Mastodawn

Cait the Proud Trans Woman Dec 31, 2023

Simple. You've heard of a Swear Jar, yes? If you say one of a set of predefined "bad words", you put money in the jar, which then gets put to some good purpose periodically.

Well, I do the same thing with showing my privilege.

It works like this: I encounter some post or statement made by a group I'm not part of. From it, I learn something that, but for my privilege, I should have known already.

When I encounter such a situation, I make a note to myself about what the learning was, who did the teaching, and what groups they might belong to - Black, disabled, women, trans, nonbinary, Indigenous, whatever.

At the end of the month, I assess my finances, to determine what I can afford this month. Then I take each instance and drop an equal amount of money in the rhetorical jar.

Once the jar is filled and the month over, I give the money to an organization doing direct work in the community with the group that did the most emotional labour that month.

It has win-win properties, as far as I'm concerned. Orgs get a little financial bump, I learn a bunch about my privilege and the world outside it.

Cait the Proud Trans Woman Dec 31, 2023

#IntroductionPost

Just noticed that my introduction post has slithered off the site somewhere. Might as well make a new one.

I'm Cait, late 50s, GenX, transitioned at 26 in the early 90s. I was a self-employed translator of French, German, and Russian to English for 23 years. I am comfortable conversing in any of those languages, or Spanish as well, and Japanese to a less comfortable extent.

I post a lot about trans stuff, but also other things. The trans stuff is because as a too-rare trans senpai, it's been made clear to me that I've got a solemn responsibility to my kouhai.

To get the stereotypes out of the way: no, I was never an egg, always knew, dressed as myself all the time growing up. I fit the classic narrative of the trans person, because that was the only way to access trans healthcare in those days, was to fit the narrative. The ways in which I didn't, I faked. Remember: gatekeeping is just cookie-cutting applied to people. It is wrong and unnecessary.

I believe in radical bodily autonomy, prison and police abolition, Marxist notions of mutual aid, and anti-racism.

I voluntarily cede my passing privilege to live as an out and public trans person in my community, so that people know that we live among them, and that we're just ordinary, green-haired, tattooed, anime-loving, and weed-smoking senior citizens like anyone else.

These days, I do activism as my main keep-me-occupied thing, as I have retired perforce from translation due to disability. I use a cane in everyday life for mobility.

I love football*, Tottenham, Jamaican music, having ADHD, and being part of this amazing Fedi trans community.

I live in the colonial power known as Canada, on stolen land.

And I have a #PrivilegeJar.

*That'd be football as the world sees it, not USan hand-egg. Sorry not sorry, NuFfLe fans.