#but refuses to see the same thing applied to trans men as a threat too | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tyrannuspitch · 4 years ago

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Jumping off @kidrat ’s recent post on JKR, British transphobia, and transphobia against transmasculine people, after getting a bit carried away and too long to add as a comment:

A major, relatively undiscussed event in JKR’s descent into full terfery was this tweet:

[image id: a screenshot of a tweet from JK Rowling reading: “’People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Rowling attaches a link to an article titled: “Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate” /end id]

This can seem like a pretty mundane TERF talking point, just quibbling over language for the sake of it, but I think it’s worth discussing, especially in combination with the idea that cis women like JKR see transmasculine transition as a threat to their womanhood. (Recite it with horror: ”If I were young now, I might’ve transitioned...”)

A lot of people, pro- or anti-transphobe, will make this discussion about whether the term “woman” should include trans women or not, and how cis women are hostile to the inclusion of trans women. And that’s absolutely true. But the actual language cis women target is very frequently being changed for the benefit of trans men, not trans women, and most of them know this.

Cis people are used to having their identities constantly reaffirmed and grounded in their bodies. A lot of cis women, specifically, understand their social and physical identities as women as being defined by pain: misogynistic oppression is equated to the pains of menstruation or childbirth, and both are seen as the domain of cis women. They’re something cis women can bond over and build a ��sisterhood” around, and the more socially aware among them can recognise that cis women’s pain being taken less seriously by medicine is not unrelated to their oppression. However, in the absence of any trans perspectives, these conversations can also easily become very territorial and very bioessentialist.

Therefore... for many cis women, seeing “female bodies” described in gender neutral language feels like stripping their pain of its meaning, and they can become very defensive and angry.

And the consequences for transmasculine people can be extremely dangerous.

Not only do transmasculine people have an equal right to cis women to define our bodies as our own... Using inclusive language in healthcare is about more than just emotional validation.

The status quo in healthcare is already non-inclusive. When seeking medical help, trans people can expect to be misgendered and to have to explain how our bodies work to the doctors. We risk harassment, pressure to detransition, pressure to sterilise ourselves, or just being outright turned away. And the conversation around pregnancy and abortion in particular is heaving with cisnormativity - both feminist and anti-feminist cis women constantly talk about pregnancy as a quintessentially female experience which men could never understand.

Using gender-neutral language is the most basic step possible to try and make transmasculine people safer in healthcare, by removing the idea that these are “women’s spaces”, that men needing these services is impossible, and that safety depends on ideas like “we’re all women here”. Not institutionally subjecting us to misgendering and removing the excuse to outright deny us treatment is, again, one of the most basic steps that can be taken. It doesn’t mean we’re allowed comfort, dignity or full autonomy, just that one major threat is being addressed. The backlash against this from cis women is defending their poorly developed senses of self... at the cost of most basic dignity and safety for transmasculine people.

Ironically, though transphobic cis women feel like decoupling “women’s experiences” from womanhood is decoupling them from gendered oppression, transmasculine people experience even more marginalisation than cis women. Our rates of suicide and assault are even higher. Our health is even less researched than cis women’s. Our bodies are even more strictly controlled. Cis women wanting to define our bodies on their terms is a significant part of that. They hold the things we need hostage as “women’s rights”, “women’s health”, “women’s discussions” and “support for violence against women”, and demand we (re-)closet ourselves or lose all of their solidarity.

Fundamentally, the problem is that transphobic cis women are possessive over their experiences and anyone who shares them. Because of their binary understanding of gender, they’re uncomfortable with another group sharing many of their experiences but defining themselves differently. They’re uncomfortable with transmasculine people identifying “with the enemy” instead of “with their sisters”, and they’re even more uncomfortable with the idea that there are men in the world who they oppress, and not the other way around. “Oppression is for women; you can’t call yourself a man and still claim women’s experiences. Pregnancy is for women; if you want to be a man so badly why haven’t already you done something about having a woman’s body? How dare you abandon the sisterhood while inhabiting one of our bodies?”

Which brings me back to the TERF line about how “If I were young now, I might have transitioned.”

I’m not saying Rowling doesn’t actually feel any personal connection to that narrative - but it is a standard line, and it’s standard for a reason. Transphobic cis women really believe that there is nothing trans men go through that cis women don’t. They equate our dysphoria to internalised misogyny, eating disorders, sexual abuse or other things they see as “female trauma”. They equate our desire to transition to a desire to escape. They want to “help us accept ourselves” and “save us” from threats to their sense of identity. The fact is, this is all projection. They refuse to consider that we really have a different internal experience from them.

There’s also a marked tendency among less overtly transphobic cis women, even self-proclaimed trans allies, to make transphobia towards trans men about cis women.

Violence against trans men is chronically misreported and redefined as “violence against women”. In activist spaces, we’re frequently told that any trauma we have with misogyny is “misdirected” and therefore “not really about us”. If we were women, we would’ve been “experiencing misogyny”, but men can’t do that, so we should shut up and stop “talking over women”. (Despite the surface difference of whether they claim to affirm our gender, this is extremely similar to how TERFs tell us that everything we experience is “just misogyny”, but that transmasculine identity is a delusion that strips us of the ability to understand gender or the right to talk about it.)

I have personally witnessed an actual N*zi writing an article about how trans men are “destroying the white race” by transitioning and therefore becoming unfit to carry children, and because the N*zi had misgendered trans men in his article, every response I saw to it was about “men controlling women’s bodies”.

All a transphobe has to do is misgender us, and the conversation about our own oppression is once again about someone else.

Transphobes will misgender us as a form of violence, and cis feminist “allies” will perpetuate our misgendering for rhetorical convenience. Yes, there is room to analyse how trans men are treated by people who see us as women - but applying a simple “men oppressing women” dynamic that erases our maleness while refusing to even name transphobia or cissexism is not that. Trans men’s oppression is not identical to cis women’s, and forcing us to articulate it in ways that would include cis women in it means we cannot discuss the differences.

It may seem like I’ve strayed a long way from the original topic, and I kind of have, but the central reason for all of these things is the same:

Trans men challenge cis women’s self-concept. We force them to actually consider what manhood and womanhood are and to re-analyse their relationship to oppression, beyond a simple binary patriarchy.

TERFs will tell you themselves that the acknowledgement of trans people, including trans men, is an “existential threat” that is “erasing womanhood” - not just our own, but cis women’s too. They hate the idea that biology doesn’t determine gender, and that gender does not have a strict binary relationship to oppression. They’re resentful of the idea that they could just “become men”, threatened by the assertion that doing so is not an escape, and completely indignant at the idea that their cis womanhood could give them any kind of power. They are, fundamentally, desperate not to have to face the questions we force them to consider, so they erase us, deflect from us, and talk over us at every opportunity.

Trans men are constantly redefined against our wills for the benefit of cis womanhood.

TL;DR:

Cis women find transmasculine identity threatening, because we share experiences that they see as foundational to their womanhood

The fact that transphobes target inclusive language in healthcare specifically is not a mistake - They do not want us to be able to transition safely

Cis women are uncomfortable acknowledging transphobia, so they make discussion of trans men’s oppression about “womanhood” instead

This can manifest as fully denying that trans men experience our own oppression, or as pretending trans men’s experiences are identical to cis women’s in every way

#transphobia #transmasculinity #transandrophobia #this could maybe do with one more proofread but i've spent way too long on this so whatever!

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clansayeed · 4 years ago

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Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 10: Smoke and Mirrors

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he’s tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Taylor and Vera reunite just in time for a stand-off between hands, guns, and a little too much screaming. He’s really starting to think he’s not cut out for this ‘main character’ gig.

[READ IT ON AO3]

Taylor recognizes the restaurant when a waiter exits the kitchen with a large silver cart laden with all the materials for their specialty flaming bananas foster. Peeks as best he can, standing on the tips of his toes, to see the bustling front of the gilded establishment before one of Smoke’s henchmen catches him looking and shoves him forward with a grunt of warning.

As if he wasn’t seriously dejected at the fact that he’s already having to miss out on the promised onion rings.

“What — is Smoke gonna make us clean dishes as punishment?” Cal sneers. The comment earns him a smack to the back of the head but even with a werewolf growling in his face the other suited guard doesn’t even blink.

Four men in mobster-movie suits ushering five unusual-looking characters around the back walls of the five star restaurant should raise more than a few alarms but you wouldn’t know it based on the staff’s reactions.

How they purposefully look away and give their entourage a wide berth; some even moving aside to take the long way around to where they need to go.

If they were actually being held captive and against their will it wouldn’t be any use to try and beg for help. Every waiter, cook, and busser knows to keep their attentions on their jobs. Whether they’re bribed or threatened into silence is the only question but ends in the same answer.

They’re on their own.

The journey ends in a large chrome door. One of the guards reaches out but jumps back as a broad-shouldered woman exits with a wooden crate of vegetables.

Not a word passes between them. Part of the deal no doubt.

He holds the industrial freezer door open and jerks his head. “In.”

“Yeah… not gonna happen.” Ryder gives them a look of ‘really, like we’re that stupid’ but then again they did all agree to join Cadence for his not-so-friendly meeting with Lady Smoke… so they very well may be.

Well; no. Cadence agreed — which automatically implied Katherine would join him. And the startling revelation of Lady Smoke’s real name meant that Taylor was either going to go at their side or find a way to sneak in on his own — this was just easier and less likely to cause injury.

And where Taylor goes Ryder is never far behind. Cal, too, apparently.

Not that the Shift trio didn’t try to tag along — but they already looked like an ambush waiting to happen. Probably best not to actually be one.

“Funny you think you still got a choice.” But before Ryder can call his cocky bluff one of the armed men whips out his gun and smashes it into the Nighthunter’s shoulder without warning or hesitation.

Taylor throws away any consideration that those around them might be getting paid off. Only fear would keep any decent person from helping the way Ryder cries out and buckles to his knees.

His assailant stows away his gun almost too slowly — like he’s ready to use it again; but just ready but eager. “Get in the fuckin’ freezer. Or else.”

If he felt useless before Taylor’s glad he’s suddenly too cold to dwell on how he feels now.

He blindly grabs for the nearest thing — a potato of all things — and holds it against Nik’s throbbing injury while helping him up.

“Are you okay?”

“Aw, Rook, I didn’t know you cared.” teases Ryder; probably to hide the wince in his smile.

“Not funny.”

“Admit it; a little funny.”

The three mortals are already shivering when two of the guards step inside with them. The click of the freezer door locking them inside definitely doesn’t help matters.

“Step back —” says the apparent leader, actually shoves Katherine into Cadence who holds her close and looks ready to add ‘asshole bodyguard’ to the restaurant specials for the night, “— I said back!”

So they press themselves against the shelving on the walls and watch — with some interest, but mostly spite and murderous intent — as he reaches behind hanging garlands of herbs and grabs for something blindly.

With a metallic thunk the back wall — no, the back hidden fucking door — loosens enough to be pushed forward and open. Revealing a set of rickety and definitely code-violating wooden steps that lead down into a no-less frigid abyss.

Before the guard has the chance to bark another order Cadence steps forward with hands raised. “Let me guess; in?”

The guard’s upper lip curls. But all it takes is a flash of the vampire’s true face for him to back off and mutter under his frosty breath.

Down, down they go one at a time with their new friends at their backs. The only consolation being, what, that it’s slightly less cold? Sure he can’t see his breath anymore but that doesn’t mean he’s not already a Taylor-sicle.

Cal arrives at the bottom first; opens the door to some kind of back office. Like a security room, only… underground.

A similarly-suited woman looks up from a row of fuzzy monitors as they start to crowd inside. It’s not a space meant for this many bodies especially when one of them is a broad-shouldered wolf and the other is a vampire too-damn tall. Judging by the abandoned snack wrappers and the digital solitaire game on her screen this isn’t a post that ends up with many guests.

She leaps to her feet; chair rocketing backwards on rickety wheels to collide with a small space heater loudly. But after catching sight of their captors before she can reach for her holstered weapon — she relaxes.

“The hell, man,” she yanks her chair away from Cal’s mere vicinity. Might be in the wrong business if that’s how she reacts to a wolf, but it’s not his place to comment. “You were only supposed to bring the fighter.”

He pushes between Ryder and Taylor — and Taylor swears he hears something like “you try arguing with these crazy bastards” under the man’s breath — to the only other door at the far end of the post.

“Fuck off.”

“Hope for your sake she’s in a mood for company.”

“I said fuck off.”

Good to know witty workplace banter applies to all occupations; even those of the hired henchman variety.

“Now listen here,” it takes him a second to realize he’s talking to them, now; and beyond monosyllabic orders — it’s a Mardi Gras miracle, “none of you are guests here. So don’t touch nothin’, don’t even look at nothin’. One toe outta line and it won’t end pretty for you.”

He looks pointedly at Cadence then. “No wards to protect you now, bloodsucker.”

But if he hoped to instill some kind of fear he’ll have to try a bit harder. Afraid seems to be the last thing he is — especially when he casually, almost coyly tucks his hair behind his ears and looks at the mortal man over the top of his glasses.

“None to protect you, either.”

And hopefully those threats won’t really be held up because the moment the door opens to a luxurious — and warm, thank the heavens warm — casino floor Taylor looks at every single thing he can. Blatant disregard; living life on the edge.

But who could blame him?

It’s not the same glitz and glamor of Persephone’s main atrium but that doesn’t make the underground treasure any less glittering. Lady Smoke’s Den is swathed in rich violet velvets and polished golden trim; every gemstone in inky black bright enough to catch the reflection of whatever passes nearby.

From the black iron of the gambling tables to the uniform designs on the back of each deck of cards in play there’s no denying the wealth it takes to wind up down here. Where the underbelly of Persephone was filled with rusted metal and bloodstained concrete this place undoubtedly hosts the cream of the crop.

Whether that specific crop is of the poisonous variety, though? Well Ryder is still using a semi-frozen potato as an ice pack so that pretty much says all that needs to be said.

He came here to meet Lady Smoke — without a doubt in his mind she must be some relative of Vera; even in New Orleans their family name is too unique; too ethereal.

But by some twisted hand of fate he doesn’t even have to go that far. Not when he recognizes a sleek pair of black satin gloves nursing a cocktail at the black diamond-encrusted bar across the room.

Two steps forward but someone yanks him still by the back of his collar. Turns to see Cal’s eyebrows raised in incredulity.

“Just ‘cause this place doesn’t look as dangerous as the fights doesn’t mean it ain’t, Taylor,” but his hard, stern tone quickly melts into just plain concern, “come on — you know better than to wander ‘round a place like this.”

“I — I’m not.” Taylor keeps looking back to the bar; keeps his eyes on Vera’s turned back. Refuses to have a repeat of last night at Persephone’s — refuses to let her slip through his fingers again like… like smoke.

“Then what the hell’re you doin’ Rook?” Ryder joins in but it’s hard to take him seriously with his spud pack. Even he looks at it like it offends him — makes quick work of disposing it on a passing silver tray of empty champagne flutes. “You asked me to follow ya on blind faith but the more I’m doin’ that the closer an’ closer I’m gettin’ to taking an injury I ain’t comin’ back from.

“So no more wandering off — not until you come clean about what you and Lady Smoke have in common.”

It’s been fifteen whole seconds and he’s terrified he’s lost her. Or maybe that she was never there to begin with. But even with Ryder snapping his fingers in Taylor’s face to draw back his attention he risks a look — exhales in audible relief when he catches her face in profile as she smiles and makes casual, inaudible conversation with the bartender.

“Her.”

In a reversal of fortune — and while Nik looks up to find just who he’s talking about — Taylor pulls at the side of the leather coat and digs around for the Nighthunter’s phone. “Hey — what — watch the coat!” But he steps just out of arms’ reach protests aside.

Luckily Cal’s on his side; stops Ryder from yanking back what’s his as Taylor quickly dials and holds the phone up to his ear; turns to watch intently as the metallic dialing starts chiming.

Across the floor decked in a rug more expensive than his theater company’s entire yearly budget the tiny digital first keys of the AME theme begin playing. Loud enough to draw an unimpressed frown from the bartender and a look of horrible realization from Vera.

The three men watch as she fumbles around; digs through the inside pockets of her black leather blazer. She procures Taylor’s phone from the left side and looks at the screen of dancing lights like she’s never seen such a miraculous and terrible device before.

Taylor ends the call by flipping the phone closed with a little too much force. At the bartop, Vera’s relief is short lived as the music ends and the screen goes dark. But the shudder that rolls down her spine is large and all-consuming. Makes her look around practically petrified when her gaze finds home on Taylor and his definitely not impressed frown.

“So that’s the girl who has your phone, huh.” Ryder doesn’t have to say it; they both know. She was there. She was there that night, and she ran away, and whether or not the Vera he saw in Persephone’s betting crowd was real she’s very much real here and now.

“What’re the odds?” Cal gives a surprised little laugh. But it’s not his fault; he doesn’t know the whole story.

Taylor, though — he’s starting to think nothing in this town is ever by chance anymore.

“Really, really likely.”

And it’s good to feel like he has support as he marches straight the-fuck up with a werewolf and a Nighthunter at his back.

Where were Cade and Katherine? Okay — okay — one problem at a time.

Only now what’s he supposed to do? Because he kind of wants to slap her — but that isn’t happening. One of those things that’s supposed to stay in the back of the mind and no further.

He could shout; make a scene. But that would make all their pushing and shoving and freezer-standing for nothing. And eventually they will find Cadence and help him out. So… no to that, too.

And it’s all so complicated and hard and makes his stomach twist and turn so finally Taylor just thinks fuck it and says the first thing that comes to mind. Turns out to be something a little more heavy than he’d anticipated but no less important.

“You knew about all this,” he jabs his finger into her shoulder, “about… about everything —”

“Tay, I didn’t —”

“And even if you didn’t know exactly what was happening you had some frickin’ idea.” Now that Vera doesn’t argue against — though she’s only barely biting her tongue and he can see it.

“You did; you had more pieces of the puzzle than us. And knowing that you… you let Krissy and I jump over that wall and to our own damn deaths.”

There’s a startled noise from Cal but that’s all. Taylor can’t quite care in the presence of all the frustration building up; bubbling over.

There’s been a nagging voice in his subconscious threatening him not to cry but Vera’s choked out words make that impossible.

“Is — Is Cookie dead, then?”

Taylor finds himself torn between wiping the tears before they can fall down her cheeks and telling her every. gruesome. detail just to make her cry harder.

“No —” — Vera claps her silken palms over her mouth to stifle a soft sob — “— no she’s not dead. Not yet.”

But she is in a coma; or probably worse. She’s in a strange hospital room in a strange city and she’s suffering untold horrors from that awful grotesque creature’s wicked touch and her two best friends in the entire world are in the same city and still haven’t gone to see her.

They are officially the worst people in this world and the other, preternatural world that borders theirs on the head of a pin.

“I’ll take my phone back now.”

She offers it like an olive branch; maybe he gets a little satisfaction from yanking it from her and shoving it in his jeans.

Then, because he’s mad but he’s not cruel; “I’m glad you’re safe Vera, really.” He opens his arms slightly but waits for her permission for an embrace — remembers what Kristin had said about Vera liking her personal space.

Now though he’s not so certain it’s that simple. He knows a lot more than he did when they first met.

“A-hem.”

They pull apart. Ryder stands with his arms crossed and an expectant tap to his boot. “Are we mad at her or not?”

“We’re…” Taylor and Vera exchange looks and there’s no doubt in his mind that her remorse is genuine. “We’re getting over it.” We, he thinks with a laugh. But doesn’t dare mention it lest Ryder close up more than he already is in this place.

Like he is right now.

“Good. Then maybe you can give us a proper introduction.” He’s zeroed in on her gloves; Cal too, he notices. Whatever has them on edge its more than a simple case of being protective of him. As if they didn’t have enough problems — and enemies — already.

Taylor clears his throat awkwardly; gestures between the meeting of two worlds who seem not to want to meet. “Uhm, okay. Vera, this is Ryder, my, uh, my bodyguard — don’t ask,” thank god she doesn’t, “and this is Cal; he’s a friend. Cal, Ryder; this is —”

“Vera, yeah, we got that,” interrupts the hunter lowly, “though how you came to be so buddy-buddy with Lady Smoke’s kid is my problem at the moment.”

And while Taylor’s brain is still turning rusted gears and starting to smoke with the sheer what the fuckery of Ryder’s accusation — Cal pipes up; “Smoke’s runaway kid, if I’m gettin’ my stories straight.”

Is he getting his stories straight, the look Taylor gives Vera — eyes so wide the whites go all the way around and jaw on a broken repeated hinge of not-quite-open and not-quite-closed — asks.

But that’s nothing compared to the look of utter shame that darkens Vera’s expression; to the way she looks around for listening ears and prying eyes.

“Keep your voices down.”

Ryder sees her buttons and, in classic Ryder fashion, pushes. “Yeah you ain’t gettin’ outta talkin’ that easy.”

She looks around with worry etched into her forehead. Finally lands her eyes on an empty poker table about as far out of the way as possible in the intimate space; half-obscured by a black-tile fountain where water the color of lavender fields bubbles and streams in arcs around an indiscriminate figure. “Fine, fine. Just — not here.”

And the Vera he sees now is definitely not the same young woman he’d met previously. She takes charge easier — less of a babysitting role and more of a… a woman who knows what she wants and asks for it unabashedly. At her call the bartender summons an attendant with bright, catlike yellow eyes that narrow into slits when she’s told to set them up a game at Vera’s preferred table.

Just like at Persephone they stick out like sore thumbs — but unlike at Persephone it doesn’t seem to matter. The attendants are ready to turn their noses up and away but the sight of Vera — the sight of her gloves like some status symbol — has them smiling, crooning; offering hors d'oeuvres more expensive than Taylor’s rent and drinks of all kinds. Even ones Taylor can partake in much to his surprise.

So they may look like they’re engrossed in a game of poker but one would be surprised to discover naught but a clever ruse.

Or at least a ruse on his end. Taylor’s got no living clue what he’s doing. But the cards are nice.

"Was it really you I saw at Persephone last night, Tay?” asks Vera. His nod earns a low whistle. “I figured I was just seeing… well, that you were a spectre of some kind; a manifestation of my guilt in leavin’ you and Cookie high and dry. And you really knew nothing about the supernatural world before y’all were attacked?”

“Since Twilight doesn’t count, yeah — er, no. I didn’t know a thing.”

“When you go in, you go all in, huh?”

If she means it as a joke it doesn’t really come off that way. Just makes him look down at his fancy deck and shrug. “Not exactly by choice.”

“Right. Of course. I’m sorry.”

“For what, though,” pipes up Ryder after downing a long gulp of his beer, “are you sorry for bringin’ it up like a joke or for leavin’ him utterly defenseless?”

“Christ, Nik.”

“Am I wrong, Miss Reimonenq?”

Something tells him the glare exchanged across the cards isn’t the first, nor would it be the last between them.

But Vera takes him by surprise when she shakes her head dejectedly. “No, no you’re not.”

Like a nervous habit Vera tugs at the edges of her gloves; hikes them up higher over her elbows. Cal physically shifts his chair over as she does — like she’s hiding knives and guns in the skin-tight fabric.

“Okay,” Taylor tosses his cards — it was probably a shitty hand anyway — and looks between the locals one by one by one, “usually this is the part where something weird or coincidental happens and I don’t end up having to be the one to ask the stupid questions. But apparently not this time.

“So either someone starts telling me what the heck is up or I start doing dumb shit until my answers come to me freely. And Nik — you know I can do some dumb shit.”

Taylor only adds emphasis because of the hesitation clear in Nik’s frown. The way he looks at Vera as if to get her to do it instead of his usual bravado-riding explanation train.

But neither of them say anything. So Cal leans back and nurses his whiskey with his words.

“Lady Smoke ain’t your average mafia boss, Taylor.”

“Yeah, yeah I got that part. Your brother was in a cell, there were death fights. The guns aimed at us at the Shift. I was there.”

The wolf gives him a little smirk. “Thanks for the reminder. But it ain’t just guns and suits and shady deals with Smoke.”

“Underground casino notwithstanding?”

“Let him finish, Tay.” mumbles Vera; the look she gives Cal is a grateful one. Taylor holds his hands up — mimes zipping his lips.

“The Reimonenqs are an old Quarter family. Y’all’ve even got Laveau on your tree, right?” He nods to Vera. “Certainly been ‘round as long as the Pack, and the only ones older than that are the Lamrian folk.”

“— Local fae colony,” interrupts Nik lowly, “we’ll talk about it later. Just know it was here before the city was even settled.”

“So you’ve got roots here, is that a big thing?” Taylor asks — would rather hear it from her than yet another secondhand account of something else. He’s getting far too many of those.

When Vera finally answers her hands are folded in her lap. The picture of politeness if not for the shining fear in her eyes.

“What you need to understand, Tay, is that the Reimonenq name used’ta belong to all who practiced under the coven. Eventually the coven became jus’ family so it didn’t really matter, but you won’t find anyone born and bred here who doesn’t know the name — and fear it.

“And she’s used that her whole life — my whole life — to build this awful, cruel mockery of an empire.”

“‘She’ being Lady Smoke?”

“Yeah.”

“Lady Smoke being your mother.”

“Yeah.”

“Your mom; Lady Smoke. The big bad everyone talks about like she’s a boogieman story — the woman who sent what basically amounted to hitmen to kidnap our friend for standing up to her and keeping Cal’s brother from getting mauled.”

He’s not saying it to be cruel, though Vera winces at every injustice like she personally signed off on it. Taylor’s just… a little out of his element. More so than usual.

“How many times does the girl gotta tell you, Rook? Yes.” Ryder’s knee knocks against his under the table. It’s enough to draw him from his factual-overload stupor; only just.

“So she’s — what — a witch? Wait — does that make you a witch?”

Witches, werewolves, and vampires; oh my.

Before Vera can open her mouth to answer their game is brought to a halt by the arrival of a familiar suit-clad asshole. And he’s got friends. This time Taylor pays close attention and watches the pain Vera stomachs in order to put on a brave, almost commanding atmosphere.

“We’re a little busy here. And we’d like some privacy.”

The henchman’s upper lip curls at the sight of Ryder — a grimace he only barely tosses aside as he answers Vera; “You can finish up your game of Go-Fish later. Lady Smoke requests your presence, Miss Reimonenq. And the presence of your… guests.”

“She can’t just summon me. I’m not one of her lackeys.”

“That may be — but you are under Lady Smoke’s protection. Or did you forget what you agreed to when you broke onto the floor last night?”

Taylor’s teeth grit painfully. “Back off, you soggy cockwaffle.”

“Tay —” her touch on his arm is gentle; appreciative, if concerned, “— hon’… he’s not wrong, okay? No matter how much I wish he were.”

“So much for bein’ the runaway…” Cal mutters under his breath.

“Lady Smoke doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

And he probably can’t pull his bully-type shit with Vera, not without some serious consequences whether there’s family tension or not, so there’s no missing the sick sense of satisfaction he gets in yanking Taylor’s chair practically out from under him.

Lucky him that Taylor isn’t unfamiliar with childish bullying tactics. He just expected people to grow out of them once they left high school.

Unlike before their goon leads the way rather than corralling them at the back. Gives them the chance to talk in hushed and hurried whispers because they’re being led fast.

“Magic — real magic — is something we’re born with; a gift we can’t give back no matter how badly we want to.” Vera continues hastily; “Yes, I’m a witch. And I ain’t proud of it, not like my mother is. I’ve spent my whole life tryin’ to get away from her and our curse.”

“And that meant running away to New York.”

“I could have run farther but… I refused to let her dictate where I was going to be. How I was going to live my life.”

That’s something he can definitely understand — but Vera’s actions are singing a different tune than her words. “If you hate her so much then why are you here? Why’d you go to her?”

“Because —”

“Because whatever was huntin’ you guys that night scared ya enough to look to the most powerful woman in the city for help.”

Nik doesn’t interrupt with a question — sounds so sure of himself. But Taylor’s ready to hear Vera out, really he is, until she suddenly can’t look him in the eyes.

It had been a whole other side of her; but Taylor had chocked it up to fear. Fear could make people do crazy things — like hide in walled-off cemeteries.

Finally Vera chokes out wetly; “Yes.”

The suit stops them in front of a closed door.

Nik reaches out and grabs Vera — holds fast despite how she jerks away. Leans in to whisper something so quiet Taylor has to step in himself in order to hear it.

“You know what it was, don’t you?”

“I-I —” stammers Vera.

“What was it?”

“I don’t…”

“This ain’t just about you anymore. Now quick, before they —”

“In.”

It’s too late. Judging by Cal’s look of apology he tried his best to give them as much time as they could but the door’s open and they’re out of time.

“We’re not done.” Ryder growls into Vera’s ear; lets her go before the suit decides he doesn’t want to ask a second time. The touch he lands on Taylor’s middle back is far kinder, coaxes him forward and through the awaiting doorway.

He doesn’t have much of a choice but to follow. Still throws a look back to Vera as she wipes away the smallest tear and puts up all the walls she needs to follow them inside.

“You didn’t need to be so harsh.” Taylor hisses at him.

“Sometimes there ain’t much of a choice.”

There was this time, Taylor’s about to say, when the literal fog obscuring the room beyond clears as though it’s been waiting for their arrival to part. Lady Smoke’s a witch, he remembers.

So maybe it was.

The ambiance of the back room is the same as the front — the only difference being the smoke that clings to their ankles and obscures the rug at their feet.

Off to one side a large couch curves in a wide semi-circle. Relief washes over him at the sight of Cadence and Katherine sitting close together with drinks in their hands; the honey-amber of Katherine’s bourbon catches the light in a way the contents of Cadence’s tumbler doesn’t. He’s content not to think too hard about what’s inside.

But for all their supposed relaxation the pair are stiff — tense. Their ease and touching outer thighs more about keeping close for safety rather than enjoyment. Katherine’s smile isn’t her usual teasing; instead rather strained. A grimace wearing an ill-fitting mask.

At the other end of the room rests a large desk — the kind Taylor might imagine a CEO would buy never to use and only to show off. But the papers and folders spread in a kind of organized chaos across the finished wood tell a different story; one of a business that never stops working.

The woman in the high-backed leather chair behind it is Lady Smoke without a doubt. Not just because he can see the resemblance to Vera — a family chin, the creases in her forehead decades ahead of her daughter’s; a living vision of what’s to come — either.

She emanates power in the way Kristof did. Control, dominance by birthright without mistake. The aura of someone who was meant for powerful things from the moment they entered the world; where the only thing left up to choice was how they planned on using it.

The gloves are pretty much a dead giveaway, too. Black lacework on golden fabric. She matches the den outside the way the sun matches the solar system; she sits at its heart and lets the rest revolve around her because it has no choice.

An unnervingly familiar wheeze of a voice catches him off-guard; probably for the best with the way he was staring.

“Well well well, justice for Meerl!”

Meerl cuts a scrawny figure between them and Lady Smoke. Tap-tapping his long claw-like nails together with the same smarmy grin as last night — only this time with a harsh red line of purpling pressure around his skinny throat.

Beside Taylor, Ryder’s laugh is nothing short of utterly shameless. “Nice choker you got there, Meerl. It’s a great look on you, really.”

His laughter incites a bloated face of rage in the con-goblin. “You mock Meerl?!”

“Was I not bein’ obvious about it?”

“Pissy—pissface—pissant Nighthunter! Meerl will—!”

“He will do nothing until he is told.”

There’s a touch of gravel to Lady Smoke’s voice. She doesn’t shout because she doesn’t have to — because the moment her lips part the only thing that matters is what she has to say.

Especially to Meerl given the way he backs off, cowers like his nightmares are coming to life.

It must be a reputation thing, Taylor concludes. Because she’s definitely the more-badass-and-less-fictional version of Don Corleone — no doubt. But for nothing but a sentence to get that kind of reaction? It’s almost satirical.

“Meerl apologizes, Lady Smoke,” the urchin cowers with every word, “the Lady knows Meerl does nothing Meerl is not told to do.”

But he might as well be talking to thin air the way she addresses him. Not at all. Because he’s no longer important to her — for the moment at least. Not now that Vera steps up from behind Taylor while the door closes behind them.

Immediately Smoke’s face softens; a shine in her eye, what she probably thinks is tender warmth in her half-smile. What people who can’t love must think love looks like as an expression.

“Vera, baby girl, you —”

The nickname makes Vera cringe. “I told you not to call me that.” She’s probably the only person who could get away with interrupting the mob boss and leave alive.

“Vee —”

“No, mother; no names but my own.”

Smoke’s brow twitches but her frustration is well-corralled. “Very well, Vera.”

“Where do you get off on demandin’ to see me like this? Or makin’ your wardens bully my friends into coming with?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were friends with the troublemakers at Persephone?”

There’s nothing familial about their exchange but Smoke still manages to make Vera feel like a scolded child. Ducked head and eyes searching for a spot on the carpet — but hindered by the fog.

“You know I don’t like non-answers, Vera.” Smoke presses, but Vera doesn’t yield. Earns them all a heavy sigh while Smoke leans forward and folds her hands together atop an open date book. “Lucky for you, girl, I know all I need to on account of how helpful our friend Meerl has been.

“See, he knew I’d take care of everything — but I can’t fix what I don’t know is broke. And would you believe he was the only one to tell me about the unfortunate situation of the fights before morning?”

The goblin practically preens — likely taking her words as praise.

“The Lady knows Meerl only wants what is best for the Lady’s business, of course.”

“Especially if it keeps his ugly hide from getting flayed alive?”

The haughtiness of Ryder’s tone doesn’t have an ounce of remorse. Not even when it drags the almost golden-yellow of Lady Smoke’s eyes to him. Resting with the full weight of her frustration just below the poised surface.

“You never cease to surprise, do you Mister Ryder?” she croons.

“‘Dunno what you’re talkin’ about; predictable’s my middle name.”

“If that were the case you wouldn’t have been waist-deep in my affairs at Persephone.”

“And here I thought I was building a reputation for stickin’ my nose in other peoples business.”

“This ain’t just anyone’s business, though, is it?”

It hasn’t occurred to Taylor until just now that Kristof and the Jensen Pack may not be the only big-wigs in New Orleans that Ryder has crossed. Luckily it seems like a distant familiarity though. A mutual respect; and an unspoken threat on both sides to stay out of one another’s way.

And now Ryder’s gone and drawn first blood — er, well, metaphorically speaking.

Oh this could be bad. This could be very very bad.

Only the ice in her tone seems to have the opposite of the intended effect. Makes Ryder stand up straighter with his jaw clenched tight, his words a snarl that makes even Cal blink in surprise.

“If I’d a’known you were in the business of pimpin’ out kids for your cash fights, Smoke, I would’ve gotten involved a lot sooner. You can bet on that.”

The color drains out of Vera’s cheeks. Catches her torn between looking at her mother for any kind of denial and, finding none, unable to face the truth without feeling like she’s about to wretch.

“Momma, you didn’t…”

“Don’t you start that now, Vera.”

“But a kid?”

Smoke stands with her fingertips spread and pressed into her desk. Her sigh carries a visible weight in her shoulders. It’s heavy for sure but if it isn’t the burden of guilt then whatever she’s feeling means fuck-all to him.

“The Lowell boy was betting with money that wasn’t his. On top of that — he thought he could swindle my hard-earning regulars without consequence. Sometimes they have to learn young.

“You’d know that, baby girl, if you hadn’t left.”

Tears well up, misting over Vera’s eyes. But its an incredible feat of willpower that keeps her from shedding them — that lets her choke them down. Certainly not the first, and likely not the last.

“Don’t you dare play it off like you were trying to parent my kid brother.” Only then does Lady Smoke actually notice Cal. Cal with his face flush with fury and canines bared; Cal with his eyes as yellow as the gold the mob boss wraps herself in.

“Mister Ryder; I suggest you rein your feral friend in a tad.”

Nik throws his hands up. “No way.”

There’s a very well in the roll of her eyes. Has her walking around her desk with a lush black velvet cape trailing at her modest heels.

“You must be Cal.”

“What the hell gave you that idea?”

“Then I will tell you the same thing I told your fledgling con artist brother. It’s an old saying — perhaps you’ve heard of it. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Smoke stands there, haughty and higher than them all — even as Cal roars “You callous bitch!” and makes for her ready to draw blood. And a lot of it.

Whatever witchy-mojo she has must be fucking powerful even if Taylor can’t feel it. All it takes is Smoke’s raised hand and even Nik holds his breath.

“You had posters,” the wolf seethes, “locked him in a cage like he was an animal!”

“Your brother had racked up quite a debt.”

“He’s just a boy!”

“Enough!”

When the gloves come off — literally in Lady Smoke’s case — all hell breaks loose.

Taylor looks around wildly, feels himself being pulled back on two sides — catches the first and likely only time Vera and Nik are of the same mind. Backing him up against a wall-length bookshelf so hard he knocks a few volumes on their sides.

For the first time since they arrived Cadence is sprung to action. Holds Cal back with a firm hand but keeps his distance from the witch and her exposed skin. The same look of cautious fear in his eyes as he had in the cage.

And at the couch, their drinks forgotten and seeping into the rich upholstery, Katherine aims a familiar-looking gun dead between Smoke’s eyes. Completely disregarding the also-familiar sister weapons now aimed at her from across the room.

Now would be the opportune moment for the main character to leap out in the middle of the fray and convince everyone to calm down; to shout “Nobody needs to get hurt tonight — we’re all on the same side!” or some other amount of crap that would be the bare minimum in getting everyone to see the bigger picture.

Ha — no thanks. No way is he getting mixed in with a vampire who tore a Minotaur to shreds, more guns than should legally be allowed in the same room, and whatever danger Smoke’s manicure ignites.

Nope. See, the best he can figure is there’s a reason Vera and Nik were so hasty to pull his only-a-threat-after-a-ton-of-spicy-food ass out of the crossfire. And that’s good enough for him.

Only when everyone’s stayed statuesque-still for the better part of a minute does Cadence pull back — away from Lady Smoke, eying her palms with the same look Vera’s giving the guns.

“Enough,” he repeats and is no less forceful, “enough of this, Tonya. You force me here, you force others — innocents — here, all for this flagrant abuse of your power? I settled the Lowell pup’s debt. You and I are even and he’s out of your cross-hairs.”

“So you’ve been saying, Smith,” — so why doesn’t she sound like she’s content to agree? — “but I don’t recall agreeing to your commerce de dettes. As it is not the place of they who owe to decide what is suitable payment.”

“You may be speaking of Dominic Lowell, but the same could be said for you.”

Smoke curls her fingers in the air; reminds Taylor of spider legs.

But Cadence has to be right or she’d have thrown back a snide retort instead of the silent treatment given.

Finally she speaks but her answer is strained. “We never outlined the terms and conditions of that particular contract.”

“Because I know better than to get something in writing with you. I may not know much but I certainly know that.”

“I cannot let this abide, Smith. Actions must be made; consequences for those who would publicly challenge the safety I provide this town —”

Maybe there’s more for her to say but she doesn’t get the chance. Not at the disgusted noise that comes off to Taylor’s right — nor the bewildered look Lady Smoke throws their way. Only when she throws up her pointed finger like a gun instead of a stern mother’s tool does Vera make the noise again.

“‘Safety,’” now she actually sounds the part of the witch, too, with her curled upper lip and fists trembling at her sides, “you’re gonna dare stand there in front’a me and call New Orleans safe? After what I told you was after me?!”

Taylor’s glad he’s between them when Ryder turns a murderous flush of violet.

“Now is not the time to air our family grievances, Vera.”

“You did know.” Taylor whispers. Loud enough for Vera to hear, to flinch and hug her arms around herself. Looking the same measure of scared and young and vulnerable as she did that night. “You—you do. Know; what it is. You know.”

She nods.

“Why didn’t you say?” When Ryder asked, when we locked eyes under Persephone, before Kristin and I jumped over the wall and to our deaths. “Why didn’t you help?”

“I didn’t wanna be right.”

Tonya raises her voice, tries to speak over her daughter. “Vera, this is not the way.”

“How the hell would you know, mom?!” she lashes out a sob, “You’re content to hide here and pretend everyone’s safe when they aren’t?!”

“You’re safe, baby girl, that’s all I care about.”

“Well I ain’t that selfish.”

It’s taking everything in her to not choke; lose her nerve. “If I’d known you spent all this time thinking it was after you, Taylor, I’d’ve told you sooner. I swear I didn’t mean for Cookie to get hurt — you neither. I thought when I split that you’d be safe.”

“Wait — back up. You think this thing is after you?” Nik interrupts, surprised.

“Not another word Vera Claire Reimonenq, so help me God.”

Ice-cold demeanor finally melted, some version of the real Tonya Reimonenq shines through in the crack in her voice. In the way she bites her bottom lip so hard it might burst like the vein in her temple might burst.

Taylor just doesn’t get why everyone is suddenly so freaked out about the way her hand is held aloft at Cadence’s neck. One deep bob of his Adam’s Apple away from choking the life out of the undead.

Katherine the opportunist takes the stunned pause to aim instead at Vera. Passes the barrel of the gun over Taylor’s chest and this is now officially too many times in the same week his life has flashed before his eyes and been less-than satisfying.

“Back. off. Smoke.” The huntress orders.

Cadence resists swallowing — painfully so.

Time to finally take the hint and get as scared as the rest of them it seems.

“You even think about pulling that trigger — you know what I’ll do to him.”

Katherine’s laugh is an unfeeling thing. Like a whole different woman stands before them — someone used to carrying the gun, to doing what needs to be done.

“And the payday of a lifetime goes down the drain, sure,” but her finger doesn’t stop caressing just shy of the pressure point, “but I’ll always find another. Don’t think the same can be said about a daughter, though.”

“Katherine —”

“Shut up, Nik. I let you do your stupid shit. My turn.”

Taylor’s one stupid heroically-inclined thought from stepping in front of Vera when she speaks up; “Stop it, momma. Just — stop it. Too many people been hurt already.

“Too many more’ll be, too, if we don’t try to get help.”

“You think they’ll help us? The whole city will turn their backs on us — make sure we’re the ones who suffer instead of them!”

“You don’t know that! You don’t know them!”

“Stop being so damn naive!”

Voices, tensions rising. Arms wavering with the weight of their weapons and sweat beading like the first of so many bullets down everyone’s backs; their brows.

It’s not the heroic, main character thing to say but that doesn’t stop Taylor from feeling really good about it when he finally shouts —

“Will someone please just say what the literal flippity fuck is out there?!”

“A bloodwraith!”

The way Vera covers her mouth he half expects to see blood dripping down her chin to stain her blouse. Her tongue bit off as divine — or supernatural — retribution for her admission.

Not that that’s the case. In fact he’s left feeling a little bit like he was denied some grand climax.

So he does what he always does — because this other, darker world seems to exist to make him look absolutely ridiculous in how little he knows — he looks to Nik for the textbook entry he’s missing.

“And a ‘bloodwraith’ would be…?”

“Trouble, Rook…”

Lady Smoke’s pulling her gloves back on. The gun hangs limp at Kathy’s side. Even the biggest bully of the henchmen looks ready to wet himself. There’s nothing reassuring about Cadence’s slow nod of realization — the way the natural enemies vampire and werewolf share a look of ‘well hell.’

Sometimes it’s not a rallying cry that gets opposing forces to work together. Sometimes fear is more than enough.

And the way Nik pulls him in close, hugs him with one strong arm like he’s already a dead man walking? That’s… uh… that’s pretty damn fearful.

“— It’s really, really big trouble.”

#nightbound #choices nb #playchoices #nik ryder #cal lowell #nik ryder x mc #vera reimonenq #katherine nightbound #oc: cadence smith #nightbound mc #mc: taylor hunter #oblv: bound by circumstance #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

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transastronautistic · 5 years ago

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queer history: a chat with Anne Lister and Leslie Feinberg

you know what i’d love to witness? a conversation between Anne Lister and Leslie Feinberg. can you even imagine it??

Lister wrote, “I am made unlike anyone I have ever met. I dare to say I am like no one in the whole world.” but i think she’d quickly realize that Feinberg is “made like” her -- that Feinberg has a very similar sexuality and gender expression to her own, and truly gets what it’s like to be persecuted for those things. Lister’d be so thrilled and relieved to find she’s not alone!

and Feinberg? when ze was younger, ze was desperate to find hirself in history -- just like Lister, ze was convinced that “No one like me seemed to have ever existed” (Transgender Warriors, p. 11). Feinberg would absolutely recognize Lister as a part of the big beautiful queer history that ze eventually discovered.

there are many parts of Feinberg’s story that come to mind as i watch Gentleman Jack -- such as when Lister is talking to the little boy Henry, who asks if she’s a man, and she replies:

“Well, that's a question. And you are not the first person to ask it. I was in Paris once, dressed extremely well, I thought, in silk and ribbons, ringlets in my hair. Very gay, very ladylike. And even then, someone mistook me for a...Mm. So, no, I am not a man. I'm a lady. A woman. I'm a lady woman. I'm a woman.”

when i watched that scene, i immediately thought of this passage from Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors:

“...I was considered far too masculine a woman to get a job in a store, or a restaurant, or an office. I couldn’t survive without working. So one day I put on a femme friend’s wig and earrings and tried to apply for a job as a salesperson at a downtown retail store. On the bus ride to the interview, people stood rather than sit next to me. They whispered and pointed and stared. ‘Is that a man?’ one woman asked her friend, loud enough for us all to hear. The experience taught me an important lesson. The more I tried to wear clothing or styles considered appropriate for women, the more people believed I was a man trying to pass as a woman. I began to understand that I couldn’t conceal my gender expression” (p. 12).

over a century separated these two, but people who could or would not conform to their assigned gender suffered in both eras. both of these people longed for a connection to a wider community of people like them, longed to know why people like them were persecuted and hated and told that God reviled them. but while Lister did manage to cultivate a tiny haven for herself of loved ones who accepted her, she never found the wider community that Feinberg found -- the world of “drag queens, butches, and femmes,” a world in which “I fit; I was no longer alone” -- a world that extended beyond gay bars, deep into past millennia as well as across the entire globe!

Feinberg worked hard to dig up the answers to all hir questions of why -- “Why was I subject to legal harassment and arrest at all? Why was I being punished for the way I walked or dressed, or who I loved? Who wrote the laws used to harass us, and why? Who gave the green light to the cops to enforce them? Who decided what was normal in the first place?” (p. 8). what ze concluded was that the rise of class so many ages ago is what sowed the seeds of transphobia.

in Transgender Warriors, Feinberg argues that in ancient societies that followed a matrilineal system and shared all resources communally, whenever agriculture enabled some men to begin accumulating and hoarding resources, an intolerance for gender diversity would also arise (see pp. 42-44, 50-52). once these men had capital, they had power. the Few could use their capital to bribe, to threaten, and to control the Many. eventually these men would twist their communities into a patriarchy in order to ensure that they could keep the power in their own hands. for patriarchs rely upon a rigid gender binary to keep their power, wherein those assigned male are placed above everyone else. after all, if men behave "like women," how can we place them above women? if women behave "like men," will they try to force their way into the dominant group? if some people are too ambiguous to be categorized into either group, what does that say about our argument that this binary is the natural way of doing things or divinely ordained?

i think that there are some aspects of this history that Lister would be excited to learn. she’d recognize herself as one of those women trying to force their way into the dominant group, and agree that the patriarchs of her day were not happy about it. she’d appreciate Feinberg’s scholarship around those religious texts that she as a Christian and Feinberg as a Jewish person shared, how Feinberg shows that it was not God but men who decided that the gender binary must be enforced. Lister would heartily agree that her nature is God-given, not God-hated.

but the conversation between Lister and Feinberg would very quickly break down, for the same reason that transphobia sprung up: because of class.

not long into their discussion, Feinberg would be like “and that’s why Capitalism is the root of all evil and people like us will thrive only once we’ve overthrown the landed gentry and disseminated all the wealth” and Lister would be like. “excuse me. i am the Landed Gentry. the lower classes will get their callused hands on my wealth over my dead body"

and the relationship would promptly dissolve from there -- and i’d take Feinberg’s side 1000% and hope ze could knock some humility into Lister’s classist ass!

but anyway to me the similarities between these two historical figures combined with the stark differences in their worldviews only goes to show what an enormous factor class is! Feinberg notes this fact, that “trans expression” has existed among all classes -- and that social privilege makes a big difference in a trans or gnc person’s life:

“For the ruling elite, transgender expression could still be out in the open with far less threat of punishment than a peasant could expect. For example, when Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated in 1654, she donned men’s clothes and renamed herself ‘Count Dohna.’ Henry III of France was reported to have dressed as an Amazon and encouraged his courtiers to do likewise” (80).

(to be fair to Henry III, his gender non-conforming ways were used against him to justify his overthrow. but for a time, he had the means to express himself and to gather others who were like him into his court.)

if Feinberg had been born in the uppermost class of hir society, would that have protected hir from much of the cruelty and violence they experienced? after all, ze would never have had to scramble for a job, to try desperately to conform to gender expectations just to survive. Lister was able to spend much of her life refusing to listen to the hateful words circulating behind her back because to her face people tended to be much more polite. would Feinberg have had that experience too, had ze not been of the lower working class? would ze have never gone through the pain and struggle that caused hir to dig so ferociously into the history of transphobia and queerphobia?

it’s much less likely for someone at the top of the food chain to question the food chain -- even if they notice how the Way Things Are does work against them in some ways. Lister was unlikely to notice how a social hierarchy that pits the wealthy above the poor is intrinsically linked to the structures that pit men over women and confine each person into a rigid binary box -- because to notice that truth would have been to her own detriment. she may not have wanted to keep the cissexism, but she did want to keep her wealth.

As Feinberg puts it in Transgender Warriors when discussing afab people who fought for the Confederacy in the US Civil War, “just being [trans] doesn’t automatically make each person progressive.”

Lister was not prepared to fight a battle against her own privileges, even if it would also have been a battle against her own oppression. that doesn’t mean that those of us looking back at her story today can’t treasure what we have in common with her! we can. after all, in Transgender Warriors, Feinberg recounts the stories of the more “problematic,” complicated figures in queer history right alongside the ones that better fit hir own views. ze finds value in their stories despite the flaws, and we can too.

but at the same time, we have to acknowledge where Lister fell short, and do the hard work of examining our own privileges and considering how we can be better than Lister. we can instead be like Feinberg, whose marginalization -- as a butch lesbian, as a Jewish person, as a transgender person, and as a lower class person -- inspired hir not to cling to the privileges ze did have as hir only foothold in the power structure, but rather to be the best ally ze could be to people of color, to trans women, and others:

“We as trans people can’t liberate ourselves alone. No oppressed peoples can. So how and why will others come to our defense? And whom shall we, as trans people, fight to defend? A few years before he died [Frederick] Douglass told the International Council of Women, ‘When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of women, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.’ I believe this is the only nobility to which we should aspire -- that is, to be the best fighters against each other’s oppression, and in doing so, to build links of solidarity and trust that will forge an invincible movement against all forms of injustice and inequality” (p. 92).

so, yeah. i’d love to hear these two people chat. i relate deeply to both of their experiences and think they’d find a lot of commonalities between themselves. ...and then with Feinberg i’d love to give Lister a piece of my mind when it comes to her classism.

#trans history #sapphic history #leslie feinberg #< my icon and my hero #anne lister #< a garbage gay who's a genius about so many things yet falls for the classist bullshit of the very people who made her life difficult #averygaypost #uhhhh....anyone have any Thoughts?

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