Transphobic Conversation In The Nail Salon-What Would You Do?

'If you're worried about people calling you 'angry' for speaking your mind, you'll be angry at yourself later for not doing so' -TransGriot October 9, 2013

This is a situation worthy of the ABC-TV show hosted by John Quinones entitled What Would You Do?  except there wasn't a hidden camera around to catch for posterity the transphobic bigotry being uttered. 

The inspiration for this post came from a member of one of the Facebook trans person of color groups I'm a member of.  It speaks to the everyday macroaggressive and microaggressive crap that we transpeople have to deal with sometimes when we're out and about navigating the world.  Sometimes we get hit with it when we least expect it. 

This trans feminine Facebook friend relayed the story to the group about being in her friendly neighborhood nail shop yesterday to get her nails done.  She found herself sitting next to two cis women who were shadily discussing a trans woman that was allegedly a friend of one of the cis women.

The conversation started off with the cis woman repeatedly misgendering her trans feminine 'friend' and transphobically discussing her business.  She went on to tell the other cis woman about the trans woman's boyfriend paying for her SRS while making disparaging and ignorant cis privilege filled remarks that angered the trans woman getting her nails done, even though she wasn't acquainted with the trans women they were gossiping about.. 


Here's what she had to say about the nail shop incident in our FB group.

All along they had no clue that I was a trans woman in the next chair overhearing this conversation.  I can't begin to tell you how upsetting it is to hear the degree of ignorance that utters out of the mouths of some people, and it's one of the reasons why (no shade) I do not hang out with many genetic women.  

Because no matter how feminine or whatever SRS or other surgeries we do to complete the physical transformation to match the mind, many of these genetic women still don't get with the program and continue to have the audacity to describe a transwoman whether they are friends or not as a he.  I am just over it!!!!!
I asked her the question in the group if this conversation was so upsetting to you, why didn't you call the cis women out about not only their transphobic behavior, but the other cis woman for betraying the trust and friendship of the trans woman who has no idea that her cis woman 'friend' stabbed her in the back? 


So what would you have done if confronted with that microaggressive nail shop situation?

I can tell you what the TransGriot would have done.  I would have not only called out the cis woman for hatin' on, betraying and stabbing her trans friend in the back, I would have called her out on her transphobic bigotry.  And yes, if you're concerned about maintaining your stealth status, there are easy ways for you to call the person out without revealing you're trans.

I would have done so (and have in a similar situation in my past) because that Trans 101 conversation was now necessary in order to debunk the bull feces and ignorant transphobic bigotry coming out of these cis women's mouths that cannot be (and shouldn't have been) left unchecked. 

It was an opportunity to not only 'ejumacate' these fools about our lives but everyone in that nail shop within earshot of that jacked up conversation.

After I was done thoroughly debunking their anti-trans bullshyt, they would have thought twice before they ever flapped their gums to ever negatively bash a trans woman in public again.

And yeah, I would have done so because in the interests of preserving my own mental and physical health in the face of this unexpected and unprovoked microaggressive assault, I've got to call your transphobic azz out.  

Because to paraphrase what I said at the beginning of this post, I'd rather you call me 'angry' for speaking my mind instead of being angry at myself later for not speaking out.


TransGriot Update:  Got an answer to my question after I completed the post.   She was so pissed off about what she'd just witnessed all she wanted to do was just get her nails done and get out of the shop.   Understandable.  Sometimes you have to pick your battles.  I just felt as though this was one that was worth fighting.. 

Damn, Can A Gold Medal Winning Sistah Enjoy It?

Gabrielle Douglas was a major part of the first USA women's gymnastics team Tuesday night effort to win the team competition gold for only the second time since the 'Magnificent Seven' pulled off that feat in Atlanta in 1996.  

Gabby then followed it up on Thursday by making more history.   She became the first African-American gymnast to win the all around title and the first American gymnast to win the team and all-around gold medals in the same Olympiad.

Serena Williams dominated the Olympic women's tennis singles competition field at 'Williams'-don so throughly she only dropped a total of 17 games and didn't lose a set.

In the gold medal match it took her a mere 63 minutes to win in dominating 6-0, 6-1 fashion over Russia's Maria Sharapova.

In the process Williams became the first tennis player ever to win golden slams in singles and doubles.

She and her big sister Venus go for a golden repeat title in Olympic women's doubles on Sunday against the Czech Republic's duo of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka in the gold medal match.in a few hours. 

But did whiteness and white supremacist addled people give these women or their proud African-American community a chance to celebrate their hard earned victories in peace?  

Hell naw.   Black female trailblazing athletes are always catching hell from somebody that has a problem with them on some level .

First came the snide comments from some quarters because reigning gymnastics world champ Jordyn Wieber failed to qualify for the all-around competition and her tears were beamed all over the world.   I'll admit I even felt sorry for Wieber for a moment until some of the online conversation and even the media started trying to minimize Gabby's contributions to that Fab Five's win.

Then I got pissed. 

That was rapidly followed by ignorant knee-grow Twitterverse peanut gallery obsessing about Gabby's hair which whiteness then picked up on.

It was folowed up on Thursday night by NBC's clueless running of a promo commercial for one of the fall shows it's heavily promoting called Animal Practice which featured a monkey doing ring gymnastics.

Cute commercial, only one major problem.   NBC ran it immediately after Bob Costas had just done a  segment commenting on Gabby's historic all around win that was tape delayed in the US to show in primetime.



What's the problem with that?  Plenty.  It may have been unintentional, but when Black people of both genders have been disrespectully compared to animals for over four centuries, that was a seriously problematic timing for that ad somebody in the production truck should have caught. 

Combine that with people already being pissed off about how far too much of NBC's televised coverage for the London games has been tape delayed.  

NBC apologized for it, but yeah, as much as I riff on Fox Noise for their racism and I'm about to do again, I have to call it out when questionable race related stuff happens even on networks I watch on the regular. 

Now moving on to Serena.  She celebrated in the aftermath of her microwave tennis win by doing the crip-walk dance before changing into her USA warmup suit and receiving her hard earned gold medal.

Cue all the Williams haters and the racist idiots at Fox Noise trying to stir some stuff up I've gots to call their  vanillacentric privileged hater tots chomping behinds on.



Fox Noise has been hatin' on Serena Williams for a while and took the opportunity to swipe at her again courtesy of a Reid Forgrave article posted on their website..

Seriously Reid Forgrave?  You conservafools are really trying to live up to your hatin' on Black folks reputation.

You GOP propagandists trying to claim that Serena's crip-walk dance celebration of her Olympic singles gold medal is 'embarrassing the USA in front of the UK and the world' is laughable.

Hell, even Gabby briefly danced the Dougie after her wins.

Let's be real for a moment. Your boy Mittbot caused far more embarrassment to the United States in front of the UK and the world on that travesty of a foreign trip last week to the UK, Israel and Poland than a few seconds of Serena happily dancing for a few seconds after celebrating her well deserved golden win ever will.   Serena's celebratory dance didn't inflame Middle East tensions, piss of the Palestinians, Prime Minister David Cameron, London mayor Boris Johnson, and cause multiple international incidents like Mitt Romney cluelessly did.

Y'all are just pissed off that the Williams sisters, despite injuries, the constant micro and macroaggresive racist drama y'all put them through continue to kick the butts of your eastern European tennis glamazons on the world tour on a regular basis and are unapologetically Black while doing so.

But damn, can a gold medal winning sistah enjoy it?