So I have major issues with this "Operation: Sex Change " project that surfaced on Facebook. If you don't know about it, here is their mission statement:
Starting November 9 and until November 20, 2009, we're running Operation: Sex Change, a campaign to raise awareness around challenges facing transgender people everywhere in the world. The campaign is simple. For those 11 days, we'd like you to change your sex on Facebook and make that change visible in your profile. The purpose is to grab your friends' attention (and confusion) and remind them that transsexuals, who undergo changes in their gender expression in real life, face a lot of prejudice and discrimination everywhere in the world.
Ok.
So for 11 days people on Facebook are switching their gendermarkers to do what? Spur conversation/confusion? To me it seems that this project presents switching gendermarkers as an easy endeavor. Operation:Sex Change doesn't really articulate that for many transpeople on Facebook, changing gendermarkers is not a lark. Moreover, it doesn't really make the distinction between the "conversation" this project is striving to cultivate and intrusive and inappropriate questions transpeople are subjected to when they DO change their gendermarker. When the "you" changes your gendermarker (and by "you" I mean the cisgendered participant in this project) people are going to ask "you" about it. They're going to ask you because to them it will seem weird, strange, or confusing. Why would anyone miss-mark their gender? THE DIFFERENCE, however, is when trans-people are asked these questions, we do not get to revert to our cisnormitivity. We do not get to say, "OH, well, I'm still normal, but let me tell you about the injustices faced by poor trans-people..."
And I get it. Operation:Sex Change is meant to raise awareness. Like back in elementary school when you'd have "disability" week. They'd blindfold you and then you'd "know" what it is like to be blind. You'd sit in a wheelchair, and you'd "know" what it's like to be unable to walk. BULLSHIT. To raise awareness for homophobia do we see a Facebook group calling for straight people to walk down main street holding hands? Do we see a Facebook called Operation: Sexuality Change? No.
I mean, yes, it is helpful when cisgendered people stand up for transpeople. Even more when they are educated about trans-issue before they stand up for us, however, it becomes problematic when cisgendered people speak for transpeople. I do not need some benevolent cis-person explaining to other cis-people about how I face prejudice and discrimination. I also don't need cis-people educating other cis-people about the trans-experience when none of those cis-people can even see how problematic it is calling this Operation: [fucking] Sex Change!!!
(1) it echoes the media objectification and truncation of trans-people to what surgeries they have or haven't had
(2) that it ignores trans-people who do not undergo medical morphological changes, let alone discuss the class issues and resource issues that affect decisions like those.
My life cannot be simplified to a change of gender on a fucking website. I really don't want some cisgendered HRC raving assimilationist "educating" people about my hardships. MOSTLY, it's things like HRC and assimilation that causes my hardships. My life is not "lifestyle" that some fucking cis-person can try on and cast off in 11 days. When I change my gendermarker on ANYTHING (be it website or anything else) I face the ramifications of that every day! The "confusion" that this project is trying to conger up, does nothing to actually change the atmosphere that affect trans-people? It doesn't help transpeople at all. It actually capitalizes off of the ciscentric values that MAKE IT so difficult for me. Perhaps, instead of changing your gendermarker on Facebook, you take that energy and write a letter to Facebook explaining the need for non-binary based gendermarkers. OR, maybe go to Remeberance Day event. OR, maybe instead of trying to generate "conversation" with other cisgender people, you could talk to an actual transperson; listening to them and listening to what they need from you as an ally.
Sometimes when cis-people try to "help" transpeople it is not really helping. Most times it silences us and our existence, and focuses mostly on cisgender pity for transpeople. All Operation:Sex Change is is a cathartic ego boost for cispeople. An illusion of selflessness, tolerance, and understanding, that makes cispeople feel better about themselves, but does nothing to help the transcommunity.
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On one hand, we cis people can be notoriously ignorant of and insensitive to the lives of trans people, and showing how absolutely wrong that is may not be a bad thing.
But on the other, I hate the fact that people's lives are being reduced to a social network stunt that will probably get a bit of attention and then be forgotten by most cis people, even the ones who participate, because—as you say—it's more about making cis people feel good about themselves than actually being allies to trans people. If there's any such thing as a right way for cis people to tell other cis people to stop being such jerks to trans people, this most certainly isn't it.