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The post that follows this will discuss Alice Dreger’s “The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age.”
As a matter of disclosure, I believe before I can discuss this journal article I must be clear about a few points.
1. I’m not a supporter of Andrea James or Calpernia Addam’s websites. From years of visiting their sites and taking part in their forums, I’ve found that they support a “Stepford Wife” stereotype that many feminists object to. Alice Dreger refers to it as the “feminine essence narrative.”
I can’t really speak for anyone else, but this narrative doesn’t fit with my experience. I wasn’t born in the wrong body. I was born in THIS body. My gender identity doesn’t match my biological sex. It isn’t a matter of right or wrong, but of an ingrained sex identity that has been with me for as long as I can remember. A look at history suggests that gender variance naturally occurs across most cultures and in many animal species.
2 . I don’t agree with J Michael Bailey’s thesis that groups transsexuals into either “autogynephilic” or homosexual” transsexuals categories. He tries to make something very complex, simple. In doing so, it strips any context away and creates a cartoonish version of what transgenderism is and means. He did much the same thing when he claimed that bisexuals (“in men there’s no hint that true bisexual arousal exists, and that for men arousal is orientation “) or lesbians (“I’m not even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they have sexual preferences.“) don’t really exist, based on genital stimulation to pornography.
Summer Songs that helped us Survive
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."
