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lb_leeMori: Carolyn Gage is a radical lesbian feminist playwright who didn't get diagnosed with autism until her sixties and writes about sexual abuse and incest a lot. I first became aware of her years back when a roomy at the time had a book of hers on the shelf, and today I learned she did a one-woman play about Joan of Arc, so of course I had to look what else she'd done.
Then I found her short 1994 article, "Invitation to a Trashing." I immediately had to add it to my self-hate and social justice bibliography.
Damn. Thirty years old, and this woman sums up beautifully what now gets called "cancel culture." (I vehemently disagree with her criteria of “unacceptable targets,” RequiresHate/winterfox was a master of using “you sound white” to shut down women of color, but I DO agree there’s a cynical, cultural calculus at work deciding how to paint a trashee as a privileged oppressor.) Other lesbian feminists talked about these dynamics before Gage, but what I find especially interesting is how Gage cuts to the heart of how dissociation and lingering abuse effects can be used as weapons in these situations, trashee's and trasher's alike. That's something I haven't seen dealt with in other discussions, certainly not with the concise incision she does:
Then I found her short 1994 article, "Invitation to a Trashing." I immediately had to add it to my self-hate and social justice bibliography.
Damn. Thirty years old, and this woman sums up beautifully what now gets called "cancel culture." (I vehemently disagree with her criteria of “unacceptable targets,” RequiresHate/winterfox was a master of using “you sound white” to shut down women of color, but I DO agree there’s a cynical, cultural calculus at work deciding how to paint a trashee as a privileged oppressor.) Other lesbian feminists talked about these dynamics before Gage, but what I find especially interesting is how Gage cuts to the heart of how dissociation and lingering abuse effects can be used as weapons in these situations, trashee's and trasher's alike. That's something I haven't seen dealt with in other discussions, certainly not with the concise incision she does:
Aggressive disruptions will trigger dissociative states for many women who are survivors. They will numb out, go into shock, or become desperately invested in showing solidarity with anyone who even looks like they have the potential to become violent--and that's you, sister. [...]
BE GENUINELY OUTRAGED. If you can spontaneously dissociate, or self-hypnotize, so much the better! You will be very persuasive. A woman registering powerful emotion has a very good shot at triggering survivors or co-dependents--even if the emotion is not appropriate to the circumstances. In fact, the more inappropriate, the better the trigger. [...] Speak to her as if she were the fountainhead of all oppressions, especially those which are not your own. This is finally your chance to really project your rage and frustration where it will do some damage. Go for it! [...]
Don't hesitate to present yourself [...] as an ally in the deepest sense of the word. In fact, put the trashee on the spot by asking her to validate this. Again, this will help to mask your agenda. If the trashee is a survivor of abuse, she can be easily confused by declarations of this sort, because it has been a survival skill for her to rationalize abuse and focus on empty gestures of support. By all means, exploit her conditioning!
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Date: 2025-05-24 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-05-24 06:46 pm (UTC)