So this thing happened. This article. In the New Yorker. And I’d link to it, but I’m not going to. Instead, please allow me to link you to the criticism of it.

Here, at Bitch.

Here, at The Advocate.

And here, at Autostraddle.

Man. I’m trying to be more irate, but really–I can’t even muster it.

Let me break it down. The New Yorker just ran a piece about radical feminists refusing to recognize trans women as women. So I knew going into it I was gonna be some kind of annoyed. Also, I got the link from a friend, who needed me to read it so she could rant with someone about it.

Usually, I don’t engage stuff like this. I don’t read about kidnappings or people lighting puppies on fire. I read about war and conflict only in ways that do not graphically describe them. This isn’t because I’m afraid of explicit violence; it’s cause my brain supplies explicit violence to mundane things, like driving, and has no need for supplemental information.

I don’t read articles I know will enrage me because I’m a grown up, and one of the things I eventually realized is that I can’t always control how I’m exposed to horrible things, but sometimes I can. So I do.

But today I read this article. Because: The New Yorker. This wasn’t some crazy person rambling on a blog about how trans women don’t exist. It’s the New Yorker.

It’s a New Yorker piece largely parroting the words of people who think trans women don’t exist. Quoting books in which trans women are referred to as “he.” Quoting academics who believe being trans is an expression of a fetish (which to my mind indicates either a lack of understanding about fetishes, or a total absence of interactions with healthy transfolks).

You know who doesn’t really exist in this article? Me. I don’t exist. Trans men get a few passing throw-away mentions, but in no way have a stake in this game. Actually, I believe those of us on the gender-fluid side got a single mention, but it’s a good damn thing the world is made up entirely of white people, because if I, white, genderqueer me, barely exist in this bit of New Yorker, people of color don’t exist at all.

Nope.

Because the whole focus is “women” vs “men,” with genital arrangement determining the binary.

This is the part where I should be so fucking angry. I’m invisible! I don’t exist! And the philosophy here is so obvious that it’s almost embarrassing it’s in The New Yorker: anyone who ever had a dick has male privilege and therefore should never be allowed in female spaces. So obviously, no one who has a cunt and enters the world as male could be interviewed–that’d screw up the precious binary being upheld. Still less those of us who don’t factor at all, and don’t care.

I’m not angry. Not even a little. I’m just…bored.

I thought a lot about this as I played with my kid at the playground today. She turned three a few days ago and received not one, but two tool kits. And that pleased me, cause yeah, I’ve got this kid, who’ll probably end up being a cisgirl, a ciswoman, and she’s rocking out her hammers and her saws and her screwdrivers like a boss.

Will she ever, in her life, look at the Michigan Womyn’s Festival and think, I really want to go to that? Probably not so much. Have I ever, in a long life of breasts and ass and hips and blood ever wanted to go to an all-women event, to commune with other women over being women? No. And I thought that might be a function of my innate transliness, but I checked that shit with some friends, who were equally indifferent. (Some were, shall we say, strongly indifferent.)

I’m a feminist. I believe everyone should be a feminist. I’m pretty radical, too. I can be a bit extreme in my tastes. And when I’m right, so help you if you cross me.

But I don’t know. Refusing to honor people’s pronouns? Refusing to analyze the incredible heaping of privilege bestowed on people whose bodies reflect their inner workings in a way recognizable by people around them, from birth? Come the fuck on.

Most of all, man, I’m fucking tired of this bullshit game. Who has it worst? Who gets to bitch the loudest? Who has the best hashtag? Who has the most intense army behind them? Fuck that shit. Fuck all of it. Challenge people who have power. Challenge people who have sway.

But the endless bickering of splinter groups exhausts me. Most radical feminists? Go to work in the morning, eat lunch, maybe watch a TV show before bed. Most trans women? DO THE SAME FUCKING THING.

I’m done. I’m gonna get back to writing Home Free now. Which is–hey, that’s hilarious–a romance between a cis woman of color and a white trans man. Ha. Go, me. I have just defeated The New Yorker. End game.