Jasper: Face of Transsexual Womanhood 2009.

[Natasha]

I am a Right Wing Fundamentalist Apparently.

http://sophiaofthescythes.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/i-am-a-right-wing-fundamentalist-apparently/
by sophiaofthescythes
9/13/09

Jasper Gregory, like one or two others, has decided that I am a right wing fundamentalist extremist. No doubt I am sitting here, listening to Wagner while planning the next Jasp-hunt,
I bet Jasper is thinking he is going to find a burning cross on his doorstep. The number of times I have been mis-characterized that way I must have lost count of. But they do seem determined to make that image stick for some reason, yep been there before, the truth is however very different.

What I did was sit down and write a critique of Jasper Gregory's views. and because I have come to the conclusion that Jasper is a misogynist, his response is:

"That has to be that funniest thing I have read. Hate has clearly adled Sophia's brain. Whatever"

[mzmartipants]

I am a Right Wing Fundamentalist Apparently.

I disagree with his response, but I'm not sure how he's wrong in his assertion of you.

Forgive me if I am incorrect, but you if I remember correctly, you do believe that:

1. vagina=woman=female. Essentialism is most certainly a "right wing fundamentalist" strong hold. I'm not aware of any "left of center" people that hold to this belief.

2. Given your post op status, you are not trans-anything. Again, this leads to penis=man, vagina=woman, essentialism.

Now, to me "right wing fundamentalist" isn't a smear, it's the location of your political beliefs on a spectrum. You do consider yourself part of the HBS, WBT, or "classic transsexual" crowd, don't you? If not, I apologize. But if you were plotting out gender politics, you're certainly not a liberal/progressive/left wing/, are you?

[Natasha]

I disagree with his response, but I'm not sure how he's wrong in his assertion of you.

Forgive me if I am incorrect, but you if I remember correctly, you do believe that:

1. vagina=woman=female. Essentialism is most certainly a "right wing fundamentalist" strong hold. I'm not aware of any "left of center" people that hold to this belief.

2. Given your post op status, you are not trans-anything. Again, this leads to penis=man, vagina=woman, essentialism.

Now, to me "right wing fundamentalist" isn't a smear, it's the location of your political beliefs on a spectrum. You do consider yourself part of the HBS, WBT, or "classic transsexual" crowd, don't you? If not, I apologize. But if you were plotting out gender politics, you're certainly not a liberal/progressive/left wing/, are you?

i think you are confusing me with sophia.  i'm not her.

"I am a Right Wing Fundamentalist Apparently." is the title of sophia's latest blog entry.

but to answer your question:

You do consider yourself part of the HBS, WBT, or "classic transsexual" crowd, don't you?

yes i do.

[tekla]

If you google his name, you can get to his flicker site.  Once there you'll find that at most of the places he is at, he is one of the least flamboyant persons there.  And those events are not a once a year deal in the Bay Area, they are constant, ongoing and even more lively then the pictures would suggest. Most of those people would define themselves, as I'm sure he does, as a 'cultural radical' if they were into such definitions (and I assure you they are not) and if they were not having such a good time being out and just being themselves.  That he writes in some sort of royal we is more a product of his education than his beliefs I think, all he is trying to say is, like Frank Zappa:
Do you know what you are?
You are what you is
You is what you am
(A cow don't make ham . . . )
You ain't what you're not
So see what you got
You are what you is
An' that's all it 'tis


And that's where the radical self expression comes from.  That idea that you should be what you are, and be happy and creative and expressive in that, and that ought to be good enough.

[dyssonance]

Contrast This piece of Jasper's writing:

This is a serious critique of the biological wing of transfeminism from a standpoint I call constructionist transfeminism. The biological wing says that that transgender is a birth defect. This thinking is totally incompatible with a pro-genderqueer positions. The biological wing is deeply invested in the gender binary and often views attacks on the gender binary as personal attacks. This is why I suggest a theoretical split between the biological and constructionist wings of transfeminism. As genderqueers we need to be able to theorize and challenge gender without the self censorship required by our investment in transgender politics.

Against these questions:

Do I need to modify my body in order to be a "real" woman? Can body modification make you a "real" woman, or is body modification a social act which attempts to end the dissonance between behavioral sex ?

And this observation:

6) Lesbian sex – I was fortunate to meet A. She is an ex-dyke and is exploring a straight identity. Together, we discovered a way of 'doing' sex which looks like lesbian sex, but with a penis involved. I learned to relate to my own body as a 'non-male' body. We discovered that my erogenous body had been severely limited by internalization of 'male' identity. If A. treated my 'male' body as a 'female' body it ceased to be either a 'male' body or a 'female' body. I feel like the erogenaity of the heterosexual 'male' body is repressed. The 'male' learns to disassociate from his sensuality and displace it into ejaculation.

And then include this one:

You see, before I started using the frame of transgender to talk about my travels, I was motivated by 'being the object of desire', being sexy. I have always wanted to feel sexy and desired and simultaneously felt shame about this. I experienced it as a taboo. It conflicted with my idea of the manly gender. Lesbian discourse use the term 'adore.' One partner adores the other. In Butch/Femme the butch adores the femme, sometimes exclusively. In straight relationships I feel like it was my role to adore, to be turned on, to pursue to kiss and stroke. The adorer is active and the adored is passive. Somehow the configuration of my identity did not allow me to function as the 'object of desire.' In my sexual interactions with (ex-)lesbians this position was negotiated, and I have let myself be adored through 'lesbian sex.' This has changed how I relate to my own body and to my lover. My fashion experiments have also focused on integrating the 'sexiness' which I as male had forbidden myself. Slutty, trampy and sexy. These are all terms for women who dress in a way to 'reflect' (masculine) desire.

Those are going back n time to earlier this year, the last one being shortly after he read Butler.

What it paints is an interesting picture from a social psychology viewpoint, but in terms of the practical, it shows that he's still learning stuff.

About himself, about what it means to be trans, about gender, about sex identity, and more.

He's completely new at this.

He does not know what he is, and does not have the language tools to express it.

IT helps to know that his earliest understanding came from Michael Valentine, as well.

He expressed this at one point:

I do not recognize any claims to the truth of a gender. All genders are constructed. From this standpoint I see hormones and SRS as body modifications. That is great. Tattoos piercings and hormones. You have control over your own body. But I consider someone who explores a gender outside the binary to have an equally 'true' gender as someone who uses medical technology to take on a 'classical' gender.

Which does indeed dramatically illustrate how little he understands transsexual narratives, and how he is only now starting to see the difference that does exist between transsexuals and transgender folks.

At the end of December last year he expressed things this way:

Gender transition is a confusing process for me. I have long periods of movement towards femme. Then suddenly I find myself in a period of retrenchment. I am at war with myself. I have been going to parties in femme or high femme and I have felt completely accepted, more accepted than I ever felt in butch. I feel euphoria. Then the next morning I wake up and face the prospect of going out in the world and I get deeply depressed.

SO when looking at him as he moves through the various stages of his life, be aware that he really and truly doesn't know what he's talking about.

He is learning, and the best thing for him, ultimately, is to be helped to learn it.

Tall order, absolutely -- he's defensive, he's dangerously partially informed (for example, he has not existentilist underpinnings and his understanding of gender is highly faulty), and he has a lot of annoying quirks.

Lastly, remember that he is a deconstructionist right now. He wants to tear down and erase the basic constructions of what is male and female, man and woman.

From a binary transsexuals perspective, that's essentially attacking a huge part of their personal identity as false, and create an erasure of the basic idea that we know what we are.

As a binary individual myself -- known for opposition to the HBS crowd, and for being a huge annoyance to the "TG" crowd they so love to hate on -- I find his ideas to be quite wrongheaded and highly offensive.

But I do that from having taken the time to get a feel for his world view.

One of the outcomes of the strict interpretation of Gender Expression laws is that Jasper can, if he so chooses, enforce his role as woman, and walk into a women's restroom.

Which is exactly what the opponents are waiting to see, exactly what they are looking for, and all they need to keep people from being willing to pass it.

Most ciswomen who encounter him are not going to see him as a woman.  And since even at the best, the sum total of everyone that could possibly be T isn't more than 12 million in a country of 300+ million, for good or bad, he will not be what he claims.

And that is the main issue that is being talked around.

He is, in short, a political liability, and in a population as small and socially ostracized as this one, each one has a magnified degree of importance.

[transheretic]

As I am bowing out of all this trans nonsense, along comes Jasper as a living example of what I have been saying for more than a decade.

Ms. Jasper is the one in the ladies room next to your daughter, mother, sister.
Ms. Jasper is now adding claims to being intersexed like an infamous TG new media reporter
Ms. Jasper takes the gender deconstructist viewpoint all the way to it's illogical end, more than I ever dared to do.
Ms. Jasper is the face of Butlerian gender deconstruction, the "anatomy don't mean poop" school of thought, the whole I'm a woman because I say I am mysogyny.

And kudos to Marti who is the only opponent I've had over the years honest enough to acknowledge Jasper and who understands that those who mis-gender Jasper are total hypocrites if they embrace the gender deconstruction world view.  For years I've been held to the standard of using female pronouns for those I do not see as remotely female or who even identify as female except on weekend outings.......sauce for the goose anyone?

[Natasha]

Jasper Gregory

http://womenborntranssexual.com/2009/09/14/jasper-gregory/
by Suzan
9/14/09

There is a misogynistic dick trying to make a name for hmself by running around claiming to be a lesbian.  Of course he also claims to be "transgender" without showing any signs of living 24/7/365 as a member of the sex not commonly associated with his current genitals.  Perhaps he is female bodied in which case he has the misogynistic pig part of maleness down perfectly.

[dyssonance]

Marti, my apologies for not responding earlier

Well, gender is a social construct, and in that it means there's a societal aspect to gender.

And the nature of gender as a social construct is that its predicated not on how we see ourselve, but on how others see us.

In other words, since gender is a social construct, the people who determine our gender are everyone else -- not us.

THis is reversed by the politics of Identity -- "I am such and such, how dare you question me on what i know to be true".

THat's Identity, not actually gender.

THis is one of the reaosn why when having the discussion, one should use gender not as a short hand for the concepts in encompasses, but the full terminology:

Gender role, Gender Expression, etc.  Each aspect is distinct, and all of of them -- including Gender Identity -- deal in how the greater society views the subject of consideration.

In terms of defining what a transgender woman is, you have to look at how each gender is socially constructed, or how we all see gender.

Since transgender is primarily a term of political discourse when involved in the Trans Community as a whole, that definition is inherently going to involve some aspect of Identity.

Its much easier to describe him as transgender -- except then one is suggestng he apperas, to the general population, as if he is somehow ttansitioning, simnce that's how the general public comes to understand it.

In short, the moment you remove the political Identity from him, he becomes just a man who likes to wear clothes that he personally perceives as feminine looking.

When I look at pictures of Jasper, I see someone, from my view, that is gender fluid or genderqueer.

I don't -- but my own expereince in this area is admittedly lacking.

I'm not sure why anyone would not want to talk about it, since it has a name: ->-bleeped-<-. I do think there are such persons, I just think I am not one of them.

WHile I agee there are such persons, since such is not only not a diagnostic position one can take at this time, and it's fundamentally flawed even as a hypothesis (outside ofthe whole BS argument going on around it) I'm unwilling to us the term at this time as a descriptive, since it is almost as political a position as transgender is.

That is, it lacks any significant social strength or authority, and, therefore is without much practical value except as an Identity, and Identity can only be claimed, not ascribed.

Well, I might consider him a dog, if he was socially ACCEPTED or VIEWED as a dog. Just because he identifies as one doesn't mean that the world thinks of him as one.

Which is the nature of the conflict between Identity and description.

Indeed, its exactly what we are running into here, and if those of us who are politically motivated to make changes such as ENDA at national and local don't find a way around this argument of identity, the we will, indeed, have trouble acheving the goals -- at the very least on the local level if he is spread out or remains uneducated.

Exactly!

So now that we know that, what's the next step?

Except that it makes no sense to say that you are gendering yourself if you are seeking to destroy gender.

Save that he isn't gendering himself.  Gender is not an identity, it is a description.

He is claiming an identity, and asserting a gender on the basis of that claim.  SInce he's not meeting the social expectations of that  description, he will continue to have problems with this.

IT is here that his flaws leap out the most, and where most of his education needs to focus and his greatest offenses are found.

What bothers me in this post are things said like:
or
It's not far from "he's not really a woman" or "that's a man." There's no data or information to parse, it's just a verbal assault. It's like saying "we all know he beats his wife". I wish more people would bring their big girl and boy panties/underwear and debate issues and not engage in the politics of personal destruction.

The reason for htat is that too many people are worried about infringing on someone's identity.

Identity extends to the edges of one's skin. The only person who can infringe on one's identity is one's self.

If people take offense, well they are getting butthurt because something the other person has said makes them question some aspect of their ownsense pof identity -- which, ultimately, is their prblem, not the other person's.

And the only way to avoid the hurt feelings and bickering and such is to step away from identity and shift into description.

Havng been doing this now for about a six weeks, I can say one thing that sums up the experience:

Good luck.

[tekla]

Tragically, the issue becomes an echo chamber.  Thus magnifying what he says, the people he is saying it to, and the audience in general to levels that otherwise would not exist.

The trouble with using a strawman to make arguments is that you inflate their surreal ideas (often wrong) into a very real thing.

Really, how many people would have read his blog?  2?  If that?  Now he has hits on top of hits, because people are talking about it.  What's it that Oscar Wilde said?  The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about?

I would have (and in fact have, as I've seen him out and about) written him off as yet another eurotrash-pseudo-intellectual playing out his fantasy in San Francisco. He'll get bored and go away.  They all do. But in arguing with him you give him the very legitimacy he so desperately seeks.  He wants to be the center of attention (like the shorts, people here don't wear them, much less that short) and you're giving him exactly what he craves.

I fail to see the good in that.

[Sandy]

Tragically, the issue becomes an echo chamber.  Thus magnifying what he says, the people he is saying it to, and the audience in general to levels that otherwise would not exist.

The trouble with using a strawman to make arguments is that you inflate their surreal ideas (often wrong) into a very real thing.

Really, how many people would have read his blog?  2?  If that?  Now he has hits on top of hits, because people are talking about it.  What's it that Oscar Wilde said?  The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about?

I would have (and in fact have, as I've seen him out and about) written him off as yet another eurotrash-pseudo-intellectual playing out his fantasy in San Francisco. He'll get bored and go away.  They all do. But in arguing with him you give him the very legitimacy he so desperately seeks.  He wants to be the center of attention (like the shorts, people here don't wear them, much less that short) and you're giving him exactly what he craves.

I fail to see the good in that.

It sure as hell generated a lot of churn here, that's for sure!

-Sandy

[tekla]

Sure, it's like throwing chum to the sharks, particularly when the cardinal point of his argument is that of most of the people disagreeing with him.  I always find that cute.

But lets go way back to 1988.  A fairly young director, who had had some success decided to make a very personal movie.  He could afford it, after all Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Waltz and the boffo box office hit, The Color of Money all had done well, why not do something personal?

So this young director took a book by Nikos Kazantzakis and made a 164 minute film about what Jesus was thinking about when he was on the cross.  The movie had no fights, no car chases, no space toys, no wiseguys, no major stars, no nuttin.  And 164 minutes is a very long film.  It's distributor was having trouble getting it booked into Art Houses - showing it in First Run Houses was out of the question.  It had zero box office potential.

Then, then the Xians got their knickers in a twist over it.  First it was noted that the book that was the basis for the movie was placed on the Roman Catholic Church's highly popular and very interesting, Index of Prohibited Books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum for you Latin scholars) alongside Kepler's New Astronomy, and Kepler's World Harmony, along with writers like Jean Paul Sartre, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, John Milton, John Locke, Galileo Galilei, and Blaise Pascal.  Talk about pallin' around with terrorists!

Then it was denounced as heresy, blasphemy, anti-Christian and just about everything else by so many Xian leaders that eventually Time, Newsweek and other popular publications began to take note and wrote about it.

The end result was that a movie that they were having trouble booking at off-beat theaters was running at all the major ones, and receiving major acclaim. 

They should have learned to STFU, and left it at that, I'm sure outside of some movie buffs, no one would have noticed it at all.

[Just Kate]

Hmm... I've never heard of this guy until now (hence Tekla's argument coming to pass).  I only watched the video about "this is what a transwoman looks like".  Based on that alone, he and I have a lot in common in the way we view ourselves and our gender expression.  However I haven't gotten to read some of his more racy stuff yet.

I feel that I am transgendered - that transition would have worked for me in the end, but I, like him apparently, am experimenting with the idea of maintaining my male identity.  But unlike before transition when I was living as a male, I'm more open and honest about myself with myself and with others.  I don't shy from feminine desires, and make openly non-socially-male-appropriate statements.  In that way I am accepted more in the social role I desire even if my gender doesn't automatically lend itself to that role.  My friend's most common response to people who don't know me who are like "what is with this guy" is, "Oh that's just, Inter, he's really a girl."  That works for me.

Sure the idea of transition is super appealing still, but I think if this path works for me, it will result in a lot less stress and heartache.  I wonder if Jasper has found the same thing but is making ungainly assumptions...  I'll have to read more.

[heatherrose]

It does seem you and Jasper have discovered similar divergent paths from the "norm",
where you have found a decidedly different way to deal with your gender variance.
The difference between you and Jasper being, I don't believe I have ever witnessed
you denigrating the methods another uses to deal with their own issues, unlike Jasper.

[aurora17]

That Jasper thinks what he wants, but frankly I don't feel I'm a "male genderqueer", I don't feel like a male at all, so my opinion is that he is plain wrong.
Now he says what he wants on his own blog, whatever.

[jonnismith]

OMG little Miss Jasper is now rambling about divine predestination and the WBT crowd on his latest vlog.

"So, this is my message to every Transwoman who I have offended

If you recognize my authenticity I will recognize yours!

If you deny my authenticity I will deny yours!"

[heatherrose]

Dangerous game (s)he's playing....ultimatums and all.

[tekla]

Seems you and Jasper have discovered a divergent path,
from the "norm", where you have found an decidedly different way
to deal with your gender variance.

If that was meant as some sort of 'if I knew how to write that would be an insult' insult to interalia, I just gots to tell you that I have far more in common with her point of view, than in yours.  Like her, I have struggled with it all (well from about six years old on) my life, and never found a perfect answer. I've gone far beyond where you are now - and I know that interalia has also, only to come back and seek some sort of other path, some sort of middle path - just some other damn way.

Your are only discovering this and letting it go rather late in life - imagine if you will, what's its like being pretty much out about this since 16, and 16 being almost 40 years ago.

There are less than zero shortages of ways to go through this, and, at that, they change.

When y'all get to the next level, or perhaps the level beyond that - you might begin to understand that where people are, is just where they are.  They might not even be there for long.  So don't sweat it.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions.  Period.

[tekla]

Ultimatums to who?  Who exactly - which morons, other than you? - were listening to this when he said it in the first place?  I had seen this guy, and still remained pleasantly ignorant about his views until someone posted them here.

I KNEW HIM, and didn't know this till someone posted it here.  Wise move.

[Just Kate]

Yay! My dial up connection is actually working for me to be able to post again.

I apologize if my previous statement kicked up some (more) dust.

I have read more of what Jasper has written.  I don't know a lot about a "transgendered movement" as opposed to a "transsexual movement" (something that seems to become a topic of his blogs) although I'm certainly familiar with the title and identity wars about who is and isn't real, etc.  I realize also it isn't a simple issue.

All said I think he has some observations that match my experience as well, but I don't think I go quite to the degree to believe that those who are actually attempting to integrate wholly with society (call it stealth or whatever) are doing us any harm.  They might not be doing us any good, but I don't think they are hurting us as (I think) he seems to.

One of my very very best friends is 100% stealth (except me and her family).  We were partners in crime 10 years ago transitioning together.  I love her dearly.  I see her incredibly happy and we often talk and make life comparisons with one another.  She didn't understand my experiment when I undertook it all that time ago, but she did respect it - as she does to this day.  She was worried about my happiness, but she has come to realize that this works for me even if I could have continued the path she walked.

I cannot believe my friend, by her wanting to conform to our culture's rigid gender constructs, is hurting me or Jasper.  Perhaps she is in a way yet unseen by me, but I don't see it now.

[heatherrose]

If that was meant as some sort of 'if I knew how to write that would be an insult' insult to interalia, I just gots to tell you that I have far more in common with her point of view, than in yours.

Ultimatums to who?  Who exactly - which morons, other than you?

I don't understand why you feel it necessary to try to insult me.
If I have offended you I apologize. In actuality, I understand where
Interlia is coming from and if he is satisfied with his state, then good
for him and for you, for that matter. Granted, when he first hit the scene,
I was thick headed in my responses to him and, what were to me, his unique
ideas in dealing with his GID. For that, at that time I apologized to him.

As far as comparing how I have dealt with my GID and where I am to anyone
else, I am past that. I have enough of a problem dealing with my own life,
to worry about how someone else lives theirs. What I have a problem
with now is someone that is going through a similar hell, who feels
they can judge how another lives their life, harming no one else.

I wonder if Jasper has found the same thing but is making ungainly assumptions...

This, which I should have included with my post, is what I
was responding to, Interlia comparing himself to Jasper.
I hope the changes I have made, to the post you
found offenive, makes my position a little clearer. 

Post Merge: September 15, 2009, 10:05:14 PM

She was worried about my happiness, but she has come to realize that this works for me even if I could have continued the path she walked.

This, if you remember, is the sentiment I expressed in my apology to you, eons ago. 

I cannot believe my friend, by her wanting to conform to our culture's rigid gender constructs, is hurting me or Jasper.

I understood, that this is what you were trying to say.