Get Over It.

Dear, not-so-dear, pro-feminist man,

I demand, I command, that you be perfect.
I know that you are not. You make me painfully aware
Each time you say:
‘We should’
‘You should’
‘I think’
Who is this ‘we’? We are not sisters.
And ‘you’, like dogs. ‘You dogs should bark’.
If you were perfect, you would not tell us what you think;
We know already.

Each time you sit down in this room
With your neutral, thoughtful silence
Your ‘I am listening to the women’ face
You apology for patriarchy
Your silence says:
‘Patriarchy does not gag you’
‘Men do not gag you’
‘I do not gag you’
But we are silent as you are silent
In our nice dresses and our ‘conversing in front of the man’ face.
We’ll say it later;
Out back;
With the noise of the cars in the distance.

-- Lisa Millbank, of A Radical TransFeminist

My earlier posts might have given impression that I think I am actually somewhat good at what I am talking about. They might have given the impression that I consider myself above and separate from the "bad men". This is not the case -- I write about these things because these are the things I struggle with. ("I struggle with" -- gag! I need a better way to word this.)

When I read this poem last week (before I had worked out the stuff I recently posted about) I was filled with the familiar man guilt. Oh god, what should I do? Speak, not speak? What should I do? Not exist? That last isn't a flippant statement -- I don't joke about suicide -- it was real, though thankfully fleeting. (I need the skills I am developing here as much for my own well-being as for my political responsibilities.)

That, needless to say, is not the right way to respond to the poem. Responding that way doesn't do anything. Well, anything but make me miserable. It doesn't help anything to make the poem about me personally -- to make it a personal judgment, the sentence being despair.

It is better (for me) to read the poem as being about the persistence and pervasiveness of the harms caused by patriarchy. Men, and other people who politically function as men, are going to cause harm, are going to cause hurt. Even if you are pro-feminist, even if you try to be perfect. Speaking, not speaking -- simply by politically functioning as a man in a patriarchy (the only context in which one can politically function as a man?), you will cause harm. There is no set of rules you can follow to be perfect, but the demand for perfection still stands, is still valid. So get the fuck over it and do what you can.

I need to get over it.

What I Am.

I've had some time to think. This is an update on the other personal post, A Right to Not Know.

I am a survivor.

What happened to me was a violation of my sexual boundaries without my understanding and without my consent. This is not diminished by the fact that there was no penetration involved. This is not diminished by the fact that the boy who did it was only a few years older than me. This is not diminished by what, in retrospect, is the likelihood that the boy was sexually abused by his father or step-father. This is not diminished by the fact that I was friends with this boy, or that I continued to be friends with him. This is not diminished by the fact that, for another person, this exact same situation might have been regarded as a normal part of childhood sexuality.

This is mine to claim -- in this space, in this context. My claim, my experience, is not an argument against the gendered nature of rape as a societal institution, and it does not need to be attacked as such. I'm not going to bring this up in your conversation about rape as a crime men commit against women, and I'm not going to demand that you always include a disclaimer to acknowledge my experience, because my experience is not always relevant. But leave me be here.

I am queer and trans*.

I am attracted to people of various genders and bodies -- sexually, socially, politically. My own relationship to gender is complicated and difficult for me to define (for now, perhaps forever), but I am certainly not cis. I will not entertain audits of my sexuality or gender identity -- I am what I say I am, and I don't need to act in a certain way to prove this to anyone, nor do I need to claim some specific etiology of my queerness or my trans*ness to qualify. I have a right to exist, without apology.

But I won't hide behind this to deny my responsibilities to women. Though I am not a man (by which I mean that I don't regard myself as a man, which, in my experience, is the only relevant criteria), I doubtlessly act in ways typical of the gender class "man", in ways I don't always realize. I doubtlessly, to some extent, politically function as a member of the gender class "man". To the extent that this is true, I must be responsible for my role in the patriarchy. I remain dedicated to a radical understanding of gender.

Likewise, I won't hide behind this to deny my responsibilities to other trans* people. I have no right to demand that other trans* people, especially not binary trans women, accept radical feminism. I, as a non-binary trans* person who experiences gender in a way that is largely congruent with radical feminist theory, am, at most, a secondary target for the trans-hating elements within radical feminism.

And there are trans-hating elements within radical feminism, elements which go beyond theory or the callous application of theory. To such individuals, I am going to break ranks to say the following: Can't you see what you are doing? By making criticisms of trans people central to your politics, by intentionally misgendering individuals and classes of individuals, by erasing the existence of trans* people in your discussions of rape and reproductive rights, by mocking the experiences of trans* people with scare quotes and vile epithets like "twans", you are attacking a materially oppressed class of people. It doesn't matter that some trans* people describe their experiences in ways that conflict with theory. It doesn't matter that the existence of trans* people is sometimes used by anti-feminists (cis anti-feminists, by the way) to apologize for patriarchy. It doesn't matter that some trans* people adopt stereotypical gender roles and accoutrements. It doesn't matter, because the people you are attacking are just that, people, and your attacks cause pain. Insensitivity to the pain of others doesn't make you radical -- it just makes you cruel.

I maintain that it is possible to ascribe to a radical understanding of gender that is nonetheless inclusive of trans* identities -- all trans* identities. On this hill I am willing to fight against both the trans-hating radicals and the anti-radical cis people, both those who are genuine allies to trans* people, and those who are just using this as a political tool.

A Right to Not Know?

Personal post incoming, take cover!

There are some parts of who I am that I am not sure are parts of who I am. (I know this doesn't make logical sense, but I don't know how to express it.) And I am afraid to admit these maybe parts of me and my experience. On the one hand, if I disclose, then I will have to deal with the shit that comes along with that, regardless of its being maybe not so. And on the other hand, if it isn't so, am I being an appropriative, me-tooist asshole by acting on this belief that it might be so?

I don't know, but I know that not admitting these possibilities hasn't been doing me any good. I'm not going to describe things in detail. I don't want you to judge and decide whether these things are or aren't. In most cases, you wouldn't be qualified to.

I might be a survivor.
I might be queer.
I might be trans*.

I don't fucking know.

Accepting Anger

Sometimes the oppressed are angry -- when the capacity for anger hasn't been crushed out, when the lies told about the oppression fail to placate. And sometimes the oppressed express this anger  -- when they speak to one another, when the need overwhelms the fear of reprisals. And when the oppressed give voice to their anger, the oppressors need to listen.

Upon hearing the anger, oppressors often act to deny the anger. Feigning bewilderment, raising anger in response, condescending with claims that the anger is counterproductive -- anything to neutralize the anger, defang it. Anything to silence the oppressed.

Some oppressors react differently. Used to feeling hated -- due to insecurities, due to mental illness, due to being oppressed -- these oppressors take in the anger and transmute it into feelings of guilt, into self-hatred, into a gnawing cross to bear. When this self-hatred can be held no longer, it is released as hatred against the oppressed. And the cycle begins again, out of a need for self-hatred, and nothing gets accomplished.

Both of these responses are wrong responses. They misunderstand the purpose of the anger. The anger is not for the oppressor -- the anger is not for anything, it just is. It doesn't demand response, it doesn't demand self-flagellation. But it does demand acceptance.

When hearing the anger of the oppressed, sort through it to determine what is true -- the anger is always true. As a white person reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, your (our) chief concern shouldn't be in discrediting the theory that white people's wickedness is due to an ancient genetic experiment, and it shouldn't be in accepting that you (we) are the result of an ancient genetic experiment. As a man reading the SCUM Manifesto, your (our) chief concern shouldn't be in defending yourself (ourselves) as a complete and whole human being, and it shouldn't be in accepting that you (we) are a "biological accident" and a "walking abortion". As a cis person hearing the phrase Die Cis Scum, your (our[?]) chief concern shouldn't be in fighting as though your (our[?]) life depended on it, and it shouldn't be in committing suicide. The chief concern in all of these things should be examining your (our) role in the systems of oppression the oppressed are angry about.

Addendum: It is not okay that Valerie Solanas uses heterosexism and cisexism to express her anger in the SCUM Manifesto, but men should not use this to discount the anger. That is all.

Oppressor Guilt and Rapist Ethics

Oppressor guilt is a common reaction in oppressor groups to having privileges challenged. The most writing on this subject has been on the form known as white guilt, but it is far from unknown to anti-oppression activists in other fields. Andrea Dworkin, in a speech titled "I Want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape", later published in Letters from a War Zone, spoke to a group of anti-sexist men about why they hadn't done more:

"Hiding behind guilt, that's my favorite. I love that one. Oh, it's horrible, yes, and I'm so sorry. You have the time to feel guilty. We don't have the time for you to feel guilty. Your guilt is a form of acquiescence in what continues to occur. Your guilt helps keep things the way they are.

"I have heard in the last several years a great deal about the suffering of men over sexism. Of course, I have heard a great deal about the suffering of men all my life. Needless to say, I have read Hamlet. I have read King Lear. I am an educated woman. I know that men suffer. This is a new wrinkle. Implicit in the idea that this is a different kind of suffering is the claim, I think, that in part you are actually suffering because of something that you know happens to someone else. That would indeed be new.

"But mostly your guilt, your suffering, reduces to: gee, we really feel so bad. Everything makes men feel so bad: what you do, what you don't do, what you want to do, what you don't want to want to do but are going to do anyway. I think most of your distress is: gee, we really feel so bad. And I'm sorry that you feel so bad--so uselessly and stupidly bad ..."

Oppressor guilt is self-indulgent. It re-centers the anti-oppression activism so that it is all about the oppressor. It casts the one who feels the guilt as some kind of tragic hero, wrestling with their sins, which are, of course, all about them. It makes him (in the context of man guilt) able to think of himself as Angel. Don't be Angel.

As a character trait, oppressor guilt is harmful enough in its own right. It is, however, always only a step away from being used as a weapon to actively harm the oppressed group whose plight spawned it. When men whine about the guilt they feel over the oppression of women, and when oppressor groups do so more generally, it is not simply an expression of distasteful feelings -- it is an attempt to shift the moral responsibility.

I feel so terribly about oppression. You make me feel so terribly about oppression. It is better to be wronged than to wrong, and as such my part is the worse. I am the victim here. And who does that leave to be the perpetrator?

This is an act on the spectrum of what John Stoltenberg calls "rapist ethics". In Refusing to be a Man, Stoltenberg defines rapist ethics as a "definitive and internally consistent system for attaching value to conduct [ ... in which] the one to whom the act is done [is] responsible for the act." [Emphasis original] The one who whines about his man guilt is like the abuser who tries to further burden the abused with his pain as well as hers. In the case of the abuser, it serves the function of preserving the abusive situation. In the case of man guilt, it serves the function of preserving the status quo.

Deface the Currency

I once made the disingenuous claim that "I am honestly endeavoring to do what is right." Now I'm trying to live up to it. This is a personal blog about the author's character, ethics, and political musings. There will be navel gazing.

Both the blog and the author are works in progress. This is not a claim of moral immunity, but a request for criticism. You do not owe me criticism, and I ask it only of those who want to give it. I will make my best effort to consider all good-faith criticism. When criticizing my choices, actions, and arguments, please feel free to be as harsh as you believe necessary. Please keep in mind that this blog will address the question "what about the menz?" Or, rather, what about the man, insofar as I remain one despite my ongoing attempts to renounce masculinity.

However, I ask that, if you choose to criticize my writing, by which I mean my words, punctuation, cadence, et cetera, that you be more gentle in this regard. I know my writing is terrible, but I don't think it is a deeply important matter. Clarity and style are important, but not in the same way as politics and morality.

The opportunity for criticism is one of the reasons this is a public blog and not a private journal. Other reasons for this decision include the sense of obligation in keeping a blog active, and an attempt at some sorely wanted human interaction. By making this blog public, I am not asking people to read it, but merely inviting them to do so.

The name of this blog, Deface the Currency, is taken from the stories surrounding Diogenes the Cynic, a classical Greek philosopher. I by no means consider Diogenes to be a perfect moral exemplar, but in the future I intend to explain what his example means to me. This title was chosen in preference to a more topical one because this blog was originally created for a different, but related, purpose.