Profile: Dude
You can call me… dude, bro, ishi, fishy, eidhnan, cracker, booger, ivypants.
I identify as… a human. a dork. a language geek. a tranny fag. queer. genderqueer. androgynous. short.
As far as third-person pronouns go, … i like the gender-neutral ones. if i have to choose from within the gender binary, i’m more of a he than a she.
I’m attracted to… tranny boys, androgynous bike-riding queer punks, intelligence, creativity, book-worms, elf-like tree people…
When people talk about me, I want them to… try not to make assumptions or judgements, and i’ll do the same for them.
I want people to understand… we’re all human, all worthy of dignity and respect and happiness. we’re all made of the same stuff. we’re all divine. my gender presentation does not define me. my sexual organs do not define me. only my spirit defines me.
About Dude
i am a spirit encased in flesh and so are you.
» Define yourself. «
Category: profiles 22 comments »
September 18th, 2010 at 11:42 pm |
i’m not sure i’m okay with your use of the word “tranny,” which has been used historically against trans women specifically, but i am totes on board with your identification as “short” and … yeah.
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Erin replied:
September 20th, 2010 at 10:05 am
I agree…I see this very often at Genderfork and every time I see it, I want to come here less and less. Gender liberation is great and all, but seeing this painful term just casually thrown around makes me (and many other transwomen I know) feel very disenfranchised from the gender-non-conforming movement.
Not to mention, I sincerely question your choice to identify as a porn actRESS. Which is what that word means.
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Anne replied:
November 4th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
I think it’s supposed to be kinda like reclaiming Queer or Cunt or the pink triangle.
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Erin replied:
November 4th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Since when have straight people been allowed to call themselves “Queer?” Since when have male-identified, male-bodied, male-historied men been allowed to call their stuff their “cunt?” Since when have straight people been allowed to use the pink triangle? Since when have gay men been allowed to call themselves “dykes?”
Tranny is a trans woman word. Misreclaiming it is a symptom of a queer/trans community which is willing to co-opt trans women’s language and identities, delegitimizing our voices and experiences.
Anne replied:
November 4th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
That’s very interesting. Thank you for these insights.
sam replied:
November 5th, 2010 at 11:09 am
my perspective on that is that queer is a great word because it has a meaning independent of the way it has been used. It means odd or off. I really like that. And there’s not another word that does that work. So it’s a word I’m willing to reclaim.
Not a fan of the pink triangle.
Not a fan of tranny.
To me the question is– did someone ever hear that as the last word spoken to them while being brutally killed? If so you need a really good reason to reinsert it into our operative vocabulary.
September 19th, 2010 at 10:44 am |
As Keith Richards says, “We’re all the same underneath.”
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September 19th, 2010 at 1:35 pm |
Language geeks ride under the banner of Win.
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November 4th, 2010 at 10:37 pm |
Erin, seriously, I think there are things that my own profile which never made it up, got lost in the shuffle I suppose… That I do not identify as at all… HOWEVER:
Since you’re obviously the authority on everything, you must own thousands of books and read every single one right? Pick up any of your extensive library written before the 1950’s and you’ll find queer used in the context of: –adjective
1.
strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different; singular: a queer notion of justice.
2.
of a questionable nature or character; suspicious; shady: Something queer about the language of the prospectus kept investors away.
3.
not feeling physically right or well; giddy, faint, or qualmish: to feel queer.
4.
mentally unbalanced or deranged.
5.
Slang: Disparaging and Offensive .
a.
homosexual.
b.
effeminate; unmanly.
6.
Slang . bad, worthless, or counterfeit.
Or as I understood it: “pretty much another word for weird” also… GASP SHOCK AWE WOW gay used to mean happy…so…get this…straight people…even the flintstones themesong used to say GAY but meant…joyful…I mean I know you obviously know that since you know everything…but amazing isn’t it? That sometimes words have more than one meaning in more than one context…Your name is Erin Webster right? You wrote the dictionary?
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Erin replied:
November 4th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Those words had other preexisting meanings which they are no longer meant to have, which you’ve pointed out. They’re not “reclaimed” meanings. They’re not identity words. I don’t need to read hundreds of thousands of words to know that I have a huge problem with co-opting of transfemale words by non-transfemale people, just like I have a huge problem with co-opting of intersex words by non-intersex people.
God forbid I might actually have an important perspective to offer. You might actually learn something about your own entitlement! Wow, you wouldn’t want that.
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sam replied:
November 5th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Hey Kendall– be nice! we’re all trying to sort out complicated stuff here!
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November 4th, 2010 at 11:10 pm |
I came here to find community and am baffled by animosity over empty signifiers.
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Erin replied:
November 4th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
It isn’t an empty signifier. It’s a painful reminder of the fact that society at large views people like me as possessing value solely as a porn prop.
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sam replied:
November 5th, 2010 at 11:17 am
I’m with ya Erin.
“He” and “She” are empty signifiers from one way of looking at things, but it can really hurt when someone uses the wrong pronoun. If I asked people to call me “He,” i would (actually I do) get pretty upset when someone says “oh I’ll just keep calling you She, after all gender is an empty category.”
Dude can identify however dude wants but it is a conversation that I think is really worth having when someone identifies using a word that is hurtful. When I started identifying as queer my aunt was really worried and concerned because when she grew up it was a bad word. I explained my reasons. It felt good to feel her concern even though I came out differently on the question.
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November 5th, 2010 at 12:30 am |
Its not like ‘dude’ said shemale
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Erin replied:
November 5th, 2010 at 6:40 am
Those two words have exactly the same meaning to most MtFs (although I will admit that, IME, the used word is viewed as ever so slightly less offensive than what you said). They both come from the porn industry. So in a way, it IS like “dude” said “shemale.”
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November 5th, 2010 at 2:08 pm |
I think perhaps we will always have conflicts like this, involving people searching for words to claim and express their identities with…words which carry all sorts of connotations which are good to some and more often hurtful to others…as a symptom of how the culture using those words is split on their feelings towards those people searching for those nonconforming identities. I think unless we create a set of words which spring from a mindset of acceptance and are clean from usage in cruel situations, there’s always potential for pain. And judging from the way we humans have a tendency to act towards outliers, I’m not sure this will ever change. I still think it’s worth it to keep trying, though.
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sam replied:
November 5th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
beautiful analysis
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November 5th, 2010 at 9:48 pm |
I don’t know, I know transpeople who HAVE taken back tranny. I still think heshe and shemale are pretty derogatory. Queers also have taken back symbols appointed to them by nazis so whatever.
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Erin replied:
November 6th, 2010 at 5:57 am
The vast majority of “transpeople” who have “taken back” tranny are transMEN and genderqueer folk. It’s a bullet which was never intended for them. It’s a word that originated in trans woman porn, where it still sees 99% of its harmful use, and is used by people to refer to me and other trans women when they have seen porn of people like me before, and think that’s all there is to me, or to denigrate the femininity of another person. It’s surprising to me that people would want to “reclaim” a word that is associated with feminine expressions and femininity when they’re trying to express masculinity.
Queers have taken back symbols appointed to them by nazis, but 1. those symbols are no longer used to justify murder on the same level, and 2. there’s a huge level of controversy about that, even decades later.
The point is, if the “empowerment” of one group really necessitates co-opting a painful term from their sisters, who are still reeling from the effects of that word, then so be it. But I think the transmale and genderqueer communities would be just fine without using a word that was meant to oppress another group in order to describe themselves.
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Jay replied:
November 6th, 2010 at 7:47 am
The question is, how many people knew/know that “tranny” specifically comes from trans women porn? I imagine most people think its just a general insult against transexuals/transgenders in general, coming from the ‘trans’ prefix. I know I wasn’t aware of the origin of ‘tranny’ until very recently.
I think you definitely have a valid point, but I don’t think you made it in the best way – the way you’ve been posting came off to me as aggressive and unfriendly, right from the get-go. :(
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November 6th, 2010 at 2:50 pm |
Wow you guys. Erin had her *feelings hurt*. That is all she was saying. I don’t think there was anything aggressive in her saying that directly. If you already knew that tranny is a hurtful word, then you didn’t need to know the etymology of it to know that feelings could be hurt when that word is thrown around.
Now that she’s told you, you know. The question is, what do you do and how do you respond once someone tells you the language you are using is hurtful to them? Do you try to bulldoze over them with sarcasm and blaming them? That is a question you need to answer for yourself. This is not just about Erin. It is about you and how you respond to the suffering of another person. Telling that person to “stop being aggressive,” when the fact is that they are responding to an aggressive and hurtful word, is really demoralizing. I hope that’s not how people respond to you when you tell them you’ve been hurt.
Erin I am so sorry to witness the lack of sensitivity here. Not by every poster because obviously each person only speaks for themselves. But, it is really upsetting to me. I’m not even a trans woman. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I were. This is very upsetting.
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