My Vlog, the National Post and more

I've been getting a lot of responses to the vlog post (though interesting none as youtube comments) that I made about cis people talking for trans people. There has been many events over the past month starting from Ottawa Pride where I have gotten angry about the coopting of trans experiences and needs by cis people. It should be important to understand that not all of the situations that have recently experienced can I talk about. If you haven't seen the video here it is:
One thing that I have found is that cis straight people whom have seen it are some of the most supportive even when they do not understand the concepts. As such there have been some requests for me to make a trans 101 video which I may do. Where I have encountered the most resistence is among cis queers who rarely disagree wholeheartedly, but tend to try to excuse others problematic or outright discriminatory actions.

The day after I posted my video however, a large controversy occurred surrounding the publishing of a transphobic ad in the National Post. The ad which shows a young child says to stop teaching her to question whether she is a, "...boy, transexual, transgendered, intersexed or two-spirted." Understandably, a lot of anger went towards the National Post by queer people and a coalition of queer-serving organizations led by the 519 Community Centre, EGALE and, the Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youthline sent a letter condemning the ad. The National Post since wrote an official apology and stated that the money recieved for the ad would go to a queer charity. The apology has since been edited multiple times as in the original they claimed the issue was surrounding sexuality when it was directed towards gender and stated that one's sexuality was a choice, which provoked continued condemation of the paper.

Yet, in all this condemnation of the National Post cis gay activists did exactly what I complained about in my video. In many cases - though not all, some acted in amazing solidarity which I thank them for - they made the ad about homophobia and anti-gay issues when it very much targets trans, intersex and two-spirt people. One example of this is Gawker.com whom made a post along those lines and, made matters worse by using transgender as the umbrella term when many trans, intersex and two-spirit people definately do not identify with that term. I made a comment critiquing them, but they have not approved it in over 12 hours. Cis queers really need to learn solidarity activism when transphobia occurs instead of either trying to speak for trans people or coopt our struggles for in particular cis gay and lesbian agendas.