Here's a 1996 passage to which I'd like to refer when saying something about how trans people speak:
Moussa, Mario, and Ron Scapp. “The Practical Theorizing of Michel Foucault: Politics and Counter-Discourse.” Cultural Critique, no. 33, 1996, pp. 87–112. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1354388. Accessed 1 Dec. 2023.
"In 1972 Gilles Deleuze paid Michel Foucault the following well-known compliment: "In my opinion, you were the first — in your books and in the practical sphere — to teach us something absolutely fundamental: the indignity of speaking for others". Foucault responds by saying that when those usually spoken for and about by others begin to speak for themselves, they produce a "counter-discourse." This counterdiscourse, he says, is not another theory, but rather a practical engagement in political struggles. When, in other words, the formerly voiceless begin to speak a language of their own making - a counterdiscourse - they have begun to resist the power seeking to oppress them. In this narrow sense, the very act of speaking is political, and Foucault's writing is political to the extent that it helps clear a space in which the formerly voiceless might begin to speak.
* * *
...he [Foucault] should be taken seriously when he expresses a desire to assist in the emergence of counterdiscourses and when he says a counterdiscourse is not a theory at all. But what then, is a counterdiscourse? Why isn't it swallowed up by the tentacular institutions posited by Foucault's theory?
In our terms, a counterdiscourse is the hoped-for result of practical theorizing - an activity with, as we understand it, comparatively modest goals. The practical theorist hopes only to clear a discursive space in which those who were previously silenced might speak up or, as bell hooks says, "talk back" - that is, produce their own counterdiscourse.
* * *
...Foucault maintained that the politics of language is only part — and not the most significant part — of politics in general. Moreover, he never contended that all language is oppressive. What he said, as we have been arguing in this section, is that repression works through language and that the struggle to overturn repression includes speaking out against it. Language can be oppressive. Speaking out, not theorizing, constitutes a counterdiscourse, and it is produced by those involved "radically" and "physically" with existence. Hughes and others have, therefore, made a basic mistake: Foucault, as a theorist, did not produce counterdiscourses, and he would say, in general, the theorist does not typically do so. Foucault had too much respect for real-world acts of political participation to claim otherwise.
...a counterdiscourse is not just another theory, no matter how philosophically "radical" — whether archaeological, genealogical, or even deconstructive — a theory might be. Just as only those who hold political power can meaningfully discriminate against stigmatized groups, so only those who have been oppressed by a discourse can form a counterdiscourse. In metaphoric terms, it is a voice that rises directly from below... Prisoners, madpeople, gays, les- bians, and other "non-normals" — Foucault hoped to clear a space in which they might speak up and begin defining themselves through their counterdiscourses. The act of clearing away oppressive discourses is itself practical or, in Foucault's limited sense, political. Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality — in this sense, they are all "political" works.
What happens once a space is cleared, however, depends not on theorists, but rather on those who have begun to speak up.
* * *
Theory, says Foucault, is an "activity conducted alongside those who struggle". And what they say - their counterdiscourse - might disappoint and even horrify the very intellectual who produced the theory that made space for the counterdiscourse. Intellectuals never know exactly where political actors and events will lead, even those event that they have tried to influence or celebrate with their theories."
If you belong to the disempowered group, you might be "able to produce both theory and counterdiscourse," in part due to your "wllingness to be simultaneously the archaeologist as well as the archive under consideration." Though you might be "often attacked for being merely autobiographical and not theoretically rigorous" by those who "insist on the purity of theory," where here purity might mean not belonging to the group that's being discussed.
Citing
The references to Deleuze are specifically to here:
Deleuze, Gilles, and Michel Foucault. "Intellectuals and Politics." Language, Counter-Memory, and Practice. Ed. Donald F. Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977. 205-17. (citing specifically pp. 208–209).
So
That's the context of this tweet:
That is to say:
When trans people explain what transness is; how we subjectively experience it; how it often manifests to others; how we can prove that our transness is genuine; why we should be "allowed" to get hormones and surgery; exactly when, how, and to whom that access should be opened up, etc.; we are often engaging in a counterdiscourse: not a theory, but a resistance tactic. We are not necessarily trying to identify facts nor develop ideology. Rather, other people are wielding power over us, and we're making words too so we can live as we wish to live and so we can get things that we need — particularly given the conditions of their power over us. We are responding to other people's ideology about us, not so much on its own terms (to correct it, workshop it, contribute to its realness, etc.), but to achieve certain goals for ourselves. We have the practical aim of survival.
People will steal your language though
"An abuser’s instinctive next step is always accusing their victim, and it’s always best to accuse your victim of exactly what you yourself are doing, because it creates the most airtight equivalency when both of you are saying the same thing.
The difference, of course, is that abusers enact abuse, while their victims suffer the abuses. So, as victims create language to name their abusers and the abuses, abusers fight that language—stay woke, critical race theory, diversity equity and inclusivity—until they can learn it, claim it for themselves, and corrupt it to mean what they now want it to mean, which is danger—woke mind virus, CRT, DEI.
And this is why members of today’s fascist political party want to be thought of as Rosa Parks even as they advocate the use of military force against today’s civil rights movements. This is how they can dismantle Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs in the name of fighting bigotry, using the language of antibigotry, and feel not the slightest tug of cognitive dissonance3. This is how a fascist party with fascist intent, whose leader quotes Adolf Hitler and promises fascist purges of undesirable “socialists”, whose members openly run on the vile replacement myth that undergirds antisemitism, can claim to oppose antisemitism. And this is why they are impeaching the president—not because the president has committed impeachable offenses, but because now that their leader is an open criminal, impeachment has to become something both sides do."
— A.R. Moxon, No Beliefs, Just Intentions, The Reframe (Substack), Dec 17, 2023.
'The proliferation of anti-trans discourse requires a counter-discourse'
"Toward the end of this podcast episode, with about 8 minutes left, ACLU attorney Chase Strangio asks us: "Continue to be loud and clear about what this [gender-affirming] healthcare is, what it means to be trans and how we are out here in the world, living our lives already. There is nothing new about being trans. There is nothing new about this healthcare." He asks us to be "an example and disruption of the false narratives about us that are out there. I think that is critical, because the proliferation of anti-trans discourse requires a counter-discourse. It requires us to be leading that counter-discourse, as you Imara [Jones], have so, you know, essentially been leading. We need more people by your side doing that. ...whenever it feels safe and appropriate, be a messenger of your experience. I think that that's really important, and encourage the people in your life to do the same. We need parents to do the same. We need colleagues to do the same. We need people to be out there in their various contexts, being fully embodied and trans and loved and cared for. So that's always true, and I think that's especially true now."
— November 14, 2024 episode of the TransLash podcast.
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