With Apologies to Radical Feminists

Recently, I commented on a post at Bilerico:

You want to get technical Sue? In the strictest definition, you’re not female. The distinction between the “sexes” is that a female has the ability to produce ova, and the male has the ability to produce produces sperm. Your “sex” isn’t based on an organ but on your reproductive ability. For that matter, your neo-vagina isn’t even an “organ.” An organ is tissue or a group of tissues that constitute a morphologically and functionally distinct part of an organism. Your “vagina” isn’t a social construct, it’s a surgical construct. And an incomplete construct at that! Go find your bartholin glands….

And in the above scenario, the woman wasn’t afraid of genitals, but because of other physical characteristics. It’s more about passing privilege than genital configuration. And judging from the pictures I’ve seen of you, ya got your own passing issues. So you might want to jump off that high horse of yours.

Pretty strong statement eh? I said this in response to Sue Robins, who said:

A ladies locker room is no place for Man and if you have male genitals you are a Man end of story.

You can think what you want regarding gender but we are talking about physical sex. Gender is the straw man in this discussion.

Gender is between your ears but what you have in your pants is all about sex, not gender.

I have to ask you how is it possible for someone in a woman’s locker room to tell the difference between a man who is pervert or worse yet shopping for a rape victim from a Pre-Op TS?

How are women in that locker room suppose to know the difference?
How are suppose to be insured that locker room is safe if someone with male genitals is let in?

You seem to want to make this about gender when it is really about Sex. Need i remind you Gender is a state of being Not a social construct not an organ but a state of being most likely brought about by by brain chemistry. We are talking about sex here Penis and Vagina kind of sex, and how the majority of vagina people feel unsafe when penis people are watching them undress. This is because the biology of the majority of penis people gets out of hand when they see naked vagina people.

If you could find a way to sort out the perverts from the Pre-Ops i would be all for allowing them into that woman’s space.

Sue is what many people in the transgender community would call a “Harry Benjamin Syndrome” apologist. Those of you who don’t frequent transgender blogs or forums may have never heard of “Harry Benjamin Syndrome.” According to Harry Benjamin Syndrome Informational Resource:

Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS) is an intersex condition, which develops in the early stages of pregnancy and affects the process of sexual differentiation. What occurs is that the brain develops as one sex, but the body takes on the appearance and characteristics of the other sex. The difference between HBS and other intersex conditions is that currently there is minimal evidence of the syndrome until after the baby is born – sometimes even as late as adolescence.

The only problem with this theory is that it is just that…  an untested theory. The following is from a believer in the HBS theory:

I was lead to believe that Harry Benjamin Syndrome was backed by medical and therapy professionals as well as a widespread diagnosis. It is instead a layperson’s view authored by Charlote T Guren. The medical signatures on the site are afixed to a “Transsexual Resarch” document not an HBS one. The Standards of Care borrowed from HBIGDA are not a medical care document as one is lead to believe. One wonders if permission was obtained to use Harry Benjamin’s name. HBS IS NOT MEDICALLY APPROVED or an offically medically accepted diagnosis as of yet.

She explained her experience with the HBS crowd saying:

What I learned had little to do with HBS. It instead turned out to be an anti-GLBT group. People who asked simple questions and needed support, were diagnosed by militant members as being transgendered, perverts and fetishists. Gays and lesbians were also denigrated with frequent slurs. In fact those who did support GLBT rights were banned simply for supporting them.

On my own site, Transadvocate.com, three advocates of HBS routinely sidetrack posts that have nothing to do with HBS. You can see examples of the derailing here, here, and here. The kind of rhetoric that is spewed is nothing short of bigoted, hateful, and disgusting. A few examples:

When you make a group of non-related or ill fitting comparisons and lump it all under a single term, there is going to be discourse and divisivness. Such is the human condition reflected in all parts of society, everywhere. Whites don’t want to live in Black neighborhoods, Black’s dont want to live in spanish neighborhoods, the asians only hire other asians, the germans kill the jews and the jews kill the arabs and the arabs kill the hostages and that is the news.. is it any wonder the monkey’s confused? – Leigh

The trans blogs are not going to all of a sudden promote standing up for those issues unique to transsexuals, much less those of us who are post op. They are not going to abandon their crossdressing “brothers and sisters” and recognize the transgender umbrella for the homosexual construct it is. Certainly they are not about to disasociate themselves from the homosexual movement and will no doubt continue to support the GLB in their ultimate quest, same-sex marriage. They will continue to support the concept of a gender spectrum, the legitimacy of a non-op, and nondiscrimination for all who present an alternate gender expression. Sadly, they will also sit dumbfounded, incapable of understanding why one doesn’t want to share a bathroom with someone of the opposite sex, or go to work everyday in the presence of crossdressers. – Susan

But then we strike at the very heart of what the GLB & T marriage was always about. It is to show to society that gays and lesbians are NORMAL in comparisson to the fruits and flakes encompassing the T part of the federation. The transgenders are the pawns in a wider game of chess and you all swallowed it down and ate it up, just as they wanted you to. Your nothing more than cannon fodder on the battlefield of gay rights, and once they have what they came for, you will be standing outside looking through the window while they ignore your very existance. – Leigh

You may wonder about why I chose the title “With Apologies to Radical Feminists.” These HBS advocates are the epitome of what radical feminists deplore. They are the “advance agents of the Patriarchy” that Janice Raymond spoke of. They seek to solidify and protect the gender binary.

I responded to Sue so strongly because at the core, defining who is a woman by what genitals they have is a form of bondage. If the goal is gender parity/equality, it will only happen when the gender binary is liberated from biology. When a man can have a vagina and a woman can have a penis. When a person with a penis can be feminine and a person with a vagina can be masculine.

My friend, Gwen Smith said it best:

You see, by challenging these notions of gender, difficult as this may be, we may well secure a world where one can choose their presentation — even if it is within a clearly defined gender. We all can win when the rules are relaxed.

Even if I am not the most gender fluid being on the planet, I can applaud those who are, who are willing to transcend those places they’ve been told to be. More than this, those who are pushing through boundaries challenge me to do more, to explore deeper into myself and consider my own views of gender. That’s a challenge I remain up for.

So to this fellow traveler I came across in transit, I salute you. It is you who keep us all moving forward.

Marti Abernathey is the founder of the Transadvocate and the previous managing editor. Abernathey has worn many different hats, including that of podcaster, activist, and radiologic technologist. She's been a part of various internet radio ventures such as TSR Live!, The T-Party, and The Radical Trannies, TransFM, and Sodium Pentathol Sunday. 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). In 2008 she was a delegate from Indiana to the Democratic National Convention and a member of Barack Obama's LGBT Steering and Policy Committee. Abernathey currently hosts the Youtube Channel "The T-Party with Marti Abernathey."

201 Comments

  1. I am one of those who contributed in the formation of the Harry Benjamin Syndrome Information site. We constructed our suggested ‘Standard of Care’ with the valuable assistance of professional therapists as well many others in the legal and medical fields. We not only submitted it to the APA but also answered the invitation to present it to the WAPTH Symposium in Chicago last year. It can be found on: http://www.harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org/

    Let us be clear about what is and what is not HBS. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation or fetishism. It is simply a clarifying term honoring a man who gave so much in advancing the understanding and treatment of those like me who were accepted as his patients. It is a congenital intersex condition as stated by professionals such as Dr Milton Friedman in his thesis. There is research evidence that the syndrome is part of the design of the brain begun in the womb. Dr. Harry Benjamin considered transsexualism to be a biological condition…not transgenderism, the term coined by a transvestite.

    Why do the transgender hate that this condition is linked to indicative research? Simply put, they hate the idea that if and when the strong research findings to date becomes more clear they would have to face up to the truth without using us as a crutch. They would need to find another way of legitimizing exactly what and who they really are under that so confusing non-biological socially constructed transgender umbrella.

    In our definition we make it clear that a HBS born knew long before puberty that their body was in conflict with their brain. It may take time to correct the condition but the error was in the brain long before birth. Even a South American Court found in favor of a post-op requesting change of documentation that the person had suffered from “Harry Benjamin Syndrome” and now the term is part of case law in that country.

    All too often it might be assumed by the transgender that we too might be able to adjust our lives to live in and out of gender moods or desires as many of them do. They have no understanding for ours is a driven need to be whole and often if that option is unavailable then the reason for living offers no hope. Is that shared by those who move in and out of gender themes? I think not!

    Many of us are heterosexual after surgery but somehow we are added to the GLBT inclusion, a clearly homosexual advocacy grouping to which we have no affinity. Most of those under the transgender umbrella are actually closet crossdressers and the majority of them are heterosexual males.

    So, to identify any heterosexual or non-crossdresser under that GLBT labeling is not only demeaning but leads to those like me who had once been a supporter of GLB issues now finding herself in opposition to their needs as they have proven to be a barrier to mine. They added the ‘T’ so let them hang onto its confusion without me.

    Transition is the process of moving from one state to another, physical or otherwise. It does not declare you to be other than what you are until transition is complete and that in our case is surgery. No, sorry but a non-op is just that…a person who has not had an operation and is seen still as the sex they were born by all especially when in undress. Or am I and others supposed to wear blinders to satisfy the delusions of others so as not to offend their claims. A pre-op is in transition and has not yet reached the level of having completed that change and until then will remain the sex to which they were identified at birth. It is that simple but not, I have to suppose, for those who believe in a third or more gender/sex binaries to suit their moods and even fetishes.

    If you add me or any other person who had corrective surgery under your transgender/transvestite label and you find us in disagreement maybe you should go back and read exactly who were intended to be assembled under that variant banner by MR. Charles ‘Virginia’ Prince when he coined the term ‘Transgender’ in the first place. Believe me, his intent was to make it clear he was not including transsexuals. I know for he told me just that in a communication I had with him. He stated to me that anyone that wanted a ‘sex change’ was delusional. I can only assume his followers on this site not only take on his transgender labeling for themselves but his mantra as well.

    I have been attacked before and by the ignorant who take out of context things I have said and things doctors have advised me as facts on the one hand and possibilities on the other. I ignore their ignorance for I truly understand their need to demean all of us who might suggest they have no affinity with us in their attempt to use our medical legitimacy as cover for their own fetishism. That bothers them for they know deep down their masking deception has no connection with our reality.
    Diane

  2. I am one of those who contributed in the formation of the Harry Benjamin Syndrome Information site. We constructed our suggested ‘Standard of Care’ with the valuable assistance of professional therapists as well many others in the legal and medical fields. We not only submitted it to the APA but also answered the invitation to present it to the WAPTH Symposium in Chicago last year. It can be found on: http://www.harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org/

    Let us be clear about what is and what is not HBS. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation or fetishism. It is simply a clarifying term honoring a man who gave so much in advancing the understanding and treatment of those like me who were accepted as his patients. It is a congenital intersex condition as stated by professionals such as Dr Milton Friedman in his thesis. There is research evidence that the syndrome is part of the design of the brain begun in the womb. Dr. Harry Benjamin considered transsexualism to be a biological condition…not transgenderism, the term coined by a transvestite.

    Why do the transgender hate that this condition is linked to indicative research? Simply put, they hate the idea that if and when the strong research findings to date becomes more clear they would have to face up to the truth without using us as a crutch. They would need to find another way of legitimizing exactly what and who they really are under that so confusing non-biological socially constructed transgender umbrella.

    In our definition we make it clear that a HBS born knew long before puberty that their body was in conflict with their brain. It may take time to correct the condition but the error was in the brain long before birth. Even a South American Court found in favor of a post-op requesting change of documentation that the person had suffered from “Harry Benjamin Syndrome” and now the term is part of case law in that country.

    All too often it might be assumed by the transgender that we too might be able to adjust our lives to live in and out of gender moods or desires as many of them do. They have no understanding for ours is a driven need to be whole and often if that option is unavailable then the reason for living offers no hope. Is that shared by those who move in and out of gender themes? I think not!

    Many of us are heterosexual after surgery but somehow we are added to the GLBT inclusion, a clearly homosexual advocacy grouping to which we have no affinity. Most of those under the transgender umbrella are actually closet crossdressers and the majority of them are heterosexual males.

    So, to identify any heterosexual or non-crossdresser under that GLBT labeling is not only demeaning but leads to those like me who had once been a supporter of GLB issues now finding herself in opposition to their needs as they have proven to be a barrier to mine. They added the ‘T’ so let them hang onto its confusion without me.

    Transition is the process of moving from one state to another, physical or otherwise. It does not declare you to be other than what you are until transition is complete and that in our case is surgery. No, sorry but a non-op is just that…a person who has not had an operation and is seen still as the sex they were born by all especially when in undress. Or am I and others supposed to wear blinders to satisfy the delusions of others so as not to offend their claims. A pre-op is in transition and has not yet reached the level of having completed that change and until then will remain the sex to which they were identified at birth. It is that simple but not, I have to suppose, for those who believe in a third or more gender/sex binaries to suit their moods and even fetishes.

    If you add me or any other person who had corrective surgery under your transgender/transvestite label and you find us in disagreement maybe you should go back and read exactly who were intended to be assembled under that variant banner by MR. Charles ‘Virginia’ Prince when he coined the term ‘Transgender’ in the first place. Believe me, his intent was to make it clear he was not including transsexuals. I know for he told me just that in a communication I had with him. He stated to me that anyone that wanted a ‘sex change’ was delusional. I can only assume his followers on this site not only take on his transgender labeling for themselves but his mantra as well.

    I have been attacked before and by the ignorant who take out of context things I have said and things doctors have advised me as facts on the one hand and possibilities on the other. I ignore their ignorance for I truly understand their need to demean all of us who might suggest they have no affinity with us in their attempt to use our medical legitimacy as cover for their own fetishism. That bothers them for they know deep down their masking deception has no connection with our reality.
    Diane

  3. Wow, Marti. That was the whole point of what Stassa was saying; she was saying that women who make history rarely act like society (aka the patriarchy) wants them to act.

  4. Pingback: Enough!!!
  5. YES! As Fran Lebowitz says, ‘the word lady should never be used, unless preceded by the word “sales”‘.

    Nothing quite gets my gander as when a coach addressing her team of rough-and-tumble dykes calls them “ladies”. Do they *look* like people who would like to be called ladies? HELLO!! I guess they believe the veneer of ‘ladyhood’ will lead people to think that they aren’t a team full of lesbians.

  6. 🙂 don’t worry about it. :p it made me laugh. I just didn’t think it was appropriate here. Btw, if you could email me, I’d appreciate it.

  7. I hate that word. I think it’s a patriarchal term. I NEVER would refer to myself as a “lady”. Lady infers some kind of “proper” or quiet woman. It’s also very classist.

  8. You may be missing the point, but laws exist to protect people from each other. Not just minorities, weak people in general, because everyone is weak at some point in our lives. Laws protect the children and the elderly, they protect the invalid and they protect everybody’s assets from theft and fraud. You’re not going to tell me that those laws isolate anyone from society, or give the thieves and the fraudsters one more reason to take your stuff and run away?

    Also, actually people like Pandora and every other visible transgendered woman or man are the reason why transsexuals today have much fewer problems than in the past. People see us and get used to us and, you know, nowadays “honey, I used to be a man” has many more chances to be not so much a bomb, as reason to go “yeah, I figured”, and live happily ever after. That’s because when people see something all the time, they get used to it and they have the time and the opportunities to accept it and make peace with it.

    And where that’s not the case, it’s not the obvious trannies who are in danger of getting the trap treatment. It’s the stealth ones. Don’t tell me it’s the blatant drags who are the reason for that. When was “I used to be a man” or “I was born with a penis” or whatever other way you’d have of putting it, any milder a blow on the straight-male ego than today?

    But of course, what you’re saying is, because people nowadays have seen so many transsexuals, especially successful transsexuals, they’ve learned to notice the little details and they don’t take anything for granted, so it’s harder to pass. Like, sixty years ago, if you had boobs, you had to be a woman. Nowadays, even a vagina is no proof. Right? That’s what you’re saying.

    Well, in that case, as your club likes to tell everyone: I pass fine. If you can’t, then that’s your fault. Try harder.

    1. I am one of those who contributed in the formation of the Harry Benjamin Syndrome Information site. We constructed our suggested ‘Standard of Care’ with the valuable assistance of professional therapists as well many others in the legal and medical fields. We not only submitted it to the APA but also answered the invitation to present it to the WAPTH Symposium in Chicago last year. It can be found on: http://www.harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org/

      Let us be clear about what is and what is not HBS. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation or fetishism. It is simply a clarifying term honoring a man who gave so much in advancing the understanding and treatment of those like me who were accepted as his patients. It is a congenital intersex condition as stated by professionals such as Dr Milton Friedman in his thesis. There is research evidence that the syndrome is part of the design of the brain begun in the womb. Dr. Harry Benjamin considered transsexualism to be a biological condition…not transgenderism, the term coined by a transvestite.

      Why do the transgender hate that this condition is linked to indicative research? Simply put, they hate the idea that if and when the strong research findings to date becomes more clear they would have to face up to the truth without using us as a crutch. They would need to find another way of legitimizing exactly what and who they really are under that so confusing non-biological socially constructed transgender umbrella.

      In our definition we make it clear that a HBS born knew long before puberty that their body was in conflict with their brain. It may take time to correct the condition but the error was in the brain long before birth. Even a South American Court found in favor of a post-op requesting change of documentation that the person had suffered from “Harry Benjamin Syndrome” and now the term is part of case law in that country.

      All too often it might be assumed by the transgender that we too might be able to adjust our lives to live in and out of gender moods or desires as many of them do. They have no understanding for ours is a driven need to be whole and often if that option is unavailable then the reason for living offers no hope. Is that shared by those who move in and out of gender themes? I think not!

      Many of us are heterosexual after surgery but somehow we are added to the GLBT inclusion, a clearly homosexual advocacy grouping to which we have no affinity. Most of those under the transgender umbrella are actually closet crossdressers and the majority of them are heterosexual males.

      So, to identify any heterosexual or non-crossdresser under that GLBT labeling is not only demeaning but leads to those like me who had once been a supporter of GLB issues now finding herself in opposition to their needs as they have proven to be a barrier to mine. They added the ‘T’ so let them hang onto its confusion without me.

      Transition is the process of moving from one state to another, physical or otherwise. It does not declare you to be other than what you are until transition is complete and that in our case is surgery. No, sorry but a non-op is just that…a person who has not had an operation and is seen still as the sex they were born by all especially when in undress. Or am I and others supposed to wear blinders to satisfy the delusions of others so as not to offend their claims. A pre-op is in transition and has not yet reached the level of having completed that change and until then will remain the sex to which they were identified at birth. It is that simple but not, I have to suppose, for those who believe in a third or more gender/sex binaries to suit their moods and even fetishes.

      If you add me or any other person who had corrective surgery under your transgender/transvestite label and you find us in disagreement maybe you should go back and read exactly who were intended to be assembled under that variant banner by MR. Charles ‘Virginia’ Prince when he coined the term ‘Transgender’ in the first place. Believe me, his intent was to make it clear he was not including transsexuals. I know for he told me just that in a communication I had with him. He stated to me that anyone that wanted a ‘sex change’ was delusional. I can only assume his followers on this site not only take on his transgender labeling for themselves but his mantra as well.

      I have been attacked before and by the ignorant who take out of context things I have said and things doctors have advised me as facts on the one hand and possibilities on the other. I ignore their ignorance for I truly understand their need to demean all of us who might suggest they have no affinity with us in their attempt to use our medical legitimacy as cover for their own fetishism. That bothers them for they know deep down their masking deception has no connection with our reality.
      Diane

  9. (btw, Susan, I’ll keep it civil, you keep it civil, this is not mine or your blog and the convo is making way. Rules of engagement like. Ja?)

    Thing is, I don’t give a shit what is said as long as it doesn’t devolve into personal attacks.

    It’s why I didn’t approve your first comment here. While it was so damn funny, I almost cried, it was very personal. 🙂

  10. (Sorry if this looks out of context, I’m a bit confused with the nesting order!)

    and also conveniently ignoring the real histories of women in your own camp, some of whom we know for a fact transitioned somewhat later in life, rather than at the first available opportunity

    What surprises me is not how transwomen of a certain outlook cluster around the HBS identity, it’s how they manage to remain attached to it, after they’ve been hit square in the face by all the purity and the innate womanhood. Susan, your friend, Diane (Dipshit) claims (falsely) to be intersex and so does “Cat Kisser” and I bet others too. They base a helluvalot of their Transsexual Supremacy on that statement- and yet, none of the HBS-enabled women who don’t claim to be intersex seems to have a problem with that, or even challenge their blatant lies, or at the very least privately tell them to, you know, “comrade, tone it down, ’cause you’re making me look like one of them.” And that includes you too. Unless you’re intersex too now.

    The other thing that everybody should be telling you much more often is that you are not stealth as you claim to be, neither that well-adjusted. One reason is your late-transitions, yours and most of your other members, which seldom, if ever, result to stealth-ability. In fact each and every HBS-enabled woman I’ve see to date, looks like a man. Yeah, plenty of non-HBS-enabled transwomen I know have the same problem and some of us have delusions that we pass when in fact we don’t. But we don’t paint “I Am Stealth Now Suckers” on a big banner and wave it above our heads. That tends to attract attention- to the self-deception, mostly.

    It follows that, when you say “we have lurked in stealth but now we come out of the woodwork to claim back transsexuality” it’s all just another pretty figure of speech. You never were stealth. You have to be vocal and active and speak up, otherwise, you will be lost and obliterated by the very weight of the phobic attitudes which you egg on to crush “the perverts”. You have to huddle together and yell and make noise and try to scare the hooded mobs away, or at least try to divert their attention to “the perverts”. Or, they will turn on you and eat you alive.

    Maybe that is why nobody ever challenges you with the obvious “if you’re Just Women, what the hell are you doing organising as transsexuals?” But, yeah, I think that is too obvious.

    (btw, Susan, I’ll keep it civil, you keep it civil, this is not mine or your blog and the convo is making way. Rules of engagement like. Ja?)

  11. You are here affirming your own intention to destroy another person’s life.

    And yet people like you get all huffy whenever you are described as divisive and destructive.

    1. The fact is that their own camp isn’t even internally consistent. Sue Robins and Cathryn have elsewhere affirmed that people with male genitals can use the women’s bathroom, if they conform to standards of behavior.

  12. Blaming the victim is essential to their ideology. No doubt they hold every single person listed in “Remembering Our Dead” in gleeful contempt.

  13. People like pandora up there are part of the problem why society is beating up transsexuals in the first place.

    Did you seriously just say that? Care to explain that point? That’s a pretty serious claim to make. Can you back it up?

  14. “What’s so difficult to understand? The ladies locker room IS no place for someone with male genitals; that’s why they have LADIES on the door. That’s not HBS rhetoric, that is how society defines sex and gender.”

    Um… bullshit. Complete bullshit.

    We define locker rooms the same way we define bathrooms: By saying “LADIES” on the front. At my work place, the lockers and the bathrooms are, in fact, one and the same facility.

    I have a penis. I used the women’s bathroom at work. At an 800 person call center, all of those 800 people knew about that penis, because I did an on-the-job transition.

    You know what? No one acted even slightly weird about it. People were okay with this.

    But… according to your logic, because it says “LADIES” on the door I was apparently using the wrong bathroom?

    Going one step farther: The struggle for equality is explicitly stating “just because society does it that way, doesn’t mean that’s okay.” Just because society says I shouldn’t be in there doesn’t mean it is right or okay.

    If I ever have to deal with such crass intolerance at work, I will use the women’s bathroom and the women’s locker room until HR issues an explicit company-wide policy banning me from doing so. At that point I will look in to suing the company for discrimination.

    “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

  15. “What’s so difficult to understand? The ladies locker room IS no place for someone with male genitals; that’s why they have LADIES on the door. That’s not HBS rhetoric, that is how society defines sex and gender.”

    Um… bullshit. Complete bullshit.

    We define locker rooms the same way we define bathrooms: By saying “LADIES” on the front. At my work place, the lockers and the bathrooms are, in fact, one and the same facility.

    I have a penis. I used the women’s bathroom at work. At an 800 person call center, all of those 800 people knew about that penis, because I did an on-the-job transition.

    You know what? No one acted even slightly weird about it. People were okay with this.

    But… according to your logic, because it says “LADIES” on the door I was apparently using the wrong bathroom?

    Going one step farther: The struggle for equality is explicitly stating “just because society does it that way, doesn’t mean that’s okay.” Just because society says I shouldn’t be in there doesn’t mean it is right or okay.

    If I ever have to deal with such crass intolerance at work, I will use the women’s bathroom and the women’s locker room until HR issues an explicit company-wide policy banning me from doing so. At that point I will look in to suing the company for discrimination.

    “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

  16. “People like pandora up there are part of the problem why society is beating up transsexuals in the first place”. (Leigh)

    So, If Brandon Teena had had $70,000 dollars lying around and spent it on phalloplasty, he wouldn’t have been raped and murdered once his birth sex had been discovered? Silly boy.

  17. “People like pandora up there are part of the problem why society is beating up transsexuals in the first place”. (Leigh)

    So, If Brandon Teena had had $70,000 dollars lying around and spent it on phalloplasty, he wouldn’t have been raped and murdered once his birth sex had been discovered? Silly boy.

  18. “Well, if people don’t understand the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation, they need educating.”

    Why? I don’t believe that the average person has any trouble understanding the difference when they are presented with someone that is at least half believable, half sane, and not playing games. People have no time for game players and they will soon be dissmissed.

    Partners of the same apparent presentation sex will be seen as either Gay or Lesbian assuming they make the cut. They will have to live with that and the consequenses it may bring, but don’t assume that heterosexual transsexuals have it any better. Hetero T women ( even post ops) not only have the problem of finding a partner that is compatible in the first place, compeating with GG’s for the available straight men but then they have to drop a what amounts to a nuclear bomb on the partner if things go well. Most time thats the last they see of the prospective partner. If things go bad they take the risk of being killed as a crime of passion!

    All the same though .. I still do not want any protection laws BECAUSE they furthur serve to isolate us all from society and give the bigots and haters one more thing to hate about us.

    People like pandora up there are part of the problem why society is beating up transsexuals in the first place.

  19. There is no contradiction. Benjamin is clearly saying that there is no empirical method of diagnosis – no “sharp and scientific separation of the two syndromes” – and that in lieu of its availbility we have to rely on the narratives of people who appear to exhibit a cluster of behaviors, but whose narratives may be shaped by the diagnostic process itself.

    And that’s how “classic transsexualism” became formalized. The narratives were narrowed as more transsexuals discovered the “right words”, until eventually the smallest possible common denominator became – for some- the *only* valid narrative.

    I also presume that when he refers to the “transsexual male” he means MTFs. It appears to me that the identity purity that is now championed was a later add-on.

  20. >>> “If these attempts to define and classify the transvestite and the transsexual appear vague and unsatisfactory, it is because a sharp and scientific separation of the two syndromes is not possible. We have as yet no objective diagnostic methods at our disposal to differentiate between the two…

    Indeed, Dr. Benjamin stated that, however, his premise in The Transsexual Phenomenon was to make a clear differentiation between transvestism and transsexualism…his work in the field was based around the unique differences between the two. He states that premise clearly in The Transsexual Phenomenon as follows:

    “The transsexual (TS) male or female is deeply unhappy as a member of the sex (or gender) to which he or she was assigned by the anatomical structure of the body, particularly the genitals. To avoid misunderstanding: this has nothing to do with hermaphroditism. The transsexual is physically normal (although occasionally underdeveloped) [2]. These persons can somewhat appease their unhappiness by dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex, that is to say, by cross-dressing, and they are, therefore, transvestites too. But while “dressing” would satisfy the true transvestite (who is content with his morphological sex), it is only incidental and not more than a partial or temporary help to the transsexual. True transsexuals feel that they belong to the other sex, they want to be and function as members of the opposite sex, not only to appear as such. For them, their sex organs, the primary (testes) as well as the secondary (penis and others) are disgusting deformities that must be changed by the surgeon’s knife. This attitude appears to be the chief differential diagnostic point between the two syndromes (sets of symptoms) – that is, those of transvestism and transsexualism.”

    …and later in the same chapter:

    “For patients of a high degree of transsexualism (the “true and full-fledged transsexual”), a conversion operation is the all-consuming urge, as mentioned earlier and as a later chapter will show still more fully. Cross-dressing is an insufficient help, as aspirin for a brain tumor headache would be.”

    The above quotes, and that differentiation was the premise of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and why it was titled as it was. And that premise is why, to me, HBS is just as good as any other term.

    Benjamin never said there wasn’t a difference between transvestism and transsexualism – on the contrary, he felt there was a huge and unique difference – only that there was no objective diagnostic to tell where the sharp and scientific separation dividing line was between the two. It was easy to tell the casual crossdresser, and easy to tell those who were intensely transsexual…but it was not possible to tell where the two might go from one to the other.

  21. It needn’t even be as stark as the case you present yourself as, Joyce. The simple fact is that there are rather a lot of rather queer people about – from the very nelly to the very butch to the generally unclassifiable – who even roughly with the gender assigned to their genital sex, but express it in very unconventional ways… and not out of some rebellious spirit but because it is completely natural to them. And they are routinely mischaracterized and abused.

    And while I expect that Leigh would insist that her statements were not intended to take such people directly into account, the fact is that such attitudes do contribute to the mental, social and physical violence that such people experience.

    Even if there were no trans people in the world – of any kind – there would still be a need to widen the scope of perception of what gender is and how it functions in our society.

    Hmm… come to think of it, I believe that was called “feminism.”

  22. To me, this sort of thinking is absurd and revolting. I have no words to describe how revolting it is to me. Perhaps it is because it smacks of how I felt about myself pre-op with a penis. Whatever, if this is the world the transgendered want I will have no part of it and will work to defeat it.

    Wow. Just… wow…

    What you just said basically is telling me that I have no right to exist in this world. I am a woman-ish person with a penis. This was not a choice for me, but rather, just a fact of who I am and who I feel comfortable being. I have no intention of modifying my penis, because I am very happy with it. I have no intention of doing anything other than presenting otherwise female, because I am very happy with that. To do otherwise in either case would result in gender dysphoria for me.

    If you work to defeat this world where women are allowed to have penises and be as feminine or masculine as they like, then you are working to prevent me from being allowed to exist as myself. You are working to stop my freedom as a human being to express my internal nature.

    Frankly… *THAT* idea is something that I find revolting.

    So what would you do? Have me thrown in jail? Would you work against my attempt to gain equal protection under the law? Would you have me beaten and quartered in the streets? Just how far will you go to fight against this concept that you find so “revolting?” How far will you hurt me to further your belief in the gender binary?

  23. I find myself tiring of arguing this point, and hopefully you’ll find my rhetoric toned down because of it. There are two things I want to comment about in your response here.

    What’s so difficult to understand? The ladies locker room IS no place for someone with male genitals; that’s why they have LADIES on the door.

    I beg to differ. First off, I take offense at the definition of my genitals as male. I am a woman and that makes my genitals a woman’s genitals. Repeatedly hearing them referred to as “male” is frustrating and somewhat triggering. And by making that the only part of my body you care about me, you’re objectifying me.

    Also, I don’t appreciate that while you have never been in a locker room with me, you judge whether or not it would be appropriate for me to be there. I’ve spend plenty of time in the women’s locker room. Perhaps only 1/4 of the folks there knew that I’m trans, but they were all quite welcoming of me. Are you telling them that they shouldn’t be?

    Secondly, when you try to
    differentiate those transsexuals who have innately known since their earliest cognizant memory they were born the wrong physical sex/gender and of which nothing short of GRS… [and] those who simply want to present as the opposite sex, have no desire for GRS, for whatever reason can’t or are unable to have GRS, or simply despise gender definition entirely.

    I feel left out between two extremes. And it appears to me that unless I measure up to one of them, I’m not really a transsexual. I am transsexual. Yet I’m not pursuing GRS right now. I haven’t discounted pursuing it when I’m a few decades older, but I’m not pursuing it now. That doesn’t mean that I’m “simply” presenting as the opposite sex — there’s nothing simple about my life. That doesn’t mean that I’m trying to destroy the gender binary. That doesn’t mean that I want to take rights away from other transsexuals.

    That one simple difference seems to be used as a litmus test for those that are similar to you or those that oppose you. We may have our differences, but the only place I oppose you is when you specifically say that I should have less rights than you because of my surgical status.

  24. Comments of clarification:

    • Regarding rescinding of rights under law, the status of fully transitioned transsexuals has in Texas, Kansas, and other states, as well as local ordinances seen the dismissal of previously granted protections and rights. I expect to see that increase after the elections.

    • And my apologies for the gay inference. The key word used was “same”, and in its context was meant to describe understood differences. Yes there is every color under the sun, but I discounted granularity of shades. My point was that even though some may have great tolerance ans acceptance, the fact of difference remains. Yes, a cisgender person can accept a transsexual as inclusive, but they are not the “same.”

    • I am glad that someone can use a men’s locker room professionally as a transgender individual, but in most cases, in the public locker rooms of health clubs, and high schools the tolerance and acceptability is not so widely found. That I know personally from experience.

    • Finally, in no way do I wish to personally attack anyone here or give the impression that I am singling anyone out unjustly. (HRC and a certain Congressman excluded.) What I do want people to get, and take serious is that there is extreme peril at hand for the transgender community, and those who are transitioned Transsexuals are going to suffer terribly if we do not find a way to come together and work together. One Face, One Voice, One Cause….. Stellewriter

  25. Val, that’s the funny thing…and it’s why I included the quote from Gwen. I am fighting for liberation of the binary because I believe it will free a lot of people, to live their truth, what makes them comfortable. I never know if I have passing privilege, or if people around me are just clueless (you can judge for yourself http://picasaweb.google.com/marti.abernathey/Marti ). I think I’m on the feminine side of the supposed binary…. I don’t want to destroy it, as much as I want to free people to choose where they exist in it. That biology won’t be the determining factor of what gender you live in. Gender variance is natural, and has been with us from the beginning of time.

  26. Thank you for posting that, Marti. Dr. Benjamin was in fact a far more humane and insightful person than the people who have misappropriated his name.

  27. Ah, would that you were usually so moderate in your approach. Usually, of course, your opinion is wrapped in a sneer, which earns the same in return.

    The continuing problem, however, is your demonstrated belief that you can discern and define the nature and motivations of anyone who does not supply a narrative that precisely matches the one you authorize.

    You presume that most of those you argue with “have no desire for GRS, … or simply despise gender definition entirely,” which is a vastly self-serving and oversimplified view.

    When this view is challenged, you then require that anyone who does actually transition must do so as single-mindedly as you did – at the same time dismissing the narrative of those whose own single-mindedness takes a darker turn, and reveals suicidal ideation – and also conveniently ignoring the real histories of women in your own camp, some of whom we know for a fact transitioned somewhat later in life, rather than at the first available opportunity.

    As I’ve indicated before, you make your distinctions purely on rhetorical, ideological grounds that have little basis even in the reality of your own world.

    Not all of us are “gender warriors,” as you seem to like to think. iBut neither do we like to be crushed quite so firmly by the narrowness of your own perspective.

  28. I realize you have a deconstructive philosophy when it comes to the accepted definitions of gender and say so quite clearly in the next to last paragraph of your post. But many post ops, and certainly society as a whole don’t hold that point of view.

    Agreed. And honestly, I see those people as adversaries. Kind of like HRC. Not really someone I see as enemy, just someone that I disagree with, and advocate against.

    My position on HBS, and I have said so on my site straight up, and explained it on many occasions, is that it is not my term…however, it is as good as any when used to differentiate those transsexuals who have innately known since their earliest cognizant memory they were born the wrong physical sex/gender and of which nothing short of GRS – as limited as yourself and others may find that solution – will make things as right as they can be made.

    I actually think that it’s rather ironic that people use Harry Benjamin’s name to their condition, considering that Harry Benjamin said:

    “If these attempts to define and classify the transvestite and the transsexual appear vague and unsatisfactory, it is because a sharp and scientific separation of the two syndromes is not possible. We have as yet no objective diagnostic methods at our disposal to differentiate between the two. We – often – have to take the statement of an emotionally disturbed individual, whose attitude may change like a mood or who is inclined to tell the doctor what he believes the doctor wants to hear. Furthermore, nature does not abide by rigid systems. The vicissitudes of life and love cause ebbs and flows in the emotions so that fixed boundaries cannot be drawn.” – The Transsexual Phenomenon – Harry Benjamin, M.D.

    But no matter how that concept is written, no matter how it is presented, no mater what approach is taken when discussing it, the response is always the same…shout downs, insults, personal attacks, and so on.

    I might agree with you, if you’d said that it was a two sided shout down. I’ve seen “insults, personal attacks, and so on” on both sides. To say otherwise, is simply playing the victim. There has been dialogue here, even if it is simply defining boundaries.

    I have no desire to hijack your threads here, regardless of what you and the other regulars think.  My perspective is not welcome here…and that’s fine.  I fully intend to limit my presence here, which I am sure will be to the great pleasure of yourself and most, if not all, of the others.Again, that is fine, no harm…no foul.

    But that’s just what has happened. Freaking 70 comments on the “Are We Ready For Prime Time” post, and a good majority of them had NOTHING to do with the content of the post. I welcome your input on this thread because it is relevant to the discussion of the post. But if you started to veer into talking about cross stitch, um… ya… that wold be hijacking.

  29. >…can’t explain…

    What’s so difficult to understand? The ladies locker room IS no place for someone with male genitals; that’s why they have LADIES on the door. That’s not HBS rhetoric, that is how society defines sex and gender.

    For those post ops who are allowed to change their birth certificates, that is how those states that allow that change define sex and gender as well.

    I realize you have a deconstructive philosophy when it comes to the accepted definitions of gender and say so quite clearly in the next to last paragraph of your post. But many post ops, and certainly society as a whole don’t hold that point of view.

    As for HBS rhetoric – which is not about the rhetoric, but about the HBS – My position on HBS, and I have said so on my site straight up, and explained it on many occasions, is that it is not my term…however, it is as good as any when used to differentiate those transsexuals who have innately known since their earliest cognizant memory they were born the wrong physical sex/gender and of which nothing short of GRS – as limited as yourself and others may find that solution – will make things as right as they can be made.

    Granted, that is not a popular stance to those who simply want to present as the opposite sex, have no desire for GRS, for whatever reason can’t or are unable to have GRS, or simply despise gender definition entirely. I am articulate. Marti, I have no problem expressing myself clearly. But no matter how that concept is written, no matter how it is presented, no mater what approach is taken when discussing it, the response is always the same…shout downs, insults, personal attacks, and so on.

    I have no desire to hijack your threads here, regardless of what you and the other regulars think. My perspective is not welcome here…and that’s fine. I fully intend to limit my presence here, which I am sure will be to the great pleasure of yourself and most, if not all, of the others.

    Again, that is fine, no harm…no foul.

  30. It’s amazing how long it took to get you to be so forthright and rational.

    Congratulations. Seriously. Especially on taking the rather brave step of moving out from under the protective wing of HBS fundamentalism, from which you have been arguing this entire time. You have spoken for yourself, and only for yourself, and without reflexive antagonism or contempt, for the very first time.

    I think there are legitimate points of dispute with the positions you take in your second section… and even legitimate points of contact. But I’m not going to quibble here, or at length, both because each item ought to be its own subject, and because I think your post deserves a little breathing room.

    Well done.

  31. “4. That the association with the GLB is harmful to all transsexuals, particularily to post operative transsexuals as it associates M2F’s as gay males due to their birth gender and conversely it associates F2M’s as lesbian “dykes” by the same process.”

    Well, if people don’t understand the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation, they need educating.
    So where does this leave those M2Fs and F2Ms with partners of the same sex? Are they G and L? Or not? Seems to me it won’t make much difference during a homophobic assault.

  32. “4. That the association with the GLB is harmful to all transsexuals, particularily to post operative transsexuals as it associates M2F’s as gay males due to their birth gender and conversely it associates F2M’s as lesbian “dykes” by the same process.”

    Well, if people don’t understand the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation, they need educating.
    So where does this leave those M2Fs and F2Ms with partners of the same sex? Are they G and L? Or not? Seems to me it won’t make much difference during a homophobic assault.

  33. apparently Sue can’t grasp the concept of biology vs a social construct. She uses man and male or female and woman interchangeably.

  34. * Gays and lesbians are some of the strongest supporters of transpeople and our rights.

    * There are gay and lesbian transpeople, and there are trans gay men and lesbians.

    You’re so right. But folks that are on the ground, doing the activism, know this.

    Thanks for the props. I’m glad to see you still don’t hold the “Transgender March” jokes I used to throw at you against me. :p

  35. Coming from a Ron Paul, supporter, that’s pretty damn funny. You’ve slurred pre-operative transwomen all day long, then twist it back on me. Monica was spot on.

  36. Susan, when, oh when, will you ever stop spinning rhetoric? I did nothing of the sort. I moved the line that Sue herself drew. Insults are something Sue adept at.

  37. This is true of some feminists, yes, especially second-wavers. But far from all. There are plenty of trans-positive cisgender feminists, particularly in the under-30 set. (Check out third-wave feminist websites like Feministe and Feministing.) There are also plenty of trans women who consider themselves feminists!

    Amen.

    Now you do. Hi. (Shakes hands.) I am a cisgender lesbian, my partner is MtF, and I believe that all people’s identified genders are equally valid. Trans women are just as female as I am, regardless of operative status, regardless of whether they have begun/completed their medical transition. Period. There are plenty of other cisgender LGB people who agree with me on this point– I could introduce you to several dozen, if you need confirmation of this.

    Seriously, you rock. There are plenty of GLB people that are on our side and advocate with us every day. Those that are actually out there doing advocacy work see this…it’s as obvious as the fingers on my hand.

  38. Gosh Susan, how about we simply ingore that which we can’t explain…like Sue’s comment that:

    A ladies locker room is no place for Man and if you have male genitals you are a Man end of story.

    It’s classic HBS rhetoric, not to mention the many threads here you’ve hijacked.

  39. What is it with the obsession with anatomical.

    Isabel’s corollary 1: Anatomical parts and pieces, on their own, are neither sufficient nor necessary characteristics in the determination of sex and/or gender.

    A simple survey of the scientific literature shows without a doubt that there is no such thing as a perfectly binary definition of gender or sex..

    Exactly. Nature is the biggest advocate for diversity.

  40. At least, that’s what I think she was going for. If not, then I think it is still a point you could hope to learn something from. When you create dividing lines between groups, beware the day when someone else chooses a new line to divide things at.

    That’s exactly what I meant.

  41. Oh Please spare me….
    Calling me a man really
    what do call that…

    Of all the absurd things to call an XXY Female a man.

    Honey your reality check just bounced.
    I don’t have any more time for your little spitting match
    See ya wouldn’t wanna be Ya.
    Sue

  42. However the Kind of name calling Marti and others have subjected me and my kind to is typical of the lack of acceptance and proof the transgender community is not ready for mainstream life just yet.

    Poor ole Sue. I’ve not named called “people like you”, I’ve shown, with your own words, how homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic you are. I know that’s hard for you to take, none the less just because I said something that is true doesn’t make it name calling.

  43. Marti said……

    “On my own site, Transadvocate.com, three advocates of HBS routinely sidetrack posts that have nothing to do with HBS”

    For the record:

    I do not consider myself an HBS/Transsexual. I consider myself a classic Transsexual in the context of what Harry Benjamin defined as a transsexual and as what several other gender psych’s in both the UK and the USA diagnosed me as during my transition. I am a post op and have been so since 1985 having started transition at the charing cross gender clinic (UK) in 1978 and finishing transition in 1985 in the USA where I now live.

    To my way of thinking I see the HBS and the transgendered as two extreems much like the far right and the far left of politics. I think neither defines the way I see myself.

    The things I disagree with about HBS.

    1. I do not believe that all HBS are intersex in the classic definition. Some may be, others may not be but I can say that I am not. I think it’s a stretch and disrespectful of true intersex folks to claim such a position.

    2. I do not subscribe to the theory that we somehow came out of the womb or lived our first couple of years feeling like the wrong gender. Maybe it’s just me but I cant even remember that far back about anything, not even lying in a “full” diaper! It would seem that some HBS folk can remember what color swaddling cloth’s they were wrapped in. I don’t buy it.

    3. I do not believe that ANY psychiatrist can see the inner workings of a persons mind. I believe they can be led to believe anything, I believe that they can summize anything and often do, I believe that they can conclude anything based on their own beliefs and teachings and I believe they can allow their own attitudes to indulge their findings. I don’t know if Harry Benjamin was right or wrong in his findings of transsexuals, I am not a particularily academic person, but I do know that what he wrote about transsexualism fit in with the way I felt about myself.

    Now the things I agree on with HBS:

    1. That the term known as transsexual has been hijacked and used as cover by crossdressers, she-males and transvestites. This I know because I was once ok with the term as it defined myself. I am no longer comfortable with that term. In point of fact when I came out to my *now* husband, I was very careful not to use the term “transsexual” for the negative conotations it has aquired.

    2. That the transgender rights movement is more about deconstructing gender than it is about fixing gender anomolies. To quote Marti Abernathey:

    “If the goal is gender parity/equality, it will only happen when the gender binary is liberated from biology. When a man can have a vagina and a woman can have a penis. When a person with a penis can be feminine and a person with a vagina can be masculine.”

    To me, this sort of thinking is absurd and revolting. I have no words to describe how revolting it is to me. Perhaps it is because it smacks of how I felt about myself pre-op with a penis. Whatever, if this is the world the transgendered want I will have no part of it and will work to defeat it.

    3. That transsexuals are not transgendered and have no place in the transgender construct.

    4. That the association with the GLB is harmful to all transsexuals, particularily to post operative transsexuals as it associates M2F’s as gay males due to their birth gender and conversely it associates F2M’s as lesbian “dykes” by the same process.

    5. That Transsexuals desire no special protections under the law since they assume the rights of their *target* gender. I would however like to see Federal laws that specifically recognize post ops as members of their target gender. The pre-ops will get the same rights AFTER they have become post op. I know you will all have an issue with that but thats how I feel about it and no amount of arguing will change my view on it.

    ********************
    Leigh

  44. Marti said……

    “On my own site, Transadvocate.com, three advocates of HBS routinely sidetrack posts that have nothing to do with HBS”

    For the record:

    I do not consider myself an HBS/Transsexual. I consider myself a classic Transsexual in the context of what Harry Benjamin defined as a transsexual and as what several other gender psych’s in both the UK and the USA diagnosed me as during my transition. I am a post op and have been so since 1985 having started transition at the charing cross gender clinic (UK) in 1978 and finishing transition in 1985 in the USA where I now live.

    To my way of thinking I see the HBS and the transgendered as two extreems much like the far right and the far left of politics. I think neither defines the way I see myself.

    The things I disagree with about HBS.

    1. I do not believe that all HBS are intersex in the classic definition. Some may be, others may not be but I can say that I am not. I think it’s a stretch and disrespectful of true intersex folks to claim such a position.

    2. I do not subscribe to the theory that we somehow came out of the womb or lived our first couple of years feeling like the wrong gender. Maybe it’s just me but I cant even remember that far back about anything, not even lying in a “full” diaper! It would seem that some HBS folk can remember what color swaddling cloth’s they were wrapped in. I don’t buy it.

    3. I do not believe that ANY psychiatrist can see the inner workings of a persons mind. I believe they can be led to believe anything, I believe that they can summize anything and often do, I believe that they can conclude anything based on their own beliefs and teachings and I believe they can allow their own attitudes to indulge their findings. I don’t know if Harry Benjamin was right or wrong in his findings of transsexuals, I am not a particularily academic person, but I do know that what he wrote about transsexualism fit in with the way I felt about myself.

    Now the things I agree on with HBS:

    1. That the term known as transsexual has been hijacked and used as cover by crossdressers, she-males and transvestites. This I know because I was once ok with the term as it defined myself. I am no longer comfortable with that term. In point of fact when I came out to my *now* husband, I was very careful not to use the term “transsexual” for the negative conotations it has aquired.

    2. That the transgender rights movement is more about deconstructing gender than it is about fixing gender anomolies. To quote Marti Abernathey:

    “If the goal is gender parity/equality, it will only happen when the gender binary is liberated from biology. When a man can have a vagina and a woman can have a penis. When a person with a penis can be feminine and a person with a vagina can be masculine.”

    To me, this sort of thinking is absurd and revolting. I have no words to describe how revolting it is to me. Perhaps it is because it smacks of how I felt about myself pre-op with a penis. Whatever, if this is the world the transgendered want I will have no part of it and will work to defeat it.

    3. That transsexuals are not transgendered and have no place in the transgender construct.

    4. That the association with the GLB is harmful to all transsexuals, particularily to post operative transsexuals as it associates M2F’s as gay males due to their birth gender and conversely it associates F2M’s as lesbian “dykes” by the same process.

    5. That Transsexuals desire no special protections under the law since they assume the rights of their *target* gender. I would however like to see Federal laws that specifically recognize post ops as members of their target gender. The pre-ops will get the same rights AFTER they have become post op. I know you will all have an issue with that but thats how I feel about it and no amount of arguing will change my view on it.

    ********************
    Leigh

  45. I’m not disagreeing with that. I’m just pointing out that not all transgender peple are like that. In fact, the overwhelming majority of transgender people are not like that.

    So why bring it up?

  46. actually Joyce…
    I know of one person here in SanDiego who did transition to make a political statement.

    I know another transperson who has sex reassignment back in 2001 because She” was was board with her sexual role.

    That is why i said those things.

    Sue

  47. Odd… I can’t see my original comment.

    i wanted to make some political statment, or because i was sexually board, or because i wanted to be the center of attention.

    You didn’t respond to this section. Could you please explain why you were saying these things? My interpretation is that you were implying that “TG” people ARE doing these things, and if that is the case, that is something that I take offense to.

    I am happy with my genitals, yes. But I was NOT happy with my life before transition. I was fucked up, falling apart, and a shell of a person. Transition gave me the ability to express myself freely and happily. Changing my presentation from male to female made me incredible happy. I did NOT transition for such superfluous reasons as you seem to be describing.

    So again: Are you implying that I did? And if you are not, could you please explain what you meant by the above quote?

  48. any lie on a job application is reasonable cause to fire anybody trans or not.

    But is it a lie to put down “female” when you have a penis?

    I put “female” on all my forms, simply because I really don’t know what else to put. “No comment?” Really?

  49. Perhpas she was, Joyce, though a review of the thread at Bilerico, prior to Marti’s post, will not reveal any discussion on HBS/TS, only a debate on why one person (Sue) felt people with a penis shouldn’t use the female locker room.

  50. Well Sue, if you spent half as much time reading the posts on groups that you attacjk and rant at you would have seen the story many times. Of course a little trip to travel.state.gov/passport/ would answer the question for everybody.

    It is not true that employers have a right to see anyone’s birth certificate. Per Federal law, your State issued ID and SSN card, or US Passport are adequate proff for the employer. Then the employer verifies your SSN and ID thru a service accessable thru ssa.gov, which will flag your information as correct nad legal to work or fraudulant so you are to be released and investigated. As for Arizona, from what I am looking at, the birth certificate requirement is for governmental jobs, not private employers (been that way for many Federal jobs for years). But again, a US Passport can be used instead per Federal law. All a private employer needs is proof of citizenship or Alien work certification/visa.

  51. Well Sue, if you spent half as much time reading the posts on groups that you attacjk and rant at you would have seen the story many times. Of course a little trip to travel.state.gov/passport/ would answer the question for everybody.

    It is not true that employers have a right to see anyone’s birth certificate. Per Federal law, your State issued ID and SSN card, or US Passport are adequate proff for the employer. Then the employer verifies your SSN and ID thru a service accessable thru ssa.gov, which will flag your information as correct nad legal to work or fraudulant so you are to be released and investigated. As for Arizona, from what I am looking at, the birth certificate requirement is for governmental jobs, not private employers (been that way for many Federal jobs for years). But again, a US Passport can be used instead per Federal law. All a private employer needs is proof of citizenship or Alien work certification/visa.

  52. Things that I know:

    * Marti is a good egg. I don’t necessarily agree with everything she says, and/or perhaps the way she says things; but the place she is coming from, and with the intellectual firepower, are worthy of serious consideration.

    * Monica Helms is a good egg. Pretty much ditto the above.

    * People who live and/or identify as anything other than what they were legally assigned, or is socially normative, have a helluva lot of nerve to pass judgment on anyone else for anything. Regardless of the labels used by the subject or the commentator, the societal transgression by either or both is just as onerous.

    * There is no minority group so small that at least some of its members doesn’t consider itself superior to some other even smaller minority group.

    * People who don’t know the difference between bored and board shouldn’t necessarily be taken seriously.

    * Anyone who replies to each and every comment is interested in only getting the last word, as opposed to contributing something of value to the discourse. Ancillary: that person doesn’t have the capacity to evaluate when it’s appropriate or necessary to reply.

    * There’s no point in trying to disassociate yourself from people who you find objectionable because the greater society isn’t able or interested in differentiating between you.

    * It’s rude to put yourself above a compatriot by any metric just to make you feel better about yourself.

    * It’s mean to put a compatriot down, and kills a little piece of your soul.

    * Assigning characteristics to an entire group of people will be invariably incorrect, since all humans are individuals.

    * Gays and lesbians are some of the strongest supporters of transpeople and our rights.

    * There are gay and lesbian transpeople, and there are trans gay men and lesbians.

    * Intersexed is not the same thing as transsexualism, and it is misleading to use the terms interchangably.

    * Ending posts with friendly missives such as, “take care”, does not excuse or make right everything that preceded it.

    * Saying you’re leaving a discussion only to return, is being a tease.

  53. Things that I know:

    * Marti is a good egg. I don’t necessarily agree with everything she says, and/or perhaps the way she says things; but the place she is coming from, and with the intellectual firepower, are worthy of serious consideration.

    * Monica Helms is a good egg. Pretty much ditto the above.

    * People who live and/or identify as anything other than what they were legally assigned, or is socially normative, have a helluva lot of nerve to pass judgment on anyone else for anything. Regardless of the labels used by the subject or the commentator, the societal transgression by either or both is just as onerous.

    * There is no minority group so small that at least some of its members doesn’t consider itself superior to some other even smaller minority group.

    * People who don’t know the difference between bored and board shouldn’t necessarily be taken seriously.

    * Anyone who replies to each and every comment is interested in only getting the last word, as opposed to contributing something of value to the discourse. Ancillary: that person doesn’t have the capacity to evaluate when it’s appropriate or necessary to reply.

    * There’s no point in trying to disassociate yourself from people who you find objectionable because the greater society isn’t able or interested in differentiating between you.

    * It’s rude to put yourself above a compatriot by any metric just to make you feel better about yourself.

    * It’s mean to put a compatriot down, and kills a little piece of your soul.

    * Assigning characteristics to an entire group of people will be invariably incorrect, since all humans are individuals.

    * Gays and lesbians are some of the strongest supporters of transpeople and our rights.

    * There are gay and lesbian transpeople, and there are trans gay men and lesbians.

    * Intersexed is not the same thing as transsexualism, and it is misleading to use the terms interchangably.

    * Ending posts with friendly missives such as, “take care”, does not excuse or make right everything that preceded it.

    * Saying you’re leaving a discussion only to return, is being a tease.

  54. Actually bear…

    Your right legally you don’t have to check the M or F block on an employment app…

    In regards to a birth certificate;
    in order to establish citizenship an employer has the right to see your birth certificate. and since the first of this year if he is in Arizona He had better see it.

    So tell me Bear if you don’t have a birth certificate how do you get a passport?”

    Sue

  55. In reference to sex on birth certificates versus choosing gender/sex on employment applications, a couple huge points were left out.

    1. Disclosing your gender/sex on an employment application is not legally manditory. In America we have the legal right to not complete EEO related questions about ourselves (gender, age, religion, ethnicity, disability, veteran status). If you do choose to fill in the information it is considered “voluntary self disclosure” which means you choose what you want to be identified as, not what others want to identify you as. (Saying you are a veteran on EEO is rude when you are not one, but only illegal when you claim special benefits for that status)
    2. A potential employer has no right to see your birth certificate. They do not know what it says, or said. If you use a birth certificate for I-9 form, that is your choice but they much prefer ID and SSN card, or US passport. As long as those forms of identification match up, the rest is nothing.
    3. Some of us have no birth certificate (I never did since I am a barn baby). So we only have State or Fed ID/license, SSN card, and/or US Passport. And all those forms of identification reflect my male gender, regardless of the fact they do not reflect the residual female anatomy hidden in my trousers. Worry about your anatomy when you decide to get intimate with your boss.

    So as to whether a Transgender person is a liar over choice of gender box to fill in, well the employer has no grounds to judge either way since Federal law already said it was voluntary to disclose. Your choice to go by birth certificate, or SSA record/state license, or even neither since EEO data is supposed to be kept seperate from general employee files.

  56. actually hes tobi was.
    because any lie on a job application is reasonable cause to fire anybody trans or not.

    Sue

    would you have a liar working for you?
    Probably not.

  57. I am sorry you feel that way.
    Your at peace with your genitals and that is fine.
    That is just one of many things that sets you and i apart. I had a birth defect and i fixed it, and i went out of my way to make sure it was fixed. My birth certificate says female and so does every other document that pertains to me.

    This is in the old school sense what separates transgender from transsexual.

    You shouldn’t be offended you should be happy you can live with what’s between your legs.

    Sue

  58. Maybe You folks can get this….
    and stop standing in the rain.

    Checking…..
    (Scatting)
    The fire of desire’s causing too much pain
    There isn’t much to lose or to gain standing in the
    Rain
    It’s driving me insane
    As far as I can see the dream has been forsaken
    We need to reawaken an ah stop standing in the
    Rain… yeah… standing in the rain
    Stop standing in the rain
    Build (stop the rain)
    (Scatting)
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain stop the rain
    (Standing in the rain)
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain stop the rain
    (Yeah…stop corruption)
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    I’m drippin’ and I’m soakin’ wet
    (Scatting)
    A silent kind of thunder flashin’ thru my soul
    My mind’s feeling hot but I’m cold standing in the
    Rain… standing in the rain
    The words of the sages written on the page is
    Impossible for me to see I’m standing in the
    Rain… driving me insane
    (Scatting)
    Somebody stop the rain
    stop the rain stop the rain stop the rain
    (Standing in the rain)
    Somebody stop the rain (Oh oh)
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    Yeah… stop pollution
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain stop the rain
    (Standing in the rain)
    Somebody stop the rain (Yeah)
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    Uh huh… God knows I’m soakin’ wet (Uuah)
    They try to tell you day’s nite wrong’s right black’s white
    Tell me what you’re sayin’ when you’re prayin’
    Standing in the
    Rain… standing in the rain
    The moral of the story you can take it from me
    Take a look and you’ll see that we’re all standing in the
    Rain… I just can’t play the game (auhhhh)
    Somebody stop the rain
    (Yeah… stop corruption)
    Somebody stop the rain (Uh huh)
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    Somebody stop the rain
    (Yes hear me children I’m talkin’)
    (Uh huh) (Wo-oh) (Oh oh)
    I’m drippin’ and I’M soakin’ wet
    (Yeah)

  59. Maybe You folks can get this….
    and stop standing in the rain.

    Checking…..
    (Scatting)
    The fire of desire’s causing too much pain
    There isn’t much to lose or to gain standing in the
    Rain
    It’s driving me insane
    As far as I can see the dream has been forsaken
    We need to reawaken an ah stop standing in the
    Rain… yeah… standing in the rain
    Stop standing in the rain
    Build (stop the rain)
    (Scatting)
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain stop the rain
    (Standing in the rain)
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain stop the rain
    (Yeah…stop corruption)
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    I’m drippin’ and I’m soakin’ wet
    (Scatting)
    A silent kind of thunder flashin’ thru my soul
    My mind’s feeling hot but I’m cold standing in the
    Rain… standing in the rain
    The words of the sages written on the page is
    Impossible for me to see I’m standing in the
    Rain… driving me insane
    (Scatting)
    Somebody stop the rain
    stop the rain stop the rain stop the rain
    (Standing in the rain)
    Somebody stop the rain (Oh oh)
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    Yeah… stop pollution
    Somebody stop the rain
    Stop the rain stop the rain stop the rain
    (Standing in the rain)
    Somebody stop the rain (Yeah)
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    Uh huh… God knows I’m soakin’ wet (Uuah)
    They try to tell you day’s nite wrong’s right black’s white
    Tell me what you’re sayin’ when you’re prayin’
    Standing in the
    Rain… standing in the rain
    The moral of the story you can take it from me
    Take a look and you’ll see that we’re all standing in the
    Rain… I just can’t play the game (auhhhh)
    Somebody stop the rain
    (Yeah… stop corruption)
    Somebody stop the rain (Uh huh)
    Stop the rain stop the rain
    Somebody stop the rain
    (Yes hear me children I’m talkin’)
    (Uh huh) (Wo-oh) (Oh oh)
    I’m drippin’ and I’M soakin’ wet
    (Yeah)

  60. it’s all my fault….
    That is what Marti thinks…
    You know it’s really sad when transgender activists have to resort to Neo-Con and Christian fundamentalist tactics.

    I thought they were better then this.

    I guess i was wrong all along.

    This is the state of Transgender activism.

    Sue

  61. it’s all my fault….
    That is what Marti thinks…
    You know it’s really sad when transgender activists have to resort to Neo-Con and Christian fundamentalist tactics.

    I thought they were better then this.

    I guess i was wrong all along.

    This is the state of Transgender activism.

    Sue

  62. Oooooh…I get it. Marti tells Sue she is not female and undermines her GRS in a huge blog, an act that is at the very least is as egregious as Susan Stanton’s “…men in dresses” gaft…then Marti goes on her blog and finally admits it…

    The outcome?

    Well, in all of the comments, only one kinda sorta speaks out that calling Sue names was not acceptable (Tobi)…and one kinda sorta abstention (Stellewriter) .

    …and the rest?

    Well, as best I can tell between the onslaught of insults, the implication is what Marti did and said, was fine and dandy…because of…well, because of Sue, of course.

    Pretty classic…insult, after insult.

  63. I am passing on true facts. If I were to say the sky is blue, would that be an attack on the sky? If I said that water boils at 212 degrees at sea level, would I be attacking water? Great logic you have.

  64. I am passing on true facts. If I were to say the sky is blue, would that be an attack on the sky? If I said that water boils at 212 degrees at sea level, would I be attacking water? Great logic you have.

  65. I said anybody who lies on a job application deserves to be fired they are not trustworthy as an employee.
    That’s probably true, but what is the criteria for answering the gender question on a job app? Is it lying if you write “female” when you have a penis?

    If so, then it doesn’t seem that Tobi is misquoting you at all.

  66. I didn’t transition and have surgury because i wanted to make some political statment, or because i was sexually board, or because i wanted to be the center of attention.
    Are you implying that genderqueer or transgender people are? I can assure you that I have not transitioned for those reasons, and I am a genderqueer transgender.

    I did it because i had a birth defect and instead of whining about it i did something about it, i fixed it.
    Are you implying that genderqueer and transgender folks “whine” about their situation? I’m doing something about my situation, and I don’t believe that I whine about it any more than anyone else.

    It’s statements like these that offend me, because it seems like you’re implying that we are transitioning for “invalid” or “superfluous” reasons.

  67. I find it typical for you to launch personal attacks against those whom you don’t agree with.
    Your friend Autumn hardly has a leg to stand on when it comes to starting fights and name calling.

    You seem to forget i run the oldest trans group in SanDiego.

    That speaks volumes for me and the work i do.

    You should try being more respectful of people.

    Have a nice day….

    Still waiting for that Mother of all Blogs.

    Sue

  68. I find it typical for you to launch personal attacks against those whom you don’t agree with.
    Your friend Autumn hardly has a leg to stand on when it comes to starting fights and name calling.

    You seem to forget i run the oldest trans group in SanDiego.

    That speaks volumes for me and the work i do.

    You should try being more respectful of people.

    Have a nice day….

    Still waiting for that Mother of all Blogs.

    Sue

  69. From what I have been told by Autumn Sandeen a few years ago, Sue’s only entertainment is to argue a point, then switch sides in the middle of the arguement and deny that she said the previous statements. Hypocracy is her modus operendum. She also uses the trite, “You took my statement out of context” line because it begs your response, which gives her the chance to make another hypocritical statement.

    Sue is not welcomed at any LGBT group in San Diego and has caused problems where ever she goes. She has started he own groups, but none of them are very viable at this time.

    Sue has been accosted on several occasions and carries pepper spray with her, yet she continues to say they she blends well into society and has done so for nearly 30 years. What she fails to say is that she was living an angroginous life for most of that time and identified as male when asked.

    She even tried to live in San Antonio, but that didn’t go to well for her. I have seen posts where she constantly spewed hate toward Autumn and myself, calling us “men” and even stated we should be dead.

    She will respond to this and deny everything I have said here, but if any of you wish to confirm this, then ask Autumn, if you know her. Sue will come back with all the reasons that Autumn has lied, none of which have an ounce of credibility to them. Basically, all I can say is when Sue speaks, consider the source.

  70. From what I have been told by Autumn Sandeen a few years ago, Sue’s only entertainment is to argue a point, then switch sides in the middle of the arguement and deny that she said the previous statements. Hypocracy is her modus operendum. She also uses the trite, “You took my statement out of context” line because it begs your response, which gives her the chance to make another hypocritical statement.

    Sue is not welcomed at any LGBT group in San Diego and has caused problems where ever she goes. She has started he own groups, but none of them are very viable at this time.

    Sue has been accosted on several occasions and carries pepper spray with her, yet she continues to say they she blends well into society and has done so for nearly 30 years. What she fails to say is that she was living an angroginous life for most of that time and identified as male when asked.

    She even tried to live in San Antonio, but that didn’t go to well for her. I have seen posts where she constantly spewed hate toward Autumn and myself, calling us “men” and even stated we should be dead.

    She will respond to this and deny everything I have said here, but if any of you wish to confirm this, then ask Autumn, if you know her. Sue will come back with all the reasons that Autumn has lied, none of which have an ounce of credibility to them. Basically, all I can say is when Sue speaks, consider the source.

  71. Fond of sweeping generalizations, aren’t you?

    “..feminists see MtF as not meeting the bar…”

    This is true of some feminists, yes, especially second-wavers. But far from all. There are plenty of trans-positive cisgender feminists, particularly in the under-30 set. (Check out third-wave feminist websites like Feministe and Feministing.) There are also plenty of trans women who consider themselves feminists!

    “When it comes to marriage and union, we can turn our backs…”

    Well, actually, laws forbidding same-sex (actually “same-gender”) marriage affect trans people, too. In my state (Wisconsin) and many others, a trans person who has had “full or partial sex-reassignment surgery” (the law’s phrasing, not mine) cannot marry someone of the same identified gender. Thus, my partner, who is MtF, will not be able to enter into a legally recognized relationship with me after she has SRS. (She identifies both as trans and lesbian, incidentally.) In some other states, like Ohio, trans people cannot marry people of the other gender– a trans woman can never marry a man– regardless of operative status. This instance of forbidding opposite-gender marriage arises from the same homophobia and transphobia!

    “The gay movement has already caused some legislation regarding Transsexual rights to be rescinded…”

    I assume that here you are referring to ENDA. HRC did turn its back on the TS/TG community, certainly, but plenty of other LGB organizations did not. Further, you make it sound like LGB organizations have actually orchestrated the repeal of previously enacted legislation protection trans people. I know of no instances of this. Can you provide specific examples?

    “I know of no gay person who thinks we are the same as they are…”

    Now you do. Hi. (Shakes hands.) I am a cisgender lesbian, my partner is MtF, and I believe that all people’s identified genders are equally valid. Trans women are just as female as I am, regardless of operative status, regardless of whether they have begun/completed their medical transition. Period. There are plenty of other cisgender LGB people who agree with me on this point– I could introduce you to several dozen, if you need confirmation of this.

    Please take the time to get to know some cisgender feminists and LGB people before labeling us all transphobes. I’m not saying that none of us are transphobic– transphobia certainly does exist among the LGB population, and there are transphobic feminists out there. However, many of us also work to educate people about trans issues and support trans rights. On the whole, I think that LGB- and feminist- identified cisgender people are less transphobic than the general population.

  72. In reply to Sue (comments won’t nest beyond the above thread):

    You know, I’ve got things to do as well. Which is why I paraphrased instead of quoted. But you want some clear, undeniable quotes. Sure. I’ll spare a bit more time on this. However, I too must run off and help my partner with life stuff. So I’ll just tackle the first issue now.

    The first issue is Your Legal Sex you know the one on your Birth Certificate?

    Social Security will allow you to change that even if the state you were borne in won’t.

    Now i can sympathize with people who have trouble coming up with the money for surgery however Over half the trans-identified men and women don’t want surgery in the first place.

    The other issue is sound grounds to fire many transgender employees and I would first in line to do the firing… They lied on their Employment Application by not disclosing their legal sex
    I don’t care who you are you deserve to be fired for lying on an employment application.

    Emphasis original
    Comment #1: http://www.bilerico.com/2007/12/god_works_in_mysterious_ways.php

    Let’s look at that quote again: “They lied on their Employment Application by not disclosing their legal sex.” At that point I asked you more about what it means to “lie” when someone asks their gender, and you clarified.

    regardless of what your drivers license says your employer is going to want your legal sex, the one on your BC because that is what SSA goes by, and that is where the No-Match letter is going to come from.

    Comment #14: http://www.bilerico.com/2007/12/god_works_in_mysterious_ways.php

    I’m left to conclude that you see it as lying if someone were to put down a gender other than what’s listed on their birth certificate onto their employment application – even if they are going off of a different form of legal gender documentation.

    Now I can see where you’re coming from if you were making the point that a hypothetical employer might see it as lying and advising folks to be careful. However, you earlier made it clear we’re not talking about a hypothetical employer but your own position on the matter.

    How can an employer trust an employee who lies on his or her employment app?

    If i owned a business sand had to hire employees i would boot anybody who lied on their employment app right back in the street.

    This is not discrimination based on gender identity.
    This simply eliminating an untrustworthy employee.

    Emphasis original
    Comment #4: http://www.bilerico.com/2007/12/god_works_in_mysterious_ways.php

    So when I previously said:

    If someone applied for a job with you and put down a gender on the application that was not the same as their birth certificate, then you would fire them for “lying” about their gender.

    What part of that paraphrasing is inaccurate?

  73. In reply to Sue (comments won’t nest beyond the above thread):

    You know, I’ve got things to do as well. Which is why I paraphrased instead of quoted. But you want some clear, undeniable quotes. Sure. I’ll spare a bit more time on this. However, I too must run off and help my partner with life stuff. So I’ll just tackle the first issue now.

    The first issue is Your Legal Sex you know the one on your Birth Certificate?

    Social Security will allow you to change that even if the state you were borne in won’t.

    Now i can sympathize with people who have trouble coming up with the money for surgery however Over half the trans-identified men and women don’t want surgery in the first place.

    The other issue is sound grounds to fire many transgender employees and I would first in line to do the firing… They lied on their Employment Application by not disclosing their legal sex
    I don’t care who you are you deserve to be fired for lying on an employment application.

    Emphasis original
    Comment #1: http://www.bilerico.com/2007/12/god_works_in_mysterious_ways.php

    Let’s look at that quote again: “They lied on their Employment Application by not disclosing their legal sex.” At that point I asked you more about what it means to “lie” when someone asks their gender, and you clarified.

    regardless of what your drivers license says your employer is going to want your legal sex, the one on your BC because that is what SSA goes by, and that is where the No-Match letter is going to come from.

    Comment #14: http://www.bilerico.com/2007/12/god_works_in_mysterious_ways.php

    I’m left to conclude that you see it as lying if someone were to put down a gender other than what’s listed on their birth certificate onto their employment application – even if they are going off of a different form of legal gender documentation.

    Now I can see where you’re coming from if you were making the point that a hypothetical employer might see it as lying and advising folks to be careful. However, you earlier made it clear we’re not talking about a hypothetical employer but your own position on the matter.

    How can an employer trust an employee who lies on his or her employment app?

    If i owned a business sand had to hire employees i would boot anybody who lied on their employment app right back in the street.

    This is not discrimination based on gender identity.
    This simply eliminating an untrustworthy employee.

    Emphasis original
    Comment #4: http://www.bilerico.com/2007/12/god_works_in_mysterious_ways.php

    So when I previously said:

    If someone applied for a job with you and put down a gender on the application that was not the same as their birth certificate, then you would fire them for “lying” about their gender.

    What part of that paraphrasing is inaccurate?

  74. > And please in the future be more honest when you quote someone.

    You have repeated the claim that your statements have been taken out of context or otherwise mistaken, but nowhere have you done anything to expand on the assertion. Rather than take the opportunity to clarify, restate or rebut, you have stonewalled.

    It is you who are being dishonest, and you know it. You’ve been caught in a flagrant contradiction, and you have neither the wit nor the grace to manage it properly.

  75. 1- If someone applied for a job with you and put down a gender on the application that was not the same as their birth certificate, then you would fire them for “lying” about their gender.

    That is not what i said. I said anybody who lies on a job application deserves to be fired they are not trustworthy as an employee.

    in regard to the second remark…
    you left out most of that statement . So go back to the Bilerico project and re read what i said.

    Now if you don’t mind i have places to go people to meet and computers to maintain.

    Have a nice day.

    And please in the future be more honest when you quote someone.

    Sue

  76. So perhaps we’re just dealing with an issue of terminology. What do you call it when someone wants to deny rights to trans people who don’t have the proper surgical or documentation status?

    I’m basing this on some pretty clear statements you’ve made where you said:

    1- If someone applied for a job with you and put down a gender on the application that was not the same as their birth certificate, then you would fire them for “lying” about their gender.

    2- You don’t want folks who have not had surgery to be in women’s locker rooms. And that you think non-discrimination policies should be amended to allow for discrimination against pre/non-ops in this case.

    These are both very different statements than “you could be fired for lying” or “someone wouldn’t want you in the locker room.” These are statements of your opinion, and I’m not sure how you get around seeing that as anti-(some)trans folk.

    You keep pulling out your credentials and all the wonderful things you’ve done for trans people. I don’t doubt that. But firing folks and writing discrimination into a non-discrimination policy does hurt people. It’s that advocacy of that harm that I take offense to, and to the concept you espouse of different rights for different trans people.

  77. I didn’t transition and have surgury because i wanted to make some political statment, or because i was sexually board, or because i wanted to be the center of attention. I did it because i had a birth defect and instead of whining about it i did something about it, i fixed it.
    See, this is the sort of thing that bothers me. I have no intention to get surgery, identify as genderqueer, don’t consider myself to have had a birth defect, and I can say the same thing about my transition that you just did. But when I read statements like this, it feels like you’re implying that I *AM* transitioning for a political statement, because I’m sexually bored, or because I want to be the center of attention, and that is demeaning to the struggle and journey that I’ve gone on.

    I think this is why many of us get offended, and it certainly is why I get offended by your comments. If you want to identify as Transsexual-not-Transgender, that’s fine. But be careful about what you imply about us that do identify as “transgender.”

  78. > I didn’t transition and have surgury because i wanted to make some political statment, or because i was sexually board, or because i wanted to be the center of attention.

    So what? Are you implying that someone else did? If not, then this is a wholly irrelevant statement.

  79. Tobi..
    Transphobic hardly.
    I run the oldest TG/TS support and social group in SanDiego The only TG/TS Non Profit in SanDiego for that mater.

    Genderqueer phobic hardly.

    I just get angry when people start sticking labels on me.

    I didn’t transition and have surgury because i wanted to make some political statment, or because i was sexually board, or because i wanted to be the center of attention. I did it because i had a birth defect and instead of whining about it i did something about it, i fixed it.

    However the Kind of name calling Marti and others have subjected me and my kind to is typical of the lack of acceptance and proof the transgender community is not ready for mainstream life just yet.

    Take care
    Sue

  80. You know, your sentiment really resonates with me, but I think that we really need to avoid calling anyone by a gender they don’t identify with as an insult. Calling Sue a man and putting quotes around her pronouns is using transphobia to attack her. I don’t think anyone deserves that, not to mention that the ad hominem attack derails conversations away from the important issues.

    Now, if you want to call her a chauvinist, misogynist, woman, by all means.

    I mean, I’ve called her transphobic, though given her protests I think perhaps transgender-phobic, genderqueer-phobic might be more appropriate, as she does believes in full rights for those who have achieved the right surgical and documentation status.

  81. “As stated, feminists see MtF as not meeting the bar. And the big boys would bust an FtM in the locker room.”

    In my experience that is not true. All the natal-female Feminists I know are fine with MTFs who are truly Feminists, just not specific people who are using the Feminist title to hide their deeply rooted male chauvinistic attitudes (like Sue claiming all women and girls are victims of whomever has a penis) while claiming to be 100% female now.
    >
    Having spent the past 20 years using men’s restrooms and lockerrooms, but started Testosterone treatment 17 years ago, and changed my ID from female to male just over 10 years ago, I have never experienced any problems with men there. However, I started using men’s space so early because women were sometimes violent against other women in “their” spaces, including pushing out the too butch or too femme, and raping other women. As a cop I am around a lot of “big boys” (in “buckle of bible belt”) who could see I have no penis, yet I have never had a fear of assault. If anything, many natal-males are afraid I will mess them up.
    >
    It is bad enough when others decide whether we are truly male or female, without our own Trans family pushing their elitist judgemental attitudes on us. Surgery does not make you better than the non-op, nor does natal genitals make you better than the TS. Just having an attitude of superiority proves to me that someone is less than others has a person, regardless of gender identity or body appearance.

  82. What the hell are you talking about? Being realistic about transsexualism as an experience does not erase the legal and social legitimacy of transitioned individuals.

    I think that some people have a very unrealistic sense of the kind of thinking that has gone into sex/gender-recognition.

  83. THE KILLING ZONE…

    GADS!!! I paid all of that money to resolve my medical issues to find that it was not the prescribed solution? I guess one can say it this way for those who are Transsexual, post-op, or Intersex and have a mixed bag of goodies. With all of the varied positions and pseudo-voodoo-laws and restrictions, we are outside of the woman / man debate. I mean if we cannot be recognized and have a solid definition of our state, by our State, then we truly are “IT’s.” If we cannot transition and fully be female or male, be what we know we should be; nor if we should be forced not to transition, can we truly be female or male? Can one remain a woman, or find a place where one can transition and not be placed in danger, what can we say?? We fall outside of the binary, and all of the definitions of those who decide what the binary means. Further, we are unmentionable to those who are one or the other, but wish to twist its meaning so as to solve their own desires. As stated, feminists see MtF as not meeting the bar. And the big boys would bust an FtM in the locker room. We are by any definition outside of the merit of current recognition. We, behind covered mouths and side whispering, are seen as freaks and accordingly identified as “IT’s”, “Things”, Freaks!” So, perhaps, we should accept it as fact. Not fight it at all.

    When it comes to marriage and union, we can turn our backs. The gay movement has already caused some legislation regarding Transsexual rights to be rescinded. We can say we will not play their game. We can do what we want because we do not fit under the definitions provided by law. All of the talk to garner rights and equality means nothing, if we are not recognized as same. Not the Legislators, Courts, Society, or even the likes of HRC and the GLB community hold us as equal. I know of no gay person who thinks we are the same as they are. And why not, Barney Frank clearly sees us as a lesser creature. The many religious organizations have placed us in the less than human category. And even the medical community cannot resolve the issue of MAN / WOMAN? We are defined as a thing. “A THING!” Or, as those who in other times were deemed less than human, respond with the ferocity of a wild animal? The Transsexual should be on the endangered species list and accept exclusion from the norms of society. Imaginably, a day may soon come where we are caged and treated less than the other creatures; thus ending in a sickening repeat of history.

  84. THE KILLING ZONE…

    GADS!!! I paid all of that money to resolve my medical issues to find that it was not the prescribed solution? I guess one can say it this way for those who are Transsexual, post-op, or Intersex and have a mixed bag of goodies. With all of the varied positions and pseudo-voodoo-laws and restrictions, we are outside of the woman / man debate. I mean if we cannot be recognized and have a solid definition of our state, by our State, then we truly are “IT’s.” If we cannot transition and fully be female or male, be what we know we should be; nor if we should be forced not to transition, can we truly be female or male? Can one remain a woman, or find a place where one can transition and not be placed in danger, what can we say?? We fall outside of the binary, and all of the definitions of those who decide what the binary means. Further, we are unmentionable to those who are one or the other, but wish to twist its meaning so as to solve their own desires. As stated, feminists see MtF as not meeting the bar. And the big boys would bust an FtM in the locker room. We are by any definition outside of the merit of current recognition. We, behind covered mouths and side whispering, are seen as freaks and accordingly identified as “IT’s”, “Things”, Freaks!” So, perhaps, we should accept it as fact. Not fight it at all.

    When it comes to marriage and union, we can turn our backs. The gay movement has already caused some legislation regarding Transsexual rights to be rescinded. We can say we will not play their game. We can do what we want because we do not fit under the definitions provided by law. All of the talk to garner rights and equality means nothing, if we are not recognized as same. Not the Legislators, Courts, Society, or even the likes of HRC and the GLB community hold us as equal. I know of no gay person who thinks we are the same as they are. And why not, Barney Frank clearly sees us as a lesser creature. The many religious organizations have placed us in the less than human category. And even the medical community cannot resolve the issue of MAN / WOMAN? We are defined as a thing. “A THING!” Or, as those who in other times were deemed less than human, respond with the ferocity of a wild animal? The Transsexual should be on the endangered species list and accept exclusion from the norms of society. Imaginably, a day may soon come where we are caged and treated less than the other creatures; thus ending in a sickening repeat of history.

  85. Marti has done a greas service to show the world what the Transgender community is really like.

    Thank you Marti.

  86. Marti has done a greas service to show the world what the Transgender community is really like.

    Thank you Marti.

  87. You are, by the way, either flat wrong or simply lying. Most “transgender” people – many of whom are transsexual – explicitly acknowledge the transsexualism of self-identified HBS individuals, even if there is some dispute over what qualifies as evidence of an essential condition. HBS people, on the other hand, generally deny that “transgender” people are transsexual at all, let alone actually the gender they identify as, regardless of their status… which of course the HBS people insist be as publically proclaimed as possible, in direct contradiction to their own mantra of assimilation and discretion.

  88. Oh? My impression has been that you think that people who work within the transgender framework draw the distinction too wide, not too narrow.

    > those of us who have worked hard and gone through hell

    And you can stop playing this little cred card, now. It impresses no one. We all have a story to tell.

  89. Except that HBS fundamentalists don’t recognize surgery as definitive. They (you) draw the distinctions even tighter, requiring fealty to a specific identity-political agenda, going so far as to pretend to “diagnose” anyone who falls afoul of their ideology as wannabes, fetishists, and so on.

    Funny how you have just summed up my arguement regarding the Transgender Agenda.

    Perhaps what you are seeing is a reflection of how certain transgenders feel toward those of us who have worked hard and gone through hell to find a surgical solution for our birth defect.

    Sue

  90. > Perhaps i should have said those of us who have taken a surgical route…

    Except that HBS fundamentalists don’t recognize surgery as definitive. They (you) draw the distinctions even tighter, requiring fealty to a specific identity-political agenda, going so far as to pretend to “diagnose” anyone who falls afoul of their ideology as wannabes, fetishists, and so on.

  91. Well, it still fails to make a clear distinction, as I know people that are getting/have gotten lower surgery that don’t identify as HBS/TS. Marti is clearly focusing her “intolerance” at HBS/TS people, not those that just get surgery.

    Also: Please don’t assume you know what I would say. I would not have called you elitist just because you identified the target of Marti’s “intolerance” as such.

  92. Perhaps i should have said those of us who have taken a surgical route…
    If i said that you would call me elitist.

    Sue

  93. Perhaps i should have said those of us who have taken a surgical route…
    If i said that you would call me elitist.

    Sue

  94. I am in no way saying your transition is any less then anyone else’s

    But Marti is being intolerant of “those of us that have a need to transition”! If that includes Marti herself, then are you saying that Marti is being intolerant of herself?

    Your language seemed very clear to me. What I implicitly read into your statement was that “HBS/TS” trans-folk are the “real” transitioners, and the rest of us are just posers or pretenders.”

    If this is not what you are implying, I apologize for my expletive, but I would then suggest improving the sensitivity inherent in your language, if you are going for being a respectful person.

  95. Acknowledging a specific physical fact is not the same as “calling you a man.” As you even suggest in your signature, physical birth sex is not the defining characteristic. Just as you were a woman before you completed transition – and no doubt insisted that everyone around you acknowledge you as such – so are most of the men and women that you and people like you persistently demean. And many of them are also in various stages of pursuing exactly the same “need” that you assert defines you.

    Finally, it is you… always you and yours… who most quickly descend to gender-baiting in these arguments. No one here believes that you are “not a woman” in any important sense, but you always retreat to accusations of “male privilege” and other tired, self-serving observations of male affect in those you argue with.

    What a truly nasty bunch of fruit loops.

  96. Sue, fuck you. I have gone through hell to transition just like any of you “HBS/TS” folks, and I don’t need genital surgery to do that. Don’t act all high and mighty like your magically distinct “HBS/TS” people are the only people that have to transition. Marti, myself, and many others have to as well.

    I am in no way saying your transition is any less then anyone else’s.

    I never have as a matter of fact.

    All i have said on the subject stands.
    Have a nice day.

    Sue

  97. Sue, fuck you. I have gone through hell to transition just like any of you “HBS/TS” folks, and I don’t need genital surgery to do that. Don’t act all high and mighty like your magically distinct “HBS/TS” people are the only people that have to transition. Marti, myself, and many others have to as well.

    I am in no way saying your transition is any less then anyone else’s.

    I never have as a matter of fact.

    All i have said on the subject stands.
    Have a nice day.

    Sue

  98. (Sorry about the double post. I’m still figuring this site out.)

    how intolorant you and your ilk are of those of us who have a need to transition.
    I have gone through hell to transition just like any of you “HBS/TS” folks, and I don’t need genital surgery to do that. Don’t act all high and mighty like your magically distinct “HBS/TS” people are the only people that have to transition. Marti, myself, and many others have to as well.

    You have also done a fine job of showing how important Male Privilege is to you and have justified everything Feminists have said about transgender people that TS and HBS survivors have fought against.
    I think you’re just throwing words around so that you can say, “Nuh-uh! You’re being the agent of the Patriarchy!” Marti is defending a person’s right to self-define their gender, which is what you’re doing as well, regardless of your intersex status, your vagina, or whatever.

    TS and HBS survivors
    Wow, nice melodrama.

    you attack me and call me a man when i am intersex
    If we start defining “male” and “female” by something biological, there are many ways to do so. The shape of your genitals is just one of them. Others include chromosomes, reproductive capability, etc. Marti was trying to show you how, by your own logic, you are a “man” if you resort to certain biological distinctions, chromosomes not-withstanding.

    At least, that’s what I think she was going for. If not, then I think it is still a point you could hope to learn something from. When you create dividing lines between groups, beware the day when someone else chooses a new line to divide things at.

  99. how intolorant you and your ilk are of those of us who have a need to transition.
    Sue, fuck you. I have gone through hell to transition just like any of you “HBS/TS” folks, and I don’t need genital surgery to do that. Don’t act all high and mighty like your magically distinct “HBS/TS” people are the only people that have to transition. Marti, myself, and many others have to as well.

    You have also done a fine job of showing how important Male Privilege is to you and have justified everything Feminists have said about transgender people that TS and HBS survivors have fought against.
    I think you’re just throwing words around so that you can say, “Nuh-uh! You’re being the agent of the Patriarchy!” Marti is defending a person’s right to self-define their gender, which is what you’re doing as well, regardless of your intersex status, your vagina, or whatever.

    TS and HBS survivors
    Wow, nice melodrama.

    you attack me and call me a man when i am intersex
    If we start defining “male” and “female” by something biological, there are many ways to do so. The shape of your genitals is just one of them. Others include chromosomes, reproductive capability, etc. Marti was trying to show you how, by your own logic, you are a “man” if you resort to certain biological distinctions, chromosomes not-withstanding.

    At least, that’s what I think she was going for. If not, then I think it is still a point you could hope to learn something from. When you create dividing lines between groups, beware the day when someone else chooses a new line to divide things at.

  100. how intolorant you and your ilk are of those of us who have a need to transition.
    Sue, fuck you. I have gone through hell to transition just like any of you “HBS/TS” folks, and I don’t need genital surgery to do that. Don’t act all high and mighty like your magically distinct “HBS/TS” people are the only people that have to transition. Marti, myself, and many others have to as well.

    You have also done a fine job of showing how important Male Privilege is to you and have justified everything Feminists have said about transgender people that TS and HBS survivors have fought against.
    I think you’re just throwing words around so that you can say, “Nuh-uh! You’re being the agent of the Patriarchy!” Marti is defending a person’s right to self-define their gender, which is what you’re doing as well, regardless of your intersex status, your vagina, or whatever.

    TS and HBS survivors
    Wow, nice melodrama.

    you attack me and call me a man when i am intersex
    If we start defining “male” and “female” by something biological, there are many ways to do so. The shape of your genitals is just one of them. Others include chromosomes, reproductive capability, etc. Marti was trying to show you how, by your own logic, you are a “man” if you resort to certain biological distinctions, chromosomes not-withstanding.

    At least, that’s what I think she was going for. If not, then I think it is still a point you could hope to learn something from. When you create dividing lines between groups, beware the day when someone else chooses a new line to divide things at.

  101. (also posted at Bilerico’s)

    What is it with the obsession with anatomical.

    Isabel’s corollary 1: Anatomical parts and pieces, on their own, are neither sufficient nor necessary characteristics in the determination of sex and/or gender.

    A simple survey of the scientific literature shows without a doubt that there is no such thing as a perfectly binary definition of gender or sex. Our societal definitions of gender/sex as female and male are just constructs, useful as everyday indicators, but excessively often used as cages to restrict benefits/activities/rights/duties from one group and/or to keep individuals from belonging to a perceived “elite” group (read gender). Below is a partial compendium of the incredibly varied and complex nature of human gender. This is just what is presently known, and is in all probability just the tip of the iceberg, insofar as these are based mostly on parameters that scientists have been able to measure in one way or another, visually, or with the help of modern day instrumentation and technical advances. At present, acquisition of many of these parameters is limited by the inability to measure below picogram (and in many cases below microgram) levels many of the factors associated with gender/sexual dimorphism. Doubtless, there might exist many factors that are active at the sub-picogram levels of which we know nothing. Add to this the fact that almost nothing is known of what parameters affect the brain’s gender/sex dimorphism. It then becomes readily apparent that the only person that can conceivably know to what gender/sex they belong is her-/him-/it-self (just as happens with sexual preference). Likewise, the only person that can conceivably have ANY RIGHT to decide to what gender/sex they belong is that person her-/him-/it-self (again, just as happens with sexual preference).

    46, XX people may have ovaries, testes, both ovaries and testes, neither ovaries nor testes, or organs that are a combination of both ovaries and testes (ovotestes). Again, they might or might not have ovaries. They might have one ovary, two ovaries, or more. They might or might not have fallopian tubes. They might have a fallopian tube, two, or more. They might or might not have a uterus. They might have a uterus or more than one. They might or might not have a cervix. They might have one or more than one cervix. They might or might not have a vagina. They might have one or more than one vagina. They may have testes or ovotestes. They may have labia or scrotal sacs, or something in between. They may have a clitoris or a penis, neither, or a structure in between. They might or might not menstruate. Upon puberty, breasts may or may not develop. They might or might not be able to become pregnant. They might or might not be able to give childbirth. They might be raised as either “females” or as “males”. Just about any combination of any of the above factors is possible.

    46, XY people may have ovaries, testes, both ovaries and testes, neither ovaries nor testes, or organs that are a combination of both ovaries and testes (ovotestes). They might or might not have fallopian tubes. They might or might not have a uterus. They might or might not have a cervix. They might or might not have a vagina. They may have labia or scrotal sacs, or something in between. They may have a clitoris or a penis, neither, or a structure in between. They might or might not menstruate. Upon puberty, breasts may or may not develop. They might or might not be able to become pregnant. They might or might not be able to give childbirth. They might be raised as either “females” or as “males”. Just about any combination of any of the above factors is possible.

    As for hormones, the overlap between the amounts present among the combined population is usually greater than the non-overlapping areas of the statistical end-points of said population. The same could be said for societal constraints, both in a geographic/cultural sense and form a historical perspective.

    (By the way, 46 XXY people, Klinefelter patients, are considered to be males)

    References for most of the above comments (notable exception being Isabel’s corollary) available upon request. 🙂

    Isabel
    PS erratum: 47 XXY

  102. (also posted at Bilerico’s)

    What is it with the obsession with anatomical.

    Isabel’s corollary 1: Anatomical parts and pieces, on their own, are neither sufficient nor necessary characteristics in the determination of sex and/or gender.

    A simple survey of the scientific literature shows without a doubt that there is no such thing as a perfectly binary definition of gender or sex. Our societal definitions of gender/sex as female and male are just constructs, useful as everyday indicators, but excessively often used as cages to restrict benefits/activities/rights/duties from one group and/or to keep individuals from belonging to a perceived “elite” group (read gender). Below is a partial compendium of the incredibly varied and complex nature of human gender. This is just what is presently known, and is in all probability just the tip of the iceberg, insofar as these are based mostly on parameters that scientists have been able to measure in one way or another, visually, or with the help of modern day instrumentation and technical advances. At present, acquisition of many of these parameters is limited by the inability to measure below picogram (and in many cases below microgram) levels many of the factors associated with gender/sexual dimorphism. Doubtless, there might exist many factors that are active at the sub-picogram levels of which we know nothing. Add to this the fact that almost nothing is known of what parameters affect the brain’s gender/sex dimorphism. It then becomes readily apparent that the only person that can conceivably know to what gender/sex they belong is her-/him-/it-self (just as happens with sexual preference). Likewise, the only person that can conceivably have ANY RIGHT to decide to what gender/sex they belong is that person her-/him-/it-self (again, just as happens with sexual preference).

    46, XX people may have ovaries, testes, both ovaries and testes, neither ovaries nor testes, or organs that are a combination of both ovaries and testes (ovotestes). Again, they might or might not have ovaries. They might have one ovary, two ovaries, or more. They might or might not have fallopian tubes. They might have a fallopian tube, two, or more. They might or might not have a uterus. They might have a uterus or more than one. They might or might not have a cervix. They might have one or more than one cervix. They might or might not have a vagina. They might have one or more than one vagina. They may have testes or ovotestes. They may have labia or scrotal sacs, or something in between. They may have a clitoris or a penis, neither, or a structure in between. They might or might not menstruate. Upon puberty, breasts may or may not develop. They might or might not be able to become pregnant. They might or might not be able to give childbirth. They might be raised as either “females” or as “males”. Just about any combination of any of the above factors is possible.

    46, XY people may have ovaries, testes, both ovaries and testes, neither ovaries nor testes, or organs that are a combination of both ovaries and testes (ovotestes). They might or might not have fallopian tubes. They might or might not have a uterus. They might or might not have a cervix. They might or might not have a vagina. They may have labia or scrotal sacs, or something in between. They may have a clitoris or a penis, neither, or a structure in between. They might or might not menstruate. Upon puberty, breasts may or may not develop. They might or might not be able to become pregnant. They might or might not be able to give childbirth. They might be raised as either “females” or as “males”. Just about any combination of any of the above factors is possible.

    As for hormones, the overlap between the amounts present among the combined population is usually greater than the non-overlapping areas of the statistical end-points of said population. The same could be said for societal constraints, both in a geographic/cultural sense and form a historical perspective.

    (By the way, 46 XXY people, Klinefelter patients, are considered to be males)

    References for most of the above comments (notable exception being Isabel’s corollary) available upon request. 🙂

    Isabel
    PS erratum: 47 XXY

  103. I have to thank you for showing your true colors and showing everyone in the GLB community how intolorant you and your ilk are of those of us who have a need to transition.

    You have also done a fine job of showing how important Male Privilege is to you and have justified everything Feminists have said about transgender people that TS and HBS survivors have fought against.

    I think it is sad that not only do you attack me and call me a man when i am intersex but you also attack everyone who wishes to correct a mistake they have gone through hell since birth.

    Sue
    She who was borne female.

  104. I have to thank you for showing your true colors and showing everyone in the GLB community how intolorant you and your ilk are of those of us who have a need to transition.

    You have also done a fine job of showing how important Male Privilege is to you and have justified everything Feminists have said about transgender people that TS and HBS survivors have fought against.

    I think it is sad that not only do you attack me and call me a man when i am intersex but you also attack everyone who wishes to correct a mistake they have gone through hell since birth.

    Sue
    She who was borne female.

  105. Oh gods, I can’t stand those HBS people.

    I don’t have much to add… They just seem to hate on transgender people so much…

  106. Oh gods, I can’t stand those HBS people.

    I don’t have much to add… They just seem to hate on transgender people so much…

  107. I grew up around “radical feminists”. Women who ran NOW in large cities around California in the beginning, feminist seperatists who founded Dianic Wicca Traditions to remove men from power over them. Sue does not know what being a feminist is about. Those same radical feminists supported my FTM transition, because they are about STRENGTH, CHOICES, being who you are without someone beating you down, and about women not being treated as perpetual victims. Sue’s whole argument is about women and girls being victimized in lockerrooms and restrooms by the mere presence of a masculine person. Well gee, how does assuming every natal-female is a victim equate to being a feminist? Ol’Sue may be post SRS, but in “her” brain “she” is still a chauvinist, misogynist, MAN.

  108. I grew up around “radical feminists”. Women who ran NOW in large cities around California in the beginning, feminist seperatists who founded Dianic Wicca Traditions to remove men from power over them. Sue does not know what being a feminist is about. Those same radical feminists supported my FTM transition, because they are about STRENGTH, CHOICES, being who you are without someone beating you down, and about women not being treated as perpetual victims. Sue’s whole argument is about women and girls being victimized in lockerrooms and restrooms by the mere presence of a masculine person. Well gee, how does assuming every natal-female is a victim equate to being a feminist? Ol’Sue may be post SRS, but in “her” brain “she” is still a chauvinist, misogynist, MAN.

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