Why won't pagans accept trans women?

Trans women face enough problems without being discriminated against by new religions

          o Roz Kaveney
          o guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 March 2011 18.30 GMT
     
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/08/pagans-trans-women-religions

At a pagan gathering in February, the Pantheacon in San Jose, California, trans women were excluded from a Dianic ritual in honour of Lilith. Many of the defenders of this position – the veteran witch Z Budapest, for example – argue from an essentialist position ("you have to have sometimes in your life a womb, and ovaries and moon bleed and not die") but also by an appeal to tradition, which is a bit rich from a religious standpoint invented or at best recreated within the past 50 years.

Most of the really bad things that happen to trans women could happen to all women – rape, murder, unequal pay. Some of them happen to trans women more, proportionately; when there aren't many of us to begin with, a murder rate worldwide of one every two or three days is something we notice.

Presumably, a good patter in dramaticly creative speach won't do much harm either!!

and moon bleed and not die 

Apologies to our pagan members. No allusion is intended toward your beliefs or practices.

Quote from: spacial on March 09, 2011, 01:34:44 PM
and moon bleed and not die

I don't get moon bleed, but I have the "not die" part down fairly well.  I'm halfway there!  Can I like, perform the ritual while sitting outside of the circle?

As with any other religion, paganism has its rules to live by, and while the symbolic language shows what the speaker believes is their truth of life, it can be used as any other "holy writ" to include or deny any person who runs against the orthodoxy of its "clergy".  Some will read it to include, others to exclude.

As Groucho Marx was once quoted "I refuse to join any group that will accept me as a member!"   

Ridiculous.

This is something I find truly sad. Although I no longer identify as pagan, I discovered Z Budapest a while back and fell in love with her teachings and spirit. And I was very disappointed to find out that she excluded transwomen, and actually her exclusion of men isn't something I like either.

I think that anyone should be able to worship what they want with whom they want. Although I understand how a group composed entirely of women could form a very "sisterly" bond..

Trans women are women.. just because our bodies aren't quite the same as a biological woman, our minds and souls are.. so yeah.. Z... I don't know how I feel about her anymore.  Any type of extreme exclusiveness bothers me, especially in a religion such as Wicca.

How would she feel if you told her you had "pointed the bone" at her for this?  (Aboriginal means of knocking someone off by psychic means.)