Danae’s talking about how MacKinnon supported anti-pornography laws that were also used to harm queers, radicals, and students. While MacKinnon might not have personally set out to do that, that’s what the stuff she worked for was used to do.

Is it only bad when some women are harmed, but queer women are fair game?

I would also like to know who in this thread dissed MacKinnon because they can’t feed their porn addiction?

But I have absolutely no sympathy for someone who diss’s MacKinnon because they can’t feed their porn addiction. Pornography HURTS women something that has never slowed down the trans movement before. Everything counts but women……

>>>A lot of radical feminists (whose blogs I read) are NOT arguing that MTF transpeople don’t suffer

And a lot are. And spending their time denying the realities of trans people’s identities, and the risk we take in those, and engaging in reductive and pointless theorisations of the ethical and philosophical implications of trans people transitioning.

>>>Yes, you were certainly (and still are) discriminated against, made to feel alienated from yourself, but you have to understand that it is not the same TYPE of systematic alienation, violence, and socialization that women-born-women face.

No, it’s not always exactly the same. But it is systemic, and I think you’re implicitly implying its not. We’re talking doctors, psychiatrists, birth-certificates, passports, institutions that only have male/female spaces, employers doing background checks, and legally acceptable discrimination in the vast majority of areas. Not to mention a crapload of violence too, most of which is borne by trans women of colour. Tell me *that’s* not systemic..

And, let us not forget that trans women when they are seen and treated *as* women are subject to the same abuse as every other woman. Radical feminists might not always treat us as women, but random groping dude on the bus is.

>>>Since when did all or most radical feminists try to say that “black women morph into the oppressor”?

Lisa didn’t say that. She said the *occasional* morphing, and it’s certainly true that some white radical feminists have engaged in that. I believe the phrase is Heart’s, but I mean, it’s a common enough dynamic by white feminists to short-circuit critique by WoC.

>>>If a white person grows up feeling deep inside an alienation from their race, their skin, their racial identity even, and is convinced deep down that they are “black” or “latina”, does that mean that they grow up with barely any or no white privilege? Of course not. And that white person who feels “black” or “latina” has absolutely no right claiming that African Americans or Hispanics are oppressing her just because her racial privilege is still there.

Look, this is a flawed analogy. You position trans people - trans women presumably, it’s always trans women - as privileged against non trans people, and this is just not true. We don’t hold our privileges after transitioning, or even during most of the time. As soon as you start presenting in your real gender, you’re in the double bind of being seen as trans (and subjected to a bunch of horrible shit), or seen as a woman (and subjected to other shit). So it just doesn’t work as an analogy, sorry.

“Morphing into the Oppressor” is my favorite example, because of the sheer absurdity of the scenario, but I did not mean to imply it’s the most prominent or only example.

A lot of radical feminists (whose blogs I read) are NOT arguing that MTF transpeople don’t suffer. They certainly recognize that they suffer (after all, patriarchy is essentially what causes transpeople’s suffering and oppression in the first place). What they are trying to point out is that even if as a young boy you didn’t feel right inside about being male, the fact of the matter is that society, everyone on the outside, is treating you as a male. Yes, you were certainly (and still are) discriminated against, made to feel alienated from yourself, but you have to understand that it is not the same TYPE of systematic alienation, violence, and socialization that women-born-women face

I was never a young boy. I had a male body, and I was treated as one, but it wasn’t a straightforward life as a young boy. People treated me as male, but they treated me as a sissy, queer. I got to deal with bullies throughout school who saw me as an easy target, unsympathetic school staff who were strangely unable to take action because “it’s just my word against theirs” when I was attacked, but ready to punish me when I did fight back. Yes, that is an experience that a lot of young males - especially actually gay males - have, except for the part where I know that my body is wrong, I’m trying to make sense of the social cues and pick the ones I’m supposed to pick and hide the ones I pick up anyway because their aimed at girls - and I identified as one.

And, ever since my transition, I have experienced much of the same oppression that women experience. I have been fortunate enough to not be raped, although I have had men follow me for miles on the bus at night, and as far as the first restaurant I could walk into and call for a ride home. I have been the victim of domestic violence. I have had many of these experiences that continue throughout life. And I have people telling me what my life is like without actually living that life.

Obviously, my early life was not like other girl’s lives, but girls also have pretty varied lives lacking or having various privileges (race, economic, and so on). However, I find it pretty damned offensive that the privilege I no longer benefit from is used as weapon to attack me. To tell me that I don’t belong with other women, that I am in fact, not a woman. I begin transition almost immediately after high school, and I’ve worked three jobs in my life prior to transition (all of them in fast food). I never attended college prior to beginning transition and certainly not before I started living full time as a woman (and I will delete any comment that tries to pick that apart as proof that I’m not a woman. I don’t care about semantic games).

A lot of radical feminists do acknowledge that trans people experience discrimination and violence, but they often also try to position themselves as lacking privilege in relation to trans people, redefining the discrimination and violence trans people experience as something other than discrimination and violence directly aimed at trans people.

I do not attack radical feminists for trying to deconstruct the systematic oppression inherent in gender binaries. I criticize radical feminists for trying to make my life, and the lives of other trans people into political tokens that they can write their own meaning onto as part of that deconstruction.

I did read all of Deb’s post. I did not twist her words. I answered her question. I do think she has it backwards. I see radical feminists spend much effort identifying and declaring enemies. I was not saying, “Deb, you’re a racist and transphobe who spends all your effort identifying and declaring enemies,” I was answering her question as to why so many women criticize radical feminism.

I don’t think it’s really valid to compare a trans person to a white person who wants to be black and complains that African Americans or hispanic people are oppressing her. You see, generally speaking, people who are white, raised white, live as white people tend to live as white people their entire lives. Birth to death, and they typically don’t assimilate into other communities. If they do, they continue to look white.

I haven’t looked male since I was 18 years old. I look like a woman, I am treated as a woman, I am largely seen as a woman, and if someone reads me as trans, they don’t see me as a male, they see me as a potential victim, a novelty, or a token. They might try to put me in my place as really male, as it seems like you’re doing here. I haven’t been a male legally or socially in nearly two decades. In fact, I’m only months away from the 20th anniversary of my first day living as a woman.

These aren’t the same situations. Transitioning puts me in a very lack-of-privileged space. It doesn’t cancel out anything I experienced prior to transition, but I haven’t received any new male privilege since then. Even someone who transitions late in life, a 30-40 year old - will often lose her family, her job, and have to build her life all over again. She’s lucky in that she probably has degrees, or at least job experience that she can use to stay on her feet, but the fact remains that she’s gone from being a privileged middle-aged male to being someone that society largely considers expendable. In most parts of the country, she can be legally turned down for work because she’s trans, despite any qualifications.

Not to say that she isn’t better off than I was at 18, but she’s still not nearly as well off as she was before transition.

Transitioning is a real eye-opener, not just for sexism (because you get to experience full-blown sexism once most people who see you accept you as a woman), but also because those who know you’re trans treat you even worse. Monica Roberts has pointed out that a lot of white trans women have no idea of what we’re getting into when we transition, by going from a privileged minority to an oppressed minority, and I completely agree with her.

I have experienced sexism. I know what it’s like. Please don’t tell me I don’t. Please don’t compare my transition - my physical transition - to a white person who might like to be black but will always look white. Black Like Me is probably a better comparison - the author didn’t know what it was like to grow up black, but he almost certainly experienced, for a brief time, what it was like to be black and be treated like a black man. He couldn’t opt out of being black until the color faded, and I can’t opt out of being a woman because I have this female body now, and my breasts aren’t fading away. And no, I did not just equate womanhood entirely with breasts.

I do realize that some people look ambiguous enough to be taken as white or as a person of color, and that many people of color themselves can pass for white with relative ease. I also realize they do not come from the same place as white people raised in a white society by white people. I’m not talking about them or trying to speak for them.

Women who were born female and raised girls have privilege over me, in that they didn’t have to go through hormones, electrolysis, surgery, making themselves into a third-class citizen, completely reinventing their external identity, they don’t have to deal with people who discount their gender’s validity, or form assumptions about their lives and history based on their medical history. And many radical feminists refuse to ever let me forget it, because they’ll repeat the same litany: “You weren’t born female, you weren’t raised a girl. You benefited from male privilege.” That’s another way to put me in my place, remind me that my womanhood is different from yours in a way that’s seen as inferior or perhaps even counterfeit. And please do not tell me that radical feminists aren’t saying these things, because I’ve seen those statements made for years over and over again. I remember Janice Raymond writing “Transsexuality ought to be morally mandated out of existence” and radical feminists within the past few years agreeing with that assessment. Characterizing trans women as men, as colonizers, as invaders, as agents of the patriarchy, as reinforcing and reifying gender roles, as the enemy. And yes, women who are trans can and do contribute to my oppression.

It is good that many radical feminists are not transphobic, do not constantly repeat the litanies about how disagreeable women like myself are not real women, and do acknowledge that trans people deal with violence and hatred and prejudice. But, many others run us down, tell us that we’re insulting them by using words to distinguish women who are not trans from women who are, telling trans women we have no right to call ourselves women, calling us “men” as a way to put us in our place and not engage with us, imply that because of our male histories we’re potential rapists. Attack our bodies by calling us “men in dresses” if we don’t look feminine enough, and calling us all kinds of misogynist things if we do.

And, I’ll just repeat it again: Since I’m often seen as a cis female, I receive everyday sexism. People who see me do not automatically know of my history and thus trans does not override sex, but it does intersect occasionally. I receive sexism, transphobia, transmisogyny, and any combination thereof.

Also, homophobia because I’m a lesbian, although most people don’t automatically assume I’m one because I don’t look the stereotype. And of course many radical feminists tell me I’m not allowed to call myself a lesbian despite being a woman, despite being attracted to women, despite wanting a long-term relationship with women, and despite a total lack of sexual, romantic, or relationship interest in men.

Also, you were supporting the Mutant Registration Act? For shame. I hope Magneto personally hangs you by your guts. XD

I’ve said the following in many a comment throughout the blogosphere, so forgive me if I’m getting repetitive, but I think it bears saying:

Yes, I’m a late transitioner (at age 45). However, I was highly gender variant as a child, and suffered for it - for seven years, I was harrassed daily, spit upon, and beaten in school, all with the encouragement of the school administration, because I looked like a boy and acted like a girl. So exactly how does this equate privilege?

And, yes, as a pre-transition adult, I did my best to act “male” and to fool myself into believing that I was male, and was mostly seen that way, so perhaps I was granted privilege as an adult. But even there, I was not macho enough, cried too easily, expressed my emotions too much — and I understand that attaching those qualities to supposed “womanhood” is culturally determined, but still — that all cost me, in lost jobs, in constantly being examined and held in suspicion by the “real men”, in being subject to homophobia (Oh, boy, do I love being called a “faggot bitch” while being “graced” with a saliva shower), in fearing walking down the street alone, in feeling like I needed to cross the street for my own safety when men approached — and this was *before* transition. And again, how exactly is this privilege?

On the other hand, I will admit to doing some pretty shitty things: Joining the Libertarian party (which I left three years later), and pulling some disgusting whiny MRA shit at a company sexual-harassment awareness workshop some years ago. All in an attempt to “prove” my “male”-ness to myself, but that doesn’t excuse it.

So, really, it is much more complicated than this all-or-nothing view of privilege.

been there, done that. got tarred and feathered, and now i stay out. when my lack of capital letters in my comments was used as evidence that i’m not worthy of a legitimate response, i realized i was talking to a brick wall.

Urk. You were talking to an ass, I think’s more like it.

Someone else accused little light of trying to appear vulnerable by spelling her name with lower case ls. It’s pretty easy to throw irrelevancies at us rather than engage our points.

And we all know what comes out of an ass…