Hello underachievers!
So, quickly, before we get into the video,
I just want to remind you guys,
that my brand new song "LALALA" is out now,
if you want to watch the music video for that,
or if you want to stream it, the link for that is below.
And just some quick context for people that maybe don't know me
or haven't seen my videos before,
I am trans.
I feel like it'll be a bit weird if I wasn't and I was making this video,
but yeah, the video today...
Is about slurs.
And I, myself, have been called slurs in real life and online.
I've been hate crimed in real life and online.
That's something I've had to deal with as a trans person.
The video that we're reacting today is by Cut,
which is a channel that I watch quite a lot.
I think they have some pretty interesting videos.
Before we get into the bulk of this video,
I'm not here to make like, a moral statement or like,
rate if this video is okay or not.
It just, it's insane to me.
And I understand it was made,
but the video we're gonna be showing you today is...
This video by Cut,
where they get a bunch of trans people in front of a camera,
and they just call them the t-slur.
If you don't know what that is you can Google it,
I'm not gonna say it in the video,
because it's just gonna be bleeped out anyway,
but it sounds like "fanny", but with a "T" and an "R" in the front.
Okay, we got that?
My relationship with this word has been very interesting.
Initially, when I first came out, I was saying all the time.
I was saying "t-slur this, t-slur that,
"I just had a t-slur haircut,
"I'm wearing my t-slur hat,
"I'm wearing my t-slur socks".
Just because I was like, "look, you know I've hated
"this aspect of my life for so long
"and now that I'm able to come out and finally be happy,
"I'm just gonna embrace it!
"I'm gonna reclaim it, because people call me it anyway,
"and you know, I'd rather call myself a slur
"than have somebody else call me a slur in the aims of being mean".
Nowadays, I don't really tend to use it.
It kind of gives me the ick.
And nothing major has changed in my life to make me feel like that,
I just think, you know, I don't need to be saying slurs
around people that don't want to hear slurs.
But yeah, this video today...
I cannot tell you where I stand morally on the video,
I just thought it would be a fun video to react to on camera,
because I think I've seen it before,
but it's been out for seven years,
so I do not remember what anybody said.
And I'm sorry for so many disclaimers,
I do just want to say that Cut
has made some really good videos about trans people, you know?
They've been informational,
they've listened to trans people experiences,
so I'm not viewing this as like a horrible thing that a company has done,
it's just insane.
- [ ].
- I'm sorry...
I'm just thinking like, what did they, like--
How did they get people for this?
Did they just send out emails being like,
"hey, are you trans?
"Come for a video, we'll pay you for it.
"We'll give you a hundred dollars!
"We won't tell you what we're doing!"
Because, surely, to get the appropriate reaction that Cut want,
which is like, one of surprise and the immediate thought
that comes to somebody's mind when they're, you know,
called this word,
I feel like there's no way to set this up without, maybe,
some trans people being a bit like, "okay, so yeah, sure.
"You're paying me to be on video,
"but you're just paying to call me a slur on camera?"
I don't know,
I would love to hear from the people that are in this video.
I would love to know what the casting process was
and how much information people given.
I don't know, I mean--
If I was brought in to Cut and I was part of this video,
I would just laugh,
but I'm sure that there are a bunch of trans people
that are very triggered by that word, so--
Sorry, let's go.
"We asked transgender people to do word association on camera.
"These are their responses to [ ]".
- That's [ ] up.
- So hateful.
That word just seems so negative to me.
It's always been...
Whenever I've heard it,
it's always been used in such a negative way.
- Hate.
- I just like, what am I--
What like-- What do I take from this video?
I understand.
I understand the use of the video.
I guess you could say that this video could potentially be useful,
because it shows cis people the real impact of the use of this word on trans people,
and maybe if you call a trans person that word in real life
they wouldn't feel able to explain to you why you shouldn't call them that,
because I do know that it happens a lot,
which is surprising to me and I don't know how...
I don't know how people think this.
I know that a lot of cis people don't realize that that word is a slur
and that it's like, negative to say that to somebody.
I'm sure maybe these people just assume that it's just a shortening
of the word "transgender", so that it's not hurtful.
But it's the same of like calling a homosexual person a "homo", I guess.
It just feels different.
- You need to be educated and you need to think before you speak.
There's nothing shameful about being transgender
and trying to sexualize and demonize people for who they are.
It's a terrible thing to do with people.
- Yeah that's also an interesting thing and I didn't think about that
at any point in this video until now.
That word is incredibly sexualized.
I think a lot of the time it is mostly used against trans women.
I feel like that's the majority of the cases,
but that doesn't mean that trans men and non-binary people aren't called that slur.
But that is interesting, because like, if you go on any [ ] website,
there is a category with that slur,
or a variation of that slur,
or like "shemale", or anything like that.
And it definitely contributes to the sexualization of trans women,
but it also definitely must contribute to like,
this idea of "trans woman being predators",
because they think that being a trans woman is inherently sexual.
- Sad,
but when people use it in a derogatory way...
It just makes me really sad for them,
that they live in such a confined world.
They never have experienced the diversity of all of the people around them.
- That's also something I never thought about.
I don't relate to that,
I don't feel sad for people that call me slurs
or call other people slurs.
I guess it is obviously very sad
that people are raised to not be kind to other people
just because they're different to them,
that's obviously very sad,
but I never really thought about the experience of the person
being raised in an incredibly toxic environment full of bigotry,
because obviously, if you're raised to believe
that trans people are freaks,
it must be really confusing that like,
the world thinks you're a bad person for thinking trans people are freaks,
because like, that's all you know.
But I don't know, I don't really feel bad for them.
Like, yeah, boohoo,
you're raised to think trans people freaks,
but that has real consequences on real trans people.
And I literally just had this memory pop up just now,
that like, the first time I think I ever knew what a trans person was
or I experienced thinking about what trans people were,
was literally in my school.
We just came out of the girls bathroom
and a bunch of girls in my class were giggling
and I was like, "what's funny?"
And they're like, "there was a [ ] in there!"
And that was my first exposure to that word,
and my first exposure to like, trans people.
So I'm trans and the first time I heard anything trans related was the slur.
Like, that's insane, but that's like, incredibly [ ] up as well.
Like, so many people will grow up and have like,
absolutely no experience with trans people,
they'll never have met one
or they'll think that they've never met a trans person.
And so like, the only space that trans people hold in their head
is this word, because that's all they've heard.
- Slur...
Nothing good comes out of that one.
I think that's one of those words that was meant to be
sort of cute and nicknaming at first and then...
And then got really...
Offensive.
- I don't actually know if that's true.
Does anyone know where that word came from?
I mean, apparently it used to be...
I'll take this with a grain of salt, because this is what my dad told me
and I don't know what it was like back then,
but he was like, when he was growing up,
that word was used to refer to transvestites,
as in men that cross-dressed.
I think a lot of the time back in the day people would just "group"
queer people in the same category,
because they didn't understand at all, so like...
I would be in the same category as like,
a woman that enjoys dressing as a man,
or a man that enjoys dressing as a woman,
as well as being in a category of other trans people like me.
- Offensive.
- It's just a definition of someone who isn't born in the correct body.
- I don't-- Yeah, I understand...
I understand what you're saying,
but I would not say that the t-slur is a definition for--
Next!
- It's kind of main intention is to...
Is to other people...
And to make them appear less human to everyone else around.
And I wish we didn't have words for that, you know?
- Disgust.
I have a lot of feelings about this word,
as someone who's had it thrown in my face.
And pretty much all of them are very negative.
I am one person who will never use that word,
even to like...
I guess, take it back as my own or anything like that.
- I have no emotional attachment to it,
because it hasn't affected me.
- I suppose indifferent.
It depends on the context,
so just hearing the word [ ], it doesn't really affect me deeply.
- Yeah, I feel like my relationship with the world has changed over time, as I said.
I think, initially, I used it so much that I didn't view it as a negative thing.
Obviously, I wouldn't go around calling people that,
if they didn't want to be called it,
but like my association with the word was just like,
"oh, we're just these weirdos!
"We're just these weirdos.
"I'm gonna put my t-slur shoes on,
"I'm gonna put my t-slur hat on", you know what I mean?
It felt like I was using it as a term of endearment.
And it's really interesting how different I feel about it now.
- Derogatory.
It's just one of those things
you learn to dodge the rotten tomatoes
and get on with your life.
Eventually I learned to really despise the word
until I met somebody who used that word to identify.
They said, "I'm a [ ]" and...
I couldn't argue with that.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, that is that is how I felt.
I think that is something that, at least, I used to relate to.
I don't know how I feel about it now.
But yeah, I would like, self-identify as a t-slur.
It feels weird to not say it, but it's just gonna be bleeped out anyway.
But yeah, I mean, I used to identify as a [ ].
And it was never a negative thing for me,
because at the point that I was calling myself that,
I wasn't comfortable with my body or the way that I looked,
but I was comfortable with the fact that I was trans
and I think I only ever started calling myself a [ ]
when I reached the point of not being incredibly embarrassed
by the fact that I was trans...?
It's interesting that my association with that word is like,
I first heard it,
it was just confusing, I didn't understand it,
but it seemed bad,
it seemed like the people in my class thought
this trans woman was a freak.
That was my first association with it,
and then when I learned more about trans stuff,
it was terrifying!
Even thinking about the word "transgender", that was terrifying.
Let alone the slur.
And then, eventually, it got to the point where I just like,
had to admit to myself that like, "yeah, you're trans, bro.
"You've been feeling this way since you were four or five,
"you can't run from it".
And then I had friends around me who were also trans,
or who were supportive and then...
When I actually started feeling like that was an appropriate way to refer to myself,
it was only because I had reached a level of self-acceptance
that I had never had before,
so it is interesting how like,
one word can have such a different impact on different people
and that's not to say that like,
just because you're okay with using that word to refer to yourself,
that you should refer to other people with that.
But yeah, I mean like, I remember back in the day,
when I'd be calling myself that all the time,
I would get comments of people telling me that
it made them uncomfortable that I called myself that.
And I understand that!
But at the same time, it's like, "I am using this word to refer to myself".
And I literally just used to say to people like,
"hey, you don't like that I call myself that,
"then don't look at my videos".
It's the same with like, I call my top surgery tits.
Like, I'm like, "I got my titties.
"No titties, I got my titties chopped off,
"and now I have actual titties".
I would not call my boobs "titties" until I got my top surgery,
and I've had several people being like,
"it makes me really uncomfortable that you call your chest titties".
And I'm like, "okay, that's cool,
"but I'm not gonna change how I refer to myself in my own space
"just because you don't like it".
Interesting word.
I thought I'd be laughing more at this video,
because the idea is insane,
but I kind of understand why they've made it.
It is helpful to hear these opinions and these experiences of trans people,
but I just-- It's just the casting process, really!
Like, what were these people told?
Maybe they were told like, "hey, we're doing this thing.
"We're gonna film your reaction to a word.
"It's a word association game and everybody that's coming is trans".
So maybe they had an idea?
But I'm sure some of them didn't.
It's just...
It's weird.
- It feels okay.
Sometimes I think about the histories of queers before me...
And how...
[ ] is something that's in there somewhere.
- So this is interesting to me too,
because this person used the word "queer" to refer to other queer people,
and like "queer" used to be a slur.
And it still is a slur to some, I guess.
I guess there's not really a very easy line to say when something is a slur,
and when it stops being a slur.
But yeah, slurs...
I cannot tell you there is nothing more annoying
than seeing slur discourse on my Twitter timeline.
Like the amount of people that I've seen say that
bi people can't call themselves [ ],
because they're not gay...
Ridiculous!
It's not like a homophobic walking down a street
and sees two guys holding hands and thinks,
"wait, I was gonna call you a [ ],
"but I just need to make sure first that
"you're only exclusively attracted to men and not into women as well".
I think we have way too many arguments about words in this community.
- Empowering word.
Maybe that's because of...
The history I've had with the word as it being used as a derogatory word...
For me, that I've taken it and kind of used it for my own empowerment.
I define myself as a [ ] and...
Not that this is my ultimate goal,
but I hope that it takes power away from the people
who want to use it in a derogatory way.
- I think that's badass.
I think that's really badass.
I wouldn't like introduce myself as a [ ].
Well, I wouldn't introduce myself as trans anyway,
regardless of the situation, but...
I think it's cool that somebody can go through something so difficult
in association with that word
and then use it against the people that were using it against you in the first place.
I think that's cool!
- Unintentional compliment.
I both feel insulted.
And...
Praise, when I hear people call me that at the same time.
It's just like, "damn right!"
- I get that, I get that.
I think it's the kind of thing like,
if somebody comes out to me and tries to call me that,
I'm like, "yeah, and what about it?
"What are you gonna do about it?
"Are you're angry about me not being a girl?
"Like, that makes you angry?"
I think, yeah, that makes sense.
- It's like being called [ ].
I love being called [ ].
It's like, one of the highest compliments you can give me.
Yeah, my people are followed hundreds of years of oppression
and still turn out [ ] fabulous all the damn time, yes, I am!
- Tell them!
Tell them!
I mean, that was the video!
Sure!
That was-- I had a lot to say.
I found that more interesting than funny.
I am very interested about the comments on this video.
I'm really curious to see what you guys think about this video.
Let me know in the comments if you agree with some of the stuff I said.
If you go to some of the stuff they said...
What do you feel about the video?
That was interesting to me!
I thought this was just gonna be me laughing at how absurd it is
to just pay a bunch of trans people to stand in front of a camera
and be called slurs...
But yeah, it's the end of the video.
Hope you enjoyed it!
Have a good day or don't!
See you later losers!
Bye bye!
And also,
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Why not?