(no subject)

[gwydion]

Invisible Monsters made me so furious, I'm having trouble finding words. It is beautifully written, and so poisonous. Another gay man appropriating transness, undermining real struggles for the sake of metaphor. He is saying again what he said in Fight Club, only pissing on trans women while he's at it.

I think I'd hate it less if it weren't so well written, so otherwise profound, so otherwise deliberately compelling. It was like biting into a fresh baked roll and finding a maggot.

It might bother me less if so much of the rest of the media didn't confuse drag (the performance of femininity) with being a trans woman (female). It might bother me less of so much of the culture didn't rip trans women down, accuse them of deception, of being fake, of being criminal, of being deluded, of making it all up for attention, of being self loathing gay men. The media does all this, and Chuck Palahniuk is doing all this too in the quest for the right symbol for the theme of his book. You can not separate the thing he's done from the cultural baggage surrounding it, and deciding at the last minute to say she wasn't Really trans does not make it better, but rather reenforces that deep seated belief so many have that no one is. It's going to be incredibly hard to forgive this. I'm not sure I can. I am angry at him; I am angry at myself for having liked Rant and Pygmy and Fight Club.

This might not be fair, but I do count it heavier when LGB folk do this kind of thing. It's not just because they should know better after years of being asked if they couldn't just try to be straight. No, the reason it's so much worse is because when it's, say, openly gay Christian Serano using tranny to mean ugly in his catch phrase, it looks to the cis-straight world like it's okay. Folks in the LGBTQ community are saying it, so it can't possibly be offensive. Look, gay men say it so everyone has permission to say this hateful thing to trans folk. Because the quiltbag letters all jumble together for the passing of laws, there is this belief that there is only one voice and everyone in the QUILTBAG is educated on community issues and can speak for the whole.

Comments

[sanat.livejournal.com]

That's a shame. I generally like what I've read by Palahniuk. Should I read Invisible Monsters to be able to say exactly what's wrong with it, or should I give it a pass, too? I believe in combating LGB attacks on T as well, being a member of the oft-ignored B group myself.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Frankly, the B gets picked on within the community about as much as the T. it's up to you if you read it. It is beautifully written, it's just reinforcing a lot of the nasty things the culture tells trans folk. It's up to you if you can stomach that.