Translucidity‪!‬ Alexander Herrmann

Elliot Paige as Viktor Hargreaves in Umbrella Academy:
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/30/elliot-page-umbrella-academy-viktor-hargreeves/
Today is Transgender Day of Visibility

Although this won’t get posted right away…unless I maybe make it a “special episode?” WHICH I DID
It’s very important to note that Transgender people exist all the time, not just on March 31!


What does being visible mean to us?

To Sascz it means:

Living life as his authentic self and being able to expect people to see him as a man
Being “out” when he wants to but not HAVING to be “out”
Honoring all the people who came before


To Frazley it means:

Sharing MY experience
Dressing and being who I want to be
Standing up for all trans individuals





Feel free to comment at lothie at gmail dot com (including MP3 files, which we’ll play!)


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Show Notes:


Sascz read an article about feeling euphoric after top surgery and is looking forward to the same https://medium.com/genderchic/40-perks-of-being-post-op-top-surgery-80fb2225f4e6

Things that make us feel dysphoric:


Sascz had an annoying conversation last week with someone who knew him only in his masculine identity but kept referring to him as “ma’am” :(
Fraz: Being called sir, or man, or he/him
Fraz: Seeing my…..thing down there.
Fraz: Facial Hair

Things that make us feel euphoric:


Sascz’s new reimagining of his Draenei Shaman in WoW. I’ve had her for ages and had this general idea of her having some kind of deep dark trauma, but hadn’t really fleshed it out. Then I read about the Scythian Enarei (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enaree) who were AMAB but feminized themselves using (among other things) pregnant mares’ urine (today known as premarin!) and identified as females; they were great shamans and worshiped nature (did not use temples). So I’ve decided my toon is an Enares and am RP’ing her as such. She is very old, and has children whom she fathered (much like me mothering my children) but then transitioned later on after the Draenei were driven from Argus. It makes me very happy to have this toon who is sort of my mirror image to play! I also have a FTM toon but he isn’t fleshed out as much.
When Sascz is “heard” and accepted as male while talking to recruiters!
Fraz: Having my manager at my grocery store say “There SHE is!”
Fraz: Seeing my breasts and hips and butt come in.
Fraz: Being properly gendered.
Fraz: Experiencing my cycle each month, as uncomfortable as it is
Fraz: Thinking of my past self as being perceived as a man


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Full show notes, kind of long, but I think it's important.


Notes from Transgender History (Susan Stryker, 2008, revised 2017)

Beth Elliot was a trans woman who transitioned in the 60s while in college
She became an activist and singer

She was thrown out of her group when her former college friend accused her of sexual harassment


an emerging discourse in feminism that held all male-to-female transsexuals to be, by definition, violators of women, because they represented an “unwanted penetration” into women’s space. (Quote from Susan Stryker's Transgender History)
Whatever the circumstances might have been, the public accusation of sexual misconduct served as a lightning rod for discharging years of gathering unease about the participation of transgender women in lesbian and feminist spaces. (Ibid)
TERFs originated mostly in the US in the 70s, but really took hold in UK feminism, which is overwhelmingly "gender critical" at present (there are certainly TERFs in the US but they are more of a vocal minority).
TERFs tend to hate the term TERF (even though it's merely an acronym for their stated position) and now use the term "gender critical" (which is misleading in the same sense as "pro-life")
The idea is supposed to be that "men" (i.e. trans women) are trying to "infiltrate" women's spaces, and this hurts women who are largely traumatized by rape in all it's forms
But the idea that women are fragile and have to be protected is itself a tool of white patriarchy, which makes TERFs themselves such a tool, regardless of whether they are themselves white or not.
“All hell broke loose that very first night, caused by the gate-crashing presence of a male transvestite who insisted that he was 1) an invited participant, 2) really a woman, and 3) at heart a lesbian,” Morgan wrote in her introductory notes to the keynote speech in Going Too Far. “It was incredible that so many strong angry women should be divided by one smug male in granny glasses and an earth-mother gown.” This from Robin Morgan, a noted feminist, about Beth Elliot, pretty much initiated the TERF movement in the US in 1973.
“No,” she continued, “I will not call a male ‘she’; thirty-two years of suffering in this androcentric society and of surviving, have earned me the title ‘woman’; one walk down the street by a male transvestite, five minutes of his being hassled (which he may enjoy), and then he dares, he dares to think he understands our pain? No, in our mothers’ names and in our own, we must not call him sister.” She's still alive and still a TERF. Fortunately so is Beth and she's still a singer and lesbian feminist activist.


There’s some very real pain there, in that 1 in 4 women AT LEAST are sexually assaulted, and so blaming men and not wanting men in women’s spaces is a valid way to feel

The problem comes when AFAB women feel that transgender women “can’t possibly” understand what it means to feel the suffering of a woman, and any suffering they’ve experienced isn’t a valid example of “women’s suffering”
But at the same time, TERFdom really supports a white patriarchy where white women are more fragile (TERFs are OVERWHELMINGLY white), ergo, TERFs are really supporting the patriarchy they claim to hate



Transgender saints: https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2020/12/12/little-known-history-transgender-saints


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Feeling better! We hope

Trauma

Interesting article I read about what it means to one’s partner’s sexual orientation identity when one transitions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/to-some-this-queer-couple-looks-straight-for-him-thats-okay-but-for-her-it-feels-like-a-lie/2019/08/22/098b83f2-c43b-11e9-b5e4-54aa56d5b7ce_story.html


Erika Moen talks about this a little bit too
https://www.darcomic.com/2009/06/23/identity/
https://www.darcomic.com/2009/12/08/queer-marriage



JoJo Siwa coming out and being supported.



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Hi all! I'm sorry I'm so far behind. Frazley and I actually recorded this show at the end of January, which you can probably tell! I'll try to, um, do better.

Being behind isn't what this show is about though. It's about trying to do better in every way! The news I reference mid-show can be found here (it's a google search page), but CONTENT WARNING some of the resulting links are very graphic. 

Let's all Do Better!




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Frazley and I are all over the place in this episode, but I think we can really boil it down to what it means to accept people who are different from you, and learn from them. Towards the end we talk about how parents may feel when kids come out as trans, and I want to do an episode just about that at some point in the future.

The book I mention a couple of times in the episode, which I really recommend, is The Antiracist, by Kwondani Fidel.


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