Alternet ran an article on sportswriter Mike, now Christine, Penner transitioning, and a long-time regular here at Women’s Space (who posts more to our boards than to this blog) and my good friend and Michfest sister, posting under “freeda’all” commented and garnered herself an “Editor’s Pick.” Go you, my friend! I won’t identify her by the screen name you know her by, but she can, if she wants. 
Here’s a paragraph from what she said with the link to the rest:
Alternet: Are there people in the gay community that have issues with transgender?
Depends on what you mean by ‘issues.’ For one thing not all men who undergo srs do it because of ‘gender dysphoria.’ There are those who have extreme fetishistic desires to have sex as a woman but who do not describe themselves as having a ‘woman’s gender identity.’ Many straight men who undergo srs then go on to describe themselves as lesbian (because they still want to sleep with women) and there’s a minority among them who are absolutely rabid about forcing & involving themselves on lesbians & in lesbian groups. While they may see themselves as ‘lesbian’ for the most part many, many lesbians still experience them as men because they come with all their male privileges, expectations and attitudes towards women absolutely intact. They may have changed the penis between their legs but the one in their heads is still fully operational.Then there’s the obvious difference between them and lesbians in that lesbians are lesbians because they’re attracted to women of the same sex, not gender. This is an area where many political transsexuals are also attacking because it obviously leaves them out and they don’t like or accept that from lesbians. Again, this is male privilege asserting itself in that men always have the presumptive freedom of going and doing as they please.
Right now there are major actions being taken against lesbians by so-called ‘trans rights’ activists that have resulted in a lesbian musician being banned from the Boston Dykes March, a lesbian filmmaker’s work being banned from lgbt venues, a lesbian music festival being ‘protested’ for over a decade now, and an independent women’s domestic violence shelter (Vancouver Rape Relief) being sued and dragged through the courts for years because an mtf individual wanted to volunteer as an intake crisis counselor as a way to ‘validate’ his (I won’t say her to this bullshit) female identity. This cost the shelter over $100,000 and many years of litigation before they finally won in the Canadian courts.
Heart♥
That comment is spot on right! Well done “freeda’all”. Some of the other comments are so anti-woman that it frightens me. A telling comment in one of Christine/ Mike’s interviews is this little gem:
“There were feminists who weighed in [online] and said, “You’re paying too much attention to clothes and makeup.” But it’s like honey, I’ve waited all my life for this.”
Ahhhh, well that’s okay then. And how’s this for male privilege?:
“Look, you have 23 years built up at the Times, you have plenty of support there, you’re well respected, you’re good at what you do. What would you do if you quit the Times?” I said maybe I’ll go to an alternative weekly. She said, “You know how much they pay? Where in journalism would you get a salary that’s commensurate with that of a 23-year Times veteran?”
Now there’s what I’M talking about. Mike has 23 years of the kind of respected, well paid employment that Christine would NEVER have had the chance at. That specific male privilege and many others follow the MtF transexual everywhere no matter what the stage of transition or what the political/social/emotional positioning of the trans person. And that’s what makes womyn space, lesbian space so incredibly precious. We deserve AT LEAST that much.
The link just leads to a login page.
Sorry, Branjor, I guess you just have to go to the article. But the comment is up at the top, pretty easy to find.
OK, I ‘fess up, I did it–LOL–Although I’m surprised that it came out so well ’cause I was just throwing something out before I’d even had breakfast and not thinking I was thinking all that well.
Heart-I think we should invite hagwind from over there to check us out, she seems pretty cool.
I added this in a later comment and I think it’s an aspect we can use in future discussions. It’s places us in a more objective & neutral stance that the bullshit of arguing identity politics.
“What you call ‘hatred and bigotry’ here is in reality the incompatibility of the rights of differing groups to self-determination and autonomy. Trans who call themselves lesbian don’t have the right to demand that lesbians accommodate, acknowledge or interact with them. Tough call but it’s that simple, really. “
I lifted one of Hagwind’s comments to repost here. I think she has the issue down clearly, succinctly and brilliantly too.
“”I don’t know who to thank first or more profusely — Freeda’all for this clear and eloquent post, or the AlterNet editors for recognizing its importance.
Ask yourselves, people: Would this “gender identity dysphoria” or whatever they’re calling it these days have any meaning in a culture that didn’t draw rigid lines between what’s appropriate for men and what’s appropriate for women? Does it surprise you that this story arose from the sports world, where his is his and hers is hers and rarely the twain shall meet (except of course when women athletes are accused of being dykes and have to get married to prove they’re not)?
Note this quotation from the story: “For nearly 20 years, women’s golf, which has a significant number of lesbian players and fans, has excluded transsexuals from competition.” Hey, John Ireland: what exactly was your point here? Maybe you assume that lesbians and MTF transsexuals are natural allies? Maybe you even assume we’re somehow the same?
Where transsexual chic rules, lesbians tend to get erased. I’ve participated in many feminist gatherings where it seems that women have to have some connection with men in order to get recognized: either they’re sleeping with men, or willing to sleep with men, or they used to be men, or they’re in the process of becoming men. Lesbians make these women nervous in ways they usually can’t admit, and I really do believe it’s because lesbians as a big sprawling diverse group give the lie to so many of the culture’s assumptions and beliefs about gender. We can be anything and do anything and still be women.
Remember the title of the classic black women’s studies anthology: All the Women Were White, All the Blacks Were Men, But Some of Us Were Brave? I’m waiting for the post-queer version: All the Women Are Straight, All the Gays Are Men, But Some of Us Really and Truly Are, Believe It or Not, Lesbians. “”
“All the Women Are Straight, All the Lesbians are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave.”
Hey, not bad!
Correction: That should have read “All the Gays Are Men”. But in a way, all the lesbians *are* men because of how many are transitioning.
Well the editor’s pick just got removed, I can only imagine that Alternet got bombed with trans complaints and knuckled under to them rather that having the ‘nads to stand up to that bullshit.
I’m a little tired of being reminded over and over and over about the pain that trans people have in navigating the world with folks like me in it. Most women who’ve managed to survive and thrive into adulthood have encountered their share of pain, anguish, and/or physical violence, and many have had way more than their share. I feel for anyone who gets pummeled by this screwed-up society we live in, and I’m not going to condemn anyone for seeking an individual cure for their own pain, but I’m not going to ignore the political implications either: the transgender phenomenon doesn’t challenge gender stereotypes, it affirms them.
quote by hagwind, at the site with cowards.
Amazonnight, that was beautifully said. And so clear. I copied this so that I can reference it in case I need to. I hope thats OK.
As far as I’m concerned, men have way too much time on their hands to think all this stupid shit up. First they construct gender. Then they narcissistically fall in love with their own image of it. Why don’t men just hang a hat on the mirror and date themselves? Cuz no one could love and admire men as much as they love and admire themselves.
Sure is OK with me Jokerine, thanks!
I think the problem with the transfolks who shout “bigot!” no matter what the argument is in reality is that there are times they have been persecuted in the past by a bigoted biological woman, so they assume from there on out that every argument against mandatory open borders for every flavor of feminist events comes from that person who was motivated by hate. But their perception doesn’t invalidate the logic behind being able to define one’s own space, no matter what they falsely assume about a biological woman’s personal motives. As I said in an argument on another blog about this issue yesterday, even if genuine bigots who hate all trans-ppl took advantage of some sort of bio-bitch event, the exploitation of the space by that minority doesn’t negate the right of bio-wmn to create an affirming space for all the reasons transfolks refuse to recognize as legitimate experiences. I am tired of being told my unique experiences either don’t exist or don’t matter. Bio-wmn are told that enough by everybody, and trans-activists are doing the same when they target events catering to this demographical subset of feminists.
I am tired of being told my unique experiences either don’t exist or don’t matter. Bio-wmn are told that enough by everybody, and trans-activists are doing the same when they target events catering to this demographical subset of feminists.
I’d take this even further and say that transsexuals do this whenever they call themselves female. They silence the oppressed female class, and expand the purview of the male one, every time they presume to speak for us. They say, what difference does it make if I offer my male perspective as genuinely female?
They think we’re just mean, that if we’d stop choosing to perceive things this way, that they’d cease to be this way, this mocking, offensive, oppressive way that we’ve chosen to see it. But, no. What they do is an act of domination whether some women welcome them (as a class, I feel it important to stress) or not.
So, they can hang out with the trans-happy set all they want. That some women will laugh along with them at women’s expense doesn’t change the fact of their appropriation of our experience, the mimicking approximation of our visual presentation, or the usurpation our voice, of our right to speak for ourselves and on behalf of others like us, and only others like ourselves.
Hey, how come my avatar doesn’t show up here?
KA–I think the reality is that trans activists want absolute control over the dialog and information and perceptions on all of this. That’s why they shut women down with accusations of ‘bigot’ ‘hater’ etc. That’s why they don’t want lesbians to be saying what we’re saying and that is that moving beyond the bounds of gender is what most of our lives are about and we do it without all the bullshit. I don’t think any of it is about a ‘bad experience’ with any one or many women but in their victim cosmology they make it about that.
They want the issue to be about the ’struggle’ and the torment they supposedly go through and not about people like that guy (Robert to Michelle) who strangled his wife and then shows up in court in a dress or the guy mentioned in the latest Mother Jones who is a crossdressing American terrorist associated with the Oklahoma City bombing and who now wants srs when he goes to prison. I think people like that are more afraid of living out their sorry lives among male prisoners than anything about them needing gender reassignment. Crossdressers who become ‘trans’ are on the side of extreme fetishism and having incarcerated women forced to be the audience/mirrors to their kink is irrestible, I think.
They don’t want people to know that their politics has been about walking a legal fineline that incorporates the basics of civil rights with disability law.
They don’t want that any of that put out there at all.
That’s interesting, Justice and Amazon. I hadn’t thought of it that way and it really is coming off that way, isn’t it?
As for the fetishization bit, so many say, “well, I don’t do that patriarchal construction compensation thing so don’t blame me for the ones that do!” without realizing that that has been so many people’s firsthand violating experience with them (myself included–overt harassment, fetishization, taking advantage of both perceived entitlement and unrecognized entitlement, etc.), that we don’t care whether they are at the top of the patriarchal hierarchy or not; they have been widely experienced as an oppressing class even if some individuals have not participated. They are oblivious to the fact that they can be part of an oppressing class even though they’re not at the top of the food chain in this system, so they have to stop accusing me of not understanding each and every individual’s plight and pain, because I do understand how fucked up the world is, I am compassionate to the hate crimes they suffer, but no one can force me to be play the compassionate nurturer role to you every moment of my life just because you demand it, lest the persecution accusation and litigation be weilded to coerce me into My Place, which better suits your psychological concerns. Every moment I’m not adequately, vigorously proving my anti-hate stance, your needs are not being met properly by the “lucky” female, I guess?
I have a right to be free of any group who has colluded in misogyny, even if you individually have not partaken in fetishizing constructions associated with that class, even if that class is not the Head Patriarch, TOUGH SHIT.
(I know I awkwardly switched to the second person perspective, but I am not sure what gender spellings are de rigeur or merely tolerated here).
I argued about this at feministing, and the transwomen would not look at my perspective under alternate premises to see that the logic holds up when the automatic assumption of hating people with gender identity issues is dropped. When my argument made perfect sense, the response is, “IT DOESN”T MATTER HOW YOU SUGARCOAT BIGOTRY!” which means “Lalallala! Fingers in my ears! I’m not getting what I want, so lalalallala.”
KA–It’s interesting and alarming both at the same time in that the activists use women’s shame over putting themselves first to blame us for not putting them first (I’ve been watching Suze Ormann on the PBS special tonight-lol) and that is the trigger they use when they call us bigot, intolerant, and all the other bullshit that we’re not supposed to be in dealing with others. They use that to shut us up and to keep us blinded with the smoke and mirrors they throw up to keep people from questioning their bullshit. It’s male manipulation of a female’s upbringing to keep us in a place that serves them.
Use whatever pronoun works for you KA, I know some of us don’t like calling transwomen ’she’ or other female pronouns but the truth is that, for myself, I do distinguish between those transwomen who are truly suffering under GID and those asshole manipulators who don’t. I say this because the manipulators are just as willing and adept at using those folks who are true transsexuals as they are willing to use women to achieve their aims. I will also use male pronouns when I want to blow through their smoke and mirrors and get at the truth because part of the truth is they want to use language and our relationships through language to achieve their goals. They use language to creep closer and closer in the manner that some women have described as feeling like a rape or like a creep on a bus or subway who violates our personal space in ways that are hard to challenge. Each time they sense that we give a little they move closer and we lose a bit of ourselves and we have to stop that by stopping how we allow that to happen.
So when someone starts with the negative value-judging of your words call them on that bullshit and name it as a tactic to shut down discussions among and with women. We have every bit as much right as they do to challenge their positions and ideas and assertions on gender so don’t let them try to shame you into shutting up. It’s all just words on your computer screen so make sure the words stay there and don’t creep out and into your head and heart. Keep yourself centered and strong and your words will reflect that. Yeah, they’ll get snarly and even more so when you’re coming on with the strength of your truths but keep it up and keep faith in yourself and you just won’t lose kiddo!
welll.. Amazonnight *hugs* -
the one line: “They may have changed the penis between their legs but the one in their heads is still fully operational - just sums it up beautifully for me, *chuckle*
at least on their political strategy - like you say there are individuals who are ‘used’ by the politicals as troops.
On a related note - its also been an issue for our UK sistren in recent times. Recently a trans-surgeon was all but struck off the medical register for his ‘treatments’ - and a radfem activist Julie Bindel went up with a trans panel on BBC Radio 4 the other night - and it has a podcast below:
BBC News Story: (includes a link to the doctor news story)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6923912.stm
Realplayer link to hear the radio debate:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ram/wed2000.ram
Cheers - Rain
Wow, that’s unbelievably appalling. To further degrade and endanger domestic violence victims; that’s quintessentially male behavior right there.
“are true transsexuals”
Another unattainable standard to live up to!
It’s popular to shit all over “mere” cross-dressers these days, even for people in the queer crowd who are trying to co-opt radical feminist analysis to build a hierarchy of queerness that puts them at the top as the truest-whatevers — but the more I think about it, at least you don’t have to take anything for granted about what a crossdresser is thinking inside his head at every given moment.
None of the arguments about transexuals being accepted by lesbians make sense to me, though I do wish them well.
They demand to be included in a group which is itself oppressed, and which would like to be left alone.
I can see how the lesbians would feel doubly oppressed by the transexuals. It is really not fair to use shaming tactics on an already oppressed group to force unwanted inclusion.
If the lesbians were not of an oppressed class, it would be easier to parse out.
What I do find fascinating is the DEMANDING INSISTENCE that trannies be allowed in the lezzie club. The transexuals act as if lesbians are just another group with all the power, like white men.
Seems stupid to hang out where you’re not wanted, especially if the clubhouse you’re dying to get access to is lacking in amenities (power).
Seems like they are merely using the lesbians, riding their coattails like a parasite, in order to facilitate a wider public acceptance for themselves. They are hoping that when lesbians are fully accepted, that they will as well, by default.
Work for acceptance on your own terms. Parasites are not admirable, anywhere.
This argument also is a moving-the-goalpost kind of argument. Let’s not discuss the inherent gender/patriarchy enabling they are doing, which should logically make them the bane of feminists. Let’s discuss why they can’t get in the clubhouse.
If culture is constructed, and gender is constructed, then WHY DO THEY NEED TO CHANGE THEIR GENITALIA???
That question is never answered without invoking mental gymnastics, which tells me all I need to know.
They cave to patriarchal demands, then insist that lesbian feminist accept them at face value.
There is some hypocrisy in there, I think.
Hello Rain! Hugs back to you too! Good for Julie, gawds that takes courage to step up as she does in that panel.
Yeah, the politicals do use people but I think it’s more as human shields than troops. I say this because they don’t give a damn about the people they use and they’re as prone to attack them as they are to use them and throw them away when they become problematic.
Statements such as this traps young people today long before they have the capacity or experience to see how wrong it is:
“…But if, as some in the transsexual lobby believes, the tendency to feel masculine or feminine is something innate then it follows that gender stereotypical behaviours could well be “natural” rather than as the result of social pressures and male oppression…”
It’s also presented by trans activists in a very seductive manner in that someone who is unhappy with their lives in general are presented with an option that allows them to totally remake themselves over into a whole ‘nouther person. It’s a system presented to escape their dreary lives and leads to a great deal of anguish when these folks come to realize that they’re still the same person and still have all the same problems as before. I think it’s why we see young women who come to describe themsleves & act out as ‘bois’ because in that ‘identity’ they avoid the problems of having to grow up. It’s a female version of a ‘Peter Pan’ syndrome.
I know that if this was common thinking when I was young I would’ve been someone who would’ve been moved and/or persuaded or pressured to ‘change.’ I think this is the basis that Catherine Crouch approaches in her movie “The Gendercator.” If gender is allowed to be ‘prescribed’ and monitored and described by the medical/legal spheres then no one who is unhappy or who doesn[’t fit or who feels trapped by gender role prescriptions would have any option other than to ‘trans’ themselves to match this mythical inner gender theory.
Suppose I am a member of an oppressed group. Further suppose I change every aspect of my being to match those of patriarchal expectations. Then I demand admitance into the oppressed clubhouse, a particular clubhouse which is a little nicer than the one I left.
What am I?
I am feminist lite, I am transexual lite, I am a hypocrite.
They are still oppressed, of course, and get my sympathy for that, but they way they are going about gaining acceptance is hypocritical, and therefore get my contempt.
mAndrea
Rich I think your comments demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of the elements of this discussion and the hints at ‘purity’ of identities ie ‘truest-whatever’ is very disrespectful and impresses me as being an attempt to pull this discussion off-track by bringing in the very tactics that I mentioned earlier and that is you want to place a negative value judgement on what is being said here.
This argument also is a moving-the-goalpost kind of argument.
Exactly.
If culture is constructed, and gender is constructed, then WHY DO THEY NEED TO CHANGE THEIR GENITALIA???
Watch out, mAndrea, you’re making too much sense! That will get you clobbered in a heartbeat.
If everybody could avoid using terms like “trannies,” which some consider an epithet, it would be much appreciated.
Heart
AmazonNight,
As a lesbian/feminist I have *never* accepted any form or definition of transgenderism or transexualism as having any validity.
Your distinction seems to me to be of a good cop / bad cop variety. They’re all boys, and they’re all cops vis a vis females.
If they can wedge themselves into lesbian space through the “queerness” argument then they are violating even more female boundaries that the so-called “normal” male even *tries* to violate. The oppression argument is hogwash. They’re no more oppressed than gay males are, and we don’t have to accept gay males as females. Where is the argument that “FTM”-s are any more oppressed than gay males? Has any female ever challenged “FTM”s on it? Have they been able to dream up an answer yet?
Mary
Rich–It exposes what so many of them in public want to hide and that’s the underbelly of trans. They want only that the public see them as some sort of tragic women to be pitied and attack anyone, including other trans, who dare to point out the differences. They want women to accept all of them, including the manipulators as women without question and they want women to expose themselves and make themselves vulnerable and compliant with anything they say or do.
In New York if a woman enters a public restroom and finds men there she can’t do anything about it because it’s now ‘legal’ for folks to ‘choose’ their own gender. So should she set aside her inhibitions and fears and give up her right to protect herself because she can’t challenge this and/or has to accept that they ‘belong’ there or leave? To act in her own self interests and safety would only go to ‘prove’ to these folks that she’s a bigot, ignorant, etc, etc.
Interesting that you use the word ‘autogynophiles’ because it is a word they hate.
“If everybody could avoid using terms like “trannies,” which some consider an epithet, it would be much appreciated.
Heart”
Deepest apologies, dear Heart.
I plead ignorance, as I thought they referred to themselves that way sometimes? I did not know it was a term of disrespect. I won’t do it again!
Apologies to the transexuals, as well.
Hey, mandrea, it’s all good. We don’t know what we don’t know!
I see what you’re saying, Amazon Night. Whether or not we agree that, for one example, there are some people who are gender dysphoric, whether or not we agree with what amounts to essentialist views around transgender, i.e., that people simply “are” transgender via some sort of biological/chemical/genetic/social/spiritual process, no matter what we think about transgender/transsexuality, in other words, we can all agree that there are people in the world, including people born male, who felt for whatever reason they *had* to live as women, even to the point of surgeries. There are also people in the world, including people born with “ambiguous” genitalia, “intersex” people, who didn’t get to make decisions for themselves. Doctors “treated” them without their consent. These people often just want to move forward with their lives. But their experiences, which are often tragic, have too often ended up co-opted by “queer” and “transgender” activists who then have made this group of people poster kids for crap they never agreed to or even consented to, in the case of intersex people, or maybe never wanted anything to do with. That’s what that essay, “Good-Bye to All That,” written recently by the older transwoman was all about. She’s saying to transgender/queer activists to leave her the hell alone, she wants nothing to do with what they are saying, pushing, whatever.
I get what you’re saying too, Rich, because we’ve all seen all of this ad nauseum hierarchicalizing some transwomen, especially, are given to, i.e., the notorious Lynne/Rainsong, i.e., I’m a woman because I did this and that and you aren’t because you didn’t, nanny nanny boo boo, kind of a deal.
At the same time, I do make a distinction between people who just did what they felt they had to do to survive, and people whose politics are antithetical to the best interests of female persons, who try to use this first group to further their own political agendas.
Heart
A male stating that he “feels” like a woman is bogus. He doesn’t and can never know what it “feels” like to be a female because he has never been one.
A male claiming the right to be recognized or treated as a female based on that “feeling” is violating females, full stop.
We owe these men *nothing*.
Intersex individuals are, and always have been, a separate issue. I give “MTF”s no pass to ride on the coattails of intersexed individuals.
Mary
Yeah, Mary, I agree with everything you say there. I’d go further and say that nobody “feels” “like” a woman. We are women. That’s it.
A male claiming the right to be recognized or treated as a female based on that “feeling” is violating females, full stop.
Exactly. This is what I’m saying when I say feelings are one thing, okay, whatever. But your “feelings” don’t entitle you (generic “you”) to violate me. I can support you in doing what you feel you need to do for yourself, but not in behaving in ways that are hurtful to female persons.
Heart
Well, yeah. But those aren’t really the people I’m talking about when I make reference to people who did what they had to do and moved on and get used by queer/transgender activists for their own purposes. I’m talking about people we never hear about because they aren’t involved at all in transgender/queer politics and don’t want to be. The people you’re talking about *are* political people. One of them essentially does say, “Yes, what I did was a good thing and I don’t care what feminists or anybody say about it and I don’t really even want to discuss it,” which is a highly political, pro-patriarchy statement that is not about doing what one needs to do. And saying it apparently “nicely” doesn’t change anything.
Heart
As to forging alliances, we all know how that worked out. While it’s true that Lynne behaving abysmally and abusively allowed other transwomen opportunity to present as non-Lynne and horrified by hir behavior equally with female persons (!), it’s also true that when a real attempt was made to create an alliance (by me and char) with the transwomen you named, they got clobbered for it. In the end whatever connection they made with me didn’t help them any.
Heart
If I am intruding, just delete this comment right away.
I consider myself intersexed, whether my particular condition is or is not considered intersex is of some debate in medical communities, but I was operated on shortly after birth and my genitals were more or less deadened in the process to get me to conform to society’s expectations.
I’ve also since ‘transitioned’ to female, but I have very little desire to have my nerves diced and sliced AGAIN. Where does this leave me, am I an invader like ‘all the other’ transsexuals as you folks are discussing here, or something else? I’m curious, and again if I’m intruding feel free to delete the comment. For those of you that I recognize your names, I post under this same name on the michfest boards, and I fully support the WBW policy, so that’s where I’m coming from.
A side note: The discussion about the word ‘tranny/trannie’. Best way to think of it I’ve noticed, is its comparable to the N word. It’s ‘okay’ for trans person to use it, but its offensive if a non-trans person uses it.
- Pathia
“Mary:
A male stating that he “feels” like a woman is bogus. He doesn’t and can never know what it “feels” like to be a female because he has never been one.
A male claiming the right to be recognized or treated as a female based on that “feeling” is violating females, full stop.”
Is that the point all of you have been bragging about? How could you. Do you know we lose not only male privilage, but also female privilage when we come out? Do you know some of us only have a choice between death and being who we know we are? There is people involved here, why the fixation to what is on the groin?
Yes, we never get to feel. Why? Do you know some of us watch while girls go through the puberty process, growing up, having chests, attending proms; but could do nothing about it? If we were to try to live it, this is what happens:
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_144083006.html
I would get beaten and ridiculed I were to attend my prom as who I am here in Asia.
All I can do now is to live as who I am as a 30’s female. I do not have a childhood. I do not have my whole life, I only exist between my first out between 21-23. I am just born again totally at 30.
But still for the future, my father would never walk me down the aisle at the church to my husband in my white wedding dress because of rejection. And I could only adopt a baby, not have one that is a part of my flesh for 9 months.
And I am bisexual. Changing my gender would not change that. It is my orientation. And if you claim to be lesbians, I hope you are educated too, about the differences between sexual orientation and sexual identity.
I do not expect pity that we are second class girls and third class sex. I know some of you have the experiece of having transvestites, not transsexual females for company, and some of them are in fact, still in their brains, male identitified. Which is why I do agree those who went for SRS may not mean they are transsexuals.
All I am asking for is to treat us as human beings. If a person, regardless the gender, harms you; then it is the person that is bad, not the sex. I met great people in my life, and some of them are lesbians. Please see what is internal, not external.
“Pathia:
The discussion about the word ‘tranny/trannie’. Best way to think of it I’ve noticed, is its comparable to the N word. It’s ‘okay’ for trans person to use it, but its offensive if a non-trans person uses it.”
I do not agree. I believe some transsexuals is making a mess of themselves by calling themselves names like shemales. Is the -male necessary? I know I am a girl since day 1. I know something is wrong with my body. That is all.
We do not need make up or lipstick et all. We do not need flashy clothes and strut like a model. We are who we are. We do not need to flaunt any labels.
“Yes, we never get to feel. Why? Do you know some of us watch while girls go through the puberty process, growing up, having chests, attending proms.”
Do you see how focused you are on puberty and breasts? It is disgusting to women who SUFFERED GOING THROUGH THAT. You are obsessed with the very thing we want to unite over having despised. I don’t want to be leered at, or envied. I want someone who also had to experience the public death of the person I was because visible signs of puberty meant the death of personhood.
I want to clarify something:
I can see how you might respond by pointing out that you felt impending puberty-panic as your own potentially irreversible “death of personhood”; that experience is nothing, nothing like the rest of the world seeing tits (not breasts, not mammaries, they are TITS in this world) as a right of passage for a person to now be seen as worse than human: a woman. All this, before we are even developmentally complete mentally, emotionally, intellectually, socially, etc. It’s damaging in a specific way; that you have had different damaging experiences doesn’t change this reality. Puberty was possibly an amplified threat to feeling personhood to you alone, whereas puberty was death to all of us who thought we were people to begin with, but the rest of the world felt, demanded, beat us into their belief otherwise. These experiences are so different, I don’t see the bond, except for the bond we share in our humanity–that’s no small thing, but our mutual humanity, our inherent worth, is not what this is about. You keep trying to make it about that, as though feeling rejected was reason enough to impose your desires on others against their will.
The desire to partake in the ceremonial Christian male passing his property to the new owner is exactly what I’m talking about. You grew up wishing for the shackles while we are there having grown up feeling enslaved and violated and dehumanized by them. You may feel dehumanized for other reasons, but that does not make the experiences equivalent. In fact, the attitudinal differences that emerge are completely antithetical to one another, in case you haven’t noticed!
[...] to the trans issue. I found this post over at Women’s Space to be particularly [...]