, for the fifth time that day. But then I thought about it I realized that sometimes jokes point out things about ourselves that we don't like. We are offended, and often. We form little "cliques" and attack other trans women, forcing them out of support groups and ostracizing them even further from any kind of support we may offer as fellow trans women. Its so sad, can you imagine what we could accomplish if we worked together?
For me I have a constant problem with it, it has died down since I went to comment moderating and took off my email address. Back in 2013 I wrote about this problem and this is in part what I had to say,
We find lateral violence or oppression wherever we look…
  • We find it with teenage girls (and boys)
  • We find it with immigrants
  • We find it in socioeconomic classes
  • We find it in racial groups
  • We find it in the gay and lesbian communities
  • And we find it in within the transgender community
So what causes it?

It is caused by internalize of guilt and prejudice. It is used as a defense mechanism against otherwise unbearable discomfort that they have as a member of the oppressed group. It is a method which a member of the marginalized group uses to separate themselves from that group. For an example, during the early 70s many gays and lesbians of the “Gay Liberation Front” did not want any feminine gays or masculine lesbian in their organization. Because of their internalized guilt and prejudice they want to separate themselves from the flamboyant gays or lesbians. The straight looking and acting gays and lesbians want to be disassociate from them; they only wanted gays and lesbians who can be assimilated into the straight society so they could blend in with everyone else.

The same thing for trans-people, those that can pass or have had surgery want to disassociate from trans-people who cannot pass. They want to establish a pecking order with passible post-op trans-people on top. They want to be assimilated into the straight society and not be associated with what they call “men in dresses” meaning anyone who cannot pass.
Some of the comments about Caitlyn Jenner are based on the fact that she transitioned later in life (If she was a “real” transsexual she would have transitioned earlier in life!) or the fact that she does integrate in society (She’s just a man in a dress). For a few trans women they have internalized guilt and prejudice therefore they want to separate themselves from the trans community (I am a woman! I am not like those crossdressers.(Anyone who doesn't meet the old Harry Benjamin standards in their opinion not transsexual)).

I always found it interesting that those want to separate themselves transgender community by proclaiming that they are “A Woman” and not trans visit transgender blogs and websites.

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