fyqueerlatinxs:

ultragraphique:

From photographer Nicola Okin Frioli’s portrait series entitled We Are Princess in a Land of Machos: “They drink beer, they are part of the government, and they are a symbol of good luck for their family: They are Muxhés – homosexuals third-gender trans women of the pueblo Oaxacaqueno de Juchitan, Mexico – more than 3000 homosexuals trans women who enjoy respect and admiration in all the country. Las Muxhés (a Zapotec language means homosexual word that comes from the Spanish word for woman ‘mujer’) are considered a blessing to their families. It is luck for a homosexual muxhé to be born in Juchitan, where in a population of 160,000 they walk proudly in the streets, dressed as women with huipiles and enaguas, typical dress of the Tehuantepec Isthmus. A resident of Juchitan says ‘A lady living here has a son daughter Muxes, and then she has winned won the lottery, it is a real blessing. Everybody should accept them as they are, in every place they are.’ Says Felina, a 36-year-old Muxhé and owner of a beauty salon: ‘A lot of us are this way because our parents converted us and treated us as a female. I’m not a man. I’m not a woman… I’m a Muxes and there is a place for everybody in the Vineyard of the Lord.” Read more about the Muxes of Oaxaca and see all the pictures here.

Fixed. The muxhés of Oaxaca are not gay men, much less homosexuals. They are third-gender transfeminine folk that would more accurately be described as trans women.

fuckyeahintersex:

Intersex activist Del LaGrace Volcano asks people what they think makes them men or women.

Del is a really awesome person and I’m glad to have connected to a person such as Del who is willing to go out and create a video like this.

amydentata:

Expanded from a comment I wrote on an article by Megan Evans (Huffington Post):

Not all queer women are invisible because of femme presentation. The issue is more complicated among trans women. Some trans women are singled out for violence by the straight world and the cis world because of femme presentation. For some trans women, being femme is what makes them visible. There is another group of trans women who are occasionally read as cis, and other times read as trans. Their invisibility is temporary and random. And some trans women are regularly read as cisgender. 

When femme trans women are read as cis, they are doubly invisible until bureaucratic paper trails or honest talks about personal history are used against them. When their queerness is revealed, the outcome is different than when just revealing trans status.

If I am read as trans among queer people, not only is my queerness questioned, but my femme-ness is questioned as well. My body is coded as “male”. I’m written off as “androgynous” unless I go over-the-top in my femininity. Even then, I am granted a segregated version of “femme”, banned from the hallowed halls of cis presentation, written off as a cheap imitation or an amusing oddity.

When I’m read as cis, none of this happens. My experience becomes that of the cis “femme invisibility” narrative. But I mentally start the countdown clock to when something comes up in conversation revealing my trans status. At which point cis people immediately change how they react to my presence. I’m invisible no longer, and in their eyes, femme no longer.

My dating issues aren’t just about being invisible to other queer women. I am also denied my womanhood. Instead of being overlooked like I don’t belong, some lesbians make the case that I literally don’t belong at all. I’m not just an outlier, I’m an impostor.

This varies from person to person, and trans status isn’t the only thing that affects how femmes are read by others. I’m disabled, and this changes how others perceive my femme-ness as well.

What intersections have you encountered between femme identity and trans status? What else affects how you, as a femme, are read by others?

things that needed to be said.

merocrush:

“SW1TCH 4” - Now Available! (click on the cover for info and a preview!)

What is life like for the transgender community in the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia? In this eye-opening documentary, shot in the scenic coastal region of South Sulawesi, we follow the lives of four waria (from the words wanita, meaning woman, and pria, meaning man): female in outward appearance, but actually biological men who believe they were born with a woman’s soul, and who are not interested in a sex change because of Islam’s teachings.

TALES OF THE WARIA interweaves the stories of these waria, who encounter unique obstacles in their search for love. Suharni’s seemingly perfect relationship with her boyfriend is tested when she leaves town to find work. Mami Ria, a waria elder, struggles to revive her 18-year relationship with a police officer. Former waria Firman leads a quiet life with his wife and two kids, but still dreams of the past when he had long hair and danced with men. Guiding us through these stories is Tiara, a glamorous entertainer who secretly harbors her own heartache. What happens in the complex lives of these four brave individuals? Can they realize their dreams for a future with their male partners? Taking us to nightclubs, salons, and into the characters’ homes and hearts, this compelling documentary insightfully expands our knowledge of topics rarely discussed in depth in Western media: Indonesia, Islamic culture, and the daily life and struggles of transgender communities around the world.

http://www.facebook.com/thewaria

site for trailer etc. http://www.thewaria.com. 

this project seems really together re: the networks producer Kathy Huang got together for local collaboration, representation and just technical quality.

ETA: which just seemed comment worthy since more docos are being made now about non-binary gender cultures, but they’re often still very DIY, no budget and ‘the west representing the rest’. this seems more professional, is what i’m saying.

Third Gender Soccer Star Leads Samoa to Victory

Laurie and Debbie say: Jonny “Jayieh” Saelua was just named “Man of the Match” for his goal assist and 90th minute goal-line clearance which helped lead Samoa to its first victory in 30 consecutive games, and in a World Cup qualifying match at that.

The “Man of the Match” is transgender; more specifically, she is fa’afafine: According to 30-year-old Alex Su’a, who heads the Samoa Fa’afafine Society, there are 1,500 fa’afafine in Samoa and American Samoa. “To be fa’afafine you have to be Samoan, born a man, feel you are a woman, be sexually attracted to males and, importantly, proud to be called and labeled fa’afafine,” Su’a said. “The fa’afafine are culturally accepted,” he said. “They have a role in Samoan society. They are the caretakers of the elders because their brothers and sisters get married, but the fa’afafine traditionally don’t.”

“I just go out and play soccer as a soccer player,” Saelua said. “Not as transgender, not as a boy and not as a girl. Just as a soccer player.” When gender issues arise in sports, they are usually contentious and regressive: a person competing as a woman is either accused of “actually being a man” or “being too masculine to really be a woman.”Being “masculine” is equated with being stronger, more powerful, and more skilled. Saelua’s team’s acceptance of her identity shows us another way. American Samoa’s goalkeeper Nicky Salapu says of Saelua, “He’s like a brother to us and he’s like a sister to us.” Saelua and her teammates are modeling something much of the rest of the world is not familiar with: ease and acceptance of gender identifications and presentations that aren’t binary.

Like the Native American and First Nations concept of “two-spirit” people, the Samoan concept of fa’afine opens up some badly-needed space between the rigid genders of the binary system.

via Body Impolitic - Blog Archive - » Third Gender Soccer Star Leads Samoa to Victory - Laurie Toby Edison: Photographer

necessary note re: non-binary naming

fa’afafine isn’t really an interchangable term with transgender. Yes, many fa’afafine people use western LGBTI terms or identities as well, if relevant to them, especially in western cities with existing large LGBTI scences. But: please don’t default use trans* terminology and naming for fa’afafine people - unless the individual chooses to use both. It could be very misleading about the individual, and it centers western colinizer understandings of gender over existing, regionally distinct ones anyway.

Prof. Dorothy Roberts on “Race and the Biotech Agenda” (Pt. 1) (by geneticsandsociety

Transcript: Perhaps the greatest danger, posed by the biotech agenda is it’s power to intensify racial injustice in America. Not only are human biotechnologies employed within a racist social order, but they’re already reinforcing the myth that race is a genetic trait and impeding efforts to tackle the social causes of racial inequality.

Remember, justifying racial inequities in biological terms - rather than in terms of white political privilege - has profoundly shaped science in America for three centuries, beginning with the scientific defence of slavery. This basic explanation of racial difference rooted in biology rather than in power still operates today, in fact it’s making a spectacular comeback, and it threatens to shape every aspect of the biotech, technological, future.

I want to focus on two examples of how racism operates within the biotech agenda in ways that are antithetical to progressive and feminist values, and that’s repro-genetic technologies and race based pharmaceuticals.

Reproductive technologies like invitro-fertilization now come along with new advances like pre-implantation diagnosis and sperm sorting that allows for sex selection.

So they now assist people not only to have children who are genetically related to them – that was always the purpose of invitro-fertilization – but now also children who are genetically advantaged.

Repro-genetics intensifies a dual system of reproduction in which primarily privileged whites benefit from technologies enabling them to have children, while -  and the children that they want – while minority and immigrant women are the primary subjects of welfare reform and other measures aimed at limiting their childbearing.

The public begrudges welfare mothers a meager increase benefits for one more child, but celebrates the birth of high tech sextuplets that require a fortune in publicly funded hospital care.

Ignoring the USA-centrism of the opening line, for Roberts otherwise awesomesauce analysis of the ethics of choosing which families shall be reproduced via costly biotech interventions.

p.s. I only transcribed the first two minutes, whole thing is eightish minutes and well worth it.

inneroptics:

The photograph shown here shows Falleni in male clothing, probably on the day of her arrest. The negative was found in a paper sleeve inscribed “Falleni Man/Woman.” It is also possible that Falleni was made to dress in a man’s suit for the photograph.

Another way in which I’m a bit of a femme minority is that I’m Indigenous. I’m a member of the Wiradjuri nation, which is the largest tribal area in NSW. Indigenous femmes and other femmes of colour exist, although we don’t seem to be that common. Femme is largely perceived as a white identity, and if you ask your average queer to picture a femme, I’m fairly certain that the image they’d conjure would be white.

Femmes of colour often have to fight doubly hard to have our identities recognised, as one of the racist tropes women of colour face is the denial of our femininity. Women and femmes of colour are stereotyped as being masculine and unfeminine, and often portrayed as being unattractive as a result. As someone who is read as white, this is not something I have experienced a great deal of, but it’s definitely something experienced by my darker skinned sisters.

I have experienced a general ignorance about racial and Indigenous issue in queer and femme communities, and an expectation that anti-racist activism be considered secondary to feminist, anti-homophobic and anti-femmephobic activism, when queer femmes of colour often experience our identities to be one holistic piece. It is an impossible request for a femme of colour to separate her experiences as a person of colour from her experiences as a femme or her experiences as a queer, and it is unreasonable to ask us to prioritise racism last simply because it is not something that affects white femmes.

Significantly, this attitude promotes the idea that femme is an identity that cannot co-exist with an identity of colour, that one must choose between being a person of colour and being a femme, or that being femme is a “white thing”. This drives femmes of colour away from femme community, from femme organisations, and possibly away from femme itself as an identity and a self-label.

If femme communities and organisations are to acknowledge and embrace the diversity that exists amongst femmes, we must make an effort to be deliberately inclusive, to work to have femme viewed as something other than a white identity, and to acknowledge that working against racism should be something done by everyone.

rachelstewartjewelry:

Here’s more information on the Yimpininni women of Australia: 

•Sistergirls don’t like to be referred to as “gays”. They prefer the term “women”. They also reject a lot of the myths about them, both from the mainstream and from Indigenous society. Firstly, they reject the claim that they are “unnatural”. A Sistergirl is born, not made. It is clear by the age of two or three if a person has been born this way, and when they get to the age of six, parents give them to older sistergirls to look after because they’re in that special category. 

•Sistergirls are distinct from the wider homosexual community, as they have their own internal law. They have their own customs, rituals, rules and leadership, and as such are a separate cultural group rather than part of an undifferentiated “gay” category defined by broad definitions of lifestyle or sexuality choices. 

•Sistergirls reject early anthropological studies of Tiwi society, which omitted their identity from the texts. Transgenderism has been a part of Tiwi custom since time out of mind, but in the old days the Sistergirls were called “Yimpininni”, and were honoured, rather than subjected to the rape, violence and marginalisation that came with western colonialism. These horrors continue to plague them, and are only increasing with each year that passes.