April 2007 TransGriot Column

Chill Out Calling Women You Don’t Like Trannies
Copyright 2007, THE LETTER

One thing I’m getting a little sick of is the trend in the blogosphere, the Internet and elsewhere to use ‘trannie’ as an epithet for women you despise.

For several years now 6-foot conservative commentator Ann Coulter has been bombarded with the ‘Mann Coulter’ wisecrack. Yeah, she’s said far worse things about gays, liberals and a whole host of peeps that we need to forcefully call her on. But why stoop to her middle school level of discourse?

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about from the blog ‘Moon Over My Hammy’:

‘Isn’t it Ironic . . . that Ann Coulter would call Edwards a "faggot" when she looks like a post-op transsexual?'

It’s hypocritical for the progressive community to get its panties in a bunch about Coulter’s f-word insult of John Edwards and then counterattack by calling her transvestite, transsexual or transgender. The part that galls us even more about this is that we’re supposed to be your allies in the struggle against these conservaidiots.

It’s not just progressive bloggers who are culpable. Gay ones such as Perez Hilton and others have savaged 5’8” Paris Hilton as well by repeatedly calling her and her sister Nicky trannies. Tina Fey commented during a recent interview on Howard Stern’s Sirius radio show that “Paris looks like a tranny up close.”

That remark is also hurled at 6-foot former model Kimora Lee Simmons as well as any other women perceived as having traits that ‘belong’ to the opposite gender. While I would expect that crap from the general public, It angers other transwomen and me even further when GLBT peeps such as Perez Hilton are engaged in doing it.

Let me ‘edumacate’ y’all on something. GLBT peeps should know that better than any other humans on Planet Earth that no one is 100% male or female. You get some of your genetic and physical traits from mommy and some from daddy. In many cases you get a blend of the two.

One of the things my female relatives noticed about me before and since transition is my naturally long eyelashes. I got relentlessly teased in junior high about my 'girl's legs’ and ‘girl’s butt’ by the fellas in my gym classes.

Just because Paris Hilton wears size 11 shoes and Ann Coulter has a huge Adam’s apple doesn't necessarily make either one of them transsexuals until they proclaim otherwise. I know more than a few petite transwomen as well as genetic women who are taller than my 6’2” height.

While there are a lot of genetic women that we in the transgender community would happily embrace as our sisters and welcome them with open arms, Paris and Ann ain't high on my personal list of peeps I’d love to see declaring they are transwomen.

The problem with using transgender or transsexual as pejorative terms is that it reinforces the views of some less-than-enlightened people in our society that being transgender is wrong or strange. Some people in the transgender community also consider the term transvestite an inflammatory insult, so it’s doubly wounding to us if you call somebody out using that word simply because you loathe them.

If you feel the need to insult someone, find some other creatively shady epithet to use (and not the b-word either). Transwomen deal with enough accumulated slights, slurs, negativity and assaults on our self-esteem and images from our foes. We don’t need our allies contributing to the dissing of us as well by using the terms we chose as a community to describe ourselves to insult our genetic sisters.