Comments on: Blast from the Recent Past

By: Ross and Monica: An example of Privilege « What a crazy random happenstance

Ross and Monica: An example of Privilege « What a crazy random happenstance — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:59:29 +0000

[...] We have been called to check our race privilege, class privilege and, most recently, our cis privilege. So last night, after being introduced to Ren through feministe for the first time, and [...]

By: Excluding Trans Women From Women Only Spaces: What This Policy Renders Invisible « Questioning Transphobia

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:49:16 +0000

[...] From Women Only Spaces: What This Policy Renders Invisible So I was reading and having some conversations about exclusion of trans women from women-only spaces, and I ended up doing some research on how [...]

By: Lisa Harney

Lisa Harney — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:06:53 +0000

Here is a good publication I’ve never seen anyone mention before:

Re/Defining Gender and Sex: Educating for Trans, Transsexual, and Intersex Access and Inclusion to Sexual Assault Centres and Transition Houses

Best part?

In 2002, in Vancouver BC, 45 of 62 shelters were accessible to trans women even while Vancouver Rape Relief was arguing that you couldn’t let trans women near cis women in shelters.

Has anyone seen this before?

By: Should I Stay or Should I Go? « High On Rebellion

Should I Stay or Should I Go? « High On Rebellion — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:46:42 +0000

[...] Audre Lorde is particularly frustrating coming from transphobic feminists. As Emi Koyama (h/t Feministe) discusses in her usual excellent way, transphobia is underpinned by racism. Believing that there [...]

By: Lisa Harney

Lisa Harney — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:04:57 +0000

dirt’s just a troll who likes to spread anti-trans hate speech. She <3’s the drama but hates truth.

Nobody really reads her, though, and nobody links to her. The only real harm she represents is the fact that she reposts private information from livejournal communities and tries ineptly to snark it.

By: queerfeministactivist

queerfeministactivist — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:47:26 +0000

I’m a queer; I consider myself a part of the transcommunity (as a partner of a transperson), and I’ve been to both michfest and camp trans. i’ve had transfriends and loved ones at both as well.

my experience was probably similar to drakyn’s.

i loved both festivals. i’m extremely upset to have missed both of them this year.

i guess if i can try to make a point in a tiny space about such a painful and contentious issue, i’ll say this: both spaces are really important to me. michfest is imperfect. that’s not a strong enough word, but it points in the right direction.

i feel like the biggest obstacle to solving michfest’s imperfections is the inability of folks with all sorts of different opinions to listen to folks with all sorts of other opinions from all angles of this issue (the issue of space and queering gender in a world where gender roles are still enforced and used for discrimination and opression).

there’s very little listening.

we all need to come from a place of loving each other, and loving each other’s differences before we can truly listen and hear how we are hurting each other.

by the way, i read the link from holly’s comment, and i find the leap the blogger made from van accident to “transterrorism” to be appalling.

i also noticed that the blogger herself had never been to either camp trans or michfest.

i hope this issue something we, as a feminist community, keep discussing. i hope we don’t get exhausted, as i know i have been at times, and retreat away from it.

By: Lisa Harney

Lisa Harney — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:45:33 +0000

Q Grrl,

I just like to make that iconic point in these conversations. Stuff like how Vancouver Rape Relief posted article after article justifying the exclusion of trans women from MWMF – and most of those articles based on trans hatred – to defend their decision to not hire Kimberly Nixon, for example.

Anna, check out this post here on Feministe for some trans 101. It’s a starting point, but you should have enough information to do some homework after you read it.

By: romham

romham — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:06:16 +0000

LargeMarge, youve identified that you still think of transwomen as “not normal”, and that you’d be insulting to them because … of being so interested in learning(?). it sounds like you need to do some more work on your own. theres plenty of resources out there (theres a reason for that!), and if youve made it here to feministe, you can access them. then you can come to your own conclusions (about at least some basics) without expecting trans people to go through the sometimes really painful process with you.

By: LargeMarge

LargeMarge — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:23:48 +0000

Ok, this is an impossible thought experiment, but I’m going to try it anyway because I really feel the need to poke this part of my brain with a stick: if it weren’t a question of exclusion or inclusion, maybe at a retreat to which everyone was invited but there might be circles for discussing certain things, do you think that there’s ever an appropriate situation for ciswomen to gather independent of transwomen? I wholly admit, that I may be influenced by a feeling that transwomen are “not normal,” because I’ve only recently started to read about gender and trans issues (courtesy of threads like these), although my only relationship with a transwoman was positive (except she kept telling me I needed to wear more makeup, we agreed to disagree, but this one incident loomed pretty large in the vacuum of no other interaction with transwomen!). Come to think of it, right now I need LESS ciswomen space and MORE space to meet transwomen, but I’d be insulting because I’m so relentlessly curious and would be eager for a lecture on anything and everything on the subject. (Yeah, not good at all when it comes to othering people, good intentions and all.)

By: Q Grrl

Q Grrl — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:26:36 +0000

“I don’t see the MWMF argument as really being about MWMF. That’s just the central, iconic point for the argument.”

I agree. I was specifically speaking of the space and practices of MWMF. Frankly, although I consider myself to be a radfem, I find Raymond and Morgan to be frighteningly reactionary and disagree with their opinions. Well, actually all of our (read: radfem) past/earlier arguments to defend women-only space have been reactionary. My opinions on the issue have morphed, but I understand the origin of our reaction, especially in light of our submersion in a patriarchal/rape culture.

That said, it is interesting to see where we’re all headed now, politics-wise.