travesty by google
There isn’t anything really appropriate with identifying myself as a critic, in fact I find it increasingly difficult to identify as anything in a post-gender society.
I’ve been making youtube videos for over a year now documenting my transition and as a form of peer-to-peer education practice. Naturally, I too can admit jumping upon the bandwagon that has now become the center of self exploitation and celebrity narcissism carefully disguised as transgender advocacy. Who ultimately has the right to speak for the entire community?
The last time I checked “the community” appeared intersectional, full of a multiplicity in sexual and gender identities. Gigi Gorgeous, Stef Sanjati, Ty Turner, to name a few have seemingly become the transgender advocates of post-gender among the growing list of sub communities on youtube (which include furries). All above the 100000th mark in subscribers..people may not be familiar with youtubers that have also sprouted who have made efforts in changing our perception of gender and may I so boldly say..ARE responsible for moving the non-binary movement forward. These people would have to include Fox & Owl, Riley J. Dennis, Chandler N Wilson, Kat Blaque, Ash Hardell, and Ashley Wylde. In a sea of; social justice warriors, antifa, right wingers, centrists, and post-humanists...all strive for a platform that supports freedom of speech crossing the line into hate speech these days seems like everyones fear.
To be critiqued.
Are you more likely to criticize someone you do know or someone you don’t know?
If you grew up in Canada or American I would imagine your answer would be don’t know (how could you hurt someone you love?), that’s because society here isn’t like a chinese confucius mentality where happiness is not defined by what the individual wants but more so what the family wants. Do what makes the family happy so that in turn will make you happy.
DON’T DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY?!?!
I come from a culture where constructively and sometimes not constructively criticizing your family is a sign of love, support, and a betterment for self improvement. So being born Canadian but also in a Chinese family has possibly conditioned me think of criticism as valuable and compliment as unproductive.
The war between accepting the people you love or criticizing the people you love.
Hollywoods invention and perpetuation in having #FANS and #HATER teleology...clearly that fear has turned into sweat that has leaked into assholes of queer and non-queer a like among the youtube dimension of existences.
The disappointment I have in others inability to think critically, and #takeitlightly makes me feel as if youth are being forced into particular finite states of mind. Forcing us to choose the good versus bad, to like or dislike, or a spectrum philosophy where the universe seems to me measures simply between 0-10. Of course it would be ridiculous to expect youth who are continuously stigmatized into the unknowing and ignorant to cite and reference every point they make in a youtube video in order to support their argument.
Travesty is defined today as a false representation of something but historically Travesty comes from the two Italian words Trans (meaning across) and Vestaire (meaning cloth) which make Travestire in Italian and Travestir in French. Travesti in French was used as word to describe disguised, and Travesty was a word used in 17th century to describe someone who was dressed to appear ridiculous.
Yes, the word was once used as a derogatory term for transgender individuals.
My critique is specific though, because I have to add I am not a #HATER I am simply a designer or an observer at best who looks at how passive images and clothing have influenced society. There is always value in looking at anecdotal evidence.
Anecdotal evidence is evidence based on personal account where Empirical evidence is concerned with verifiable evidence by observation rather than theory.
I’ve always said that good work is defined by good research. Understanding, predicting, and approximating the outcome before production.
Gigi Gorgeous has been quoted as saying “I can only speak from my lived experience”, which is completely valid in her expulsion but by saying that she is inadvertently advocating to youth that people are..
entitled to their opinion.
You are not entitled to your opinion, you are entitled to your informed opinion. You are allowed to talk about facts, research, and history in a way that is respectful, constructive, and critical.
Informing yourself of where ideas and identities come from can be a challenge, and forming a set of beliefs is within itself problematic. But you might be wondering why I had singled out these three youtubers in particular, and I’ll tell you why.
Genderism or Gender Binarism is the social system or cultural belief that gender is binary. Male and Female. As fashion designer I see no issues with the aesthetic value of gender binary. In fact among relationships with people I can see gender binary as a useful sociological framework that can acts as a guide for two individuals. But in a post-gender society that struggles so deeply in #pronounrespect (The act of respecting not just others gender identity and gender expression but also the pronouns that person wish’s to be called whether that is ;he/him, she/her, they/them, zhe/zer) It becomes more than troublesome for the constitution of being transgender to be primarily justified through womanhood or worst..ones ability to be read as cisgender. (To pass)
It doesn’t matter how much one advocates for transgender and non-binary rights when your approach and only bullet used is an argument is identity politics.
I think therefore I am.
Of course..simultaneously this is for many of us an undeniable undetectable business, as escaping the grasp from capitalism seems almost impossible at this point. Is fame still a thing?
In 2013 the Liberty Voice came out with an article by Michael Smith entitled
“Studies Show That Children Just Want to Be Famous”
“This trend towards fame was first noticed in 2007. Yalda T. Uhls did a study with Dr. Patricia Greenfield at the UCLA campus of the Children’s Digital Media Center@LA, which was published in Cyberpsychology. The study found that in 2007, “fame was the number one value communicated to preteens on popular TV.”
I was 17 in 2007...and the only thing I was doing back then? Playing video games and making youtube videos.
The years of Natalie Tran’s CommunityChannel and Charlieissocoollike...those were the good old days.
It’s almost humorous that queer culture has become a breeding ground for the most socially conscious and mature individuals that at the same time all wish to be famous for doing nothing.
I’ve discussed in other articles about how the Kardashians have never been famous for doing nothing, they really famous for selling, marketing, and advertising fashion without you ever being aware of it.
Today? People aren’t watching TV, people...being millennials and generation z...just watch youtube. If it isn’t make up tutorials its gameplay walkthroughs, if its not that it’s prank videos.
A post-gender society is also made out of non-queer and non-identity individuals that might at first appear as the cis-heteronormative but in fact are simple cisgender individuals who’s behaviour may resemble western queerness but do not associate with the queer identities.
Behaviour doesn’t constitute identity..but that’s another article.
Recently I made a comment on Stef Sanjati’s videos named Men Who Date Trans Women where she discussed her “opinion” on dating cisgender-heterosexuals.
A cis male passing individual dating a trans woman doesn't make that male passing individual anything...because identify is based on what the individual consent's to or identifies as and not based on any construction of binary sexual and/or gender identify. The problem is that you continue to talk about transgender issues discussing it through an identitarian political and binary lens instead of a deconstruction of gender and humanism. Also, masculine and femininity sure are signifiers to the continued stigmatization of trans/cis relationships but once you realize that sexuality is just as much a social construction as gender THEN people start to realize it doesn't matter who you are attracted to. (Personally I think the difficulty lies more in the debate in sex versus gender and how humans constitute biology to be the root of stigmatization) Eventually you're going to realize that your entire channel has been devoted to validating trans woman as woman instead of recognizing that intellectually NO ONE needs to maintain gender/sexual binary in order to love and be loved. Instead you could start to discuss trans and non-binary issues through assemblages (Jasmin Puar) and learn to discuss queer theory and trans studies as individual assembled experiences and not tropes. An example of this is discussing multiple gender identities that exist and how all these different identities or definitions serve different functions for the next generation. Entropy if you will. There isn't anything wrong with you defining trans woman as woman (as I am a feminine/trans/woman passing individual) but if you continue down this road of binary tropes...you'll soon be as outdated as the rest of the millennials.
This criticism of binary trans people on youtube is not rooted in appearance or identity...but rooted in behaviour. Advocacy. If Advocacy is defined by the “public” behaviour and support of a particular cause then doesn’t the “public” also have a right to critique the behaviour or the advocate?
The most valuable contribution that all of these youtubers whether they fall under the transgender umbrella or non-binary outskirts is Peer-To-Peer Education.
Queer Youth Studies within the Sexual Diversity Studies institution at the University Of Toronto has discussed..education as more than being understood through a conventional education at an institution.
Quoting an essay I wrote entitled “Explaining Non-Binary Pedagogy Through Queer Youth Education"
(De Castell 2004) shows how there are possible reasons why queer youth may find certain ways of learning to me more ideal than others. Discussed in class Formal education emulates a particular structure and curriculum formulated for a classroom setting, Informal education are ways of passing learning through media such as television, art, and anecdotal experiences, and Non-Formal education is neither Formal or In-formal because of it’s semi-structured setting such as a community support group.
The Canadian Broadcasting Company..CBC, did a recent article called “Transgender patients face health-care discrimination, inadequate treatment” where they brought to light a very common issue within Canada’s Health Care System where doctors and nurses and front line workers have not been trained properly in order to serve and treat transgender and non binary patients appropriately. This explains exactly the phenomenon, function and importance of the transgender and non-binary youtube community seeking knowledge from each other directly in matters of Hormone Replacement Therapy.
But when health and transitioning education leaks into celebrity and fashion culture the distortion becomes not just confusing but embarrassing. This embarrassment becomes a cloud that creates false attitudes, biased information, and extremist behaviour that rains what I would call a false representation of transgender and non-binary AND binary individuals.
This false representation is a travesty, and I see a post-gender future where criticism is more than welcomed, it is encouraged in order to improve the well being of ourselves and our ignorances.
Travesty as defined as false representation makes us question whether it is even possible for a transgender or non-binary advocate to exist; as representation implies acting on the behalf of others. Therefore, this oxymoron could be the invisible resentment we have towards the act of publicly, superficially, or functionally transitioning on youtube while at the same time seeing value in the showing others true representation.
What is authentic Peer-To-Peer Education? What is authenticity?