You know, the ignorance of Perez Hilton, some of my fellow African-American peeps and others on transgender issues shines through at times. Nowhere does it shine more brightly than with this bullshit in gossip blogs and elsewhere on the Net of calling cisgender women that you're either jealous of, are over 5' 7" or have some androgynous features transwomen as an insult.
For example, my fellow Texan Ciara Princess Harris (she was born in Austin, so she's a Texan even if she grew up in the ATL, peeps) has been getting much hateraid from some elements of the Black community who continue to call the singer and Wilhelmina Model a transwoman. The rumors got so crazy it was claimed that she was intersex and had made the transgender declaration on Oprah.
While there are many women who we Black transwomen would embrace with open arms if they did make such a declaration to the world, she's said she wasn't in a New York Daily News interview:R&B sensation Ciara just wants everyone to know: She's all woman. "You know what's funny? The rumor that I used to be a man," she told us at the launch party for Vibe Vixen magazine at Frederick's. "They said Oprah said that on her show," she laughed. "I've never been on Oprah in my life - we all know I have years before I go on Oprah, so come on!"
None of her boyfriends are complaining, and if they've gotten intimate with her, whatever genitalia they found between her legs is none of our business. As far as I'm concerned, Ciara's statement closes the book on this wacked discussion.
But I and many transwomen have a major problem with peeps ignorantly calling cisgender women 'trannies' to be insulting. If they're doing it to call these women 'ugly' or 'less feminine', maybe its because they have insecurities about their own gender identities, androgynous features they possess or they secretly want to date and have intimate relationships with transwomen. The other thing I get irritated about is that as if Black cisgender women didn't have enough historical baggage to deal with concerning the Eurocentric beauty standard they've struggled against for centuries, now they get whacked with this as well.
Too many times and far too often Black cisgender women get whacked with that 'tranny' tag. Besides, if you haters haven't noticed, some of my sisters can more than hold their own in the beauty department as well.
But enough nonsense. Stop calling cisgender women 'tranny' to insult them. You're only shining a spotlight on your Bushian level of ignorance on transgender issues when you do so.
