Posts tagged privilege

lucypaw:

amydentata:

lucypaw:

genderpunk:

shaedofblue:

dizzzypie:

youarenotyou:

lucypaw:

1. I hate how much emphasis is put on CASAB by people beyond pointing out the fucked-up ways it’s used in society.
2. I have found that when I am looking for other non-binary people like me, CASAB has no value in helping finding me people like me.
3. Claiming ‘all ____ people’ is no better when you use CASAB instead of ‘man’ or ‘woman’ and reinforces CASAB on people who are saying their CASAB is not part of who they are as a person.
4. The obsession with CASAB is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

THANK YOU YES

the last two points irk me if I am understanding them correctly. I think they are kind of denying privilege of CAFAB/DFAB/AFAB people in queer, feminist, and trans spaces. Like, if by obsession, you mean CAFAB/DMAB/AFAB people being angry, I don’t think that is right to say. But if by obsessed you mean like, the fucked up people who enforce this oppression, then yeah that is fucked.

If I am misunderstanding at all, please correct me

It is certainly denying a certain narrative about how DFAB and DMAB trans people are unilaterally privileged and marginalized in various spaces.  That narrative usually assumes that DFAB trans is synonymous with masculine and DMAB trans is synonymous with feminine.  It treats a DFAB nonbinary person as either a masculine woman or a typical man, and a DMAB nonbinary person as either a feminine man or a typical woman.

This is bullshit.  A nonbinary person is not binary trans-lite or Butch/Fem-heavy.  They are their gender (or lack thereof) and attempts to place them in a category based on designated sex are generally un/misgendering. 

Since the person in question (if they agreed with these points) would probably not be drawing attention to an error some doctor made on their birth certificate, then the only way to even socially place them in a “DFAB” or “DMAB” category is through assumptions about what DFAB and MFAB bodies are supposed to look like, or what the right way to be express a nonbinary identity with a certain body is.  I hope I don’t have to explain the gajillion ways this is screwed up.

It is true that people perceived as male-and-feminine are treated poorly, and that people perceived as female-and-masculine are treated relatively well.  But simplifying that to DMAB vs DFAB trans people requires making a lot of cissexist, binarist, and dyadist assumptions about people’s bodies and presentations.

TL;DR:

How nonbinary people are treated is based more on people’s perceptions and assumptions that may or may not correlate with their DSAB, which is nobody’s business anyway.

When people assume my ASAB, most people assume wrong. This is true, even in queer and trans spaces. Trufax. 

I have noticed that people assume my CASAB based on what I say more than anything else, especially in queer and trans spaces.  For example, when I am heard to be angry at transmisogyny, I am assumed to be CAMAB and an authority on the subject, a voice to be listened to.  When I am heard to be angry at binarism and obsession with CASAB, I am assumed to be CAFAB and my voice dismissed, an ‘angry woman’.  While I understand dizzypie’s concerns, the fact that people assign me into a CASAB and treat me in ways that counters how most trans* people assume privilege among trans people works shows how broken this stuff is.  For all the talk of concern about privilege, privilege is not what’s being attacked.  People are.

As shaedofblue says above:

How nonbinary people are treated is based more on people’s perceptions and assumptions that may or may not correlate with their DSAB, which is nobody’s business anyway.

That’s exactly what my experience has shown.  At this point in my life, I refuse to use my CASAB as an identity point or in any other way because it doesn’t say who I am now and only distracts and detracts from that.  Yet, I still get given one based on people’s perceptions and assumptions to assign me privilege or oppress me.  Do we see the problem there?

It’s like, no matter how hard we try to see people as people, designated sex just keeps on forcing itself back into the conversation. Rather aggravating.

Designated sex is useful when talking about how people’s assumptions about it affect their judgment and behavior. It affects the assumptions people make about me, not who I am as a person. When I’m read as designated male, people find my anger threatening. When I’m read as designated female, people find my anger irrational and hyperbolic. My body is the same body either way, and my anger is the same either way. The difference is in other people’s minds.

Designated sex isn’t about the individual in question to begin with: by its very nature it is about other people placing meaning onto one’s body. I didn’t choose that designation, I don’t agree with that designation, and it doesn’t accurately reflect who I am as a person, nor how I perceive my own body. We have to discuss these effects, because they have far-reaching ramifications, surely. But I know in my own case, it is not a part of my identity nor does it describe my experience growing up.

Designated sex isn’t about the individual in question to begin with: by its very nature it is about other people placing meaning onto one’s body.

So true.

I have thoughts and feelings about non-binary and trans* as categories and I think the problem here is the clash between those categories.

We’ve gotten so used to folding non-binary as a category in with trans as a category that I think we’ve blurred them together in a way that is not helpful. In actuality, these are frameworks that can overlap but are not the same thing. Non-binary folks are not automatically trans, so the same frameworks of how power relations play out within the trans community are not necessarily applicable within the non-binary community. We have spent so much time assuming that non-binary folks are part of the trans community that we assume that privilege, power and oppression flow in the same directions with non-binary folks as they do with binary-identified trans folks.

This is not to say that femme non-binary folks who are read as female due to their presentation are not receiving a certain protection from being able to pass in situations where femme non-binary folks who are read as male would be facing heavier policing. And certainly, people tend to assimilate ideas of a hierarchy of gender expressions and can act from this space of misogyny from either category.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that there isn’t a tendency of non-binary folks to reproduce systems of oppression that end with certain people facing transmisogyny while others are being treated as “more radical” while flying under societal radar. That said, grouping us by our birth sex designations tends to create categories that are not reflective of our actual experiences, or how our identities actually function.

telegantmess:

I keep seeing this statement, or similar ones in conversations where someone with privilege walks into a conversation that is critical of their privilege and then proceeds to whine and derail their way across it.

What I really want to know is how in the world that statement makes any damn sense? How can you possibly think that you can divorce skin color from who a person is? What world do you think we live in? Because in a world where there is durable inequality based in nothing more than skin color, where people of color are treated poorly in comparison to white people in almost every aspect of American society (I seriously can’t think of one example where white people are marginalized in comparison to people of color once every other aspect of their lived experience is controlled for) how do you think it makes any sense to try and divorce the experience of living withinstitutionalized discriminationfromwho a person is? Sure, people have individual experiences, and will process and develop those experiences in different ways, but these structures will still inform that development in ways that are integral to those individuals.

So when you make statements like the one above, you don’t really want to know who that person is. You want to ignore the parts of their existence that make you uncomfortable or might make you question your assumptions about the nature of the world you live in and your place within it. That probably has more to do with why your were called a cracker than any half-baked bullshit about “racism going both ways.”

thisiswhiteprivilege:

White privilege is the musical “Avenue Q”.

Mod note: Furreal. And white folks look at this shit like it’s the fucking bible. 

thisiswhiteprivilege:

White privilege is Jezebel.com

its fun trying to explain to my meat space friends why I’m not impressed at their use of Jezebel as a source.

thisiswhiteprivilege:

White privilege is brutally murdering 77 people in an anti-islamic crusade in ‘self-defence’ against multiculturalism, consequently being considered for possible psychiatric and treatment rather than imprisonment, and never referred to as a terrorist.

thisiswhiteprivilege:

White privilege is being angry because ABC ran a Spanish language commercial during the NBA finals even though it was subtitled in English.

thisiswhiteprivilege:

White privilege is pissing off millions of your users by saying the n-word in a post but having the power to delete it like it was never there (a la the story of the Sudanese woman)…

White privilege is also being able to apologize for a fuck-up of that degree by giving some half ass apology consisting of “I’m sorry your feelings got hurt” (which we all know is coming). 

I’m looking at you, David Karp. 

———-

Submission from filthyfierceflashy

Mod note: No, we are not going to stop talking about this.

I keep seeing this statement, or similar ones in conversations where someone with privilege walks into a conversation that is critical of their privilege and then proceeds to whine and derail their way across it.

What I really want to know is how in the world that statement makes any damn sense? How can you possibly think that you can divorce skin color from who a person is? What world do you think we live in? Because in a world where there is durable inequality based in nothing more than skin color, where people of color are treated poorly in comparison to white people in almost every aspect of American society (I seriously can’t think of one example where white people are marginalized in comparison to people of color once every other aspect of their lived experience is controlled for) how do you think it makes any sense to try and divorce the experience of living withinstitutionalized discriminationfromwho a person is? Sure, people have individual experiences, and will process and develop those experiences in different ways, but these structures will still inform that development in ways that are integral to those individuals.

So when you make statements like the one above, you don’t really want to know who that person is. You want to ignore the parts of their existence that make you uncomfortable or might make you question your assumptions about the nature of the world you live in and your place within it. That probably has more to do with why your were called a cracker than any half-baked bullshit about “racism going both ways.”

thisiswhiteprivilege:

White privilege is being able to wear a sacred symbol or accessory from a culture and being deemed as ‘cute, fun, and exotic’ while those from that culture wear it and get made fun of.

megachiropteran:

youarenotyou:

onceuponanotsolongago:

I feel like I just keep going on tangents of “And this is why Dawkins is a complete douchcanoe!…. Oh and this too!… Oh how could I forget this!”

Pretty much if you want to be an atheist that’s awesome. Have fun.

BUT

IF YOU ARE GOING TO START CRITICIZING OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR RELIGION YOU NEED TO CHECK YOUR FUCKING PRIVILEGE, OKAY?

Here are some general things to watch out for… if you are saying/doing them YOU NEED TO STOP (Yes, Dawkins actually does ALL of these things):

• referring to indigenous peoples as “primitive” and/or comparing them to children
• comparing things to mental illness THAT ARE NOT MENTAL ILLNESS.
• making jokes about people who are actually mentally ill
• saying that religion caused slaves to work better for their masters
• comparing oppressions. No, the oppression you experience because you are an atheist IS NOT LIKE BEING GAY, BLACK AND/OR JEWISH. JUST STOP.
• valuing only one way of being or thinking
• Discussing large groups and wide spread ideas as if they are homogeneous. You want to talk about “Islamic law”? Okay, which “Islamic law”. Also, surprisingly the 1 billion+ Muslims don’t actually all agree with each other.
• Holding ideas like “Eastern Religions aren’t really religions, they are ways of life” and that all Buddhists are peaceful.
• Thinking that we need to abolish religion to save teh womenz. Seriously, get off your horse, women don’t need a fucking white knight.

basically.

it’s pretty amazing how an ~*accomplished scientist*~ can break all the rules of scientific thought ever when trying to prove that it’s the only way to think.

One of my BIGGEST complaints with the rationalist community that I have encountered is this idea that as rationalists we are somehow above all bad things ever, and are both rational and objective. We pride ourselves on questioning things that many people seem to take at face value and fail to question our own authorities, our own history, our own culture.

I can’t say I understand the pain that comes with having heavy religious indoctrination that teaches you to hate yourself and fear divine retribution, but just because my father is an atheist and my mother agnostic doesn’t mean they were/are morally upright people who do everything based on empirical evidence either. They believe fucked up things that have little to no evidence and do awful things (they do good things and believe positive things as well, they are humans, but for the sake of argument we’ll leave off there.) They still manage to be bigoted in the places they have privilege, regardless of evidence.

When atheist, rationalist communities wonder why more people don’t agree with and join their communities despite there being a great deal of people who agree with them, I have a simple answer. Its because a lot of you are douchebags. Those of us who aren’t are not impressed by you either, for the record. All you do is make life harder for us and others that could really benefit from finding a community of like minded individuals. Stop holding us back, douchebags.

(Source: onceuponanotsolongtimeago, via lindentea)