Questions You Should Never Ask Trans People

Calpernia Addams put together this video of bad questions you really shouldn’t ask:

h/t Marti Abernathey

The Fundamentalist Viewpoint

Marti Abernathey posted about an 8-year old child beginning transition and some guy named Peter LaBarbera’s response to that.

Peter LaBarbera’s website describes him as president of “Americans for Truth, a newly reorganized national organization devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda.”

Could it be that permissive parenting plays a major role in encouraging a gender-confused identity in a child? Pearson says she felt “relief” on hearing that her daughter claimed to have a male identity. Relief? A wiser parent might have sought professional help from someone not beholden to “transgender” activist ideology — to guide the troubled girl into accepting the wonderful body and sex that God gave her. 

In the case of the eight-year-old boy, to what future are the politically correct adults — parents and school authorities included — consigning him with their “caring” embrace of deviance? Could a body-mutilating ”sex change” operation be down the road — funded by the taxpayers if the “GLBT” Lobby gets its way? In a saner era, it would be clear to all that the child — not society — has the problem. But what do we know? We’re just “trans-phobes.”

Wow, that language looks familiar. Oh, right, writing like this. Sheila Jeffreys doesn’t quite descend to referring to surgery as mutilation, but you can see the vibe there. But really, she’s fulminating against a boy transitioning during his teens. How about Julie Bindel, who actually calls surgery “mutilation?” She even acknowledges that anti-trans sentiment is most acceptable among the homophobic right wing, reproduces their language, and apparently doesn’t see where this puts her:

This realisation made me determined to further explore why any criticism of transsexuality seems to be deemed unacceptable outside of homophobic, rightwing circles. Which is why, when the producer of the Radio 4 debating series Hecklers approached me, asking if I would argue a controversial point in opposition to four leading experts, I chose the title, “Sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation”.

But how about that other bit from LaBarbera’s piece? How he can’t criticize transsexualism without being called a transphobe? I’d link something here, but my last few posts have covered that.

To be honest, though, this isn’t a new observation. It’s just not every day that such a clear parallel presents itself.

Personally, I’m not sure how transphobic radical feminists can call themselves radical or feminist if they’re parroting the same line that people who are out to stop the so-called homosexual agenda are using.  Never mind trying to claim that trans people would be all for an alliance with the religious right, while simultaneously using the religious right’s arguments against trans people:

In fact, this is already what is happening in Iran, as this article demonstrates.   As radical feminists have been theorizing for a very long time by now,  we are not the ones in cahoots with the Religious Right or fundamentalists as to issues around gender. 

Tell it to LaBarbera, Cheryl. Between you and me, he’s more likely to cheer you on - and you him.

The inaccuracies in Cheryl Seelhoff’s post about Iran and surgery for transsexual people could fill a whole other post. The basic thing to be aware of there is that it came about due to an interpretation of the Quran, not to trans people cozying up to a government that kills gay men and lesbian women. Trans people are as vulnerable to violence in Iran as they are anywhere else in the world, probably moreso.

Debs, you have it backwards.

I have actually had it now, and I’m tired. When women start attacking from within the ranks of ‘allies’, then that is when I lose patience, and I have had it.

I’m tired of women attacking from within the ranks of allies too, of seeing women of color attacked and belittled by white feminists*, of seeing trans women dehumanized and delegitimized by cis female feminists, of the most offensive, brutal, and misogynist characterizations of sex workers by anti-pornography feminists. I agree that this should stop.

So, is radical feminism ready to step up and stop attacking women for choices radical feminists don’t like? For being someone radical feminists don’t approve of?

We’ve had enough time on the margins. We’ve had enough time being the ‘extreme’ which everybody else’s pointless, futile version of feminism is compared to. We’ve had enough of being attacked for saying the stuff that’s important and meaning it.

Guess not.

Look, stopping rape is important. Reproductive freedom is important. Personal agency is important. Feminism’s basic premise - equality - is important. What I don’t get is why y’all are so bitter about women criticizing you when you spend so much time outright attacking other women for our choices, our lives. Not a week goes by without someone talking about how willing sex workers are practically rapists themselves, or how trans women enforce your oppression by being women, or the occasional “this black woman is morphing into the oppressor” rant, but when you get a response, it’s suddenly time to call a stop to it all?

Okay, so call a stop to it all. I’m sure we’ll all be right here when - if - it ever comes to pass. Until then, expect your privilege to go challenged.

 * I messed this up originally, with just “feminists,” which implied a separation between women of color and feminists. Mea culpa. I do my best, I make mistakes.

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.

Cissexual/Cisgender Privilege

Maia, a radical feminist blogger posted Transphobia and Radical Feminism - a challenge a couple of days ago, calling out radical feminists for transphobic policies and prejudices. Her post (and her preceding posts linked in that post) are worth reading.

 Predictably - as the comments demonstrate - several radical feminists came in to deny that they’re transphobic, to defend the site “Questioning Transgender,” to explain that cisgender privilege doesn’t exist.

 In true transphobic radical feminist form, Stormcloud defends a male commenter who implied that many trans women were rapists prior to transition and compared reading a response to his comment to being raped. Because, of course, a man who casually reduces rape to something that reading a negative post feels like is surely a good feminist ally, am I right? Well, he is so long as he denounces trans women - as Heart demonstrates, she’ll agree with anyone who says that, even if he’s a eugenicist who’s all for preventing homosexual births.

I mainly want to address the argument that cisgender privilege doesn’t exist. Specifically, Polly Styrene claims:

On the subject of “cisgender privilege” Cis gender is defined in Wikipedia as:

a type of gender identity formed by a match between an individual’s biological sex and the behaviour or role considered appropriate for one’s sex.

I don’t know any woman born woman who identifies 100% with and is happy with her gender role (ok I know a lot of feminists). But I personally certainly get loads of shit for not acting out the expected gender role of ‘woman’. So I don’t see what this cisgender privilege I’m meant to have is. If it’s not physically wanting to change the external appearance of my genitals, then I’m afraid that will have to be taken up with goddess, or whoever you believe gets to decide these things because it sure as hell wasn’t me.

‘Privilege’ is only relevant when it is one person who is part of a privileged group in society using that privilege to disadvantage another person. Which brings us to:

“Gatekeeper of the class of women”. The problem here is that if we say some transwomen are women because they’re living full time as women, or legally defined as women, or any other definition you care to mention, we are STILL DEFINING WHO IS AND IS NOT A WOMAN. You can’t get away from that. The only logical alternative position is to say anyone who self defines a woman is a woman. Otherwise we are still acting as ‘gatekeepers of the class of woman’. Which I don’t believe we do anyway, but anyone who wants to read my full opinion can go to

http://www.sizeofacow.wordpress.com

That’s it - I’m outta here.

The bolded part is the important part. Now, I’m fascinated that she, as a cissexual woman, is defining whether or not she experiences a privilege in the first place. After all, we know that we can trust men to acknowledge - or in many cases, even see - the privilege they experience for being male. And the same is true of white people and white privilege - no one ever denies their white privilege, right?

More to the point, just as women cannot trust men acknowledge their male privilege and how they experience it and use it, I as a trans woman cannot trust a cis woman to acknowledge her cis privilege and how she experiences and uses it. She also doesn’t acknowledge intersections of multiple forms of privilege or lack thereof - She lacks male privilege, and she uses this as an argument that she has no other privilege. Her demand to take it up with the goddess could just as easily be used against her by men in response to commentary about male privilege, because it’s much easier to lay the blame on someone for not having privilege than accept responsibility for having privilege.

Here’s a starting point for understanding cis privilege. Of course, to understand cis privilege, one must accept that it’s privilege that’s handed to you by society as well as presumed authority to treat the oppressed class in a demeaning way. It is true that men have privilege over women and it’s true that it’s largely privilege handed to men by society, as well as presumed authority to treat the oppressed class in a demeaning way. Polly Styrene tries to mislocate the privilege as being the fact that one is born in a body one is comfortable with vs. not being born in a body that one is comfortable with, rather than how society treats people who are comfortable with their sex vs. how it treats people who need to change their sex. She also tries to conflate it with sexism, in that she points out her experiences of sexism as a counterpoint to the idea that she has cis privilege. That has nothing to do with cis privilege - I don’t have cis privilege and I also experience sexism. Many trans women experience sexism due to being women.

She also tries to disclaim any responsibility for cis privilege (while denying it exists) by saying that it’s a matter of birth and beyond her control - but her being born female is also a matter of birth and beyond any man’s control.

The truth is, she experiences cis privilege. She lives it, breathes it, and assumes it. The fact that she’s willing to discuss at length whether trans women have a place around cis women without any input from trans women is a pretty privileged viewpoint. Is her cis privilege uncomplicated? No, she’s a butch lesbian - and having presented as even moderately butch (or maybe femme butch) I’ve caught criticism for wearing clothes that were seen as too masculine (jeans and a t-shirt).

This is the primary frustration when dealing with men who refuse to believe that male privilege exists (especially MRAs), white people who refuse to believe that white privilege exists, and able-bodied people who refuse to believe that able-bodied privilege exists. They refuse to meet you anywhere, they just define you as less than and subhuman in relation to them, and your truths as lies you use to get sympathy. Race cards, gender cards, and so on. It’s not ever surprising when I get this stuff from white men, who are just about as clueless as it gets when it comes to privilege, but it’s doubly frustrating when it comes from women, people of color, gay men and lesbians, all of whom have experienced prejudice and hypothetically know what it looks like to be on the receiving end, and yet are completely blind to it when they dish it out.

And Polly Styrene is completely blind to it when she dishes it out, at least the cis privilege kind. As a woman, as a lesbian, as a butch woman, she really should know that the arguments she’s using to deny her own privilege exactly mirror those used by straight people and men to deny that they’re being homophobic and sexist.

Pantera Rosa Calls for action: Another Murder

Elly of Red is Undead posted this and I repost the call to action here:

Portugal, Transphobia kills again: international call for action!

Two years after the brutal murder of Gisberta, in Oporto, another transsexual woman was murdered and her body placed in a rubble dumpster in the Lisbon area last month.

Other crimes followed, shocking the country. However, the surge of violence cannot hide neither the victims nor the nature of these crimes. This is the case of Luna, 42, partially deaf, of Brazilian origin, for many years resident and worker in Portugal, prostitute at Conde de Redondo area (in Lisbon).

Two years after Gisberta, transsexual people are still targets for hatred and violence based on prejudice and ignorance. The crime is under investigation and under justice secret, so we know very few about its circumstances or about its motivation; we hope the investigation undertaken by the Police can provide answers.

Nevertheless, we know that transphobia kills and that trans people are more prone to suffer violence than the majority. We know prostitution is often a job for those who have no other way of earning a living, and that it is hard to have a gender different from the one your body suggests. We know prejudice and discrimination are pervasive, that ignorance feeds hatred and generates violence. We know the State, society, all of us, have responsibilities towards the deadly victims, and mainly towards all those other people in whose life the fight for survival coexists with fear and the risks that cause it.

Luna was born a woman although her body suggested otherwise; her body, masculine, didn’t fit her identity. She was being followed at Hospital de Santa Maria by the multidisciplinary team in charge of helping trans people change their bodies; she had projects, wishes and frustrations just like anyone else. She was dear to some people and maybe wished to go back to Brazil, where her family lives. Luna was a woman who fought against many obstacles and, according to newspapers, died victim of great violence, possibly fed by hatred, prejudice and ignorance. Her body was left in a dumpster, hidden by rubble and dust, as if it was garbage, as if her life had not been worth living.

Like all potential victims, trans people need forms of protection that guarantee equality of opportunities and the possibility of a dignified life. They need, like everyone else, of being able to exercise their rights to the development of personality and to self determination – of being able to freely choose their name; they don’t need (nobody does!) identification documents that insist on the use of criteria so voided of real content such as “sex” (even if disguised only as “name” and “justify”, e.g., placing a trans woman in a detention cell with men. Trans people need being seen as people with rights and duties, no more and no less than all other people. Trans people in Portugal need the pedagogy of visibility, way beyond the prostitution or night shows circles. And Portugal needs to see these people without prejudice and fear.

Gender identity is subject the State should have already legislated about; this delay aggravates many trans people’s living (or survival) conditions. When will the legal amendments that allow the actual exercise of civil rights by transsexual and transgendered people come? When will we have legislation that overcomes many politicians’’ retrograding and conservatism and stops to impose petty restrictions? When will we have legislation that stops feeding the daily psychological violence against these people? When will we have legislation that clearly considers that transphobia constitutes aggravating grounds for discrimination, harassment and violence? When will we have a serious commitment towards stopping cases like those of Gisberta and Luna, murdered out of transphobic hatred? When will police forces be provided with more human resources and more and better civic and technical training? When will cooperative approaches substitute the aggressive attitudes lingering among members of the various police forces?

Panteras Rosa – Frente de combate à GayLesBiTransfobia (Pink Panthers – Combat front against GayLesBiTransphobia) reaffirm their commitment towards fighting against transphobia in all of its forms and pay tribute to Luna, prostitute in our city, woman just because!

Lisbon, March 13 2008

Proposal for International Action: on the 24th, 25th or 26th March

That vigils are held, with candles, in special memory of Luna and all of the trans people victim of transphobia.

To be developed by numerous small and big groups in the most (small to big) cities possible.

With banners, just in front of Portuguese embassies or consulates in the cities where they may exist or, for other cities, in squares in front of European ministries, in front of psychiatric hospitals or whichever places contribute to transphobia.

We suggest the following phrases:

Luna trans 42 years old Brazilian, prostitute murdered in Lisbon.

Statistically, how many times more is a trans person in risk of being victim of violence compared to you? And murdered?

According to the context of each country we suggest the phrase:

Stop transphobic laws. How much longer for a law against transphobia?

Or for countries that still haven’t turned transphobia into law:

How much longer for a law against transphobia?

This case is not Portugal specific, it is international and the fight efforts should be done together.

(In practical terms, it should be simpler to organize small groups in different places instead of asking people to mobilize to the Portuguese embassies that are concentrated on the capital cities)

We ask you to publicize this action, to participate in big numbers and to forward testimonials, photos, articles, etc. to panteras.lisboa@gmail.com

The media strengthen transphobia

After the recent murder of one more transexual woman, Luna, occurred in the area of Lisbon, the media focus on the physical aspect of the victims in the most sensationalist manner - thus making it more important than the murder itself. A few words about the murder follow, as if this is was a clear and natural explanation of the cause of such murder - lingering in the detaileded description of the unusual physical aspect of the victim. At the hands of the media the most important becomes the victim’s unusual body, placing the murder on the background.

Speaking - depending on the attempt (or not) not to seem transphobic - of a transsexual with a man’s body (a pruddish way to say “with penis”, of a man dressed in women’s clothes, or of a transvestite with breasts. Some even speak of homophobia.

The picture emerging of such articles is that the victim is a monstrosity displayed to feed the public curiosity, without any respect neither for her gender nor for the intimacy of her body, and giving the impression that it is almost (or even absolutely) normal that these people be murdered.

The other image conveyed in this way is that being trans is wanting to mislead “the world” by using a disguise particularly well arranged to give a misleading appearance of men and women… And if they deceive the world is of course natural that the deceived people react.

This kind of speech from the media is, unfortunately, far from applying only to murder — it is used in almost all broadcasts, articles, and interviews on trans subjects.

The Portuguese media, with no exception, satisfy also with the description of the trans person’s precarity situation – wether it is on prostitution, drugs, having HIV, no papers, no house – as if these lives were a choice of the victims, describing them hiding that it is transphobia that generates this precarity, and presenting as scandalous not only the “choice” of being trans, but also the choice of the life style, turning the victims into immoral and chocking persons and continuing in this way to promote transphobia, the precarity of the trans lives, and the fact that they are among the persons most likely to suffer agression. The presence of the trans person in the Mental Diseases List, to frequently legitimates the media, when they concede expression to the trans, to credit or discredit it trough persons of the medical corps, reinforcing the idea that the word of a trans has no value for itself.