sooo…..

there is kind of this thing that is apparently going down? i feel like i wrote something about this, but maybe it was just on twitter.

anyway…

i find it interesting that i”m seeing some ppl tweet about how teh ~community~ is tearing itself apart. or something. the origins of this starts with some post about rupaul using ‘shemale” on drag race and then explodes when some other irrelevant white trans woman writes a thing. now, i”ve actually been reading a little of the news about this. mainly with mild interest and generally with a lot of “igaf”.¹

what is fascinating about all of this is that i”m largely seeing most of the discussion happening amongst white trans women. i haven”t seen many other twoc discussing either the original issue (the use of a transmisogynist slur by gay cis men) or from the ensuing ~community~ rending discussion.

it is fascinating because apparently my ~community~ is being torn assunder and, well, my actual community doesn”t seem to have noticed.

what does this say about teh ~community~?

i”m far more interested in the divisions, gulfs, whatever, that this recent event is just sort of highlighting to the ppl who are actually paying attention.

what claim can there be of a ~community~ in any coherent or intelligible sense when it is falling apart but entire swaths of the members haven”t even noticed?

what does it mean when when the members impacted by this share a clear common privilege and the member to whom this is irrelevant share a clear common oppression?

what are the stakes of this?

who is winning?

who is losing?

to a large extent, these questions are rhetorical.

the people who have always been ‘winners” will stay that way. and the losers will keep losing.

and at the end of this, none of the white trans women involved will have likely done a single thing to improved the daily lived experience of twoc.

so it goes.