By Esther Tung
“Please read this on the man you’re about to go and listen to,” said a young woman, as she held out a bright pink pamphlet with Dan Savage’s face Xeroxed on the front, and then moved onto the next person in line to enter the Vogue. The pamphlet detailed the Savage Love sex columnist’s various phobias, denounced his attitudes towards transgendered, disabled, HIV-positive, and fat people, among others, and also contained a sachet of potent glitter. The claims themselves didn’t seem outlandish, though I still took it with a pinch of salt, since I certainly found it hard to believe he was transphobic, having featured the likes of Buck Angel on his Savage Love podcast.
It was a few days later that I read in Xtra West that these people were behind the third glitterbombing of Dan Savage. One particular protestor, who dubs herself the Lavender Menace, said this: “[Savage] is part of a broader [group] of gay, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied gay men focused on gay-marriage priorities. We want to say those priorities are messed up.”
I want to say this opinion of hers is messed up, unless it’s somehow been taken wildly out of context, but since it’s Xtra West, of all publications, I’m sure they know better than to do that.
Dear Lavender Menace: how are a gay man’s priorities out of whack when he chooses to advocate for the issue of gay marriage? Same-sex marriage is not a right that only a geographically privileged bunch are allowed.
What is even more disturbing about this quote, however, is how Miss Menace can use the terms “cis-gendered”, “able-bodied”, and even “gay” pejoratively, as if having his gender identity line up with his biological sex is grounds enough for suspicion that he can well be ‘the enemy’.
Parallel to this is when feminists use ‘straight, white male’ as grounds for dismissing someone’s argument, or when people express their solidarity with the ‘voluptuous’, fuller-figured women by way of skinny-bashing, saying things like, “That cricket chick is probably just jealous that you have breasts.” This is just me taking a moment to be bitter about personal experiences, but if I have to hear a variation of “Real women have curves” one more time, I’m going to a shit a baby right into that person’s bathroom sink.
I am not the enemy of size- 14s. Dan Savage is not the enemy of transgendered people. In his talk, he addressed the claims of transphobia. He first notes that featuring adult filmmaker Buck Angel, and Kate Bornstein, on his podcast has allowed for a greater understanding of the transgendered perspective in the mainstream. He continues by saying that he, as well as other writers and bloggers, do tend to shy away from going too deeply into discussing trans issues, probably to avoid unpleasant confrontations with glitterbombs.
Creating horizontal hostility by attacking Dan Savage and handing out pamphlets to people who, by virtue of having already paid to see him, are going to be far less receptive to your cause anyway, just doesn’t seem like the best tactic, either way.
Trans activists have condemned Savage’s use of the term ‘shemale’, yet Savage claims that his own trans friends approve of it. What they see as insults, others see as accurate portrayal. Gender is complex and tricky, far more than the binary and our current language could ever hope to cover, but it’s clear that even those with a more sophisticated and personal understanding of it have trouble agreeing on the terminology as well.
