Now ya’ll, I have been trying to remain composed and trying to not have a response to all this shit but it keeps being brought to my attention and I would lying if I told you it hasn’t started to get me a little pressed.

RuPaul decided to chime in on the shemail issue finally, good for him. He’s basically said what all of his minions have said over and over and over again and to be completely honest, it has me a littttle pressed.

But do you know what has me the most pressed about all of this?? It’s the amount of people that have tried to erase the impact that trans people have had on gay culture. The amount of people that completely ignore the fact that we were the beginning of the gay rights movement and that we fought alongside of you in order to help you get your rights. But now that you have your rights, you want to turn around on us and suddenly we’re the villains in this story. All because we requested a little respect. Let me post a comment from one of the many articles that has been bombarded all on my facebook feed today.

“You’re totally right. The trans community have been inventing things to be offended by since forever. Now they’re trying to appropriate drag slang, and make it off limits. The sad part is that the gay world is so whipped by trans culture, they’ll probably get away with this also.

I cheer Ru for trying to reclaim drag freedom. And I’m just about fed up with the trans community, from when they defeated enda, to these many years when all we’ve heard from them is how oppressive gay men are. The gay community can let themselves be railroaded by the victim card. But I for one am through.

"Now they’re trying to appropriate drag slang and make it off limits”

FUCK. YOU.

Now, I hate to be crass and I hate to be rude. I try to remain very composed and very polite but you have got to be fucking kidding me. Trans women have appropriated drag culture?? You mean trans people who live what a lot of drag queens put on for an evening have somehow appropriated drag culture and slang?

I am so tired of reading these anecdotes from cis white men about how they own things that were created by not only people of black descent, but people whom are trans. I recently got into it with a cis white gay man over Brooke Candy’s video Opulence. I made a post talking about how most people that watch her music video aren’t really ever going to understand where that quote she’s using came from. In the music video she uses a quote from Paris Is Burning, a popular documentary about the new york city ballroom scene in the 80s. If you’ve seen it, you probably know the quote:

“O P U L E N C E OPULENCE, you own everything. EVERYTHING IS YOURS!”

And when I made a post basically just posting the actual clip of that scene and asking if people knew where it was from, I got the same tired response I got from people regarding this shemale issue.

Since Brook Candy is an “ally” and part of the LGBT, she, like Rupaul, can use these terms and these phrases. They’re entitled to them by association not lived experiences. What this cis white gay man didn’t understand is context. Context which is extremely important when discussing the issue of appropriation. In Paris is burning, the quote was said to encourage the people that were walking that category to be on point. The category was to look rich, to “emulate the great white way of living and being”. The most daunting, heart breaking thing about Paris is Burning is this underlying feeling of hopelessness that the people in the film feel when it comes to subjects of race. The ballroom categories, at that time, were used to prepare the people that walked for the real world. The real world that was not only homophobic but transphobic. So the solution was to be “real” to pass as a straight woman, or a straight man as to not attract attention or criticism for being gay or trans. That quote meant so much more than OPULENCE, it meant portraying opulence in a way that many people in that room would never be able to obtain because of systematic racism.

It makes me really kinda disappointed that so many people truly and honestly believe that the phrases they use had nothing to do with trans women. It also disappoints me how there’s this belief that we want to ‘own’ these words. We don’t. We didn’t create them. They were created to categorize and oppress us and that’s why we have so much of an issue with them. Even Calpernia Adams, who has been vocally against the criticism from many trans activists on this issue says that she cringes at the sound of the word. But in her opinion, that’s not the point. The point is that people should be allowed to use them if they want to and I happen to agree with her in that aspect. If you want to use tranny if you want to use shemale, that’s your right. But just know that my personal respect for you has diminished because honestly, I don’t really understand why anyone would want to fight for words they know are hurtful. But perhaps I was just raised with a different moral compass than other.

I have to be honest and say that the amount of entitlement that I’ve sen from gay men though this issue is really baffling to me and really disappointing. At least Arcade Fire made a conscious effort to ally us and in their own way attempted to respect us. It seems like a lot of gay men are making us enemies for simply speaking out against words we find offensive. I don’t know why that would be met with so much screaming and anger and so many gay men essentially painting trans women as weaklings and wimps. I don’t get this whole “trans women are victims” thing when we’re just now really starting to mobilize and fight for our rights and change how people view trans people meanwhile that’s been what gay men were doing for the past 40 years.

I’m so tired of having this conversation. It’s so emotionally draining to sit there and to say to someone, hey can you respect me, and have the response be no fuck you stop word policing me you victim complex ridden bitch. And then this need to erase trans existence in drag and in gay rights movements and this need for everyone to tell trans people to thank RuPaul for all he’s done for us. It’s so crazy. It’s like a cult. Like it’s so simple in my mind, but yet it’s so complicated to these people. I’m not saying he hasn’t done anything for trans people, but look up to trans women so much more than RuPaul. But if I"m being honest, i think this all kinda comes from a fundamental lack of respect and understanding that being Trans and being a Drag queen are separate things.

Anyways, I stopped my clock to write this so i have to go back to my boring yet awesome and normal children’s illustration job. If you want to paint me as an angry trans woman because it fits your narrative, then by all means go right ahead. I’m just tired of the infighting and I wish we could all understand and respect each other. I’m not sure if respecting you is allowing you to use language that’s been used against me but at this point I’m so over this topic that ima just let you do that and I’ll just walk away to more supportive and awesome LGB members that stand in solidarity and support of trans women even if they don’t totally get it.

Kat Blaque