From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/calpernia-addams/parker-marie-molloy_b_5077322.html
Calpernia Addams
04/02/2014
A few weeks ago newcomer to transition and lesbian/trans issues Parker Marie Molloy purposefully misgendered me and called into question my identity as female in an op-ed piece for Advocate.com by calling me a “drag queen” and saying that I “[refer] to [myself] as ‘a transsexual.’” Apparently she’s expressed similar sentiments about Carmen Carrera and others. I was freshly returned from speaking at Oxford University and recording my acoustic LP in London, so I filed the incident under “See If This Still Matters to You in a Few Days” and resumed my busy life here in Los Angeles.
I wasn’t sure who Molloy was, but I assumed that she was another one of the nutty trans hacktivists who had been “triggered” by the buzz generated when Jared Leto thanked me in his Oscars acceptance speech. A small but vocal handful of new transitioners are particularly horrified by my love for the gay community and my willingness to cooperate toward shared goals rather than demand and grab what I want. All these angry, attacking women seem to share certain telling characteristics. Perhaps conditioned to bully and take by a lifetime of white, heterosexual, male privilege in academia and business, these women seem to relish the co-opting of yet another source of power: Often in only a year or two, they drop the mantle of white, straight, male privilege, having wrung every benefit that a 20- to 30-year-old person can from it, and take up the currently unassailable position of being a queer female with all the zeal of a new conqueror. What’s the thing they rail against when not decrying other trans people? “Cis-het privilege”?
Molloy’s original Advocate.com passage misgendering and slurring me. After a few emails from me, Advocate.com did edit the transphobic slurs without comment or apology, and the piece was scrubbed from online archives. After another email, they added a notation that the slurs were removed. After more emails, they added that The Advocate “regrets the error.” Whew!
Now, I’ve known plenty of people who were able to live successfully integrated into heteronormative culture as someone of the gender they were assigned at birth, and who then went on to become strong voices for the trans community and the LGBT community at large after joining us. And I don’t discount anyone’s identity as female here, regardless of their privilege or behavior. I won’t fall into the trap of Oppression Olympics, trying to “win” by discounting another person’s struggle in favor of my own.
Those who reject the mantle of male privilege in order to join our community are to be applauded. Most who transition later in life sacrifice almost everything they’ve built to join us. But at any age, those who just use the gains and habits of this privilege to step in as word police and identity police should be called on it.
Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/calpernia-addams/parker-marie-molloy_b_5077322.html
