Thanks for being a blog that is inclusive. I share Carasande's reserve about posting sometimes; as an mtf you soon realise that various feminisms differ in their attitude.

I'm British and it's a real minefield here with much of the feminist community stuck in 2nd wave trangender-empire level "disdain" - that's nice-ses for a hatred that makes michagan look good.

But with this I know you guys get it. Thanks for making me feel I belong

I totally agree that it's just plain outright discrimination. And everything else in this post, but I'm a little too tired to form any more complete senses.

By senses, I most likely mean 'sentences'.

I'm usually loathe to copy-pasta from Wiki but they do have some great bullets on the WbW contraversy:

From the Wiki:

* While transgender women did not grow up with recognized as female or as girls, they did grow up with female gender identities and thus should not be considered 'second-class' women any more than would a woman who grew up with other physical differences.

* Although transgendered women did not experience sexist oppression growing up, they experienced other forms of repression which are its equal, viz. society's transphobia

* Many transgendered women have experienced sexist oppression, even if not from the day of their birth.

* If exclusion of transgender women because of access to male privilege is appropriate, then banning female-bodied people who have not had access to male privilege but are gender variant is hypocritical.

* Thus far, there are no known instances of cisgender males claiming female gender identity as a means to access women's only spaces. Using this theoretical risk to exclude an entire class of women from women's spaces is not appropriate.

* While transgender women may make others feel uncomfortable, the discomfort of the majority is not an acceptable reason to exclude minorities. An analogous situation is that of many workplaces prior to second wave feminism. Many men felt uncomfortable allowing women into places that had traditionally been open to men only; however, the discomfort of men was not adequate justification for denying rights to women.

* Many also state that there is no universal experience all cisgendered women have that no man or transwomen have also had. Since there are ciswomen who do not menstrate or have children and women of different cultures, religions, classes, etc. have very different experiences growing up.

Sex as a binary division:

Establishing women-born-women policies results in other difficulties in addition to the problems faced by transgender women. Enforcement of such policies is not always straightforward. Some female-identified but gender variant women, such as butch lesbians, boidykes, etc have reported privacy invasions due to questions whether or not they were indeed 'women-born-women.' Paradoxically the major victims of such policies are less likely to be the small population of transgender women, but the far larger population of gender variant women such as butch lesbians.

Because such policies take as a given that sex is a binary division even in biology, they make intersex individuals invisible. As many as one child in a hundred is born with a physical intersex condition. Many of these people are raised as girls and most identify as women in adulthood. Such individuals may often however, have ambiguous bodies or genitalia. These female identified women may be the inadvertent victims of such policies as well.

While some transgender women may be less able to pass and thus unable to access women-born-women spaces, other transgender women after complete SRS may be completely unrecognizable as transgender. Indeed some transwomen have reported being evaluated by examinations from gynecologists who remained unaware of their transgender status. Thus, for some transgender women, accessing women's only space is possible as long as they remain closeted. So, far from ensuring that all transgender women are denied access, the policy is for some transwomen much like the don't ask, don't tell policy in the US military.

I support the womyn-born-womyn policy at the Festival and don't think it's useful to label the policy as a form of discrimination. In the words of Karla Mantilla of Off Our Backs, the policy is about "women trying for just one week in one remote corner of the United States to feel completely safe from male violence." And the minute women do this, they are told they are discriminating. It sounds a lot like disgruntled white people claiming that scholarships for African-Americans is a form of "discrimination." Do we really want to use that word to describe actions by oppressed groups to combat inequality or simply to find a temporary moment of relief?

I think Karla Mantilla's essay on the MWF policy is still the best feminist analysis out there. It can be found here:
http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/issues/menewes.html

Thanks for posting this, Jessica. I fully agree as well.

I found the safety concerns to be reminiscent of the people during the gays in the military debate claiming fears of lesbian sexual assualt. The only fears in either incident were just paranoid bigotry. If someone is harassing people they should be thrown out and/or arrested. It's as simple as that. Trans women aren't aching to get in there and start harassing people. They just want to be treated as equals and have their identity validated.

Can we please accept the established biological fact that sex is a continuum and that "male" and "female" are not fixed but rather moving targets? Could we not, then, have music events that concentrate on inclusion of all in the enjoyment of music that communicates high values? Might we then have people who while showering concentrate on hygiene, rather than on checking out other people's genitalia? Or is reasonableness too much to ask?

Logrus, I think you are completely wrong. Please explain how trans-women commit "male violence"? The very terms you use show the bigotry. This isn't akin to affirmative action; it is more like country clubs who wouldn't allow blacks or jews to join. I sure the bigots felt safer being away from those greedy jews and violent blacks, but that's because they are bigots.

I love this line from Mantilla's essay:

"How superficial, individualistic, and simplistic it would be for me, as a white american raised by a white family, to come to feel that I was really a black person inside, to change my skin color and other features to begin passing as black, and to demand to enter people of color space! In that case we could clearly see how outrageous such a demand would be. Being black in the United States (and elsewhere) is so much more than a matter of adopting skin color. It is an insult and the mark of privilege to miss that point so entirely.

This situation is exactly analogous to mtfs trying to gain access to Michigan."

Sorry, my last comment was meant for corey. I'm new to the whole underneath names.

corey, the quote from Mantilla shows an ignorance of the difference between sex, gender, and race. People don't feel deep down they are black when they are not because it's a completely external construct. A fair skin black child adopted by a white family and told he was white his whole life would never question that he is indeed white. If you call a little girl a boy her whole life, she will almost definitely become confused at some point due to an internal disconnect. At some level our brain has an idea about our true sex despite what we've been told or even what genitals we have.

Penn,

Men exposing themselves to women, outside the context of consent and a heterosexual relationship, is clearly a form of sexual harassment. When MTFs disrobed in from of other women, knowing it was designed to be a womyn-only space, this is a form of sexual harassment.

If women want to create women-only spaces and people of color want to create people of color-only spaces in the face of sexism and racism, HOW is this akin to whites-only country clubs. These are completely different. Who holds the power? Who has the privilege in these cases?

@corey: Wow. Maybe you should get to know a trans person. Then you would know how terribly insulting and offensive that article is.

The author speaks of trans individuals like she has never met one. She seems to think that a transwoman is just like any other guy, except he wears women's clothing. This denies the very nature of transpeople, and even though she acknowledges that transpeople say they were born with a feeling that their internal and external gender do not match, she seems to ignore the fact that this very feeling might affect their existence just as being born a woman effects a woman.

Maybe Michfest should stop using rape as a scare tactic and excuse for their own agenda. A penis does not equal a rapist, even if it's surrounded by naked, showering women.

corey: It sounds a lot like disgruntled white people claiming that scholarships for African-Americans is a form of "discrimination." Do we really want to use that word to describe actions by oppressed groups to combat inequality or simply to find a temporary moment of relief?

This is actually a good example! First, you made a few assumptions about the situation that I feel are mistaken.

First, we're not talking white vs black people. A more accurate comparison would be African-Americans who appear black vs African-Americans who do not (or appear black to white persons, but not to black persons). A good example of this is the current Presidential race where some people see Obama as "not black enough", even though genetically he's more African-American than the majority of African-Americans.

Secondly, discrimination is still discrimination, even if oppressed groups do it.

What the womyn-born-womyn policy states is that a transwoman, regardless of the discrimination she's had to endure, will never be the same as a cisgender woman, because they weren't born physically female from birth. This isn't any different than saying an African-American who isn't "black" enough should be denied any sort of assistance because they don't know what it's like to be a "real" black person, regardless of their past, experiences and heritage.

corey, are you saying that trans-women are privileged over "women-born-women"? That's ridiculous. Also, it's quite possible the woman with the problem genitals expected to be accepted as a women and didn't see any problem. Do you really think she wanted the attention she got?

Mantilla's point is that being Black in a white-dominated society is about having a particular worldview and life experience IN ADDITION TO having Black skin. Similarly, being a woman in a male-dominated society is about having a particular worldview and life experience IN ADDITION TO having a vulva. Therefore, simply surgically altering one's genitals and wearing a dress doesn't address the issue of how one was socialized. It views gender (and race) as simply about self-presentation rather than about internalized oppression and socialization.

@Corey: It seems very clear from your comments that you believe with absolutely certainty that trans women are men. I encourage you at least look into the writings of feminist authors like Julia Serrano because many (myself included) strongly feel that at its core this is a very sexist notion, and a view point that will ultimately hurt women everywhere, not just trans women!

For what its worth, i also find the Mantilla quote to be pretty ignorant of the complexities of race (including experiences of multi-racial and "passing" people). I think it does the struggles against racism, sexism, and transphobia a disservice.

Corey,

Yes, how insightful. And I'm sure that Clarence Thomas' or Alan Keyes' children have MUCH more in common with inner-city blacks than inner-city whites. The race comparison is not analogous. It's someone flailing around, looking for a reason they should be able to stereotype a group of people. You cannot assume all boys are raised "like boys". What does that even mean? They played sports? I didn't. And hey, some girls play sports! Wait, no, boys liked to play with trucks and guns! Hmm, maybe that's no good either. Trying to assign characteristics to large groups of individuals IS prejudice. Rationalize it however you want, it's bigotry. Just like if I were to say all rad fems are transphobic bigots.

Corey: Note that transwomen do not have the same experiences as men do growing up.

From knowing someone personally, they said that as a "boy," she always thought in the back of her head that she didn't belong there, that she was other, and that one day someone would surely figure it out. Not to mention the fear that if her friends ever did find out that they would hate her.

Speaking personally, that feeling of otherness, even as someone as minorly genderqueer as myself, mean that you see the world in an entirely different way than those of the sex people identify you as. As someone who appears physically female, I never understood why I had a different set of societal rules than males. I just didn't feel like I was different than them. I always had a hard time relating to other girls and women, because it seemed whenever I spoke my mind I just didn't come from the same place as them. And that's with a whole spectrum of women.

There is no one definition to the "experience" of being a woman. Don't hold someone you don't understand to a standard that I promise you many women cannot fulfill, and yet are just as much women as any other.

"Mantilla's point is that being Black in a white-dominated society is about having a particular worldview and life experience IN ADDITION TO having Black skin."

No,being black is completely different than being trans because being black is determined externally. If a child could "pass" as white and was raised by a white family they would never consider themselves black. It wouldn't ever happen. But, children with penises who are raised as boys do often times identify as female. Do you not understand this? It's an internal assessment that can disagree with all external information.

I really hate this era. We're expected to ignore observable patterns and pretend like gender is just a benign difference to be celebrated and toyed around with. Gone are the days when feminists understood gender as an inequality. Liberal-Shmiberal, 3rd wavers have succeeded in completely depoliticizing gender into a party and a drag show. They don't really want gender, hence gender inequality, to go away. Because having gender, hence gender inequality, is sexier. Playing with gender is more fun than de-gendering (getting rid of gender and it's accompanying power relations, altogether). De-gendering is only for those uncool, old fashioned radical feminists.

We're also expected to be tolerant of any and everything, regardless of its political implications.

And we can sit here and talk endlessly about 'identitieS' and 'genderS' and 'perfomances' and 'genderfucking.' Meanwhile Rome is burning. We still have a rape culture. We still have a wage gap. We still have the second shift. We still have men's violence against women. We still have women with eating disorders. We still have sexual harassment. And I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but no amount of toying with gender or trans-ing or drag shows is going to stop of any of this.

@Corey
If it helps at all, i'd say most trans folks and their allies would agree with you on this point: surgeries and clothes do NOT make a woman or man. Indeed, usually the reason for outwardly expressing a gender or getting surgeries is one recognizes that they already are a woman (or man).

Similarly, given most trans folks have some sense of their real gender from a very young age, in many regards they are socialized as young girls (or boys). Socialization is a complex mixture of messages from parents, society, community, peers, etc. Some of them are told directly to our face, most of them are interpreted from our environment. Different trans folks come of age in different families and communities and get a bit of both to various extents.

If you define being a woman as having a vulva (do people really want to be defined by our genitals?) AND being socialized as a woman (whatever that entails, people always seem a little vague on the details!), then i think you'll find a lot of trans women fit your definition! Though i'd still submit that this definition of woman seems pretty sexist.

"Meanwhile Rome is burning. We still have a rape culture. We still have a wage gap. We still have the second shift. We still have men's violence against women. We still have women with eating disorders. We still have sexual harassment."

What on earth do trans-people have to do with any of this? Does discriminating against them help the rape culture somehow?

"What on earth do trans-people have to do with any of this? Does discriminating against them help the rape culture somehow?"

I didn't say they had anything to do with it. I just wonder how spending energy on sitting around talking about gender performance, having drag shows, and trying on genders for size is supposed to help get rid of patriarchy.

And since I don't think the policy is discriminatory, in any real sense of the word, I'm not going to address your second question.

@corey: How does being trans equate to "toying with" or "trying on" genders?

Answer me that. Then we'll be having a real discussion.

First of all, I just want to say that I really appreciate this kind of back and forth from the editors. I think it's fantastic to hear y'all having your own take on issues in a transparent way rather than having to wade through comments threads to see if all the Feministing writers chime in.

@Corey- so many places to start... You know, You seem to be spending a bit of energy in this comments thread, so one might argue You're not doing much to dismantle the patriarchy, either.

I don't think anyone here would argue that the things you mention aren't important. Just look at alllll the other posts, here and in the community section, and realize that we're thinking about (and working on!) them too. Dismantling transphobia is one of the many battles we're fighting. It's entirely possible for us to put our energy into a lot of differnt causes at once.

(Oh, and all the things you mentioned? They hurt transwomen, too.)

/delurk

corey: "We're also expected to be tolerant of any and everything, regardless of its political implications."

Did you get this line of argument from a book about rationales used to prevent giving women a franchise or joining the workforce?

This is just ugly words, ugly ugly words.

Logrus: Did you get this line of argument from a book about rationales used to prevent giving women a franchise or joining the workforce?

They may be wrong in this case, as have many people who've said that before, but the reasoning is not itself problematic. In some cases, tolerance actually is the problem, as with, for instance, religious parents denying their children essential medical care in favor of prayer, which is something that the US unfortunately continues to allow for the sake of religious freedom. The question of tolerance, then, is one of degree, so the words themselves are not particularly ugly.

So, Corey, your argument is that... actually I'm lost. Most trans women I know and whose writing I have read in feminist forums are also trying to stop rape, fight the wage gap, and overturn the patriarchy. So since you couldn't show how trans women are somehow bad, you say we're irrelevant and we shouldn't be talking about it because of other issues. If we didn't have people arguing against trans people, we could all move on and work on real problems. Your arguments are only prolonging the distraction.

Mireille, you win the internet for the day. Trans-folk and allies will quit wasting precious time working for trans-rights when people quit discriminating against trans-folk. Wow, that was easy. Treat trans-folk like people, and then we won't have these problems.

I want to win the internet :(

Just a quick note: I know it's convenient to say "Michigan" to mean specifically the music festival, but as someone who lives here and loves it--and who is absolutely opposed to the festival's anti-trans policies--I cringe at the name of my whole state being associated with this discrimination ("Michigan is anti-trans..." etc.)

I assure you, there is a great number of us here in Michigan who are allied with the movement for trans rights.

When you want to reference the festival in shorthand, trying using the acronym--MWMF--and spare Michigan the negative associations that come up in this conversation.

Want To Play a Game?
It's a variation on another game.
That game is called "Spot the Christian Republican Homosexual"
This one is called "Spot the Feminist Lesbian Separatist with Transissues".

I'm a woman born transsexual, WBT for short. I came out back in the bad old days when transkids like myself were given lobotomies, shipped off to reform school and were kicked out of our homes.

Way back when I was a kid transkids and baby queers all had the perfect come back to the bullies who abused us. And make no mistake about it lots of those who have all sorts of rationals for bullying us now made our childhoods living hell. It is just that some are Taliban Christer Republicans and some claim to be radical feminists.

Our come back to those that called us queers and 'morpodites was this: "It takes one to know one!"

And you know, we knew that behind the face of every queer bashing bully male or female was a scared little queer with their own issues.

And you know anther thing it seems like more than a few of the leaders of the anti-transsexual trip are themselves post-SRS M to F transsexuals. And quite a few who did some of the loudest screaming way back when have since come out as F to M transsexuals.

Now I know this isn't all because there are a whole lot of sheeple who like to join the bullies when it comes to lynchings and mob actions.

And I also know that all y'all ought to search on Jo Freeman's piece on "Trashing" because when you start putting all this together you will see how horizontal oppression has destroyed the feminist movement as well as any hope for a united progressive movement.

I've generally taken the position of post-SRS WBTs and not pre-ops at the festival.

But you know I would tell my sisters be they WBTs like me or transwomen or transgender identified to spend their money elsewhere.

While I don't know if corey went about this the right way, I have to also be un-P.C. and say that I understand the MWMF's position.

I guess the way I see it is this: when you are a man who has transitioned into being a woman, you are a trans-woman. And I would imagine that most people who are willing to examine their gender in this way are the people who are also fighting against rape, sexism, misogyny, etc. And of course they should be treated like people. That goes without saying.

So, let's say a group of trans people wanted to put on a music festival, and it was only for trans people. And I wanted to go, even though I'm a woman-born-woman. I'm sure I could go, and nobody would know and everyone would be cool about it, but out of respect for the environment they're trying to create, I probably would not attend.

To me, this is the same thing that the MWMF is trying to do. And I do think that as difficult and challenging it must be to grow up male and questioning your gender, it is NOT the same as growing up female. It just isn't. While the MWMF has not handled this correctly, I do understand their goal. And while I don't think "safety" should be the issue in the least, I think it's more of the symbolism of the penis that might do it for some women, especially those who have been victims of sexual assault and rape. For them, the intellectual separation might not be enough.

I can see why this issue has been labeled discrimination, and I would definitely agree if it involved public bathrooms, schooling, jobs, laws, residential living, university admissions, etc. But to me, the right to attend a women's music festival is not the same thing.

It's possible that my views are antiquated and my view of trans people (and I do know trans people personally) has not caught up with my other progressive views. But for now, I have to be honest and say I understand where MWMF is coming from...

I guess the way I see it is this: when you are a man who has transitioned into being a woman, you are a trans-woman.

I didn't transition into anything. And I am not a transwoman.

I had sex reassignment surgery which made me female and after that operation and may years of living I grew into being a woman.

And your argument bears a great deal in common with the people of Aryan Nation or the Augusta National Country Club.

I didn't grow up male nor did I question my gender.

I grew up as a transkid. It was others who questioned my gender.

I honestly don't much believe in the present day po-mo idea of gender.

BTW I have a cunt not a prick between my legs and unless you are 36 years old or older I've been emale longer than you have been alive.

You know what? I wish the whole world would just take a little notecard from Kate Bornstein:

"Do whatever you need or want to do in order to make life worth living. Love who and how you want to love. Just don't be mean. Should you get sent to Hell for doing something that isn't mean to someone, I'll do your time in Hell for you. kiss, kiss -- Kate"

MWMF anti-trans policy = mean.

My sisters who are trans are still my sisters. They live every day fighting sexism and transphobia, which, I agree with the fantabulous Julia Serano (

The patriarchy is very invested in biological determinism, which makes me hella suspicious when "feminists" try to use that as an excuse for their prejudice against people who have been injured by the same processes for daring to subvert them.

I am honestly quite surprised that there is still this kind of discrimination going on at a feminist event. Is there really a large enough group of women afraid of being raped by a trans woman, because they were born male? When trans womyn traded in their maleness to become female, they gave up the privileges of being male for the oppression that women have, not to mention the discrimination they face because being transgender is so stigmatized. Michfest should be welcoming all womyn with open arms, not discriminating against some of them much like the rest of society. I know if I were in Michigan, I would be out front with signs and handing out information about what it really means to be a woman, beyond the genitals we may or may not be born with.

Can't we all just chill out, relax and see each other as people rather than lables?

*ignores ridiculous and offensive arguments (read: all of them) that the MWMF policy is not discriminatory and bigoted*

I just wanted to say that I really like this idea of dialogue between bloggers and am interested to see how it ends up playing out over time!

WouIs it just me or wouldn't it be great if everyone could just chill out, relax and see each other as people rather than being in such a rush to put labels on another persons being?

penn commented at August 12, 2008 8:33 PM: "corey, are you saying that trans-women are privileged over 'women-born-women'? That's ridiculous."

Exactly! I mean, globally baby transgirls are privileged over baby cisgirls (less likely to be killed at birth, more likely to get treatment for illness, etc.) but that privilege usually ends when the baby transgirls learn to talk and their families realizes they're not cisboys. It definitely doesn't last until they're transwomen (if they even live to adulthood).

corey commented at August 12, 2008 9:02 PM: "And we can sit here and talk endlessly about 'identitieS' and 'genderS' and 'perfomances' and 'genderfucking.' Meanwhile Rome is burning. We still have a rape culture. We still have a wage gap. We still have the second shift. We still have men's violence against women. We still have women with eating disorders. We still have sexual harassment. And I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but no amount of toying with gender or trans-ing or drag shows is going to stop of any of this."

...and we also still have transphobic violence and transphobic discrimination in the workplace too. You might be interested to know that transphobia can even hurt some ciswomen for that matter (for example, when one's mental gender, physical sex, chromosomes, etc. are all female but other people suspect she's male because they don't think she looks "female enough" from what they see of her clothed body).

Corey:

"Men exposing themselves to women, outside the context of consent and a heterosexual relationship, is clearly a form of sexual harassment. When MTFs disrobed in from of other women, knowing it was designed to be a womyn-only space, this is a form of sexual harassment.

If women want to create women-only spaces and people of color want to create people of color-only spaces in the face of sexism and racism, HOW is this akin to whites-only country clubs. These are completely different. Who holds the power? Who has the privilege in these cases?"

You've conflated so much here it's hard to know where to begin. Disrobing is not the same as indecent exposure, you don't have to be a man to be a sexual abuser, genitalia does not equal gender, and by the way, in this space - as a coming-together of people who define themselves as 'womyn' the power centre no longer revolves around gender.

But apparently it does revolve around bullying and power-play and a misguided attempt to establish a first and second class of womyn.

None of which is helpful to anyone.

As a feminist, as a WBW, I have nothing to fear from my trans or genderqueer sisters that I didn't need to worry about in the rest of the feminist community. And neither do you. Get over it.

Last year in the UK an onlike lesbian discussion forum entered into a huge fight about the legitimacy of the presence of transmen, ie ftm, on the site. Despite having a clear group policy on the subject, the discussion quickly degenerated and a considerable amount of transphobic bigotry entered the discussion.

The upshot was that most of the lesbian-identified transwomen left the site entirely because they felt that, despite the original discussion not even being about them, a vociferous minority had made perfectly clear that they weren't really welcome either.

So peace now reigns. All who remain are happy, even if some suspect their hearts are a little colder and their world just a little less rich and diverse.

If the women who attend MWMF only want to talk to people they feel share their sympathies and have the power to exclude all other viewpoints and experiences, then they win. But some victories cost the victor more than the vanquished.

In this I'm ambivalent about camp trans. Even if MWMF change the policy and "welcome" transwomen, it has already done its work so that those who attend are self-selected as solidly trans-woman-phobic. However, in the wider world, the very ugliness of such overt bigotry, annually paraded, is slowly undermining the soundness of the very intellectual basis for such wbw separatism. They are defeating themselves. Let them get on with it.

I just want to respond to a couple of things...

"There is no one definition to the "experience" of being a woman."

That's right but there are patterns among the many experiences of women. We can't ignore those patterns. Just because not every single woman in the world has experienced X does not make X not gendered.

"most trans folks and their allies would agree with you on this point: surgeries and clothes do NOT make a woman or man. Indeed, usually the reason for outwardly expressing a gender or getting surgeries is one recognizes that they already are a woman (or man)."

NO, I'm sorry but just because a man (person socialized as a man) says he's a woman doesn't make it so. Truly challenging our gender system means raising our children to be good people rather than good women and good men. It means striving to be good people. It means encouraging and striving to embody the best attributes of femininity (compassion, caring, tenderness, etc.) and masculinity (assertiveness, courage, etc.). How does saying, "Deep down, I'm a woman. I need to surgically alter my genitalia to match my gender." Hmm, it seems to me that this kind of attitude is saying that a person with a vulva should be feminine and a person with a penis should be masculine. Sounds pretty sexist if you ask me.

"This one is called "Spot the Feminist Lesbian Separatist with Transissues"."

That's it. Keep demonizing feminists who take patriarchy seriously. Maybe then you can still have your drag shows and makeup.

Has anyone here read _Black like Me_? It's about the experience of a white man who took medication to darken his skin and his experience passing as Black. If you're white, it will be an eye-opener (if you are black, it will probably be a no-shit-sherlock type of read). The comparison of changing gender to changing race is not a bad comparison, it's Mantilla's end conclusion which is ridiculous. Once a white person starts passing as black, they get the whole black experience, right down to the sexual stereotypes and the exclusion from white-only bathrooms (bathrooms ... hm, the comparison gets better and better).

Let's stop using this race comparison to "prove" that transwomen cannot have the same experience as ciswomen. Out-transwomen who pass or don't pass all experience gender-based prejudice and the threat (sometimes the reality) of gender-based violence. They should have access to safe-spaces, too.

and a few more responses...

"Trans-folk and allies will quit wasting precious time working for trans-rights when people quit discriminating against trans-folk. Wow, that was easy. Treat trans-folk like people, and then we won't have these problems."

I have nothing wrong with working for social justice for trans folks (nor does Mantilla). But clamoring for access to women-only spaces, as men typically feel they have a right to, is not social justice for trans people. It's infringing on the rights and safety of women.

"@corey: How does being trans equate to "toying with" or "trying on" genders?"

Well what would you call a person who says, "Gee, even though I have a penis and have male privilege, deep down I feel like a woman. I think I'll start wearing women's clothes and get hormone injections and surgery so my sex and gender will match how I feel inside. After all, switching genders is the only option--doing away with gender altogether is NOT an option. We have to be one or the other."??

"A penis does not equal a rapist, even if it's surrounded by naked, showering women."

No, a penis does not equal a rapist (nor did I say that anywhere) but let's not forget that the vast majority of rapists are men. Remember, you can't just ignore patterns when it suits you.

And let me just add that, while they aren't exactly alike, both race and gender are categories of inequality that privilege one group at the expense of another. To that extent, I think it's perfectly fair to make some comparisons. Just because you don't like the conclusions those comparison might lead you to, doesn't mean they are invalid.

"Once a white person starts passing as black, they get the whole black experience, right down to the sexual stereotypes and the exclusion from white-only bathrooms"

I think Mantilla would say that a white person TEMPORARILY darkening one's skin may give that white person a new perspective on racism...but it ignores the years of oppression, mind-colonizing (see Frantz Fanon), and psychological oppression that go with being a person of color. We're talking about growing up and spending one's entire life as a person of color--not a couple weeks or months.

"Out-transwomen who pass or don't pass all experience gender-based prejudice and the threat (sometimes the reality) of gender-based violence. They should have access to safe-spaces, too."

I agree. But women deserve their safe-spaces, too. That doesn't mean transwomen can then go invade women's spaces and claim the right to do so just b/c they had surgery and wear makeup.

Corey, it's now clear that you have an extremely simplistic (and, in my view, totally wrong) view of trans*folk. This makes it difficult to argue with you, because you keep coming back to these same straw-man examples.

And this: "attributes of femininity (compassion, caring, tenderness, etc.) and masculinity (assertiveness, courage, etc.)"

...Actually, to me That's quite sexist. Those are the best attributes of humanity, and they don't belong to any one gender.

That's it. Keep demonizing feminists who take patriarchy seriously. Maybe then you can still have your drag shows and makeup. Corey

Right... How come you sound more like a right wing Christer than say feminist writer Sue O'Sullivan?

Drag Shows and Make up? Play that rap against the film "Paris is Burning". Most drag performers are either people of color or so poor and make so little doing their shows that a checker at Walmart has a higher income. So that little slur shows both racism and classism.

Demonizing feminists? Say what? Who appointed you judge of who is feminist? If I am critical of anyone it is those who destroy feminist groups by taking positions identical to those of Opus Dei and other right wing religionists. Be they anti-trans, or pro-censorship.

@ Corey

But clamoring for access to women-only spaces, as men typically feel they have a right to, is not social justice for trans people. It's infringing on the rights and safety of women.

So you've just said it. Transgendered women will always be, in fact, men. No ifs, buts or doubts. Once-a-man, always-a-man.

Okay you're just an ignorant bigot no better than Sally Kern and I'm done talking.

"labeling trans people as fake and "toying" with gender is extremely offensive"

Not that I want to start another flame war here, but. Oh dear. Um...

What's wrong with toying with gender?

(*grins, ducks, runs for cover*)

Sorry. Had to ask.

Though 'fake' is clearly pejorative, as is Corey's tone...

If I am to understand Corey's posts correctly, she's arguing that gender does not exist in an essentialist or internal way, but is rather foisted upon individuals by societal conditioning. Therefor, much of what defines women is their experience being conditioned as women: an experience that a trans-woman lacks. Though a move towards a patriarchy free society is commendable, I don't agree with the basic premise here.

I think gender is real and it is internal. It seems to be distinct from sexuality, and in the case of trans people, distinct from their physical bodies. I don't think this because it's sexy, I think it because of empirical evidence like this--
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/gender/ -- in whihc complete gender conditioning from infancy failed. I also believe it because of my own experience.

The second wave largely rejects this because if men and women are fundamentally different then that means that it's somehow justified to oppress women or that it's natural to sequester masculine and feminine traits to different segments of the population.

That difference need no longer be a basis for discrimination, because despite it all, men and women have basically the same interests, and social, political, and economic equality can be achieved without annihilating gender. This entails a shift away from the patriarchy and to a society where duties to one another are based on basic human needs and not on arbitrary morality and tradition. A truly femininst society would reject sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia-- not because gender, race, homosexuality and trans do not exist, but because they do not in the slightest compromise one's humanity.

That being said I am not trying to advocate a gender binary. Their are individuals who fall somewhere in a spectrum of genders. This is totally valid. Why not?

The questions I have right now. what happened with that meet at the fences solidarity vigil thing mennioned in the Trans poet video? It was an ad for that, right? Was anyone there? Was it awesome?

Did any trans women go to the festival this year? What was that like? How did people treat you?

Was Camp-trans great? I've never been so I have no idea what its like really. Has ceasing the enforcement of the WBW policy (although perhaps not the discouragement of trans-inclusion) changed this event at all? I also heard that the Athens Boys Choir was going to be there, what other performers were there? What was said?

What was the Michigan festival like this year? What were they saying about this? Is there are a changing mood about this at the event? What was said there, too?

If anyone has any answers to these questions I would really love to hear them.

Debates are good and its nice to see a lot of supportive people writing, but I feel like the most important thing that feministing.com can do is continue to report on trans events and issues as they occur. I have loved all the stuff that has been posted, the video yesterday was cool and having Julia Serano as a guest blogger or links to her articles is awesome, and it makes me feel like I'm in a very supportive community despite what negative things some people say in the comments area. More than anything else it contributes to a greater understanding and awareness of trans people and overtime will help educate people about the need for greater trans-inclusion.

@ Salad, I think you hit the nail on the head there. Recognition of gender's existence beyond mere social phenomenon (as well as the recognition that it isn't at all binary) is a step forward by the third wave, not a step back. Trying to evoke some kind of Maoist "everyone is exactly the same and we should never let our actions or thoughts indicate that there are any differences" line of thought only leads to trouble, precisely because of situations like this where the thinking ends up running into a reality that doesn't mesh with it.

We're talking about growing up and spending one's entire life as a person of color--not a couple weeks or months.

So Corey, what is the minimum age for admittance to a women-only or Black-only safe space? A couple weeks or months of experience isn't enough, so I guess that excludes infants. Say, 1 year? 5 years? Are kids allowed? I mean, a 10-yr-old girl hasn't had as much experience with institutional oppression as a 40-yr-old woman. A 40-yr-old woman hasn't had as much experience as an 80-yr-old woman. What's the minimum time as a member of an oppressed group to have access to it's safe spaces?

It should not be a question of comparing weeks or months to years. As soon as a transwoman starts passing, she gets the full force of female subjugation aimed at her. There are many aspects of a ciswoman's life that a transwoman will never experience. However, while a transwoman's herstory might be different from a ciswoman's, their present is the same.

FrumiousB: So Corey, what is the minimum age for admittance to a women-only or Black-only safe space? A couple weeks or months of experience isn't enough, so I guess that excludes infants. Say, 1 year? 5 years? Are kids allowed? I mean, a 10-yr-old girl hasn't had as much experience with institutional oppression as a 40-yr-old woman. A 40-yr-old woman hasn't had as much experience as an 80-yr-old woman. What's the minimum time as a member of an oppressed group to have access to it's safe spaces?

I think you make a valid point. To add to that, what about women from countries with less oppression than others? What about women who, through their families and communities, didn't experience the same oppression and discrimination as others? When does it became a case of, "I'm more oppressed than you"?

I also didn't see a response from Corey to my re-phrasing of the comparison of white people to black people. I'm curious how Corey would feel about an African-American who was raised by a fairly wealthy family in a good community where racism wasn't so prevalent, but needed assistance for school or something else. Is this person not "black" enough, because they didn't grow up in an inner city neighborhood? Can you really, really quantify all of a person's life experiences to determine how [insert_label_here] they are?

You know, I've never said that the MWMF people don't have the right to exclude whomever they want. They can do whatever they please. But they're still discriminating against transwomen.

Oh, and Corey. I'm a transwoman. I've never attended or been part of a drag show and I don't wear dresses. I don't "play" or "toy" with gender, I am simply myself. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge people like me and the other transwomen who've posted here doesn't say anything about us, but it tells us a lot about you.

Frumious B: "while a transwoman's herstory might be different from a ciswoman's, their present is the same."

You're awesome.

I will add that its important to acknowledge trans women who aren't always identified as female.

I remember the first time I noticed people treating me differently and it started long before I was regularly identified as a woman. I was walking down some stairs and there was a guy going the other way staring at me and wouldn't stop even when I looked at him back (normally guy glances don't last too long especially after eye contact... or so I learned as things changed). Even turned to stare at me some more as I continued on my way. Immediately following this it happened again with a guy pushing a stroller. We both came around a corner and almost ran into each other. He just stared at me narrowing his eyes a bit. Did sort of an up and down too. So the day continued with this kind of thing happening regularly (I was wearing a brown work shirt and pants, although only three months on hormones). I don't think I was necessarily being identified as female that day, but even still I could feel and recognize that I was being treated differently. I remember at the end of that day, after work and visiting friends I was sitting in my car at a light and realized that there was a guy in the car next watching me. I looked at him too, but nothing happened and I have no idea what he was seeing, but it did make me feel uncomfortable.

a proposed solution to the Michfest issue

What's interesting about this discussion (or at least, part of this discussion) is that, here we are, debating decisions made by women, about a womens festival.

But what is at stake here?

It seems, from the comments, that the issue of authenticity is hotly contested. It also seems that this debate is about whether mtf inclusion/exclusion derails the meaning, or the goodness, or the value of Michfest.

I for one think that there's an easy solution to such a debate: let's just have more festivals :D

Let's have the women steering Michfest make their own decisions and respect them (as well as respectfully debate them). Then let's set up a festival for women-identified people. Because I for one think that preserving the unique experience of a WBW festival is worth doing (as well as respecting the decisions of WBW who are putting on the festival). But nobody can argue that it wouldn't be valuable to experience a woman-identified festival (and thus respect the multiplicity of experiences of womandom and patriarchy). I don't think this much is up for debate, no?

Maybe this is just because I love festivals and I love excuses to going to festivals, but can't this simply be the solution?

I think that perpetuating false dichotomies, I think that living in an either/or world is part of the systemically oppressive ways in which we have been taught to think. I think it is a formula that guarantees the displeasure of one, if not both sides. I dont think it is wise to fight over the crumbs, to fight over the scraps we limit ourselves to.

Can't it be seen so easily that we are again putting the experiences of women* up for debate?

Why are we debating oppressed peoples' authenticity?

The many-festival-proposal still doesn't see mtf folks at Michfest, sure, at least, not yet. It respects the decisions of the organizers, though. And it means that another women-positive festival has some solid ground to grow from. Of course, all of this is still in a context of economics, where one has the leisure and moolah to go to any of these festivals. On that note, it's kind of a bourgeois issue in some ways. That's that I guess.

*women-identified :D

I don't have any intention and never have considered attending Michfest, so the debate is more idealogical than practical for me. But the fact that they claim a "womyn-born-womyn" policy but allow trans men to attend, well... Do they allow "men-born-womyn" or do they consider trans men as womyn still? Is it intentionally or coincidentally dismissive of trans men?

corey commented at August 13, 2008 9:47 AM: "Well what would you call a person who says, 'Gee, even though I have a penis and have male privilege, deep down I feel like a woman...'"

Transwomen don't have male privilege. They had male privilege, until shortly after they learned to talk, blurted out stuff like "but Daddy I'm a girl" before they learned terms like "male privilege" and "penis," the people around them realized they weren't normal boys, and they started to get bashed by patriarchies with transphobic discrimination. That takes place years before they stopped being transgirls and started being transwomen.

Remember, baby and toddler girls (including baby and toddler transgirls) definitely aren't women (including transwomen), no matter what some matchmakers and pimps out there say.

Suzy Q commented at August 13, 2008 10:19 AM : "Drag Shows and Make up? Play that rap against the film 'Paris is Burning'. Most drag performers are either people of color or so poor and make so little doing their shows that a checker at Walmart has a higher income. So that little slur shows both racism and classism."

Good point. Speaking of low pay and transsexuality, I just remembered http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1105340&format=comments#cnum321083

ZoeB commented on a Boston Herald article ("Undercover ‘john’ takes on trannies, pimps" by Jessica Van Sack) at Jul 7, 2008 7:55 AM EDT: "...I'm no hooker, merely a Rocket Scientist, but I am TS. And being treated like subhuman filth whose mere presence contaminates the room is something we all experience - if we don't hide our medical history. 9 in 10 of us do. If 'outed', we often become unemployable - look at what happened to Susan Stanton. And in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, so tolerant of diversity that it's illegal to fire gays for being gay, well, it's open season there on 'trannies', who can be fired without recourse to the law."

[when I first read ZoeB's comment my thoughts included "and I wouldn't be surprised if being outed or suspected of transsexuality while trying to get and keep non-sex work is why some people resort to prostitution to earn a living"]

As for me, I have to admit that my dislike of transphobia isn't only out of principle - it's part self-interest as well. See: http://feministing.com/archives/008954.html

Elise replied to me at April 10, 2008 7:57 AM: "OTOH, what about when one's anatomical gender and mental gender do match (like what makes me cisgender) and one's anatomical gender and socially assigned gender don't match (like when bullies assumed I was somehow part male)?

"That doens't make you trans. It just means you get beat up by the same people."

I replied back "Yeah, I knew it doesn't make me trans and can still get me targeted by transphobes (hence my worries about not looking 'feminine' enough, my anger when Mom keeps telling me to cut my hair short and wear baggy clothes and exercise away the rest of my breast and hip fat 'because she cares about me,' etc.). I just wanted to point out that anatomical gender/assigned gender mismatches can happen to cispeople too."

Salad commented at August 13, 2008 11:37 AM: "A truly femininst society would reject sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia-- not because gender, race, homosexuality and trans do not exist, but because they do not in the slightest compromise one's humanity."

Exactly!

Salad commented at August 13, 2008 11:37 AM: "That being said I am not trying to advocate a gender binary. Their are individuals who fall somewhere in a spectrum of genders. This is totally valid. Why not?"

Yeah - it's like the way we can acknowledge the existence of heterosexuality and homosexuality and bisexuality and asexuality all at the same time.

Many keep saying my comments are "extremely offensive" without actually explaining what it is that is offensive about them. One commenter said I didn't go about this discussion the "right way" but gave no explanation. I apologize if I have been dismissive of the experiences of trans folks. But in the future, it would help if you would point to specific things I said and explain why those comments are offensive.

And while we're on the subject, I also don't think it wise to disallow comments which simply offend people. People can be offended by a lot of things. For instance, if I said that women who wear makeup and high heels are not challenging patriarchal standards of beauty but are only reinforcing them--this might indeed offend some people who read or monitor this blog. But should this comment then be removed simply because a person didn't like my argument? I DO, however, agree that blatantly sexist, racist, or heterosexist comments should be removed because of the harm they do. I do not think there is anything inappropriate in critiquing the patterns we see in trans culture from a feminist perspective. As I said, trans folks deserve basic human rights and respect as people, but this doesn't mean respecting and blindly accepting their practices simply to be "tolerant." If a group of people engage in behaviors or practices which reinforce sexism, I'm going to point it out. Last time I checked this was a feminist blog. In fact, Karla Mantilla has an excellent essay called something like, " the moral bankruptcy of liberal tolerance" which can be found with a google search. I highly recommend it.

Let me say once more that I apologize if I have been dismissive of the experiences of trans folks.

Oh and one last and final remark in response to both the original post and subsequent comments...

I think it's quite dangerous and uncalled for to dismiss the fears women at the Festival have of disrobing at the showers and finding out there are not more than just women around. In the past, I have volunteered at both a rape crisis center and a domestic violence shelter. I saw rape victims, victims of sexual harassment, and women who'd been beaten and emotionally abused. I remember many of the women saying that a lot of things triggered their memory of the assault--things they associated with their assault(s). This would cause everything from discomfort to panic attacks and nausea.

We don't know how many women at the Festival have been assaulted or beaten in a bathroom or a shower. And to simply say that the women at MWMF are resorting to fear-mongering is not only callous, it's ridiculous. I would expect a lot of men to be dismissive of women's fears in a rape culture but it's upsetting and depressing to hear it coming from other women.

If you don't like the policy, that's one thing, but it's quite another to charge women with exaggerating and being insincere about their fears. One in four women will be raped and ALL WOMEN live daily under the threat of rape. Let's not forget that.

sorry, couldn't let this one go without a response either. last one, i promise :)

"Drag Shows and Make up? Play that rap against the film 'Paris is Burning'. Most drag performers are either people of color or so poor and make so little doing their shows that a checker at Walmart has a higher income. So that little slur shows both racism and classism."

So critiquing a practice that a lot of people of color and poor people engage in is by definition racist and classist? I empathize with people who do whatever will put food on the table and I try to understand their circumstances and the limited choices they have. But that doesn't mean we should have to support what they find themselves doing. I understand that some people are poor and have limited options so they join the U.S. military and participate in the U.S.'s invasions. I empathize with them and their circumstances, but I don't support what they do.

Anyhow, I do appreciate the reminder that drag shows are not just part of white middle-class queer culture. Either way, I still think they are harmful.

I was writing a long, long post to Corey. There were lots and lots of quotes, and I was basically rewriting this whole thread. Corey, if you want to see specifically why your posts have been offensive and hurtful, re-read them with the following in mind.

1) You've defended discrimination when women (who are oppressed and experience discrimination themselves) are doing it.

2) You've stated in no uncertain terms that you feel transwomen are men, purveyors of "male violence" and just "toying" with gender, "putting on dresses and makeup", and putting on "drag shows".

3) You've used Mantilla's strawman examples in another attempt to discredit transwomen's gender identities. Mantilla is wrong, and by extension, it makes you wrong.

4) You demonize us because we want to be ourselves, rather than be some sort of non-gendered entity. You're free to be as androgynous as you want, but I'm not you, and I don't want to be androgynous. This would be the same as me telling someone who wants to be androgynous that they have to pick a gender and begin conforming to traditional gender stereotypes. Who am I to tell them what they can and can't be? Who am I to tell them who they are and who they aren't?

5) You try to compare race and gender, but ignore a lot of important facts that would actually show how silly your conclusions are. Do you know what discrimination all women you meet have endured? Do you know their struggles, triumphs, failures, and successes? Are all women exactly the same simply because they were born with all the female equipment? Are all black people the same? What about ones who live in inner cities vs ones who live in rural areas? What about the wealthy vs the poor black people? What about white people who live in black neighborhoods and endure racism themselves? If you can't say that all black people, or even all people who are technically African-American (which would include white people from Africa), how can you say that all women have endured the same hardships? How can you then say that transwomen haven't endured the same?

6) You again indicate that you feel transwomen are men, because "women deserve their spaces" and we can't "invade" it just because we wear "dresses and makeup". You know a lot of transwomen don't wear dresses and makeup, right? Just like a lot of cisgender women! Wow.

That's all I can find at the moment, but hopefully that explains to you why your comments have been offensive to some of us, and to transpersons specifically. You try to dismiss us as nothing more than fetishists, support and defend the discrimination against us, and then act like you're surprised when we get upset or angry.

Personally, I hope you're simply ignorant of trans issues, because you can fix ignorance with education. I'd also hope that you would take a little time and read up on what we experience and how we feel. You may not change your mind, but hopefully it'd at least stop you from making such offensive remarks in future discussions.

"1) You've defended discrimination when women (who are oppressed and experience discrimination themselves) are doing it."

I've already explained why the word "discrimination" is a misleading way to describe women trying to create safe, women-only spaces. Women as a group don't have power over MTF trans folks.

"2) You've stated in no uncertain terms that you feel transwomen are men, purveyors of "male violence" and just "toying" with gender, "putting on dresses and makeup", and putting on "drag shows"."

I didn't say transwomen are the "purveyors of male violence." I said disrobing when one has a penis around women while being conscious of the women-only policy of the festival is insensitive and a form of sexual harassment.

"3) You've used Mantilla's strawman examples in another attempt to discredit transwomen's gender identities. Mantilla is wrong, and by extension, it makes you wrong."

Where are these "strawman" examples you all keep referring to? Also, why is Mantilla wrong?

"You demonize us because we want to be ourselves, rather than be some sort of non-gendered entity."

Mantilla does a good job of deconstructing this "such-and-such is part of my identity, therefore you can't criticize it" tactic.

"Who am I to tell them what they can and can't be? Who am I to tell them who they are and who they aren't?"

I'm not telling trans people that clamor to be in the Festival what they can and can't do. I'm simply saying that their actions, while understandable, are insensitive and are reinforcing sexism.

"Are all women exactly the same simply because they were born with all the female equipment? Are all black people the same?"

You're right. Not all women have the same experiences and not all people of color have the same experiences. But again, there are patterns to the stories that women have told about being women in a patriarchal society. And there are patterns to the stories that people of color have told about being of color in a white-supremacist culture. We can't dismiss these patterns simply because not every single woman or person of color fits into them. I think most feminists would agree that rape is a gendered phenomenon. But does the fact that not all women experience rape mean that there is nothing gendered about it? I don't think so.

I'm a trans woman. I have been raped by a man. It was actually a year ago this Sunday. And it happened in my home. I spent that night in an emergency room. The past year has been a misery. I've been frightened to go out. I've been intensely depressed. My friends were incredibly worried for me. After much therapy and medical assistance, I'm getting closer to back to normal, but I will never be the same. I don't go out without at least pepper spray. Going out alone at night when there are no street lights can be intensely frightening. I think I empathize and understand the fear that rape victims experience. So would I be considered threatening? Would it make a difference if I state that I've had my surgery?

I wasn't sure what my point was when I started writing this or if I started out with a different point in mind, but now that I'm here, I guess what I'm trying to say is... Nobody knows another person's experiences. I truly would never want to trigger some sort of PTSD in another person. For a long time after my rape, I would not answer the door unless I was expecting someone to come over, I would hide in my bedroom until I was sure whoever was at my door was gone. I think I understand to an extent. But we are all individuals and should be judged only by our own actions and not by the actions of others.

I dunno, that was sort of all over the place. Maybe there was no point. But anyway...

Corey, I think what people find offensive about your comments is a.)Stereotyping trans-women as caricatures of femininity who behave in such a way as to re-enforce sexism. Trans women ? drag performers. To present this as an predominant pattern among the trans community is innacurrate as well as a huge generalization that objectifies and dehumanizes trans women. b.) Referring to trans women as men. They are not men. That's like calling a lesbian a man because of her sexuality.

Other than that, I appreciate the opinions you bring to the table about sexism, the politics of individuality, gender and patriarchy. I certainly don't believe you should be censored because we don't hold the same gender metaphysics. Though I and others may disagree with you on some points, I think we all have the same ends in mind.

I've already explained why the word "discrimination" is a misleading way to describe women trying to create safe, women-only spaces. Women as a group don't have power over MTF trans folks.

From Merriam-Webster:
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discrimination)

1 a: the act of discriminating b: the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently

2: the quality or power of finely distinguishing

3 a: the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually b: prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment

Is the management of MWMF causing widespread discrimination among transwomen? No. Are they discriminating against transwomen? According to the definition of "discriminating", yes.

I didn't say transwomen are the "purveyors of male violence." I said disrobing when one has a penis around women while being conscious of the women-only policy of the festival is insensitive and a form of sexual harassment.

That's from two different statements. First, you said:

"In the words of Karla Mantilla of Off Our Backs, the policy is about "women trying for just one week in one remote corner of the United States to feel completely safe from male violence." And the minute women do this, they are told they are discriminating."

If transwomen aren't purveyors of male violence in your opinion, then why would transwomen be excluded according to this justification?

Then, you later said:

"Men exposing themselves to women, outside the context of consent and a heterosexual relationship, is clearly a form of sexual harassment. When MTFs disrobed in from of other women, knowing it was designed to be a womyn-only space, this is a form of sexual harassment."

From what I've read, this was a single incident. Not all transwomen have penises, not all are disrobing in front of everyone else. But, in this situation, yes, it's possible it was sexual harassment. In my opinion it's something that should be handled on a case-by-case basis. Would a single woman sexually harassing another woman at the event be cause to ban all women with her particular qualities (race, religion, etc.)?

Where are these "strawman" examples you all keep referring to? Also, why is Mantilla wrong?

You cited an example of Mantilla comparing a white person attempting to become a black person as the same as a biological male attempting to become a female. She attacked the former argument by stating how silly it would be (wrongly, I might add) and then proceeded to say the same was true for transwomen, thus making her point.

While there are similarities between the two arguments, something that's usually a pretty important part of a strawman, they are not the same, and refuting one (which she didn't do successfully) does not automatically refute the other.

"Mantilla does a good job of deconstructing this "such-and-such is part of my identity, therefore you can't criticize it" tactic."

And who is Mantilla to say who I am and who I'm not? I don't question your identity, nor would I question hers, but neither of you speak for me. She can "deconstruct" it all she wants, but it doesn't make her right.

I'm not telling trans people that clamor to be in the Festival what they can and can't do. I'm simply saying that their actions, while understandable, are insensitive and are reinforcing sexism.

And we disagree, but I think your posts here on this subject are insensitive and reinforcing sexism. I'm curious, though. In this instance, how does one woman reinforce sexism with other women?

You're right. Not all women have the same experiences and not all people of color have the same experiences. But again, there are patterns to the stories that women have told about being women in a patriarchal society. And there are patterns to the stories that people of color have told about being of color in a white-supremacist culture. We can't dismiss these patterns simply because not every single woman or person of color fits into them. I think most feminists would agree that rape is a gendered phenomenon. But does the fact that not all women experience rape mean that there is nothing gendered about it? I don't think so.

And if transwomen have experienced these "patterns" as well, what then? What reason will you devise to dismiss them? The only experiences a cisgender woman may have that a transwoman cannot are menstruation and pregnancy. Not all cisgender women are able to experience those either, though. I'd imagine there are more similarities between the lives of some cisgender women and the lives of transwomen than you'd admit.

I think, yet again, you demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of trans issues, but I get the impression that you really couldn't care less about them.

Mireille, thank you for sharing your story. I've not been through such an experience myself (and hopefully never will), but it sounds like you're making progress and getting everything back together. I wish you all the best.

I love this line from Mantilla's essay:

"How superficial, individualistic, and simplistic it would be for me, as a white american raised by a white family, to come to feel that I was really a black person inside, to change my skin color and other features to begin passing as black, and to demand to enter people of color space! In that case we could clearly see how outrageous such a demand would be. Being black in the United States (and elsewhere) is so much more than a matter of adopting skin color. It is an insult and the mark of privilege to miss that point so entirely.

This situation is exactly analogous to mtfs trying to gain access to Michigan."

Wow, that's an extremely racist analogy. Karla's using black people as political tokens to justify the continued exclusion of trans women from MWMF. It renders trans people of color invisible who may certainly have a different take on this than a white woman. She also paints the process of hormone therapy, electrolysis, and surgery, of changing name and gender on legal documents, of completely changing how the world sees you, as a superficial whim, as if trans women think that becoming a woman is simply a matter of obtaining breasts and a vagina.

Mantilla's point is that being Black in a white-dominated society is about having a particular worldview and life experience IN ADDITION TO having Black skin. Similarly, being a woman in a male-dominated society is about having a particular worldview and life experience IN ADDITION TO having a vulva. Therefore, simply surgically altering one's genitals and wearing a dress doesn't address the issue of how one was socialized. It views gender (and race) as simply about self-presentation rather than about internalized oppression and socialization.

And yet Karla completely ignores what it's like to grow up trans in a cis-dominated society.

Why are we supposed to take her analysis seriously when she refuses to acknowledge the intersections that trans people have to deal with?

Men exposing themselves to women, outside the context of consent and a heterosexual relationship, is clearly a form of sexual harassment. When MTFs disrobed in from of other women, knowing it was designed to be a womyn-only space, this is a form of sexual harassment.

This never happened. Karla's lying through her teeth. A trans man named Tony-Baretto-Neto took a shower on the Land, and was the person whose penis was seen. There was never an instance where trans women disrobed in front of other women.

I only wanted to reply to those two posts. I agree with just about everyone here who's responded to Corey.

Many keep saying my comments are "extremely offensive" without actually explaining what it is that is offensive about them. One commenter said I didn't go about this discussion the "right way" but gave no explanation. I apologize if I have been dismissive of the experiences of trans folks. But in the future, it would help if you would point to specific things I said and explain why those comments are offensive.

How about linking to anti-trans hate speech? How about resorting to racist metaphors to dismiss trans women's lives as women? How about insisting that trans women aren't really women? How about repeating a lie about trans women exposing themselves in the showers at MichFest? How about defending discriminatory policies? How about lecturing trans people on what we should find offensive or prejudiced when you are not trans yourself? How about characterizing women's requiests to be included in women-only space as an "invasion?" How about claiming that cis women have no power over trans people? Own your privilege. How about ignoring everything that's been said to you and claiming that no one has explained why your comments are offensive?

And why do you feel entitled to come into a thread about trans people and make it all about cis people? Isn't that pretty offensive too? Wouldn't you be pissed off if a man came into a thread talking about problems women face and made the thread about men?

If you don't like the policy, that's one thing, but it's quite another to charge women with exaggerating and being insincere about their fears. One in four women will be raped and ALL WOMEN live daily under the threat of rape. Let's not forget that.

It's offensive to imply that this doesn't also happen to trans women.

Wow, Lisa. I think your response was much better written than mine, and it says all I wanted to say. Too bad I didn't wait just a little bit longer before posting and then you could've said it all! :)

Anyhow, I do appreciate the reminder that drag shows are not just part of white middle-class queer culture. Either way, I still think they are harmful.

And why is that?

You know I remember when the PC anti-butch/femme lesbian feminist trashed the women who had the guts along time before Stonewall to live as lesbians because they some how reinforced something or other. Well Corey I never had the luxury of the closet. I was beaten up from the time I entered Kindergarten because I was too girl like. I was out at 13. My friends were working the streets as throwaway kids at 16. I made it through high school.

I'm not some middle classed overly privileged snot who looks down my nose and passes judgement on what people do to survive.

My sex worker sisters be they born female or born trans are the bodies that rapists and murders leave in the alleys.

Drag shows are about queers performing the same exact roles they see the straights performing. Yet I don't see you attacking the normals just those too queer to fit in the educated elite of middle class academic feminism.

Further way back when this all started the old time dykes and femmes were the ones who stood by the trannies because they were getting trashed too.

There was someone way upthread asking about Camp Trans: Here's a pretty good first person account.

---

corey: here's why your analogy doesn't work, not that I expect you to believe me. Women of trans experience are oppressed both as women and as transfolk, just like women of color are oppressed both as women and as people of color, queer women are oppressed on both counts, etc. and in any combination you like. This does not mean that a convention for women is justified in excluding women of color: this is, I hope you'll agree, obviously racist. This is analogous to why it is discriminatory for ciswomen to exclude transwomen from their spaces.

It's not the same situation, but this page, about the trans-inclusion policies for the Lesbian Sex Mafia, addresses several of the points you're trying to make here. I recommend reading it.

As for the notion that ciswomen do not hold power over transwomen: this is entirely laughable. That you think otherwise is just more evidence that you refuse to think of these people as women.

Once, in a restroom, I heard two women standing outside my stall joking about how they should've pulled rank on me and made me wait for them to use the toilet - one of the phrases used was "they're our inferiors; they can't get pregnant."

That they felt comfortable making that kind of joke near me? I think that's a pretty clear sign that they really believed the inferior line.

That's not my only or worst restroom experience, and I've had a few mutual bitch sessions with butch lesbians about restroom policing.

Julie Bindel says this far better than I could

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/01/mytransmission

"There can be no doubt that transsexual people are often targets for abuse and cruelty. Good liberals should find this appalling, and add our voices to those within the transgender rights movement, calling for an end to discrimination towards this community. However, for many years I have felt uncomfortable accepting a diagnosis created by reactionary psychiatrists in the 1950s which claims that it is possible to be born "trapped in the wrong body"."

"Feminists want to rid the world of gender rules and regulations, so how is it possible to support a theory which has at its centre the notion that there is something essential and biological about the way boys and girls behave? As someone who spurned dolls and make-up as a child, I find it deeply troubling that, had I gone to one of the specialist psychiatrists while growing up and explained how I did not feel like a "real girl" (which I did not, because I wanted to be a lesbian), I could be writing this as a trans man."

Ugh, Corey. Will you just go ahead and admit that you don't understand and don't care to understand? That'd save us all a lot of trouble. It's too bad you don't give the same credence to transwomen talking about themselves as you to do ciswomen about talking about transwomen.

"Feminists want to rid the world of gender rules and regulations, so how is it possible to support a theory which has at its centre the notion that there is something essential and biological about the way boys and girls behave?"

There's a difference between ridding the world of gender rules and regulations, and ridding the world of gender. This is akin to saying that, since there's really no difference between white and black people, rather than give black people equal rights, we tell them to start being white.

"As someone who spurned dolls and make-up as a child, I find it deeply troubling that, had I gone to one of the specialist psychiatrists while growing up and explained how I did not feel like a "real girl" (which I did not, because I wanted to be a lesbian), I could be writing this as a trans man."

This is a complete oversimplification of transsexuality, but I've come to expect that from you. I know you didn't write it, but you're posting it as mirroring your thoughts, so you might as well have.

I did not play with dolls and make-up as a child. I've never had one of my therapists or doctors tell me what or who I was, because I'm the one who identified my situation years ago, and I'm the one who has worked to take steps to make it better. Are there doctors who push diagnoses on people? Of course, but this is in no way limited to transsexuality.

But, again, all of these points are made in an effort to justify the discrimination of transwomen and the dismissal of our thoughts, feelings and experiences.

Julie Bindel, by her own admission, is not transgender or transsexual. She's come to the discussion with her mind already made up, and nothing anyone does or says will change her forlorn conclusions. Rather than acknowledge how insensitive and dismissive her remarks are, how the titles of her previous articles are controversial and dismissive before you've even read the article, or how she's so driven by her "feminist beliefs" that she believes she will always be correct, she says that everyone else is the problem. Not her. She needs to own her prejudice and bigotry.

This is from the same article: "My concerns about the increasing acceptance of "transsexuality" as a diagnosis are based upon my feminist belief that it arises from the strong stereotyping of girls and boys into strict gender roles."

Not all transgender persons are the same. There are masculine transwomen, feminine transmen, and all manner in between. I'd say it's likely the same as any other segment of the population.

Anyway. I'm done, because nothing I (or anyone else here) says is going to make Corey open her mind and look at this discussion through our eyes. Interestingly enough, should Corey face discrimination or oppression, I would stand up for her. It's a pity that she doesn't care to do the same for us.

Oh, I remember when Julie's article several years ago raised a stir on a lesbian forum I was reading, and she trolled the discussion with a sockpuppet. I wish I could link that thread now.

"There can be no doubt that transsexual people are often targets for abuse and cruelty. Good liberals should find this appalling, and add our voices to those within the transgender rights movement, calling for an end to discrimination towards this community. However, for many years I have felt uncomfortable accepting a diagnosis created by reactionary psychiatrists in the 1950s which claims that it is possible to be born "trapped in the wrong body"."

Why should she have to accept a diagnosis? She's not trans. She doesn't even have to understand it, because she's not trans. How can she even be expected to explain what being trans is like or not like, when she's not trans?

Psychiatrists didn't create the diagnosis. Modern medicine did not invent the idea of transsexual people. Transsexual women went to doctors. Transsexual people did stuff like take birth control pills and go to surgeons claiming to be intersex so they could have surgery done. Harry Benjamin tried to understand and then help these people.

"Feminists want to rid the world of gender rules and regulations, so how is it possible to support a theory which has at its centre the notion that there is something essential and biological about the way boys and girls behave? As someone who spurned dolls and make-up as a child, I find it deeply troubling that, had I gone to one of the specialist psychiatrists while growing up and explained how I did not feel like a "real girl" (which I did not, because I wanted to be a lesbian), I could be writing this as a trans man."

This is a horrible simplification. Transsexualism is not about behavior. Julie Bindel's framing it as who plays with dolls and who doesn't is downright ignorant.

Psychiatrists do not typically try to push patients into trans diagnoses. A patient doesn't come in and say "I play with dolls and hate sports" and get a response from a psychiatrist like "That means you're transsexual. Now take these hormones and we'll schedule you for surgery next week."

The way it happens in the real world, away from people who are inexplicably invested with concern trolling trans people, is this:

Trans people go see a psychiatrist, or their doctor, or someone, and say "I really feel that my body is the wrong sex." And that's where it all starts. Most trans people are self-diagnosed. They come in knowing exactly what's wrong and what they want to do to correct it. In response, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and surgeons have established basic guidelines (standards of care) that are followed more or less.

And the gender thing? Just some things to keep in mind:

* Gender roles, which are social constructs, don't have anything specifically to do with being trans. People don't decide to change sex because they have an interest or personality trait that is traditionally seen as belonging to the other sex (and of course such distinctions are social).

* Trans people are dealing with an internal sense that the body is the wrong shape. That it is specifically the wrong sex.

* No treatment has ever successfully removed this internal sense. No psychotherapy, no ECT, no bloody Nazi torture,

* The only successful treatment for trans people who go to their doctors and say "My body is the wrong sex" (note that this is not "I'm trapped in the wrong body") so far has been hormones and surgery.

Nothing about us without us, please. Cis people have constantly tried to speak for us, to tell us what we really think, who we really are, what our motivations for transition must be because those cis people do not understand why we do what we do, but they do not accept the fact that they cannot immediately judge people who are not like them on the basis of one data point.

Anyone who ignores trans voices, who tries to call trans people liars, who insists on describing what a trans person's lived reality and experiences are, has no business talking about trans people.

Would you accept a man's description of what life for women is like? Especially if it's riddled with sexist misconceptions and denials that sexism, misogyny, rape, and violence are really problems that women have to deal with?

I know how I've reacted when men have done that to me. It's exactly the same way when cis people like you do that to me - I don't take it quietly.

I think one thing that bothers me is the way transgendering is held up as radical and revolutionary simply b/c it challenges the way we think about sex and gender.

I just want to add that to an extent, all of us are transgendered in that none of us can conform to the ideal image of femininity and masculinity that are held up by many of us, particularly the media. None of us is perfectly masculine and none of us is perfectly feminine. We all 'fail' in that respect and in that sense we're all transgendered. This is not to say there aren't trangendered people out there who face discrimination and oppression daily. But if we recognize that gender is an inequality rather than just a difference, then getting rid of gender itself would be more revolutionary than encouraging people to pick among the genders. Feminism is not about giving people the freedom to pick whatever gender they want. Why should we prescribe actions and behaviors to people with certian bodies? I get worried when academics and activists spend so much time discussing performativity, the possibility of multiple genders, and ways transgendering and crossdressing (before you get all up in arms--Im not equating these two) challenge gender studies and how we can create art and literature exploring genderbending, etc. etc. etc. What ever happened to the radical stuff--analyzing gender as an inequality? What ever happened to changing social structures such that people can be happy and healthy in the bodies they're born with? What ever happened to the dreams feminists had of one day no longer having gender and its shackles?

It just seems to me that at base, trans is about not getting rid of gender. It seems to be about maintaining masculinity and femininity, when you cut to the chase. While I'm no authority on the issue, I have yet to see trans organizations or really any trans theorists and activists calling for an abolition of gender itself. I hope I'm wrong.

People have already explained why the policy at MichFest is transphobic and I agree. I wanted to touch on this:

"In the past, I have volunteered at both a rape crisis center and a domestic violence shelter. I saw rape victims, victims of sexual harassment, and women who'd been beaten and emotionally abused. I remember many of the women saying that a lot of things triggered their memory of the assault--things they associated with their assault(s)."

First, I don't know your own personal background with rape and abuse, corey. Taking just this statement, it always sounds to me like a "Well, I don't have experience with this but my friend..." or "but my friends are black/gay/etc argument." I am a survivor of five years of DV which included numerous atrocities to my person and I sometimes get really tired that OTHER people are speaking for me and about my experiences when they haven't experienced them themselves. We can learn from each other but it's different when you've actually experience something. There are some great essays out there about "non-survivors privilege." I think it's presumptuous to speak for the women at MichFest, and survivors, by using fictional possibilities that further try to justify transphobia.

What ever happened to changing social structures such that people can be happy and healthy in the bodies they're born with?
It just seems to me that at base, trans is about not getting rid of gender. It seems to be about maintaining masculinity and femininity, when you cut to the chase.

but but but

The Mich Fest rules conform to the same set of expectations you describe here.

Also, you seem to have a mishmash of views about whether gender is innate, where it resides and what it means, and you express a strong preference for cis people. When challenged, you jump immediately to the recourse of "well it's all patriarchy anyway".

Personally, I don't want an end to gender - partly because that's more or less impossible - but I'd like to see equality between men, women and genderqueers, whatever their gender at birth.

But back to your arguments: Rather than end gender, you seem dedicated to its entrenchment in the fabric of society; not only putting barricades between men and women, but cis folk and transfolk on both 'sides'.

If gender cannot be authentically transgressed, then how can it ever be authentically transformed?

I attended Camp Trans - and Kristopher's account is great, though he arrived after the line walking and the vigil, so I can give more specific information about those.

As he said, line walking went really well. Each group covered about a fifty car section of the line, and my group talked to maybe three women who were for the expectation that trans women not attend Fest. And all of them were very polite, and just said they didn't want to talk about it. None of them seemed like they would make trans women unsafe, even as much as they did not want trans women to be there.

All the other women we talked to either didn't care - they were just on their vacation, and it didn't matter to them whether trans women were there or not, or they were strongly pro-inclusion.

The vigil went incredibly well, we sat around with a guitar being passed around early on, so that Festies would head over because we're fun to be around (us Camp Trans folk are a ton of fun!), and then there was a mix of musical performances and spoken word on the inclusion issue once we had a bunch of Festies in attendance as well.

All the Festies who showed up to the vigil were strong allies, and half way through, we broke up into groups each with a few Camp Trans folk who had volunteered to facilitate conversations about Camp Trans myths. Those went very well, as myself and other Camp Trans folk who have been to Camp Trans year after year facilitated a conversation at Camp before the vigil about Camp Trans' history. One of the myths we covered, that seems to have come up in this comment thread, is the idea that a trans woman forcibly exposed herself in the showers. Beyond any totally busted judgment of women's bodies that goes with a pre-op trans woman being singled out for showering (and the transphobia of has similar threads with ablist, fatphobic, racist, etc. judgment of women's bodies)...it didn't happen.

What happened, in 1999, is that Tony Barreto-Neto, a post-phalloplasty trans man, used a public shower at Michfest. He first explained the situation, and when everyone said that it was ok, he disrobed and showered. It only became an incident after the fact. Do I agree with his actions? No, because he identifies as a man, he shouldn't have been at Fest. (Camp Trans supports women's space including all women, not supporting trans men's access to women's space - and there are a lot of trans men at Fest, and trans masculine people need to know when they need to excuse themselves from women's space).

So we covered myths like the shower incident, what CT currently supports, the fact that we don't want to destroy fest - we support Fest and we haven't had a boycott in several years. Basically, we see ourselves as working to help improve the culture of Michfest to make it a safer, more inclusive space for all women, because we believe that including all women in women's space makes that space better for all women.

Several of the Festies from the vigil later ended up getting heavily involved with Camp Trans.

We also managed to raise money to send several trans women on the land (including donations from Festies for that purpose), and several Camp Trans attendees who identify as trans women also bought admission late in the week with their own funds. Many outted themselves right when buying tickets, and were welcomed and told there was absolutely no problem. All had incredibly positive experiences on the Land, and on Sunday, we did a workshop on the Land about how gender-inclusive ENDA affects non-trans women as well (Fest, being a place that has always honored the womanhood of all cissexual women - and is now becoming a place that is starting to honor the womanhood of all women - has many women whose gender expression and bodies do not conform to patriarchal standards - and they need gender inclusive ENDA too, so it is a place to build alliances).

As someone who stayed outside Fest, I interacted with a lot of Festies who came to Camp, in addition to line walking and the vigil. My experiences were overwhelming positive.

The culture at MWMF is changing rapidly. From all reports, and all the women I talked to, it's a safe place for trans women. Yes, the Michfest forums are nasty, but that is a tiny vocal minority - who are not going to use the same vitriol on the Land, because that goes against everything Michfest is about.

So I would say at this point, if cis women who want to stand in solidarity with trans women want to go to Fest, do so. Visit Camp Trans. Make it known that you are an ally to trans women. Call out transphobia. Michfest attendance keeps going down - I see it in the line every year - and now that the culture has changed so much, all the CT folk who attended said it is becoming the wonderful place it should be. And none of us, trans women and those of us who stand in solidarity to trans women at Camp Trans, want to see that space become smaller, or vanish - we want to help make it bigger, better and more inclusive.

Just out of curiosity, am I the only one here who sees the abolishing of gender as a means to gender equality about as silly as the abolishing of race as a means to racial equality?

I mean, seriously, it's like saying, "As soon as you quit being you, I'll stop discriminating against you. Fair enough, eh?"

Does anyone have a bingo card?

I think one thing that bothers me is the way transgendering is held up as radical and revolutionary simply b/c it challenges the way we think about sex and gender.

It's not held up as radical and revolutionary simply because it challenges the way we think about sex and gender.

I just want to add that to an extent, all of us are transgendered in that none of us can conform to the ideal image of femininity and masculinity that are held up by many of us, particularly the media. None of us is perfectly masculine and none of us is perfectly feminine.

No, you're not. You're not a transgender person because no one conforms to ideal images masculinity or femininity. You're not a transgender person no matter how much you conform to ideal images masculinity or femininity.

Trans isn't about masculinity and femininity, it is the unshakeable, ineradicable sense that the body is the wrong sex. Do not confuse male and female for masculine and feminine. You're appropriating a trans identity for your own ends, to dilute its meaning so that it means nothing at all. You're claiming something that simply isn't yours to claim.

This is not to say there aren't trangendered people out there who face discrimination and oppression daily. But if we recognize that gender is an inequality rather than just a difference, then getting rid of gender itself would be more revolutionary than encouraging people to pick among the genders.

Trans people are not here to carry your revolutionary banner. Trans people are not walking life lessons. Trans people are not metaphors that exist for the convenience of making rhetorical points. Trans people are here trying to live our lives. If you want to get rid of gender so much, go get rid of it. Live a genderless life, set an example. Don't demand it of people who have no stake in it. Trans people are not required to be revolutionary by virtue of having a medical condition.

Feminism is not about giving people the freedom to pick whatever gender they want.

Oh, right, bodily autonomy only counts for women who want to choose whether or not to carry a baby to term or abort it while it's still a fetus. Everyone else should have no right to self-determination?

That's a pretty sucky take on feminism. I want no part of a feminism that dictates what my life should be.

Why should we prescribe actions and behaviors to people with certian bodies? I get worried when academics and activists spend so much time discussing performativity, the possibility of multiple genders, and ways transgendering and crossdressing (before you get all up in arms--Im not equating these two) challenge gender studies and how we can create art and literature exploring genderbending, etc. etc. etc.

Didn't I just debunk the idea that being trans has anything at all to do with prescribing actions and behaviors to people with certain bodies?

* Gender roles, which are social constructs, don't have anything specifically to do with being trans. People don't decide to change sex because they have an interest or personality trait that is traditionally seen as belonging to the other sex (and of course such distinctions are social).

Yes, it looks like I did.

What ever happened to the radical stuff--analyzing gender as an inequality? What ever happened to changing social structures such that people can be happy and healthy in the bodies they're born with? What ever happened to the dreams feminists had of one day no longer having gender and its shackles?

The assumption that trans people will be happy and healthy in "the bodies we're born with" if only we could eliminate gender is pretty privileged of you.

It's also nonsensical. I still have the same body I was born with. All living trans people, no matter whether they're just starting or have had all the surgeries and procedures and hormones, have the same body they were born with. We don't get to trade in for new bodies.

By eliminating the option to change sex, you won't liberate anyone - but you will drive a lot of people to suicide.

And you seem to want a world where gender doesn't exist, and you seem to demand that trans people live in that idealized genderless world where you assume that we won't want to change sex because for some reason you can't stop conflating male with man and masculinity, and female with woman and femininity. You seem to think in some way that wanting to be female is exactly the same thing as wanting to be feminine, which is utter tripe.

But anyway, you want trans people to pioneer and live in this idealized world while the remaining 6 billion or so cis people who comprise the majority of the Earth's population, who reinforce the gender binary just by existing in their never-changing-their-sex ways, get a free pass on continuing to maintain the gender binary.

What makes you think you're entitled to make that kind of demand to people whom you know nothing about and have little in common with? What makes you think that declaring feminist theory gives you the authority to demand that anyone live a miserable life just to satisfy your political impulses? Why do you think people have no right to live the life they're most comfortable with as long as they're not harming anyone?

The answer to that, of course, is your cis privilege. You think, because you're the norm and trans people are the other that you have the right to tell us how to live our lives, dictate to us what should be allowable, and describe building a world where you believe we'll cease to exist.

What good scientists do when they realize reality doesn't conform to their theory is alter their theory. What bad scientists do when they realize reality doesn't conform to their theory is to try to discount the examples that disprove their theory. Corey, perhaps it's time to alter your theory.

This report has some interesting things to say about not excluding trans women from women-only spaces:

Re/Defining Gender and Sex: Educating for Trans, Transsexual, and Intersex Access and Inclusion to Sexual Assault Centres and Transition Houses

Allie commented at August 13, 2008 8:53 PM: "1) You've defended discrimination when women (who are oppressed and experience discrimination themselves) are doing it."

Yeah, it's like the way some people defend discrimination when some victims of racism, Islamophobia, etc. are sexist, homophobic, etc. themselves.

Discrimination against someone without cissexual privilege sucks even when the bigot doesn't have male privilege, discrimination against someone without male privilege sucks even when the bigot doesn't have white privilege, etc.

Xana,

Thanks for posting that about surviving domestic violence and how in these arguments so many women are quick to speak for survivors.

I say this as also being a survivor of five years of domestic violence.

Gauge,

I'm sorry I missed your post - we must have crossed in posting. Has there ever been a year when a majority of cis women Festies have supported exclusion?

Lisa - great posts, thank you.
here's the bindel thread you mention.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/01/mytransmission
Was the sockpuppet billplasterer?

I post on CiF reasonably frequently. billplasterer is someone else entirely - a bit of an 'anti-misandry' nut.

He likes to post on teh feminist threads, gives him a thrill to wave his misogyny around in public.

No, this happened on Technodyke.

What happened was that Julie Bindel's infamous article from 2004 went up, and someone posted to the Technodyke forum about it, and people from TD started writing letters to the Guardian's editor.

So people are talking about this article and the response to the letter writing that was going on, and a mysterious new poster shows up and sends PMs to some of the posters in the Bindel thread, gets called out, posts in the thread defending Julie, and then is called out again and admits she's Julie.

AThere's a summary of the whole thing here:

It's gratifying to know that there's a lot of support and goodwill towards trans people out in the ether, and that view like Bindel's can inspire such outrage. But Bindel herself remains unrepentant. She's been pestering people who disagree with her with private messages on www.Technodyke.com, posting bile under an assumed screen name and behaving so ungraciously that the site owner banned her. She's pulled the "some of my best friends are transgendered" line, which has been met with an angry response from the trans women she's named, who are livid about her article. Despite overwhelming evidence from the world in general and her own community that she's overstepped her mark, Bindel is one of those dykes who knows that she is always right

I don't know anything about Charlotte Cooper, but since the Technodyke forum was taken down earlier this year, that's the only reference I can find to the whole mess.

“Trans isn't about masculinity and femininity, it is the unshakeable, ineradicable sense that the body is the wrong sex.”

Unshakeable? Ineradicable? In other words, trans people are chronically ill and there’s no hope for them, right? Who’s really being insulting and offensive here? And one’s sex is inextricably linked to gender. The only reason one could have for saying, “I feel that I really am supposed to have a vulva/penis” is because of the social meanings GIVEN TO those genitalia. It’s really hard to tease apart sex and gender—because sex is largely given meaning by gender. Anne Fausto-Sterling and Judith Shapiro have really great readings on sex and gender.

“You're appropriating a trans identity for your own ends, to dilute its meaning so that it means nothing at all. You're claiming something that simply isn't yours to claim.”

No I’m not—which is why I said, “to an extent...” And I’ll rephrase to make myself clearer. To the extent that my genitals (vulva or penis) do not match the social expectations for people who have the same genitals I do (and none of us match perfectly)—to that extent, I am transgendered. This would actually be a radical way to conceive of trans—while also recognizing that there exists a category of people who experience oppression and violence because of passing/trying to pass as another sex.

“Everyone else should have no right to self-determination? That's a pretty sucky take on feminism. I want no part of a feminism that dictates what my life should be.”

Feminism is and has always been about ending male domination—which by necessity means getting rid of the gender system. So any attempts at maintaining or preserving our gender system of male/female, dominant/subordinate, power/powerlessness are not feminist and are not in the interests of women. And feminists would not support doing any and everything simply because that you freely chose to do that. Such a politics would be meaningless. It’s about determining whether certain practices and behaviors challenge or reinforce male domination.

“People don't decide to change sex because they have an interest or personality trait that is traditionally seen as belonging to the other sex”

So then what is it? If transwomen grow up wishing they had a vulva for no other reason than that it felt correct for them, why would that be? If they never had a vulva before surgically creating one, how would they know it felt “correct for them”? Hmm, well it probably has to do with the social meanings we give to vulvas and female bodies in our culture, which is what we call “gender.”

“By eliminating the option to change sex, you won't liberate anyone - but you will drive a lot of people to suicide.”

I never said people should be barred from having sex changes. I only question what it ends up reinforcing. Julie Bindel might object to their being performed, I’m not sure. But merely because I quoted her doesn’t by extension mean I agree with everything she believes or has said. If I am right that a desire to live as another sex has to do with the meanings we give to the sexes (what we call 'gender') in our patriarchal culture—then I think a better solution (long term, obviously) than surgeries is not assigning any particular social meaning to any sex. That way we can be happy and healthy in our bodies as they are.

And for the record, as long as people live as men and women (trans or not), those people are all reinforcing gender. Let’s not pretend like only trans people are reinforcing gender. We all are.

and calling trans a "medical problem" reinforces the idea that it's just an individual psychological problem--which is what caused the APA to consider it pathological and label it "gender identity disorder" or "gender dysphoria"--can't remember which one--in the DSM-IV.

It's clearly NOT an individual thing. It's a social/cultural thing with social/cultural causes.

And I agree that people who've never experienced domestic violence or rape and speak on behalf of those who have, have in the past done harm to victims by mis-representing and using their words against them. But I'm clearly not doing that. Futhermore, the phenomenon of Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have been documented, researched and are considered real, legitimate, and very serious conditions. So I'm not making using "fictional possibilities" to justify the policy at the festival. THIS IS REAL, folks. And to deny that RTS and PTSD are silly and unjustified reasons to want a safe-space at the festival is highly insensitive. I suggest many of you should read up on these two conditions, even if you are a victim.

Here's a link with a good intro to RTS and having trauma re-triggered by certain stimuli:
http://www.rapevictimadvocates.org/trauma.html

And that's the other thing--being a victim, while giving you a great deal of authority and perspective on this issue, doesn't give you the right to dismiss other victims' accounts and experiences simply because your experience was different. To do so is in the deepest traditions of patriarchy and the silencing of women. It's an old and highly effective tactic used by men (and some women) against women for years.

Unshakeable? Ineradicable? In other words, trans people are chronically ill and there’s no hope for them, right? Who’s really being insulting and offensive here? And one’s sex is inextricably linked to gender. The only reason one could have for saying, “I feel that I really am supposed to have a vulva/penis” is because of the social meanings GIVEN TO those genitalia. It’s really hard to tease apart sex and gender—because sex is largely given meaning by gender. Anne Fausto-Sterling and Judith Shapiro have really great readings on sex and gender.

You're being insulting and offensive here - you're characterizing the simply fact that being trans isn't changeable as "chronically ill." How do you even leap to that conclusion? Do you consider that your sense of yourself as female is easily changeable? That you might wake up tomorrow thinking that you should be male instead? That it's even remotely likely that you'll start wanting to remove your breasts and have a penis?

And what makes you think you have any insight as to why trans people want to change their anatomy? You're not trans, you've never been trans. You're making assertions based on your own assumptions, not on lived experiences. I've lived with the fact that I grew up trans my entire life - you're reading second-hand biased accounts and valuing them above what actual trans people have to say about ourselves. Of the two of us, you aren't even in the same country as "authority on the subject."

No I’m not—which is why I said, “to an extent...” And I’ll rephrase to make myself clearer. To the extent that my genitals (vulva or penis) do not match the social expectations for people who have the same genitals I do (and none of us match perfectly)—to that extent, I am transgendered. This would actually be a radical way to conceive of trans—while also recognizing that there exists a category of people who experience oppression and violence because of passing/trying to pass as another sex.

No, you're not. You're appropriating "trans" as a label in order to dilute it, trying to claim that transitioning is entirely about social expectations defining biology, when it is the other way around.

You're not transgendered, you will never be transgendered. You're claiming something that doesn't belong to you, trying to steal a definition that has no relevance to your life. There is no way it is acceptable or reasonable for you to claim to be trans in any context. You're not, you've made that clear.

You're also assuming that all trans people want to change their genitals, that the entire focus of transitioning is getting that one surgery, and everything else is about fitting in as the gender that matches the new genitalia, but that perspective is wrong in so many ways.

Feminism is and has always been about ending male domination—which by necessity means getting rid of the gender system. So any attempts at maintaining or preserving our gender system of male/female, dominant/subordinate, power/powerlessness are not feminist and are not in the interests of women. And feminists would not support doing any and everything simply because that you freely chose to do that. Such a politics would be meaningless. It’s about determining whether certain practices and behaviors challenge or reinforce male domination.

Right. Freedom of choice only applies to some women. Biology is not destiny only applies to some women, and you get to be the gatekeeper that decides who has freedom of self-determination, and who needs to be stopped because you ignorantly label what they're doing as reinforcing male domination.

The best you can come up with as to how transitioning reinforces male domination is that it reifies the gender binary, but then there are 6 billion people who will never transition who reify the gender binary just by breathing. You need a much more substantial argument than what you have here, and there's no way for you to construct one. Everything you've said about trans people so far is based on false premises and outright lies.

So then what is it? If transwomen grow up wishing they had a vulva for no other reason than that it felt correct for them, why would that be? If they never had a vulva before surgically creating one, how would they know it felt “correct for them”? Hmm, well it probably has to do with the social meanings we give to vulvas and female bodies in our culture, which is what we call “gender.”

Sorry, you have no right to interrogate any trans person about her relationship to her body. Especially not about her relationship to her genitals.

I never said people should be barred from having sex changes. I only question what it ends up reinforcing. Julie Bindel might object to their being performed, I’m not sure. But merely because I quoted her doesn’t by extension mean I agree with everything she believes or has said. If I am right that a desire to live as another sex has to do with the meanings we give to the sexes (what we call 'gender') in our patriarchal culture—then I think a better solution (long term, obviously) than surgeries is not assigning any particular social meaning to any sex. That way we can be happy and healthy in our bodies as they are.

That's a huge, patronizing, privileged assumption to make. You're not trans, you don't have any clue what being trans is like. You weren't raised trans, you weren't born trans. You have no idea. You think, in your narrow, parochial worldview about sex and gender that some utopia where no particular social meaning is assigned to either sex that trans people would have no desire to transition, but you're putting the cart before the horse - transitioning shouldn't even be on your radar if you want to smash the gender binary and remove all social messages from both sexes. If you can smash the binary and it turns out trans people no longer want to transition? Fine. If it turns out that trans people still want to transition? Fine. It is 100% irrelevant now, and arguing that we should want to support smashing the gender binary because in an ideal world we would be entirely different people is not the way to be convincing.

And yes, I consider removing my sense of being female, my sense that my body was wrong before I transitioned, would be the same as making me into a different person.

and calling trans a "medical problem" reinforces the idea that it's just an individual psychological problem--which is what caused the APA to consider it pathological and label it "gender identity disorder" or "gender dysphoria"--can't remember which one--in the DSM-IV.

It's clearly NOT an individual thing. It's a social/cultural thing with social/cultural causes.

No, it's not. It has a medical solution. While it has social ramifications (changing one's role in society has social ramifications), that doesn't mean that the causes of trans people being trans are social/cultural. That assumption is based on your prejudice - your cissexual assumptions, believes, and attitudes toward who and what trans people really are and really should be, and none of this is based in the least on what trans people have to say about ourselves, our lives, our experiences.

I've debunked the idea of basing safe space on excluding trans women here.

I like this quote, though:

“…one of the biggest implications that we have seen… is women’s reluctance to include trans women in [women-only] spaces and racism, and white supremacy; the connection between those things… There was this time when I was at this conferance and… there was a trans woman in the room for awhile and finally she had to leave and somebody said “I just want to say I feel unsafe because there’s a penis in the room, and I just want to know how in a women’s only space, how we’re supposed to talk about that, blah, blah, blah…..” And so it made an opportunity to talk with this woman, which I was able to say just a little in that group, and then also meet with her and talk with her more at length about the problems of locating sexual violence in an organ such as a penis, and talking about white skin as an organ that represents lynching and systematic oppression of people of color and all kinds of violences; I mean if we’re going to be locating violence and oppression in an organ, none of the white women in that space seemed to have any problem with their white skin showing in that space, and the trans person that was there, it was really speculation on this person’s part that there was a penis in the room.

It was just absurd… the way that she was bringing that question to the group and what she was able to bring, the power behind it was that she was a survivor of sexual abuse. And so being able to really look at this piece of - white women in particular’s - just incredible resistance to including trans folks and trans women in women-only spaces I think, really reflects an investment in the binaries between men and women, and that we maintain sexism as the primary oppression that can exist in the world so then white women remain not responsible for their participation in creating, and implementing, and designing, and sustaining, and benefiting from white supremacy and racism, and imperialism.

And if you're wondering why I keep emphasizing that you're not trans, it's because you are in no way trans. Not fitting perfectly into the ideal of "man" or "woman" is not the definition of trans. It has nothing to do with being trans, and I can't even begin to explain how deeply offensive it is to have you - a cis woman - sit there and lecture me - a trans woman - on how your lack of female perfection grants you some kind of honorary trans status.

You are not trans, and your appropriation of trans to describe your life as trans so you can justify your deeply ignorant generalizations about trans people and our motivations for transitioning, so you can casually support the gender binary that you insist you want to destroy by telling us that we're wrong for changing sex.

Sorry, we're not your sociological theory. We're not your science experiments. We're people who have to live with who we are, same as you. If you give one damn about trans people, you'd be better off shutting the hell up, sitting the hell down, and actually trying to learn what trans people say about ourselves, who we are, learning what cis privilege is and how your cissexual slip is showing throughout this discussion. Learn how your uninformed attitudes contribute to the systemic and violent oppression perpetrated upon trans people.

Until then, there is no dialogue. There is only you framing trans people as dupes of the patriarchy, as trans women being inherently triggering to cis women (and ignoring all the various ways that privilege and oppression play out in feminism from spaces like MWMF to domestic violence and rape shelters, because you can panicmonger about the possibility of the penis among us) and the rest of you saying, "Damn, Corey, we are trans people and you have no idea what you're talking about."

So, please, take your gender theory that insists we shouldn't exist, and find something else to do with it that doesn't involve educating our poor, ignorant, gendersick asses about how we're doing it wrong.

And your justification that possible triggers makes cis women's comfort more important than trans women's safety? Do something else with that, too. If you can't start checking your privilege, you're better off not trying to talk to us pathetic genderslaves.

jessica, I want to not only thank you for posting this video clip, but for also being one of the more supporting of transwoman feminists. personally, I don't live in michigan and can't afford to go to something which costs over $200[plus plane fare,etc.], even if they let me attend. but I was all for the ACLU when they took on the festival's organizers. I'm a transsexual woman and , thinking back long before my transition/legal name/gender on license change; can't really remember a time when the men I hung out with, trying, but failing miserably; did not harrass me. as a kid, I was never good at team sports, nor really cared for all those " roughhouse" games such as king of the mountain/war. later on in high school and beyond, I spent my life being teased, called " faggot, queer,fairy",by the guys; yet at the same time- though being sexually attracted to women- I found it impossible to relate to them! those macho guys would pick up on little clues; such as how I stood with my legs "crossed like a girl", or " talked too much about my bad feelings like their girlfriends and wives". many nights sitting home alone and smoking pot at ages 15-18; I would fantasize about having a vagina and being born female! this to the point of actually wearing a towel " skirt" upon my waist, studying the female anatomy; then sitting down in the bathroom and playing " girl". in fact, not to sound like a pervert- but I was fascinated by the sound of a women peeing in the bathroom; often " secretly listening" yet, from age 13 on, I was ASHAMED of "having to stand and be a boy"[ when sitting, I felt comfortable- but couldn't do this in public out of fear of " what men would think"!] at work, I was constantly expected to be strong and do all the physically heavy lifting- all which was based upon my biologically " male" body. when it came to dating women; they seemed to expect me to be like the other guys- as in that " respectful gentleman, well-dressed and polite with the stupid roses; yet macho and confident! about being on the outside looking in? I used to think that " gentlemen" whom played that "romantic shit" were all phonies and just wanted her pussy! all because , when she wasn't around, they'd talk about how great she was in bed, or, usually; how badly they wanted to fuck her. I saw this as a double standard! as a result, I grew to " hate" heterosexual women-especially the so called " pretty" girls whom "all seemed to be looking for mr. confident, sucessful school jock turned businessman. yet, for some weird reason, butch lesbians turned me on; both sexually and romantically. unable to figure out what was wrong with me, I dated a few gay men ; of course bi-curious and wondering if I was gay. on one hand, here I was so angry at hetero women in general because they rejected me as not being " male" and " professional,sensitive, yet confident gentleman". yet, going to many 12 step groups like CODA/emotions anonymous- seeing how I, like so many bio-women, felt a need to share about my problems something inside me. this being 1989, right about that time I began to " play girl" in the restrooms at many meetings,etc.; often going out of my way to avoid places which did NOT have unisex restrooms. a bisexual-gay man I dated then had told me " something about being a closet transexual as the reason I did this; but not till some 13 years later[2002]; did I discover I was "TRANSGENDER" two years later, I " came out" publicly after observing how "real men"[ college frat boys and successful yuppie-guys] dated,related,acted in some single's bar. less than 2 years later, I decided to go on hormones and " figure out what kind of woman I would become." while not exactly happy 100% of the time; as well as not being all that " passable" as traditionally-feminine woman- I have absolutely NO regrets about what I did. I'm still basically "umemployable" as I always was; this because I could never even half live up to what was " expected of me as[ physical]man"; but at least trying to develop an ebay store business toward profiting. I never can say that I felt " superior" in the workplace, or life; as I never became the " father/career-man" that a number of other transwomen I've met became. in fact I always felt that I made $0.40 of the man's dollar- this when I could even hold down a steady, blue collar job! while still not liking all women[ especially the more traditional hetero ones whom seem to discriminate/fear my presense]; I can't say I " hate" women anymore! in fact I find lesbian-feminists, and femmy-butch women; to be highly attractive- seeing myself as a transsexual-lesbian with the " wrong parts for the RIGHT JOB" I joined NOW and subscribe/read Ms. and Bitch; even campaigned for hillary after gloria steinhem[ a woman I always respected both before and after], endorsed her. do I have to fear men like biological women do? YES! in fact I often feel that I have to fear them 10 times as much! they literally laugh at me; and even threaten/intimidate me at times and it's SCARY! the[ straight male] hip-hoppers and ignorant rednecks are the worst! never did I think I'd see those types from a WOMAN'S PERSPECTIVE! as in " dick-brains" :)] so while I grew up " socialized" as the " boy/man" I never would become; and still can't understand why I haven't developed that desire for "fashionable clothing" and " love of shopping/malls"; I now see, and feel, many of the same fears/concerns that any woman does! everything BUT the childbirth/rasing part.

As a trans person (and especially as a trans woman) there is always this feeling like you have to explain your identity, that if you don't show proof that your identity won't be respected. That really sucks and I'm tired of it. We shouldn't have to prove who we are or that our experience of our lives were different than people perceived them to be - and in saying that I'm not denying that I didn't receive male privilege, because I did, but there is a ton of crap there too that gets lost in people's understanding of me and one day I hope people just except that without questioning it so much. Do we have the same pasts as other women? Not really, but women come from all different sorts of backgrounds and environments that I don't think that should exactly disqualify our ability to identify as we do. I think the most important thing that trans people can do today is talk about our present lives, or the experiences we've gathered post transition. People want to talk about our male upbringing like they know what its like to grow up trans, so be it. When I get the chance to speak I'm going to talk about my experiences being a woman and being a transsexual.

corey:

"And that's the other thing--being a victim, while giving you a great deal of authority and perspective on this issue, doesn't give you the right to dismiss other victims' accounts and experiences simply because your experience was different. To do so is in the deepest traditions of patriarchy and the silencing of women. It's an old and highly effective tactic used by men (and some women) against women for years."

I'm not dismissing other victims' accounts and experiences especially because you are creating fictional hypotheses to try and support your transphobic views. "Victims", an offensive word in itself, because many of us prefer the term "survivors", do not need to be patronized and taken care of by coddling people who think that if we see one penis we will suddenly freak out or break down. Did you even consider that many of us who have survived DV and sexual violence have been hurt by women? Not men? Has it even occurred to you that there are many transwomen and transmen who are survivors of violence too? Or do their experiences not matter in favor of cis-women? Of course not.

Way to be extremely offensive by saying that I am engaging in the patriarchy and silencing of women. I am a survivor and yet you do not hear what I am saying.

I am done engaging with you.

holy fuck.

I read every last comment, composing a rebuttal in my head as I went, noting where others had done a better job than I would so I knew what to focus on.

but this?

"This would actually be a radical way to conceive of trans"

No, Corey. YOU do not get to tell people what their lives are "really" like. Because you don't know. And while it's just a fucking theory to you, OTHER PEOPLE LIVE IT. And just as I get pissed off when some dude tries to "educate me" about how sexual harassment "really" is, or takes time out of his day to tell me that "false rape convictions hurt men!!!1!", Trans*people get really pissed off when cisgendered folks try to tell them what their lives are like, or make the whole discussion about ciswomen's concerns. It's called Privilege, and just like all other forms of privilege, you've been trained your whole life NOT to see it. That's why you have to do a little work here, check yourself, and LISTEN to what people are telling you.

and this?

"And one’s sex is inextricably linked to gender. The only reason one could have for saying, “I feel that I really am supposed to have a vulva/penis” is because of the social meanings GIVEN TO those genitalia."

That means you don't get it, you aren't listening, and you have no intention of either listening or getting it. No one gets to tell trans*folks what being trans is. No one gets to say, "I disagree with transgender" because it's as ludicrous as saying "I disagree with blackness" or saying that someone who identifies as "poor" is reifying the capitalist system.

holy fuck.

I read every last comment, composing a rebuttal in my head as I went, noting where others had done a better job than I would so I knew what to focus on.

but this?

"This would actually be a radical way to conceive of trans"

No, Corey. YOU do not get to tell people what their lives are "really" like. Because you don't know. And while it's just a fucking theory to you, OTHER PEOPLE LIVE IT. And just as I get pissed off when some dude tries to "educate me" about how sexual harassment "really" is, or takes time out of his day to tell me that "false rape convictions hurt men!!!1!", Trans*people get really pissed off when cisgendered folks try to tell them what their lives are like, or make the whole discussion about ciswomen's concerns. It's called Privilege, and just like all other forms of privilege, you've been trained your whole life NOT to see it. That's why you have to do a little work here, check yourself, and LISTEN to what people are telling you.

and this?

"And one’s sex is inextricably linked to gender. The only reason one could have for saying, “I feel that I really am supposed to have a vulva/penis” is because of the social meanings GIVEN TO those genitalia."

That means you don't get it, you aren't listening, and you have no intention of either listening or getting it. No one gets to tell trans*folks what being trans is. No one gets to say, "I disagree with transgender" because it's as ludicrous as saying "I disagree with blackness" or saying that someone who identifies as "poor" is reifying the capitalist system.