http://trans-feminist.blogspot.com/2008/01/not-ready-for-prime-time-or-how-tg.html

"Saturday, January 19, 2008
Not Ready for Prime Time or How the TG rights movement went insane by talking only to themselves
Posted by Cat Kisser at 5:52 AM

Let me begin by placing myself on the identity politics scale so you understand the perspective I write from. First I am a woman followed by a feminist then one born intersexed and lastly a surgically constructed (at birth) transsexual. This colours my point of view just as those who identify as some brand of trans come from an entirely different point of view. I see the world through the eyes of a feminist woman who has studied history and is also a pagan theologian. I live within the greater world where the dominate viewpoint of gender is a strictly bi-gendered one where most people's understanding of gender is limited to there are men and women and if slightly more enlightened, some people are born intersexed and some are born transsexual but both these groups get put in either the male or female bin. Joe Sixpack, Helen Homemaker and Larry Legislator all can understand transsexuality within this worldview and are often willing with just a little prompting, to understand transsexuals are actually women or men rather than the sex assigned at birth. This is easy enough to understand that even Pat Robertson got it. My lobbying experience taught me that republicans have no problem understanding this either once you explain it in simple terms. So why can't we get basic civil rights? The answer is this point of view has been viciously silenced by the trans-activists of the past ten years to be replaced with trying the sell an idea of feminine penises."

Thanks for posting this, Zythera. I absolutely agree with Cat Kisser. As I said in my comment there:

This is the most sane and lucid deconstruction of the Trans-gender Movement I have yet read. It hits spot-on the target and is exactly why many women refuse to be supportive of civil rights for the 'weekend warrior' types who wanna play dress-up' and use the girls-rooms when they do.

Plain pure and simple they seem, like little boys, to believe there is some arcane inner-sanctum to females that resides in a toilet.

Virginia Prince and her ilk have absolutely succeeded in doing what they wished: to destroy the entire concept and reality of transsexual in order to build some plastic gender-identity that allows them to be men when they wanna be.

N~

I think she kind of conflates transgender (lesser amount of GID) and
extreme GID (classic transexuals). I don't know many classic transexuals
who want to be identified as trans post op (or even pre op)!

But, I know that plenty of GG feminists have been pushing this point and
seemingly those with a lesser amount of GID, which are much plentiful
than classic transexuals have latched on to that. For them, gender
is movable in between males  and female and thus they don't look
for full congruence.

The problem for those, like us, who want full congruence is that this
is a much more polemic position. A women going into a restroom is
not news. A sometimes women, sometimes man, going into a restroom,
well that's something that rightly or wrongly is more treatening.

So, I feel that maybe classic transexuals do need to "seperate" from
the rest, because what we seek is so different from the others.

Putting both together seem completely arbitrary
and is certainly not helping us get our point accross.

Quote from: Nichole W. on January 19, 2008, 11:10:10 AMVirginia Prince and her ilk have absolutely succeeded in doing what they wished: to destroy the entire concept and reality of transsexual in order to build some plastic gender-identity that allows them to be men when they wanna be.

That statement is as right-on as the original article.

Quote from: Keira on January 19, 2008, 04:23:28 PM
But, I know that plenty of GG feminists have been pushing this point and seemingly those with a lesser amount of GID, which are much plentiful than classic transexuals have latched on to that. For them, gender is movable in between males  and female and thus they don't look for full congruence.

I'd love to have full congruence -- either way. Unfortunately, I've come to realise that I wouldn't be any more successful in integrating to the society as a woman than I've been as a man. It's not really a matter of gender being movable, but rather an issue that gender is largely a social construct, and for various reasons I have grown up with a very serious lack of understanding for it.

Note that it's the social aspects of gender I'm talking about. With respect to the personal aspects, either personality or body image, I doubt my GID is significantly different from what some classic transsexuals have, even if I'm far from the extreme end.

So, for me being 'trans' is a shorthand of having an androgynous gender role (and mostly expression), male legal gender and female body image. Sometimes I wish I was transsexual instead; like the article says, it would be easier to understand, to me as well as the general public.

  Nfr

This is the response I posted:

"The problem with your argument is that it minimalizes the needs of a large population of Transgender (I use the umbreella term here) people.

You are saying that basically because you have completed your transition, that you deserve to say what the rights of others are.

I guaruntee you, those voices are not going to go away.

They are only going to get stronger.

Some people ginuinely embrase themselves as not being born as strictly male or female.

What of thier rights?

They have to use a restroom.

If they feel more female ( and studdies so far hav shown that transexuals do have the bilogical brains of thier target sex*) then why shouldn't they use the womens restroom?

Your discomfort with them is the exact same as the religous right's discomfort with you.

that star in the parenthesis above illustrates a good point.
If the biologists and doctors are to be belived, then technically everyone who is transexual is Intersexxed. Because so far 100% of the time, the results have shown that MTF's have a female brain and FTM's have a male. Now the study is limited, but 100% results do not happen often in science as a friend has said.

So on what basis do you deny them entrance?

So what?
People are just there to use the restroom.
Your discomfort is not their problem anymore than the dicomfort of Hellen Homemakers is yours.
Sara"


People don't have a right to discriminate against a real population simply because they feel uncomfortable.

Technically speaking, too, the arguement that she quoted from that forum is correct.

There ain't none of us FTM's ever going to get pregnant unless we were born intersex or born bio female.

That is true no matter how you shake it.

The problem I have with people like her, is that they complain about people in our community re-defigning what a woman is, and yet they have done the same thing.

It's a simplistic arguement.

It's saying " well we have renamed 'woman' to include anyone with surgecally altered organs, but you all can't change the definition again."

And the biggest injustice here is Transmen.

They don't have a penis. Are they not men?

Yes they are.

Stop this biggotry.

Sara

A.  Good luck with that being a minority, within a minority, within a minority and getting anything done.

B.  You can do it two ways.  Either a physical check to make sure that everyone is 'correct.'  (And that eliminates a lot of people, and everyone doing a RLT, and most FtMs) or you just do it by presentation.  That you could shade it to include 'a note from a doctor' is just silly, as anyone with the cash can get that note - so that's economic discrimination. 

C. Tekla sure is happy to live in a place where this has not mattered for a while now.

If a CD wants to enter a female restroom and a women there objects,
is that bigotry!!!! I think people need to reread what bigotry means.
Most CD's identify as male and seriously are not passable, so should
a women just say, oh well, I'm sick with worry because I've
got a man in here, but hey I'm the one who feel guilty of
feeling this way.

Many T's are too interested in their own navel to gaze outside them.
You also have to respect other's feelings and emotions.
Yelling bigotry doesn't make it so.

I hope to god I don't have to called bigot again because I feel
I need a bit of privacy and security when I go to the potty...

For those where being T is not a lifestyle, and its their life,
well there is the unisex restroom which is rather frequent
these days. I prefer them anyway, if they'd put a DVD
player in there I'd be set.

I know a few CDs that even veteran 'spot the ->-bleeped-<-' spotters will never pick.  I also know TS who will never pass even if they moved into Dr. O's office.  You are practicing "lookism."

I'm practicing nothing.
A women doesn't want a man in their restroom.
If that person can go incognito, good for them.

Most CD identify as MEN and don't have GID.

So, why is it the onus of the person in the restroom to
just accept whoever comes through the door.
Why not just remove the sticker on the door then, hey!
What about the other person, it has no rights at all to
any feeling on this matter!

So, with all this I'm a lookist bigot. Lets see if I can add another epithet to my
beautiful intolerance collection (sic).

Keira I dont want a CD in the womans bathroom with me either, they dont feel they are woman they feel they are men, but how do you go about seperating the two?

I think realistically most CD men/woman can understand this, and can for the most part find some middle ground with us here.

Its a really tough position for TS woman/men and CD men/woman to be in together.

And the truth is what I just said would offend most CD men/woman because hey they gotta pee to right, so how do they do it in safety?

The problem is that we have dont rules laws set up within our own community.

Community is another topic altogether though.

If you can discriminate, and you can, then can the WBW do the same to you?

absoultely its like a right right?

Quote from: tekla on January 31, 2008, 09:11:44 AM
If you can discriminate, and you can, then can the WBW do the same to you?

Hey, watch the sophistry. Of course we all discriminate all the time: its nothing more than making a distinction between x and y. And we do that because things are different. The question is, is there a meaningful distinction that is not based solely on some atavistic prejudice: fear of snakes has killed many a black snake although they are actually not a harmful snake at all.

I'm sure that in the Great Web copperheads also serve a valid use; and, yes, they have a place in the world. I think we often just make 'discrimination' a 'bad' word. Discrimination is not necessarily bad; we use our discrimination daily to decide what to do and how. 

I can live easily with a black snake in and around my house. Do I want a copperhead and its brood to take up residence in the yard my child plays in? Would you?

N~ 

Western thinking has a truly messed-up take on sex and gender (and basically everything else), not only because of the Abrahamic religious influence, but just as much because we are such a materialist society bent on determinism. We have a need to catagorise and group everything, and anything that doesn't fit those arbitrarily constructed categories we either deny exist, or we destroy it.

Until that changes, our position in society, whether pre-op transsexual or post-op woman, will never fully normalise. Even if we are eventually accepted, we will always be "that other group", and we will never be fully integrated. we should be careful to not fall into the same old trap of black-and-white binary gendering that society wants us to conform to. There are plenty of people out there with GID that do not necessarily want to transition to the opposite sex. Some identify as AndroGyne, some as Pangendered, most probably as terms I've not heard that fall somewhere on the gender spectrum. It's enough though that they DON'T identify with their assigned gender, and for us to dissociate from them makes us no better than the people we're trying to convince. Ridding the world of discrimination and prejudice based on Gender Identity has to include all of us.

The only way to truly normalise our position within society is to break down the mindset entirely. Not just to convince the rest that we are (or were) trapped in bodies diametrically opposed to our gender, but to get them to understand that it doesn't matter. If my identity demands I fully transition, then respect that, but equally, respect people for whom gender and sexuality are more fluid.

We all believe that our transsexuality is rooted in biology. If that's the case though, we need just as much to acknowledge that other forms of gender variance would also be nature over nurture. And it's not like its even a disability or something dangerous or anything - gender variance occurs throughout nature. It's a natural thing, it's just that society has turned it into something somehow wrong.

As for the original point of contention: Yes, most CD's do identify as their assigned gender, but really, so little research has been done on sexuality, gender identity and the like, that we just cannot say with any certainty that this one is genuine, while that one is having a bit of fun. So in the meantime, solution:

Unisex Bathrooms. Ally McBeal style.

female bodied, womens room, male bodied, mens room... use whichever you look like. But we arnt getting into this a bloody gain.....

lady amarant: i disagree, the westen societies view is absolutely fine.... depening which side of it you sit on, im perfectly happy to live by thier sex and gender rules...


i love this woman's attitude.... in the past year or two, theres been an explosion in gender deconstruction. this is not something i am comfortable being associated with. and Hence my physical distance from the trans community.... they make no effort to fit in, and almost TRY to socially segregate themselves. DO NOT WANT....

This woman has her priorities right, and as such i have no problem calling her a peer.... she is a woman, then a woman who is a feminist, then a feminist woman who happens to have a differnet past.
her priorities are perfectly sound to me.... shes managed to pop to specsavers and get rid of those rose tinted trans glasses.....
R >

Deja Vu! I've been having this exact same debate on another forum back in South Africa...

Quote from: Rachael on February 01, 2008, 07:56:21 AM
they make no effort to fit in, and almost TRY to socially segregate themselves. DO NOT WANT....

Make no mistake, I try desperately to fit in, because I AM a woman, heart, mind and soul. But there are people out there who identify as 'all', 'neither', 'some', or what's behind door number four... Discrimination on ANY basis is wrong, and since transsexuals and, for lack of a better term, genderqueer, tend to get lumped together by society, we have common cause, if not common experience.

Quote
This woman has her priorities right, and as such i have no problem calling her a peer.... she is a woman, then a woman who is a feminist, then a feminist woman who happens to have a differnet past.

Keep in mind that many feminists don't just fight for equality of females, but of everybody - Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a prominant anti-slavery campaigner, for example, and we have a rich history of feminists taking part in South Africa's struggle against apartheid, for example, Helen Suzman.

Quote
her priorities are perfectly sound to me.... shes managed to pop to specsavers and get rid of those rose tinted trans glasses.....

LOL 

Quote from: Rachael on February 01, 2008, 07:56:21 AMi love this woman's attitude.... in the past year or two, theres been an explosion in gender deconstruction. this is not something i am comfortable being associated with. and Hence my physical distance from the trans community.... they make no effort to fit in, and almost TRY to socially segregate themselves. DO NOT WANT....

I identify as simply a woman... a woman of Italian ancestry, with dark hazel eyes, who happens to have attained womanhood the transsexual way... that's all. Gender deconstruction does nothing for me, because I'm Binary Chick Exhibit A. I fit very comfortably into being just a woman, thank you. However, I don't mind if the gender deconstructionists do their thing, it isn't my thing... but it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg, so I recognize they have a right to present their ideas, we have freedom of speech in this country. I often wind up incidentally collaborating with gender outlaws in the course of my LGBT activism. I am in the LGBT scene because of my queer sexual orientation--bisexual with a strong lesbian tendency.  I do not identify as trans, any more than I identify as hepatitis. I support gay and lesbian and trans equal rights just because it's the right thing to do. I would still do it if I were a straight woman.

Quote from: Hypatia link=topic=25190.msg194764#msg194764 dquote author=Hypatia link=topic=25190.msg194764#msg194764 date=1201911092]
I do not identify as trans, any more than I identify as hepatitis.

I think the question is, Hypatia, do others identify you as hepatitis?!! 

stuff 'the transexual way'

i became a girl phyiscally by reparative means... i had a damaged body. now its a lot closer to natural
Others can only identify you if you give them evidence nichole
R