Get an update on what’s happening with the right wing worldwide, learn how to be a better ally to transgender people and what to do if you mess up. Featuring Diana Arce (she/her), Tina Lee (she/her) and Naomi Bisley (they/them) from Artists Without a Cause and Wählen Gegen Rechts with guests Rory Midhani, (he/him), who is an artist across mediums mostly making work about queer and trans life. He’s worked for buzzfeed, medium.com, planned parenthood, Autostraddle, Transgender Europe and Siegesseule. And Kim (she/her) AKA Poly Maze who is a music producer, DJ and part of the No Shade initiative in Berlin. Program:
Wählen Gegen Rechts: Stand der Dinge For those looking for more info on the issues we talked about on Stand Der Dinge, here’s a list of links:
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Hungary election gives Orban big majority via NY Times and use of the media to push anti-immigrant narratives.
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In the US, hundreds of children separated from their parents at the US border via NY Times
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French border guards change migrant children’s passports to make them older in order to deport them back to Italy.
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Get updated on what is happening with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica via the NY Times and the Guardian
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MDR takes Rundfunkgebühr funds to produce a radio show allowing racist Frauke Petry and all white panel discuss “political correctness” or How MDR finds a way to use the N-Word. Show doesn’t air due to public complaints.
How to be a Better Ally and Accomplice to Transgender People:
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Vocab Breakdown: Learn the terms so you aren’t clueless. A lot of these definitions were pulled from Anagnori’s amazing glossary.
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Gender: A person’s internal experience of themself and their relationship to their identity. Some people do not have a gender.
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Trans: Someone who doesn’t identify as the gender they were assigned at birth
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Cisgender or ‘cis’: Consistently experiencing your gender in a way that matches the gender assigned to you at birth. Not trans.
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The Gender Binary: The gender binary is the Western social construct that only grants legitimacy to two genders, male and female. Is frequently oppressive towards people who are trans and/or intersex.
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Non-binary: Existing OUTSIDE of the gender binary. Non-binary is a term for people who are not men or women, or are both men and women, or who are something else entirely, or are some combination of these things, or some of these things some of the time.
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“Coming Out” / , being “out” or “Outing”: So when a trans person comes out they are telling another person they are trans. To be “outed” or to “out” someone is to expose someone’s transness to others without the trans person’s permission. First tip: NEVER DO THIS!
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Transphobia: Prejudice, stigma, or discrimination against trans people. Can occur as both an individual attitude and as a widespread social force.
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Transmisogyny: Transphobia and misogyny combined, forming an especially virulent form of oppression against trans women and other transfeminine people.
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Cissexism: The validation of cisgender identities more than trans identities. Cissexism grants privileges to cis people while oppressing trans people.
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TERF: So TERFS are sneaky because they may *seem* like your friends when they’re talking about certain aspects of their feminism but then BAM suddenly they are Germaine Greer and going on anti-trans rants. In short, a terf is a trans exclusionary radical feminist! AKA DIRT
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Protips on Allyship/Being an Accomplice - We’ll be posting about this more in depth on our both Wählen Gegen Rechts and AWAC’s Blogs.
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#1 - Drop the Assumptions! Assumptions lead to terrible mistakes most of the time. Don’t assume trans people want to talk about their transness, don’t assume all trans experiences are the same and don’t assume people’s pronouns.
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#2 - Stop Praising Us For Being Trans. Being trans isn’t a “brave” choice, or a choice at all. When you compliment us, compliment us like you would any cis person. Comic illustrated by guest Rory Midhani, written by Meredith Talusan. “What Cis People Say To Trans People Vs. What We Hear”
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#3 - Accept our names and identities as we proclaim them. A person’s name is their name even if they have been assigned a different name or gender identity in their life.
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#4 - Be respectful of a person’s privacy. Do not ask about medication, transitioning, coming out, or our genitalia.
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Educate yourself! Trans people spend a lot of time doing unsolicited educating, so don’t make us do more when you can easily Google things when you’re curious. Once you’ve started educating yourself, don’t assume you know more about trans experience than a trans person.
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#5 - Give trans people your money! Hire us!
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#6 - If you mess up, say you’re sorry - fullstop! - if you’re aware your wrongdoing, don’t make a fuss! Don’t make it all about your feelings and certainly don’t make a trans person comfort you for your mistake. If you need to talk about it with someone, talk to a cis friend about your wrongdoing. Get over it, move on, find ways to do better. Educate your cis friends when they make a mistake too.
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Playlist:
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Irreversible Entanglements - Enough - Irreversible Entanglements, 2017
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Irreversible Entanglements - Irreversible Entanglements, 2017
Email: [email protected]