Hypocrisy, Hate and Harm #no2h8splc

August 6, 2013 ·

cruising

The above is a picture of militant lesbians and gays protesting against a movie that promoted false gay stereotypes.

March 18, 1970 Ladies' Home Journal Sit-In

March 18, 1970 Ladies’ Home Journal Sit-In

Above is what happened when a bunch of RadFems righteously took over the offices of the Ladie’s Home Journal because it was a vector for promoting false stereotypes about women. Protesting negative stereotypes of cisgender women in the media has a long and proud tradition among feminists.

Queer Nation’s New York membership has vowed to deface all of Basic Instinct’s posters and to hand out leaflets at theaters where it opens. Similar protests are expected in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Locally, the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force is also organizing a dissent.

March 15, 1992

On Friday, articles were published in the show-business trade newspapers and elsewhere, suggesting that a disruption could occur at the movie industry’s biggest annual show, the Oscars. Earlier in the week, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said that it plans to continue protests against “Basic Instinct,” which it termed “gratuitously defamatory” toward lesbians and women in general.

March 17, 1992

So, to be clear… when cis people – especially radical lesbians – take a stand (even a militant stand) against the promulgation of stereotyped misinformation, it’s nothing but awesome.

But…

When trans people write a letter – yes, a mere letter – expressing concerns about Sheila Jeffreys’ upcoming book (which will promote false trans stereotypes) open season is declared upon all trans people:

I am writing to let you know that we were all sent a copy of your recent letter to Rutledge Press in reference to Sheila Jeffreys’ forthcoming book, Gender Hurts, and have organized a small but growing group to address the issue. We will continue to coordinate our efforts so that our classrooms will be at the forefront of questioning transgender as a valid political movement—or perhaps that is just a veil for a misogynist hate group. Why the distinctly male rage? Why the threats and why the attempts to silence women and other academics?  In order to illuminate these questions we will turn attentions toward Michael Bailey’s The Man That Would Be Queen and Dr. Anne Lawrence’s notions on transgender narcissistic rage, as both may serve to posit alternate theories of equal merit that students can understand.

– Excerpts from Women for Academic Freedom

[hr]

I have read both your blogs and have found them insightful and well measured. I just wanted to clarify a couple of points…

The letter to Rutledge got around and sounded a warning. We are women academics, writers, artists, researchers, editors all currently working in the academy and all unaffiliated with any political group. We each have reputations that if nothing else, are benign and mild. The issue is that we see a real threat and believe these transactivists to be misogynistic. And we all have watched as these men attack women’s careers because people are afraid to be called “transphobic” which can be argued exists as a reality for poor non white people and not white men in their 40’s with elite educations and training. We will present a new concept: Trans privilege as another form of white male elitism. That privilege has in certain corners of the culture eroded women’s rights. We are, as I said from across the curriculum, some soft science, some humanities. Most are straight women.

At first blush, second and third it would seem that neither Denny nor Jamison or Williams can read because at no point does the letter mention graduate students. Our project is to have students (large undergraduate courses) question and not just accept what are essentially lies repeated over and over. They will learn the dangers of false analogy, of junk science, of political conformity. They will learn that the fear of being called a bigot is not a good enough excuse to not question threats against those that do question. Students will fact check, stand look out for “double and good speak” and all the manipulations of logic and rhetoric. They will be very busy. If Williams and the lynch mob finds out who I am it will not be hard to establish that I have zero connection with any feminist groups and I would say they would look like jackasses but that’s a fete accompli. In fact I am betting the radfems bless their hearts, are all scratching their heads and wondering: who the hell?

No war has been declared. Rather reality has been declared. Despite how well positioned some of these “activists” are if they keep it up they will be given recognition as the most pathological movement since Germany in the 1930’s.

– Women for Academic Freedom Comment left on an infamous internet troll‘s site

[hr]
Cathy Brennan

Anti-trans RadFem Cathy Brennan’s website supporting Women for Academic Freedom

Where have I heard this kind of grousing before?

quitsquirming

Sheila Jeffreys is an infamous anti-trans RadFem opinion leader. For instance, she expressed support for ultra-conservative British politician Norman Tebbit’s views on the Gender Recognition Act (which gave trans people legal recognition under British law):

Now one of the things I find puzzling about it is that, when I look at the House of Lords debate on this legislation, those I agree with most are the radical right. Particularly the person I find that I agree with most, in here, and I’m not sure he will be pleased to find this, is Norman Tebbitt… Tebbitt also says that the savage mutilation of transgenderism, we would say if it was taking place in other cultures apart from the culture of Britain, was a harmful cultural practice, and how come we’re not recognising that in the British Isles. So he makes all of these arguments from the radical right, which is quite embarrassing to me, but I have to say, so called progressive and left people are not recognising the human rights violations of transgenderism or how crazy the legislation is.

– Sheila Jeffreys

I find it interesting that Jeffreys herself notes that her views are aligned with the “radical right.”

Criticism of the practice of transgenderism is being censored as a result of a campaign of vilification by transgender activists of anyone who does not accept the new orthodoxy on this issue.

– The very first sentence of Sheila Jeffreys defence the RadFem2012 Conference – a conference that which was later given the boot by their event host for being an anti-trans hate group (emphasis mine)

The practice of transgenderism? Take a guess at who says stuff like, the practice of homosexualism and the practice of homosexuality.

Despite being a Catholic, Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty of Ontario forced even Catholic schools to promote the homosexual agenda in the schools and have Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs, even though the practice of homosexuality violates Catholic teaching. (So much for religious freedom!)

– White supremacist, Paul Fromm, decrying censorship while advocating for the academic religious freedom to critique homosexuality as a choice.

Framing being gay or trans as a mere practice – something that one does instead of what one is – is a favored rhetorical tool used by hate groups the world over and unsurprisingly, we find this exact hate rhetoric in the very first sentence of Sheila Jeffreys response. For if being trans is merely a practice – an addiction, a lifestyle, a pastime, etc – then it can be argued that one can cease engaging in that practice.

freespeech

In the same way anti-trans RadRight groups assert that schools should stop censoring young earth creationism by ‘teaching the controversy,’ anti-trans RadFems have likewise embraced the same  rhetorical narrative where schools are concerned:

[In our classrooms] we will dismantle the basic claim of “transgender” oppression. Once exposed the list of fraudulent claims that follow falls apart. The questions students will invariably ask is: why? Why the distinctly male rage? Why the threats and why the attempts to silence women and other academics? In order to illuminate these questions we will turn attentions toward Michael Bailey’s The Man That Would Be Queen… [This response to your letter to Jeffrey’s publisher] is meant to let you know that you just secured Sheila Jeffreys another generation and your attempts to censor her are a case study in: the reach exceeds the grasp. By the time we are done the transgender movement and those names attached will be more accurately seen as like carnival hucksters and boss man thugs and Sheila Jeffreys will drop a note on personal stationary thanking you for the spike in sales.

– Women for Academic Freedom

This narrative is embraced, supported and endorsed by anti-trans RadFem opinion leaders like Cathy Brennan. As Sheila Jeffreys herself noted, there’s a reason it’s next to impossible to distinguish anti-trans RadFem rhetoric from anti-trans RadRight rhetoric. For example, can you confidently say whether the following statement made by an anti-trans RadFem hate group or an anti-trans RadRight hate group?

“This was a man, everyone recognized it’s a man, going into the women’s restroom. Now whether that person has good or ill intentions towards women, no one knows, but the fact of the matter is when you defy common sense and when it says ‘women’s fitting room’ and you allow people other than women in that fitting room, you’re just asking for trouble. This is just an absurd policy… [women] may be watched by a peeping tom or even worse, sexually assaulted or raped.”

Which is it? Is this an anti-trans RadFem group or an anti-trans RadRight group appealing to the Bathroom meme? Can you tell? No? Here’s the answer.

shezow[1]

There’s a reason you won’t be able to tell if the following comments about Shezow came from a popular anti-trans RadFem site or a popular anti-trans RadRight site:

  1. Oh, that’s just so terrific. Maybe they can get our kids to want to mutilate their bodies and have a sex change operation by the age of 6.
  2. Cartoon Porn
  3. yuck
  4. Propaganda and indoctrination all in one horrific package. No thanks.
  5. Trying to indoctrinate children at a younger and younger age.
  6. My kids won’t be watching it. The Hub has now joined Disney Channel and Nickelodeon in the ban on certain unhealthy kid tv in my house.
  7. But the last thing we need is more boys getting the notion from the media that they are the wrong sex and that they can be “magically” turned into the opposite one, and that then they get to be girl super-heros.
  8. Yet another reason why I cut the cable and have strict controls over what my kids watch on TV.
  9. I’ll add that this whole business of preparing children for transitioning when they come of age, reminds me most unpleasantly of how children are groomed for prostitution.
  10. How many trannies are there out there? Is it even .05% of the population? This is just some trannie wanting to promote trannies

Five of the above comments come from an anti-trans RadFem site and five comes from an anti-trans RadRight site. Can you tell the difference? No? Here’s the answers.


Hate

There’s a reason anti-trans RadFems and the anti-trans RadRighters both think that reparative therapy will cure trans people.

Nonsexist counseling is another direction for change that should be explored. The kind of counseling to “pass” successfully as masculine or feminine that now reigns in gender identity clinics only reinforces the problem of transsexualism. It does nothing to develop critical awareness, and makes transsexuals dependent upon medical-technical solutions. What I am advocating is a counseling that explores the social origins of the transsexual problem and the consequences of the medicaltechnical solution. 

 Anti-Trans RadFem opinion leader Janice Raymond (1980), Technology on the Social and Ethical Aspects of Transsexual Surgery

[hr]

Unfortunately, the promotion of “sex change” operations has decreased investigation into prevention and therapy for those suffering from gender dysphoria. For example, in one case a Catholic, married man who had several children wanted to become female. In his therapeutic treatment, he came to understand the origins of his inability identify with his masculinity. In working with a spiritual director, he slowly came to experience God as loving father who could protect him, and to develop a relationship with St. Joseph as a role model of male love.

– NARTH, listed as a hate group by the SPLC

Radical Women, founded in 1967, was an early radical feminist group. These radical women are still around and are still pushing back against hate. As I said, there’s a reason anti-trans RadFems and the anti-trans RadRight sound alike. Consider what Radical Women have to say about anti-trans RadFems:

They seem to see the biggest threat coming from transpeople and allies rather than attacks on abortion, economic exploitation or domestic violence. Online debates focus on not allowing transwomen in “women’s” bathrooms as though there needs to be some sort of bathroom police on duty. These ridiculous debates detract from much more productive conversations on how to organize against sexism. Anti-trans views ultimately come from a flawed, female-chauvinist analysis that sees sexism as the paramount issue and only weakly, if at all, takes into account how women’s oppression intersects with racism, class, ableism, homophobia and of course transphobia…

Transphobia comes from a minority of women in the feminist community but unfortunately it’s a rather noisy minority. Their hatred does not have any place in our struggle. Feminism is supposed to be an ideology of transcending gender oppression and eliminating the strict binary definition of gender, not reinforcing it. Feminists should be against hatred and bigotry in all forms and respect everyone’s right to biological autonomy.

… Sheila Jeffreys’ 2003 book, Unpacking Queer Politics… claims that being transgender is a self harm disorder and reinforces binary gender models…

Radical Women has fought for transpeople from the 1973 First West Coast Lesbian Conference to participating in the 2007 United ENDA movement that pushed for inclusion of transpeople in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Radical Women welcomes transwomen as members and defends transpeople’s right to respect within the queer movement as in society at large.

Radical Women

The reason anti-trans RadFems and the anti-trans RadRighters sound alike is quite clear. So, why does the Southern Poverty Law Center refuse to see it? Why do they continue to feature anti-trans opinion leaders like this…

RadFem opinion leader and attorney Catherine (Cathy) Brennan, Partner at Hudson Cook LLP

… as their being their voice of reason on their site? Even when their voice of reason intimidates tracks trans people who dare ask the Southern Poverty Law Center withdraw their support of anti-trans RadFems like Brennan, why does the Southern Poverty Law Center – time and again –  fail to see what everyone else sees?

Southern Poverty Law Center's voice of reason, anti-trans RadFem Cathy Brennan ironically claiming censorship while seeming to intimidate trans people into silence.

Southern Poverty Law Center’s voice of reason, anti-trans RadFem Cathy Brennan ironically claiming censorship while intimidating trans people into silence. Also, I guess Brennan thinks misgendering helps her cause.

When anti-trans RadFems attempt to hold conferences, but are booted from their event location for being a hate group over and over and over again, why does the Souther Poverty Law Center refuse to recognize what other radical feminist women can so clearly see?

RadFem Julie Bindel denouncing anti-trans RadFem community site

… their arrogance and oppressiveness is amazing. It is funny though that they are so used to Feminists immediately bowing before them that they don’t know how to deal with that we don’t care what happens to them. They expect we’ll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and don’t realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead.

Anti-trans RadFem opinion leader, BevJo

The FBI defines gender identity as “A person’s internal sense of being male, female, or a combination of both; that internal sense of a person’s gender may be different from the person’s gender as assigned at birth.”

The FBI defines a hate group as “An organization whose primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons of or with a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity which differs from that of the members or the organization.”

Anti-trans RadFems, also known as Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) represent a hate group. Note the way TERF leaders successfully worked to have access to trans healthcare removed from the trans community. Here’s an early TERF leader setting up the plan:

While there are many who feel that morality must be built into law, I believe that the elimination of transsexualism is not best achieved by legislation prohibiting transsexual treatment and surgery but rather by legislation that limits it and by other legislation that lessens the support given to sex-role stereotyping, which generated the problem to begin with. Any legislation should be aimed at the social conditions that initiate and promote the surgery as well as the growth of the medical-institutional complex that translates these stereotypes into flesh and blood. More generally, the education of children is one case in point here. Images of sex roles continue to be reinforced, at public expense, in school textbooks. Children learn to role play at an early age.

– TERF opinion leader Janice Raymond (1980), Technology on the Social and Ethical Aspects of Transsexual Surgery; position paper submitted to the Carter and Reagan Administrations

Here’s the plan being executed.

Do I really need to recount the TERF trans hunts to out and force transwomen out of jobs? Do I really need to recount the ways in which RadFems targeted folks like Beth Elliott? Should I recount how TERFs bloodied trans icon and Stonewall instigator Sylvia Rivera for daring to speak at the 1973 Liberation Day Rally? I won’t go into the long history of TERF hate, but if you want to educate yourself, this provides a great overview. For more than 40 years, TERFs have specifically targeted trans people and their actions have caused real and lasting harm. They seek to silence while simultaneously claiming that they are being censored. Some TERFs threaten real violence  (trigger warning) while others lie and/or cry crocodile  tears when they face the exact same social stigma other hate groups face.

Is there any other context whereby such long standing and targeted hate would be ignored by the Southern Poverty Law Center?

Please contact the Southern Poverty Law Center and voice your feelings about their continued silence:

Twitter: @splcenter #no2h8splc

FaceBook: facebook.com/SPLCenter

Email: SPLC contact form

Phone: (334) 956-8200

Also, please sign this petition to the SPLC.

[hr]

TRANS-POC

Next Post

So, I hear trans people recently invented this whole cis/trans thing…

Using the cis- and trans- taxonomy to reference gender behavior was used as early as 1914. The transgender community didn't invent its use, nor is its current use inconsistent with its use in 1914.  When discussing gender, cis simply means same and…
Read
Previous Post

My MTF daughter: An ordinary life with an extraordinary girl

For some reason or another, my blog has become less personal over the last few years. I’ve shared stories, news, videos and pictures, but nothing that is really personal—from the uberscribbling heart—so to speak.  That’s about to change. The uberscribbler…
Read
Random Post

GOPs and Gays and Good Ol’ Politics

“The gays and lesbians are after me! The gays and lesbians are after me!!!” — Texas State Rep. Robert Talton (R) while running down the halls of the Texas Capitol Building being chased by a transsexual activist. All apologies, but…
Read
Random Post

Full SFGN Interview: ‘I am not a bigot’ Says Gender Identity Watch’s Cathy Brennan

Recently the South Florida Gay News interviewed me for an article on the TERFs, Cathy Brennan and her group, Gender Identity Watch: The Web is where this feud appears to have escalated with Brennan trading barbs between journalists and advocates from…
Read
Random Post

HR 1592

HR 1592 IH 110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 1592 To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES March 20, 2007 Mr. CONYERS (for…
Read
Random Post

The Human Rights Campaign Just Needs More Education About Transphobia

The Human Rights Campaign has a history of making moves that make it seem like it is becoming more and more trans aware/friendly/positive. After all, they hired Allyson Robinson: and they gave Lana Wachowski the HRC Visibility Award: So they're…
Read
  1. […] NOTE:  Radical Women wanted to share this article on the TransAdvocate so that people understand that not all radical feminist women are TERFs. Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF) is a relatively small – but extremely dedicated – hate group which passes itself off as feminism to create, support and promulgate negative opinions about trans people. […]

  2. “We are women academics (and we all know that nobody gets the real world like a professional academic), writers (some of us got articles published on Counterpunch!), artists (we sell our stuff in a makeshift booth at our town’s annual Art & Wine Festival, you cretins!), researchers (and don;t you dare accuse us of counting academics twice, that’s censorship or something!), [and] editors (at blogspot AND tumblr!)[,] all currently working in the academy (at Hogwarts, as test subjects in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class).”

  3. “We are women academics, writers, artists, researchers, editors all currently working in the academy”

    It’s discouraging. Still the kids show you no respect – and here you are – respectable bigots with with credentials and licenses to kvetch an all. Totes disrespectful.
    =====
    “and not….in their 40’s”

    Even those youngsters can be oppressed. Ask your elders sometime. Stretch a little.
    ====

    “No war has been declared. Rather reality has been declared. Despite how well positioned some of these “activists” are if they keep it up they will be given recognition as the most pathological movement since Germany in the 1930’s.”

    How far we’ve fallen. From the Pedagogy of the Oppressed to the Pedagogy from the Fatuous.

    ====
    “If Williams and the lynch mob finds out who I am it will not be hard to establish that I have zero connection with any feminist groups and I would say they would look like jackasses but that’s a fete accompli.”

    fete accompli? What kind of of wine does one serve with that?

    =======
    “If Williams and the lynch mob finds out who I am”

    Ah – you’re an army of one. How the view from under the bridge?

  4. Thanks for bringing our attention to the petition on this matter, Cristan, and outlining the background of the RadFem War On Trans in such a clear manner…

    I’ve appended the text I used in signing the petition below…

    thanks,
    – bonzie anne

    PS: The quotation from Julie Bindel was really always a kicker… if Julie, who gets pretty ferocious herself in “questioning” the legitimacy of transsexualism, finds the RadFems so toxic… how long will it be before everybody becomes aware that they are really hardcore crazies?

    My statement on the petition:
    __________

    The self-proclaimed “RadFems” or Trans-Exclusionist Radical Feminists have been waging a war – almost literally – on transgendered persons, particularly transsexual women.

    Staged provocations are used to incite responses from transgendered persons, some of which are inappropriate and a few of which indeed do pose counter-threats; these are then used as the foundation for false claims that trans folk in general are exceptionally violent.

    A tactic used extensively by the RadFems is to plague internet discussion boards in popular media, where articles have been posted relating to transgender topics, with anonymous comments making global denunciations of transgendered persons and putting forth outrageous claims based on fraudulent “scientific” studies from 30 years ago; these studies misrepresented the nature and causes of transsexualism, which at this point in time can be clearly identified as a birth condition… yes, we were BORN THIS WAY.

    Consequently, the furious hatred espoused by this and other websites maintained by the RadFems identify them as a hate group – organized against a segment of the population characterized not by “mental illness”, but by their efforts to cope successfully with their inborn gender variance in a socially positive way, by seeking greater social tolerance and acceptance of the medical treatments required to treat their medical condition.

    Please identify Gender Identity Watch and other hate sites for what they are: Hate Groups.

    Sincerely,

    Bonze Anne Rose Blayk

    1. One TERF in particular regularly stops by the #girlslikeus hashtag and calls trans women men.Hoping to get a negative response. This is blatant abuse. The trans community is one of the most vulnerable minorities and more abuse is piled on our already difficult existence. Intentionally. 🙁

    1. I always get MORE LOL out of seeing that Nick is always there “Liking” their posts, and “supporting” their cause with his comments…

      Otherwise, none of the RadFems material is actually funny despite strained attempts at “humor”, and probably less than 10% of their claims have more than a tangential relationship to reality: their posts are usually recognizable as English? (sad)

      re: Nicky: Zoe Brain outed him, since his behavior has established him as a troll and net-stalker who may in fact be somewhat dangerous some years back…

      A.E.BRAIN – FRIDAY, 28 MAY 2010 – The Frequency of Intersex – Zoe on Nicky; it looks like she became exasperated enough with him to delete his comments?

      (I’ve got a comment in that thread too, on claims to status as a “True _____”, and still proud of it.)

      thanks, – bonzie anne

      1. He is currently attacking me after I wrote this article. He is accusing me of supporting rape and now he is mad because this article exists.

        http://danalanetaylor.com/2013/07/29/nick-k-d-chaleunphone-a-k-a-kamododragoon/

        Then he tries to pose as the group Anonymous. What a miserable fail if he thought that would make me take the page down. Only gave me more content to put up. If he wasn’t so hypocritical and such a liar, the article wouldn’t even exist.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.