cisgender Archives - Wear Your Voice

The Cishets Are Not OK: Gender Reveal Parties Are Literally Killing People

The gender reveal party has proven itself to be shallow, consumerist, queerantagonistic, and dangerous. It’s time to retire it. By Nylah Burton Recently, a few “gender reveal” parties have gone awry, prompting many to ask if it’s time for this relatively new

Nov 14, 2019

Race

Dear Scarlett Johansson: It’s Not “PC” — It’s Fighting Against White Saturation

It would be more honest for Johansson to simply say that she feels entitled to play any role because whiteness has taught her it’s acceptable for her to do so. By DarkSkyLady This article was originally published on Medium In a cover

Jul 16, 2019

LGBTQIA+

30 Tips from Trans and Gender Nonconforming People on How Cisgender Folks Can Be Better Allies

In understanding the way power dynamics work in favor of cisgender people, those who are allies for the TGNC community should take care to better understand the ways in which they can support us. Navigating my trans identity isn’t an

May 14, 2019

LGBTQIA+

We Haven’t Forgotten What David France Did to Reina Gossett

Reina Gossett is a visionary and her work deserves prestige and compensation.

As a writer and an organizer, I get a warm flush a few times a month when I get a shout out on social media from my many peers and colleagues in queer feminist POC networks. The last one that gave me real pause was the incomparable make-up artist Umber Ghauri of Brown Beauty Standards who let the world know that I did one of my usual backstage hook-ups for a great campaign celebrating trans women’s beauty for the End Violence Against Women campaign. Reina Gossett is a historical researcher, writer, filmmaker and activist who has been receiving the antithesis of the aforementioned warm treatment that comes from community solidarity and compassionate collaboration. She’s been done real dirty in the furore which has surrounded the Netflix documentary film “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”. If you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about, Gossett accused David France, the director, of capitalizing on her years of research and ideas for the film. I spoke with David France, just to get a measure of the man. I was not interested in the pernickety back and forth of accusations, allegations, defensiveness and labored partial truth seeking. The expansion of digital media has enlarged the court of public opinion exponentially to an extent that would boggle the minds of television watchers. In this era where many are concerned about the not-that-new phenomenon of 'fake news', the thoroughness of journalistic endeavor hasn't been diluted across the board. It seems that David France believes that because he had "trans and gender non-conforming people from the very top of our production to the bottom of our production” that it could exempt him from criticism of his cisgender white gaze and perhaps even invalidate Reina’s claims that her labor was exploited.

Related: MARSHA P. JOHNSON’S LIFE ISN’T WHITE PEOPLE’S STORY TO TELL

Mar 30, 2018

LGBTQIA+

Our Genders Are More Than Our Bodies: Affirming Trans Identity Beyond Appearance

Being trans is not at all determined by our bodies. Our genders are not determined by our bodies or body parts.

Even as knowledge on trans identities and trans folks becomes more widespread and accessible, a perilous hyperfixation on trans people’s bodies remains. We are vilified and harassed everyday in our homes, our schools, or in our places of work for how we might look or present. Trans folks are consistently shamed, marginalized, and oppressed under cisheteropatriarchy and through its actors for failing to adhere to colonized, cisgender binaries and gender roles and expectations, especially with regards to our presentation and our bodies. Trans people are misunderstood and pathologized as having some “deviance” of the body. Even among folks who claim to be trans allies, trans people remain fetishized and objectified as body-objects and nothing more. Trans women and femmes especially are graded and received only through how conforming our bodies are to respectable, colonial, and cis standards of beauty. We are told even by those who claim to be our friends how they would “never have been able guess/tell”. We are told that our presentations “look so good for a trans girl” or that we are “surprisingly” skillful at navigating and crafting our presentation. As well, armful, overgeneralized assumptions continue regarding trans folks and our bodies, in particular our genitalia or other physical characteristics. And this contributes to the transmisogynistic demonization of trans women and femmes in particular regarding social access, like to public bathrooms. This also maintains a predatory “chaser” culture in which interested potential partners fetishize trans folks on the mere assumption of what body parts we may have. But in truth, we are more than our bodies. Our genders are more than bodies. In fact, being trans is not at all determined by our bodies. Our genders are not determined by our bodies or body parts. And our trans identity does not determine what body parts we may have. This pathologized, colonial misunderstanding of gender is simply not true. Regardless of where our genitals or other physical/bodily characteristics fall on the spectrum of human variation, we are peoples of many different genders.