I am a working class black playwright and theatre director. I fully support trans rights and have deep sympathy for people who suffer the pain of gender dysphoria. However, it is to me absolutely undeniable that the trans rights movement is completely phallocentric and gynophobic, hypocritical in the double standards of how transwomen and transmen are treated, and aimed at boosting anyone with a penis and oppressing anyone with a vagina.
I have been working as a playwright and director for more than ten years, slowly worked my way up the ladder inch by inch. Have had countless award-winning fringe productions, won awards, slowly progressed to landing studio commissions. Gender parity in theatre is abysmal and few women and almost no black women ever get programmed for main stage spaces. I know several white 'assigned male at birth' playwrights who pursued playwriting for years without ever getting a single play produced. A couple of them have since transitioned from male to female and BOOM the second they announce that they now identify as female, they are instantly showered with attention and opportunities purely and solely for being trans. A peer who has not had a single play produced in ten years of trying was chosen to be keynote speaker for an event for female playwrights, over many ciswomen with far more experience. A ciswoman who'd not yet had their first job would never under any circumstances even be considered for this particular honor. Just last week I saw a tweet from an aspiring actor who presents in a stereotypical male way, announcing they were actually a woman and going forward would start identifying as female, and btw. could anyone help them pursue their goal of becoming an actor. Their tweet had hundreds of replies some from influential industry figures offering meetings, saying "I want to help you any way I can", saying "pop in for coffee as soon as we're allowed" or even straight-up offering jobs and auditions. Some of those tweets were from casting directors and directors who never audition black actors unless the role specifies black-only, who certainly would never invite a black ciswoman for a coffee and a chat, but they're willing to offer a job or an audition to someone they've never met who's never acted before, just because they tweet "I'm trans give me stuff."
I do know transwomen who are talented and hard working actors and playwrights who have earned their success fair and square, I have nothing but respect for them. So I'm not saying transwomen only succeed because they are trans. But I've witnessed a lot of extremely entitled and grabby behaviour from self-declared "transwomen" (who mostly have not transitioned, aren't pursuing hormone therapy, still present in a macho/masculine way, only want to play male acting roles, and don't appear to have actually done anything except change their pronouns in their Twitter bio) and literally demand special privileges just because they identify as trans, and this behavior is applauded and rewarded. A ciswoman behaving in this way would be blacklisted and labeled 'difficult'.
I have a number of transmale peers and they are completely ignored and shunned and treated like they don't exist. So it's clearly nothing to do with supporting trans people, and everything to do with exploiting trans rights to enable penised people to further dominate and oppress vagina'd people.
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