on the co-opting of our voices
December 6, 2012
| So. This article about CSI and its continued shitty portrayals of trans women, by GLAAD ass. direct Nick Adams, [OP ED How the TV Show CSI is Screwing Us Again | Advocate.com](http://www.advocate.com//commentary/2012/12/02/op-ed-how-tv-show-csi-screwing-us-again), delivers some fairly good info and whatever. |
However, I’m sure you noticed that headline. What the concluding sentence:
We ask CSI to use episodes like these as a model going forward, or if they can’t do that, just stop using transgender characters in the show. This type of visibility, transgender people don’t need. In fact, it’s killing us.
Being a deeply curious sort, I tried to find a pic or some info about this person. I also don’t want to make too many assumptions about who they are…
But. The overall tone of the article leads me to believe, at the very least, that Nick Adams is not a trans woman. So…
Who the fuck is ‘us’ re: “it’s killing us”? I’d really like to know. Because unless you are a trans feminine person, it is unlikely that CSI’s generally disgusting and dehumanizing portrayal of trans women is killing you. Or contributing danger to your life in any meaningful way.
I guess what really clues me into just how this isn't written by someone actually part of the community:
The timing of the current episode is particularly insulting as it occurs one week after the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the (at least) 72 transgender people murdered over the past 12 months: 16 killed in the United States and the 56 killed elsewhere in the world.
It is true as fuck that the number is higher because, in reality, the *reported* deaths number around 256. But why bother doing your actual research when you can just, idk, co-opt our oppression and stand on our bodies.
Because, I would really like to know how speaking for us (instead of us) on an issue many of us have already discussed a bajillion times (CSI is notoriously bad for this, and only now I’m seeing something from GLAAD?).
Just so we are clear: this isn’t helping. At all. Not even a little. Because co-opting the actual suffering and oppression of trans feminine people is also killing us.
So. Fuck you.