In “Why I don’t care what you think about my style,” Paul Elam explains that his purpose is to help men who have been traumatized by “gynocentric privilege” and “politicized garbage.” Please use this space to react to his commentary.
Author: Holly Allen
Week 10 Day 1 – Post a question or passage
Do you have a question or passage with regard to our readings or other materials relating to transmisogynoir? If so, please post it here!
Week 10 Day 1 Discussion Question 4
In “Unblocking Our Paths: Creating Visibility for Black Transgender Women and Femmes,” Ogechukwu C. Ogbogu notes that as of April 2021, “34 percent of Black transgender women and femmes are living in extreme poverty; 41 percent have experienced homelessness; half who attend school have faced harassment; nearly half have attempted suicide; and 65 percent have experienced sexual assault.” Furthermore, she notes, Black trans women and femmes have “a life expectancy of 35 years.”
Ogbogu asks, “How do we imagine Black women’s futures beyond these oppressive structures of transmisogynoir?” And she concludes:
[W]e cannot stop the discussion of Black trans womanhood and femmehood at death. Black trans women and femmes have materialized and imagined worlds and futures that rupture and create space for all people’s survival. Learning and centering Black trans women and femmes in the reimagining of Black womanhood is vital to liberating Black women and our femininity from oppressive structures, and allows us to define womanhood for ourselves.
Do you agree with Ogbogu that it’s important to “center Black trans women and femmes in the reimagining of Black womanhood”? Concretely, what might that look like here at Middlebury?
Week 10 Day 1 Discussion Question 3
In “America’s War on Black Trans Women” (Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Sept. 23, 2020), Annamarie Forestiere suggests some ways to improve Black trans women’s quality of life. She writes:
A tangible way to increase the quality of life of Black trans women is to extend legal protections to them and to change the way that they are treated under the law. [An] excellent starting point would be for . . . state governments to eliminate the trans panic defense [hyperlink added]. Extending protections to sex workers (or completely decriminalizing sex work), enacting stronger police brutality laws (or defunding the institution of policing), allowing incarcerated people to live in housing that matches their gender identity (or eliminating prisons entirely): these are all additional steps that the law could take to keep Black trans women safe.
Do Forestiere’s suggestions seem reasonable to you? Do you feel particularly strongly about any of the changes she proposes here? What other social and/or legal changes do you think are important to support Black trans women’s well-being and advancement?
Week 10 Day 1 Discussion Question 2
Ashlee Marie Preston writes:
Ashlee Marie Preston writes:
Black trans women are tired of being cast in everyone’s trauma porn. It shouldn’t take our murders or viral videos of us being berated, humiliated, and brutally beaten while bystanders pull out their phones to capture the consumption of our dignity for you to have compassion for us. We are not caricatures but real people with hopes, dreams, and aspirations.
Do you agree with Preston that Black trans women are often depicted as caricatures in “trauma porn”? What other kinds of visibility and solidarity might be useful to support the hopes , dreams, and aspirations of Black trans women?
Week 10 Day 1 Discussion Question 1
Regarding Julia Serano’s work on transmisogyny, Elías Cosenza Krell writes:
Serano argues that the abjection of femininity in conjunction with transgenderism constitutes a particular form of oppression that trans women face. She calls this oppression “transmisogyny.” Serano’s scholarship has contributed greatly to the conversation on cis/sexism and the devaluation of femininity both in and outside feminist communities. However, her scholarship elides race and class and allows white middle-classness to stand in as a universal, greatly diminishing the capacity of transmisogyny to describe the oppression(s) that trans women of color, and Black women in particular, face. (Krell, 232)
Having read Serano’s work, do you agree with Krell’s critique?
Week 9 Day 1 Discussion Question 6
Moya Bailey writes that “if you want to see misogynoir in action you need only turn on the news, see a movie, watch television, or scroll your timeline. You will find examples of Black women being denied their humanity in ways that have a direct impact on their lives. But you will also, as I highlight in this text, find evidence of their resistance” (32). According to Bailey, how do “Black women as well as Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks” use social media to resist misogyoir and “carve out their own spaces” of harm reduction and personal and collective affirmation?
Week 8 Day 2 Question 4
Read Bethan McKernan’s article, “Rape as a weapon: huge scale of sexual violence inflicted in Ukraine emerges,” which was published in The Guardian on Monday, April 4, 2022. As Russian troops retreat from villages around Kyiv, Ukrainian forces and aid workers have discovered evidence of war crimes perpetrated against civilians in their wake. McKernan reports,
Particularly difficult for many to comprehend is the scale of the sexual violence. As Russian troops have withdrawn from towns and suburbs around the capital in order to refocus the war effort on Ukraine’s east, women and girls have come forward to tell the police, media and human rights organisations of atrocities they have suffered at the hands of Russian soldiers. Gang-rapes, assaults taking place at gunpoint, and rapes committed in front of children are among the grim testimonies collected by investigators.
McKernon shares the experience of a young Ukrainian woman named Antonina Medvedchuk. When the Russian invasion began, Medvedchuk began “looking for emergency contraception instead of a basic first aid kit,” because she feared she might be raped. Her mother tried to reassure her that wars like that “don’t exist anymore, they are from old movies.” But Medvedchuk was unconvinced. She stated, ” I have been a feminist for eight years, and I cried in silence, because all wars are like this.”
Based on your understanding of current events in Ukraine and/or other global conflict zones, do you share Medvedchuk’s view that “all wars are like this” – i.e., rife with sexual violence? How might this week’s readings help you to think about rape as a tool of warfare?
Week 8 Day 1 – Pick a passage or pose a question
Is there a passage from our readings on U.S. settler colonialism and sexual violence against Indigenous women that stands out to you? If so, please post it here and briefly explain why you think it’s important. Alternatively, you can use this space to pose a question for class discussion.
Week 8 Day 1 Discussion Question 4
According to Andrea Smith, why is sexual violence against Indigenous women not taken seriously?