Notices by lee :Fire_Trans: (inherentlee@strangeobject.space)

[SEXED UP: how society sexualizes us and how we can fight back by Julia Serano]

[ch 3: unwanted attention]

Serano discusses street harassment.

it violates two well-established societal norms:
- there are customs for how, when, and where to express sexual/romantic interest
- it is generally considered a breach of protocol to impose on someone with whom you are not acquainted

perhaps because they recognize these violations, street harassers often rationalize their remarks as being complimentary or sincere. but if this were true, such comments should be wholly positive - and they are not. even the "good" comments, Serano notes, "were often highly specific evaluations of my body or appearance that veered into the realm of invasiveness."

additionally, in her experience, acknowledging the "good" comments often lead to escalation to "bad and ugly" ones.

feminist theory tends to frame street harassment in two non-mutually exclusive ways:
1. historically, a woman's place was the home; thus, harassment is men signaling to women that they are not in their proper place
2. through the lens of sexual objectification: men viewing women as objects for them to "sexually evaluate, appreciate, and potentially use"

Serano finds that the first doesn't match her experiences; and that the second, while accurate, feels incomplete.

"many of the street remarks I encountered made me feel as though I was merely a specimen that they were prodding witha proverbial stick in the hopes of getting any type of reaction out of me"

most infuriatingly, despite violating social norms, her harassers expected her to accommodate the intrusions - ideally with some form of acknowledgement. any protest or challenge, even ignoring them, resulted in anger or upset.

after some discussions - "yes, I am that nerd who occasionally performed impromptu ethnomethodological analyses on my street harassers" - Serano came to the conclusion that they generally did not see their behavior as out of line and "they sincerely did believe that I was the 'bad actor' in the situation"

"My harassers acted as though I had invited their attention" - she calls this a "phantom invitation"

she puts forward a third non-mutually exclusive framework for street harassment:

"Male street harassers seem to view and treat women as though we are public spectacles. ... these observers and harassers cannot fathom that they are doing anything wrong because from their standpoint the public spectacle has demanded their attention."

this helps explain the wide breadth of street harassment experiences, as well as "why people more generally tend to download the seriousness of street harassment"

"many different subgroups of people are treated as though they are public spectacles for reasons other than, or in addition to, being female."

she moves her attention to celebrity and what she terms "sublebrity" - celebrity within a subgroup of culture, such as LGBTQ+ circles.

non-celebrities tend to treat celebs like public spectacles - we feel we can walk up to them and ask questions, or for an autograph, etc.

Serano, a "sublebrity" thanks to Whipping Girl, details some encounters she's had: people opening with critiques of her work, asking her why she is there ("I am at this queer karaoke event because I am a queer person who enjoys karaoke!"), stating that a friend telling her a story was "monopolizing all her time", or even feeling deceived upon learning, midway through conversation, that she was well-known - as though they were entitled to that information.

from here, she moves to another topic where she is often seen as deceiving - transness.

transgender people are often treated as public spectacles, and Serano has received plenty of trans-related street harassment.

"Some of the scariest interactions that I've ever faced have occurred when someone who initially presumed that I was a cisgender woman subsequently learned that I'm transgender; the anger expressed in those situations was premised on the misconception that I had 'tricked' or 'deceived' them."

people also ask questions about "anything and everything potentially related to my being transgender, including my childhood, family dynamics, gender history, sexual orientation, medical procedures I may have undergone, and their potential 'side effects'. That last question is very common, as people really seem to want or expect there to be negative consequences to transitioning."

early on, she patiently answered questions. but she noticed that some people would repeat questions, seemingly without really hearing the answers.

the inappropriateness of the questioning, as well as the now-ready access to information about transness, led Serano to believe the questions were fueled less by curiosity and more by "an unconscious tendency to frame trans people as inherently questionable (read: suspect, dubious)."

a lot of the questions focus on *why* she is transgender, a focus that she doesn't receive regarding womanhood or "sublebrity."

"people tend not to ask 'why are you cisgender?' or 'how do you know that you're really cisgender?' because being cisgender seems normal and natural to them. In contrast, it's the fact that people perceive being transgender as 'abnormal' and 'unnatural' (as a spectacle) that leads to us being constantly questioned."

often, people don't directly ask why - instead, "they will attribute an underlying cause or ulterior motive to trans people" - such as mental disorder, dominant mother, seeking attention, fulfilling a sexual fantasy, wanting to obtain gendered privilege, etc.

Serano has "been debunking these failed hypotheses as both a scientist and a trans activist for almost twenty years now" and notices two things:
- it's virtually impossible to kill these hypotheses
- brand new ones are constantly popping up ("trans agendas", "peer pressure", "social contagion")

it seems that these and other hypotheses will continue to pop up, "despite all evidence to the contrary, so long as people view transgender identities and experiences as inherently questionable."

people or groups who are perceived as "public spectacles" will be paid undue attention and scrutiny, while people or groups perceived as normal will largely escape reciprocal attention.

While Serano *can* analyze her experiences as a woman, a "sublebrity," a trans person, and a bisexual person separately using different lenses, she finds it more helpful to analyze them all through the lens of "markedness."

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@inthehands @kissane @paulkruczynski what about boosting the OP's response to a bad reply? To some degree that is still a bat signal - curious readers will want to know what it's in response to - and it shows more support for OP instead of furthering the spread of the shit reply directly

@hadilq for young children especially, transition is a matter of using a different name and pronouns and making cosmetic changes such as haircuts and different clothes. None of this is permanent. When they start to hit puberty, they may start puberty blockers, which delay puberty to allow them more time to make decisions and actually *prevent* irreversible things from happening (puberty is often extremely emotionally damaging to trans folks as our bodies are further changed in a direction that feels fundamentally wrong).

Your understanding of what transition looks like for trans children is pulled from what right wing voices want you to think, and it's not accurate to our actual experiences.

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