This chick with a dick is exhausted
This image makes me uncomfortable...
Last night, I was in the audience for a show some friends of mine put on. The show was lots of fun, very funny, well acted, used the small stage and minimal props to great effect, and had a “chicks with dicks” insult slipped in about three quarters of the way through the show.
The show was parodying a lot of Shakespeare, which is inherently rife with characters crossdressing. I don’t have a problem with that, even if I don’t love the “humor” that automatically arises from a man in women’s clothing. But I acknowledge both the historical place of such jokes, and their continued effectiveness today, and I realize I can’t make every little gendered thing into a battle.
But one of the actors, I’ll say Al, was in drag and supposedly kissing another actor’s (actual) girlfriend. The other actor, we’ll say Bob, was chasing Al around, slinging insults. One of which was something along the lines of “Well, if she has a thing for chicks with dicks then she can have you!”
It wasn’t dwelled upon, and the show continued without pause. But it completely took me out of the humor of the play, what had until then been my universal enjoyment of the humor, and felt a bit like a slap in the face. I know the people producing the play, and I know the actor, Bob, who yelled out the insult. The play was audience-participation-y to the point where I almost stood up and yelled, “And what the hell is wrong with that?”
As I said before, I know I need to pick my battles. But I emailed the friends I have in the show, including Bob, and said that I was disappointed in them, and hold them to a higher standard of humor. I’m hoping I did so in a straightforward but not bitchy way (I think I did) and that the message sinks in, and they learn from the experience.
And yet, it’s exhausting to feel like I always have to have my guard on. I acknowledge, and to some extend embrace, that the art and education aspects of my life put me out there as a possible target, the subject of awkward questions and conversations. But moments like this, a random “chicks with dicks” joke, make me feel like there are no safe havens. Like it’s Us versus Them. Queer people, and specifically trans people or people affiliated with the trans community, versus heteronormative, cis, straight people.
Sometimes, I’m able to embrace being trans as an eye-opener. Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. I’ve had the opportunity to think about and explore gender in ways most people can’t even dream of. I think, on the whole, I’m in this mindset more than not.
But sometimes I simply feel like a minority. An outsider. Misunderstood at best, targeted at worst.
How do I find that balance? Between spending time with people more ‘like’ me (an effort I’m still making) and not feeling alienated from communities and social circles in which I’ve existed for years? Am I being naive? Or is it really possible to change those around us without always feeling like we’re on the defensive, constantly being attacked?
I sure hope so.
Themocracy
I was at the beach for a week with a bunch of my friends–some of the first friends I was really out to–about six months ago. This was when I was still passing as cis to the rest of the world but I could be visibly queer with them.
Several times during the week (which is pretty drunken to begin with) we have explicit parties. About halfway through one of these, a guy ends up dressed in a pair of daisy dukes and someone’s bikini top, with party hats stuffed into the bra and the crotch of the shorts.
Everyone else seemed to think this was very funny… probably not everyone actually did, but that is what I was seeing from my place on the dance floor, growing steadily more uncomfortable over being basically called a joke until I couldn’t take it any more and had to leave. That was my Terrible Bargain for the evening–it was easier for my own party to be over than to harsh the party for everyone else by calling him out.
I guess in the end it all comes back to privilege–even when you think you’re in a safe space it could come back to bite you at any time, because other people simply don’t have to think about it. Sometimes you can go and make them think about it, perhaps later if right then is too hard (thank you for sending those emails) but you don’t really get to let your guard down, and sometimes when you think you do you can get hit even harder.
Well said! Did you talk to any of your friends later, after the fact?
I mentioned it to someone the next day when they asked why I’d left the party, but they didn’t understand. I didn’t know the guy who actually did it well enough to talk to him either, so I mostly just let it drop.
Yeah, I hear you. I do like being around other trans people for this reason, but being around cis queers doesn’t seem to help much–they can still end up being really transphobic, and it’s more likely to come up if they are because sex and gender come up more often when I’m with other queers.
[...] of the comments on This chick with a dick is exhausted caught my attention, to the point where I removed the comment from the thread (something I rarely [...]
first of all, you aren’t a “thang”. secondly…you haven’t got any exclusive on exploring gender. and lastly, i have to wonder why if the chick with a dick joke was so offensive, you chose to use it yourself as a headline? it really sounds to me like you are a hurt feeling waiting to happen.
The Thang Blog title comes from a highschool joke about what my friends did on Fridays: It wasn’t a party, it wasn’t a hang-out, it wasn’t a gathering, it was just some… thing. Which eventually became The Friday Thang, which became my website, which became this blog. I’ve thought about changing the blog’s name for just that reason, actually – the title isn’t about me, and I’ve wondered if I should correct that.
I don’t think I said I did? Not sure where this is coming from.
The intent was sarcasm and/or irony, but those are difficult concepts to display via the written word. Sorry my actual feelings didn’t come across clearly.
I don’t really think so. But what gave that impression?
i just read the blog…its all in there. you claim to have had the opportunity to think about and explore gender in ways most people can’t even dream of. in fact everyone deals with having a gender, its nothing unique to you. my intention is to remind you that you have more in common with others than you might think. you also spoke of always having your guard up…thats where i got the hurt feeling waiting to happen from. its easy to give feedback about a blog..especially to someone i dont know. i probably should have started with “i enjoyed reading it” which i did. it stimulated thought and thats a good thing.
Thanks for clarifying (and for saying you did enjoy the post).
I absolutely agree that all people have their own gendered experiences, and that being trans is (with very few exceptions) not a unique experience, something incomprehensible to mere mortals. I do think being trans often heightens issues of self-image and gendered expectations that all people experience, but you’re right that I don’t have an exclusive right to explore gender issues.
That said. I also do think trans people have “the opportunity to think about and explore gender in ways most people can’t even dream of.” Perhaps, to clarify, I should say most people won’t dream of, not can’t, but being trans does provide either an opportunity(on days when I feel good about myself) or an imposition (on days when I don’t) to think about what it means to be a gendered individual. Yes, people who aren’t trans have similar experiences, but I think they’re often more subtle and gradual. Not always, but on the whole.
All that said, I do appreciate the reminder that I’m not the only gendered fish in the sea.
I keep going round and round in my head on this one. Do I see so many slights against trans people because I expect it? Or am I constantly on guard for slights against trans people because they are constantly being flung into the ether?
The truth probably lies somewhere in between. I don’t think the situation I reference in this post was, in and of itself, a huge deal. I tried to make that clear in the email I wrote to my friends, and I think (judging from their responses) they understood that I was frustrated but not horrendously so.
At the same time, death by a thousand cuts will leave you just as dead as a single swipe to the neck, even if no individual cut is particularly severe. By that I mean constant little ____ist or _____phobic comments (racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, etc) do have a damaging effect on a person’s sense of self-worth, and on cultural images of that group. I don’t mean to blow this (or any minor) event out of proportion, but I also refuse to let “little things” slip by, because – en mass – the little things really do hurt.
Does that make sense?