Chapotraphouse

I took a brief look into this. It looks like Tracy Grammer, Dave's partner in life and music, had opened a thread opposing the use of "she" for Dave's wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive_1068#Expressed_gender_vs._assigned_gender

Page has been altered and undone a few times in relation to Carter's pronouns. Current edit states that expressed gender overrides assigned gender. I would appreciate clarification as to what Wiki is calling "expressed gender."

I was partnered with Carter professionally from 1996 until his death by heart attack in 2002, and personally from 1997- early 2002. Carter had not come out at the time of his death. He intended to release one more album of what he called "Lonesome Dave" songs (as male), then send me out on a solo tour while he focused on the transition. When s/he was ready to introduce the new identity, we would shift our musical configuration to an all-girl psychedelic country band.

The transition process was not public knowledge at the time of his death. His immediate family was completely unaware of his intention to transition. Only select friends, his healers/therapists, and our management team were in the loop. He did not have a name chosen.

Carter's death at the start of the transition process puts him and his transgendered identity in an unusual position -- a bardo. It is impossible to say where s/he would've landed. Possibly she; possibly non-binary. None of us can know. Up to the date of his death, Dave did not ask us to refer to him as anything other than Dave.

The section on Transgendered Identity on Dave's page is critical for the incredible depth and light it sheds on the work. Still, if "expressed gender" refers to how a person introduces themselves to the world, then it seems inappropriate to "express" Dave Carter as "she" because Dave did not do that. Had Dave survived, that was still a couple years off, based on my knowledge of his professional and personal goals.

and on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dave_Carter#Consistency:

As the surviving partner of this musical and romantic partnership, I believe it is important that we honor the transition in progress, which has been done quite lovingly. But I would like to suggest that since Dave Carter never had the privilege of introducing his transgender identity to the world, we not take it upon ourselves to do it posthumously. He did not arrive, as it were, at his destination. And the feminine was yet without a name. Indeed, she is without a history of any kind, professionally speaking, as Dave presented male for the duration of his career. Let's let the record stand.

I guess you could argue that there's no reason that Tracey should have the right to say this on behalf of Dave, but unfortunately there's nobody else around to speak for them.

Calling a trans person a transvestigator is despicable shit, especially when transvestigation is premised on erasing trans identity, a practice that you are more closely aligned with. Absolutely abysmal thing to do, to try to leverage language developed by the trans community against trans people who have needed to carve a historical narrative of themselves through an oppressive history that refuses their legibility.

So much of our history rests on finding connection beneath the surface layer of the hegemonic "truth," finding throughlines that transcend linguistic limitations and cultural understandings that are in constant flux as they navigate a status quo that seeks their assimilation. Joan of Arc was executed for wearing men's clothes, refusing to apologize for it, and saying that she would rather die than dress as a woman. Hatshepsut was often depicted as a masculine figure, with beard, short hair, and without breasts, and used masculine language to describe herself. Ashurbanipal was describes spending a great deal of time wearing women's clothes. Elagabalus used feminine pronouns, dressed in women's clothes, and preferred likenesses to be feminine.

Traditional historical accounts would say that Joan simply wanted to fight, so the clothing was armour, not cross-dressing. Hatshepsut fostered a masculine identity to be accepted by the patriarchy. Ashurbanipal and Elagabalus were described as effeminate as a way to attack their characters.

We can't know for sure, of course, and modern linguistic ideas of transness can't apply across time and space. But that it is only acceptable to default to cisness, that transness can only ever be established through indisputable evidence, that any evidence of transness is first explained away, is a time-honoured traidition of insecure cis scholars who use language of impartiality and empiricism, logic and rationale, as a way of erasing the possibilities of trans lives and denying trans people the space to find connection through history that cis people are allowed at all times.

And frankly, to compare that desire to allow for a potential trans life to be honoured, preserved, and entered into the tenuous and besieged trans historical record to transvestigation of all things (when, by the way, you could conversely be accused of transvestigating a person who has documented evidence of using a feminine name and feminine pronouns by trying to prove this person wasn't really trans because there isn't "enough evidence") is disgusting. The fact is, whether Aaron/Lilly was a trans woman, the bare minimum of evidence would show someone who used two names, and used two sets of pronouns, which is definitionally trans.

So quite honestly, learn to keep your thoughts to yourself on subjects that you don't actually know anything about, and stop insulting trans people with your bad faith usage of a term we coined to point out the nasty behaviour of cis people who deny our selves.

fuck off man

If I was a he/him I would simply not argue against trans women when they explain shit rather clearly?! What the hell? Why is it so important to you that she is remembered as a cis man??

Cool cool now we're equating trans people with transvestigators. Fuck you. Just fuck off, cissie. You do not understand the tiniest bit about any of this.

was in “denial” about their gender identity

sigh