In support of Chelsea Poe's call to stop using stigmatizing language in porn

Recently Chelsea Poe wrote a call to stop using the term 'shemale' and other slurs against transwomen in porn. She touched on many reasons to do this, but one reminded me of something that still hurts today. Many people can choose to ignore porn or not look at it critically, but as she says,

"For trans people, we don't have that same disconnect from porn.

For most of us it's our first exposure to what trans-ness is. The terms that accompany our first exposure to trans women’s bodies are terms like “Shemale,” “Tranny” or “TS,” terms to pointedly shame those who have these bodies and those who are attracted to these bodies."

The language and stereotyping portrayals of trans women in porn made it impossible for me to truly relate when I was first questioning my gender in my early teens. The dehumanizing nature of these portrayals made trans women a taboo, a secret shame. There was something so important about seeing them, but I could never let myself relate. How could I be like these women when they were portrayed as not being women or men, but exotic creatures that existed only for male lust (because they did not portray Lesbian trans women like myself, that's for sure)?

The idea that trans women were 'traps', out to trick men into having sex relies on the trope of trans people as being deceptive, implying we are not genuinely the gender we identify as. How could my adolescent thoughts understand transition when the only way it was presented to me (in porn) was as some kind of tricky, a falseness. How could I ever transition? All there ever was was boob-jobs and anal or oral sex with men. That didn't into what I wanted for myself. I could never be them. And even if I could, why try when that's the only possibility for a life as a trans woman that was presented to me? And so it grew into a secret shame, instead of a path to transition.

A decade and a half passed before I let myself revisit those feelings. This time I had learned that trans people are like anyone else. Finally I could understand myself in the context of womanhood. With the advent of cam shows (live video broadcasts by porn model), trans women were granted a greater degree of autonomy of their self-expression. While it was still often problematic (between how websites categorized us and how some of us retransmitted the tropes we had learned), some of it served as that gateway of rehumanization. For the first time transition became a relatable thing, something I could do. Living as a trans lesbian became something I could do. Reading and learning more? Became something I had to do.

And so I began transitioning. It has been both the hardest and most rewarding thing in my life. But I can't help but wonder - if my first exposure to trans women had been more positive, maybe I would have waited so long. Those are years I regret losing, the secret shame of my feelings about myself something I never should have had to bear.

And even now, I have seen another shame that comes from this. Because of the fetishization of trans women, trans women who are attracted to trans women of feel some shame. Many of us were those silent yearners, looking for a mirror in porn. When we learned about fetishizers (often what we call chasers, people who tend to pursue trans women solely, often spouting cliches and stereotypes at us, but also often paying the bills when we go on cam or do a porn shoot), some of us felt like we were implicated as well, even though our motivations and interests are different.

So please read Chelsea's post (linked to above) and sign her petition (linked to here). It could change the life of a young woman for the better. And given the rate of suicide trans people endure, it might even save some lives.