Friday, January 08, 2010

Not Just Amanda Simpson

From the "there goes the MTF end of things sucking all the air out of the room again" division: in fact there were two trans people appointed by the Obama administration in late November.

The difficulty arose because Simpson is a former NCTE Board member, & so they sent out a press release noting their former board member's new job, which is what caused all the hullabaloo.

2 comments:

helen_boyd said...

I just wanted to clarify, as I've been taken to task for laying the blame on Simpson herself, that I was NOT blaming her, or even NCTE, for "sucking all the air out of the room."

The attention being paid Simpson is a result of people's prurient bullshit - as demonstrated by that "joke" on Letterman - a la Julia Serano's critiques of the way trans women are portrayed in media.

Much more to say, but for now, just wanted to be clear.

Gina said...

Agree. It's not just about who was first. I genuinely think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Amanda Simpson is a transwoman and Dylan Orr isn't. Diego Sanchez is a high level ftm congressional aide and I've heard virtually nothing about him. The "jokes" for transmen aren't as hee-larious or as entrenched as they are for transwomen and... ultimately, transwomen are considered more transgressive by our society.