“I F*cking Hate @RuPaul”

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If you’re making a statement about what I had for breakfast, then the fact that you’re not me and haven’t experienced my morning today or been anywhere near me this morning is an absolute show stopper.

The fact that I’m trans* and you’re not means that what I say about my experiences absolutely takes precedence over what you have to say about trans* issues. There is no argument strong enough to overcome the fact that I’m talking about something I have experienced personally and you haven’t experienced at all.

Where privilege comes into it is that as a cisgender person, society values what you have to say over what I have to say and therefore people will listen to you when you contradict me about my own experiences.

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Oooh, you’re right, Count Chocula is good.

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Hey, let’s talk about how fucking awful and problematic this article was! I’m sitting on BoingBoing, reading through my RSS reader, and then suddenly I get this article that uses all this problematic fucking language without so much as a trigger warning to let me know that I’m about to be made to feel gross.

Regardless of my opinions about the author’s opinions about Parker, which are another subject entirely, this is an article full of shitty language that I as a transwoman did not expect or want to be subjected to having to read. Seriously, if you’re going to write a fucking paragraph full of language that is CLEARLY OFFENSIVE then at least put a warning at the top of the article that says that you’re about to repeat some terrible shit, even if you don’t mean that shit.

Like, the opinions presented are mixed; I agree with some points, I disagree with others, and at the end of the day, it’s an article that I’m glad I read because it presented interesting opinions on a subject that’s relevant to me. I don’t appreciate starting an article without any pretense and then suddenly being bombarded with a bunch of words that offend me, make me feel gross, and remind me of the IRL harassment that I’m trying to escape by reading things on the internet.

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Okay, going to point out that I’m one of those middle class, white, American cis-het bi men here, so anyone who wants to ignore me can save time by skipping over this post now.

I grew up in the LGBT community. I was around, as a child, for the ejection of transwomen at the Michigan Women’s Music Festival. I’ve seen awful, awful things said about trans* people, by the LGBT community. There’s a long history of trans activists getting shit on by the greater gay activist community. Hell, it happens to this day.

However, the politics of personal outrage are really not the solution here. It’s insane how difficult it has become to avoid offending trans* people - and I get that it should not be the burden of some random person to take the responsibility of educating every dumb motherfucker on the planet. And you can get sick and tired of hearing the same ignorant shit, over and over and over again.

I don’t know what the answer is. I know, after a while, I had to step back from political and labor activism because I was becoming a very angry person, who could do nothing but take offense from the awful things people were doing. You do get burned out as an activist - you spend so much time fighting, that you end up incapable of doing anything else.

Add to that a healthy amount of “the world is really, really, REALLY against us” and it’s not surprising that there’s some seriously nasty fights in the trans* community.

People have been going after RuPaul for being outrageous and insulting for at least 20 years. Ain’t nothing changed his schtick. Being offended won’t work - it actually validates his tactic, of being the most eye-catching, outrageous, scandalous queen of them all. Probably ain’t gonna teach that old queen new tricks. Better people than you have tried.

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trigger warning. oh for fucks sake.

Maybe you should get a net nanny.

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I could be way off here, but i think in this specific instance what she meant and should have said is:
"I am upset with what RuPaul is doing."
rather than “I F*cking Hate @RuPaul” which implies hating the person.

words…this is why choosing them carefully can make all the difference.

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But “I disagree with what RuPaul is doing” isn’t clickbait. and it’s not pretagged for Twitter outrage. You might take it up with Parker Molloy, though.

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excellent points, the tweet might have been worded that way intentionally, i should have considered that. many of the tweets/headlines these days are intentionally inflammatory clickbait. i decided to stop visiting Gawker Media sites for that very reason, massive click bait and thin soup content.

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The fact that I’m trans* and you’re not means that what I say about my experiences absolutely takes precedence over what you have to say about trans* issues. There is no argument strong enough to overcome the fact that I’m talking about something I have experienced personally and you haven’t experienced at all.

Where privilege comes into it is that as a cisgender person, society values what you have to say over what I have to say and therefore people will listen to you when you contradict me about my own experiences.

But I’m not making a statement contradicting you about your experiences.

I’m not telling you what you had for breakfast. I’m saying I sincerely believe the way you eat your breakfast is poisonous to you and to others. Perhaps I see you eating a rotten egg. Perhaps as your friend I am concerned for your health. I am opining on something I am observing, which is totally normal.

You are free to disagree. If you think the egg is safe, tell me why. Maybe the egg is merely colored green, maybe it’s a special species of egg. Feel free to tell me why I’m wrong. Maybe it’s rude for me to assume green eggs are rotten. But for you to merely claim I suffer from “Traditional Breakfast Privilege,” don’t know your story and therefore everything you say takes precedence over everything I say is not an argument about the egg, it’s an argument about me and whether I even have standing to talk about your egg or breakfast related issues. That’s what makes it rude and dismissive. The question is not whether I have privilege or even know what I’m talking about, the question is “is your egg poisonous or not?”

Look, people are complex and nuanced, and so are these issues. They’re difficult. It is possible for a cis-het person to understand their privilege and still make observations about things outside that sphere. It still might be a valuable opinion, valuable in a different way than an insider’s opinion. Think of a movie critic who has never made a film - they still might have a valid argument or observation about the film they are reviewing, even if they’re not a filmmaker and have never personally experienced the process of filmmaking.

EDIT TO ADD: I’m not saying privilege isn’t worth addressing or checking or understanding. What I’m saying is it’s not a get-out-of-making-an-argument-free card.

Like this poster, I too am not sure what the answer is, but I don’t think it’s “your privilege disqualifies you full stop.”

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@rider and @PhasmaFelis Stay on topic

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I’m coming into this discussion a little late since I’ve mainly just been reading the replies. I’m glad the discussion has been more civil than most when it comes to trans issues.

That said, I think James’ article really represents why I disagree with her so much on trans issues. At one time I think she was more relevant, heading in the same direction as a significant number of trans people, possibly even leading the way. But as trans people have slowly become more accepted, and traditional gender non-conformity became more common, I think her approach was no longer representative of the community at large. Instead of progress for all people in the trans community, or progress for those who are transsexual, everything has turned into a fight of “transness”, such that if you don’t share James’ views, you’re not trans enough or are the wrong kind of trans, and should be ignored. If you don’t appauld the associations that trans people in the past have had, like transsexual women working alongside drag performers when they simply had no other option, or if you don’t embrace the way gay men often treat trans women today, you’re considered to be a radical.

This is also one of the reasons I object to the treatment of the trans community as some kind of homogenous group of gender variant people. You have people who are transsexual, genderqueer, people who feel they’re a completely different gender, drag performers, recreational cross dressers, people who experience sexual excitement and gratification from cross dressing, and probably even more. All of these people, while united by the fact that their issues involve their gender, have such different concerns and experiences that trying to treat them as a single group is detrimental to all of them.

Could Molloy have worded her posts differently and been less ascerbic? Probably. But that may not represent how she truly feels about these issues and the struggles she’s personally faced. The problem I see is that, like james, Molloy is treating the community as that unified, homogenous group that is simply isn’t. RuPaul is transgender, being a drag performer who blurs the lines of gender, but is not transsexual. Carmen Carrera, who was originally a drag performer, but now identifies as a transgender woman, is obviously transgender too. She’s certainly a member of the same diverse group, but her participation in dressing-as-a-woman-for-performance-art prior to transition can be difficult for some transsexual people to understand. But all trans people arrive at their identities, and learn things about themselves and whether transition is for them, through different means. For some, that’s drag. For others, it’s cross dressing at an early age. For others, it’s sexual experiences. I don’t think disparaging any of these people or experiences helps the cause for any trans people, but attempting to say that a drag performer’s concerns and the concerns of a transsexual woman trying to transition without losing her job, are the same… that can be just as disparaging.

I don’t think Molloy is transphobic. I do think Molloy is mistrustful of high visibility transgender personalities, like RuPaul, Carmen Carrera, Andrea James, Calpernia Addams, speaking for her and for those like her when she feels their experiences are not representative of her own. I think James is wrong for attacking Molloy for her views, because I think activists like James are somewhat responsible for shaping them. With James’ approach to treat all trans people as belonging to a homogenous group and giving all trans issues equal importance, I think Molloy’s attitude is the inevitable result. By Attacking Molloy’s identity, authenticity, claiming she’s transphobic, homophobic, a TERF, etc., and giving RuPaul a slap on the hand but otherwise a free pass at making derogatory remarks for fun and profit, James does nothing more than harden the positions of those like Molloy, while widening the trans issues divide even further.

I’d like if Molloy could take a step back and recognize that just because drag performers aren’t transsexual doesn’t mean they’re not transgender and part of the same diverse, gender variant community. I feel her position may be better served by highlighting the differences in the needs of the various trans people, rather than attacking other trans people for not addressing the concerns of only transsexual people. But I’d also like if James would cease defending all things trans as being representative of the entire community, except in cases where they disagree with her views. RuPaul has done some harmful things. He’s indicated time and again that he simply doesn’t care. If RuPaul’s use of slurs that aren’t used to describe drag performers, but are used to devalue and dehumanize trans women attempting to simply live normal lives, gets what amounts to praise from James, why should Molloy’s position garner such a negative response?

tl;dr: The trans community is made of several different groups with different concerns. Molloy and James are both guilty of treating them as a homogenous group and attacking people who make statements that illustrate the differences in the community. I feel more recognition that not all trans people are the same, not all issues are the same, and while all the experiences are valid, they’re not automatically equal because gender is involved, would better serve everyone involved.

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Oh shush! A simple sentence at the top of the article saying “This article references problematic language” would have been totally fine.

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You don’t get out much, do you? Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with postmodern literary theory.

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Interesting points. I think the one thing that should be noted is that James’s original issue with Molloy was that she wrote an article about RuPaul ostensibly as a journalist, and then tweeted the “I fucking hate” tweet on the same day. Whether you’re writing about these issues or you’re reviewing a new phone, that’s not Best Practices for Online Journalism.

And that’s a separate issue. We can sidestep all of the trans* community issues and agree that what Molloy did was at best extremely unprofessional.

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Can journalists not express personal opinions on Twitter?

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I’ve been following this thread with interest and I hate everything about it. It’s incredibly frustrating to see so many people in the same camp fight so passionately to exclude each other from it.

I have never been fond of the propensity people in various progressive movements have to expend so much of their energy on infighting and credentialing. It saps the energy of a lot of reasonable and otherwise enthusiastic people. I think that these conversations will mean something when one thing, and only one things happens: When a person’s reputation can survive a dispute based on the totality of the circumstances. I don’t think that happens. I think the people that “fucking hate RuPaul” will always hate RuPaul, no matter what RuPaul does going forward. Whether he changes his ways in the light of criticism about him, or whether he mellows on his own with time; it will never make any difference. If he doesn’t change his behavior, but in with a series of acts manages to somehow uplift the whole community, it will also never be enough. Alternatively, replace the name and pronouns used for RuPaul and instead insert “Andrea James”. Maybe that will help you see my point if you’re coming at this from a different angle.

There are people, people with clout in the activist circles, who will never forgive. There are people in these circles who will dismiss the possibility of working with or for someone, without any hope of redemption, based on the most minor doctrinal differences. And people will kick and yell about how these differences aren’t minor, and how they cut to the core of their struggle. And perhaps they do. And perhaps that’s no reason to unmoor yourself from erstwhile allies.

I am not saying that we should all hold hands at all times and try to bury the barbs as they still hurt. I am saying that there is a world of difference between excommunication and subtle dissonance and I would like to see more people exploring that vastness rather than finding themselves at either end at all times.

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Well sure she CAN, like she has a right to do whatever she wants, but it’s probably not the best idea if she wants people to think she’s an objective journalist who won’t embarrass the publications she works for.

Look, if I needed someone to write something for my trans* community magazine, I wouldn’t hire her after this. Like ever. My publication’s reputation should not be put in jeopardy because she wants to use Twitter to talk about her subjects off the record. It reflects badly on the publication, and journalists are often representing that publication when they submit.

Journalists are, unfortunately for them, semi-public figures at times, and if they want to maintain their journalistic integrity, sometimes that involves keeping your opinion to yourself. So while she’s free to say whatever she likes, there are consequences for that, for her reputation as a journalist and for the publications that hire her.

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I don’t really understand that opinion, at all. A journalists’s objectivity should be judged by the objectivity of their articles, not their opinion. I mean, if a journalist scores an interview with Gaddafi and publishes it, can they not say “Gaddafi was a terrible man” afterward? Journalists have their own innate biases, as they are all human. So long as they can publish fairly and objectively, I don’t really see the problem here.

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I’ve been following this thread with interest and I hate everything about it. It’s incredibly frustrating to see so many people in the same camp fight so passionately to exclude each other from it.

And therein lies the problem. Nobody is trying to exclude anybody but themselves. If trans women don’t want to be associated with drag culture, they shouldn’t be forced to do so. Many of us have no connection to it whatsoever.

With comments like ‘the only difference between a drag queen and a transsexual is $25,000 and a good surgeon,’ RuPaul is using the bully pulpit of a popular television show to make misleading political statements, intentionally conflating trans identities with those others under the so-called ‘trans-umbrella’ in order to force everyone into the same camp against their will.

I’m appalled that someone as well-versed as Andrea James does not see this as a problem, but it seems like she does so largely due to her own subjective connections to drag (read: Calpernia). How can she do so and simultaneously invalidate the opinions of others?

This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the cisgendered mainstream was educated enough to disregard such sensational, belittling, and confusing language, but they’re not, and unfortunately Ru is the the most overexposed and influential gender-variant person on TV at the moment. Until more people question his role as an ‘educator,’ he has an increased responsibility to be intellectually honest and respectful to adjacent classes of people of which he is NOT, I repeat NOT, a member.

In short, a drag queen has no place ‘educating’ the general public about transsexuality. There’s nothing any more exclusionary to that statement than there is the idea that Italians should not be claiming to be representatives of the black community, even if it’s true that at the end of the day, we’re all human, because that fact doesn’t homogenize the entire race. That said, RuPaul does NOT speak for me, Ms. Malloy, or any other trans woman, but he’s clearly convinced that he does. Why can’t he respect our differences instead of co-opting our identities?

As to Ms. Malloy, she IS trans and she IS an educator on trans issues. Obviously, she wrote her article about RuPaul because she took issue with his behavior - and that’s why she hates him - not vice-versa. Furthermore, this article, as well as Malloy’s are clearly commentary, not journalistic coverage. The whole point of writing either was to provide a perspective on a social issue, not report facts. Most comments here seem to have lost sight of that fact.

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The thing is, however that Molloy’s “newness” compared to Andrea’s experience IS relevant. RuPaul, Calpernia, and others came of age in a context and community where LGBT people were truly much more under the same tent than they are now. Right or wrong, she honestly doesn’t see her use of “Shemale” as that offensive because she sees everything as a rebellion against gender norms. Unlike many trans people who still aspire to a single gender identity (not all, but a lot) RuPaul exists in a space that sees gender as a wide open space for play and often approaches it with an irreverent tone. Furthermore, she comes from a time when a major coping mechanism to the horrifying amount of intolerance from the public at large was to make fun of each other in a way that transformed the hate into statements of love and acceptance. I think it’s important for RuPaul to be called out when her words hurt people (even if unintentionally) but its also important to see where she comes from.

Regardless of that issue, Andrea is 100% right to call Molloy out on her homophobic (and honestly transphobic, or at least a rejection of those who don’t fit her apparently limited view of what “trans” means) reactions and treatment of RuPaul, Calpernia Addams, and Carmen Carrera. It’s certainly frustrating to almost only see the Rayon type of transperson portrayed in media, but that doesn’t mean that those transpeople don’t exist or are somehow lesser than transpeople who simply want to transition to a different gender than the one they were assigned to at birth. Denigrating and criticizing those who are just “showgirls” comes from a place of hatred for those who do not adhere to a rigid gender/sexual identity and a sense of shame at being grouped with them in the eyes of less understanding non-LGBT people. It says "I don’t want to be lumped in with those people, meaning more flamboyantly gay people. It’s no different than the “masc only” garbage endemic to the gay male community, in that it comes from internalized homophobia and an unwillingness to accept all forms of gender/sexual/personal identities.

I understand the frustration of dealing with someone like RuPaul who refuses to back down when legitimate concerns are raised about her statements and behavior, but to say “I F*ucking Hate RuPaul” more than almost any other person is extreme and just as hateful. Transphobic or not, RuPaul has done so much for everyone in the LGBT community (yes even the T), that despite her resistance to hear criticism from the trans community, her net balance is still one of overwhelming good. To wrap up (and not to sound like an old person) but I think we should all take a lesson from “Paris is Burning.” What was most important was “realness,” however that may be defined by every individual under the tent. The drag balls had seemingly endless categories encompassing many aspects of the gender/sexual identity spectrum where people had a safe space to express their own personal realness. Everyone’s realness is different. Just because Calpernia Addams or Carmen Carrera live their transness differently than Molloy (and even in a way that Molloy doesn’t like) does not make them any less trans and any less real. It’s important to have dialogue about how words can hurt in ways that you might not be aware of, but its also important not to reject people because their trans identity doesn’t conform to yours. Non-LGBT people police our gender/sexual identity enough already, we shouldn’t do it to each other as well.

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