Mastodawn

we don't look at people in the historical record and say "well those weren't "men" or "women" in the sense that we use the word today in western cultures" do we. i mean, we certainly could, but we don't

Show thread

Ms. Rachel Andry (Isn't Real)4d ago

@ana the idea that trans identities and trans theory are the sole domain of "western culture" is a transphobic attempt to inexorably bind transfeminist theory to whiteness and colonialism. the goal is to erase the agency of nonwhite, non-western trans people using lefty-sounding language and concepts, while simultaneously casting western trans people as interlopers foisting trans identities on the former.

and when we look at it that way, there's little difference between "trans theory is western colonialism" and "social contagion" theory.

Show thread

Ms. Rachel Andry (Isn't Real)

@ana and all that, of course, is how we get things like India's recent decision to erase the legal category of "trans woman" while maintaining the legal category of hijra, on the principle that the latter is - ironically, per western scholarship - a third-gendered other wholly distinct from the "western, colonialist" trans woman.