The mainstream is uncomfortable with the marginalized-but-not-most-marginalized status, is I suppose my point here, and I’m trying to poke at it and figure some stuff out.
Meli
Oh I thought of a third one i inhabit: How do I talk about being a disabled worker, or being a fatigue-addled disabled who is not housebound, or a disabled person rich enough to get my needs met. Am I taking away space from someone else if and when I discuss my experiences? If so, from whom?
Because let me tell you transmasc art makes my heart sing like nothing else and *it should not make me feel guilty* that this is so as if I’m personally oppressing others when this happens (but I don’t get these feelings when I go to a regular museum and see cis people’s art!!)
It is one thing to say “oppression is not hierarchical or binary, it is intersectional” and another to root out oppression Olympics from your brain, I guess.
Been thinking lately about balancing “always center the most marginalized” and “experiences similar to mine feed me deeply in ways I need”, about context and the personal vs the public and when and whether it’s okay to step away from “always the most marginalized first/centered”.
But I do also feel like this ends with an awkward “how do I be respectful of the more marginalized while also not erasing my own experiences”. Is there a place outside of Jewish circles where it’s okay to talk about Jewish feelings (meanwhile non Jewish white feelings are not centered but allowed)
Of course in activism we should center the most marginalized, or perhaps the most relevantly marginalized to the project. And in public projects we need to reflect the community, and it is a red flag at best when (eg) a general trans project is entirely transmasc.
Facing these as a transmasculine person and as a white Jew feel fundamentally different, or at least the conversations about centering Jewish experiences and centering transmasculine ones feel wildly divergent despite the wider culture agreeing on “don’t”.
