Non-Fiction

Queer Canons and Sapphic Ships

Dori Mooneyham, Leave a comment

I have a confession to make.

I apply queer theory to literally all the fiction I watch or read. I can’t remember how young I was when I started doing this, but I’m too old to stop it now.

I will create queer canon even if there’s already a token queer character or two. By the time I’m done with a series, nearly everyone is bi or pan or ace or aro or gay, there’s usually at least one or two trans people, and I will have lengthy explanations for different unseen love entanglements and poly arrangements in order to ship two characters who are not officially together on-screen or on-page.

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Queer Canons and Sapphic Ships
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In Defense of Barbie

Dori Mooneyham, 6 Comments

Attention Mainstream Feminism, I need you all to stop shitting on Barbie right the fuck now.

I used to think I had a complicated relationship with Barbie because I believed I had to if I was going to publicly identify as a feminist.

But you know what? I loved Barbie when I was a little girl! I loved playing Barbies with my little sister. I loved her remote control car that she could actually ride around in. I loved having her go on adventures with my Batman action figures. I loved making her go on dates (and have what I believed was sex) with other Barbies. Even now, I still get excited when I hear about Barbie becoming a computer programmer or a producer or an architect because I know little girls look up to Barbie and imagine themselves as her whenever they play with her.

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In Defense of Barbie

“You Don’t Look Trans”

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Dear Cis Women,

If a trans woman trusts you enough to self-disclose, don’t say “You don’t look trans!” That’s not a compliment, it’s an insult to our trans sisters who apparently don’t meet with your approval.

Actually, we *do* look like trans women! Because we are trans women and this is what we look like. There is nothing wrong about looking like a trans woman unless you believe cis women to be superior. I’m sorry transmisogynist media has given you a very narrow idea of who we are, and I can understand that and try to be patient because it’s something even trans women have to unlearn. But rest assured, we’re just as varied in appearance as you are.

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“You Don’t Look Trans”

The Etiquette of a Butch

Dori Mooneyham, , Leave a comment

One of the fun parts of being a butch lesbian is playing with traditional gender norms and making them our own weird and beautiful brand of expression. As a butch lesbian who is also a trans woman, I thought it might be especially cathartic to take all of the well-intended advice about “how to be a gentleman” and make it queer by replacing all male identifiers with “butch”:

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The Etiquette of a Butch

Dear Brooke Sopelsa: Stop Making Our Movement About Straight People

Dori Mooneyham, , 7 Comments

If there’s one thing I can’t stand more than a cis gay person telling me and other queers to calm down, it’s seeing that cis gay person get national attention on a Huffington Post article for telling other queers to calm down.

The examples Brooke Sopelsa cites as queer activists gone wild are:

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Dear Brooke Sopelsa: Stop Making Our Movement About Straight People

“Welcome to Womanhood”

Dori Mooneyham, Leave a comment

Dear Cis Women,

When a trans woman is complaining about men, sexual harassment, misogyny, and/or sexism, NEVER reply with, “Welcome to Womanhood”.

First of all, we don’t need welcoming. We’ve always been here, and your entitlement to believe you have the authority to welcome us to womanhood in the first place is a sign that your cissexism is showing.

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“Welcome to Womanhood”

Nuclear Weapon

Dori Mooneyham, 4 Comments

So the Pope has compared me and all other trans people to nuclear weapons because we have to power to go “against God the Creator”.

Bro, if your god is so weak he can’t even stand up to one of the most oppressed groups of people in the entire world, then you’re god ain’t shit to write home about.

Getting real sick of your bait-n-switch, Francis.

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Nuclear Weapon

Just Like You

Dori Mooneyham, Leave a comment

Nearly five decades ago, the modern queer rights movement exploded from the grief and anger of the most marginalized members of our community: queer people of color, trans women, sex workers, and other people starved for justice took to the streets. Arrests were resisted, fires were lit, cops were assaulted, and our mothers refused to back down. The revolution had finally come and straights were going to have to put up with our shit for once.

People who weren’t there got inspired. They threw open their closets and forced the world to realize we were far more numerous than previously believed. Slowly it dawned on them that we were not some faceless and malicious boogie man, but their children and their neighbors and their co-workers. We weren’t scary, we were just like them!

As it turned out, only some of us weren’t scary.

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Just Like You

Toxic

Dori Mooneyham, , 1 Comment

CN: Toxic media, transmisogyny, violence against women, suicide

I first learned about girls like me by watching an episode of Jerry Springer entitled, “My Girlfriend is Really a Man!” I might have been ten-years-old.

I saw the host introduce flamboyant women who the audience immediately booed. I heard the women try to explain themselves, but get interrupted too frequently to communicate anything. I watched in horror as their boyfriends’ reacted with more violence than I had ever witnessed between two real people on television. Never on daytime television had I actually witnessed a man punching and beating another women. But I did that day. And the audience cheered him on.

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Toxic

Lesson Two: Vocabulary

Dori Mooneyham, 7 Comments

Good afternoon class. Now that you’ve all had a chance to look over the syllabus, I’d like to set down a solid foundation of the non-oppressive language we will be using throughout the semester.

For some of you, these words will be familiar but the definitions may be slightly different. For others, this list will look like a foreign language. It does not matter to me what level of experience you already have in transfeminism discussions, for the purposes of this class we are all going to start from the beginning so there will be no confusion or misunderstanding.

A side note, many of your required reading will use slightly different language or definitions. I ask you to remember that language is an ever-evolving aspect of communication for all groups, not just trans women. If at any point during your reading you become confused or would like clarification, please do not hesitate to ask me for assistance. The last thing I want is for something as petty as word choice to get in the way of fighting transmisogyny.

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Lesson Two: Vocabulary