Umm Not Agreeing With a Man is Not Defamatory

And not liking penis is still not abusive, transphobic, or hateful.

This incident in particular disturbs me and has effectively kept me up all night questioning my relationship to “the trans community” (is there such a thing?). I want to reiterate that I don’t speak for anyone other than me, and that’s okay. Trans women are diverse. Women are diverse. It would be obnoxious on my part to think I speak for all of us or any other group. That being said, my opinion is still valid.

And my opinion is more or less that this X. Sarkisova person is a misogynist bully.

 

Mr. Sarkisova began by identifying that “refusing to date” someone who identifies “with having cock” is an “abusive behavior” which “denigrates” trans women, “especially if you id as lesbian.” Since then he has engaged in bullying tactics against women who have expressed the opinion that this identification of abusive behavior disregards female choice. Some feminists are reporting that he has threatened a woman with publishing her home information because she objected to his statements. At least one of his friends has come on here demanding that I take down my post “Umm Not Liking Penis is Not Transphobia” because Mr. Sarkisova apparently doesn’t “believe in” what I quote from his website. Furthermore, he has identified objection to his standards of abusive behavior to be “defamatory” and characteristic of “right wing conservative, lesbian identified hate mongers” (also a direct quote from his website).

Seriously, what the fuck? Mr. Sarkisova’s website goes on to talk about diminishing “the real lived experiences of sexual abuse survivors” and now he has another entry up about trans women in lesbian spaces, something he apparently feels he has the authority to speak to, being neither lesbian nor a trans woman.

I feel erased on so many levels by the propaganda on this mental health professional’s website. (1) as a woman: why don’t men have to question their “abusive” refusal of penis? why is it just women, “especially if you id as lesbians” who have to do this? Are straight men “abusive” or “hateful” for refusing to have anal sex with other men? Are gay men “abusive” or “hateful” for refusing to have sex with people with vaginas? Why is this point only targeting lesbians? Why only women? (2) as a queer woman: NOT LIKING PENIS IS NOT ABUSIVE. IT’S JUST ‘NOT LIKING PENIS’ AND ITS MY FUCKING RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHAT CAN AND CANNOT ENTER MY BODY. (3) as a sexual assault survivor: see, other dicks who don’t believe in female choice have already been here, and I’ve already “deconstructed” and “expanded” my “consciousness” dude. I’m done with penile invasion. Keep that shit away from me. I get to decide what is abusive and denigrating towards me. I can (and I think I do…?) validate someone’s “transfemale realness” without being sexually-available to them. It’s not my responsibility to validate and be available for everyone but my own sense of boundary. (4) as a trans woman: dear guy, please stop speaking for us. We have our own voices and can talk about relationships with other women without having a man tell us what to do or what the parameters of our relationships should be to not be abusive. Also, the validity or success of my activist work or acceptance in women’s spaces has nothing to do with my potential “babeliness” and it would be super cool if any of your future points about what you think women should do with other women didn’t include assessments of our bodies, thanks. Seriously, that’s extremely degrading. Weighing our acceptance into women’s spaces by our physical attractiveness makes a lot of us feel like shit. Oh, right. Misogyny.

Even while identifying the male-rooted problem “trauma [...] women have endured as a result of their experiences of oppression and violence by cis hetero men” (and excusing himself from any personal responsibility for equating trans women with rapists with those last qualifying words), Mr. Sarkisova places an additional burden on women by making it their responsibility to unpack “their own privilege around having socially acceptable gender identities” as opposed to like, I dunno, men unpacking their need to force women to have sex with them. I’m already rambling too much to unpack the idea that women have “socially acceptable gender identities” in this post, but I’m hoping someone else will take that one on, because that notion definitely needs critical assessment.

All in all, I am particularly disturbed because when is this going to stop? When do women have the right to speak up for and maintain their own boundaries? For real. I am honestly shaken up that another trans person is telling me I must be romantically available for people with penises, and that any objection is “defamatory” or hate. I am seriously alarmed and outraged by the rape and discord this could cause among survivors or any women–and in the name of the trans community. It sucks that the author has been misgendered, etc but you know what else sucks? That he is reinforcing the division between lesbian, queer, and trans women by telling us what to do and speaking on behalf of women about sex with their bodies. Women are smart and able to communicate about our sexualities when given the opportunity to not be defined by men. It perplexes me that compulsory availability to penis is being pushed as a queer or trans value…that’s not what I signed up for…at all.

cross-posted from Trans Femmergy