Number 202

Casual Cruelty

Recently, Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman who is posting videos on Tik Tok describing her transformation posted a clip where she described the challenges faced by many trans women: finding clothes that both affirm our identity and fit well. I understand her struggle all too well. And is it really all that different than the lament of cis women everywhere who search for well-fighting clothes that fit their individual aesthetic? Of course I'm biased toward her, but she is a bundle of positive energy so she makes it easy to cheer for her. She's adorable.

It also occurs to me, that the only substantive difference between making Tik Tok videos detailing her gender journey and me blogging about mine is one of medium. She's using video, I write: Otherwise we're kind of doing the same thing. One of the other similarities we share is that once we post something, we have no control over how people will respond to it. Without acknowledging agreement with them, many folks out there believe that transgender folks are mentally ill. (Why these people then feel it is okay to bully and harass people they think are mentally ill is a question to ponder.) There's no stopping it if someone decides to respond in a non-supportive or hostile way. (Why these same people feel the need to go out of their way to be nasty is another question to ponder.) I've been very lucky so far - probably because the audience for my blog is mostly me "preaching to the choir," as the saying goes. My sister on Tik Tok has not been so fortunate.

In response to the video I referenced above, Marsha Blackburn, a U.S. senator from Tennessee took it upon herself to score some points with her base by tweeting that "... Joe Biden and the radical left wing lunatics want to make this absurdity normal." Think about this - a U.S. senator is describing another human being as an "absurdity." Nice, huh? If that wasn't bad enough, Caitlyn fucking Jenner felt the need to jump on the pile by tweeting: "He [referencing Dylan] is talking about his penis." 

This is hateful stuff - pure and simple. That it came from another trans woman raises it to a loathsome, revolting, almost unspeakable level. Intentionally using the wrong pronouns is just despicable.

Because I have empathy, I can imagine how awful it would be to lose my home in a tornado even though that has never happened to me. I can also imagine how terrible it would be to have a state trooper knock on my door at 2 AM to tell me a family member died in a car accident. Because I have empathy, I can envision how random tragedies affect the people to whom they befall. I also believe that most of you can, too.

I don't have to be Black or Jewish or Asian or Latinx (or any other ethnic group), to know that it hurts when a derogatory term is maliciously used to intentionally belittle someone .

So please believe me when I tell you that it hurts when someone uses the wrong pronouns on purpose. Why Marsha and Caitlyn felt the need to be randomly hateful to Dylan is beyond me. I just don't understand their need to be so casually cruel. It's almost as if they searched out an opportunity to denigrate another person. If they don't support a trans person's journey, fine (although I believe there is a special place in hell for Caitlyn for running down another trans woman). But like the old saying goes - If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything. So Dylan put out a public Tik Tok video describing one of the travails of being trans. As far as I understand, a person still has to click on the video before viewing it. If you don't support or enjoy that sort of content, why go out of your way to watch it? I can only hope that hate speech like theirs becomes increasingly marginalized until it disappears altogether.