On Friday night the Bruce Jenner interview came out and there were some generally awkward moments in it but the response was better than most in the trans community expected with tons of messages of positivity coming from cis people across the country. On Sunday my cousin sent me this link to a blog that Steven Grooby put out http://grooby.com/groobysteven/uncategorized/open-letter-board-trans-lifeline-putting-personal-issues-trans-persons.html about shaming the Trans Lifeline and Trans Law Center for declining his donations due to the use of slurs on his websites. In response to my petition on December 14th including “It probably wouldn’t surprise most people to say that I agree with not using the word “shemale” to identify transgender individuals on our sites.” but if he feels that way why is he now using it to attack charities? also he included this “We’re continuing to look at getting more involved with the transsexual community”.  So why is this man who runs in what he says “Grooby is the most progressive of any of the larger adult TS websites” yet these organizations do not want to take money so is it really that progressive or is this just an example of a white cis straight man telling trans women what is really right for them?

I think Steven Grooby’s letter to the Trans Lifeline is beyond deplorable including “It’s a dangerous game when people start to play politics with people’s lives” thus these charities need to confirm to the standards that Mr. Grooby has set for trans gender people/porn with terms like shemales or it is Trans Lifeline’s fault that trans people’s lives are lost and not that Grooby could simply change all the terms on his websites besides the titles in a long afternoon so he could donate to these charities. Mr. Sammy Mancini did that only 3 days after the petition was launched but kept his site’s name “Shemale Strokers” but removed terms like Shemale, TS and Tranny even though it isn’t fully removed from his site it shows his desire to listen to the trans community as a good ally does. I think Steven is isolated within his own company in a world full of Yes Men who agree with his views simply because he employs them. I know some trans women do identify with the terms used in porn but this entitlement to write off everyone who doesn’t identify as a shemale is absolutely unacceptable.

I don’t understand what the end game for Steven or his company is does he truly believe that this is the term for trans people in the future or why is he trying to cling onto a term that he himself defends it with “30 times more people are searching on Google for the word “shemale””.  So should we allow a white cis male porn owner shame a trans suicide hotline because of search results?  He even notes”Trying to change the brands would be so bad that it would possibly kill those sites.” so who really should be getting shamed here the suicide hotline for trying to save trans lives or the white male millionaire who is fearing losing traffic on his shemale porn site?

This isn’t formatted in the best way but more than anything I need to vent because I am simply sick of these cis men trying to speak on behalf of trans women. If you really want to be an ally to us please just listen to us.

 

here’s a link to the petition including Steven’s December 14th statement about the term shemale in trans porn

https://www.change.org/p/mainstream-trans-porn-sites-who-market-models-as-shemales-give-them-motivation-to-change-the-use-of-the-term?just_created=true#