I had no idea that BC was that bad for trans people until I saw your post here and on your blog. That’s just plain sickening, that trans people are considered so disposable that murdering us doesn’t even warrant a murder charge.

On the lesbians and feminists thing, not only have feminists tried to push lesbians out, but many heterosexual women decided that they were political lesbians - women who refuse to sleep with men, rather than women who are attracted to women. Once in the lesbian community, they tried to eliminate the butch/femme dynamic and, well.. cicely was there, and it just doesn’t sound pleasant. I’m reminded of my comment about Mantilla’s use of race as a token - lesbians are political tokens for them. They get to claim to be one to radicalize their politics (although not all do) without having to actually be a lesbian (or not sleep with men, in one particularly notorious online case).

I’m actually one of those lesbians who tried for years to be heterosexual. I mean, I bought into the whole idea that transition meant I had to be straight (because I had to tell my doctor that I was attracted to men to get hormones in the first place, plus other fun mixed messages), so I spent years equivocating on straight/bi, dating men, and wishing I had a girlfriend…until I said “You know, maybe I’m a lesbian,” and it felt like I’d been clenching my jaw for years and just decided to stop. I agree that the dynamic is similar. You can deny it for awhile, but eventually it rises up and says “Hey, this isn’t you!”

My shame for being attracted to women and tendency to never talk about it or act on it went back pre-transition. When I was coming out, I found another woman’s description of her school years as a closeted lesbian, and it was weird how much her attitudes mirrored mine. As in, I would have used the same words. I found that odd, because, you know, if socially seen as male, it should be fine to be attracted to women, right? I guess I didn’t experience an uncomplicated male upbringing after all.

Thank you for your last paragraph, especially. It means a lot to hear anyone say that, ever, just because of how often the opposite and worse is said.

Also, thank you. :) I come across tidbits like that all the time - like a particular feminist blogger saying on her own blog that Beth Elliot was kicked out of Daughters of Bilitis because she’d raped another member of DoB, or self-proclaimed feminists cheering Bailey on without regard for his homophobia or support for eugenics.

cicely, thank you. :) I like to describe it as “radical feminists say that trans women experience uncomplicated male privilege,” because of course, it’s never so simple. Thank you for putting that into words. I’ve tried explaining these things on the MichFest forum, but I was told in no uncertain terms that I was really a boy and so had male privilege.

I also liked that my experience of realizing I had male privilege even before transitioning (and not knowing what to call it except “society treats those it sees as boys better than those it sees as girls), and living for years since as a woman is exactly the same as that of a white person who really sees white privilege at work for the first time and tries to overcome it. Because, of course, seeing white privilege is the same thing as not receiving white privilege from society anymore in the same way that being trans meant (for me) not receiving male privilege from society anymore.

Plus, I was told that the bullying and beatings I received growing up were a part of male privilege, not oppression. It’s really nice that these people are ready to write my biography for me, because otherwise I’d have to worry my ugly little tranny head about what my life was really like (and thank you to AuntySarah for that particular turn of phrase).

The first is that stats I have seen shown that MTF women in transition have a much higher chance of being raped and/or assaulted. I did the math for North America once using the National Day of rememberance stats as well as hate crime and other data bases and the “average person” has something like a 1 in 230,000 chance of being murdered while a t-woman has around 1 in 16,000. In Canada, where I live, for several years transwomen or gender varient individuals constituted a minimum of 25% of the annuals murders. 25%! I have never understood how Vancouver Rape Crisis getting the supreme court to establish that t-people are not equal to “real” people in terms of discrimination was a victory for feminism. It seems they managed to sort of create the type of legislation that existed pre and post Civil war where certain types of people (blacks in that example) were counted as 3/5ths of a person.

My second issue is with belief and content. Many of the feminist I know and deal with are lesbians or bisexuals because I am a lesbian and I guess since the feminist tried to throw out the lesbians a few times (aka lavender menace) we sort of hang together. Now, I know and deal with many women who were married and came out in a repressive environment in their 40’s and 50’s. We refer to these women as “lesbians” because they tell us, “I am a lesbian, I always felt this way” or “I didn’t have a name for what it was I felt but I knew I didn’t fit in” etc. We don’t refer to these women as “Those women who were previous straight.” We understand the concept of being someone but acting a different way because of your fear, environment and upbringing regarding sexual orientation. However these same people do not seem to accept the same phrases from people regarding gender identity. Why? That seems to make no sense to me.

If I talked to one of my friends and said, “You know, 10 years go, when you used to be a heterosexual….” they would be very offended (becuase among other things I am implying they are lying). Now from what I understand, for transpeople to transition they have to undergo long medical, psychological and other assessments to confirm their gender identity (which you don’t have to do be a lesbian, you don’t even need to have sex, just say “I’m a lesbian”), yet gays and lesbians will constantly refer to the previous time when the person has indicated they were actually a female/male but hiding due to fear, environment and upbringing but percieved in public as the other gender as “When you were (gender different to what they legally are)….” and do not consider this insulting.

There are some who say, I am two spirited, or I embody both male and female and fine, I guess there is a bisexual version of gender but if someone has stated they are (stated gender) and was that gender from as long as they remember or as long as they could begin to understand then how can a person insult them by implying they actually were X gender instead of being closetted. I have talked to transwomen who became suicidal during puberty or kept believing they would get breasts; these were clearly women who simply were closetted or by family, medicine, or society in a position where there was no other choice but to be closetted. It seems that they are due the respect of the difficulty of thier journey even if, or rather especially by those who have not had to experience the same journey.

But again that’s just my opinion (and I hope I didn’t drop out any little words which make what I wrote opposite to what I mean)

When I was still supporting temporary so called WBW space at michfest and before I’d had much opportunity to listen to trans women talk about themselves I wasn’t acknowledging this either. While I’ve never supported anti-trans politics as per that godawful site, and which I first came across on the michfest board, I did rather absent-mindedly or in ignorance take on board a common feminist opinion that the experience of being perceived as male at any time through life would have to have meant that a trans woman had to some degree internalised being ‘central’, being deferred to by women - just because of their visible sex - an experience no cissexual woman would ever have had (unless she’d spent time passing as male). It was that ‘you don’t know what it’s like’ thingy - and I thought that was enough to justify a little bit of exclusive space for women who wanted it - the mantra - for healing, empowerment and celebration.

The first time I saw a trans woman express that she’d heard societies messages in a confused way -or as a girl, when she was a boy-bodied child, was an ‘a-ha’ moment for me. Jeez, I’d never thought of that!

I think this blog is a brilliant idea, Lisa. I went across and looked at some of the essays for the work you’ve taken on and there’s enough woolliness there to start a sheep farm. Great start unravelling it!

cicely

The really messed up thing in all this is that transgender people don’t uphold the patriarchy, they break it. Gender doesn’t need to be (nor could it ever be) destroyed, but liberated from biology.

Thanks for posting about the whole Michfest drama.

Tony entered the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in 1999 and took a shower inside, inadverdantly exposing his transplanted forearm, which was made to appear like a penis. This is considered to be the origin of the myth that “men walked around the festival exposing themselves (which has no concrete eyewitness reports besides Tony’s story itself).