pugslut:

chescaleigh: *mentions blackface being offensive in her shit white girls say to black girls video*
chescaleigh: *dresses up as a drag queen and goes out onto the streets, makes people guess what her sex is*

Recently my video “Queen for a day”, where Petrilude and CMaddoxBiitch transform me into a Drag Queen, has gotten comments accusing me of “being cissexxist” and “flaunting my cis privilege”. To be honest, this came as a huge shock to me. My video has been up for almost a year and this was the first I’d heard of anyone being offended by it. My initial thoughts included, “How could anyone equate black face with me dressing up in drag?”, “But I didn’t mean to be offensive!” and everyone’s favorite, “One of my good friends is trans!”. Sound familiar? Yup, that’s me sticking my foot in my mouth. Of course, as a cis-woman I have more than my fair share of privileges. Heck, I didn’t know what “cis-woman” even meant until a few months ago. But the way privilege works is that those of us that have it don’t usually know we have it. And that’s what often times makes privilege so hard to explain/understand.

I didn’t make “Queen for a Day” to mock people that are transgender or transsexual. And in no way do I believe that transgender or transsexual people are inferior to cissexual (non-trans) people. But after reading Queers United: The Cisgender Privilege Checklist I can totally understand why my video has offended people, and rightly so. Even though I am friends with people in the trans community, before reading this list I had no idea how many things in my life I take for granted as a cis-woman. By dressing up as a drag queen I’m essentially poking fun at the struggles that transgendered people experience on a daily basis. Now that considered in relation to “Shit White Girls say…to Black Girls” makes me look like a huge hypocrite. Guilty as charged. But, something I’ve said from day one about the comments in SWGSTBG and continue to say, is that smart people say and do stupid things. And when you do something stupid, you should apologize, try to learn from it and move forward.

People have said horribly offensive things to me as a black woman without intending to be offensive. That didn’t make it hurt any less, but I’ve tried to use those situations as an opportunity to teach that person (whether they were my friend, co-worker, classmate or even a random person on the street) why what they said/did was wrong. While I believe that some people should know better, many do not. Myself included. I’m not perfect and I’ll never be perfect, but I’m always willing to admit when I’m wrong. This is one of those instances, and for that, I apologize. Reblogged from wasteofpaintt