Attention "Anti-Bullying" Advocates: Gay Male Public Figures Misgendering Girls & Women Born With A Transsexual Medical Condition Is Also Bullying, So Please Stop!

Definition from www.BullyFree.com :


What Is Bullying?

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior that is intentional, hurtful, (physical and psychological), and/or threatening and persistent (repeated). There is an imbalance of strength (power and dominance).

The above definition includes the following criteria that will help you determine if a student is being bullied:

• The mistreatment must be intentional.
• The mistreatment must be hurtful (physical or psychological).
• The mistreatment is threatening. The individual fears harms. Fear their safety.
• The mistreatment must occur more than once. However, some disagree with this. They say one very hurtful event is enough to label it bullying.
• There must be a power imbalance.

I'm glad they included that bullying can also be psychological. Bullying is not just tripping someone and taking their lunch money, or slamming their head against the locker. Bullying in the form of words can be more harmful than violence, especially words which dehumanize.

Bullying many times comes from those who were bullied themselves.

One interesting fact is that there are some high profile gay men, such as  columnist Dan Savage or drag personality RuPaul, who though they are both quoted as referring to themselves as "anti-bullying advocates", many would argue that both men use their media outlets to bully people who are different than themselves, particularly women, and even more so women born with transsexualism.

Hell, Dan Savage has even successfully promoted his brand to that of  the King of anti-bullying gurus. Yet despite Savage's widespread 'It Gets Better Campaign' he has been exposed more times than one, or one hundred really, of bullying transsexual and transgender people. He's done so by ridiculing and misgendering them, using offensive pejoratives and then ignoring or dismissing their grievances when they express how his transphobia negatively affects them. Further, his claims that bisexuality doesn't exist harms the bisexual community. Savage writing rape apologist sentiments in his column alienates female sexual assault survivors and belittles the epidemic of unjust court trials concerning assault. And so on.

On Monday RuPaul once again said some transsexual-phobic comments on his reality show, but this time he has gone too far. The targets of RuPaul's bullying, girls and women with a transsexual medical history, have organized a boycott meant to counter his misgendering. Learn more about MAGNET's boycott in our write up: http://themagnetsource.blogspot.com/2012/10/magnet-boycotts-rupauls-ongoing.html

I don't think Dan Savage or RuPaul are bad men, but they are men, and they have no right pretending to be experts on the young girls and women in our community, or to mock and make sexist and transsexual-phobic comments about us.  Whatever these grown men's unresolved personal issues are, they shouldn't use the women in our community as a punching bag to deal with those issues, they should seek professional help if that's what they need.

If they want enlightened people to take their "anti-bullying" initiatives seriously they would do well to stop behaving like bullies them damn selves.