Watching the transwoman who speaks in this segment of the film, I was interested and disturbed by her comment that people saw her as just another queen, and that she was always getting that perception from others. What was she trying to separate herself from? Is it about being white or middle-class? Does she want/need to separate herself from radicalness, and normalize her gender identity? This is such a complicated question to me . . . when is trying to normalize a marginalized identity important for survival and when it is dis-identifying with communities that we could be allying with? I don't feel that I have the authority to condemn anyone who is normalizing their identity, but for myself, I do want to be careful of when I am normalizing my own identities and what that means. Sarah A.
Thanks, Sarah. The documentary, "Screaming Queens," is multifaceted and doesn't propose a neat narrative to the history of the Transgender movement. The clip that you're referring to also begs a series of questions: how might the woman in the video (linked above) identify herself? How has her lack of access to productive labor made it difficult for her to achieve social integration as a woman? Is part of the problem, as she sees it, that she's seen as a cross-dresser and not the woman she sees herself to be?
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Watching the transwoman who speaks in this segment of the film, I was interested and disturbed by her comment that people saw her as just another queen, and that she was always getting that perception from others. What was she trying to separate herself from? Is it about being white or middle-class? Does she want/need to separate herself from radicalness, and normalize her gender identity? This is such a complicated question to me . . . when is trying to normalize a marginalized identity important for survival and when it is dis-identifying with communities that we could be allying with? I don't feel that I have the authority to condemn anyone who is normalizing their identity, but for myself, I do want to be careful of when I am normalizing my own identities and what that means.
Sarah A.
Thanks, Sarah. The documentary, "Screaming Queens," is multifaceted and doesn't propose a neat narrative to the history of the Transgender movement. The clip that you're referring to also begs a series of questions: how might the woman in the video (linked above) identify herself? How has her lack of access to productive labor made it difficult for her to achieve social integration as a woman? Is part of the problem, as she sees it, that she's seen as a cross-dresser and not the woman she sees herself to be?
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