“Hateraid From A WBT”

[Shana A]

http://transadvocate.com/autumnsandeen/archives/1399

"Hateraid From A WBT"
January 31st, 2008 by Autumn Sandeen

This is crossposted from one of my favorite bloggers, Monica Roberts, with her permission.  (She posts over on her own blog, TransGriot, and over at Bilerico).

The email by Sue is a little irritating because Sue didn't do research on Monica — heck, Monica was IGFE's Trinity Award winner for 2006. (IGFE's description of the award: "Trinity Awards honor our heroes and heroines, people who have performed extraordinary acts of courage and love in service to the Transgender Community.") I know how much civil rights work Monica has done over the years to benefit multiple communities — I know Monica meets the ultimate measure of a woman by where she stands in at times of challenge and controversy. And, from what I've seen, Monica understands that life's most urgent question is "What are you doing for others?"

[NicholeW.]

I have to admit that pretty much the entire "WBT" group have mostly exchanged one form of privilege for another. I don't think it's just about 'being a woman.' Instead I think that the 'feminism' of Sue Robins, Cathryn Platine and Lisa Thompson has the same tenor as the feminism of Betty Friedan and other early second-wavers: it ignores ethnic and economic/political realities among TS/TG people.

As bel hooks and other feminist women of color pointed out in the 1970s and 1980s and as Maureen Walker and the Relational-Cultural feminists at Wellesley have continued to point out: these things matter.

Many early second-wave feminists were interested in 'equality with men of their status.' But, their writings tended toward making blanket statements about 'all women.' When women of color reached into these primarily white, high social class feminists circles and reported that their lives were not about that particular model they were often accused of 'attacking' the 'well-bred' feminists. The so-called 'horizontal hostility' accusations came out.

This attack while claiming to be attacked was effective in shutting down debate and basically allowed an aggressive defensive posture to the higher socio-economic and dominant ethnic feminists while allowing them to maintain a position of innocence and victimization when confronted by women of color and poor women.

Damn, I really do hate to publicly admit to being off-target, but lately I have been. The arguments brought forward by these women do inherently hold that original second-wave contradiction at their heart, If one refines the writing to its basic components one sees that most of the arguments by the 'trans-feminists' mentioned above are, indeed, pleas for recognition of 'people like us' that rather forcefully exclude others who may not be blessed with bank accounts, education and ethnic dominance in their 'transsexual histories.'

Thanks for posting this, Zythyra.

For other feminists here I would suggest reading some of bel hooks and the more recent works by the Wellesley group. I think what they have written about ethnicity and power and the presumptions of equal ability to achieve the 'same ends' by all are definitely pertinent in such discussions as these.

These battles have been fought through the seventies and eighties by women. Need we fight them again?

Nichole

[nooneinparticular]

Ok, ran across this one while searching the site:......

I have to admit that pretty much the entire "WBT" group have mostly exchanged one form of privilege for another. I don't think it's just about 'being a woman.' Instead I think that the 'feminism' of Sue Robins, Cathryn Platine and Lisa Thompson has the same tenor as the feminism of Betty Friedan and other early second-wavers: it ignores ethnic and economic/political realities among TS/TG people.

Part of the problem between various "factions" is making blanket assumptions about aspects of another absent knowledge of same.

I'd be quite interested in exactly what privilege I swapped.........I worked most of my life in first blue collar work and then pink collar ghettos, the most money I ever made in my life in a year was 24 grand and that was post transition working endless double shifts as a nursing assistant.  On the other hand during my life I have been privileged in the form of always having friends who were the cream of the crop in various disciplines, so on that basis, sure.  Today I am physically disabled and like the majority of single women my age, live on an income below the poverty level.

My feminism is european second wave......my feminist awakening around the time of the beginnings of second wave feminism in the US.  The primary difference between European second wave feminism and US is the recognition at men and women ARE different and the problem with the patriarchy is the devaluing of the strengths of women.  US second wave feminism concentrated mainly on access to men's domains and that women and men are essentially the same, all gender is constructed (or performed) and that women should strive to be "penis-less men" as it were.  The very existences of classic transsexual women (I'm being very careful with terminology here) gives lie to this premise......and finally it no longer is the third rail of gender studies to acknowledge that men and women differ in neurological ways and not just in gross anatomy.

I cannot speak to Lisa or Sue's take on feminism, just my own.  I do know that Lisa also came from a working class background.  I have taken in many "street girls" over the years so I think I have a pretty good idea on where they come from and as a result, I don't buy the premise that I ignore socio-economic considerations at all.......and since this thread started with an article by Monica Roberts, feel compelled to add that she and I were good friends in the late ninties, I respect her but we do now disagree on many key points.  She and I even shared a room at the only Southern Comfort I attended, both were part of the "Transflakes" that gave birth to NTAC and I have a picture of the two of us embracing on my wall.

One of the things I find most distressing is the concept that disagreeing on theories and tactics necessitates being bitter enemies.  As someone who has sat down with Christian Right extremists for lunch and listened to their point of view and who was a member of the White Panthers in the sixties, I firmly believe in discourse and listening to your opposition rather than just demonizing them.

I'll close this with one of my favorite stories on point.  Several years ago I had a young Hispanic street girl and a young African-American one staying with me.  Both came from NYC and I live in rural upstate New York.  I took them both shopping with me and on the way home both of them where complaining they were being read.....  I had to point out that we were in a largely white bread area, and a two young and pretty ladies of different ethnic backgrounds were calling me, an older white woman, "Mom"  What people were doing was not "reading us" but rather speculating on what my sex life must have been.

It's not always about being trans.......frequently that isn't even in the equation.

[NicholeW.]

That someone begins from a background that she does is not the question, Cathryn. It's what she does with it, where she wants to go and how she goes about that that is pertinent.

You and Sue, Lisa and SA-ET are what and who you are. The drive is toward an exclusion of those who somehow don't "make the grade." "They aren't like us."

Would that be because they don't love, hate, bleed, cry, laugh, breathe and desire like you? Or is this just a "political" thing?

That's a really neat separation to try to make. I just don't find that it is one that I can make morally defensible.

That you or others may want to have nothing to do with TG is fine; go your own way, Lindsay Buckingham wrote that back in the 70s, and I'll go mine.

There was a time not long ago that I pretty much agreed with what WBTs seem down for: separation and "I'm not like them." But then I actually came to know some TG people. They don't all have gender identities, at least not a binary one. Some reject any designation. Some prefer "male" some "female" some gender-queer, etc. "Yech," right? Wrong.

What I found was that like me the quality of their humanity, their compassion and desire for a life unfettered by prejudice, suppression and hate was the absolute same as my own desire. Does it matter that they, some of them, choose not to have gential surgery and that others do? Is their humanity truly tied up in whether or not they desire or can afford a plastic surgeon who will take whatever conglomeration of sex-organs they were born with and make a sheath or a protuberance?

For me no. If another wishes to find distinction there that prevents her or him from embracing other humans as brothers and sisters, fellow creatures of Mother, then she or he is certainly allowed. She or he wants away from such individuals? Then again, all they must do is to walk away.

Any of us can define "identity" any way we wish. But we cannot define "humanity" any way we wish and live in Mother's arms. For to define someone as "not me" when they partake of all the same essential qualities I do is, to me, to exile them and myself from the richness and the true promise of Indra's Net.

It's never about being trans, of any type; those are distinctions without differences. It's always about being human, embracing that and loving that for simply what it is: a shared existence, one that can be given to love and care, not to petty distinction based on whether or not someone, anyone, has had a sheath made of her penis or a penis made from his sheath.

And there is another truth I think is the crux of the matter. It's very hard to hate other people who you take the time to know. That's why so many human groups preach separation. To remain separate is to be able to ignore another's humanity, to hate and believe she is someone "other." To actually mingle with others I may feel are unlike myself is to discover my own inability to hate them. They have become my friends, my comforters and I theirs. At that point, I and they are no longer of any use to the pogram-rousers and the death-squad commanders. Love and familiarity, as you know, break down walls that politics and philosophy strengthen.

Best,

Nichole

[nooneinparticular]

Interestingly Nicole you and I do not disagree on any important points.......and I wish you could see that.

Personally, I love eccentrics and rebels and those who defy the norms, as a matter of fact I spent a couple of hours having a wonderful chat with a local man yesterday who could be charaterized as on the outer fringes of the tin foil hat crowd.  He dropped by for our garage sale.

I do not hate, dislike or even disapprove of transgender identified people.  They are welcome at our Abbey, frequently do drop by and are treated with upmost respect.  I have no problem with those who deconstruct their own gender, my problem with that is limited to their deconstruction of MY identity as I am totally woman identified, do my activism these days within that context and engage with the TG movement mainly because it is doing very real harm to those of us who live within a bi-gendered construct and are quite happy with that.

I must admit, what puzzles me no end is the need to keep those of us who live within the bi-gendered world under an umbrella that essentially deconstructs our gender and womanhood and please let's not pretend that isn't the reaction.  My goals in "separtistism" have always been misunderstood even though I have tried to express them in as many different ways possible......you cannot have a coalition working towards common goals when one part is continually silenced, dismissed and defined all against their will and that has been my experience with the trans community.  I have always tried to honour the identity of others and I do expect it in return and have not experienced that.

Take yourself, for example, the tags associated with your posts would indicate you are a non trans-woman, I have read others who labeled you "crossdresser".......I have zero need to know one way or the other and it would not make one wit of difference to me either way.  You present as woman, I am more than willing to accept that regardless of your history.

Just in the couple of days I've been here, I've had the stealth thing tossed at me and heard the HBS purity tests invoked.  Perhaps it would be helpful if I explained my interest in HBS as a category.  First of all I am not even remotely stealth.  I do not go around discussing my background unless a very good reason in context comes up to do so, but I never deny my history and never will.......there is zero shame for me in that, actually quite the opposite.  I am someone with intense curiosity which lead me years ago to start putting things together, at the time I was extremely close to a PhD Psychology professor who specialized in sexual diamorphism in pre-natal development.......I learned a lot.  I started from the premise that I was typical of transsexuals, which turns out to be way off the mark, but lead me to investigate neurological differences between men and women and where classic transsexuals fell within those differences, this was before the infamous Danish BSTc studies.  One of the most interesting things I learned back then was practically everyone was terrified at the prospect of an actual test for transsexuality......it seems no one thinks they'd make the cut, weird eh?  The insecurity of identity is apparently nearly universal from crossdressers to classic transsexuals and this seemed to be yet another way I differed from everyone trans.

To cut to the chase, I had the opportunity back then to ask and get candid questions and answers from surgery tracked women and post surgical women and used statistical analysis to plot what I had gathered and test it against a classic "is so and so is true, what would you expect for results" means test and came to the conclusion that classic transsexuality is indeed neurological intersexuality.  Since then I have had literally thousands of hours of discussion with the top psychiatrist in the world currently.......she happens to be a dear friend.  Because she also comes from an intersexed history, she gets assigned all the local trans cases and she tested yet another "if this is so, then you would expect this" set of physical markers for neurological intersexuality for classic transsexuals.  Given this, the BSTc studies, the various studies done in Europe regarding information processing differences between the sexes and where classic transsexual fall within those ranges..........given this I consider the neurological intersexed basis of classic transsexuality a settled question......That's it, that's what HBS means to me.  It's not a membership, not a cult, not justification of anyone being better than anyone else, not a system of beliefs.  I started from the mistaken idea I was typical of classic transsexuals, discovered I was actually a tetragametic chimera along the way and so not a classic transsexual, but that they were also a form of intersexuality.  I've caught hell from everyone for my troubles

We started off so well here, can we drop the defenses and assumptions here and just have a nice rational discussion?  Personally, I'd love that.

[Shana A]

And there is another truth I think is the crux of the matter. It's very hard to hate other people who you take the time to know. That's why so many human groups preach separation. To remain separate is to be able to ignore another's humanity, to hate and believe she is someone "other." To actually mingle with others I may feel are unlike myself is to discover my own inability to hate them. They have become my friends, my comforters and I theirs. At that point, I and they are no longer of any use to the pogram-rousers and the death-squad commanders. Love and familiarity, as you know, break down walls that politics and philosophy strengthen.

Thanks for your post Nichole! You've beautifully articulated the heart of this matter.

And Cathryn, thanks for your reply. I am listening and willing to learn more about your point of view.

It's 15 years since I came to the realization that I was trans-something, and I was already part of the queer community before that. During this time I've gotten to know many people within the trans community, both in person and online, and have found considerable diversity. I don't make assumptions that every one using a particular label has the same beliefs or mindset, be they crossdresser or HBS woman. If we come to the conversation with a preconceived belief that all within a certain community want the same thing, then we don't really ever hear each other. And that is divisive.

I prefer to see each person as an individual, and make an effort to hear who they really are. I'm interested in finding a solution that doesn't continue to divide us, but allows us to work together towards any common goals, when necessary. It sounds to me that although we might have some differences of opinion, we share many commonalities. I look forward to continued dialog.

Zythyra

[Mnemosyne]

All of those words are just a mask to the fact that you really have nothing to say let alone anything original. Your posts are just retreads of a very tired theme that I have dealt with, off and on, for the last twelve years. It usually comes from the secondaries.

A transsexuality test being rejected is not necessarily a sign that those individuals are not secure in their identity. Perhaps they just wish to keep persons, such as yourself, from ripping up their own identity. An identity that has been formed by not just some genetic makeup but also years of love, loss, regret, joy, and wisdom.

If you have such overflowing of proof on neuro IS, get it published. Let it be peer reviewed (yes, I am more than aware of the controversies surrounding the peer review thing but what the heck) and become famous (or maybe even infamous).

Run along, Tell a friend
Tell it was horrible

What a mess, What a sight
Syn is so mean!

Be upset, do a raid!
Silence opposition

Well okay maybe watching too much Dr Horrible might be a fault of mine this weekend. But I had to do something to make this more interesting than it actually is at the moment.

[NicholeW.]

Interestingly Nicole you and I do not disagree on any important points.......and I wish you could see that.

...
We started off so well here, can we drop the defenses and assumptions here and just have a nice rational discussion?  Personally, I'd love that.

Cathryn,

You don't know this, but in other places I have referred to you more than once as the "best" of the HBS-separation advocates. I do see that we don't disagree on any important points. And I have also seen that your heart is much broader and more open than what many would give you credit for having.

Luv, I have no defense. Not here, I am among people I have truly come to love and appreciate for their humanity, depth, compassion and willingness  to allow even an HBS-woman like me to learn to love them and care for them.

I'm sorry, in that regard any discusssions I have are going to be not "rational." They are going to be from my heart.

My heart has opened my head and I can only speak of my brothers and sisters, human beings, as a woman-in-love. I think the rational may partake in the discussion, but the heart will embrace the discussion. So if you're willing to accept that. Then I invite you to stay and discuss with us all.

Take off your priestly vestments, and your shoes. We'll wash your feet and give you companionship and refreshment. 

Here, have a seat on my blanket and a cup of cool water and let's all chat. 



Truly,

Nichole


P.S. Cathy, I should get pissed about the "crossdresser" comment. I can imagining it coming from about 2 people who are members here. But, what would getting pissed do? Just bend me outta shape. I guess I'm glad I only read the parts of your post I actually quoted before commenting earlier. But since them I've managed to go through a physical accident and in some pain and I think that actually is helpful in my not getting upset.

No dear, I'm a woman. Not a chimera I suppose (I'd never bother with the tests anyhow, not that important to me to know.) But I got my body much the same way you did and the people who suggested "CD" to you got theirs: through transition. But, I simply have this thing about being "just a woman." And, tbh, I don't feel any need to belong formally to one or another of the "groups." So sorry for any confusion that female symbol under my name might have caused you or those members here who might have indicated to you I am a "crossdresser." 

Really, I invite you to read more of my posts. There are almost 3000 of them. Perhaps you and they could discover a bit more than apparently has been discovered to date.

Anyhow, busy preparing "Nichole's Blanket" in my blog. That way we can all stop resurrecting posts that have insulting things written about women- with-a-trans-history in them. You can find the blanket HERE.

Okee-doke?

N~