Transphobia and Sophistry
I remember back in the 90s getting into arguments with homophobes about how they couldn’t be homophobic because they weren’t afraid of gay men and lesbian women. Rather than address the substance of the statement - homophobia means you’re prejudiced against gay men, lesbian women, and probably bisexual people - these prejudiced people would shift the goalposts and make it not about whether or not they hated GLB people, but how they weren’t afraid. Belledame compares this kind of argument to a more recent post from a radical feminist proclaiming that she’s not afraid of trans people.
Transphobia is not strictly defined as a “fear of transsexual or transgender people.” Its usage is directly related to “homophobia,” which is also not strictly defined as a “fear of GLB people.” It’s about bigotry. If someone is transphobic - or homophobic - they’re bigoted against trans people - or GLB people. Pisaquari writes:
I am not comfortable being my radical feminist self amongst transpersons. Reading transperson accounts online and in books does not help it either–in fact, it heightens my inability to speak freely. How can I, a gender abolitionist, feel comfortable speaking out against gender and its manifestations in the company of a transperson? How can I, a gender abolitionist, feel comfortable talking about my frustrations and hardships with the idea that what our bodies are born has anything to do with how we should express ourselves, in the company of a transperson? I think gender is woefully destructive and I put it to blame for so much of what pits us against our bodies. But what I am arguing for and about smacks against what transpersons feel is their reality and experience. In recognizing their daily trauma and very real oppression they receive I don’t have the *guts* to sit in a room and speak the truths I feel about gender with a transperson.
And why would I? What have radical feminists ever gotten by speaking their minds about gender as it applies to transitioning besides a stinking diagnosis? Add “transphobia” to the list of reasons why I am not down with trans at a radical feminist conference. (Perhaps we could come to some bull shit truce yes? Wherein you agree to label the problem accurately and we let you keep your silly name call: “genderphobia.” Because I wouldn’t dare ask anyone to part with “phobia.” How would you get through your day without vilifying radical feminists as hateful panicbots?)
I personally don’t vilify all radical feminists as hateful panicbots - just those who are hateful panicbots, and I’m down with saying Pisaquari is being a hateful panicbot in this post. I do recognize that transphobia (I will not stop using the word that’s been used to label your bigotry just because you don’t like it) seems to be a common trait among radical feminists, to the point that I wonder why so many are obsessed with us. Why does Heart flip out when a trans woman posts that she was groped on a bus, but then a few days later post about how women are groped on buses? Why does Heart say that a t rans woman using goddess imagery is plagiarizing womanhood? Why does Lucky Nkl try troll trans discussions and compare us to serial killers? Why was Maia attacked as being a ringer because she defended trans women? Why does M Andrea insist that she has the right to interrogate trans people as to our identities and motives and when we refuse to indulge her petty questions, she thinks that means we can’t? Why do so many radical feminists waste their time trying to define trans women as not women, trying to characterize us in insulting, offensive, misogynist ways if you’re not transphobic? I mean the actual meaning of the word, not your shifted goalposts meaning. If that’s still too much for you, why the hell are you such bigots about us? Are we oppressing you? Are we perpetrating sexism? Does our position as migrants from one sex to the other (or, as with many transgender people, outside the gender binary entirely) grant us some unique patriarchal power?
There’s one thing that’s true about bigotry and prejudice that has always been true - you can’t trust the privileged to deny their privilege to the oppressed. You can’t trust this because the privileged are blind to their privilege, protective of it, or both. Men don’t like to admit to sexism, white people don’t like to admit to racism, and cis people don’t like to admit to transbigotry, transphobia, transmisogyny, you name it.
So when anyone - not just radical feminists, but anyone - proudly proclaims how they don’t accept trans women as real women, or don’t want us around, or construct elaborate theories about how we’re really patriarchal and gender oppressors, I find it difficult to take them at their word when they turn around and say “Oh, I’m not a bigot.” Please forgive me, but you’re not in a position to be the judge of that.
When you say
In recognizing their daily trauma and very real oppression they receive I don’t have the *guts* to sit in a room and speak the truths I feel about gender with a transperson.
it shows me that you don’t understand the oppression trans people receive (it’s about gender), you know the truths you feel about gender do not allow for the existence of trans people and are thus in some way wrong, and since you’re primarily talking about transsexual people here, you don’t understand that transsexualism isn’t about gender.
My oppression comes from the fact that women are supposed to be A and men are supposed to be B, and while I was born male-bodied, I am A and that is wrong and bad, and I get this from mainstream society, from religion, from talk show hosts, from people cheering on the murder of trans women, from people who casually joke about the murder of trans women, and so on. From radical feminsts, I get, “No, you’re really B, and you can never ever change, nor should you want to, because changing like that is wrong!” And then some of them accuse me of being a gender essentialist.
If you think that transgender, genderqueer, etc are about upholding the gender binary, you don’t understand that either.
Pisaquari also talks about how she only wants radfem events to be for those who were born and raised female, and nothing else, but she’s not talking in a vacuum. Many of the women who post at the MWMF forum (and many of those who identify as radical feminists) like to say that MWMF is one week out of the year - but they also talk about how there needs to be more exclusion in the feminist community, in the lesbian community, about how there needs to be fewer spaces that trans women are welcome in. They blog about this, and their commenters support them. This is the face of radical feminism that I see - one that doesn’t want me around, one that doesn’t want me to exist.
The truth is, about a year into my transition, I came across some radical feminist literature, and I liked it. I liked what it had to say about sexism - I was on the receiving end of sexism and had been for a few months, so I was new to experiencing it personally, but I knew it wasn’t temporary, that I was at risk for sexual assault, harrassment, would be treated as inferior and lesser just because I was a woman - and never how much worse that got when someone knew I was trans (and believe me, if I was required to pick one, I’d rather have just the sexism, thank you). I’d read several issues of Off Our Backs, read a few books . . . then I came across the transphobia. I came across the pure venom and hatred many radical feminists have for trans women. I assimilated the concepts that I thought had value, and otherwise left radical feminism behind. Every time I’ve encountered radical feminism since, it’s largely been characterized by how I’m a horrible person because of a list of “facts” that really have nothing to do with my life. Being told that my own life history is irrelevant and wrong because it doesn’t agree with the “theory.” That I shouldn’t be allowed to gather with so-called “real” women because my male birth means I’m a threat and a danger to them, because I can only be seen as a man and thus a potential rapist, or whatever you want to say.
That is my experience with radical feminism. If you don’t want to be considered a trans-hating movement, then it would probably help to start respecting trans people as people, respecting our histories, not imposing your own prejudices and narratives on our lives, using us to symbolize your oppression, and otherwise othering us so you can discriminate against us with a clean conscience.
Until then, you’re just as transphobic as any fundamentalist.
I know there are radical feminists who are not transphobic, who don’t have to contort their feminism into pretzels to justify hating an oppressed minority, who listened and learned about us, rather than following Janice Raymond’s example and outright lying about who we are, what we believe, and why we do what we do. I assume that bigoted hatred of transsexual people is separable from radical feminism and not intrinsic to the ideals of radical feminism.
So why not give it a try? Give up that stupid “against the sin, not the sinner” - whoops, I mean “against the politics, not the people” - ex-gay ministry-like rhetoric of “Questioning Transgender Politics” and try to deal with us honestly, not as caricatures you get to invent and warp as you please.
Until then, when you say and do transphobic things, you’ll get called on it.
Oh, one of the commenters:
Janice Raymond suffers from the same level of ‘critique’ as Andrea Dworkin- ridiculously hateful screeds by those who have never read anything by either of them, and never intend to. Shame on them. Those muppets should actually read Raymond and Dworkin… and get a spine and a clue.
I own a copy of The Transsexual Empire and have read it. I’ve read Raymond’s attempt to redefine lesbian sex into something politically acceptable to radical feminism. I’ve read Dworkin, but not a lot. I’m not impressed with Janice Raymond, as I’m sure you’re not (and truly, I’m not either) impressed with Warren Farrell’s writings on father’s and men’s rights.
Late addition: I found this on the Americans for Truth website. Compare and contrast with the radfem blogger’s language:
Are we afraid of transsexuals, bisexual, homosexuals? No. Do we disagree with their lifestyle choices and the ideologies and agendas they would foist on the nation — even on impressionable children through the public schools? You bet. (Never forget that homosexual/trans activists promote the notion of ‘transgender’ youth — the ‘T’ in the destructive “GLBT youth” equation.) The deliberate conflation of disagreement with fear is one of the more sinister ways in which sexual revolutionaries have “normalized” homosexual ideology and behavior in America.
March 17, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Lovely post.
March 17, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I sometimes think that transphobia is a good description of the dynamic even if you do take it literally. I mean, they insist that we are and always will be members of the sex we were assigned at birth - that looks like fear and hostility (phobia) towards the idea that crossing over is possible (trans).
March 17, 2008 at 7:28 pm
This post rocks, Lisa, and shoudl be require reading.
And pisaquari’s post really doesn’t make sense. If she’s really such a strident “gender abolitionist,” why is the mere presence of a transperson in the room enough to shut her up?
I mean, just supposing for a minute that there actually is a “political stance” on a set of “transgender politics”: I’m passionate about causes I care about. I can, and have, stood in rooms full of anti-porn feminists and announced that I use pornography, that I find their critiques wrongheaded, and that I’m not sure their slideshows present a representative picture of mainstream pornography.
When I’m in those spaces, I do feel a bit intimidated, queasy, etc. But the fact that the whole room disagrees with me is not silencing, not if the issue is one I actually think is worth debating.
As I read pisaquarise, she’s actually admitting to a serious character flaw even if transphobia “doesn’t exist.” She’s claiming that her sense of self is so fragile it gets broken down among people who she disagrees with. And while it’s true that constantly being invalidated by a group around you can be a kind of erasure, lively debates around the Internet about who should be let in to a festival for women are not that.
March 17, 2008 at 7:37 pm
shouLD be requireD. bloody fingers.
March 17, 2008 at 7:41 pm
“So when anyone - not just radical feminists, but anyone - proudly proclaims how they don’t accept trans women as real women, or don’t want us around, or construct elaborate theories about how we’re really patriarchal and gender oppressors, I find it difficult to take them at their word when they turn around and say “Oh, I’m not a bigot.” Please forgive me, but you’re not in a position to be the judge of that.”
It’s like Freud. There are “theories” about why people are gay. Our dismissing them meant, perhaps, that we have a less nuanced story about where gayness comes from. Some people do bemoan this. But we got rid of that “theory” because, however internally consistent and elegant it seemed, it had nothing to do with anything.
Critiques of “transgender politics” could perhaps look internally coherent, even elegant to some… but they are not about anything, because there is no “transgender politics.” It’s like coming up with a theory about exactly how Santa Claus is capable of traveling around the world and leaving toys for every child in one night. One might well come up with a brilliant explanation of how this is possible — but one is *wasting one’s breath* because there is no Santa Claus.
March 17, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Yeah, actual transgender politics are identical to actual feminist politics - seeking equality and equitable treatment in society and under the law.
Of course, as we know, some radical feminists oppose such rights for trans people under the pretense that they would somehow lessen civil rights protections for women.
And yes, it’s a pretense. A lawyer came into that thread and told them it wouldn’t happen, but they blew her off because she was trans and they didn’t like what she had to say.
March 17, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’m not sure it is always a pretense. I think of posts like Maia’s and Cicely’s from way back when, and they make me think that some people really do believe this not out of maliciousness but out of ignorance (and sometimes come to see their ignorance for what it is.) I think some people just do believe in “Santa Clauses”, simply because they’re very ignorant, and too nervous or frightened to see their ignorance for what it is. I’ve run into countless people, for example, who are anti-SM on “principle,” to whom I can talk for ten minutes about what SM is actually like, and who respond very quickly with, “oh, well if it’s like THAT, that’s fine. Actually, that’s really interesting. I thought it was like this [rattles off common narrative floating in the culture that scared hir]!”
But yeah, for the people who hold to the same line no matter what and attack others for questioning it, I totally agree that it’s a pretense.
March 17, 2008 at 7:57 pm
In Heart’s case, the line about it lessening rights for women was a pretense. She knows better, but she hates trans people so much she’s against us making any progress ever. The commenters on her blog are largely the same - they’re anti-trans as a matter of principle (or really, a lack of principles). They don’t care about the truth, they care about tearing us down whenever they can. We’re an easier target than the actual patriarchy, after all.
So yeah, I guess I should just come out and say they’re bullies, or wannabe bullies.
BTW, I have to apologize for forgetting to mention BDSM in my posts today. :(
March 17, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Oh, and from pisa’s post:
“I should have you know there is a P word I give to instances wherein a group of dissenting women are “diagnosed”–hysteria of some sort usually does the trick–and then told their paranoia can/must be solved by forcing the very thing/person they “fear” around them (5 homemade brownies in the next life to the person who gets it).”
So if a man has fear of women, and decides to start a business and only hire men so he doesn’t have to be around people he fears, and I step in and say that forcing him to be around women will not do him harm so he should learn to deal with it, does this P word apply?
If a white woman has fear of WOC, and decides to set up her own little enclaves so she can be herself without being around people she fears as ugly, brutish, uncivilized, loud, and otherwise threatening, and I say that this is her problem, does this P word apply?
Also, why do I see comparisons between transphobia and diagnosable fears ALL THE TIME, but yet never seem to see the same people refusing to use the word “homophobia” or coining neologisms that recognize the difference between homophobia and panic-inducing phobias?
March 17, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Also, I do realize a lot of people accept this stuff without holding onto it strongly enough that they won’t change their minds. That they’re not educated rather than malicious.
And yeah, her comparison of personal bigotry to hysteria is pretty self-serving.
March 17, 2008 at 10:32 pm
My father once came up with a short paper — with equations — about how this was accomplishable with pixie dust. (Given the necessary speed to achieve the second star to the right by morning.)
The thing is, when Dad does stuff like that, he knows full well he looks ridiculous.
March 18, 2008 at 1:16 am
Nick, sorry about your post getting caught in the spam trap. Anyway, yeah, I agree with what you say there.
They’re also engaged in essentialism of a sort they accuse us of doing.
March 18, 2008 at 5:07 am
I added a bit to the end of the post. It’s sort of interesting how they’re recycling fundamentalist homophobic and transphobic arguments to construct their own transphobic arguments.
March 18, 2008 at 6:52 am
“My father once came up with a short paper — with equations — about how this was accomplishable with pixie dust. (Given the necessary speed to achieve the second star to the right by morning.)”
Nice! But is he defending the theories which show that pixie dust must be real, or understanding he’s working in an imaginary framework? That’s the difference — they either can’t entertain the idea that they’re “theorizing” about something that isn’t actually real, or won’t entertain it because doing the “theory” gives them prestige among the ignorant.
March 18, 2008 at 10:32 am
awesome post. when’s/where’s the next CoF? this should be in it.
March 18, 2008 at 10:37 am
As per phobic: well, again, if it isn’t -fear-, what IS it? What exactly do you imagine is going to happen if you Maud forbid share a gigantic space in the woods with a handful of women who might still have discreetly tucked away and hormone-depleted phalli? or once did? The shower panic (yet another parallel with homophobic straight men, and you know what, yeah, I’m sure some of them can justify that fear with stories of personal abuse as well, in fact I’ve known a few who do have that going on as well): this isn’t -fear?- Okay: what -is- it?
Usually, when a homophobe pulls the “I’m not afraid!” they usually are doing it in a way that’s not only “I’m not a bigot” but “ain’t -scared- of these preverts/freaks/sissies; they just -disgust- me.” Which is of course much better, and immediately inclines one to stop calling them the nasty word that upsets them so, because, hey! Respect.
March 18, 2008 at 10:40 am
>>(5 homemade brownies in the next life to the person who gets it).”>>
too subtle for me, sorry! I missed the subtle part.
Can I just say, tangentially, that “in the next life” made me laugh out loud? Little Freudian slip, there, maybe: of course it would be in the next life, that’s what these people are all about. No brownies for you; you haven’t -earned- it, and brownies under the Patriarchy are irredeemably tainted anyway, don’t touch ‘em, ptui ptui.
March 18, 2008 at 10:46 am
“I’m not sure it is always a pretense. I think of posts like Maia’s and Cicely’s from way back when, and they make me think that some people really do believe this not out of maliciousness but out of ignorance (and sometimes come to see their ignorance for what it is.)”
Yes, which takes us back to my “Grand Unified Theory of Assholery.” They changed their minds, or were capable of it, because they’re basically decent people who are capable of experiencing basic human empathy and compassion. Whereas the reason people like Blanche and Rich and a lot of others take hateful positions is because, in fact, they’re hateful people: solipsistic, self-aggrandizing, more issues than National Geographic, tending to blame all their problems on external circumstances/people while at the same time devoid of self-insight, and just basically horrible.
I realize this is not a belief that is popular among many of the political theorists and spiritual people of this world, particularly the ones with whom I share general leanings. Nonetheless, I hold to it. Some things are more basic than ideology, and more important, also. They play out in ideology, they use ideology as frames and justifications, but ultimately you have to look under that.
March 18, 2008 at 10:50 am
“As I read pisaquarise, she’s actually admitting to a serious character flaw even if transphobia “doesn’t exist.” She’s claiming that her sense of self is so fragile it gets broken down among people who she disagrees with. ”
…exactly.
March 18, 2008 at 10:53 am
“Transphobia is not strictly defined as a “fear of transsexual or transgender people.” Its usage is directly related to “homophobia,” which is also not strictly defined as a “fear of GLB people.” It’s about bigotry. If someone is transphobic - or homophobic - they’re bigoted against trans people - or GLB people.”
“Bigot”? Geez there we go again. You do realize that a person can question and challenge “transitioning” while still wanting you to have rights, safety, and an overall happy and good life right?
I want the ability to be with like-minded individuals and only like-minded individuals for period of maybe a day, next year, to feel comfortable talking about/against transitioning (amongst other things)–if that makes me a bigot then fine. I suppose not wanting nonradfems there makes me nonradfemphobic too.
“Why do so many radical feminists waste their time trying to define trans women as not women, trying to characterize us in insulting, offensive, misogynist ways if you’re not transphobic?”
I don’t speak for Heart or Lucky or M Andrea but I am not saying transwomen are not *women*, per se, because “woman” is a semantics beehive.
What I *am* saying is that transwomen are not female born woman raised.
Which, to me, is akin to “duh.”
(and “insulting?” So far you’ve called me transphobic, fundamentalist, a bigot and -stolen from my post- a hateful panicbot. Different standards apply?)
“I mean the actual meaning of the word, not your shifted goalposts meaning. ”
You can give *the* (that should be The right?) “actual” meaning of the word all day.
Do you believe every person who says they are a woman?
The only way this argument works is if *your* actual meaning of the word goes for everyone–that is, of course, unless anyone who claims womanhood gets it.
Can’t have both.
“My oppression comes from the fact that women are supposed to be A and men are supposed to be B”
Hey, mine too. Do you get that I *don’t want people oppressing you*.
And no, I don’t feel having a radfem conference ( the only one I have addressed) of the female born and woman raised variety is oppressive to trans because it excludes them. Unless of course, and as stated, you believe nonradfems are being oppressed too. Perhaps you do.
“From radical feminsts, I get, “No, you’re really B, and you can never ever change, nor should you want to, because changing like that is wrong!””
Really? Did you get that from me?
I can’t mad lib that statement to make it applicable because the line of argument you have presented isn’t analogous to my feelings.
Here is my position in a nutshell:
1. Transwomen are people (yep! “people”) that have made some sort of *change* to be considered (trans) “women”
2. To have transitioned is to have supported the message that links what our bodies are to how we express them. That, to me, is gender. (That those expressions, however, oftentimes have binary influence-influence not carbon copy- is no accident.)
3. I don’t want body parts “expressible” (maybe you do? or don’t care either way)
To “express” womanhood/being a “woman” is to further define/perpetuate how those with the status of “woman” under Status Quo Norms should act or behave and, thusly, what people expect from them (for obvious reasons, you didn’t become trans to be considered translisa). Any positive re-enforcement of this, afaic, is problematic and oppressive.
4. I recognize that my latter points are not appreciated by transpersons so I’m not going to go out of my way (across seas, lots of expense) to say those things to transpersons who already have a hard enough time with conservative values. Contrary to typical conflation radfems are not conservatives–our positions are wholly different and you are smart enough to discern.
5. All I would like, wrt to trans exclusive spaces, are enough places I may go, in one lifetime, on one hand, that allow me to speak comfortably about the points presented above.
6. I will always question the motives of trans who can in one breath call me transphobic (or bigot, or fundamentalist) and then ask “So can I come?”
“Pisaquari also talks about how she only wants radfem events to be for those who were born and raised female, and nothing else, but she’s not talking in a vacuum.”
I never said “radfems events” because that to me implies all events. I don’t think all radfems events should be exclusionary.
“The truth is, about a year into my transition,…[this paragraph]” &
“That is my experience with radical feminism. If you don’t want to be considered a trans-hating movement, then it would probably help to start respecting trans people as people, respecting our histories, not imposing your own prejudices and narratives on our lives, using us to symbolize your oppression, and otherwise othering us so you can discriminate against us with a clean conscience.”
I don’t think you understand: no one is saying your history, or narrative didn’t happen. The point is what messages we feel are inherent in transitioning. People address messages all the time–people exclude people for the messages they send *all the time* (ever voted?).
“…whoops, I mean “against the politics, not the people” ”
If you are so informed of radical feminism then you should know how often this does not work Lisa. Addressing people makes radfems bigots, and personal *attackers*. Addressing generic points makes radfems bigots and personal *attackers*.
It’s no wonder we give up.
March 18, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Yeah, fundamentalism is Open Source, innit? Free, as in the common cold.
March 18, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Uh, yeah, pisqua, it does make you a bigot. Sorry if you don’t like being referred to/thought of in a way you don’t like to think of yourself as–oh, wait.
Difference is: whether or not someone -else- transitions? is not any skin off -your- ass. Someone else transitions, you don’t have to transition. Someone else -doesn’t- transition, you -still- don’t have to transition.
Sort of, oh I don’t know, in the same way that excuse me NOT homophobes who totally don’t want us -dead- or discriminated against at work or anything just want a space to themselves without our input where they can talk about how they don’t think we should be able to get married or have kids. Never mind the fact that whether or not we get those rights, -their- ability to get married or have kids with their partner or choice is not in question. Funny, that.
March 18, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Also: your ideology is not equivalent to someone else’s entire fucking LIFE. Again, any more than fundamentalist Christianity is being “discriminated against” because they can’t get their entire fucking way about how to run everyone else’s life -either.-
March 18, 2008 at 5:33 pm
and pisqua, as far as I know no transperson or “sex pox” or anyone else is banging down the door to get into your personal private treehouse. A gigantic national level music festival which is supposedly open to any woman who can pay the entry fee, much less a fucking -rape crisis shelter-, yeah, there are reasons why people want in even if they can’t personally stand -your- ass.
“You don’t own the street! You don’t own the whole street! If you want to own a street why don’t you move, and buy a street!…”
March 18, 2008 at 5:43 pm
also? I’m fairly certain that the people who were protesting the seating policies at certain lunch counters down South a few decades back, they weren’t doing it because they were so desperate for the company of the other customers and/or the food was so hot, you know…
March 18, 2008 at 6:21 pm
“You can give *the* (that should be The right?) “actual” meaning of the word all day.
Do you believe every person who says they are a woman?
The only way this argument works is if *your* actual meaning of the word goes for everyone–that is, of course, unless anyone who claims womanhood gets it.
Can’t have both.”
So, here’s a wacky notion, just entertain for a moment:
What if anyone who claimed womanhood -did- get it? What would happen?
Because, the whole hairsplitting some of y’all have about “wanting to do away with gender” doesn’t fit well with this deep-seated attachment to the idea that BEING BORN WITH A HOOHOO IS ULTRA IMPORTANT. Especially if you’re simultaneously trying to claim that it’s not -really- about the hoohoo, it’s about the message -society- drills into the recipient of the hoohoo (or non-recipient, respectively). What, you’re not society, now? You have no power to uphold the gender binary yourselves, is that it? So of course that’s so totally NOT what you’re doing when you scream your head off about who is or isn’t allowed into some stupid music festival or a forfuckssake -bathroom-. Heavens, no. You’re totally all about getting rid of the gender binary; it just has to be done your way. Even if that way involves calling yourself “she,” dressing more or less like a traditional albeit not terribly glamorous feminine woman, using the ladies’ loo without thinking twice about it, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Uh huh.
Look, why don’t you just come off it? You’re not -radical- feminists; you’re -cultural feminists.- Female supremacists, even. You have absolutely no intention of doing away with “gender” OR the sexual binary, because if there were no such thing as “womanhood” you’d have absolutely no identity whatsoever. You want to do away with the Patriarchy in about the same way that the CP wants the State to wither away: oh, sure, sure, someday, some day looooooong and far away, and of course you have no power, can’t get power, and certainly wouldn’t -want- power even if it were offered to you on a silver platter;
just, you know, there’s -work- to do, and stuff, and, gosh, well, we’re awfully -busy-, and all those other poor deluded slobs can’t -think- about this important shit as well as you can, it’s a dirty job but -someone- has to do it…
mm, mm hm.
March 18, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Pisaquari, I’m not fisking you here - you have a long post and it’s easier for me to process/respond to long posts by taking the points individually.
I realize that people don’t like it, but it’s just easier to be clear about what I’m specifically responding to by quoting it directly.
If you want me to have an overall happy and good life, why would you question transition? I attempted suicide several times before I started transition, and haven’t attempted suicide once since… If I hadn’t begun, I most likely wouldn’t be here to discuss this with you.
And what is it about transition that you question?
I guess the problem here is that trans people aren’t included in this dialogue about what’s wrong with transitioning. I think you’d be surprised at the perspectives trans people would bring on the subject of transition if you wanted to talk to us about it, rather than talk about it and against it away from us.
Obviously, not allowing non-radfems to come is reasonable because it’s a radfem gathering, but I do believe there are trans women who are also radfems, or at least used to be. Just being trans doesn’t mean reviling everything radical feminism has to say, or reviling radical feminism at all. It’s just that there’s so much radical feminist writing in actual books as well as the blogosphere that takes the position that trans people can be discussed and dissected without our input or acknowledgement of our own life histories or even identities as valid.
Well, yeah, of course not. That’s something that we’re not responsible for, any more than you’re responsible for being born female and raised a woman. However, you’re saying here that it’s okay to hold that against trans women, but in your post you say it’s not okay to point out the privilege you had in being born female and raised a woman.
I agree that “woman” is a semantic beehive. I just take people’s word for it, assuming they’re not clearly playing some kind of game (like men who pose as women online, and all the drama that can bring).
I get that from radical feminists in general, hence my references to Heart, Lucky, M Andrea, and…well, there’s a pretty long list.
Okay, so you don’t feel it’s analogous to your feelings: Do you challenge it when it comes from other radfems? Or do you let it slide? Do you not object to them even though you personally don’t hold them?
Well, to be considered women. We have a hard time shedding the “trans” part unless we’re seen as women and people can’t just look at us and say “Hey, I bet that person was born male.”
This doesn’t really strike me as more than a superficial analysis of transition. You’re talking about it in terms of how it supposedly reinforces gender by altering someone’s body as far as possible from male to female and female to male - and, I want to be clear on this, society hates this, because it violates the sense that what our bodies look like define who we are.
It also doesn’t acknowledge what trans people say about ourselves or our reasons for transition. See my comment previously about suicide, for example. Or check out Cameron McWilliams. The problem here is that on the one hand, you feel that transition does…what you say above. On the other hand, for people who transition, it’s usually a matter of life and death. Sure, not everyone has that narrative. Not every trans person who transitions partially or fully says they were that desperate.
Okay, one of the reasons that trans people transition is because our bodies feel wrong to us. Our brains expect our bodies to be one sex, and our bodies are the other sex, and this causes dissonance that gets worse over time. You’re reducing that to a matter of political theory about how people looking like women reinforces how women should act.
And, this is a critique that is leveled much less often against cis women who behave in traditionally feminine ways. It also seems to come with the assumption that trans women only behave in traditionally feminine ways, and there’s stereotype there based in truth - a truth that I personally criticize every chance I get. That truth isn’t that trans women are hyperfeminine stereotypes, but that the standards of care that are supposed to govern our transition and get us the letters for surgery encourage (or with some psychiatrists, even demand) that we present ourselves in a feminine or even hyperfeminine way.
In order to be diagnosed in the first place, I had to disavow any attraction I had to women, and state that I was attracted to men. In order to be prescribed hormones, the psychiatrist wanted to see me in a dress or skirt. The therapist I was seeing for voice work (and she was an awful voice therapist) insisted that I always wear dresses and skirts to her office. Even years later when I needed to see her about something, she insisted I wear a dress for the appointment, and not show up in my preferred (at the time) jeans.
And this wasn’t just something I experienced. Psychiatrists involved in the early days of gender clinics talked about assessing whether trans women would be attractive enough as women after they transitioned, and required a specific narrative to diagnose trans women that emphasized femininity. Since trans women are just diverse as cis women, a lot of us had to misrepresent ourselves as more feminine than we would have preferred just to get the treatment that would help encourage us to not kill ourselves, or at least not live out our lives in depression.
I really want that to be clear - transitioning isn’t - for trans people - about reinforcing the gender binary, or behaving in traditionally or stereotypically gendered ways, it’s about survival and quality of life.
You echoed a popular religious right argument about homophobia almost word for word. No, you’re not conservatives, but when it comes to trans people, a lot of radfems are downright paleolithic.
The problem with your assumption is that there’s parts of your concerns about transition that I think could use discussion, but I think that those concerns tend not to be applied to cis women in general, and that those concerns tend to be applied to transition as a whole rather than something a few people do, or something that was (and in some places, still is) reinforced by the medical profession and not the people who go to the medical profession for help.
But is it useful to discussion transition in the absence of people who undergo it? Without really acknowledging why we do it?
Not all trans people are the same person. I never asked if I could come.
However, I want to draw a completely valid parallel here: When activsts were trying to end segregation, they walked into lunch counters and other businesses where they were not welcome, and probably were more than willing to call the owners and customers who didn’t want them there racist and bigoted (and rightly so). Would you question their motives? Would you ask them “What’s wrong with you that you say these people are racist, but you want to be welcome in their spaces?”
Because that’s what your statement above is like. You’re asking why trans people would call anyone out on their anti-trans bigotry and yet still want to participate. The answer is pretty simple - many trans women feel they belong in women’s culture, which means that they want to come, and they’re being discriminated against.
Are you just saying my tone is off because you don’t like how I questioned your anti-trans statements? That you don’t like being seen as prejudiced against trans women? Obviously you don’t, you spent an entire post arguing that you couldn’t be transphobic because you don’t fear trans people, something that a lot of conservatives take time to do with homophobia.
If you want to question and analyze what trans people do without having trans people present? You’re not going to come to any kind of informed conclusions about us or transition. At best, you’ll get back into the kind of statementsthat say high heels and lipstick (and other gendered markers) are bad, and you don’t need to talk about transition to come to that conclusion, as Twisty Faster’s blogging history can easily attest. I mean, if you want to question ” the message that links what our bodies are to how we express them,” you don’t need transition to illustrate your conclusions, or to object across transd bodies. You don’t need to exclude trans women from these discussions - many of whom have had to deal with expectations that womanhood requires certain expressions, and would probably love to discuss this.
It’s like if a bunch of white people got together to discuss how much of a problem it is that part of the black community reinforces stereotypes by using the n* word toward each other. How could they really be informed on the meaning of that usage, or whether the entire black community agrees with it? What theory of use could they come up with, that relates to black people’s lived realities, without asking black people in the first place? And why should they concern themselves over it in the first place? Isn’t it something for the black community to deal with? Why are they sticking their noses in?
Or, perhaps more close to home, men getting together to discuss how feminism is harming society. MRAs do this, they talk about about symbolic caricatures they call feminism and whine about it at length, they assign their own prejudices and beliefs to feminism and set that straw on fire repeatedly. What value can their discourse bring if they don’t actually pay attention to what feminists are saying and doing, and choose instead to attack a big straw dummy they pretend is feminism?
That’s how I feel about most of the radical feminist discussions I see about transsexualism and transgender - we’re ignored, our comments aren’t approved, we’re told straight to our faces that we can’t be relied on to tell the truth and someone else’s narrative about what she thinks is true about trans people is imposed upon us. There’s a lot of talk about trans issues among radical feminists, but any actual input from trans people isn’t usually welcome.
March 18, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Uh, you know, I don’t get that argument. Of course everyone who claims womanhood gets it. ‘Cause, you know, they, like, have it already? Men are not in the habit of claiming womanhood and women are not in the habit of claiming manhood. Generally, human beings claim the gender they are- and get it, because, well, duh. What planet do men claim to be women on?
Listen. Humans, they don’t define either gender as “claims to be the other”.
You don’t like gender? Fine by me. It both suits me and hinders me, like most. You want it gone? Good luck with that. I ain’t helping, I ain’t stopping you. But respect how people interact with what they have in their head and know what that is. The rules of gender, unlike gender itself, are set in stone.
And men don’t fragging wanna be women. OK?
March 18, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Oh, I forgot that one:
The word in question being “transphobia” which refers to prejudice against trans people in the same way that homophobia refers to prejudice against gay and lesbian people, and racism refers to prejudice against people of color. In your post, you tried to redefine transphobia as a medical diagnosis of “Fear of trans people,” which is exactly the same argument that religious fundamentalists use to argue that they’re not homophobic - I even linked to an example in the post, and Belledame linked to another in her post. You even tried to conflate pointing out anti-trans prejudice with diagnoses of hysteria. In my experience, dealing with racists, sexists, homophobes, ableists, transphobes…in every case, the person who actually spends time trying to redefine the word into something else so they can say it doesn’t apply to them? It usually does apply to them.
Do I believe every person who says they are a woman? No, I’ve been involved in online gaming and chatting, and I’ve encountered a few men who pose as women. I don’t mean trans people, or transvestites, but men who carefully construct an elaborate alternate online identity as women. But, that’s specifically online, and those identities tend to come across a certain way, and after you’ve seen a few, the rest tend to show their slip.
But for the most part, yes, I do accept that most people who say they’re women are women. Generally speaking, men won’t ever claim to be women and women won’t ever claim to be men. People know what their gender - or if you prefer, their sense of what sex they are. I know from personal experience that this knowledge does not always match up with what sex you’re born with.
Why shouldn’t everyone who claims womanhood get it? You know that there’s not a prize for being a woman, that being a woman is not actually a socially advantageous position. What would a man gain from becoming a woman? Why would a man want to be a woman? I’m pretty much left with actual women wanting to be women, and that “actual women” includes trans women as well as cis women, as far as I’m concerned.
Do you think there’s legions of actual men waiting to claim womanhood? Why would you think that?
March 18, 2008 at 10:00 pm
And that last is the $64,000 question, isn’t it.
I said a little something at my place, too.
March 19, 2008 at 3:31 am
Pisaquari, I am curious as to what you mean by gender pimps as a tag for your posts related to transgender issues. I’m not sure how referring to transgender people as “gender pimps” is not somehow a slur against transgender people. Could you explain this to me? What exactly is a gender pimp, and why am I supposed to take you at your word that you respect my identity when you are willing to tag your discussions about trans issues as “gender pimps?”
And while you’re explaining that, why do you praise a website as “crazy brilliant” that hosts articles about trans people that include outright lies like this?
This (page 14) is what actually happened:
But does it stop there? No. Karla Mantilla also says
If you do not support the assertion that trans women are not women, why are you so enthusiastic about a website that supports the assertion that trans women are men? That we shouldn’t have access to women’s services? From the front page:
How about Karla Mantilla invoking the image of trans women as potential rapists? Especially building that image off of a lie - off of an event that never happened? Can you explain to me why this site is so insightful and daring for questioning transgender politics when Karla Mantilla’s basically just slagging off trans women as penis-flashing rapists? This passage here:
Not being bigoted against trans people means doing more than just saying you respect our identities and our lives. It means not supporting websites and groups that actively propagate transphobic propaganda about people just to justify keeping us segregated from you. It means actually listening to us when we say “Hey, what you said there is not cool.”
Karla also continues to refer to trans women as men and males. How is this not extremely disrespectful and how is she not attacking the people rather than politics in this essay? Could you please explain this to me?
In Maia’s post, you say
Could you explain how characterizing trans women as rapists and actively working against trans women being included in social programs for women is working against the politics and not the people? Could you go through those articles and justify what they say? Justify why Alix Dobkin is willing to say:
But what she really means is “Be ourselves as long as you don’t be the wrong kind of ourselves: Don’t transition.”
Read the entire article. She’s condemning trans men, characterizing them as “fleeing womanhood” which shows she either doesn’t know or doesn’t believe what these men have to say about why they transition. She’s again not talking about politics, she’s telling these men who lived for years or decades as lesbians to stop transitioning and live as women, even though living that way is painful enough that they are transitioning.
There’s nothing to this site that acknowledges trans people’s lived experiences and realities. It’s about dismissing our experiences and realities, about saying that transition is wrong and probably immoral, that dependence upon the medical establishment makes us willing and eager participants in patriarchal oppression (as opposed to, for example, diabetics who take insulin, or cancer patients who undergo chemo and radiation therapy).
So if you want to know one of the lines I draw? It’s this: If you actively promote a hate site dedicated to demeaning trans lives and bodies - and you do - you’re prejudiced against me. You may not believe it, you may not want to believe it, but I’m right here telling you that I can’t even count the number of trans people who have posted comments here, comments on their own blogs, sent e-mail, thanking me for taking the time to criticize, question, and deconstruct Questioning Transgender, because when they came across it, they didn’t always have a ready response. I certainly didn’t. It made me ill to read that, and that’s another thing many trans people have told me - they felt ill reading that.
If you’re truly honestly plausibly not transphobic, not bigoted against trans people, then now’s your chance to prove it - read what I’m saying here. Look - honestly, seriously look - at what Questioning Transgender’s essays and articles are really saying about trans people. Read my posts from November that deconstruct those articles and explain what’s wrong with them from a trans woman’s perspective. Don’t just accept at face value that it is what the preface says it is. It’s a one-sided site dedicated to promoting anti-transgender and anti-transsexual sentiment.
I realize I may sound like I’m stuck on the rapist thing, but for real, don’t you see how obnoxiously offensive that is? Or basing an entire argument on an event that never happened? This site you say is brilliant spreads lies about trans women to discredit us and keep us excluded from women’s spaces.
Oh, and transgender politics?
National Transgender Advocacy Coalition describes its politics:
Read the whole thing.
How about GenderPAC? Surely they must have some of those noxious transgender politics that QTP talks about, right?
Please tell me what’s wrong with that? Please point to where there’s actual activism that doesn’t fit that. Please tell me what trans people are doing that’s so horrible. Show me how transgender and transsexual people - by violating and crossing and transgressing gender boundaries - are reinforcing patriarchal norms of gender. I would like to know.
March 19, 2008 at 6:03 am
I agree with your argument about the meaning of homophobia. In my opinion, it’s politics, not fear. I made the same argument in my 2004 article in the Journal of Bisexuality, entitled “GL vs. BT: The Archaeology of Biphobia and Transphobia in the U.S. Gay and Lesbian Community,” which you can read at http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~jweiss/glvsbt.htm Here’s the conclusion of the article:
“As we have seen, the historical circumstances of the construction of homosexuality in the U.S. created power relations, which called both for a more inclusive grouping and, at the same time, for a more exclusive grouping. These power relations created the four different groups of which the homosexual community are composed, assigning them different identities, different resources, different spaces in the political sphere. It is these social constructions that created the environment for identity politics within the homosexual community. To the extent that this identity politics has created prejudice and discrimination within the community, it might be more accurate to call it “heterosexism” or “internalized heterosexism” rather than dividing the community even further by referring to “biphobia” and “transphobia”, as if bisexuals and transgenders are outside of the community. I understand the argument that “biphobia” and “transphobia” are useful terms because they label phenomena different in some ways from “homophobia.” However, to so define them is to demarcate different spaces inhabitable only by those who are thereby indelibly marked as “not one of us.” I prefer to go with Rust’s understanding: “Heterosexism refers to the whole constellation of psychological, social and political factors that favor one form of sexuality over another.” (Rust 1996:26) Prejudice in gay and lesbian communities against bisexuals and transgenders is heterosexism because it is an accommodationist attempt to disavow these more “radical” forms of sexuality.”
March 19, 2008 at 6:15 am
That’s an interesting point about the bigotry against LGBT people and how distinguishing them can be used. I’ve argued in the past that transphobia and homophobia come from very similar (virtually identical in many ways, but still differentiated) places and that this is why being allies - or being part of the same larger umbrella - makes sense.
March 19, 2008 at 7:41 am
>>Gays and lesbians have struggled for decades to be able to name ourselves and to BE ourselves.>>
That’s wight, wabbit. And that’s why those of us who aren’t total “I’ve got mine, Jack/I suffered, not YOU suffer” arseholes know better than to turn around and contribute to making anyone -else- go through the same miserable process.
March 19, 2008 at 7:41 am
“not=now”
March 19, 2008 at 7:43 am
p.s. dear Alix: a lot of the ev0l transpeople are ALSO gays and lesbians, TOO. just like lesbians (trans or otherwise) are women AND lesbians, black lesbians are women AND lesbian AND black…
March 19, 2008 at 7:44 am
“That’s an interesting point about the bigotry against LGBT people and how distinguishing them can be used. I’ve argued in the past that transphobia and homophobia come from very similar (virtually identical in many ways, but still differentiated) places and that this is why being allies - or being part of the same larger umbrella - makes sense.”
exactly why–well, a large part of why–I care so strongly about this.
March 19, 2008 at 7:47 am
“Please tell me what’s wrong with that? Please point to where there’s actual activism that doesn’t fit that. Please tell me what trans people are doing that’s so horrible. Show me how transgender and transsexual people - by violating and crossing and transgressing gender boundaries - are reinforcing patriarchal norms of gender. I would like to know.”
While we’re at it, I’m still waiting for a traditional family values type to explain to me how gay marriage destroys het marriage, with specific examples if possible.
I won’t hold my breath till either, though.
March 19, 2008 at 11:30 am
(and “insulting?” So far you’ve called me transphobic, fundamentalist, a bigot and -stolen from my post- a hateful panicbot. Different standards apply?)
You know, not only is this exactly like homobigots whining about being called homophobes, it’s like MRA loons acting like calling them misogynists is the height of all insults to them. *eyeroll*
March 19, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Lisa, first off, I just want to thank you, truly from the bottom of my heart, for the work that you do on this blog. When I read the messages of hate coming from QTP or the Michfest boards or Heart, or I read people like Pisaquari telling us that they’re not transphobic while lionizing those who publish those messages so full of hate, I can only shake and cry - I cannot respond in a coherent way, so I am glad that you are able to do so.
And I want to thank you, also, Belledame, for your fierceness in calling out transphobia wherever and whenever you see it.
Now onto Pisaquari:
2. To have transitioned is to have supported the message that links what our bodies are to how we express them. That, to me, is gender. (That those expressions, however, oftentimes have binary influence-influence not carbon copy- is no accident.)
Note to Pisaquari: If we lived in a society that had no concept of gender, I would still physically transition. Why? Because I do not want the body that I have, I do not want the genitals that I have, and I want my body to be different, and I have the right to my bodily autonomy, including the right to modify my body as I see fit.
Second Note to Pisaquari: If we lived in a society that had no concept of gender, there would be no MWMF. There would be no women’s spaces. Everybody would share the same bathroom, regardless of the (presumed) shape of their genitals. If there’s no concept of “woman” or “man” - a concept that you claim to support, then there’s no need to define separate spaces. Scary, innit? You can circle the wagons and womyn the guard towers around your sacrosanct “women-born-women spaces”, or you can truly support the elimination of gender. You can’t have it both ways.
March 19, 2008 at 2:31 pm
“f we lived in a society that had no concept of gender, there would be no MWMF. There would be no women’s spaces. Everybody would share the same bathroom, regardless of the (presumed) shape of their genitals. If there’s no concept of “woman” or “man” - a concept that you claim to support, then there’s no need to define separate spaces. Scary, innit? You can circle the wagons and womyn the guard towers around your sacrosanct “women-born-women spaces”, or you can truly support the elimination of gender. You can’t have it both ways.”
i bin sayin’.
but, yeah, funny how that works.
Heart’s contortions to try to explain how nonono GENDER is not SEX, we just want to do away with GENDER, there are still two SEXES and always will be are entertaining in a traffic accident sort of way. Right, so, okay: we all keep the genitals we had, let’s say; still not seeing why you need a separate festival, unless the fest is all about teh genitals, perhaps? No? Gee.
or for that matter, bathrooms: maybe we’d keep urinals, but the little sacrosanct M or F on the door? What for?
or gendered pronouns. Use ‘em for yourself? Or do you insist that other people use gender-neutral pronouns when referring to you? No? -Gee.-
Yeah, I know: that’s Utopia, we have to live in the present, make concessions to the world we actually live in as opposed to the idealized one we (say we) want.
Funny; I think that’s pretty much what everyone’s been saying here all the fuck along.
That, and: stuff like the pronouns, other gestures of solidarity with the “non-gendered” world one wishes for: you know, those might not be too -convenient-, but gosh, they’re fairly -simple- on an individual level. Doable, even.
-holds breath until Heart does any of those things-
What’s that phrase? “Be the change you seek?”
March 19, 2008 at 9:25 pm
“stolen from my post?” Say wha? -stolen-?
what strange little minds these people have…
March 20, 2008 at 7:54 am
“If you want me to have an overall happy and good life, why would you question transition? I attempted suicide several times before I started transition, and haven’t attempted suicide once since…”
Lisa, I question a lot of things/concepts: heterosexuality, all sexuality, the beauty/health industry, feminisms, myself, fairy tales for godssake. Would you say I don’t want anyone, who participated in something I questioned, to have a good life? My questioning nature brought me to feminism, seems to have brought you to starting this site. Is it the questioning you don’t like or the questioning of a part of *your life* you don’t like?
You can’t know/won’t believe how much I would never want suicidal thoughts running through anyone’s head.
But linking this point to my stance on questioning seems a deliberate, yet subtle way, of vilifying one of my points. I will see it as such till you clarify further.
“And what is it about transition that you question?”
That was laid out in my numerical “nutshell” response.
“I guess the problem here is that trans people aren’t included in this dialogue about what’s wrong with transitioning. I think you’d be surprised at the perspectives trans people would bring on the subject of transition if you wanted to talk to us about it, rather than talk about it and against it away from us.”
Well first, I wouldn’t advocate for trans persons to be excluded from all dialogues wherein radfems discuss what they find troubling about it (I won’t use “wrong” because the connotations of that word are not consistent with my feelings). I am here at your blog. You are welcome at mine.
And there’s always more I could do right? There always someone’s perspective I won’t be getting (even after this hurrah dies down). I have no problem with reading further–my problem has stemmed from any accusations of hate that really don’t act to further dialogue between the different sides. As well, the overreactions to ancillary events such as the one I have supported this whole time. Since you seem claim later in your comment to not care about it anyways I don’t really know where/how to focus this response.
“Obviously, not allowing non-radfems to come is reasonable because it’s a radfem gathering,”
And if it’s a radfem female born woman raised gathering? The second condition is simply a narrowing of the first–both are exclusionary and leave out people (in both categories) who might apply to the other condition.
i.e. female born woman raised nonradfems and radfem non female born woman raised women.
The rest of the paragraph with the point above I agree with. And I would say it goes both ways and that’s a problem. I don’t think it’s so confusing, then, to understand why a small exclusionary event would happen. Especially if it is to happen next year. The sides haven’t come to any great consensus, yet (no sign of happening).
I still believe the way I do and, still, you and others will hold I am transphobic–it makes no sense to me why, at this point, someone would have offered up a trans inclusive radfem conference. Does it to you?
I, personally, wouldn’t go through what it would take to meet up with all sides knowing what I know at this point about transitioning debates and the very real divide. We’d *at least* have to be getting along on the internet. That’s not happening.
“However, you’re saying here that it’s okay to hold that against trans women, ”
Do you mean in general or because of the event I am supporting? I don’t *hold* anything against trans women anymore than I hold any person accountable for their involuntary status. The event would also be excluding other people for certain involuntary statuses (i.e. male born man raised men). The event is exclusive on many levels. You seem to be cherry picking the exclusion for yourself where it applies but not for others.
“Do you challenge it when it comes from other radfems? Or do you let it slide? Do you not object to them even though you personally don’t hold them?”
The line of reasoning you posited as radical feminists view is as much a caricature piece of dialogue as you say radfems project on trans. I have not seen that line of thinking explicitly from other bloggers. It’s too simple and too many have presented in depth analyses on their positions for me to credit that statement with authors.
When there are arguments and heated debates, yes I see radfems who seem to speak/type in haste and anger (I’m sure I have), resulting in a bigger fire. That does us no good, absolutely. I don’t jump into too many frays wherein I align with someone and just back them up. I usually like to speak for myself and let someone else do their dirty work. For this alone I have backed out many times, in many situations where I should have lent my voice/support.
Hold me accountable for it by all means,
(and wrt this question, I ask the same of you? This post (transphobia and sophistry) makes me feel very much otherwise)
“one of the reasons that trans people transition is because our bodies feel wrong to us. Our brains expect our bodies to be one sex, and our bodies are the other sex”
Okay, this summarizes the point where I become immensely confused (yes I have read elaborations on this–they do not help, but here goes). To ask further questions means to ask personal information so, as I said to someone on my blog, answer at will:
how does this work? And how does surgery fix it–is there some connection between the form of the genitalia (or something?) that is repaired when the physical form of the genitalia changes? The link between the feeling of *wrongness* and the physical genitalia seems very vague to me.
“However, I want to draw a completely valid parallel here: When activsts were trying to end segregation…,”
You know, I just have to say, what would feminists do without racism or poc’s history to compare their every point to?
As for:
“they walked into lunch counters and other businesses where they were not welcome, and probably were more than willing to call the owners and customers who didn’t want them there racist and bigoted (and rightly so).”
Absolutely not a parallel. For starters, radical feminists most certainly do not have the pull, authority, or influence white society had on blacks and, further, are not advocating for separation on such legal or societal levels (and wouldn’t). What it took for poc’s to make those moves into white institutions/business, the threats and dangers they faced, are in no way comparable to what trans face in coming into a radfem female born woman raised space.
I wonder if you thought, when you made this statement, how you would make a radfem woc feel who advocated for female born woman raised space–that she, for feeling more comfortable in such a space (especially as few and far between they actually are) is a “valid parallel” to the persons responsible for her history of racist oppression.
(the vilification is now becoming insulting to those with whom you would like to wax poetic some sort of similar oppression. How many comments are you from a Nazi-ism assertion?)
“many trans women feel they belong in women’s culture, which means that they want to come, and they’re being discriminated against.”
If this is still using your segregation “parallel” (and either way) then it seems you are saying poc’s wanted to “belong” to white culture. White culture wanted white culture to continue on Supremely. Radical feminists do not want any such concepts as “woman” to continue on–a construct invented by and for the patriarchy. That is the ends we are working towards but we have to acknowledge, even in working towards that end, the conditions of the present day “woman”: oppressed and abused and broken. Some abused female born women raised have no issue with transwomen in what are considered “woman” only spaces but *some do*–and radical feminists should be able to advocate for both in respect for the unique situations (I would *never* agree with a radfem imposing on you or any other trans exclusive event).
And going off that, I am still unclear Lisa as to whether you would like “woman” to continue forward. If you do and I do not (as with other radfems) then you would understand why perhaps your view would be further unwelcome in a place where female born women have gathered for commonality and healing.
Further, a few female born women raised spaces does not keep you from being a part of “women’s culture” as you say.
And whatever the answer to my above question I will explain below (in the next comment) why I feel how you are proposing we deal with the issue of “womanhood” is problematic.
March 20, 2008 at 7:59 am
“Why shouldn’t everyone who claims womanhood get it?”
& “”But for the most part, yes, I do accept that most people who say they’re women are women.”
Certainly you know you are not representative of all transpersons and that plenty do in fact support patriarchal doctrines and ideas.
There are plenty of men dressing as women, wanting to be considered women, who would be *very* triggering for safe spaces–your definition would allow them in.
There are, further, those wishing to have a transition who cannot afford it who would still prefer to be considered/claim to be women–again, your definition includes those people who would be triggering.
Your loose standards for “women” do wonders for endangering the few safe spaces many women can go who are in no way doing the same to you. You and many others admit that trans is a very wide and inclusive term–with all the varieties you should know there are a number of variations that would be upsetting to previously abused and raped women.
Having such a definition is all the more reason to continue making this female born woman raised distinction.
If claiming womanhood is such a free for all in your eyes then what business have you in even attempting conversation (or laying claim you want to) with radical feminists who aim to provide women a variety of resources in some immensely sensitive situations.
This to me Lisa says you really do not respect a great deal of women’s own history and narratives.
“In your post, you tried to redefine transphobia as a medical diagnosis of “Fear of trans people,” which is exactly the same argument that religious fundamentalists use to argue that they’re not homophobic”
I said nothing about phobias requiring a “medical diagnosis.” No one had to tell me I feared elevators for me to fear them. As for fundamentalists and homophobia, yes I believe they do in fact fear them, the fear manifesting as hate, the hate manifesting as name-calling, physical assaults, avoiding them at all costs, mockery.
You say people who are bigoted against trans are transphobic and very well then. That you would include those protective of, and participatory in, female born woman raised spaces for (once again) the safe haven they provide in a category of bigots is so backwards to me.
Do you get that radfems are not saying all spaces should have this distinction? Do you get that radfems would allow you the same right?
We are not saying the sides should never mingle but we *are* saying a duality is present wherein “woman” is to be erased and “woman” is till a status many are abused for. It’s not like everyone agrees “woman” needs to be gone. It’s not like radfems say “woman” means nothing and then it doesn’t. We *have* to account for those who have been abused and hurt for their *women* status (yes that includes transwomen) and we *have* to account for those whose abuses are so tremendous (as many are) that where they feel they may go for peace of mind is respected.
I would consider anyone who felt those conditions could not/should not coexist to be negligent.
“In every case, the person who actually spends time trying to redefine the word into something else so they can say it doesn’t apply to them? It usually does apply to them.”
You know Lisa, I wonder how would feel if I said this to you about being a “man”? That you, by redefining “woman” or putting your own spit on it (b/c you know “woman” *has* been narrowly defined for quite some time by males)–that all your insistences otherwise are *proof* that you in fact are one.
I’ve said what I have to say about where I stand on this. I was making sure that you were more fully aware of just exactly who you were calling transphobic and on what grounds. If you can read my responses and still force-feed prejudice into every word then so be it (mad libbing conservative statements is a rather innocuous point–one could do this for all types of things and draw comparisons).
As to why people *want* to be women?
I couldn’t tell you why anyone would *want* to be a woman because I am a radical feminist who feels being considered a woman is the bane of my existence.
But I can tell you that, being a feminist, I know LOTS of people who don’t get that women are oppressed and who couldn’t, if asked, explain what’s so bad with being a woman. Plenty of people (not just MRA’s) think women are privileged and exaggerating their woes. Plenty of people think the Women’s Rights Movement is done (we got our birth control so we should stfu). Plenty of people could not identify an act of sexism if it happened to them–as it is, many feminists are divided on what acts even constitute sexism.
I haven’t gotten the impression that the majority of people believe/acknowledge women are the lesser sex (have you?). It wouldn’t surprise me then that this information skipped a person wanting to transition as well.
Further, it does not dumbfound me that a person would be confused regarding their identify on a sex or gender level.
Gender is a VERY powerful construct, oftentimes touted as the same as sex (any variation to be a *defect*) with a million contradictions, power paradigms, and destructive forces (as you know, people *kill* over it).
That persons are driven to transition and question their identity, or feel strongly against their selves, does not surprise me.
March 20, 2008 at 8:02 am
“I am curious as to what you mean by gender pimps as a tag for your posts related to transgender issues. I’m not sure how referring to transgender people as “gender pimps” is not somehow a slur against transgender people.”
Gender pimps, as you will notice throughout my blog, is a tag I’ve applied to posts on beauty standards, pornography, misogyny, feminist debates, etc… Gender pimps is the way I spit my vitriol at gender in a quick and easy-sum kind of way. Yes, I feel gender “pimps” people–sells us as an image, in a role, costs us time and money, causes heart ache, is used for oppression as well as orgasms and is, generally, a massive construct affecting us all. I think everyone, basically, is a gender pimp (reciever or giver) to some degree. I actually regret not tagging more posts with it.
But no, it’s not specific to trans–who yes, I feel, also utilize gender (exact binary or not)
“why do you praise a website as “crazy brilliant” that”
I didn’t praise the website, I praised the article on the points it raised and said specifically in my comments that I was not endorsing the entire website as I hadn’t enough information to do so, and, invited such critique there.
As to Tony and the event the article referenced I am not all that familiar with any history off hand (I liked the article because I thought the comparisons they drew for how S/M and transpersons approach radical feminists/ism to be spot on). And I can’t say, after reading the page 14 you linked to I am anymore clear on what happened. Is the article lying about who/what Tony is or what Tony did?
“If you do not support the assertion that trans women are not women, why are you so enthusiastic about a website that supports the assertion that trans women are men? That we shouldn’t have access to women’s services?”
Once again, I am not versed enough on the website. I can like an article from a website and not the whole site (I don’t like the term transphobia as it has been applied and as you are using it and still I agree with some of your points)–I am not all or nothing with the website.
Access to female born woman raised services?–Those I agree should be just that. Just as I think there should be services for transwomen (and that such services don’t always have to be separate).
“Not being bigoted against trans people means doing more than just saying you respect our identities and our lives.”
I agree. But, as stated earlier, you have a very dangerous definition of “woman” that I feel will work to further alienate/isolate certain sensitive situations and that, in turn, disrespects several women’s lives.
How do you propose we bridge that besides what I have advocated for in these comments?
“In Maia’s post, you say”
That was Deb’ comment and thus much of what you say following does not apply to what I have said.
As well, throughout this comment I am responding to you keep clinging to my alleged grand support for Questioning Transgender–”actively promoting” as you say. I have linked to one article and said I loved it. Is that “actively promoting”??
I do not have the time at the moment to read through the two sites you linked but both, from the excerpts you left, appear to be organizations I would support.
I have read more on your website in one day than I have on Questioning Transgender and here is what I can say:
I don’t believe you are interested in presenting a full picture of this debate. You have a tag called “radical feminism terrorism”–I think you and I both know the weight “terrorism” carries and applying it to radical feminists is just as “obnoxious” as calling transpersons rapists (<yes, I find that obnoxious too). You use terms like “cisgender” which radfems no more accept than you accept being called a “man”. You have titled your site “questioningtransphobia” which essentially is a “slur” to anyone who disagrees with you or whom you link to as being anti-trans (do you believe “transgender” wrt to questioningtransgender’s site,is as offensive to you as transphobia is to radfems?). Not once do I see from you mention of the work radical feminists are doing to protect safe spaces–do you not care about them? Do you have any intention of addressing the abused who may feel uneasy about your trans’ presence in certain places? Don’t you think that would help?
And here’s the thing: you’re no more guilty for such a one-sided take than anyone else. Radical feminists, as I have said, need to step it up wrt to recognizing the oppression and violence against trans. When each sides brings with them decades of inherited bad blood there becomes very little chance of having a productive discussion because the agenda is too full, the pain is too much, and the anger is easier.
Shouldn’t these actions stop across the board?
How invested would you be in such a cause?
March 20, 2008 at 8:15 am
I’m sorry about confusing you and Debs, not sure why I did that - probably just plain fatigue.
As for why I have a tag called “radical feminist terrorism,” it’s sort of a response to a category/tag on this post in which Heart complained that little light, another trans woman blogger, had not mentioned Robin Morgan in reference to the use of monster imagery in feminist poetry/writing. Heart included “male terrorism” in the tags. Why would that be necessary in discussing a woman’s writings?
I probably didn’t pick the best post to apply it to, I haven’t been happy with it, and I haven’t used it since that particular post.
I don’t have time at the moment to give your comments the responses they really should have, though. Thank you for writing these.
March 20, 2008 at 8:32 am
>>>Radical feminists, as I have said, need to step it up wrt to recognizing the oppression and violence against trans. When each sides brings with them decades of inherited bad blood there becomes very little chance of having a productive discussion because the agenda is too full, the pain is too much, and the anger is easier.
I’m sorry, it’s not equal. Radical feminism has explicitly defined trans women as the enemy. See, The Transsexual Empire, The Whole Woman, everything by Sheila Jeffreys, MWMF, Vancouver Rape Relief, etc etc etc.
And trans women? Well, Camp Trans = a reaction to that policy. Sandy Stone’s The Empire Strikes Back = a reaction to The Transsexual Empire.
You want to have a productive dialogue? Stop calling us men. Stop freaking out about us using female bathrooms, all we want to do is go to the toilet without being attacked or arrested. Stop referencing Silence of the Lambs or Psycho. Stop lobbying against trans inclusion of ENDA type law reforms, our rights will not diminish your own. Stop behaving as though “women” and ‘”trans” women are two separate groups. Stop pretending as though it’s not possible for you to repress anyone because you’re women born women, because it is, it’s bloody possible for *anyone* to.
Stop attacking us, and stop pretending as though there has been anything resembling a good faith dialogue. And then we’ll talk.
March 20, 2008 at 9:02 am
“Why would that be necessary in discussing a woman’s writings?”
I don’t know that post and cannot say at this moment. I will read what you have linked.
“Stop calling us men.[the rest of this]”
To queen emily (and the point Lisa raised): see how difficult this is? One radical feminist/trans person has to speak for *everything* that particular opposing person has been hurt by/wants changed.
How does “good faith dialogue” come about in this atmosphere? Is it all radfems queen emily?
Is there no jumping off point? Can we begin moving forward while still remembering and discussing the past?
The trans issues I said I thought needed change in radfem blogs I absolutely believe in and they are not conditional (as in, if you tell me “there’s no point” I will still do them).
But really. I don’t know when to sit or jump.
March 20, 2008 at 9:22 am
“Heart included “male terrorism” in the tags. ”
Okay, I read the post and a few of the comments (there are too many) and the only thing I can get from that tag is that perhaps she is comparing what the son said to Robin Morgan (genital reference) to “male terrorism.”
She also tagged it with “Sexism in the Military” which I do not understand.
Is there somewhere in that heap of comments (where I saw her praise little light–but perhaps there is more to that in your eyes?) where she explains the tag–have you ever asked her?
March 20, 2008 at 9:58 am
Okay, this is explanation, and I’m not asking you to defend this, or saying that you’ve said this stuff.
As the comment thread continues, other women propose that little light actively plagiarized Robin Morgan, and Heart agrees with them, although she denies ever actually saying that (which is true - she didn’t say that, but she went along with others saying it) and later on, she basically says that little light is plagiarizing womanhood by using goddess imagery in her essay. The really anti-trans slowly snowballs up.
Also, Starting here, Mary Sunshine’s comments until post #92, where Heart responds to Mary Sunshine.
I got a pretty distinct vibe that the intent of the post was to ultimately build up the idea that little light was committing some horrible wrong.
And that tag is pretty typical of the way Heart talks about trans people - the day after the Transgender Day of Remembrance, and a few days before the a week of violence against women, Heart complained that when a trans woman dies, everyone’s upset, but when a woman dies, no one cares. The timing was…she didn’t specifically say “The Transgender Day of Remembrance steals the spotlight from women who are victims who were born female,” but that she chose to lament about the attention trans murders receive less than a day after the one day out of the year when we make a point to remember trans people who were murdered just for being trans people.
This past February, she picked a trans woman’s LJ, where said woman had complained that she’d been groped on a bus. Heart lambasted her for letting a man sit next to her, and tore her down for it… and then a couple days later posted about how horrible it is that women get groped on buses by men who think they have the right to do this, in a post about a women-only bus line in Mexico City. It’s just a long list of passive-aggressive swipes and double-standards like that, that when I see “male terrorism” in a post about a trans woman’s feminist writing, I find it hard to assume the pattern’s different this one time. I mean, stuff she posted on Ms. Magazine, stuff she posts on her blog, comments she leaves on other blogs, posts on the MWMF forum. The fact that she feels that Maia saying “anti-trans sentiment is pretty heavy in radical feminism” is an attack on radical feminism, the fact that she allows the most horrific things to be posted about trans people on her blog, and agrees with those comments even while what she says is meant to sound moderate.
I haven’t asked her about that specific tag - my conversations with her were limited to the MWMF forum where the topic was already a bit focused, and I hadn’t at that point read the post in question.
Just to be clear, though, that tag was about Heart and Heart’s use of that other tag, and really little more. Like I said, I’m not happy with my decision to use it.
Oh, on the woman thing, since it’s on my mind. I’ve never ever ever met a man who tried to claim womanhood. I’ve encountered men online who pretend to be women, but that’s not really the same thing. I also find that many trans women are pretty cautious about claiming womanhood right at the start of transition, or even the first year or so. I’ve only come across one who claimed that she instantly became a woman the moment she had surgery - and she’d bypassed the standards of care and started hormones, electrolysis, etc. afterward, and while I do believe she’s genuinely transsexual and genuinely sought to be a woman socially and physically (what kind of man would rush into surgery to have that done?), I believe she was assigning far too much importance to having a vagina and not really enough importance to living as a woman, experiencing being a womanhood, experiencing how women are treated. She didn’t have any of that when she had her surgery, although she did get it afterward.
As for those who are too poor for treatment? I’ve never met one. I honestly, haven’t met anyone who hasn’t found a way to get hormones (which are fairly inexpensive), either from the black market, from a doctor, or getting them from the black market just so the doctor will prescribe and monitor the hormones in the name of harm reduction. Where the money tends to fail is paying for surgery - facial surgery especially, but SRS is pretty expensive too.
So take it with my experience: I’ve been around cross-dressers, drag queens, transsexual women, and I’ve never met a man who would claim womanhood. The drag queens know they’re men (except for those who end up trans), the cross-dressers know they’re men (except for those who end up trans), and the transsexual women know they’re sense of self is that they should be women, and they do everything they can to get to that state.
I know about transgenderists - like Virginia Prince - who lived as women, but never sought hormones or surgery, but that wasn’t a matter of income so much as preference. I also don’t think Virginia Prince was a woman, or claimed to be.
So anyway, take that as you will: I trust people who say they’re women because they’re doing everything in their power to be women, or they were born female. Aside from internet pranksters, those are the only kinds of people I’ve met who claim womanhood.
I spent more time on this than I expected. I should be doing something worklike. I will get back to the rest of your points later tonight.
March 20, 2008 at 11:47 am
You have titled your site “questioningtransphobia” which essentially is a “slur” to anyone who disagrees with you or whom you link to as being anti-trans (do you believe “transgender” wrt to questioningtransgender’s site,is as offensive to you as transphobia is to radfems?
Again, this sounds EXACTLY like homobigots complaining about being labeled “homophobes”. EXACTLY like it. No it is not a slur to call out transphobia when an