Spread love, not hate!

Does this insistence that “they’re all the same” seem familiar to anyone? Because I’ve noticed it in every instance of popular/outsider coverage of every minority community that’s ever existed. It’s bigotry in a nutshell: dismissive, dehumanizing, and above all reductive.

Hell, yes. And I’ve seen more of this re transwomen on the michfest political discussion forum – in particular – than I could ever hope to remember. You could probably see it on any day of the week there. I don’t believe that most women who go to michfest are transphobic, or even support the anti-trans politics commonly expressed on the board by a vocal few, even if they support the womyn-born-womyn policy, but anyone who frequents that forum would be hard-pressed to find a place with more bigotted or toxic anti-trans ‘dialogue’. I used to support the WBW policy myself (and haven’t yet publically denounced it) on the basis that the event is *for* a group whose shared experience is being born, raised and having always lived and currently live as girls and women under patriarchy. (and most but not all also as lesbians.) That is, it is meant to be *inclusive* of these women, rather than *exclusive* of transwomen. Because of what I’ve encountered (and argued against) on the board though, I have decided not to go the festival myself (or even participate on the board anymore) while I closely examine and consider what is actually happening. In any case I’m personally not prepared to attend an event that embraces proponents of anti-trans politics and hate-speech (and makes transwomen as unwelcome – ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ in practice -as it possibly can without actually posting a ‘no transexuals’ sign) and while the organisers and owners of the land and the event make no attempt to distance themselves from same.

I’ve digressed wildly here with this personal rant because this issue is very much on my mind at present. My apologies. Hovered over the delete key – but then – I guess I’d like to hear what others here think about transwomen and WBW space. I don’t feel any need for WBW space myself. I’m not sure it accomplishes anything particularly positive that couldn’t still be accomplished in the presence of transwomen. It feels crazily disproportionate. I certainly wouldn’t want it to spread, (because of the attendant anti-trans politics) but I also don’t feel that I have a right to speak for others. So I’m feeling like a fence-sitter, and this is an unfamiliar and uncomfortable position for me.

To get back to the point though…when I pointed out that a particualr transwoman on the michfest board has a stated agenda, which she sticks to for most if not all of the time, of simply correcting misinformation about transexuals as it appears on the board, with reference to her own life and experience, I was told by someone that this constitutes trans politics. So that’s all it takes, apparently. The repetition of a gentle reminder that not all transexuals are the same.

And I hated how they kept calling Brandon Teena “she” and “her”.

There’s the Brandon Teena article, and one on transgender politics. The former presumes to speak for someone who can’t defend or clarify anything because he’s, you know, dead. The latter references the other side in “this girl who sat next to me in class one time….” terms. Nowhere on that site is there a direct engagement with the writing of any transsexual, transgendered, or genderqueer activist except for brief out-of-context references to Riki Wilchins and Leslie Feinberg.

I do wonder why they and the AmTaliban almost always ignore trans-men?