So about that NYT Opinion piece, you know which one I’m talking about. I went ahead and read it out of morbid curiosity and, well, I have some thoughts.
The author, Andrea Long Chu, is making a really good point... in a really, really bad way. For those of you who haven’t read it: her thesis boils down to “I have had bad experiences with transition, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have the right to do so.”
Which is an entirely fair thing to feel! Not every part of transition is pretty. When I first started hormones, any time my doctor changed my estrogen dose I was so nauseous that I could barely eat for weeks. But, like Andrea, I felt that this was worth it.
Here’s the catch: she’s making a good point in the worst way possible. @transscribe has tweeted already about the issues with the language used in the piece, she’s right: it’s really bad. “My Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy,” or “...my body will regard the vagina as a wound?” Come on.
Andrea Long Chu is a wonderful writer. I’ve read some of her essays before, she has truly good, complex takes on trans womanhood that should most likely only be read by *other trans people*, preferably trans academics. Why?
Because that’s the kind of writing she does. It’s the kind of thing that makes wonderful, heartbreaking sense to the people who understand what she’s saying, and makes everyone else think the exact wrong thing.
The thesis of that article struck home for me by the end of it... and yet I know that it’s going to be pulled out and waved in my face by some jackass (I won’t say right-wing because liberals are just as guilty) who doesn’t think I should get to decide what to do with my body.
IN SUMMARY: Andrea Long Chu is a great writer who has good things to say about trans womanhood, and she found exactly the wrong place and means to express these thoughts.
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