If you know anything about the queer community, you're familiar with the stereotype of the closeted dude who lives a lie by pretending to be Mr. Manly Man. You know, the guy who can't shut up about how trans people totally gross him out and how he's totally all about straight-cis identity politics? The guy who makes his entire life revolve around the very public promotion of the idea that he's the embodiment of guns, god, and them-there good ol'… Read more.
[su_button url="http://www.transadvocate.com/i/Owning_Endosex_Privilege.epub" target="blank" style="flat" background="#ffffff" color="#333333" size="15" icon="icon: book" icon_color="#333333"] E-Book Version Listen to an audio version of this article: [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/301735631" params="color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] By Margo Schulter The presentation of a poster session advocating Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM) at the recent Amsterdam meeting of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has heightened a crisis of confidence and trust between the intersex and trans communities, with a special impact on those of us belonging to one or both communities… Read more.
On Monday, May 9th, the United States Attorney General, Loretta Lynch came out swinging against North Carolina's commitment to discriminating against trans people. The speech that AG Lynch gave is incredibly striking and stands as a singular moment in the history of trans advocacy. While numerous sites will pair soundbites with their own commentary and others will inevitably misrepresent her words, we at the TransAdvocate wish to simply let the AG's words… Read more.
The TransAdvocate is pleased to announce the launch of a new program aimed at making a decades-old intersectional trans, intersex and genderqueer inclusive radical feminism more accessible. The TransAdvocate, in partnership with the Transgender Archive, launched The Conversations Project on New Year’s Day 2016. The Project seeks to inspire discourse through its community group, a journal, interviews and the publication of a book-length collection of collaborative essays from radical feminist… Read more.
Why TERF ideology is child abuse and how the media supports it. By Natacha This article discusses the clash of ideology and lived experience as exemplified by a recent BBC radio program in the UK. This article uses the term Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) to distinguish between the trans-supportive Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, The Olivia Collective or the West Coast Lesbian Conference and sex essentialist anti-trans feminism of Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys and/or the… Read more.
While her mom talks to CNN to profess her love and support, Leelah's Reddit posts paint a homelife defined by bullying and fear. Much has been written about Leelah Alcorn's suicide note* which identifies conversion therapy and unsupportive parents as contributing factors to what happened to Leelah. Under the weight of public condemnation, Leelah's mother, Carla Alcron told CNN that "e told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no… Read more.
Gender Critical Feminism (GCF) is a euphemism for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF). There is no ideological difference between the TERF and "Gender Critical Feminist" (GCF) movement; they are one in the same. GCF teaches that because sex is a natural binary, intersex people are actually just deformed men and women and trans people are always the sex they were assigned at birth. As Janice Raymond’s acolyte Sheila Jeffreys wrote, “sex” is fixed and referring to trans women with female pronouns is… Read more.
Are Trans Communities Losing Intersex Allies in the TERF Wars? By Cary Gabriel Costello, PhD Recently I spent several days in a public internet group for "gender critical" people, after a few intersex friends voiced some positive things about this line of thinking. As an intersex individual who gender transitioned from the sex he was assigned at birth, I was puzzled and concerned by this development. I'd read in trans writing that "gender critical" feminists were actively transphobic--yet here were… Read more.
Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings recently published a book for trans kids titled, I Am Jazz. The beautifully illustrated story is based on the real-life experiences of Jazz. Laverne Cox said that the book is an “essential tool for parents and teachers” and that “I wish I had had a book like this when I was a kid struggling with gender identity questions.” Cover: I Am Jazz I had an opportunity to both review the… Read more.
In the post announcing #TERFweek, we specified goals for the week. These goals were: Raise awareness about this movement of hate and the groups it forms. Educate people about its tactics. Collectively speak out against its bigotry. Encourage the Feminist, Radical Feminist and Lesbian communities to speak up about the aggressive colonization their communities have faced at the hands of this movement. #TERFweek has accomplished this and so much more. Actual Radical Feminists stepped forward to share their painful… Read more.
In the middle of a cool August night in 1991, Nancy Burkholder was thrown out of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MWMF) because she’s a trans woman. Burkholder was Janis Walworth’s friend and she was outraged that MWMF’s would engage in anti-trans discrimination. Walworth, a cisgender radical lesbian feminist, immediately began to educate MWMF attendees about trans people. After coping with threats of violence and dealing with having her consciousness-raising… Read more.
Robin Tyler is an iconic Radical Feminist lesbian who talked with me about the ways she confronted TERF violence and oppression against trans women. We discussed Tyler’s involvement with the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference. For some context on why this particular conference was so important, Susan Stryker sums it up well: Elliott also served on the organizing committee of the West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference, planned for April of 1973 in Los Angeles, and she had… Read more.
Sandy Stone was a problem that Janice Raymond, author of The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, decided to take care of. Raymond felt that Stone -- an out trans woman who was part of the radical feminist lesbian separatist music collective, Olivia Records -- didn’t belong. Raymond engineered a smear campaign that nearly destroyed the Collective and put Stone’s life in jeopardy, culminating in armed TERFs asserting their intention to murder Stone. Olivia Records was a successful… Read more.
Many of the TERFs I’ve had the displeasure of meeting move through life belligerently sexing physical phenomena and behavior (especially rape) while simultaneously (and ironically) proclaiming themselves to be critical of gender. For TERFs, there is no difference between mentally contextualizing a body as a sex attribute and the body itself. TERFs have such a long history of, with all the asperity of a hellfire creationist, asserting that sexing everyone is better/different/more natural than gendering everyone that I hold no hope they will see past their own… Read more.
Part III of the 'Sexing the Body is Gender' Series: Debunking TERF Essentialism In Part II, what gender is and is not was discussed and the ways in which we contextualize our bodies were reviewed. In this section, essentialism arguments regularly asserted as being self-evidently true are reviewed and deconstructed. When appealing to a substance – say, genetics, chromosomes, etc. – as being a sexed essence which defines how we collectively regard the… Read more.
By Debi Jackson Although I have been part of the LGBT community for the last three years since my daughter transitioned from male to female, I still seem to learn something new every day. Take, for example, my recent discovery of a group that some call TERFs, or Trans-Excluding Radical Feminists. Within the last few weeks, I’ve become a target of hate from some who watched a video of me giving a speech about my daughter’s transition. Most of that… Read more.
TERFs tend to behave much like a fundamentalist echo chamber so that once a new malicious anti-trans trope is created, it is quickly disseminated and replicated until the trans community and/or allied communities must waste their time addressing the fallacies. Therefore, the TransAdvocate has put together this list of debunked anti-trans TERF tropes for your reference. The Cotton Ceiling: TERFs assert that Planned Parenthood conspired to helped teach trans people how to force lesbians to have sex with them and this amounts to corrective… Read more.
Part II of the 'Sexing the Body is Gender' Series: Contextualizing the Body If one is talking about something that has chemistry and mass, one is not talking about the thoughts in one’s head. In this series, I will make this simple distinction knowing that there is robust and nuanced discussion around whether there is a biological predisposition that causes trans people to experience our bodies in the way we do. For the purpose of this post, I will make a distinction between that which we take to be… Read more.
About a decade ago, the feminist community came up with the term Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) as a way to halt the default colonization of Radical Feminism and feminism itself by TERFs (and this move by feminists is, of course, claimed to be incredibly insulting). Now, under a wave of new awareness of the hate group hiding among them, feminism is becoming more vocal about its recrimination of TERFs. Old TERFs and TERF allies like Sue Hyde and Gloria Steinem have openly recanted their TERF rhetoric and… Read more.
What it is #TERFweek is a week of education, raising awareness and openly talking about the abuse our communities have endured at the hands of the Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist movement. From Monday, August 11 to the 17, we invite everyone to share their experience with the TERF movement using the #TERFweek tag. We hope that all our diverse communities will take this opportunity to speak with one voice, united in standing in opposition to the hate and very real harm this group has caused. Why… Read more.
At first, I wasn’t going to write a response piece to Caroline Criado-Perez (CCP) article concerning the term “cis”, because many of her ideas were similar to those in Sarah Ditum’s post I recently responded to. Then I realized those similarities should be pointed out. There are patterns emerging where otherwise respected feminists are injecting thinly veiled transmisogynist bigotry within self-congratulatory “bravery” narratives, as well as, patronizing pro-trans-sounding platitudes. So, when trans activists respond to their seemingly conciliatory knives-in-the-back… Read more.
The appearance of Lavern Cox, a prominent trans woman activist and actor, on the cover of Time magazine was a great moment in trans advocacy. Although Chelsea Manning was the first trans woman to be pictured on the cover of Time, the context of Lavern Cox photo was a bold statement. Beside her name were the words, "The transgender tipping point: America's next civil rights frontier." Sarah Ditum, a feminist journalist from the UK, reacted to the photo in… Read more.
In a situation that recalls the recent controversy around MMA Fighter Fallon Fox, Chloie Jönsson, a trans woman, was recently banned from competing in the women’s division of Reebok’s CrossFit athletic competition, a high-intensity endurance fitness challenge with a cash-prize of $250,000. She is now suing Crossfit for $2.5 million for discrimination. In the letter to her lawyer, obtained by TMZ, CrossFit contends that: This is simply wrong as a matter of human biology and if you can’t see… Read more.
TERFs are well-known for referring to their rhetoric as being "gender critical." You might think that this means that they are critical of gender in all its forms. However, TERF criticism of gender seems to only ever extend to others (usually trans people). There is a great line in SLC Punk that gets at the heart of a critique I recently made: Brandy: Aren't you, like, rebelling against society? Stevo: Put that simply, kinda, yeah. Brandy: Wouldn't it be… Read more.
Recently, an equality effort in Florida was defeated by appealing to the 'trans people = rape' meme. As it turned out, appealing to this meme was deliberate and is, in fact, part of a curriculum currently being taught to anti-LGBT activists. The TransAdvocate obtained audio from one of the training sessions given by the Christian Family Association (CFC) on October 5th, shortly after their successful defeat of a Florida equality measure that included trans people. The curriculum taught at this training… Read more.
... Is the headline you're probably heard if you're familiar with this story. As you might imagine, the actual story is a bit more nuanced. Yes, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia did, in fact, pass policy that went into effect on November 13, 2013 which would house some trans inmates according to their gender orientation, but this new rule isn't a without some caveats. I first got a call from the Harris County Sheriff's office to get some help in shaping… Read more.
The following is the argument against YOUR transitioned status being recognized, currently sitting in the Texas 13th District Court of Appeals, and soon to be making its way to the US Supreme Court. This Texas case may very well define how US courts views the transitioned status of trans people. For the uninitiated, here’s how we got here and why this case will likely affect YOU. Keep a close eye on this case. The TransAdvocate obtained an audio recording of the September… Read more.
Former South Carolina GOP Executive Director, Todd Kincannon has publicly declared that some Americans should be interned in "camps." Kincannon went on to refer to a trans person as a "goddamn he-she" and stated that trans people were "disgusting mentally ill weirdos." While certainly worded with cruel intent, how does Kincannon's message of exclusion differ in substance from the stated position of the South Carolina GOP? The South Carolina Republican party is very clear about their views of LGBT people and their stated… Read more.
A reader writes: “I’ve been thinking about gender roles and how most of them are created and imposed by society. I believe our behaviour could be ‘genderless’ if we didn’t have these external influences telling us how men and women should act, dress, etc. “Now, if this were to hold true and one day we are all genderless and there are no gender roles or gender-specific expectations by society, people would be able to behave however they feel like and… Read more.
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… Read more.
Used with permission: (c) Rebecca Cohen Read more.
I've noticed that there seems to be some confusion about what a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) is so, here's a quick guide to help you figure out if you're someone who pushes TERF ideology, which is to say, someone who's a TERF. Chances are that you're a TERF if you believe that you're a feminist when you... 1.) Claim that trans women are cis men, that trans men are cis women and purposefully misgender trans people. 2.) Out trans… Read more.
TW: transphobic violence Like a lot of people, I was transphobic when I was younger. Society had conditioned me to be. There were men and there were women, and anyone who didn’t fit into the narrow definitions of one of those categories was abnormal, abhorrent, a freak. I remember (much to my shame) pointing at people I saw on the bus who didn’t look like what I thought a man or a woman should look like and laughing at them.… Read more.
So last week, my new book, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, was reviewed in Publisher's Weekly - you can read the review here. It is generally positive and I am pretty happy with it! However, there is one line in the review that I feel misconstrues what I was trying to say in the book. Namely, the reviewer describes my supposed ‘denial of the existence of a “gender system”’ and how it ‘flies in the face of much social… Read more.
Supposedly, as the RadRight narrative goes, the California bill protecting trans kids in school is anarchy and madness. Unsurprisingly, TERFs and H-BSers jumped on that narrative: You know what? BS. Here in TEXAS - yes, conservative TEXAS - we've had these California-style policies in effect for YEARS. And you know what's happened? Nothing... Except trans kids got to go to school without having to face institutionalized bigotry. Yup, from kindergarten to high school, here in Texas towns like Houston, trans kids… Read more.
by Zinnia Jones I keep a personal Tumblr for notes on my daily experiences while transitioning, as well as timeline photos documenting my physical development. Recently, an anonymous reader asked why I would keep such a history. This is my reply. Anonymous asked: Wouldn’t most trans people not want to keep records of their transition? I mean, isn’t that like proving “you’re not really a woman, see, here’s an old picture of you” by reliving your transition? If I was trans I… Read more.
This is part of a lecture given on May 5, 2010 by Prof. Robert Sapolsky at Stanford University. Prof. Sapolsky reviews studies he feels make a compelling case for those who assert that transsexualism is actually a type of intersex condition. More on gender orientation Those interested in gender roles and the brain should read Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender. Fine does an excellent job at debunking pernicious myths while chronicling the history of the way neurology has been used… Read more.
A reader writes: “I have questions, but have never had the strength or will to voice them and ask. I am, of course, a genetically born male, and most of the time I’m fine with that. But more often, in recent months, I’ve felt that it’s not right. I feel like there is a feminine side of me that is screaming to get out, like it’s trapped.” “But it’s not just a matter of acting more feminine. I don’t want… Read more.
So, who’s heard of Julie Burchill and her “censored” article? Coming to the defense of her maligned feminist friend, columnist and author Julie Burchill wrote an article about trans women. Apparently, her friend Suzanne Moore’s latest article contained a faux pas. In Burchill’s words: She wrote that, amongst other things, women were angry about “not having the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual”. At best, this is simply a poorly constructed byproduct of the aged-out argument that idealized… Read more.
Much attention has been focused on the 'War on Women', the anti-woman political policies the conservative movement and Republican politicians have been pushing for years and implementing once they gain political control of state legislatures. And yes, being that we are now estrogen based lifeforms, they affect trans women as well.. Girls like us have been fighting a two front war. Since the 1970's we've had to deal with the War on Transwomen whose reprehensible foot soldiers are radical feminists in addition to… Read more.
I've witnessed many arguments and misunderstandings explode over the conflation of these THREE dimensions of what we in trans discourse collectively refer to as gender: Gender Orientation: One’s subjective experience of one’s body, including its sexed attributes. Gender Identity: Identity labels used when socially constructing sexed personas within the context of social groupings. Gender Expression: One's situational expression of cultural cues which communicate gender identity. Note that gender identity and expression are absolutely culturally influenced. However, even if you stick me on a deserted island, I am… Read more.
Recently, I have experienced a round of attacks by some radical-identified feminists and lesbian feminists for my writings and transgender advocacy. There is a long history of conflict between transgender/transsexual people, especially trans women, and radical feminists and lesbian feminists that dates back beginning in the 1970s. The pinnacle of this battle was when lesbian feminist Janice Raymond published her notorious book The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male in 1979. For nearly 15 years, Raymond’s anti-transsexual screed often… Read more.
I have awoken multiple times from a nightmare hearing this phrase screamed at me over and over again. Whether awake or asleep, it echoes over and over and over again through my brain. It is like machine-gun fire, ricocheting through my body with unbelievable velocity. It is a question that will probably follow me throughout my entire life. Yesterday, I was walking out of the mall to go and catch the bus. A group of people apparently had quite a… Read more.
I used to be pretty arrogant about the whole stealth vs. out thing. Today reading Dyssonance's To Stealth Or Not To Stealth, I had to reflect on how my perspective has changed, and not. I've worked jobs where no one knew I was transgender/transsexual and I've worked at places where my entire story was posted on page one of the Indianapolis Star. The bottom line for me is this: I am a woman, but I am not female (Gender=social construction,… Read more.
Today at 1pm today (6-24-09) Barney Frank is set to officially introduce the HR 2981, The Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This week, Congressman Barney Frank will introduce the Employee Non-Discrimination Act. The legislation would extend federal employment laws, which currently prevent job discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, age, and disability, to also cover sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill covers both the public and private sectors. Although some states have passed laws to prevent such… Read more.
On twitter yesterday, Kyle Pratt of Ruminations Blog posted this: 'Bathroom bill' foes rally in Mass.: http://digg.com/d1tt6Z?t More problems with "transgender" guys and restrooms. Of which I responded with: Can you name one person that's been a victim of a sex crime by transgender person in a bathroom? Lying to scare people is pathetic. he responded by saying: I don’t think I scared anyone, it wasn’t a lie--it is a warning. There 's no reason a man should go into… Read more.
Last Thursday Jason Bellini of the Daily Beast reported that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) had made a deal with the Obama Administration to delay repealing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy in an effort to focus on the federal hate crimes bill and Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). I thought it sounded too good to be true. For a minute I was almost proud of them for doing the right thing! On twitter Jburroway, of Box Turtle Bulletin, asks… Read more.
Maybe it was my naiveté, but I always thought when I got my documentation changed, I transitioned, and was passable, that I'd be able to live the nice normal life I did before transition. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Recently I was interviewed a few times and offered a job... and then I got that dreaded call. "Marti, we were doing our normal background check and we have a problem. We keep getting a rejection with your gender."… Read more.
Reading Nexy's blog, I found out about a post over at Feministing and the boycott that's being called by some in the transgender community. The title of the post is "Men in Women's Bathrooms, Is Your State Next?" I don't believe the post itself was bad. The original post author, Miriam, asked in the last paragraph: "Here's the thing that always gets me about the bathroom debate: The idea that laws governing a space which by nature is unpoliced, unregulated… Read more.
According the Washington Blade, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) approved a policy statement that"the group will not support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, if it excludes language protecting persons from discrimination." The Advocate followed suit with: "The Human Rights Campaign adopted a policy statement on Wednesday that says the group will not support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act if it excludes protections for transgender individuals. The statement was approved by the HRC board of directors in Washington, D.C. 'It’s the… Read more.
"I don't give a shit whether or not they [MTF transsexuals) want to chop themselves up. I don't give a shit if they want to wear dresses. That doesn't make them female. It doesn't mean their issues and concerns are female issues and concerns. So long as female issues and concerns are subsumed to and absorbed by male interests (as they are when male people call themselves and are accepted as female), women will never socially realize our full humanity AS FEMALE PEOPLE." Read more.
Today we discussed Christian intolerance, transgender children, transsexual marriage, and sexual amputees! Read more.
Today we discussed the lies forwarded by Christian Conservatives, gender marker changes in Massachusetts, the ALCU suing Illinois for not changing documentation of people who had SRS outside of the United States, and GLAAD's misstep of nominating the show "The New Adventures of the Old Christine." Read more.
Thanks to Box Turtle Bulletin and Gay News Blog I was introduced to this lovely piece of transphobia: video under the cut. Read more.
Bird Of Paradox their 'crisis of faith’ with feminism, This Ain't Livin posted about discussing how your gender gender effects you, and Planet Transgender posted about Columbus Ohio'd City Council passing a transgender anti-discrimination law. Read more.
I really can't believe all the ridiculously negative things I've been hearing about the 2nd grade student that is transitioning at school. Here are a few examples: Public schools have been involved in a sick propaganda campaign that encourages and collaborates with the advancement of mental illness in children. - Stop The ACLU.com It is a basic fact of biology, sex is immutable. If you are born a male, you will die a male. There is absolutely nothing any mortal can do about that. Yet for some strange reason, we seem to think that are sex is like a pair of socks, which can be changed on a whim. Putting a dress on a boy, having him the girl’s room and calling him a female name, can not and will not make this John Doe into Jane Doe. It has can’t be done and it has never been done. School systems should be in the businss of teaching life and not pandering to delusions. Putting a dress on a young man and calling him by a girl’s name will not make him into a female. It will only make him into a boy with a dress.We are what we are, and we can not change what we are by wearing or not wearing a dress. Stop pandering to utter foolishness. - Bits Blog It makes one wonder what is happening to our culture when a 2nd grade boy decides he has to dress up as a girl and his public school chooses to accommodate his feelings. - Dallas Blog The original purpose of the public schools was to indoctrinate children in being “Good Americans.” At the time, this meant Protestant patriots who worked for work’s sake. Now, public schools are still indoctrinating little “Good Americans,” but this time it means supporting the idea that man is first, last, and all-importantly a sexual animal whose desires, no mater how perverse, need to be sated without consequence or guilt. First, it was Sex Ed. Then condoms and abortion referrals. Then, GLBT clubs and gay proms. Now, this satanic doctrine is manifesting itself in the policy of a public school in Colorado allowing a sexually confused second grade boy to come to school dressed, and addressed, as a girl. - Fish In A Barrel Read more.
Don't you just love that phrase, "used to be a man?" GARRICK Jacobson was in custody at Sydney's Surry Hills police station when he apparently discovered his girlfriend used to be a man. Within hours of being released on bail, he went to her apartment and started "belting the hell" out of her, Downing Centre Local Court heard yesterday. Read more.
(As I'd mentioned, it's time to move on from the previous discussion. I admit, I probably wouldn't have reacted as badly if the debate hadn't touched on something that was freshly raw for me personally, but as it is still a raw nerve, we'll leave the HBS thing be. I thought I'd go with something far less controversial. Politics is being overdone right now, what with all the stuff on the primaries, so I thought I'd take on Religion. -- Mercedes) Modern churches do an excellent job of creating an equation between the questioning of fallible teachers, preachers, copyists and translators, and the questioning of God Himself. You can do one without necessarily doing another. But "all scripture is given by inspiration of God..." (2 Timothy 3:16) is usually used to rebuff any inquiries about the many interpretations of those scriptures. Assuming that all scripture was given by inspiration of God, it should also be kept in mind that all scripture was also interpreted and worded by a myriad of authors, then recopied by hand for thousands of generations, passing through different translators and copyists, each with differing biases. All New Testament scripture was additionally collected at the Council of Nicaea, where it was decided which books (and which specific versions of them) to keep and which ones to ignore or destroy. This was done under the guidance of an appointee (Eusebius Pamphilus) of the first actual Pope (although they later retroscribed themselves back to the apostle Peter), the Emperor Constantine I, who wished to forge a new religion that was a synthesis of Mithraism, fledgling Christianity, and Constantine's own worship of the sun god, Sol. He also intended to set himself up to be portrayed as the returned Christ (although it did not quite end up working out that way), which was understood at that time to mean an earthly King-level saviour. And in addition to the hands that scripture passed through being imperfect, so too are those of the preachers who deliver it on Sunday. Religious leaders have repeatedly abused and misused scripture for their own ends, right into modern times -- sometimes innocently but other times specifically for the acquisition of money, political power and fiercely loyal masses. 150 years ago, the church used scripture to justify slavery, alleging among other things that Black people had no souls. 100 years ago, scripture was used to resist emancipation, re-establishing womens' role as a subservient one and portraying them as not worthy or intelligent enough to be able to vote. Even today, scripture is twisted to assert the subordinance of women. Can we question the church's teaching while relying on our heart to sort the truth from the centuries of spin-mongering that has tainted it? I'd think we'd have to. Read more.
I am an atheist/agnostic so I'm not sure why Jesus has been on my mind lately, but he has. So many Christian bloggers have written about the sin of being transgender. God, help us here in America. We have made a total mess of Your plan for us. We have forgotten that without You we are nothing and we have nothing. We have made a mockery of your creation by allowing people to change it completely. We have kept our… Read more.
When I was Stone Blue ... Rock and Roll sure helped me through .... Warning beforehand, this is a fluff-piece – you’ll have to excuse me. Actually, a little of this can be blamed on Verizon commercials. What originally inspired this was the return of typical south Texas summer heat in all its oppressively humid splendor. Mostly we’d been spared this year, save for July 21 (my birthday) and one other day in June – the only profusely body-moistening days… Read more.
Typically, when reading about radical feminists on various blogs, it's an "us verses them" type of debate. I've been thinking a lot about that, as witnessed by my last post, Michfest Music Melodrama I've been thinking a lot about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival lately. So much anger and divisiveness occurs between radical feminist and transgender bloggers, it really turns my stomach. Very few posts on either side attempt to understand each other. so much so, it ends up being… Read more.
I've been over at Feministing all day, writing responses to "You learn something new every day." The post is a response to The BBC's recent coverage of a debate with Julie Bindel. Julie believes that sex reassignment surgery is a "mutilation." The debate over there is one of the best I've ever encountered. There's a whole lot of cross talk and listening, and very few personal attacks. This is the first time I've ever posted about this in a forum where I didn't feel like I was talking to a wall. I've included some of the comments, and my responses, under the cut. Read more.
Things I learn from the radical feminist blogosphere: -" Male-to-female transsexuality/transgender is really about men’s rights. It has nothing to do with feminism. As such, as feminists, just as we oppose men’s rights, in general, we oppose this manifestation of men’s rights as well." - "Radical feminists are no more “transphobes” than we are “manhaters.” To allege that we are is to indulge in sexist, misogynist, anti-feminist propaganda." - " Female-to-male transsexuals/transgendered persons are situated much differently than male-to-female transsexuals/transgendered… Read more.
With the ongoing battles between radical feminists and transgender bloggers, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be transgender. Radical feminists, in the vein of Andrea Dworkin's dream of an "androgynous society," hope to demolish gender roles. Recently i read an article written by Susan Cole of Now magazine. She discussed her gender fluidity and how she's beginning to enjoy it. "Does this mean I've lost my feminist edge? I know I still believe that… Read more.
Until someone puts actual empirical data along side radical feminist doctrine, I refuse to call it a theory. It isn't a theory, it's a religion. And it's about as believable as there being a man named Jesus Christ that rose from the dead after three days. If your wondering, THIS is the genesis of my reason to post. Now, let us pray. Read more.
A southern, right-wing, anti-abortion, Dominionist bigot recently wrote this post denouncing Joanne Nemecek for supporting her spouse in transition. I'm not sure she'll actually let it out of moderation (sooooo typical of right wingnut blogs), so I wanted to post my response here. "I would be amused (how you support a war that has killed thousands, yet you're pro-life?...pfftt... too funny), if this wasn't all so pathetic. First of all, I love your use of idols (a representation or symbol… Read more.
In the past I've written posts supporting the "All My Children" transgender character Zoey/Zarf (here and here). Recently, Zoey (the soap character) took part in a support group with real transgender people. Simply amazing. I'm so glad to see this. There's a good representation of sex and race in the scene. Typically in the media you only hear or see white m2f trangender people. [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/ziWZQXqfhns" width="425" height="350"/] Read more.
The Journal of Lesbian Studies is calling for submissions to the upcoming "Lesbians and Body Image" issue. One of the questions really caught my eye: " What differentiates body image situations where it is seen as desirable to change your attitude (i.e., "accept your body") vs. where it is seen as desirable to change your body (i.e., transsexual surgery)? What determines whether someone identifies as a butch lesbian or a FTM transsexual?" Is it possible to ever "accept your body?"… Read more.
