This isn’t a funny story. Trying on your ten year old daughter’s clothes, because you get a boner when you wear women’s clothes, is sexual abuse. Plain and simple, end of discussion.

I’m trying to articulate something about what’s different this time… 

When it was gay men’s heads on the block, and petitioning for their rights, conservatives trotted out all the weirdo gay queer sex shit that gay men did (and do), raising them as an existential threat in bathrooms and to children.  Leather daddies, group sex orgies, AIDs, etc. Gay men are even sometimes convicted pedophiles, after all.

Mmm, stereotype threat.

So what’s different this time?  With gay men, they could make the assimilationist argument.  “We’re just like you. Those are bad apples.  We love capitalism. Etc.”  White middle class assimilation was showcased, weirdo gay sex was hid from the light.  

In this new installment, now with trans women, Caitlyn Jenner *is* the assimilationist spokesperson!  We can’t say “We’re just like you. Those are bad apples.”  Because this is the norm ‘we’ are placing forward.

We seem to now be at the point now where the “weirdo queer sex” is vying for assimilation?  

I dunno.

This weirdo queer sex is unfollowing you.

Ok.   

For the record, I’m a weirdo queer sex too, I guess.  

I suppose my language might seem off or offensive, but it’s more of a failed attempt at writing semi-ironically from cis mainstream point of view, which I tend to do a lot when I’m writing lazily, in the same way I might call my self a failed tranny, or something.  I’m describing “what hetereonormative people see”.  I’m not making a negative judgement on adult queer sex lives, I’m describing the stereotypes trotted out by anti-gay people, and the reaction of gay politics of pushing assimilation.  That’s kinda what my comment about stereotype threat was about. Maybe that didn’t come through. Or, maybe, you just don’t like it when minority groups talk about themselves ironically this way (which many seem to do).  

But yes, I do agree with snowflake that it’s inappropriate and violating for an adult father to try on his daughter’s clothes.  And I really hope there wasn’t a boner in the video the daughters caught!

My point, at the time anyway, which I might not even agree with anymore, is that the previously hidden queer sex is now front and center, vying for acceptance. There are no more ‘bad apples’ to hide away in an appeal to white-heteronormative-like assimilation, and that is a pretty big jump up from what lgbt rights used to look like 5 or 10 years ago.  That’s gonna be a tough sell.

No, I talk about myself and other trans people ironically in that way all the time.

It was inappropriate for Jenner to try on the daughters’ clothes. And if there was an erection caught on camera, that would have been unfortunate. But it was not “sexual abuse.”

The problem is that Jenner is not being a “bad apple,” because she is not owning any transvestite sexuality. She didn’t say that she tried on her daughter’s clothes in order to masturbate, did she? Just “try on a few things.” To express her feminine soul. That is the form that assimilationism is taking today.

Honestly, I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with snowflakeespecial in this post, but I unfollwed her long ago, probably for the same kind of judgmental shit she’s doing in this post.

Radfems will occasionally acknowledge the humanity of transsexuals, and even show them something like empathy. But for them, we are never that human. We are not even human enough to be the subject of an attack. We are mythical monsters that exist only as names to call transsexuals.

Snowflakeespecial is pulling the same exact shit, because she wants to show everyone how she can be as rad as the raddiest radfem. But it’s worse because she’s trans, so she’s throwing us transvestites under the radfem bus. And not only are you not calling her on it, you’re just blithely musing about “weirdo queer sex” while she does it.

If you’re really a weirdo queer sex, then fucking stand up for your fellow weirdos.

Grvsmth, I honestly love your analysis about Jenner not being a bad apple. But I seriously fail to see how is masturbating in your daughter’s underwear NOT sexual abuse?

For the record, I fully support transvestites and males who are sexually aroused by wearing “female” clothing 100%! Believe me, I went to plenty of their sex clubs and fetish events when I was 19-22. (See also, Joel’s post about het cd’s here - I had much the same experience.) And in a more general sense, I fully support sexual subcultures, as long as they don’t condone rape and sexual abuse. 

HOWEVER, male cds/transvestites need to keep it in the appropriate places. Which would be: in adult nightclubs and bars, in private social clubs, in private online social networks, and in their homes (but appropriately and/or with consent). Crucially: NOT in their children’s bedrooms, and behind their wive’s backs. Also: NOT in public, when being seen in public “en femme” is part of their sexual script! That means they are eroticizing non-consent, which is basically the definition of sexual abuse.

I also have an issue with males who transition primarily due to sexual reasons saying that their sexual desires make them "basically female”, the same as transsexuals who transition for reasons that are not primarily sexual. But, this is probably my own baggage making me feel like I need to draw a line in the sand, and I’m trying to unpack that.

But if you want to say I’m “throwing transvestites under the radfem bus” because I speak out about males sexually abusing women, it says more about your own issues than my actions.

A bit of levity after a long day

Amazing! Pretty sure this is the real life experience of Paris Lees! Like, if you substitute “sex positive actress” for pop star.

Please show me where I have mocked transsexuals.

Also, special snowflake, please tell me what “outright transphobia” line I have crossed. Thanks.

Hey! Glad to see you back on tumblr.

I wrote that response a few years ago now. If I were going to write it today, I would probably say something quite different.

I’ve never seen you mock transsexuals. And I can’t give an example of you “crossing the line to outright transphobia” because honestly that is something I haven’t observed either. Same goes for Gallus. Actually, GenderTrender is my favorite active blog! And I really hope you get back to longer-form blogging at some point. So, I take the transphobia accusation back. Sorry!

But, here’s where I think that thought came from. There definitely are commentators on Gender Trender who make it a point to say mean things about trans women - and I’m not talking about the generic “pigs in wigs” comments, or the statements that all trans women are delusional (because real talk: most trans women are). I’m talking more about the "festering fuckhole” comments, the “men in dresses look embarrassing and absurd/sad and pathetic” comments, the personalized body-shaming, and the rest in that vein. Some of it is just intentionally cruel. (This isn’t just my read btw - I have a few radical feminist irl friends who say they can’t read GT because it’s “mean-spirited”. I’m pretty sure they’re talking about the comments, not what Gallus says.)

Anyway, more real talk: engaging with radical feminist thought as a transsexual person can be really tough on the feels. Factcheckme’s “Neovagina? Or Second Asshole?” post feels like an attack when you’ve bought into the lie that having SRS makes you “female”. On the other hand, it’s impossible to disagree with her that rape culture birthed the neovag. So what at first felt “transphobic” now starts to make perfect sense. 

So it’s not just this one post I would write differently if I were starting my blog now, it’s basically all of them. Except, I’m kind of bored with this discussion. Pretty sure you can understand that. :)

When people said that the first few months of full-time are really awkward, I thought it would just be related to not passing, but it’s more of not knowing how to act in certain situations that I haven’t been in before.

Just some moments of male socialized bodies and violent psychology needed to directly address the bullshit of that first cartoon.

Fascinating.

Is there an written history about the Boston Lesbian Avengers? A lot of my friends were active in LA starting around 1994-1995, but that was mostly kiss-ins at the mall and other actions like that. It seems like LA took a very strange trajectory, especially after it got taken over by a 30-40 year old mtf named Stacey who was just starting transition - though I think that was a bit later, maybe 1998?

I think the rise and fall of Boston LA is actually a really important piece of the history of transanity activism, and it would be really helpful if people who were part of it began to document it.

disidentifying with men in this way was openly encouraged during monetizeyourcat’s popularity, myc literally made a post that said “trans is a feel and anyone can know it” and would say that men could choose not to be men and that doing this would absolve them and help women. at one point she said that cis men were better than trans men, because they could potentially be trans women someday, and she would encourage people to look for “girl reasons” when interpreting mens behavior- basically, pretending all men were trans women, which in that community would mean they were incapable of male privilege, male violence, etc.

myc is still relevant because even after she was ousted, anyone linking her politics to her abuse of others was silenced as opportunistic transmisogynists, so her ideological influence was never rooted out and is still coloring conversations for everyone in her original reach on tumblr.

this is a pretty important observation to make. it’s kind of these sorts who “open the floodgates” allowing abuse to happen.

and then you have the earliest mtf theorists on tumblr like radtransfem and ciscritical-not-cisphobic – drawn to radical/lesbian feminism – around whom the baeddel group coalesced and their ideology developed, i.e. “radical transfeminism.” in a sense this is also “don’t identify as a man,” but implicit, and not just minor male guilt. it’s hatred of men, alienation from men, tons of trauma/bullying from men, hating oneself for being a man, thinking all men are evil and should die in combination with severe psychological problems etc etc. and at this point just attracting highly traumatized individuals rather than opportunistic abusers who see a system ripe for abuse.

of course, by investing their emotional energies and trauma into developing an ideology where the reality of their maleness and male socialization can be denied (thus preventing real healing) by weaponizing “cis/dfab privilege,” trans men’s supposed male privilege, “transmisogyny,” “sex is a social construct,” etc. in order to silence females, they produce a powerful ideological structure which can render sex-based oppression and power dynamics invisible, drawing in shrewd opportunistic abusers (exactly what myc invited, basically).

and even earlier, you have Sandy Stone – the original “radical transfeminist” (what Janice Raymond called a “transssexually constructed lesbian-feminist”) who in response to The Transsexual Empire wrote A Posttransexual Manifesto – encouraging anti-assimilationism & collective organization in order to produce a “counterdiscourse” to the radical feminist discourse on transsexualism (i.e. Raymond’s) which basically lead to and manifested as modern transgender activism as we know it.

Can Men Be Women?

[A conversation between Janet Meyers, Liza Cowan, Alix Dobkin, and Penny House, from “Transsexuals in the Women’s Movement.” DYKE A Quarterly, no. 5. Fall, 1977.]

Janet:  What is so incredible is that a lot of Lesbians seem to be saying to transsexuals, “If this is the way you want to think about yourself, I guess I am obligated to participate in that illusion, because far be it from me to get on anyone’s case, to make a judgment about the self-deception that you are involved in.” That is what is so weird to me, what I find so scary about the way a lot of Lesbians have reacted to the transsexual issue. The attitude seems to be that however someone presents themself, that is the way you are supposed to see them. You are supposed to suspend your perceptions of that person and completely accept, in some kind of mindless way, that person’s evaluation of who they are. It seems to me that this is a very dangerous way of looking at the world. No distinction is made between respecting someone else and suspending your own perceptions. It is always tempting to be passive.

Liza:  It is also very tempting to be generous. I think that a lot of Lesbians say they have gone through such a hard time being accepted as Lesbians and now these poor transsexuals are having such a hard time and here we are in the same boat, both oppressed by the same culture. If we recognize them as our sisters it helps everybody. It is very generous and I appreciate that in women, but it is really shortsighted.

Penny:  It is misguided. The fact is that you have always in life to make distinctions and judgments. It is not in itself destructive to make a judgment, to make distinctions, to have a conception of right and wrong. Not just right and wrong, but to have any kind of values.

Liza:  Especially in the women’s movement, to have an understanding of what is male and what is female seems so basic an issue.

Alix:  And yet some Lesbians accept transsexuals as women.

Janet:  Most Lesbians come to the women’s movement because they understand that there is something intrinsically other about being a woman and that is necessary for women to get together in order to understand what that means. To get from that, which is the basis of your life, the basis of your politics, and say OK, I guess that’s true, but there are these men who have somehow, by osmosis or something, have somehow absorbed what it means to be a woman, even though they have never been women.

Liza:  But they say that hey were born women.

Penny:  The line is, “a woman’s soul in a man’s body.”

Liza:  What galls me so much is that we are just beginning to understand what it means to be a woman, really just beginning to be able to understand that there is something different that we are not fully conscious of yet about what it means to be a woman, and these men say that they are women, meaning that they know what it means to be a woman, and they are it. And now they want to participate in defining and creating women’s culture.

Janet:  I think there is probably something to the point that this is preparatory to dispensing with women entirely. In that sense the transsexual issue concerns me but as far as whether they think they are women or not, or if they should be allowed to have the operation or not, I don’t really care. I think that women, Lesbians, should be very clear about whether we really are willing to say that a man can go to another man, that some sort of technological exchange can go on between them, and then one of them will walk out of the room as a woman. If women are willing to say that these sort of hospital frat parties can produce sisters, I think that is really nuts. I can’t believe that there is that response from Lesbians, even though I understand that it comes out of generous impulses.

Alix:  Plus the unwillingness to make a stink about something, to be unpopular, to make enemies.

Liza:  Very few feminist newspapers or magazines have said anything about it. It seems to be a closed issue. We know there are women all over the country who are very upset about it, but few say anything in public.

Janet:  Men have gotten to the position where they are in the world, and the whole sexual equation that exists, has happened because women have, at least on some level, acquiesced, and have allowed men to control things. Transsexual operations are going to happen, whether women want them to or not, because they are transactions between two men. We have no control over male transactions at this point, but the issue of transsexuals in the Lesbian community exists completely because Lesbians have allowed it to.

Liza:  There are lots of Lesbians who genuinely do not understand why this is a problem. The idea is, who cares? What is the difference if these men want to come in and say they are women? So what, it does not hurt us. It seems to me that the reason it is bad is that then it means you do not have an understanding of what is male and what is female, and you don’t understand that you have the right to be in a group that is all women. If somebody wants to have a friend who is a transsexual, that is her business but if she wants to hold an event for women only and have transsexuals come, then I object.

Alix:  It makes one wonder about their basic assumptions. Maybe they think that women are totally a product of their environment and once women are treated equally we will be the same as men. I guess that’s the analysis.

Liza:  The Olivia analysis is that this man has given up his privileges, has cut off his penis and has a woman’s soul, and so therefore is a woman.

Penny:  But any man can say he has a woman’s soul. There’s no way to prove or disprove it.

Liza:  To my mind the next logical step would be to say that what a woman is, is a man with no privileges and no penis. So where does that leave us but right back to what men tell us, that women are “inferior” men.

Janet:  It is a very liberal idea. It is the accepted, reformist, feminist idea that it is really a question of conditioning.

Liza:  It is also that somebody has renounced something, therefore he is equal to you.

Penny:  He has come down. A man who has come down to a woman’s level. All that prevents women from being men is being given the privilege of being men. If we had the privilege that men have, would we be men? No!

Liza:  One of the reasons Olivia gave for working with Sandy Stone, their transsexual engineer, is that he has renounced his privilege.

Penny:  Because he has renounced being a man.

Liza:  Therefore they trust him as a woman.

Alix:  He has earned his womanhood.

Penny:  By living as an oppressed transsexual he has become a woman.

Liza:  And therefore the definition of a woman is someone who is oppressed. You understand each other through your oppression and that is the sum total of who you are, that you are oppressed. I think that this is very common in the Lesbian movement. You are so oppressed you must be a woman.

http://feministcurrent.com/12254/you-cant-feel-race-but-can-you-feel-female-on-rachel-dolezal-caitlyn-jenner-and-unspeakable-questions/ (via feministcurrent)

Building Bridges

The conflict  between women’s space and transsexual expectations remains a difficult  issue – particularly when some of the ‘new women’ still act  like men.

Jenny Roberts offers a solution.

“Respect cannot be learned purchased or acquired; it can only be earned.” Anon

It may be a women’s hostel, a rape-crisis centre or women-only social  space. But, increasingly, women’s groups all over the country are experiencing  a difficult conflict: whether or not to admit M to F transsexuals.

Understandably, many lesbians have reservations and some are totally opposed.  It is, after all, an ex-man, insisting that she is a woman, that is demanding  equal treatment. Quite naturally, there are fears about the dynamics of the  group. About the vulnerability of some members and perhaps, if we are honest,  the feeling that the transsexual is an alien being whose presence is simply  not appropriate – or comfortable.

Not surprisingly, the trans-woman – who probably doesn’t understand  the concept of women’s space anyway – feels utterly rejected and  hurt. She has never felt like a man; she has always identified with women.  Therefore, she rationalises, she is a woman. She has a right to be included.

Inevitably, dispute and upset follows. Some of the women feel threatened,  and differences and divisions often occur over what should be done. Meanwhile,  the rejection feeds the transsexual’s insecurity and battered self-value  and she often responds in the only way she knows – with male aggression  and anger. The resulting conflict damages us all – transsexuals and born-women  alike - and it particularly upsets those of us who understand what it means  to live among other women and share a community

So what is the solution? Well, let’s be clear on one thing from the  start. As M to F transsexuals, we can never be real women. However distasteful  we may find it, and however hard some transsexuals may argue against it, the  inescapable fact is that we’ve grown up with gender privilege. We’ve  been taught to compete, take power and demand what should be ours. And we’ve  done it for so long that we don’t even notice it happening. What’s  more, it’s likely that the women we’ve known so far have been too  sympathetic and made far too many allowances. No one has told us the way it  is – not the doctor’s, not the psychiatrists, not the surgeons. “You  want to be a woman? Fine! Take the tablets, wear a dress, and learn to use  make-up”. Nobody, but nobody, mentions women’s politics, women’s  culture or letting go of male power. (How would they? With few exceptions the  gender practitioners are almost exclusively male) So nobody prepares us. And  when the ‘rejection’ comes it feels personal, hurtful and very,  very scary. And sometimes we can react in the wrong ways.

But, however understandable it may be, demanding equal treatment is not acceptable – or  productive. However strongly we may identify as women, as transsexuals we need  to acknowledge that we are different. We don’t know what it’s like  to grow up as a girl in a male dominated society, we’ll never experience  women’s puberty and menopause, we can’t conjure up the social experience  of growing up female, or know what it’s like to bleed….. Of course  we can approximate the physical shape and we may well consider that, inside,  we feel the same as born-women feel. But, demonstrably – and however  much we may wish otherwise – we cannot be the same. If we can learn to  respect this difference openly – then we can embrace the solution that  it offers.

First, trans-women should be scrupulously honest about their past. We should  be sensitive to the fears and perceptions of others, respectful of women’s  space and the vulnerability that is sometimes found within it. We should accept  that there are groups where our presence is not appropriate, and groups where  it is. And we should stop acting like we still have the privileges that we  grew up with. That means making an effort to understand just what it may feel  like to grow up as a woman rather than as a man. It means reading about and  digesting as much of women’s history as we can; understanding what the  struggle for equality was – and is - about. It means talking to women  about their reservations and fears about us. And doing it all that without  becoming angry or hurt, defensive or aggressive.

But respect works both ways, and trans-women can’t do this alone. Often  they won’t even begin to understand the issues involved. I was lucky.  Like most post-op transsexuals I trotted out the mantra, “I’m a  woman, you have to accept me.” But my first (lesbian) girlfriend was  a strong woman and – thank goodness - she set me right: teaching me about  difference, explaining the politics, making me think about the reality of entering  the lesbian community, and the reservations of some of the women I would meet  along the way. I learnt that I should walk away respectfully when I wasn’t  invited in, that I should feel honoured at the gift of inclusion when it was  given, and that I should listen and learn from the women who I wished to live  among. It wasn’t easy – when you are vulnerable and insecure, criticism  and rejection hurts. But slowly my male perceptions began to change as I came  to understand how very different it was to live in a women’s community.  I began to understand too, how I could still have the freedom to be me - but  in a way that was also respectful and gracious to those who had been born as  women.

So transsexual women need mentors who will be totally honest (as well as understanding  and kind). They need to be shown the boundaries, to learn about changing inappropriate  behaviour, to understand that the women’s/lesbian community is very different  from the way men perceive it to be. And they need help in letting go of male  culture. It is a hard, painful path to follow but, for us, it is the most important  journey of all – and we can’t make it unless someone helps us.

But what about those trans-women who won’t take that journey? We all  know who they are. Those who continue to flout the conventions, trash feminist  issues and ride roughshod over anyone who crosses them. What about them?

Well, I believe that the deal is this:

Being accepted into the lesbian community is a gift that can only be given  by others. And it is a gift we have to earn - by respecting difference, by  behaving appropriately and by understanding how to fit in. If an individual  won’t make that effort, if they insist purely on membership ‘by  right’, then they do not deserve acceptance. There can be no excuse for  arrogant, confrontational behaviour from some individuals. Such people not  only cause damage to the community, they also undermine the effort that the  rest of us are making.

Respect cannot be bought through a sex-change operation. It has to be earned.  And if trans-women can both give and earn respect, then our world – and  yours – can be just fine.

Jenny Roberts

Jenny Roberts can be reached via  web site on www.jennyroberts.net

(source: http://www.femininebyte.org/sapphos_party/m2cfspeaks.htm)

How to be a good Transgender activist

It appears that there is a number of prerequisites to being a role model for Transgender activists, here’s a few of my takes;

Make your Trans umbrella as big as possible and fuck everyone who is not Trans. But also fuck people within the Trans umbrella you don’t agree with.

Make up lots of new words that help further your cause and confuse the fuck out of most people, cisnormivity, cisgaze, cisrespectability.

Post lots of selfies showing you fucking gender norms and ensure you push your arms together to emphasise your small boobs. Don’t wear any make up while saying fuck cis norms and fuck gender norms. Followers will flock to proclaim. You are gorgeous and beautiful outside cis & gender norms.

Post lots of selfies of legs clad in panty hose or tights ( not sure this one is not just a fetish, but who knows!).

Use lots of trendy words like Trans youth, Trans kids, Trans elders while proclaiming your an old Trans punk and you always fucked society.

Talk a lot about your dick, lady cock or girl penis and tell how you stand up to pee (because you can) and your fucking gender norms, which is actually misogynistic as Females don’t actually have that luxury.

Hate Lesbians because even though you identify as a lesbian, those nasty Female lesbians won’t suck your dick or have sex with you and that really pisses you off.

Claim everything to do with Female biology ( periods, vaginas, ovaries) are Transphobic as they erase Transgender women’s identity, while erasing Female identity. At the same time dismiss Male biology as it was obviously wrongly assigned at birth. In fact everything you don’t agree with is obviously transphobic.

Re-enforce, the “I have always been a woman” rallying call, even though you were physically born Male.

Dismiss girlhood as being a thing, as you had a different girlhood, which still counts and is equally valid in becoming a woman.

Demand the end of gender binary and dismiss the rights of the majority of parents to assign their offspring a gender or sex, because it further validates your identity.

Claim you were wrongly afforded Male privilege and it had no bearing in your upbringing, nurture, career choices or shaping your life in general.

Dismiss Trans Men and the fact they don’t go round proclaiming they were born Male ( experiencing Female Biology may have something to do with that).

Take over Feminist discussions or Feminist arguments, because in general that’s what’s needed to make it about you.

Declare that genitals are not important, of no ones business, yet seek to genital reassignment surgery as your penis was not that much loved after all.

Bemoan the fact that the mean & nasty medical profession wants to make sure you are of sound mind, physically fit and able to take potentially dangerous drugs and undergo life changing surgery ( off particular interest to me being in said profession).

Provide science and medical data that shows that less than one percent of people don’t match the right chromosomes or are intersex to back up your claims of its a medical thing ( until Gender Identity Disorder is renamed, it is an identity issue).

All the above (and much more) will gain you much adulation from a small group of people, increase the cynicism that many people outside the Trans community have and continue to erase the lived experience of over half the worlds population.

If trans women are women, then why place the trans disclaimer before the word women? It’s almost as though that implies there’s a fundamental difference between women and trans women. Funny how that works. 

Adjectives negate the fundamental aspect of the words they modify now?

A blue car isn’t a car?

A gay man is fundamentally different from a man?

I have to say I disagree strongly with this assertion in addition to the idea that “trans” is a disclaimer.

Guest starred in the future of our favorite sites.

Except it is okay; as trans woman, i can confirm I am not, in fact female. I live as a transsexual woman, but i am not a woman who has lived her whole life dealing with misogyny and being a second class citizen. So yes, calling myself a transsexual woman is sort of a disclaimer. It define the difference, and that difference is there and real. I’m a trans woman, not a woman. 

said this before but just to reiterate… for a long time i was soooo upset about misgendering and it being implied that i wasn’t a ‘real’ woman, until i did some self-analysis (b/c considering what i look and sound like, there’s no way i could lead a normal and fulfilling life if one of the criteria is ‘everyone must refer to me as female’) and realised that a lot of this stuff was being fueled by a strongly held belief—’i just want to be a normal woman, not a disgusting tr*nny’—which is basically a sort of internalised transphobia.

so idk if this will be relevant to anyone else, but my dysphoria has three main components—alienness/dissociation, disgust/self-hatred, and phantom body sensations—and i think i can trace a lot of the second component to this transphobic meme, and social messages generally. accepting that it’s ok to be trans rather than an actual woman has definitely lessened these feelings along with a lot of my ‘social dysphoria’ as well. just putting this out there :)

‘Hot Girls Wanted’… For a month or two (via nextyearsgirl)