Logical, compassionate and fearless, Dan Savage‘s Savage Love column has graced the Coast’s pages since 1996, the first paper in Canada to run his syndicated advice column. You know him, you love him. He’s brought life to santorum, DTMFA, GGG and the inspiring It Gets Better Project, while single-handedly answering your most intimate queries in his weekly column.
Don’t miss your chance to see and hear the sexual conduct genius in the flesh on Thursday, October 3 at the Spatz Theatre, Citadel High School, 1855 Trollope Street. Doors at 6:30pm, show at 7:30 pm. $34.50. Click here for advance tickets.
This article appears in Jul 4-10, 2013.
“Compassionate”. “Logical”. “Wise”. …I wish. But I don’t think anyone as outspokenly biphobic and transphobic as Dan Savage deserves to have those adjectives attached to his name. “Hurtful”, “prejudiced” and “willfully ignorant” would, sadly, be much more accurate.
Dan Savage has never been anything but accepting of the LGBTQ community, Morgan…
Morgan Dambergs,
This is a common accusation directed at Dan Savage, but I’ve never actually seen a shred of evidence to back it up. Would you like to cite some examples of Dan’s supposed biphobia and transphobia? Actual quotes please.
Haus, about a week ago, I made a long post in reply to yours that included at least 6 or 7 links to horrible quotes by Dan Savage, most from within the last several years. That post is obviously not going to be published here.
So you know what? Do your own homework. It wasn’t difficult for me to find any of those sources. Just Google “Dan Savage and biphobia”, “Dan Savage and transphobia”, “Dan Savage and racism”, “Dan Savage and asexuality”, and so on. Each of those will bring you pertinent results within the first page of links.
Quite frankly, if you’ve “never actually seen a shred of evidence” of Dan Savage’s bigotry, I have to assume that’s because you haven’t actually bothered to look. It’s not hard to come by.
Morgan Dambergs,
I’m sure you had a list of all manner of terrible slights perpetrated by Dan Savage against the bi/trans community. No doubt you worked tirelessly, day and night, to build a compilation of such stunning profundity that I couldn’t help but be swayed to your way of thinking.
And then, no doubt, The Coast cruelly refused to post it.
…or it was imaginary. I’m going to go with imaginary.
Haus, it took me all of about 10 minutes to find the links I mentioned. Like I said, it wasn’t hard.
I can’t cure your apparently terminal case of too-lazy-and-self-involved-to-care, but here is one of the links I tried to post before. It came up as the very first link when I Googled “Dan Savage transphobia” again just now. It includes links to primary sources. Just what you asked for. And like I said: not hard to find.
http://masculinetoast.tumblr.com/post/1260…
Not that I expect you to follow or read it. If you’re too lazy and uncaring to do a simple Google search on your own, I imagine clicking a link and reading the text there is also too much trouble for you.
Morgan,
All that link shows me is that the blogger responsible for it is spoiling for a fight.
Now, you could make a case for Savage’s use of the terms “tranny” and “shemale” and such as being inappropriate. I don’t think it’s a terribly good case, considering that Savage is well known for using taboo terminology (f*gs, d*kes, breeders, etc), but on the terminology point you could at least make an argument.
The rest of it though? Hogwash, manufactured outrage written by a blogger who’s clearly looking to be offended. We should be angry at the suggestion that a father put his son ahead of himself, even if only for a short time? We should break out the pitchforks because he falsely referred to a State Attorney as transsexual (and admitted that it was a false claim later in the very same article) in order to expose and berate that same State Attorney for his transphobic practices?
Listen, if you yourself are a transsexual person, or if you just feel strongly about the rights of those who are, I have no doubt your intentions are good. Transsexual persons are every single bit as deserving of their rights and dignities as anyone else out there. Petty crap like this blog though? Way to miss the forest for the trees.
My advice, not that I expect you to take it, is to save your outrage for someone who *isn’t* already on your side.
Haus, this will be my last post here. I’m obviously not going to be able to get through to you, and I’m tired of arguing with someone who started out by being dismissive towards me. But yes, this is a personal issue for me, since I am asexual and have a close personal relation who is trans* and is currently going through the incredibly difficult process of transitioning. Dan Savage’s transphobic words have hurt her personally. His asexualphobic words have hurt me personally. His racist words have hurt black people I know personally.
Don’t tell me who my allies are. Dan Savage is TRYING to be an ally. He is failing miserably with everyone who is not very, very similar to him. That’s because, when faced with us, he calls us names and/or dismisses us (see the PS on his first SLOG post after his post about the state attorney for a prime example), and then gets angry at us for saying that that hurt us and asking him to reconsider.
That is not what an ally does. None of my ally friends or family would do that to me. So don’t tell me that someone who will get angry at me for defending myself against his own hurtful words is on my side.
Also, for the record the transwoman Dan persists in referring to as “tranny” (and no, he has no right to use that word if it’s hurtful to other people, no more than he has the right to use “the ‘n’ word”) is a woman and his son has two mothers, not a mother and a father. Please use the correct pronouns and gendered words when referring to trans* people. It doesn’t matter whether you personally like them or not. Using hurtful language (and yes, incorrect pronouns are hurtful) against anyone — regardless of whether you think they’re a crappy person — is never okay. And it tends to show underlying prejudices that the person who used the language just doesn’t want to admit.
Apparently you and Dan Savage have yet to learn that. I hope you both get past your defensiveness and learn it after all, because that would make the world a slightly less crappy place. But I have to admit, I don’t hold out a whole lot of hope for either of you.
Edit: HER son, not “his”. I apologize, I didn’t catch that in time to edit the post.
Ah well, I suppose I can’t force you to be reasonable. Best of luck to both you and your trans friend, and I really do mean that. I think, though, that you’ll find life easier if you don’t require everyone in it to speak of your respective situations in reverent tones – every single person is fucked up in their own way, myself included, and it’ll be a long damn march to the end if we all get tied up in knots over well-meaning linguistic faux-pas.