Nobody (sane) is saying that reclaiming words shouldn't happen or is a bad thing. Turning a potentially deadly insult around, stripping it of its power in the way you think of it and react to it, that's powerful and important. But saying "this word should never be used" erases experiences just as much as "this word will be used, in public forums you can't escape, whether you like it or not" and that's a different thing. Someone calling themself or their friends of the same group an offensive, reclaimed word is not the same as an artist using a reclaimed word in a song which will be heard (on the radio, on MTV, at concerts, if you're a fan and buy the album, if you're in a shop and it gets played, &c) by a lot of entirely different people of that group, some of whom may be uncomfortable with that word being used. It may also be heard by people outside of the group who assume it's okay to use that word since it's been reclaimed and therefore isn't offensive any more.
I've been having this conversation today, after a commenter on a friend's journal said that calling a straight cis-man wearing women's clothing a 'tranny' wasn't offensive, because that word has been reclaimed and anyway it's accurate because he was for the duration of that performance a transvestite, thus trans, thus a tranny. This came from an LGBT activist, not even someone outside queer culture, and I'm just. I love reclaimed words and what they do for the individuals who reclaim them, but that doesn't erase the weight those words carry to society at large and it doesn't make them not offensive. To say that I can't be offended at being called a dyke, or a tranny, because it's empowering to others of my group, denies my reaction just as much as anyone trying to tell you that you can't call yourself a dyke. The parts of that discussion I saw before my brain melted with the fail, they were not about individual black people calling each other n*****, the (batshit, oh my god wtf) commenter (before revealing said batshittery) was talking about having offensive language being forced upon you by popular culture via rap songs. Which is still about reclaimed words, but it's a different framing for it, a different context. It'll never be resolved, of course, because either saying it should stop or continue erases the voices of the opposing side, and in that particular argument I'm of the Well-Meaning Privileged so I sit it out since I have no right to say one way or another. Hearing the n-word in any context makes me uncomfortable because I can't hear it without hearing its history, but the music isn't meant for me in the first place. So I leave that argument alone and just go into my corner to think about all the voices I'm hearing on either side.
I ... feel like I should have a neat conclusion to this comment, but also that it's such a tangle and I'm still thinking about several angles of it, still reeling from the earlier conversation I had and how hurt I was by it. I'm also trying to put together the words to write to an author who used the word 'tranny' a lot in a recent novel -- never meant derogatively, by characters or narrative -- because its very presence on so many of the pages made me feel ill. That's just, that's where I'm coming from.
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Date: 2009-03-19 03:04 am (UTC)I've been having this conversation today, after a commenter on a friend's journal said that calling a straight cis-man wearing women's clothing a 'tranny' wasn't offensive, because that word has been reclaimed and anyway it's accurate because he was for the duration of that performance a transvestite, thus trans, thus a tranny. This came from an LGBT activist, not even someone outside queer culture, and I'm just. I love reclaimed words and what they do for the individuals who reclaim them, but that doesn't erase the weight those words carry to society at large and it doesn't make them not offensive. To say that I can't be offended at being called a dyke, or a tranny, because it's empowering to others of my group, denies my reaction just as much as anyone trying to tell you that you can't call yourself a dyke. The parts of that discussion I saw before my brain melted with the fail, they were not about individual black people calling each other n*****, the (batshit, oh my god wtf) commenter (before revealing said batshittery) was talking about having offensive language being forced upon you by popular culture via rap songs. Which is still about reclaimed words, but it's a different framing for it, a different context. It'll never be resolved, of course, because either saying it should stop or continue erases the voices of the opposing side, and in that particular argument I'm of the Well-Meaning Privileged so I sit it out since I have no right to say one way or another. Hearing the n-word in any context makes me uncomfortable because I can't hear it without hearing its history, but the music isn't meant for me in the first place. So I leave that argument alone and just go into my corner to think about all the voices I'm hearing on either side.
I ... feel like I should have a neat conclusion to this comment, but also that it's such a tangle and I'm still thinking about several angles of it, still reeling from the earlier conversation I had and how hurt I was by it. I'm also trying to put together the words to write to an author who used the word 'tranny' a lot in a recent novel -- never meant derogatively, by characters or narrative -- because its very presence on so many of the pages made me feel ill. That's just, that's where I'm coming from.