Photo by Jonathan Beckley
There are days I need to be quiet. Hours of nothing. Stillness. Rumbling within. Mouth glued shut around my impending vocal boom. There are days I need not to move.
~Creature/Karin Webb
###
A new acquaintance on Fetlife asked me about being ftm today. They said they had a theory about why there’s an 8:1 ratio of trans women to transmen (I number I hadn’t heard before). They thought it might have something to do with societal privilege and how it’s less acceptable in our culture to be a feminine man vs. a masculine woman. He is getting at something there, of course it’s not the whole story. Here are a couple of other things I think:
Patriarchal society is always more interested in what happens to what it perceives as male bodies, than what it perceives as female bodies. How that plays out can be deconstructed in a number of ways.
There’s an economy in place meant to keep men from a full experience of their bodies, their emotions, their sensuality, and their femininity in order to control their physical strength. Men are rewarded economically for “being men” and aligning themselves with macho values.
Trans reality flies in the face of that economic hierarchy and people who have been vested with “membership to the club” face a lot of violence when eschewing privilege by honoring their identities. Adversely, people who have never been rewarded or welcomed into the club, those who have been neglected or maligned since birth, can more easily pass under society’s radar when not adhering to the rules. Being a butch woman is more socially acceptable than being a feminine man.
When you’re part of a minority class, assigned at birth, it’s hard to want to claim space in the class of your oppressor even when you feel you belong to it. You often understand more nuances concerning the reality of privilege because you’ve grown up experiencing it from the oppressed end. Identifying as “butch” rather than “trans” can sometimes be enough for survival, or may feel more accessible to someone who already has to survive on other levels in their lives (economic, racial, sexual, etc.). This may be one reason it appears there is a disparity in the number of trans men vs. that of trans women.
Dominant society’s interest in AMAB bodies far exceeds its interest in AFAB bodies, and shines a spotlight and throws money there. AFAB bodies are not invested in socially or monetarily, they can sometimes more easily disappear.
Connected to this phenomenon, take a look at lesbian and gay cultures, and you’ll see the same imbalance magnified. Most major cities will have at least one (usually more) dedicated gay male spaces that run 24/7 as gay male spaces, in effort to proudly serve that community — which also may benefit trans women, yet historically much less so welcome trans men. In these same cities there might be one or two lesbian “nights” around town on a weekly or even monthly basis. This speaks extremely loudly to the economic divide which is reinforced when 2 privileged people in relationship (gay men) are funding their community vs. two underprivileged people in relationship (lesbian women), who are often unable to fund or network to the same extent for theirs. Here we see the cis gay and lesbian communities mirroring dominant culture and even exacerbating a gendered resource divide.
###
On Wednesday evening I hosted the first (I hope) meetup of people who identify somewhere within queer, trans, kinky, sex worker, sex worker friendly, POC, people with disabilities, and politically active. We talked about a number of things — our needs and desires as individuals, what actions we’d like to see happen around us or navigate making happen ourselves, what’s already going on in RI, Switter, sex worker strikes, stripper unionization, poverty, women’s work, what it’s like to strip in different parts of the country, how artists fund their art, how race and gender and disability and poverty intersect with all of these notions, how struggle can make you more informed about a lot of issues, the differences and overlaps between chosen work, survival work, and victimization…
###
Recently a conversation about the history behind the terms Womanism and Feminism came up. It was a good one to be having.
###
On Wednesday morning Trump signed FOSTA into law. You can sign this petition to overturn FOSTA, I hope you do.
###
A friend recently mentioned I should make t-shirts which say:
Sex Work is
Women’s work
POC’s work
Trans work
Work for People with Disabilities
& Poor People’s workSex Worker Rights are Human Rights
Support Sex Workers
Decriminalize
###
From shit we rise.
It’s starting to feel like Spring…
Play On My Friends,
~ Creature
Please support my work on Patreon. For one time donations click here: Support the Artist
~Thank you.
