Part 8a: Never have I ever... but that one time? I really wish I hadn't.
NB: LGBT+ because it's exhausting, not because of disrespect. You know what I mean, I know what I mean, I'm not leaving anybody out. Also, while this focuses on a particularly negative experience of LGBT+ media, I will follow it up on some amazing experiences of LGBT+ media, so keep your pitchforks on the wall for the time being, k?
"You haven't seen RuPaul's Drag Race?!"
Sometimes I feel like questions and expectations like this are going to form a recurring theme through my blog, because it's inevitably a recurring theme through my life (and later, my transition). It's like I'm expected to, as "part" of the community, supposed to be pro-everything that in some way depicts the community. Whether I agree with it or not. My support is supposed to be there 100% and I'm expected to engage with queer media with utmost devotion because that's "the cause".
If I were to tell you that I kind of approach queer media in a similar to how I approach Christian music... as a Christian, would that surprise you?
I mean, as a Christian, I can think of nothing worse than being subjected to Hillsong United, or whatever other music you've picked off a list of Christian artists and thrown at me to see if I like it. It implies that I mindlessly support something because of its affiliation to the overarching banner.
This girl can think of nothing more repulsive.
Art, media, and music should be assessed on its merits, execution, and creativity. If it's something that's being political, is it doing it accurately and responsibly? Similarly, the same should be said for everything, whether it's part of something produced by the LGBT+ community or not.
But recently I got asked if I watched RuPaul's Drag Race and there was exasperation that I hadn't, nor had I ever found myself with any interest to expose myself to it. Not because I don't respect or appreciate drag, or its history, or what it means for... *rolls eyes*, whatever. I get it.
This isn't to say that I think drag or its history is invalid. It's not. It's a beautiful art form... that just happens to have been caught up in the moneymaking mentality that anything counter-cultural gets caught up in, and it becomes about popularity and ego more than style, substance, or message. I mean, as a goth, I saw this happen when Hot Topic became a thing and "baby bats" or "darklings" started blending their emo with whatever the hell you want to call it to arrive at my fave guilty pleasures "Bring Me The Horizon" or "Bullet for my Valentine".
What I don't like, is that even though RuPaul has become a figurehead for drag in the mainstream, and that he's kept a steady spotlight on drag and a very specific part of the LGBT+ community for years, that's about all he appears as on my radar... that and he has repeatedly gone on record to be transphobic.
What? Someone in the LGBT+ community can be hateful towards another part of it?
There was recently an event where a friend had the opportunity to share her love of Drag Race with her guests, and because I'd previously made my revelation at not having seen it, it was an opportunity for me to see the error of my ways. Despite outlining, at length, why I steered clear of it. But on we went into the train wreck.
My main questions I walked away from this with were:
"You haven't seen RuPaul's Drag Race?!"
Sometimes I feel like questions and expectations like this are going to form a recurring theme through my blog, because it's inevitably a recurring theme through my life (and later, my transition). It's like I'm expected to, as "part" of the community, supposed to be pro-everything that in some way depicts the community. Whether I agree with it or not. My support is supposed to be there 100% and I'm expected to engage with queer media with utmost devotion because that's "the cause".
If I were to tell you that I kind of approach queer media in a similar to how I approach Christian music... as a Christian, would that surprise you?
I mean, as a Christian, I can think of nothing worse than being subjected to Hillsong United, or whatever other music you've picked off a list of Christian artists and thrown at me to see if I like it. It implies that I mindlessly support something because of its affiliation to the overarching banner.
This girl can think of nothing more repulsive.
Art, media, and music should be assessed on its merits, execution, and creativity. If it's something that's being political, is it doing it accurately and responsibly? Similarly, the same should be said for everything, whether it's part of something produced by the LGBT+ community or not.
But recently I got asked if I watched RuPaul's Drag Race and there was exasperation that I hadn't, nor had I ever found myself with any interest to expose myself to it. Not because I don't respect or appreciate drag, or its history, or what it means for... *rolls eyes*, whatever. I get it.
This isn't to say that I think drag or its history is invalid. It's not. It's a beautiful art form... that just happens to have been caught up in the moneymaking mentality that anything counter-cultural gets caught up in, and it becomes about popularity and ego more than style, substance, or message. I mean, as a goth, I saw this happen when Hot Topic became a thing and "baby bats" or "darklings" started blending their emo with whatever the hell you want to call it to arrive at my fave guilty pleasures "Bring Me The Horizon" or "Bullet for my Valentine".
What I don't like, is that even though RuPaul has become a figurehead for drag in the mainstream, and that he's kept a steady spotlight on drag and a very specific part of the LGBT+ community for years, that's about all he appears as on my radar... that and he has repeatedly gone on record to be transphobic.
What? Someone in the LGBT+ community can be hateful towards another part of it?
There was recently an event where a friend had the opportunity to share her love of Drag Race with her guests, and because I'd previously made my revelation at not having seen it, it was an opportunity for me to see the error of my ways. Despite outlining, at length, why I steered clear of it. But on we went into the train wreck.
My main questions I walked away from this with were:
- "is inclusion and equality the way that we, as a community, should be subjected to the same capitalist and consumerist ideology?"
Why shouldn't the community participate in and engage with reality TV? it creates awareness and places members of the community in the media spotlight. But at what cost?
- Is it a genuine representation of x community, and does it denigrate another part of the community to leverage its own?
This was one of my main complaints and reasons why I didn't engage with Drag Race in particular. RuPaul's transphobia isn't something I should be expected to subject myself to because it forms part of the wider LGBT+ media platform and the attitudes in people that it cultivates. For example, whilst watching the first of two episodes of the series, the in-show video mail from RuPaul was called "SheMail" and was aired, which prompted the comment from my friend that "this was back when people didn't get so...". Yes, she stopped herself mid-comment, but what she was going to finish with was "so offended over everything and it was still allowed to be called SheMail".
I couldn't cringe hard enough. It was evident that this show in particular was geared toward a particular audience: fans of catty drama and the people who think they are just woke enough to acknowledge something beyond their own heteronormative existence. In which case, it's just reality TV. Replace your desperate housewives of yuppie county having some manufactured or prompted outburst over something that may or may not have happened (or the severity of it magnified) purely for ratings and the need to have one's socialite status increased.
Sure, it comes across like I have an axe to grind with reality television and people who indulge in it. You'd be right, I do. My main reason is because it cons people into taking their attention away from things that deserve or warrant their attention. It's a tool that was created to keep a constituency dumb and not engaged. But that's beside the point. My point here is that Drag Race in particular is utterly toxic in the way that contestants constantly tear each other down for their own five minutes to bask in Mama Ru's faux-adoring gaze.
- Is it one that fosters a positive view of x community in the public beyond the LGBT+ banner?
Honestly, I think it's more harmful than anything else. If it's not harmful, it's misleading. I used to have a few friends who would refer to themselves as "fag hags" because their best friends were gay and they would indulge in the cattiness and drama that went on within their own particular circles. I feel like it's these people that shows like this are created for. There's no strengthening of the overall community in its existence, because it is basically for this particular audience... the millennial "fag hag"... to relive the glory days of friendships past before their gay fashion accessory grew out of their bitchiness.
To succinctly answer the question:
I would be losing my touch lately if I were just to add a couple of snarky gifs and leave any external information at that, so here, let's look beyond the scope of this blog entry that focuses primarily on my experience of two episodes of a horrendous series.
We can look at why this sort of attitude, especially from RuPaul is problematic because it has given a voice (whether intended or not) to a group of people within the LGBT+ community who are trying to drive trans people out. This was recently all over Twitter when LGBAlliance was trending when a particularly loud contingent of the community decided that transgender people posed some kind of threat to their way of life. My comment at the time was that the community had finally become big enough that it could have its own reformation of sorts and create a new trans exclusive community for the fascist boot licking LGB cohort within the Alt-Right and their parallel cohort in "gender critical" or formerly "TERF" feminist groups.
Information about LGBAlliance can be found here, and how a lawyer supporting the alliance was spectacularly thrown under the bus by her own law firm here.
Note: I admit that reformation might be the wrong word to use, for the most part it was a wonderful thing to happen to the church... maybe I should use schism instead. Yes, schism is much more fitting... it takes away the positive connotations that the reformation had on Christianity for the most part.
The LGBAlliance, however, isn't something that should be surprising. Transphobia has been a steady thread in the community for a while now, and it's only relatively recently that it's taken itself to the levels of public discourse thanks partly to public transphobia of people like RuPaul. Whether he agrees with the LGBAlliance or not, there's responsibility and accountability, and it's not difficult to draw a line connecting the dots.
I joked on Facebook while editing this post (and I'll highlight where the new sections are... hint, you're reading a chunk of them) that it wouldn't be hard to jump from here to Taylor Swift's You Need to Calm Down (which RuPaul appears in), but by that time I might as well set fire to the kindling at my own feet and do the job of everyone getting outraged just to take the effort out of their hands.
Since I've already gone there anyway, some other perspectives on why TayTay's Pride-time anthem is a little on the nose can be found here, and here.
It might just be my being trans and bisexual that I'm super critical of things like this, because within the community itself, B and T are the most maligned groups. The bisexuals constantly get accused of not being able (or wanting) to pick a side, and transgender people get accused from community and cishet people alike of being in denial, fence-sitting, or trend-chasing. You know, like someone would want to expose themselves to the sort of scrutiny, commentary, and criticism of both sides of the fence.
Maybe being bi and trans ultimately makes me overly critical of the way that my (our) peers deploy media, and maybe that's our role in the long term. To try and be a voice of reason and that's what both sides of the fence don't like? That we're experienced on both ends of the spectra and have straddled that space between.
We're smart, we're critical, and we have reason to be, and part of the reason I felt the need to even write this post was the way that people who were at the bi+ stall kind of looked like they were questioning whether or not they had a right to be there.
Left unchecked, both sides can be as shitty as each other.
We can look at why this sort of attitude, especially from RuPaul is problematic because it has given a voice (whether intended or not) to a group of people within the LGBT+ community who are trying to drive trans people out. This was recently all over Twitter when LGBAlliance was trending when a particularly loud contingent of the community decided that transgender people posed some kind of threat to their way of life. My comment at the time was that the community had finally become big enough that it could have its own reformation of sorts and create a new trans exclusive community for the fascist boot licking LGB cohort within the Alt-Right and their parallel cohort in "gender critical" or formerly "TERF" feminist groups.
Information about LGBAlliance can be found here, and how a lawyer supporting the alliance was spectacularly thrown under the bus by her own law firm here.
Note: I admit that reformation might be the wrong word to use, for the most part it was a wonderful thing to happen to the church... maybe I should use schism instead. Yes, schism is much more fitting... it takes away the positive connotations that the reformation had on Christianity for the most part.
The LGBAlliance, however, isn't something that should be surprising. Transphobia has been a steady thread in the community for a while now, and it's only relatively recently that it's taken itself to the levels of public discourse thanks partly to public transphobia of people like RuPaul. Whether he agrees with the LGBAlliance or not, there's responsibility and accountability, and it's not difficult to draw a line connecting the dots.
I joked on Facebook while editing this post (and I'll highlight where the new sections are... hint, you're reading a chunk of them) that it wouldn't be hard to jump from here to Taylor Swift's You Need to Calm Down (which RuPaul appears in), but by that time I might as well set fire to the kindling at my own feet and do the job of everyone getting outraged just to take the effort out of their hands.
Since I've already gone there anyway, some other perspectives on why TayTay's Pride-time anthem is a little on the nose can be found here, and here.
It might just be my being trans and bisexual that I'm super critical of things like this, because within the community itself, B and T are the most maligned groups. The bisexuals constantly get accused of not being able (or wanting) to pick a side, and transgender people get accused from community and cishet people alike of being in denial, fence-sitting, or trend-chasing. You know, like someone would want to expose themselves to the sort of scrutiny, commentary, and criticism of both sides of the fence.
Maybe being bi and trans ultimately makes me overly critical of the way that my (our) peers deploy media, and maybe that's our role in the long term. To try and be a voice of reason and that's what both sides of the fence don't like? That we're experienced on both ends of the spectra and have straddled that space between.
We're smart, we're critical, and we have reason to be, and part of the reason I felt the need to even write this post was the way that people who were at the bi+ stall kind of looked like they were questioning whether or not they had a right to be there.
Left unchecked, both sides can be as shitty as each other.
Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.
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