News Trans character announced

[eschaton]

Asexuality is a form of queerness. Ace folks are hunted down in part because of their queerness. What your asking is no different than asking if a cishet-passing white trans woman is still queer. Someone might have cishet-passing privilege but they're also still queer.

Furthermore, aromantic people are also valid and a part of the queer community.

I'm not sure I'd agree that ace folks are "hunted down." Please provide a citation. There's always jokes about the "crazy cat lady" and the like - there's absolutely social stigma due to living a life of solitude. And it's damn hard for someone who feels no sexual desire to maintain a relationship with someone who wants to have a sexual aspect to the relationship. But beyond that?

Edit: To make it clear, I dated an ace-identifying woman when I was younger, so it's not like I have no experience with this community.

I mean, as an an analogy, are all poly people queer, even if they are cishet? They face some of the same issues regarding societal expectations as ace/aro people have. The world at large expects them to pair off, and most people who date expect an active sexual relationship with one person. Seems very similar.

What about people who have fetishes which aren't "vanilla" but are cishet? Are they queer? If you have a foot fetish, are into bondage, etc you will have a hard time sustaining a relationship with a "vanilla" person, and are probably the butt of jokes. Does any kink make you queer?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Lets remember that Shatner is part of a very persecuted minority, even if he is passing.

He's Canadian.

 

[JulieYBM]

I'm not sure I'd agree that ace folks are "hunted down." Please provide a citation. There's always jokes about the "crazy cat lady" and the like - there's absolutely social stigma due to living a life of solitude. And it's damn hard for someone who feels no sexual desire to maintain a relationship with someone who wants to have a sexual aspect to the relationship. But beyond that?

Edit: To make it clear, I dated an ace-identifying woman when I was younger, so it's not like I have no experience with this community.

I mean, as an an analogy, are all poly people queer, even if they are cishet? They face some of the same issues regarding societal expectations as ace/aro people have. The world at large expects them to pair off, and most people who date expect an active sexual relationship with one person. Seems very similar.

What about people who have fetishes which aren't "vanilla" but are cishet? Are they queer? If you have a foot fetish, are into bondage, etc you will have a hard time sustaining a relationship with a "vanilla" person, and are probably the butt of jokes. Does any kink make you queer?

'Hunted down" was a figure of speech. There's no literal Ace Murdering Squad.

Poly people, ace people and aro people all face stigmatization for not being cishet. One of my poly friends was extremely apprehensive about coming out to me as poly, for example, and only did so because she knew I was bi, trans and my partner at the time was talking about being poly.

Queer is both a self-identifier and a slur. If they don't identify their sexual-attraction to other people as queer that's up to them to deceive. I for one--pre-hatching and with a budding attraction to fictional contexts and characters--didn't know if I could consider myself queer but I've also ready text from psychologists that posit that fapping to a fictional character is queer. The point's moot for me now since I've realized I am bisexual and am therefore queer nevertheless. I would posit my attraction to the idea of getting enslaved and raped by orcs and elves certainly doesn't paint me as heteronormative, though.

 

[saladdays]

Karens refer to racist white women who use their 'white woman fragility' to intentionally get Black men murdered. Karens can go fuck themselves. If memory serves the term also comes from Black women, too. White people don't get to call 'Karen' childish because they aren't the ones being murdered by Karens' racism.

I won't necessarily disagree that's where the term originated from, but I think that term has at least started to be more broadly used to describe obnoxious middle-aged women in general. At least that's what I've seen around the internet nowadays.

Nobody uses the word 'Woke', it's a made-up nonsense word from conservatives to try and paint People of Color and queer people as ridiculous and wimpy. It's just propaganda nonsense.

Honestly, I don't see how that's true, based on POC I've seen using the term, and some of its African-American origins. That said, I can see how people at times hijack that word for their own use.

 

[JulieYBM]

I won't necessarily disagree that's where the term originated from, but I think that term has at least started to be more broadly used to describe obnoxious middle-aged women in general. At least that's what I've seen around the internet nowadays.



Honestly, I don't see how that's true, based on POC I've seen using the term, and some of its African-American origins. That said, I can see how people at times hijack that word for their own use.

'Karen' being synonymous with middle aged white woman using their whiteness and 'fragility' as women to harm People of Color is the point, though.

As for 'Woke', it's not like I'm an omnipotent supercomputer but I cannot think of a single person who has ever used the term sincerely that isn't being an idiot. Of course, among self-proclaimed democratic socialists you'll still see people who use the term pejoratively due to their idea that identity politics as co-opted by conservatives and [neo]liberals is somehow what identity politics is all about but alas that's what happens when you're a middle class cishet white person (I'm looking at you, Kyle Kulinsiki).

 

[saladdays]

'Karen' being synonymous with middle aged white woman using their whiteness and 'fragility' as women to harm People of Color is the point, though.

I understand that's the point you were making. I was just saying that no matter how the term originated, it seems as if that common vernacular has broadened that term.

As for 'Woke', it's not like I'm an omnipotent supercomputer but I cannot think of a single person who has ever used the term sincerely that isn't being an idiot. Of course, among self-proclaimed democratic socialists you'll still see people who use the term pejoratively due to their idea that identity politics as co-opted by conservatives and [neo]liberals is somehow what identity politics is all about but alas that's what happens when you're a middle class cishet white person (I'm looking at you, Kyle Kulinsiki).

The term "woke" has been around for a quite a while. I'll agree it's not really used as sincerely as it may have been years ago, but it certainly wasn't invented by the people who are now using it as a derogatory term.

 

[Awesome Possum]

A label is a slur if the person the label is being used on decides it is such.

And no, you don't get to decide that makes them a bigot, because you aren't the one that label is being used on.

Cishet is only a slur in the imaginations of bigots upset over nothing. And yes, as a trans person I get so say if someone is being transphobic or not because I have first hand experience with it on a daily basis for my entire life. It’s sort of makes you an expert.

 

[Guy Gardener]

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The new comedy landed today.

Although there's a scene in Dear White people where two of the Characters are trying to out woke the other like Banjo dueling hillbillies, and it's just so pretentious.

 

[Tenacity]

Kind of similar to how Latinx is increasingly used

I am Latin and this is the first time I've ever seen "Latinx."

 

[Guy Gardener]

I am Latin and this is the first time I've ever seen "Latinx."

I noticed that word at least two years ago, and I live in a different hemisphere.

 

[BillJ]

I am Latin and this is the first time I've ever seen "Latinx."

Been around for quite a while.

The term was first seen online around 2004. It has later been used in social media by activists, students, and academics who seek to advocate for individuals living on the borderlines of gender identity. The term became widespread in US universities by 2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx

 

[frankieteardrop]

Nobody uses the word 'Woke', it's a made-up nonsense word from conservatives to try and paint People of Color and queer people as ridiculous and wimpy. It's just propaganda nonsense.

Honestly, I don't see how that's true, based on POC I've seen using the term, and some of its African-American origins. That said, I can see how people at times hijack that word for their own use.

It definitely seems to have roots in African American vernacular English. Elijah C. Watson recently wrote a three-part series on the origins of "woke" for Okay Player. Part One focuses on Harlem author William Melvin Kelley, who is credited with originating the term in his 1962 NYT article, "If You're Woke You Dig It." Like a lot of other AAVE terms and phrases, it's been co-opted by the white mainstream.

 

[JulieYBM]

Well, there you go. PSA for why you should Google search shit.

 

[Mudd]

It definitely seems to have roots in African American vernacular English. Elijah C. Watson recently wrote a three-part series on the origins of "woke" for Okay Player. Part One focuses on Harlem author William Melvin Kelley, who is credited with originating the term in his 1962 NYT article, "If You're Woke You Dig It." Like a lot of other AAVE terms and phrases, it's been co-opted by the white mainstream.

Yeah, I'd been hearing it for a while before it became a Thing.

Hell, "politically correct" was a phrase used in a praiseworthy sense by Marxists when I was in school, before coming into more casual use among progressives in the 80s (there was a proofreader I worked with who jotted "not P.C." into galleys to indicate a necessity for revision) and finally coming around to being mostly used by right-wingers to generalize about and condemn what they paint as attempts to suppress free expression.

"VIrtue signaling" started out as a bit of jargon without any particular political dimension attached to it. In a general sense it describes what advertising companies do by putting running children and puppies into Prius ads.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It is privilege. Folks who have historically found that tagging people is useful to us, mainly for reasons of controlling them by marking them, intuit that being labeled is done for the benefit of the labeler rather than the labeled and resent it.

When a marginalized group of folks starts insisting on being tagged in a particular way it's part of asserting autonomy - "we choose our own labels now."

These are astute observations, and I suspect that what's rubbing some newly labeled people the wrong way is a feeling that they are being called abnormal now. The labels their forebears applied in the past to others while punching down on them had that function. A lot of people fear turnabout and fear they will be dealt violence of the kind their forebears inflicted on others. These new labels might seem to them like harbingers that cannot be allowed to stand.

IMO, it's not only an irrational fear, it's fear based on a false understanding. Being transgender is within the norm, but so is being cisgender. Being homosexual and being bisexual are within the norm, but so is being heterosexual. Being in the norm is not a zero-sum game. People who insist on excluding others from the norm might think so, but that doesn't make it true.

And let's be clear here. With billions of people around the world, even "only" millions of people matter. What transgender people want is acceptance for who they are. That's something that doesn't cost everybody else anything. A corollary of acceptance is participation, of course, and that's what we're talking about here in DISCO.

 

[Morgan Primus]

Ian Alexander is Gray, Trek's first trans character. And Blu del Barrio is Aria, the nonbinary character glimpsed in the trailer and leaked promo art.

Discuss.

who cares? look if i dont care if someone is gay, trans or both, but dont play professional victim politically?

 

[Jayson1]

I still think all words pretty much revolve around how they are used. Is someone labeling Shatner Cis in order to be descriptive or dismissive. If it's something used just so you can ignore what he says then you can see why someone would get upset with a label pulled out whenever they don't like what you say. On the other hand if your just having a general discussion on gender that is going pretty well then the word plays differently. In the basic academic sense in which it was created. It really comes down to I think respect. If two people are fighting and they don't like or respect each other than pretty much anything they say to each other can be implied as a insult.

If peaceful then people will either not get upset or even if they disagree they will at least not go to the place were they think someone is trying to insult them or dismiss them with it. They may in time even open up to a point where they don't mind it. You can't force people to feel what you want them to feel. People have to be able to come to some respectful understanding with each other before they will open up to new ideas presented to them. This is why purity tests are so destructive and counter productive to getting positive change in society. If you want change you got to make people want to change or else they dig in and frankly can even become worst over time.

Jason

 

[Locutus of Bored]

who cares? look if i dont care if someone is gay, trans or both, but dont play professional victim politically?

Knock it off.

And again, everyone, can we please try and keep the subject matter more directly related to Discovery and the introduction of the two new characters? I don't want to have to close the thread down but the characters and the show itself have barely been discussed.

 

[Morgan Primus]

Knock it off.

And again, everyone, can we please try and keep the subject matter more directly related to Discovery and the introduction of the two new characters? I don't want to have to close the thread down but the characters and the show itself have barely been discussed.

Since you asked nicely, yes

 

[eschaton]

These are astute observations, and I suspect that what's rubbing some newly labeled people the wrong way is a feeling that they are being called abnormal now. The labels their forebears applied in the past to others while punching down on them had that function. A lot of people fear turnabout and fear they will be dealt violence of the kind their forebears inflicted on others. These new labels might seem to them like harbingers that cannot be allowed to stand.

IMO, it's not only an irrational fear, it's fear based on a false understanding. Being transgender is within the norm, but so is being cisgender. Being homosexual and being bisexual are within the norm, but so is being heterosexual. Being in the norm is not a zero-sum game. People who insist on excluding others from the norm might think so, but that doesn't make it true.

And let's be clear here. With billions of people around the world, even "only" millions of people matter. What transgender people want is acceptance for who they are. That's something that doesn't cost everybody else anything. A corollary of acceptance is participation, of course, and that's what we're talking about here in DISCO.

Speaking personally, as someone who is a straight, white, cis guy, I never felt particularly privileged growing up. Like a lot of Star Trek fans, I was the fat dorky kid with no - or almost no - friends. When I got to be a teenager I became one of the "weird kids" who showcased my difference in my style of dress, only listening to obscure underground music, etc. And I became a vegan by age 17, and am still a vegan at age 41, meaning I've been part of a marginal minority of a sort my entire adult life. All of those things honestly felt more salient as parts of my identity than my whitness, maleness, or straightness.

But then again, that's what privilege is. It's the advantages you never even know you have, and you totally take for granted. You don't need to think about what it means to be white, or male, or straight, or cis, because all of that is taken to be the "default" - meaning it just blends into the background of life and you don't self-reflect unless you actually attempt to build real relationships with people different from yourself.

And indeed, I've never understood that brand of aggravated rage-nerd which thinks life is some sort of "pain Olympics" and that people different than themselves who have struggles in life in some way invalidate their own struggles. We are all human, we all feel pain, and we should all respect one another's feelings.