I’m in the midst of a move, and a couple of other pressing things right now, but this really is worth some discussion. Are radical lesbian separatists/feminists an enemy that we should fight with the same veracity as we do the religious right? Your thoughts?
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— Marti Abernathey
Marti Abernathey is the founder and former managing editor of The Transdvocate.
She's been a part of various internet radio ventures such as TSR Live!, The T-Party, and The Radical Trannies, to name a few.
As an advocate she's previously been involved with the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance, Rock Indiana Campaign for Equality, and the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition. She's taken vital roles as a grass roots community organizer in The Indianapolis Tax Day Protest (2003), The Indy Pride HRC Protest (2004), Transgender Day of Remembrance (2004), Indiana's Witch Hunt (2005), and the Rally At The Statehouse (the largest ever GLBT protest in Indiana - 3/2005).
She was a delegate from Indiana to the Democratic National Convention and a member of Barack Obama's LGBT Steering and Policy Committee.
In my ideal world there would be no need for changing sex because there would be no gender binary that says you’re born in the right or wrong body
This is a fallacious statement.
I do not feel that I was born into the wrong body. There is nothing wrong, diseased, or defective with my body. I also do not feel that I was born into a male body. My body has always been a female body – it just has been altered by high levels of testosterone into something that most others see as a male body. So, I guess that makes me a woman-born-woman, eh?
Hence, I am not taking hormones or planning surgury to “change my sex”. I am doing these things because I want to feel more comfortable in my body. My body is my ultimate and most intimate home. I am engaging in a home improvement project.
Sure, I could live in your genderless utopia. But I am still going to take hormones and have surgury, because I have a right to control and alter my body as I see fit, and I have a right to feel happy about the skin within which I live.
Eliminating the gender binary is a (if not the) major concept of radical feminism. Radfems declare their belief in that all the time. And yet, you are very quick to defend women-only space. Well, if you are going to talk the talk of genderless society, then when the hell are you going to walk the walk? You can’t have women-only spaces in a genderless society. You can’t have gendered bathrooms or locker rooms in a genderless society. I would like to see radfems present a consistent message – either you are for separatism, which requires a gender-essentialist viewpoint, or you are for a genderless society, which requires an end to separatism and gendered spaces.
Oh, and when are radfems going to listen to the voices of people of color, poor people, disabled people?
In my ideal world there would be no need for changing sex because there would be no gender binary that says you’re born in the right or wrong body
This is a fallacious statement.
I do not feel that I was born into the wrong body. There is nothing wrong, diseased, or defective with my body. I also do not feel that I was born into a male body. My body has always been a female body – it just has been altered by high levels of testosterone into something that most others see as a male body. So, I guess that makes me a woman-born-woman, eh?
Hence, I am not taking hormones or planning surgury to “change my sex”. I am doing these things because I want to feel more comfortable in my body. My body is my ultimate and most intimate home. I am engaging in a home improvement project.
Sure, I could live in your genderless utopia. But I am still going to take hormones and have surgury, because I have a right to control and alter my body as I see fit, and I have a right to feel happy about the skin within which I live.
Eliminating the gender binary is a (if not the) major concept of radical feminism. Radfems declare their belief in that all the time. And yet, you are very quick to defend women-only space. Well, if you are going to talk the talk of genderless society, then when the hell are you going to walk the walk? You can’t have women-only spaces in a genderless society. You can’t have gendered bathrooms or locker rooms in a genderless society. I would like to see radfems present a consistent message – either you are for separatism, which requires a gender-essentialist viewpoint, or you are for a genderless society, which requires an end to separatism and gendered spaces.
Oh, and when are radfems going to listen to the voices of people of color, poor people, disabled people?
“In my ideal world there would be no need for changing sex because there would be no gender binary that says you’re born in the right or wrong body.”
I find this trope inane, ignorant and verging on the kind of essentialist bigotry that colours radical separatist feminism, yet curiously it appears on first glance to be aligned with the kind of performative gender of Butler. Pretty much anyone who thinks this is avalid statement has no understanding of transsexuality.
I was talking to a friend last night about my mental conception of my body, both in my work where my body is my career and as a transsexual and the best metaphor I could come up with – with plenty of qualifiers – is that being transsexual is like the phantom limb experience of an amputee.
As a metaphor, the ideal world argument in this case could be read thus: “In an ideal world there would be no need for artificial limbs or assistance for amputees because there would be no disadvantage, discrimination or conception of being in a partial body”
Clearly an asinine statement not even worth discussing, no?
“In my ideal world there would be no need for changing sex because there would be no gender binary that says you’re born in the right or wrong body.”
I find this trope inane, ignorant and verging on the kind of essentialist bigotry that colours radical separatist feminism, yet curiously it appears on first glance to be aligned with the kind of performative gender of Butler. Pretty much anyone who thinks this is avalid statement has no understanding of transsexuality.
I was talking to a friend last night about my mental conception of my body, both in my work where my body is my career and as a transsexual and the best metaphor I could come up with – with plenty of qualifiers – is that being transsexual is like the phantom limb experience of an amputee.
As a metaphor, the ideal world argument in this case could be read thus: “In an ideal world there would be no need for artificial limbs or assistance for amputees because there would be no disadvantage, discrimination or conception of being in a partial body”
Clearly an asinine statement not even worth discussing, no?
“In my ideal world there would be no need for changing sex because there would be no gender binary that says you’re born in the right or wrong body.”
i’d like to closely examine this statement, because i’ve heard many self-identified radical feminsts say the express the same thought.
i’m happy to know that in your ideal world, you’ve taken the time to consider trans people’s lives. unfortunately, you are operating under the assumptions that:
1) people “change sex” because they all believe they were born in the wrong body.
2) “changing sex” is a direct response to “the gender binary”.
3) the “gender binary” equates to the concept of 2 sexes.
i was born in my body, and after my “sex change”, i’m still in that same body. my body wasn’t wrong, and is still not wrong. it is, however, modified to better suit my preferences. while some trans people i’ve encountered do express that they feel they were born in the “wrong body”, that has not been my experience.
i didn’t “change sex” because of the edicts of the gender binary. i “changed sex” because i wanted to enjoy sexual relations with men in the same way that many women enjoy sexual relations with men, and so when i am in space that our society separates based on sex, i don’t stand out. i was also interested in reducing my sex drive, which was a constant annoyance through out my life. and finally, i wanted to be legally married to a man, and in our society, that necessitated a change in my legal identification, which requires the infamous “sex change” operation. i have achieved all of those goals, and as a result, have greatly improved the quality of my life.
i’m sorry to hear that in your ideal world, i would not have had the ability to have improved the quality of my life.
and finally, regarding changing sex and gender, how do you view the majority of trans people who *do not* change sex – that is, they do not undergo any surgery whatsoever? how does that fit into your theory?
“In other ways I belong to the class of women because most people treat me as the woman or girl I’m supposed to be. And I live in the material reality of being considered a girl or woman. I try to act genderneutral but I can’t be genderneutral because I have to live with belonging to the class of women. And no, I don’t wanna be a man. I don’t wanna be a gender at all.”
most people treat me as the woman or girl i’m supposed to be. i also live in the material reality of being considered a girl or woman. and i also try to be pretty gender neutral (and in fact, from my own personal perspective, don’t consider myself either a man or a woman) but am forced, as you are, to live with belonging to the class of women.
so how are we different then? other than our histories – that i was born and raised male, and you were born and raised female.
“In my ideal world there would be no need for changing sex because there would be no gender binary that says you’re born in the right or wrong body.”
i’d like to closely examine this statement, because i’ve heard many self-identified radical feminsts say the express the same thought.
i’m happy to know that in your ideal world, you’ve taken the time to consider trans people’s lives. unfortunately, you are operating under the assumptions that:
1) people “change sex” because they all believe they were born in the wrong body.
2) “changing sex” is a direct response to “the gender binary”.
3) the “gender binary” equates to the concept of 2 sexes.
i was born in my body, and after my “sex change”, i’m still in that same body. my body wasn’t wrong, and is still not wrong. it is, however, modified to better suit my preferences. while some trans people i’ve encountered do express that they feel they were born in the “wrong body”, that has not been my experience.
i didn’t “change sex” because of the edicts of the gender binary. i “changed sex” because i wanted to enjoy sexual relations with men in the same way that many women enjoy sexual relations with men, and so when i am in space that our society separates based on sex, i don’t stand out. i was also interested in reducing my sex drive, which was a constant annoyance through out my life. and finally, i wanted to be legally married to a man, and in our society, that necessitated a change in my legal identification, which requires the infamous “sex change” operation. i have achieved all of those goals, and as a result, have greatly improved the quality of my life.
i’m sorry to hear that in your ideal world, i would not have had the ability to have improved the quality of my life.
and finally, regarding changing sex and gender, how do you view the majority of trans people who *do not* change sex – that is, they do not undergo any surgery whatsoever? how does that fit into your theory?
“In other ways I belong to the class of women because most people treat me as the woman or girl I’m supposed to be. And I live in the material reality of being considered a girl or woman. I try to act genderneutral but I can’t be genderneutral because I have to live with belonging to the class of women. And no, I don’t wanna be a man. I don’t wanna be a gender at all.”
most people treat me as the woman or girl i’m supposed to be. i also live in the material reality of being considered a girl or woman. and i also try to be pretty gender neutral (and in fact, from my own personal perspective, don’t consider myself either a man or a woman) but am forced, as you are, to live with belonging to the class of women.
so how are we different then? other than our histories – that i was born and raised male, and you were born and raised female.
RachelPhilPa
I’m off in a wink. Bye bye
I never use the word woman born woman, its not about biology.
I don’t understand why anyone wants to fit in the role of a woman. I don’t agree with those liberal feminist who tried to lift the status “femininity” and the image of the housewife, neither do I agree with sex radical that tries to lift the the status of “femininity” and the image of the prostitute. This is just two sides of the same coin, or as Andrea Dworkin saw it: “like the elements in an hourglass: always the same, always present, yet the proportions shift relative to each other”.
The sexual violence thing was an answer to the phrase about radical feminists being angry and blaming it all on men. It has nothing to do with transsexuals, only feminism. I tried to point out in fact, mostly men commit these crimes. Not because their men, but because they are in a powerposition. This powerposition can also be held by a woman, but in this patriarchal society that we have, where men have more power, it is less common. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and it definately doesn’t mean that the abused persons feel less abused. No one needs a external badge of suffering to enter the club, the abuse are already written on the inside/sometimes outside of your body.
Sheila Jeffreys, radical feminist, suggests that we should do more research on for example homosexual male victims of sexual abuse. Within the women’s movement alot of research is being done right now on the similarities between different sex and same sex violence within relationships.
Well, it is quite hard to pin point the constructionof gender. I mean that there is an image of the “real” woman that is made up,
but at the same time there’s a position of women that is a material reality. See for example Wittig. Even though it is a construction, people act upon it. Both Althusser and Butler uses the notion of Interpellation, that people are interpellated into different roles, but there’s also an “inner colonialism” that you can see discussed in Millett or Fanon. Another relevant issue is the one of violent sanctions against those who break the norms, one I guess you as a trans woman also have felt too much. Then there is the whole question about industries that make money from it all and that does everything to commercialize and make gender a product to buy.
If the goal is to unmask, as someone said, the matrix of binary gender division I think that the different parts of the system has got to sit down and try to reveal the image of their false mirror. I think that every subgroup should be allowed their own space, but of course also the room of a common space. Emma Goldman once said that “Every oppressed groups liberation must be work of themselves.”
One of my working methods are separatism, then there’s also many other methods on how to do it, and that’s neccesary.
You make the assumption that gender construction can be a individual choice, I’m talking about the structures that makes us think “Either you’re woman or you’re man”. To me there is no emancipation in that choice. For me, biological surgery, from young girls getting bigger boobs to transexual operations, are saying that induvidual persons are wrong and look wrong when they really don’t. It’s not a disease that need to be cured. I mean they’re not wrong or have the wrong bodies, the system that says they’re wrong is wrong. In my ideal world there would be no need for changing sex because there would be no gender binary that says you’re born in the right or wrong body.
I’m talking about resisting construction and you’re talking about switching roles. Or?
And I do understand that transsexual as a group is very discriminated, I liked the priviledge list. And ofcourse women can discriminate against transsexuals, I’m even sure it happens every day. Maybe there’s a study about discrimination against transsexuals?
Okey, my point about separatist spaces was while men always have had them, women’s separatist spaces have been questioned. (Well, there is some exceptions, ie hairdresser’s, beautysalons.. In these cases it’s more about ridicule. Anyway I’m talking about feminist separatist spaces.)
Well, You seem to think it’s such an easy question to define yorself as a woman but for me, and while I am not saying that mtf are men I’m thinking about construction of gender and how much it is possible to deconstruct and change group of interest and position. The transsexuals I kinda know and the feminists I know have all experienced or witnessed sexual violence, so in speaking about common experiences of violence there would probably be similar experiences told. But I have not yet met a feminist that grown up with her mother abusing her father, it’s often the other way arond. In a group if the transwoman wouldn’t say that she was brought up a man maybe no one would have been the wiser, as you say. The experiences I’ve heard about have told me that it hasn’t been like that. Also as Stacey M (I think) pointed out, there are certain things that differs that is connected to upbringng and the construction towards manhood you went through as a kid. yeah, here we go again.
I don’t know if ethnicity research could contribute. I have to, once again, bring a picture from that “changing ethnicity”-show I saw the other day. The girl who was painted black finally revealed to her black spoken wordclass that she was not infact black, but a painted white girl. Maybe the show was all directed but anyhow… they seemed shocked, and one of them was very insulted. Others just said that they loved her anyhow. They all saw her as a black girl before she told them.
The big question for me however is, why why why do WE have to change? It’s not like the possibility to change sex is wide spread either.
I could guess there would be some contrarious feelings as well for a mtf to join a radical feminist group that wants to phase out femininity and masculinity. And maybe it wouldn’t be the choice of an intersexual to join a separatist group and in that be defined as either or.
It is the neverending story. yes
And you know… I normally hate writing…
You know, Lisa, your attitude matches that of every radical feminist that I have read / read about. You claim to be against gender essentialism. But when you say “men has dressed up as women to try to enter, been in girl’s rooms in schools when boys try to do everything to enter”, you are engaging in exactly the same gender essentialism that you claim to decry. So then, tell me exactly how you are not reinforcing the patriarchy, at least when it comes to transpeople? You tell us that “woman” and “man” are purely social constructs, and then you tell us that we are not women solely because of what we have (or had in the past) between our legs.
And your claims that you don’t consider us men don’t wash. If you don’t consider us men, then why do you bring up men invading your space again and again, and always in response to transwomen who attempt to have some agency and self-definition for ourselves? I’ve got news for you, Lisa, I don’t like men invading my space any more than you do.
And why do you continue to hold onto stereotypes of transwoman, that we all wear lipstick, skirts, and heels? I have had makeup on my face on exactly one day. Some days I am more femme, some days I am completely androgynous. And I know transwomen who are as butch as they come.
From my point of view, as long as you continue to take this gender-essentialist view of transfolk, there can be no hope of reconciliation between radical feminists and transfolk, and I will not engage in dialog with anybody who does not grant me the right to define myself and control my own body.
You have quite some gall coming here onto a transwoman’s blog and splashing your gender-essentialist and transphobic nonsense all over the place.
[...] being said, one post on the TA main page won’t seem to die. The post in question is about radical feminism views transgender people. Frankly, the comments in this thread is why I love this space. People are [...]
“For me womanhood is most of all a constructed position of oppression. One constructed part of the also very constructed binary gender system.”
Your argument is contradictory. If womanhood is constructed, then why the need for “women born women only” spaces?
“In the sense of Simone de Beauvoir ‘One is not born a woman, one becomes one’ I am not a real woman. No one is.”
This is were I get confused. M2F transsexuals shouldn’t be included in “women’s spaces” yet you say “women” dont’ exist? If womanhood is indeed a binary construction, then creating “WBW only” spaces solidifies that construction.
“Just that sometimes I meet that very essentialist approach with transpersons, but mostly transvestites. The representation of womanhood that’s so extreme that it doesn’t exist in other places.”
And this is exactly the problem I have with so many rad fems. If womanhood is a construction, isn’t a “transvestites approach” a construction? Aren’t you objecting to a person’s choice of construction? If so, isn’t that just as oppressive? Out transgender people have a high rates of unemployment (transgender unemployment is around 50 to 70 percent) , and are some of the most despised people in this culture.
IMO, the mainstream rad fem thought holds up the binary by stamping this construction as ok, this one as not. Transgender people of ALL flavors bust the binary on its ass. If rad fems really wanted to obliterate gender, acceptace of transgender/genderqueer people would be a big first step.
“I’ve been to women’s parties where men has dressed up as women to try to enter, been in girl’s rooms in schools when boys try to do everything to enter, have had so many men being agressive because I want to spend time with my friends and only them.”
Have those boys had their penises reconstructed into a neovagina? Have they taken testosterone blockers and been injected biweekly with estrogen? Unless that’s the case, what is your point?
“Many times when we cooperate with male organisations they often say one of two things; you shouldn’t be separatist and/or you should do something for the boys as well. People is really provoked about us setting our own agenda and creating free spaces”
And that is the crux of the issue, you seem to equate M2F transsexuals to men. Imagine how it feels to be a M2F transsexual. In many spaces in this culture an out transsexual isn’t “man enough” to be accepted by men, and isn’t “woman enough” to be accepted by women. Yet if I keep my mouth shut, you and the rest of the world wouldn’t know what my past gender was.