Transphobia: The Hate Anyone can Exercise including Feminists like those on A Room of Our Own
11/29/2009 — Suzan
http://womenborntranssexual.com/2009/11/29/transphobia-the-hate-anyone-can-exercise-including-feminists-like-those-on-a-room-of-our-own-2/I have been out for over 40 years and an activist longer than that. I have watched the history of the movements from within those movements. I have seen their rise and fall, the internal wars that often destroyed them.
The loudest and most vicious forms of anti-transsexual bigotry have often been reflective of what I see as the worst tendencies within the various movements. Julia Serano titled her book "Whipping Girl" and put forth the proposition that transphobia is misogyny directed towards a convenient scapegoat.
Within the early feminist movement there was another tendency. Women who worked the hardest and were among the most dedicated as well as talented were seen as trying to rise above the other women. Some of us who were in the feminist/lesbian movements in those early days did what people with transsexualism have always done. We threw ourselves into that movement whole heartedly, working harder than anyone else. This was because we were raised thinking ourselves to be inferior and never good enough therefore we felt we had to prove our worth by working harder than anyone else.
