Well I’ll Go To The Foot Of My Stairs…

110 responses so far ↓

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  Debs // March 20, 2008 at 8:57 am

  Thank you, Witchy. xx

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  Lisa Harney // March 20, 2008 at 11:53 am

  Referring to someone as cisgender or cissexual has no bearing on whether they’re male or female, does not contradict whether they’re male or female, and does not cancel out whether they’re male or female. I’m not sure why you’d propose being seen as cis-anything would somehow deny your being female? It’s not as if identities and labels don’t intersect as opposed to cancelling each other out - a black woman is both black and a woman, black doesn’t cancel out woman or vice versa. Similarly, being cissexual and a woman doesn’t mean that one of those overrides the other.

  That wikipedia definition also sucks, because of the reasons you state - but it’s also a good reason why cisgender isn’t really the best term to use, which is why I try to use cissexual - which simply means “someone who doesn’t want to change his or her sex.” Cisgender is generally used to mean the same thing, but it’s a fuzzier word (relying on gender as it does) like “transgender” (which does not specifically mean someone who wants to change his or her sex).

  If everyone who is not trans stops referring to trans people as “trans,” and just refer to us by our preferred sex - trans men as men, and trans women as women, no qualifier, I’d be happy to drop cis to describe those who aren’t trans. We could just eliminate the distinction and the baggage that comes with it. Lacking that, I’d rather not stick to language that privileges and centers people who don’t want to change their sex as the norm and people who do want to as other. That’s just as offensive as referring to male as the norm and female as the other, or straight as the norm and gay, lesbian, or bisexual as the other.

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  polly styrene // March 20, 2008 at 12:26 pm

  I agree - people who blah on so endlessly about self defintion, seem to have absolutely no compunction about defining everyone else and telling them what’s in their heads.

  Pots and kettles anyone?

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  Sarah (Ethically Speaking) // March 20, 2008 at 12:49 pm

  Oh, those women types are reclaiming words? Shit, must make new ones…..

  Welcome back Witchy.
  **takes up place at your shoulder**

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  Michelle // March 20, 2008 at 1:00 pm

  Re. the Wiki definition. One of the reasons why I’m a feminist is because I can’t/don’t want to conform to “the behaviour or role considered appropriate for one’s sex.” Therefore, how can I be ‘cis-gendered’?

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  stormy // March 20, 2008 at 1:38 pm

  I too find the term ‘cisgendered’ incredibly insulting. It is high time we called the trans*activists out on this.

  And note, that I am calling out trans*activists out on this, as they are the ones doing it. Not trans*persons.

  As for ‘cisgender privilege’, what a crock of shit, unless of course it means “big fat target painted on forehead to have a statistically higher chance of sexual abuse and rape from birth to grave”.

  I am female.

  Radical feminism means accepting one’s body as it is. This is the opposite to the trans objective. So why do trans*activists want in on our feminist spaces? Extra credits to those who answered ‘disruption’.

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  Amy's Brain Today // March 20, 2008 at 6:17 pm

  I don’t know a radical feminist who’d be happy being defined as ‘cis gendered’ because the radical feminist analysis of gender is quite clear. Gender is a patriarchal social construct designed to keep us all in our genitally defined place.

  I could kiss you for this. I am so tired of the resistance of radical females to femininity (and masculinity!) being erased by yet another dreaded binary, this time cisgender-transgender. I’m not cis, and I’m not trans. I’m a female who rejects how females are expected to be and behave under patriarchy, and who loves her femaleness and that of other females. In other words, a radical/lesbian feminist.

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  delphyne // March 20, 2008 at 8:38 pm

  If cissexual is someone who doesn’t want to change their sex ought I also to be calling myself cis-limbed as I don’t want to cut any of my arms and legs off as some people do (and are sometimes helped by surgeons who also undertake trans surgery)? This labelling malarkey is getting completely out of hand.

  Anyhow, lots of applause from me Witchy. We are radical feminists - we fight gender, we don’t reify it and naturalise it.

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  polly styrene // March 20, 2008 at 8:38 pm

  The problem with the term cis-gender in my not so humble* opinion, or indeed cissexual, or whatever other word you want to invent is that it is automatically used in conjunction with the word ‘privilege’. Now only a fool would say that in many areas of life, trans people are not likely to experience discrimination, where a non trans person would not. In Britain laws have recently been passed to protect employment rights and allow marriage etc (if you think that’s desirable rather than a patriarchal institution that is), but goods and services legislation has not gone through.

  But this, and the discrimination, is done by/the fault of the ruling elite - ie the patriarchy. It is not females at birth, who are disadvantaged themselves who do this, but guess what - the stupid white men! If a transwoman gets beaten up in the street, she is likely to be set upon byviolent males, not radical feminist. And please note that this happens, not because of supposed ‘transphobia’ but because a visibly trans woman will be assumed to be a gay man - it’s our old friend homophobia.

  Also as a big fat lesbian I’m hardly acceptable to the patriarchy either, and get plenty of abuse in the street myself so I don’t get the (extremely limited) privilege that women who act in gender role do, and nor does any other woman who transgresses patriarchal norms. Cisgender or cissexual is not used descriptively, it’s used in privilege pissing contests AKA the oppresion olympics.

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  stormy // March 20, 2008 at 9:09 pm

  …being erased by yet another dreaded binary, this time cisgender-transgender

  I could kiss you too Amy for this!
  I am sure the irony escapes them.

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  Arantxa // March 20, 2008 at 10:11 pm

  I think the purpose of terms such as cis-gendered is to insult, although I must say that, to me, it’s just another tired insult - men have many of these.

  What does concern me is the medicalisation of gender and its being written into law. My understanding of male domination is that men have subordinated women on the basis of their being female, but now, the very subordination based on femaleness - gender - is being formalised, through legislation, as a diagnosable condition. This seems to go one step further. I see this as a tightening of men’s control over women.

  The big issue, I think, is not one of whether or not so called transwomen should be admitted to women-only spaces, but whose purposes are served by so called gender-reassignment surgery and who stands to gain from gender roles being recognised in law as an essential element of a person’s psyche.

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  Polly Styrene // March 20, 2008 at 11:03 pm

  Delphyne I am soooo using cis limbed! I am also using cis-footballfan, cis-heterosexual, cis-sizezero, cis-tory etc, etc, etc….

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  Liz // March 21, 2008 at 3:55 am

  What happened to throwing off and dismantling “gender” as a construct? Apparently we are now expected to be a number of different ‘gender identities’ which just seem to reinforce the norms, to me. It just gets very confusing trying to keep track of all these terms that get made up. I generally think of myself as being born female and as feminist. The other stuff, like how I act, talk, dress etc are all my own personal choices, not related to my sex or ‘gender’.

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  stormy // March 21, 2008 at 9:18 am

  You are right Polly, largely the violence that TWs face is the result of homophobia, not ‘transphobia’ or even plain old sexism that we FAB face.

  And to reiterate the above, it is (white) males perpetuating this violence, not marauding gangs of radical feminists. Although in reading trans activist comments, you would think otherwise.

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  witchywoo // March 22, 2008 at 4:33 am

  “Referring to someone as cisgender or cissexual has no bearing on whether they’re male or female, does not contradict whether they’re male or female, and does not cancel out whether they’re male or female.”

  Right, Lisa. So referring to someone as ‘coloured’ (sorry) has no bearing on how a person might interact with their reality and doesn’t contradict or cancel out how they define themselves? You’re coming from a terribly priviliged stance if you believe that how you refer to me has no bearing on who I actually am.

  I’m an assigned female at birth person - i.e. born female. I’m not “cis” anything.

  Trans - i.e. “crossing over” - is exactly that - crossing over. I can’t have “a preferred sex” any more than a bloke can. My sex is female so “cis” is a totally superfluous adjunct in relation to my biology and I really, really resent - no, I hate - my femaleness being labelled as “cis”.

  I’m asking you all to stop it now because it’s hurtful and demeaning.

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  laurynx // March 22, 2008 at 6:05 am

  To me it seems that using the prefix “cis-” is a natural outgrowth of used the prefix “trans-”; it does point to privileges that people who are not trans experience. I fail to see an oppression olympics going on by using that distinction. I do believe that trans persons are in a unique position to really give insight into how sex and gender are constructed in society (and as a Femme I don’t think gender is some great ‘dupe’ of the patriarchy). And part of that is questioning the assumptions about sex and gender that cis persons have with critique from a trans position.

  For a very good and indepth explanation for why trans-activists use the terms “cissexual” and “cisgendered” (and of course their counter parts “transsexual” and “transgendered” I would check out
  “Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity”.

  And yes trans women and men should be feminists, can be feminists, and are some of the fiercest feminists I’ve seen. Feminism is more than just about being born female. It seeks to liberate women, those who are born female with a female body and those who are born female, but without the body to go with it. If we are to liberate ALL women, we must hear transwomen’s voices as well. It does not “dilute the movement” anymore than my focusing on race and class dilutes anything.

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  Lisa Harney // March 22, 2008 at 7:55 am

  Witchy,

  This is all semantic deflection. It’s true, cis has no bearing on whether you’re male or female, but whether you intend to change that or not.

  Being a person of color has no bearing on whether you’re male or female, but rather how dark your skin is.

  These concepts intersect, they don’t overwrite.

  And, I promise I’ll stop if everyone’s willing to stop referring to me and women like me as “trans women,” as “men,” as “trannies,” as “boys,” as “freaks,” as any term that privileges the fact that I had to go through hell to become a woman over the fact that I am a woman. It’s a pretty simple request, I think.

  Stormy,

  Transphobia is real, and it is almost inextricable from homophobia and sexism in a lot of ways. I think you can show that it is not simply homophobia by the fact that a lot of gay men and lesbian women are pretty transphobic themselves. And yes, some of that violence is justified, if not propagated by radical feminist writings about trans women.

  But even so - what about Janice Raymond’s call to arms to eject Sandy Stone from Olivia Records? What about Germaine Greer’s attempts to ruin a professor’s career because she was trans? What about the arguments in this very thread that there should not be any legislation to protect gender identity? Do those not count? Sure, you’re not murdering us, but radical feminists are right here arguing that trans people don’t deserve the same civil rights as everyone else.

  Arantxa,

  No, it’s not meant to be insulting. It’s meant to differentiate.

  Writing gender expression into law is necessary to protect people who don’t have what is seen as standard gender expression. Since gender won’t be eliminated any time soon, the only humane, reasonable thing to do is insure that the people who don’t fit perfectly into the binary don’t arbitrarily lose their jobs, housing, even lives because people aren’t willing to accept us as normal.

  Polly,

  As has been explained to me at great length, even though I never asked for male privilege into my teenaged years (when I transitioned), I received it. It’s not something that has to be your fault. It’s how society is structured, it’s part of the patriarchy. You don’t choose to have white privilege or not, male privilege or not, cis privilege or not, het privilege or not. It stems from who you are and how society sees you. I certainly never asked for white privilege, but no one ever follows me around stores waiting to catch me shoplifting, either. Maybe I could choose to have this service?

  Delphyne, that’s an interesting analogy, but I think it fails on the basis that you’ll only get there by using language that people who do want to amputate limbs (or otherwise become disabled) have appropriated from trans people.

  Amy, it’s not a binary. It’s fuzzy and full of multiple definitions of gender and gender expressions. Only if you assume that everyone who is transgender deals with gender exactly the same way would you be able to justify calling it a binary.

  But even so, you have people who are trans, and people who are not. Here in this thread, we have people who say it’s offensive and demeaning to be described in relation to an oppressed minority, when in fact, it’s just about as demeaning and offensive to be described as white. Which is to say, not really demeaning and offensive at all. It doesn’t imply you’re a bad person, or that you’re stuck in a binary, it’s simply a state of being. Like being white.

  Stormy, I have a statistically higher chance of ending up in an early grave than you do, because I’m trans. And if I am murdered, my murderer is statistically more likely to get off with a slap on the wrist. I get to deal with the oppression that women receive (I’m seen as a woman) as well as the oppression that trans people receive (if someone reads me, or otherwise finds out).

  Cis privilege means a whole raft of things that can intersect with sexism - the fact that you’re oppressed as a woman does not mean you do not have privilege for being white, or not being trans.

  So, yeah, I’d be happy to drop cis if everyone else dropped trans. Surely, accepting us as we are would be far more transgressive than insisting some people belong in a box that they did everything they could to leave.

  What’s to fear?

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  Lisa Harney // March 22, 2008 at 8:08 am

  Oh, on the people of color thing: People of color are in an oppressed position in relation to white people, so being seen as people of color already means they’re oppressed.

  Cis people are not in an oppressed position in relation to trans people. Cis people are in fact the oppressors (either active or passive participants) just as men participate passively or actively in oppressing women. Trans people referring to you as a cis person would not cause you to lose your job, your home, your family, your life. It just won’t happen.

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  J.Goff // March 22, 2008 at 9:53 am

  I’m asking you all to stop it now because it’s hurtful and demeaning.

  I know this will not go through, but at least you, Witchy, will read this.

  This is probably one of the more offensive things you could write. You probably did it on purpose, though maybe not. Ignorance is a powerful blinding agent.

  Will you, in turn, stop referring to “trans” people, as you wish to refer to them, as “trans” people? Doubt it. You want to other them. It’s okay, you aren’t the first person to other people. Men have been doing it to women for forever. White people have been doing it to people of color. Straight people have done it to LGB-people.

  But keep telling yourself you are the victim of transgender people, I suppose. While you are at it, I hear there is a large contingent of “ex-gay” people who are well-versed in the tactics you wish to use, namely denying the possiblility of the existence of a group of people. They can help you out with your advocacy of anti-transgender “politics”.

  After all, you don’t hate transgender people. You just hate their politics. You’re not misguided or bigoted, they are. If only they would hear your passionate message! IF ONLY!

  *eyeroll* Seriously, you might also want to talk to my patriarchal fuck of a father about how to act like you’re the victim of oppressed groups of people. He does it with gusto.

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  polly styrene // March 22, 2008 at 11:09 am

  And as I hold that both binary biological sex AND the whole idea of gender are social constructs I would like to lay claim to

  un-sexed but FAB* (sexed not sexual please note, which comnonly denotes a sexuality NOT biological sex.

  un-gendered

  *female assigned at birth

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  Laurelin // March 22, 2008 at 11:15 am

  I love you Witchy.

  Just had to say it again!
  xxx

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  sparklematrix // March 22, 2008 at 12:54 pm

  Uppity done a good post on “cis” a while back.
  http://uppitybiscuit.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/do-not-call-me-cisgender-you-do-not-have-my-permission-to-name-me/

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  witchywoo // March 22, 2008 at 1:30 pm

  Thanks for the link sparkle - Uppity’s post says it all.

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  Arantxa // March 22, 2008 at 2:18 pm

  I think this is an important discussion for women to have amongst themselves - a discussion centred around women’s liberation. I think that we should not include males because their interests are in conflict with ours.

  As for insults, when men call me something knowing fully well that I find what they call me insulting, they are wilfully insulting me. Equally, Lisa, above, would probably find it insulting if I called him a man and would be right to claim that I was insulting him or that I may even have intend to insult him by calling him a man.

  I reckon Lisa says that calling women ‘cis-’ is not an insult because Lisa can justify its use. I take issue with the end (male dominance) as much as I do the means (male politics).

  I think there is much that is left unsaid where the enforcement of gender is concerned. I think that the scapegoating of transwomen, through the male medical and legal establishments, suits male interests very well. I think feminist women should focus less on what transwomen are up to or what they say about feminist or whether they insist on invading our spaces, and focus more on the whole gender-enforcement machine and who stand to profit.

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  Alma Cork // March 22, 2008 at 3:25 pm

  I think this is an important discussion for women to have amongst themselves - a discussion centred around women’s liberation.

  if you really think the use of the word cissexual (or cisgendered) to describe is actually important in the greater scheme of womens liberation then, well, you’re totally leading yourself down a blind alley. no, you’re actually chasing your own tail, that’s how silly it is.

  Equally, Lisa, above, would probably find it insulting if I called him a man and would be right to claim that I was insulting him or that I may even have intend to insult him by calling him a man.

  oh, look, you were insulted so you insult back! this will progress us towards full women’s liberation won’t it!

  *headdesk*

  I think that the scapegoating of transwomen, through the male medical and legal establishments, suits male interests very well. I think feminist women should focus less on what transwomen are up to or what they say about feminist or whether they insist on invading our spaces, and focus more on the whole gender-enforcement machine and who stand to profit.

  do you agree with supplying HRT to women who have had hysterectomys? because, you know, that comes from the male medical and legal establishments (and is often reported upon, in fine scaremongering style, by the male led media)?

  just wondering.

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  L.M. // March 22, 2008 at 5:14 pm

  “So referring to someone as ‘coloured’ (sorry) has no bearing on how a person might interact with their reality and doesn’t contradict or cancel out how they define themselves?”
  Thank you, witchy.
  I’d rather just call people what they want to be called and not call them what they object to being called.
  Some transgendered people who don’t “pass” well, I have to think twice before using a he/she pronoun, but if they believe they are male (or female) and identify as such, then it would be rude or disrespectful for me to refer to them according to the way I perceive them, rather than the way that they perceive themselves.

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  stormy // March 22, 2008 at 9:17 pm

  Transphobia is real, and it is almost inextricable from homophobia and sexism in a lot of ways. I think you can show that it is not simply homophobia by the fact that a lot of gay men and lesbian women are pretty transphobic themselves. And yes, some of that violence is justified, if not propagated by radical feminist writings about trans women.

  Lisa

  (For the sake of clarity, I will use the abbreviation TW, not to offend, but to improve readability.)

  If a TW “passes” as a woman, then the discrimination that she will face is pimarily sexism (provided the other isms are not in play; racism/homophobia if lesbian, etc). There is NO transphobia in that case. If a TW does not “pass” as a woman, then it is far more likely to be homophobia, and the perpetrators are more than likely heterosexual (usually, but not exclusively, white) MALES. This is because a TW that does not “pass” is perceived as a gay man in drag.

  I want to remind people at this point that male violence in society is a major problem (primarily against females, but against males as well), and NOT due to marauding gangs of radical feminists. This is where I take exception insult to the bolded sentence above. We don’t justify the violence at all, radical feminism is very focused on ending male violence, primarily against females, but against everyone else as well (as a flow on effect to ending hypermasculinity).

  Now here is the rub for you Lisa. If I am not to discriminate against you, that means I will treat you like everybody else. When you insult or spread falsities about radical feminism, that gets my back up, and I usually respond by getting very nasty indeed. That does NOT mean I am transphobic, I am putting you on the level playing field. You cannot have it both ways, that is to cry oppression from the big bad meanie radfem, or to claim equality. I give you equality on radical feminist terms (which means you don’t get to diss radfems or radical feminsim). The categories that I most put people in are “good” or “bad” or “ignorant”, and not necessarily “female” or “male”.

  I have a statistically higher chance of ending up in an early grave than you do, because I’m trans.

  Which probably has a lot to do with being originally male (because males statistically die earlier than females anyway, the MRAs insist that feminists are the cause BTW, this is some evol plot we have happening), and also that you are most likely taking synthetic hormones (which can also cause premature deaths among biological females). If your statement encompasses murder, then see my first paragraph on transphobia above. This is not due to radical feminists in (trans-)murderous gangs roaming the streets. Let’s all be clear on that one shall we? Because to read most of what is written about discrimination against transpersons, it is directed at feminists, but primarily at radical feminists.

  And if I am murdered, my murderer is statistically more likely to get off with a slap on the wrist.

  That is fucking bullshit. As my ’specialty topic’ is domestic violence, I can assure you that scores and scores of males murder their partners and ex-partners and get enablement by the judge with words such as “it was understandable, you were pushed beyond your limits, because she nagged / was unfaithful / didn’t have the dinner ready on time”. Rape convictions are the Holy Grail of female justice – we know it’s out there, but what the fuck does it look like?

  Your statement is incredibly misleading in other ways, because you do not contextualise it. The truth is that the murder of a TW is likely to see about the same amount of justice as that of a murdered FAB, which is negliable unless the victim was young and pretty. The murder of man, primarily a white heterosexual male, or even the murder of a child, is likely to see the higher/highest sentence for the perpetrator. That puts FAB and TW below children in this pecking order, MOC are probably on a par depending on circumstances, and WOC usually have not a hope in hell of seeing justice. This is where the radical feminism part comes in. The violence in the media and porn routinely directed at females is a strong factor in lack of justice.

  But we have all lost focus of what this latest round of trans-wars (Chapter 527) was all about. It was about defining female-only spaces. Labelling aside. (FTR, I actually don’t have a problem with transactivists labelling FAB “non-trans”, FAB is preferable, but cisgender is offensive).

  As FAB, we needed a way to keep males out of our female-only spaces. This wasn’t about ALL feminist spaces either, just a few. The amount of fuss this has generated, one would think we had asked for 75% of the planet for 90% of the time. Nope.

  There is a big problem with the trans contingency. That is, it is all encompassing, it’s the LGBTQ alphabet. Now frankly, some of those bedfellows are mighty suspect, as is all this ’self defining as woman’ stuff. That is why we drew a line in the sand, those assigned as females from birth, raised as females. This is a better solution than arbitrarily on an individual basis, determining who “passes” best as a woman (which is on a personal level, very offensive). Should patriarchy ever be dismantled, then no, female-only spaces are only optional social affairs, not a need, as they are now. The other bedfellows that I have a problem with are the pro-pornstitution and ’sex positive’ crowd. They are your biggest supporters, and the nemesis of radfems. If you get along better with them, are more comfortable with them, then by all means hang around with them. I don’t understand why you would want to be involved with radical feminists anyway. Hell, I don’t even know why the pro-pornys have such an obsession with us, but that is another story for another day. If transactivists were a little more discerning in their choice of bedfellows, then I am sure we could talk further.

  So anyway, long-story-long, you are not going to gain inroads into radical feminism whilst you continually insult radical feminists. I don’t have a problem with transpersons “as people”, and will (personally) continue to take everybody encountered on a case-by-case basis. However, I defend the right to private female-only spaces when the need arises. This is not transphobic, it’s a political feminist principle. If the T-word continues to be hurled about at radfems, then alliances are most unlikely. From where I sit, if transactivists cannot blame most of the problems onto teh patriarchy, then we really don’t have much to discuss.

  Sorry Witchy. This became a novel. I blame the beer.

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  L.M. // March 23, 2008 at 1:14 am

  JackGoff - it is not acceptable for a straight white man (correct me if I’m mistaken) to come into a community that is mostly female - and some of us are lesbians and women of color - and start comparing us to people who discriminate against us, threaten us, commit violence and do their very best to make sure that we live substandard lives.
  If you think that radical feminists are transphobic, then that is your opinion, but don’t appropriate and exploit our experiences.

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  Amy's Brain Today // March 23, 2008 at 5:44 am

  if they believe they are male (or female) and identify as such, then it would be rude or disrespectful for me to refer to them according to the way I perceive them, rather than the way that they perceive themselves.

  LM, why? I really mean that–this is something that I have thought about often, but never see talked about–the way that, um, okay, assigned-female-at-birth, raised-as-female, still-female-as-adult people are asked to deny our own perceptions of reality WRT, um, okay, NON-AFAB-RAF-SFAA people.

  My experience is that many NON-AFAB-RAF-SFAA people THINK they are passing when in fact AFAB-RAF-SFAA people in their immediate environment are being, as you say, “respectful.”

  I would like to know what other radfems think about this.

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  Amy's Brain Today // March 23, 2008 at 5:45 am

  BTW, thanks stormy, you rock as usual.

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  Lisa Harney // March 23, 2008 at 12:13 pm

  Stormy,

  I’m not opposed to “trans women” terminology, I was trying to make a point about it vs. cis terminology. I’ll try again:

  If cis is a slur, trans is a slur. If you’re saying that referring to a woman as cisgendered or cissexual obliviates her sex as a female and gender as a woman, then by extension, the attitude seems to be transsexual or transgendered obliviates my sex as a female and gender as a woman. I’m not going to budge or argue over whether I’m a female. My paperwork and my physician agree with me on this point.

  Which would imply to me that as far as anyone who objects to “cis” so strenuously, that “trans” coming from them is just as fraught with negative meaning toward me - or any other trans woman.

  The strict meaning of cissexual is “someone who does not wish to change his or her sex.” I emphasize “his,” not because it’s more important, but because I want to stress the word applies to men and women, it’s not a special word picked out to talk about women.

  On radical feminist writing justifying prejudice and even violence against trans people: What is Janice Raymond’s statement that transsexual surgery should be morally mandated out of existence? Or the description of trans women as symbolically murdering our mothers (was that Germaine Greer or Mary Daly)? What about Daly’s description of trans women as Frankenstein’s monster? What about Janice Raymond and Germaine Greer setting out to destroy trans women’s careers (Sandy Stone and a professor at a women’s college, respectively)? What about the post in this very thread saying that civil rights for trans people should not be allowed - sure, it’s presented under the premise that gender should not be enshrined in law, but the practical outcome is people like me apparently shouldn’t have civil rights equal to everyone else.

  I haven’t even stepped into the kind of commentary that passes for “transgender critiques” in the radfem blogosphere.

  I don’t even know what you mean by the LGBTQ alphabet being a big problem. Your “self-defining woman” is a really simplistic definition of how trans women come around to womanhood. Many of us try very hard to not be women, to actually be men…and fail, because it’s not something we chose to identify as, but is something that’s an integral part of our self-awareness.

  As for “passing,” that’s not what passing means. Passing’s not “I pass as a woman,” because I am a woman. Passing means “When someone sees me, they don’t automatically twig that I’m trans.” That is, they don’t start picking apart my appearance as if I were a “man in a dress.” It’s more about the ability to look at a trans person and see his or her medical history. I really hate talking about “passing” because it’s misread so often, and because it’s used against trans women so often. Honestly, like everything else about us. Was it really a feminist act in Maia’s thread to describe any women as “men in dresses?” Is it okay to judge other women on the basis of their appearance? Make disparaging remarks based on attractiveness, weight, height, build? Why is it okay to say disparaging things about women who do not quite look female enough?

  I used to want to be involved with radical feminists. When I first read some of the literature (that didn’t mention trans), I liked the sound of it…and then I came across the literature that does, the repeated calls to arms, the declaration of trans as the Enemy, the repeated framing of trans lives and experiences in ways that honestly, make no sense to me in context with my own life. At that point, I did lose interest in radical feminism, although I held onto some of the ideas regarding sexism and power.

  The thing about sex-positive feminists, or pro-porn, or whatever you want to call them is that they talk to me and treat me like a human being. That’s not the primary reason I’m willing to hang with them - there’s other ideological reasons there, including matters of agency, and the fact that sex-positive feminists often do seem to be concerned about sex worker’s rights, and a lot of trans women happen to be sex workers. I have seen people go to Renegade Evolution and ask for advice in helping sex workers - helping them get health care, off the streets, and Ren asks right then if they’re also willing to help trans women. That’s really good to see.

  Also, not all trans activists are sex positive or pro-porn. The fact that I link to Renegade Evolution and Bound Not Gagged doesn’t mean that every other trans activist agrees with me.

  But I’m not really here to beat the sex-positive drum.

  Anyway, if you believe that some women are different enough that they can’t be trusted or allowed to enter women-only spaces, that is discrimination. You may feel that you have good reasons for it, but people always fell like they have good reasons for discrimination.

  If it’s not acceptable to call anyone on their discrimination, prejudice, outright bigotry - under whatever name you might call it - then of course we can’t have a dialogue, because there is a lot of anti-trans discrimination, prejudice, and outright bigotry coming from radical feminists. I don’t really accept the tone argument - that if only I were nicer, we could be friends. We’re still left with the elephant in the living room - that a large number of radical feminists refuse to respect who I am, insist on using prejudiced and inflammatory language to “put me in my place” (see Arantxa’s comment above), and post relatively regularly to attack trans people (Heart is probably the most prominent, but not the only one who does this).

  As for the early grave thing, I meant murder specifically. I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.

  I do not believe that homophobia and transphobia are the same thing, although I say again that I do think they are tightly bound, and often a man who assaults a trans woman does so because he sees her as a man, and thus gay. But, the thing is, that the murder rate for trans women is higher per capita than for for gay men, the trans panic defense is simply more successful than the gay panic defense, and is legal in a more areas.

  And no, I didn’t intend to imply that men who rape women get convicted or punished all that often. I blogged in protest of Judge Deni’s decision that raping a prostitute was really “theft of services” and “diminished rape committed against real women.” What I mean is, trans lives are not valued at all. A lot of people feel that being trans and trying to have a relationship is sufficient reason to kill that trans person. That discovering a trans history is a good reason right then to chase that woman down and stab her repeatedly, or fill her body with two clips’ worth of bullets.

  Even in cases where the man has known the woman for months, and has known her trans status for months, he has been able to avoid severe punishment by claiming that he discovered she was trans and couldn’t control himself.

  And then, getting back to radical feminists, I see arguments - on the front page of Questioning Transgender Politics - that trans women should not be allowed access to women’s services. I guess like domestic violence shelters and rape services? I see Vancouver Rape Relief celebrate keeping a trans woman from working as a volunteer. I see us described as male invaders out to colonize and destroy womanhood and feminism, I see feminists like Satsuma gleefully talk about violently throwing trans women out of lesbian spaces.

  I see that we’re not to expect support or safety around women. Is that the case?

  Also, on the homophobia/transphobia thing. I think it’s really clear there is a distinction - that they are related is undeniable, but that they are not the same thing should be clear. During the ENDA debate, I saw a lot of gay men and lesbian women make their outright hatred for trans people extremely clear. While I’m not saying that it’s impossible to hold internalized homophobia, I think it’s a bit much to say every one of them carries around a big chunk of internalized homophobia reserved specifically for trans people. I think it’s more likely that they’re transphobic - that they’re prejudiced specifically against trans people. To name a few names: Andrew Sullivan, Julie Bindel, John Aravosis, and several years back, Jim Fouratt and Norah Vincent. The gay and lesbian communities have anti-trans sentiments that go back to the Stonewall Riots.

  And, all of this I’m saying? It’s as someone who’s experienced sexism (as a woman), homophobia (as a lesbian and prior to transition, perceived as a gay male), and transphobia. I think I have some experience here in dealing with these oppressions, and I believe that they’re both inextricably related and not precisely the same. It really diminishes the fact that it’s acceptable for trans people to not have civil rights while gay, lesbian and bisexual receive civil rights protections, or that many gay and lesbian people attack trans people for anything from existing to wanting those civil rights protections and getting angry with the fact that yet again the GLB rights movement was willing to throw the T under the bus for (hoped for) fast and easy political gain.

  Do you believe that oppressed have no right to call out their oppressors, or is that only something that trans people aren’t allowed to do? Do you believe that the consistent, regular, anti-trans rhetoric that is written by radical feminists and published on the web, printed (and reprinted) in books and magazines has no effect on the perception of trans people - especially by those feminists who read them and may not already have an opinion on trans people? Do you believe it is okay to say spiteful and hurtful things about a group of people because you’re already part of an oppressed group? That trans people have no right to look at radical feminist writings about us and point out how they’re inaccurate and riddled with negative stereotypes? That these writings often second-guess trans people’s motives and self-perceptions for the sake of making fast and cheap points about gender politics? That they mark us as the enemy when we have tried to be a part of the community, and not act against it? That when the theory doesn’t fit us, we’re repudiated in favor of the theory? Do you honestly believe that women have no power to oppress?

  From where I sit, if radical feminists can blame any of the patriarchy’s problems on trans people, then we really don’t have much to discuss - and yet so much radical feminist writing about trans people is specifically about blaming us for upholding the patriarchy. Why is that? We’re a disadvantaged minority - we’re viewed as expendable tokens by our political allies, we’re beaten and murdered, we’re nearly always presented in the media as wicked deceivers, pathetic wannabe women, or criminals. It’s okay for talk show hosts to casually joke about killing us with an axe.

  I’m not trying to compare this to women’s oppression, I’m trying to understand why so many radical feminists mark us as an enemy. I mean, can you point to any anti-feminist trans ideology prior to Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire? Why Janice Raymond felt it was necessary to send out a call to arms to eject trans women from the feminist movement?

  I’m trying to understand why you’re saying it’s not okay to call out this stuff, or call it for what it is. Why you want to insist that all of this is really homophobia, even though so much of it comes from people who are clearly not homophobic themselves.

• 

  Arantxa // March 23, 2008 at 12:41 pm

  What I think, Amy, is that when I see a so called transwoman I am looking at a man and when I listen to a transwoman speak I am hearing a man’s voice. And I’m expected to pretend that this isn’t what I see and that is isn’t what I hear. That I should deny my own experience in favour of that which so called transwomen are imposing on me. Basically, another case of male reality prevailing over and erasing that of the female. Business as usual. But in a dress.

• 

  Alma Cork // March 23, 2008 at 1:17 pm

  What I think, Arantxa, is that when I see a so called radical feminist I am looking at a bigot and when I listen to a radical feminist speak I am hearing a bigot’s voice. And I’m expected to pretend that this isn’t what I see and that is isn’t what I hear. That I should deny my own experience in favour of that which so called radical feminists are imposing on me. Basically, another case of cis reality prevailing over and erasing that of the trans. Business as usual. But in the guise of emancipation.

  or was that offensive?

• 

  Mary Sunshine // March 23, 2008 at 1:59 pm

  Males pretending to be females oppress and insult me. Males not pretending to be females oppress and insult me.

  Each category expects me to unequivocally prioritize their expectations and desires over those of females.

  Each demands my obedience.

  Each claims the right to violate my space and my body at any time.

  All members of each of those categories should just FOAD ASAP.

  Mary, the acronymist

• 

  stormy // March 23, 2008 at 5:06 pm

  Lisa

  If cis is a slur, trans is a slur.

  No. For the simple reason that most transpersons use “trans” to describe themselves. “Cis” is something foisted onto FABs by the transactivists that many FABs object to. We are making a statement that we object to this term, one not chosen by us to describe us. There are practical uses for making the differentiation, least of which trans need a term/word that can highlight the difficulties specifically to being trans. If transactivists cease to make the distinction and come under the generic umbrella of “woman”, then the specific difficulties become rendered invisible. Also, it makes for difficult reading: e.g. “woman” discriminated against “woman” because “woman” was born male and later had a sex change. You get the drift.

  One reason that cisgender is offensive to radfems is because of the bolded part of the word. I have noticed that a lot of trans comments continually mix up the terms of “sex” and “gender” to mean one and the same. They are not the same, not from the radical feminist perspective.

  As for “passing,” that’s not what passing means. Passing’s not “I pass as a woman,” because I am a woman. Passing means “When someone sees me, they don’t automatically twig that I’m trans.”

  Which was exactly how I meant and used the term, as in “passing” by others’ perceptions. I was not aware that this term could be used in any other way, because it actually makes no sense with an internal appraisal usage of the term.

  I don’t even know what you mean by the LGBTQ alphabet being a big problem. Your “self-defining woman” is a really simplistic definition of how trans women come around to womanhood.

  Either you are wilfully misconstruing or ignoring the main focus of that paragraph, nor was it even implied about the TW ‘journey into womanhood’. Please re-read the ‘bedfellows’ part again. The objection on ’self-definition as woman’ means that any male, who primarily lives as a male, can throw on a frock, call themselves “woman” for a day, and gain entry into female-only spaces. These types of people hang about among and within trans and queer groups. Pick your bedfellows more carefully. I see this point as one very strong one that will continue to keep TW out of some women-only spaces. However, most women-only spaces are inclusive of TWs, as was the recent RTN march in Manchester (which did welcome TWs), yet TWs marched behind the main march, with the queers and a bloke in a frock (complete with beard) to protest (non-existent) exclusion. This I don’t understand, for to be accepted into a woman-only march is what TWs sought, yet chose to protest ‘exclusion’ and march with the blokes.

  Was it really a feminist act in Maia’s thread to describe any women as “men in dresses?” Is it okay to judge other women on the basis of their appearance?

  Yes, when the ‘woman’ in question is just a man with a beard, dressing in a frock, lives most of his life as a man, has no known intention of ‘transitioning’, and ironically is one of the main transactivists in the area. I have heard that the TWs in the group are only now just questioning as to whether he is trans or not. I really would have thought it was a no-brainer. He is a garden variety cross-dresser. A man in a frock, who calls himself ‘woman’ when it suits him. A name like “Tom” should give it away somewhat? Or are TWs just so desperate to include anybody? So yes, it was a really fucking feminist thing to do.

  That’s not the primary reason I’m willing to hang with them [sex-pos]- there’s other ideological reasons there, including matters of agency, and the fact that sex-positive feminists often do seem to be concerned about sex worker’s rights, and a lot of trans women happen to be sex workers.

  For starters, radical feminists refer to the women in prostitution as “prostituted women” not “sex workers” because to call it “sex work” denotes it as a legitimate form of work. Legitimate forms of work do not routinely include regular on-the-job violence, rape, murder, or that 90% of PWs would exit prostitution if given the means to do so. Renegade Evolution and her sex-pozzie crowd want to make/keep prostitution and pornography legal, which has not worked to keep safe women in those countries that have legalised it. Legalisation is a government sanction that the industry is hunky-dorey and legitimate, and only encourages more of it by mainstreaming it. Lack of legalisation and public re-education is a proven method of reducing the numbers of women/girls exposed to this male violence. Over the last 30-odd years I have seen porn get more and more mainstreamed, and concurrently, more and more violent. Mainstreaming porn actually decreased the amount of ‘mutually respectful’ porn (so called ‘nice porn’). Yet the sex-poz crowd want even more porn(!) So go ahead, put your faith in their methods and ideologies.

  A lot of people feel that being trans and trying to have a relationship is sufficient reason to kill that trans person. That discovering a trans history is a good reason right then to chase that woman down and stab her repeatedly, or fill her body with two clips’ worth of bullets.
  Even in cases where the man has known the woman for months, and has known her trans status for months, he has been able to avoid severe punishment by claiming that he discovered she was trans and couldn’t control himself.

  Welcome to the World of Women honey. There is nothing different or special in the above that doesn’t happen to women at least twice per week in the UK (DV cases only). Four times per week if we are to include all the women murdered for just being “women”. The “[he] couldn’t control himself” defence is used successfully all the time for men getting away with rape and murder of women. Seriously, do you think that the murder of an 18yo FAB by blunt object and beating, then raping her dead/dying body is some kind of FAB privilege? Is being stabbed over 35 times by your husband FAB privilege? Is being murdered then cut up into little bits and dumped in numerous trashcans FAB privilege? Is being stalked for over five years by your ex-husband, then being raped, beaten and stabbed, FAB privilege? For every gruesome murder of a TW, I can cite dozens more gruesome murders of FABs.

  I don’t really accept the tone argument - that if only I were nicer, we could be friends.

  That is bullshit. I said stop trashing radical feminism and stop painting radical feminists as your oppressors. To twist my sentiment around and dismiss it in such a manner, is being disingenuous.

  Out of your above 26 paragraphs, you continued trashing radfems in nine of them. That is 35%. Over a third. Notice that my posts do not contain a litany of “mwah mwah mwah, meanie-trans said (or did) this that or the other”. I criticised one so-called transactivist directly (I mean, FFS, are you going to include him in Class Woman?). And criticism of the sex-positive ideology.

  I have no interest in continuing dialogue, not because you are TW, but because you are only interested in continuing to trash radical feminists/ism. That does not make me transphobic. That makes me radfem-bashing-phobic.

  Not all avoidance directed at TWs is transphobia. If the TW concerned is a jerk, an idiot, or competes in the oppression olympics, it is more likely to be for those reasons than transphobia. For me, it is the fact you hang out with RenEv and the possie, a group that devote most of their spare time to bashing radical feminism and radical feminists, is good enough reason alone. My other reason is that on the one hand, you want to be regarded as ‘exactly the same as FABs’ (I don’t have a problem with that exactly). However, on the other hand you want TWs to be regard as a ’special class of woman’, more oppressed, more focused upon, whose rapes and murders are supposedly more of a crime than the rapes and murders of FABs. To that I say, no dice. I will treat you as equal, but not as ’special’.

• 

  L.M. // March 23, 2008 at 6:04 pm

  Amy’s Brain Today - “the way that, um, okay, assigned-female-at-birth, raised-as-female, still-female-as-adult people are asked to deny our own perceptions of reality WRT, um, okay, NON-AFAB-RAF-SFAA people”
  I don’t really see it as a feminist or radical feminist act, but it’s sort of - and I’m not trying to sound snide or anything - a politeness thing. I did meet a transgendered person who AFAIK was not on hormone therapy, and who did not “pass” very well as male. However, I think that I would have been rude and insulting if I had insisted on calling him “her” or “she”, when that isn’t what he wanted to be called.
  Whether it’s labeling non-transgendered people as “cis” when they don’t wish to be labeled as such, or labeling transgendered people as their birth sex, I think it’s just better to call people want they’d like to be called.
  I mean, maybe when some people look at me, they see an “oriental” or a “colored” or worse (or, with regards to gender, a “chick” or a “babe” and I’d be pissed off if I asked someone to stop referring to me like that, and they didn’t listen to me.

• 

  L.M. // March 23, 2008 at 6:07 pm

  I don’t know, isn’t some porn really anti-trans? I think that labeling transwomen as “chicks with dicks” and “she-males” is disrespectful and insulting. Don’t those labels deny that a person born with a penis could be a real woman?
  Plus holding them up as degraded circus freaks, in the same way that the sex industry treats any women who aren’t Playboy-type conventional beauties (like women of color, fat women, disabled women, etc.)

• 

  thebewilderness // March 23, 2008 at 7:56 pm

  “The strict meaning of cissexual is “someone who does not wish to change his or her sex.”
  sez Lisa.

  No, Lisa, it isn’t.
  Cis- is a prefix that has been in use for many years in the english language, that means ‘on the side of’ or ‘on the near side of’, hence we have cislunar, meaning on the near side of the moon, and cismontane, meaning on the near side of the mountain.

  You might want to consult with Drakyn, who has been going around the radfem blogosphere decrying an entirely different definition for the word you use to define people as not like you.

• 

  Alma Cork // March 23, 2008 at 7:56 pm

  My other reason is that on the one hand, you want to be regarded as ‘exactly the same as FABs’ (I don’t have a problem with that exactly). However, on the other hand you want TWs to be regard as a ’special class of woman’, more oppressed, more focused upon, whose rapes and murders are supposedly more of a crime than the rapes and murders of FABs. To that I say, no dice. I will treat you as equal, but not as ’special’.

  or, how about, transwomen are not *exactly* the same as FAB’s (gawd, i’m so picking up this terminology), but the general differences are not sufficent enough to get worked up about or categorise us as absolutely distinct, which my reading of peoples opinions does appear to do.

  futhermore, if transwomen wish to be vocal about those experiences that FAB women do not share they should be allowed to do so without this calling into question their womanhood. in fact, they should be allowed to *celebrate* these experiences if they wish and how they have informed their understanding of their own sense of womanhood.

  in other words, sure, differences exist, but they shouldn’t be presumed to suggest that transwomen are men in any way shape or form (which, sorry, they are used as. reading through comments in discussions like these just clarifies that, no matter how ‘accepting’ (i.e. ‘i don’t have a problem with that exactly) some people try to frame themselves).

  in my mind the differences are more regional under the universal banner of womanhood, rather than suggesting, as it does feel, that we’re a totally different species altogether.

  I’d be pissed off if I asked someone to stop referring to me like that, and they didn’t listen to me.

  granted, and taken. although i will remember this next time somebody suggests that i behave in a male fashion or calls me a bloke

  (as an aside, i’m surprised witchy let my last comment through, because it could have been considered exceedingly snarky. it was, as it happens, but my intention was mostly to frame how daft those sorts of comments can be, and how hurtful. hope that came through).

• 

  stormy // March 23, 2008 at 8:35 pm

  or, how about, transwomen are not *exactly* the same as FAB’s

  Is reading not your strong suit Alma?

  You cherry picked and decontextualised, and ignored the beginning of the comment entirely.

  For that, I shall just ignore you.

• 

  witchywoo // March 23, 2008 at 8:57 pm

  It was exceedingly snarky, Alma, but as I’d previously allowed JGoff’s vitriolic comment I thought it only fair that yours should go up as well even though it was aimed at Arantxa who was responding to Amy’s point about how we are often asked to deny our perceptions of reality wrt obviously “NON-AFAB-RAF-SFAA people”. Arantxa had replied to Amy’s question “I would like to know what other radfems think about this” from her own experience - one that, I believe, is shared by many.

  However, as LM has pointed out, there is a tendency towards politeness and respect (in the circles that I move in, anyway) that, outwardly at least, often *does* deny our perceptions of reality. I don’t think this has anything to do with feminism per se. I have witnessed a small child as yet ungroomed in the ways of polite society ask the awful question “why is that man dressed like a lady?”

• 

  witchywoo // March 23, 2008 at 9:09 pm

  And thank you thebewilderness for your etymological skills

• 

  Alma Cork // March 23, 2008 at 11:34 pm

  stormy,

  you’re quite right that i didn’t respond to the bulk of your comment. this is partly because i either don’t have the current understanding or the vocabulary with which to properly express my feelings on the matters, partly that i think the range of topics covered cannot be covered by a single blog comment, and partly because it would have taken me all day and i had to go pick a friend up.

  however, the point i did respond to, in my opinion, is the overriding crux of this whole discussion in the first place. focussing on that was my attempt to reach the centre of the argument and try and attain an understanding, for myself as well as reaching a consensus with those of a mind such as yours, that might even allow (if i could ever consider myself so influential) at least some measure of seeing eye to eye.

  or would you really just like me to disappear so you can comfortably ignore me?

  witchy, and isn’t it the way arantxa frames her observations, and the manner in which she lets them inform her wider beliefs, the entire problem? especially when ‘radical feminism’ appears to hold this as a widely held belief? i mean, irrespective of how arantxa responds to any one individual, making such a blanket statement about an entire (not to mention ridiculously diverse) group of people is just daft and upsetting. that is what my snarky comment was trying to point out. i’ve met radfems that make my blood boil, but for me to say something like my post and actually *mean* it is just bloody stupid. it’s like saying ‘all of my friends that have moved to liverpool have experienced crime (or read about it in the papers), therefore all people from liverpool are criminals‘. bonkers.

• 

  Alma Cork // March 23, 2008 at 11:48 pm

  oh, and, the bewilderness,

  cis-, as a prefix, means ‘on this side of’. that is latin.

  trans-, as a prefix, means ‘across’, ‘beyond’ & ‘through’. that is latin as well.

  answers.com taught me this.

  cis- means that your sex and your gender, simplistically speaking, are on the same sides. trans- means that your sex and your gender are on ‘opposite’ sides. just like how it works in chemical isomers.

  sure, this presumes a simple bipolar model of gender, which is a pretty flawed argument, and it prseumes that cis- people have a sense or lived experience of gender that neatly matches up with their sex, which is also naive and simplistic. however, in the short term, to provide distinction within context and where it is absolutely needed, the terms sorta do.

  i still really don’t understand why people are getting so uptight about the words. anybody would think that there are gangs of mauraduing transpeople rampaging about and using the words to implicitly, and gleefully, oppress everybody else. all the while growing fat and privileged from hearing the tortured protests. it just doesn’t happen.

• 

  witchywoo // March 24, 2008 at 12:38 am

  Oh dear, Alma… I’d thought it maybe was you who’d said upthread
  “if you really think the use of the word cissexual (or cisgendered) to describe is actually important in the greater scheme of womens liberation then, well, you’re totally leading yourself down a blind alley. no, you’re actually chasing your own tail, that’s how silly it is.”
  which I found very dismissive and minimalising and now y0u’re reiterating. It’s as though you haven’t listened to us at all.

  The terms don’t ’sorta do’ for me at all, I’m afraid. I have been given a label that, not only I didn’t choose or agree to but I don’t want. But in objecting to how I’ve been labelled I’m “chasing my own tail” apparently. News, Alma - language is power and FABs have been defined and marginalised by whatever name the world and his wife have decided to call us since time immemorial.

  My point:
  My sex = female. Not cis*female. Just female.
  Gender = a patriarchal construct designed to keep us all in our genitally designed place and a notion that I find abhorrent.

  You say you don’t understand why people are getting so uptight about the words. Can I refer you to LM’s post at 6.04pm(GMT) today? Specifically, she says:
  “Whether it’s labeling non-transgendered people as “cis” when they don’t wish to be labeled as such, or labeling transgendered people as their birth sex, I think it’s just better to call people want they’d like to be called.
  I mean, maybe when some people look at me, they see an “oriental” or a “colored” or worse (or, with regards to gender, a “chick” or a “babe”) and I’d be pissed off if I asked someone to stop referring to me like that, and they didn’t listen to me.”

  wrt Arantxa’s comment - if the maleness isn’t so obvious then our perception of our own reality isn’t denied so much. Surely you can understand that? The “entire problem”, as you phrase it, seems to me that those of us who were AFAB are now somehow expected to not only accept being named as ‘non’ (yet again) but also to accept AMAB’s into all our spaces.

  For me, transpeople are just that - transpeople. Contrary to JGoff’s vitriol directed at me I don’t have acceptance issues or any kind of transperson hatred or phobia but I do resent being given a name I haven’t even been asked about let alone agreed to and the assumption that, in my need to be with others in my co-hort, I am somehow ‘fearful’ of transpersons.

• 

  stormy // March 24, 2008 at 1:36 am

  I forgot to address a point in Lisa’s last comment. The forgetfulness was partly due to age, but partly due to the blinding rage of having to wade through anti-radfem rhetoric.

  “…that trans women should not be allowed access to women’s services. I guess like domestic violence shelters and rape services? I see Vancouver Rape Relief celebrate keeping a trans woman from working as a volunteer.

  There are several issues that you have lumped in together, those being 1) should TWs be able to access women’s services, and 2) should TWs be able to be service providers within women’s services.

  Should TWs be able to access women’s services, I would say generally yes. They would however be better served by specialist TW advisors within the women’s services sector, in that way getting specialist needs addressed. However, it may be problematic within general housing for DV due the the majority of FABs already in residence and who may be so traumatised that a TW that does not ‘pass’ (again, this is the perception of the other women in residence) would further traumatise them. This would have to be on a case by case basis, taking into account ALL shelter residents, not just the TW. Witchy I am sure would verify this. Rape counselling for TW rape victims could well be dealt with by existing rape crisis helplines/centres, however, one would think that a TW would be better served by having a TW advisor.

  The second part, that of TWs in a serving capacity in women’s services. This would be generally no. As an adjunct for supporting TWs, yes, as mentioned above. However, many TWs do not “pass” as well as they think they do, especially on the telephone. To the FAB ear, most TWs sound like very camp queens, and this is very off-putting to an FAB expecting to hear a female voice on the other end of the telephone. Before you go ballistic, specialist services like rape counselling can be further divided within the FAB group, between lesbian and heterosexual women. Many lesbians would appreciate more focused care for their unique experiences of rape. That isn’t to say that it is any more or less traumatic for any victim of rape, just different, from the victim’s perspective. That is victim-centred thinking, not ‘phobic’ to any particular group.

  Sadly, most women’s services are grossly underfunded. In an ideal world, specialist advisors would be available for specialist needs. I just heard a report that the government are about to launch a new £10m campaign to advise middle-aged women not to drink too much. No such campaign is targeted at middle-aged men. £10m is about three times what rape crisis centres get in funding. It’s all about perspective.

  Which brings us to the Vancouver RR. What you omit to mention is that the TW concerned dragged this through the courts in order to prove a point, seriously jeapodising the ongoing operations of the VRR. The VRR were actually quite reasonable in their offers to the TW concerned, but she chose to try and litigate the organisation into bancruptcy. So the ‘needs’ of the one outweighed the needs of the many. That is not a great example for you to bring up in your anti-feminist rhetoric, and actually makes more feminists distrust TW motives. It is exactly that kind of attitude that makes FABs wary of TWs. Your misreprestation of VRR ‘celebrating’ the incident is also cause for alarm among feminist service providers and feminists in general.

  This isn’t about ‘playing nice’ to be accepted, it is about respect for the existing feminist support structure. Feminist organisations would have automatically accepted TWs into the space had TWs not ‘demanded’ entry and ‘demanded’ to be treated as somehow more special and deserving that FABs. The ‘demanding’ part is very much a male entitlement thing going on, we FABs are very much attuned to it, FFS, we’ve had it our whole lives. Hence feminism. In feminist spaces, you play by feminist rules, not your own.

• 

  stormy // March 24, 2008 at 1:53 am

  Alma, you cherry-picked. If you wanted to be ‘heard’ and understood, then defer your response to a time whereby you could be more fully and clearly understood. What I read in your reply is a bunch of excuses because I called you on the cherry-picking.

  You see, this is not simplistic thinking, as you might like to write it off as “transphobia” there are complex theories at the base, and what most transactivists do is come in and throw around words such as “transphobia” and hope we will get scared by this and jump to your agenda. Not going to happen.

  Do radfems not understand complexities? They do. What you will actually find is that the majority of radfems are some of the smartest brains around — it’s Mensa for wimmin.

  If you wish to discuss in a civilised manner, without anti-radfem rhetoric, then I shall discuss. If your purpose is merely to mwah mwah mwah moan to jockey your position in the oppression olympics and to be “better, more special, wimmin than the FABs”, then no. End discussion.

• 

  L.M. // March 24, 2008 at 2:20 am

  Alma Cork -”it prseumes that cis- people have a sense or lived experience of gender that neatly matches up with their sex, which is also naive and simplistic”
  I think that is what many radical feminists object to. Some radical feminists fit the stereotype of a conventional heterosexual woman, but many do not and patriarchal society usually ridicules or punishes them for it. Some - though not all, and I am not trying to say that any one group is “better” or “right” - may reject societal norms of biological females, such as partnering with men, childbearing, watching their weight, removing body hair, wearing “feminine” clothes, and thus be isolated from much of conventional womanhood and often hated for it.

• 

  J.Goff // March 24, 2008 at 3:23 am

  many do not and patriarchal society usually ridicules or punishes them for it

  And so, it is necessary…nay…obligatory to do the same to transgender women. Hell, just ask Witchy-woo, Mary Sunshine, and Arantxa.

  And yeah, I know I shouldn’t have posted what I did before myself. But I find it laughable that people literally stepped in to show that I was not only correct, I was laughably understating the situation. Oh well. LM, where you see appropriating, I see analogy. While the analogy may fail at certain levels and with certain people, I cannot see how with respect to at least Stormy and Arantxa.

• 

  witchywoo // March 24, 2008 at 3:38 am

  That’s it J.Goff. You’ve well outstayed any tenuous welcome you might have had here. A white male stuffed full of patriarchal, heterosexual privilege - you don’t actually ’see’ anything that changes anything for any of us. All you see is welcome divisions and status protection.

  I tried to comment on your blog but couldn’t get past the Google regime. I’ll say it here:

  You’re a coward.

• 

  J.Goff // March 24, 2008 at 3:49 am

  My email is right there, Witchy. I will post what ever you have to say to me.

• 

  Laurelin // March 24, 2008 at 3:51 am

  I just have to say it- Jackgoff, you have really showed your true colours here. Could you be more vile, demeaning and patronising? The way you have spoken to Witchy is just the way misogynist men speak to women, sweetheart. You know better, and we’re the right wing, you’re the voice of authority and so forth. Can’t you see how abusive you’re being or are you just fucking stupid? And you wonder why we object to male born persons in female born persons only spaces! Go fuck yourself, coward. Oh and go to hell- that place you like to send women who question your self-importance.

• 

  J.Goff // March 24, 2008 at 3:52 am

  And yes, I do not allow anonymous comments. Tough luck for you, isn’t it? Sorry about that, but I have had to contend with MRA jerks, Ron Paulnuts, and worse. I’m ever so sorry you weren’t able to post anonymously on my website.

  *eyeroll*

• 

  L.M. // March 24, 2008 at 4:36 am

  JGoff - if you think I’m transphobic, fine, you’re entitled to your opinion.
  White heterosexual men, in any remotely progressive space, are never entitled to lecture women, people of color or gay people on their own oppressions.

• 

  witchywoo // March 24, 2008 at 4:41 am

  “My email is right there, Witchy. I will post what ever you have to say to me.”

  Yeah…right.

  Waiting.

  They’re all full of shit (WHM).

  I’m far less trans-phobic than I am WHM phobic and JGoff is one of the many that has proved my instincts right.

  Wanker.

• 

  J.Goff // March 24, 2008 at 4:46 am

  I’m waiting for you to tell me it’s okay to post it, you jerk. I even asked you specifically if it was okay.

  Are you really this illiterate?!

• 

  witchywoo // March 24, 2008 at 4:54 am

  nice, huh?

• 

  thebewilderness // March 24, 2008 at 4:56 am

  I am a bit surprised that jackoff has the gall to comment on any radfem site given his history of embarassing behavior.

• 

  thebewilderness // March 24, 2008 at 4:57 am

  What’s up jackoff, drunk again?

• 

  witchywoo // March 24, 2008 at 5:03 am

  It would seem so.

  We *apparently* have a totally different interpretation of email correspondance. I’m sending it to the address he’s given. He’s not posting it. He’s saying he hasn’t recieved it and insulting me by calling me an illiterate ‘jerk’ to boot.

  Things are as they always have been….

• 

  witchywoo // March 24, 2008 at 5:12 am

  I have no clue what ‘hucksterism’ is Mr Goff and I shall spare you the embassasment of publishing your most recent comments (*bless* my radfem heart) but what address , exactly, should I be sending my unpublishable Google responses to?

• 

  J.Goff // March 24, 2008 at 5:21 am

  And I’ve never been “embassased” in my life.

• 

  J.Goff // March 24, 2008 at 5:22 am

  Are you drunk?

• 

  witchywoo // March 24, 2008 at 5:42 am

  So, I missed an ‘r’ or two - big deal *spellcheck-eyeroll* No, I am not drunk. Are you? Or are you trying to derail a conversation between people who might - just might - be able to reach some kind of understanding?

  Wrt to the email correspondance thing - I assumed you’d do it through the blog. I acknowledge my error and am rectifying it as you read.

  Word of advice: try not to be such an arsehole and someone, somewhere might hear to you.

• 

  witchywoo // March 24, 2008 at 5:51 am

  That’s the jackoff show over folks. Nothing left to see here. Can we resume the discussion or has it been obliterated by one WHM?

• 

  Laurelin // March 24, 2008 at 10:39 am

  Wow, how aggressive. No, you don’t have a problem with women, do you mate? You just come in here, act like a dick, and expect the red carpet treatment *rolls eyes*

  Anyone for a boisterous chorus of ‘your privilege is showing’?

• 

  Alma Cork // March 24, 2008 at 11:14 am

  okay

  i’ve tried to be careful to not actually use the word ‘transphobia’ against anybody here, so please stop suggesting i’ve been specifically suggesting it is going on.

  i’ve tried to be very careful not to play the ‘oppression olympics’, which is another reason i didn’t comment on some of stormy’s points.

  i have tried to repeatedly reiterate that cis- is not a reflection on, or mutually exclusive to, anybodies femaleness. however, if people get so upset by it i’ll stop using it. in turn, could you never refer to me as trans again as i consider the context you do so in to be offensive.

  i have also tried to point out my awareness of the naive and simplistic assumptions behind societal gender roles. really, i think i’m more aware of a lot of this than you give me credit for.

  finally, my last comment was anti-radfem? how? point it out to me, because i don’t see it. if you can’t, then i’ll presume you’re doing exactly what you accuse me of doing when you suggest i’m crying transphobia all the time.

  cheers.

• 

  Lost Clown // March 24, 2008 at 10:51 pm

  OK *deep breath*

  camp queens? seriously? That made me flinch.

  1) I am a rad fem.
  2) I am a volunteer at VRR
  3) I have worked (most notably in the Bay Area) with trans-activists and have been in many many discussions in the rad-fem blogosphere over trans-politics)
  4) I hate being called cis anything.

  The whole problem with VRR is that we’re a shelter and, like stormy said, we had to think of the comfort and percieved safety of the women in the shelter. We couldn’t start accepting trans people as volunteers and then screen who would be ‘female’ enough to volunteer. You see the problems this would create. How could we tell what is acceptable and what is not? It is not up to how me or any of the women who are actually paid collective members actually feel about trans-politics, we have to think about the women in our shelter, because the hotline is located in house. We have no separate phone area. Do you understand the predicament this put us in and why we need to keep this to women born women at this time? I feel confident saying that most people in our shelter don’t even know/know much about trans.

  I will admit that when I was a collective member at Bluestockings, a women’s collective bookstore in NYC, I fought against being trans-inclusive simply because their idea of it was one of the collective member’s roommates who wore a dress occasionally should be included. We actually *had* a collective member at the time who was MTF who I never said should leave or even brought up because I thought she should be there (though I did think her emails about me being transphobic were funny/aggravating since if I truly was wouldn’t I have said she should be kicked out?). What I did have a problem with was someone who had male privilege coming into a women’s collective just because a few days a month he wore a dress.

  I have always defended and said we need to be inclusive of transpeople. Though my experience seems to be different. My interactions can really be summed up in this article.
  I have no problem with women and trans only spaces, but then again, it’s not solely up to me, it’s up to the group. I trust trans people to make their own decisions on whether they should be there or not (though there are the problems with men who think they should be included b/c they sometimes wear a dress-I haven’t encountered it outside of Bluestockings, but it can happen and as with the march HAS happened and doesn’t help people feel all that warm and fuzzy about being trans-inclusive). However much I believe that I want a world where we are all equal trans is different, in the case of MTF you grew up with privilege, however you personally felt, it’s given to you just by how you look. It sucks, it’s wrong, I know. And that’s why people are having such a tough time just accepting trans into women only spaces and events and I think it’s wrong to slam them for it.

  It *is* different then growing up female. There are different -isms that play out, but again we should put the blame where it belongs and it ain’t on a small group of radical women.

  I don’t know where all the viritol and hatred started but I think that the slams from both sides just keep fueling more and round and round we’ll keep going and we’ll never move forward. Trans activists say fucked up things about rad fems. Rad fems say fucked up things about trans people. The merry-go-round of knives. I try to ignore the fucked up things said about me because I want trans people included, but then again these things are said about ALL rad fems (including me). So should we possibly try to be in the here and now since we’re not having any productive conversations while dragging out all our past prejudices?

• 

  Sarah (Ethically Speaking) // March 25, 2008 at 9:43 pm

  Can I just add that I absolutely love you to bits Witchy!

  Very glad you’re back.

• 

  thebewilderness // March 25, 2008 at 11:53 pm

  “i’ve met radfems that make my blood boil, but for me to say something like my post and actually *mean* it is just bloody stupid. ”

  Indeed, yes.
  How very shocking for you to discover that when you post something bloody stupid, that the people reading your bloody stupid post would think you are bloody stupid.
  Because bog forbid that you be responsible for saying what you mean or meaning what you say. Of course not, that is entirely the readers job to sort out. That is bloody stupid all right.

• 

  Lost Clown // March 26, 2008 at 6:29 am

  Did my opus get lost over the internerds?

• 

  stormy // March 26, 2008 at 10:12 am

  sure, this presumes a simple bipolar model of gender, which is a pretty flawed argument, and it prseumes that cis- people have a sense or lived experience of gender that neatly matches up with their sex, which is also naive and simplistic. however, in the short term, to provide distinction within context and where it is absolutely needed, the terms sorta do.

  No, the ‘flawed argument’ insists that gender exists as something innate, rather than an artificial societal construct.

  The transactivist argument comes on two fronts, that of:
  1) one’s ‘gender’ not matching one’s sex
  2) one’s body (parts) not matching what one ‘expected’

  As radical feminists believe that gender is an artificial societal construct, that means anyone who rejects ‘gender roles’ is a transpersons. (This has been said above.) This actually would apply to radfems as much as anybody. I like using power tools and maths – these are supposedly, according to ‘gender rules’ the province of teh menz. Ergo, I must be a manz trapped in a female body? I reject societal gender roles thank you very much. And my legs are hairy BTW. (oooh, definitely a manz then!)

  As for bodies not being what one expects, there are a lot of people who aren’t happy with their bodies. Again there is a lot of societal pressure as to ‘acceptable’ bodies. This pressure is so strong, that it can manifest it’s self as to being ‘real’ to the individual. But it is an artificial and external imposition. I do personally know males (heterosexual and gay) who reject ‘masculinity’ (an artificial construct) but who do not automatically think “I am not what is expected as ‘man’ I must therefore be ‘woman’ “. I can understand that at a young age, a male experiencing the conflict between the gender role of ‘man’ and biological sex, may be mistaken into believing “if I am not a ‘man’ I must be a ‘woman’ “. If the situation is one whereby the body-owner looks down and sees a penis where “there shouldn’t be one!”, then this is body dysmorphia, because one’s body is one’s body, there is nothing inherently evil or ‘wrong’ about certain body parts. If I was born with a penis, I guess I would look around and reject what was expected of me as a ‘man’, certainly I would be pissed off with teh menz who give men a bad name by their behaviour.

  Utilising the words sex and gender together to support the trans case is loaded with artificial influences and construct. Gender is imposed, artificial. Sex just is the biological division, albeit except for a very small number of cases, arbitrary.

  anybody would think that there are gangs of mauraduing transpeople rampaging about and using the words to implicitly, and gleefully, oppress everybody else.

  I love the smell of plagiarism first thing in the morning.

• 

  Brynn // March 26, 2008 at 10:24 am

  I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed visiting this blog before to get me thinking about all kinds of issues that the radfems here are into… I am really surprised at the response to cis and the fury it has provoked. I am white and I have white privilege. I am cis and I have a privileged set of experiences compared to someone who is trans. I am also a woman and experience oppressions that go along with this part of my identity. If someone points to white privilege, I don’t get angry that they have named a privilege that I experience. For me, it is the same for cis. A lot of the women here obviously do not regard women who have transitioned as ‘real women’. I think people here seem to assume that these women are men and as such recipients of patriarchal privilege…. rather than people who have a particular set of experiences and difficulties that cis people do not experience in quite the same way. I do not see how it takes away from radfem identity. Naming privilege is part of how groups advocate for rights in societies that are not recognising them. If society did not discriminate on the basis of these identities, they would not need to be politicised. I thought this would be a recognisable strategy to the people here, who would understand that identities are intersectional and that rights and recognition must be fought for.