tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post3267264020748843738..comments2023-05-28T23:41:17.406-07:00Comments on Whipping Girl: On the "activist language merry-go-round," Stephen Pinker's "euphemism treadmill," and "political correctness" more generally-juliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06703465310869693798noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-78724367245598691822014-08-05T19:16:24.562-07:002014-08-05T19:16:24.562-07:00As an amateur linguist and someone only beginning ...As an amateur linguist and someone only beginning to explore trans activism, I want to thank you for providing this "food for thought," if you will. I am not very well read <br />with regards to these subjects, but the theory you present here seems to be in accordance with other linguistic phenomena, most notably with Derek Bickerton's hypothesis about the formation of Creole languages. He asserts that Creoles form based in the communication of the oppressed community (often enslaved workers), and also that non-marginalized groups only assume that Creoles begin their formation in the language of the non-oppressed communities because they appear in, as you say, "official" institutions such as newspapers. I look forward to exploring more aspects of language in the context of marginalized groups in the future. Thank you again!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-42366340547990625272014-06-23T06:55:34.217-07:002014-06-23T06:55:34.217-07:00Thank-you Julia, it very much relates to my own ex...Thank-you Julia, it very much relates to my own experiences within trans activism. I'm very much in favour of everyone articulating their individual experiences instead of using one word shortcuts. Although transsexual an "outdated" label according to psychiatry, I share your ownership of the word as a label beyond it.Keikohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16846386132915130357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-34729207087621920472014-06-06T06:47:57.991-07:002014-06-06T06:47:57.991-07:00I'm middle aged, so to me its PC War II. I wil...I'm middle aged, so to me its PC War II. I will read the first piece, so I'll limit myself here to this one. Just like the first war, there is the ignorance of majority men mostly, who get defensive and pick apart articles, now hashtags, and defend language we take issue with. On our sides, we get trapped having to defend why we take issue with them taking issue. We're caught on the merry go round and not even going for the brass ring. The ring represents the education and engagement we should being doing when encountering bad language. So, instead we allow ourselves to lose control of the narrative and let really bad people (like Bush I in the first war) mock and isolate us. The ignorant who we should all be educating shut down because now we are the "other", the " thin skinned", the loony left,...<br /><br />At this point in the war, ridiculous straw men are built: the Hop on Pop causes patricide meme must have been created by the "men's rights" movement. I guarantee they will build more just to bait us all. Those who take the bait lose any authority to speak so picking the battles to fight is important.<br /><br />I've watched the t word battle spill into the larger LGbt media as a trans ally. I am in listening mode because its my job to be learning. Really, I've seen a lot of dirty laundry exposed by reading the back and forth from trans writers. Yep, there are race and class issues which is probably a good idea to air. Finger pointing hurts, but it can be a teachable moment.<br /><br />The problems are from a group of cis gay writers who have a history of GGGG. I've been around the block enough times to know their histories of attacking trans people. Now they don't have to be overtly transphobic, they can just attack by mocking. I've read a paragraph to half of a number of these hit pieces. Because now its my job, I try to teach by bringing up historical examples of these writers bad and hateful language and or their past in blocking trans issues or their activity in throwing those of us on the outside under buses. <br /><br />Hope this makes sense. I can ramble on.John Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12161235107490792395noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-18393879115050690772014-06-03T12:22:40.061-07:002014-06-03T12:22:40.061-07:00As ever JS, you hit the nail on the head and since...As ever JS, you hit the nail on the head and since the nail keeps moving - nice shot. As you suggest, the reason we invent new words is to ensure we can be referred to without the baggage of stigma, but no sooner has a shiney new word appeared then those who mean us harm, use it in a defamatory way. Shelf life for a new word must be around 18mths before haters use it to beat us: no wonder the merry-go-round keeps twirling out new ones.<br /><br />The only comparison that springs to mind are PC words to refer to disability: both mental and physical. I help out with physical 'less-able bodied' people and feel I walk a tight-rope of causing offence to one group over another, but the comparison stops there. The correct terms for 'physically restricted' people are largely a top-down courtesy, manufactured by human resource professionals for their PR. People in wheel chairs are not subject to the continual harrassment and violence *trannies* face. Yes, it is the source of the stigma that needs to be stemmed, but in the meantime we trans* folk will continue to duck words besmirched by the invective of the ignorant and the hateful. The merry-go-round is unlikely to stop anytime soon we'd better get used to the ride and see it just as symptom of greater malaise.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13295986028284947016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-53725162161030922792014-06-02T18:54:16.154-07:002014-06-02T18:54:16.154-07:00A lot of the points you bring up fall under the wh...A lot of the points you bring up fall under the when-to-reclaim-versus-when-not-to-reclaim conundrum. I discuss that in the original piece, and I found the following essay elucidating the multiplicity of perspectives that invariably occur in reclaiming debates was especially useful: http://www.colorado.edu/ling/CRIL/Volume17_Issue1/paper_BRONTSEMA.pdf<br /><br />also regarding "tranny," it has a complex history & was used positively by trans people (apparently both as a community created word, then later as a reclaimed word after mainstream society became aware of it) in the past. That does not mean that we *should* reclaim it, but we shouldn't ignore that complex history either. I discuss all this in the original piece (which I again encourage people to read, links above).-juliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06703465310869693798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-46680751043792716952014-06-02T18:23:29.935-07:002014-06-02T18:23:29.935-07:00Fascinating article. As some who, like Steven Pink...Fascinating article. As some who, like Steven Pinker, is not a member of a minority group, I wonder whether it is imaginable that the word "tranny" might one day be reclaimed and transformed into a positive term of endearment and empowerment, similar to the word "nigger" in the black community. Two asides: I'm not convinced that the adoption of a pejorative as a tool for the persecuted community is as empowering as it looks, and for all I know this has been mooted and tried with the word "tranny". I'm happy to be corrected if necessary.<br /><br />Thinking about your examination of dropping 'bad' words and adopting new ones, perhaps this comparison will not seem entirely inappropriate: Disabled people in the UK used to suffer mercilessly from the use of the insult "spastic" in the 1980s, which was derived from the name of the disability charity The Spastics Society. (I'm sure you'll appreciate that I don't bring this up because I consider transgenderism to be similar to mental or physical disability.) The charity changed its name in 1994 to Scope, and following this - though it's not the only factor of course - the term, though it remains an insult, is used far less and is widely understood to be potentially deeply wounding by able-bodied people who hitherto didn't see the harm, or did but didn't care (in the latter case, the victory is arguably greater, because it signals that they've come to see disabled people as... well... people).<br /><br />I'd suggest that this is a clear example, or semi-example, of swapping a 'bad' word out affecting some tangible, genuine change. Disabled people don't exactly refer to each other as "scopey" these days but I don't think anyone could argue the societal change would have been anything like as dramatic had the word "spastic" not been dropped. It remains a powerful insult, so it's not an instance of reclaiming, but as I've said, I doubt the positivity of reclaiming. What happened was the word was discarded amongst a great deal of publicity and increasing awareness of disability, and the new word was allowed to quietly go about its business representing the charity without picking up any negative connotations. Maybe this is key. If societal change doesn't accompany a deliberate change in terminology strongly enough, then palpable change is unachievable.<br /><br />A lot of the above is thinking out loud, and I'm receptive to anybody who wants to tell me exactly how and why I'm totally mistaken. Thank you for the thought-provoking article.<br /><br />(Incidentally, a fabulous way I heard some years ago and have used since to refer to able-bodied people is "not-yet-disabled". Changes your perspective, doesn't it?)<br /><br />(Oh, one final thing. The mad genius Douglas Hofstadter wrote an essay in 1985 about terminology, and while it's fantastic it's only of somewhat tangential interest here, but if you haven't read it before, follow this link. I'm sure you'll like it. http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-44298054457636704912014-06-02T10:50:07.229-07:002014-06-02T10:50:07.229-07:00A lot of what you bring up here is discussed in my...A lot of what you bring up here is discussed in my original piece, so I encourage you (and other folks who are concerned about the word "tranny") to read what I have written there, as it is more thoughtful & thorough than anything I could say in a few sentence reply here.<br /><br />But I have to say that I completely disagree with you that the subject of *this* post (the activist language merry-go-round) is merely a "straw man" in some greater debate about the T-word. I think it is the reverse: as I discuss in the original piece, a desire to purge the T-word is but one of countless instances of trans activists arguing that we should eliminate certain words and/or forward new & better ones.<br /><br />Many folks in the community are focused like a laser on the T-word debate. That is fine if that's where their interests or concerns are. Personally, I am not especially concerned with that one particular word. What I am interested and concerned about is activist language more generally, how it evolves, and what the effects of this are on the marginalized community in question. <br /><br />If some people are disinterested in this broader discussion of language (which I discuss here & in the second half of the original piece), than so be it. But I do reject the premise that my more general discussion about language is *really* all about the T-word (because it is not), or that I should shelve such broader analyses of language because it undermines a community-wide unified movement to purge the T-word (because I don't think that it does, and on top of that, I do not believe that we, as a community, are unified with regards to our view of the word).<br /><br />btw, I am not saying that you have implied either of these things. But others have made such claims, so I wanted to nip such arguments in the bud in this comment thread.-juliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06703465310869693798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-71073193114380327032014-06-02T08:50:46.521-07:002014-06-02T08:50:46.521-07:00I agree that "word elimination" across t...I agree that "word elimination" across the board is almost always bad, but I see this as a straw person. What this began with was a *very* problematic TV segment using problematic language by someone with a history of using problematic language in a callous and insensitive way. Very quickly this became an argument about whether anybody can ever say 'tranny' ever. Of course, striking a word from our lexicon is impossible. But I think it *is* fair for people to be aware that 'tranny' is a problematic word, and that we should be mindful of when, where, and how w use it. I would day the same about 'transsexual'. If you were to use it in your writing to describe someone who has undergone gender transition medically, I see that as unobjectionable. If a lawmaker starts talking about transsexuals demanding 'special rights', I will both insist that this position is wrong on substance, and that the term the community uses to describe itself is 'transgender'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8432122252544693588.post-31948839161623611192014-06-02T06:53:07.660-07:002014-06-02T06:53:07.660-07:00btw, a preemptive comment by the author: Some peop...btw, a preemptive comment by the author: Some people who have only read this piece and not the original piece may assume that I am advocating for the continual usage of the so-called T-word. I am not in anyway making that case, and I refer you to the original piece (links above) where I clearly explain my position on that particular word. Having said that, I do believe that it is useful for us as activists to be aware of the activist language merry-go-round more generally (as it extends to virtually all trans-related language), and to consider the potential negative consequences that word-elimination strategies can have within our own communities.-juliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06703465310869693798noreply@blogger.com