raptortooth asked: It's certainly appropriate to be frustrated or angry. It's where you go from there that can get problematic. This seems to be a case of displacement, it is extremely justified for trans* people to be pissed at their lack of recognition. It is not so justified that the anger is being expressed in this debate.
See, and on that we can wholeheartedly agree.
The fact that trans* people get upset at their lack of recognition is justified—there should certainly be more recognition.
But it’s that displacement thing again: Is it really, truly appropriate for that anger to be manifested in this way? Is changing the wording from “women” to “uterus-bearers” really going to accomplish that much, in the long run? I don’t think it will, personally.
Regardless of the wording, the fundamentalists are going to be playing the same game: no rights, regardless. All this in-fighting manages to accomplish is a dividing of the energy that could otherwise be used to affect concrete change.
Look at it this way: the Baptists, Mormons and Catholics can, in the day to day, barely stand each other. They really, truly cannot. But one of the political miracles of the Right Wing is that they often put aside their differences and work together to affect change. Now, whether we think that the change is the right one (I personally think it is not), it is worth noting that their collaboration does work.
Why?
Because instead of infighting, they expend their combined time, energy and resources on Getting Things Done. That’s something that I feel the left and the social progressives really do need to work on. We’re so busy arguing about who’s being centered in the debate and who’s being oppressed that we’re basically leaving our asses open to the firing squad.
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