Push back

Trigger Warning: two-part blog up ahead. Proceed with caution.

I.

I’m perfectly comfortable verbally sparring with those who see issues differently than I do. And I’ve had my share of conversations – spirited, to say the least – in which voices have gotten loud, feelings got a little bruised, and neither party was able to come to an agreement. Conversely, I’ve had loud, feeling-filled conversations and found common ground.

I firmly believe that people are entitled to their philosophies, opinions, perspectives, ideologies – however informed or uninformed they may be. I also firmly believe that as human beings, we have a right to challenge (civilly, nonviolently) philosophies, opinions, perspectives, ideologies that we find problematic. As human beings, we’re allowed to disagree. As human beings, we should embrace dissent.

Shit, when we get down to brass tacks, dissent is the one thing on which most good, meaningful progress hinges.

Truth be told, I’m frightened of any person or group of people that attempts to silence dissent. Silencing is a tactic of fascists, bullies, and those whose convictions are so paper thin (ergo, invalid) that they cannot withstand even the slightest scrutiny. We saw this manner of silencing happen on Facebook when Gender Identity Watch’s page was taken down. We saw this again when the follow-up page was removed swiftly and without precedence.  We saw this when police intercepted the six peaceful protesters at Dyke March London, an event that has (like virtually every Dyke March still in existence) been overrun by males.

Which brings me to part two . . .

II.

Women, not men, are champions of “inclusivity.” This comes as no surprise – we’re conditioned from the day we’re born to be inclusive: inclusive of thoughts, feelings, wishes and desires – provided they are not our own. Unlike men who go on shooting rampages, and men (who feel like women) who tell women to “suck my cock,” there are no excuses made for women who do not fall in lock-step with the “be nice, be inclusive” gendered expectation of the female sex.  No publication came to the defense of the women who protested the UK Dyke March, saying, “You know, maybe lesbians have just had enough.” No mainstream outlet will stand up for women who draw a line in the sand. Oh, but we will vociferously excuse males who murder, rape and threaten women, saying, “You know, maybe he was pushed to do this . . . because women.”

 

Hell, we’ll make these men keynote speakers of lesbian marches. No, really!

 

We have created, and thoroughly embraced, a culture in which a death threat is more acceptable than being critical of gender. We have created, and thoroughly embraced, a culture where actual lesbians are being vilified at Dyke Marches in order to protect heterosexual males. This is really happening. We should be appalled. We should be outraged.

 

Fuck “leaning in,” we should PUSH BACK.

 

Recently, I was involved in a women’s group that defined “woman” as “anyone non-male identifying.” And it was then that it really struck me. Hard. Our culture has, at long last, openly and conclusively embraced the idea that a woman is simply “non-male.” Hear that, sisters? You are simply “non-male.”

 

The sheer regressive nature of the definition infuriated me.

 

But in that simple definition – “woman is anyone non-male identifying” – I understood that this attempt to allow males to colonize lesbian spaces, this attempt to allow males to “define” womanhood, girlhood, women’s bodies is built solely and completely on the ultra-male premise that a woman is nothing but a non-male identifying person, a eunuch, a person who is not the default, favored, sex.

 

This notion is not a new one. We’ve seen iterations of “woman as non-male” since time immemorial. This conceit is at the core of women’s oppression, and now it’s being dressed up in synthetic hormones and silicone breasts.

 

And when you speak out, sisters, the dominant culture will attempt to silence you. When you speak out against the cult of “woman as a feeling” or “woman as simply non-male,” people will try to shut you down. People will use woman-hating slurs against you. Males may threaten you with death. Males who think they have cornered the market on womanhood will surely tell you to suck their balls. Heterosexual males who wish to be lesbians will keep you out of events that once belonged to you. And remember, all of this is built on repressive gender stereotypes and the on the sick, outmoded, misogynist notion that women are simply “non-male.”

 

Push back, sisters. Push back.

Stop Taking Crazy Pills. They Only Have One Look.

Excellent piece.

“Cisgender”? Cui Bono?

culturallyboundgender

 

If you read a single post here at CBG, make it this one.

Let’s talk about “cis.”  Some feminists think this word is harmful because it reflects an agreement with gender roles.

I think it’s actually more harmful when it simply means “non-trans,” particularly in the context of the sentence “Cisgender people are a privileged class.”

I’m going to start, as I often do, with an analogy.

Let’s say we had a word that meant “not Black.”  Black people have definitely faced historical oppressions that did not have easy equivalencies in other races, and let’s say that there was an idea that the proper way to fight oppression in the Black community was by defining themselves in this way.  So from now on, you have, say, people who are “melano-racial” (Black), and people who are “leuko-racial” (non-Black).

It would be very justified to say, in this context, that “melano-racial”…

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Nancy Boy

Here’s a man celebrating about a Facebook page for women being taken down. It’s nothing if not depressing. “Men win, women lose” — just another day.

Gender Fatigue

I don’t know this guy, but he has a lot of feelings.

He started out as a guy named Neal, apparently.

He transitioned in 1993.

He worked real hard to get Facebook to take down a pro-Woman, pro-Lesbian Facebook page that disagrees with his political analysis.

Which is odd, considering that he says he’s a lesbian.

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Trust Your Perceptions, This Is A Violent Man

Sisters — read this, watch this.

Gender Fatigue

Ryan Fortney is a Man who regularly harasses Women online who disagree with transgenderism. I recently ran across a video of him speaking.

And I watched it.

Women: These Men are Men. Stop telling us they are Women. They are not. I trust my perceptions, I trust my judgment.

He’s a Man.

Ryan Fortney is a Man.

Now, there is an undercurrent in this conversation that because I say Ryan is a Man, that means I think he’s bad or evil or wrong.

I don’t. He’s a gender-nonconforming Man. I’ve been a dyke longer than Ryan’s been a Woman. I love “gender nonconformity.” It does not threaten me.

There are specific Men like Ryan Fortney – Dana Lane Taylor, Daryl Banks – who both identify as Women AND harass Women – do I think those Men are bad?

Yes! I think those Men are bad because of their harassment of Women.

Ryan…

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The conservative reality of it all.

Great post on conservative “love” for trans politics.

whoiscis

When I was a very little boy I wore dresses, fake nails, make-up (if I could get away with it.) and played with barbies instead of G.I. Joes. My favorite things to watch were “Sleeping Beauty” and “Thumbelina”. I knew what all the other boys were into, and none of it appealed to me. I didn’t want to be rough, I didn’t want to go outside, I didn’t want to get dirty, their dolls were boring and they acted gross.

My ultra-conservative family was concerned, while this wasn’t outright apparent to a child of that age,but when my “girl” cartoons starting suddenly disappearing, when I could hear one parent expressing disapproval to another over what toy was brought home, when more encouragement was mounted on me to do boy things, to be everything I didn’t want to be I knew something was up. One morning, I woke up very early…

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Facebook terms of service

Porn is okay.

MRA groups are okay.

Misogyny is okay.

Blatant racism is okay.

Critical thinking is bad.

Pro-female groups are bad.

Mmmkay?

One of the only redeeming pages on FB, that I’m aware of, was Gender Identity Watch. No bullshit, pro-woman, interesting, intelligent content.

However, Facebook, in its infinite wisdom, has banned Gender Identity Watch for refusing to cater to the super-special feelings of men, misogynists, and those who think feminism is one big “Kumbaya” sing along.

If you don’t like that this page has been unpublished, if this pisses you off (and it should), do what you can to come down hard on Facebook for removing the page. Social media, especially Facebook, is flooded with violently misogynist content, and yet this page — for and about women — was unpublished. Think about that.

These are Orwellian times, sisters.

Paul McHugh (USA)

“Then there is the subgroup of very young, often prepubescent children who notice distinct sex roles in the culture and, exploring how they fit in, begin imitating the opposite sex. Misguided doctors at medical centers including Boston’s Children’s Hospital have begun trying to treat this behavior by administering puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex-change surgeries less onerous—even though the drugs stunt the children’s growth and risk causing sterility. Given that close to 80% of such children would abandon their confusion and grow naturally into adult life if untreated, these medical interventions come close to child abuse. A better way to help these children: with devoted parenting.”

How many times do I have to say this?

Let me be clear about a few things: I believe that all people should be able to live in a way that feels authentic and healthy for them, providing they’re not hurting anyone (and I’m not talking about feelings, I’m talking about real, actual hurt). I believe that all human beings have the right to live in peace, to not be harmed or harassed for how they choose to spend their short tenure in this life. I believe firmly in choice. Human beings, on an individual level, have a right to their own autonomy. I also believe in the right to dissent. I believe that all people should be entitled to argue their point-of-view passionately, albeit civilly, without being shouted down, threatened or attacked.

That said, I do not believe that as individuals, moreover women, we ought to at any time eschew boundaries, abandon our principles, or stay silent in order to simply protect another’s feelings.

We have become a culture of “if it doesn’t feel good, ignore it.” We don’t like to engage in complex, weighty discourse because someone might feel uncomfortable. We don’t like to say “no” because someone might feel left out. And often, we don’t like to address reality because it may burst someone’s bubble of delusion, and leave them flailing in the murky waters of actuality.

In this climate of “feeling over fact” men often get a pass for making people uncomfortable, for saying “no,” or for calling out reality. The rules of the gender game inform us that when men do these things they are being “assertive,” “manly,” “acting on authority.” However, when women say “no,” when women name reality, when women make points that bruise tender feelings, we are seen, at best, as “unladylike” and, at worst, as monsters. Gender teaches us that women, by nature, are selfless, accommodating, and wholly malleable. When women are not these things, when women set boundaries, when women stand their ground, people flip the fuck out and try very hard to either a) demonize us or b) shout/threaten us into submission. This is nothing new at all.

In any case, today, I watched this exchange unfold on Twitter, where Lily Cade (a lesbian who makes pornography) explained that she would not shoot a sex scene with Drew Deveaux (a male who thinks he’s a lesbian and makes pornography) because she does not have sex with males. And then this happened:

That I’m not a “fan” of pornography (that’s putting it lightly), is beside the point. The point is that here – right fucking here in motherfucking print – is the ENTIRE PROBLEM I have with MtT’s who think they’re lesbians. This kind of exchange is NOT limited to the world of pornstars/pornographers. This kind of exchange is happening in lesbian communities EVERYWHERE. These conversations are taking place and lesbians are being called “transphobic bigots” for not wanting to suck dick. MtT’s who think they’re lesbians are behaving as though lesbian refusal to fuck them is indicative of some grand prejudice, some human rights violation. Someone call Amnesty International! Lesbians won’t have sex with males!

When you press a woman about “why” she is not interested in engaging sexually with someone – whether that “someone” is a man, a woman, or a man who thinks he’s a woman – you are an active participant in rape culture. When you declare a woman a “bigot” for choosing not to have sex with someone, you are an active participant in rape culture.  When you claim a woman’s refusal to have sex with you “hurts you,” you are an active participant in rape culture.

Also, people who engage in these behaviors are male.

I’ve never noticed a pattern of straight women calling straight men names when the men won’t sleep with them. I’ve certainly never noticed a pattern of heterosexual women calling gay men “bigots” for not considering them as viable sexual partners. (And I’ve known PLENTY of straight women crushed out hopelessly on gay men.) Nor have I noticed a pattern of lesbians (the real kind) calling straight women “bigots” for preferring to sleep with men. (As ActualDykes nicely points out in the above exchange.)

This is male behavior. This is part of male entitlement. Males who think they’re lesbians can’t come right out and say, “lesbians must fuck me” (though this is, of course, what they mean), so they frame lesbian boundaries as a “phobia,” they frame lesbian existence as “bigotry.”

Yes I know (oh, how many times I’ve heard) some “queer women” date MtT’s. Fine. That’s great. But women who date males, even males in ladyface, are NOT lesbians. Heterosexual men, even those in ladyface, are NOT lesbians. How many fucking times do we have to go over this?

And now I’m going to get real.

Trigger Warning: Honesty.

What it comes down to is this: lesbians want nothing to do with heterosexual men who “feel like women.” We don’t want you in our spaces, and we definitely don’t want you in our beds. Many lesbians, because of their socialization as females, have politely allowed MtT’s to infiltrate their spaces. Many lesbians, because of their socialization as females, have lied through their fucking teeth when asked whether or not they’d consider dating MtT’s. Many lesbians have been all too nice (much to their own detriment), and spared your precious feelings, but I’m not interested in doing that anymore. Lesbians, real honest-to-god lesbians do not want males in our lesbian spaces, nor do we want males constantly sulking in our spaces, whimpering, “Why won’t you date trans women?” – dick or no dick, no matter; you’re male and we don’t fucking want you. How hard is that to understand?

Queer women may want to fuck you, and that’s fine. Enjoy. But “queer women” are not lesbians. Straight women are not lesbians. And once more, because it bears repeating, HETEROSEXUAL MALES ARE NOT LESBIANS.

Lay off the lesbians already. Don’t call us “bigots” for not being attracted to you. Don’t call us “bigots” for not “considering you” as sexual partners. I know your male socialization has convinced you otherwise, but we do not “owe it to you.” Lesbians are under absolutely no obligation to “reconsider the penis” or accept male bodied people as dating prospects. And this is not “denying your existence.” This is not “advocating violence against you.” This is just a little good old fashioned honesty that may hurt your feelings.

Christ, if every woman (or man for that matter) whose affections I rebuked accused me of “advocating violence against them” or “denying their existence” I’d feel like Mussolini. Conversely, if I accused every woman who rebuked my affections of “advocating violence against me” or “denying my existence,” I’d come off as a total fucking psychopath – and rightly so.

Bottom line: if someone doesn’t want to fuck you – whether you’re male, female or unicorn – that person is not a bigot. That person is not committing an act of violence. That person is not a “phobe” of any ilk. We are all entitled to our autonomy, even when it hurts other people’s feelings.

 

Ladies, this dude is here to tell you that noted feminist Sheila Jeffreys is not a feminist

Trigger Warning: Exhaustive response to a patronizing article written by a man.

Virtually any time an article begins  with “it’s time to,” you can guarantee that what follows will be a whole mess o’ mansplaining, or transplaining, or both. Tim Johnston’s article (that begins, “it’s time to”) in the New Statesman is no different. In the article Tim Johnston, a man, like many men before him, spends a number of paragraphs imploring the ladies to “do feminism right.” More specifically, he tells feminist scholar Sheila Jeffreys that she’s “doing feminism wrong” because she points out realities that hurt people’s feelings, and because she writes critically of the transgender phenomenon.

I kinda doubt Johnston actually read Gender Hurts because there is virtually nothing specific to back up his claims about the book – just a whole lotta whining that Jeffreys is being “hurtful and inflammatory.”

I, however, have actually read the book and have a few things to say to Johnston and his ilk.

The first patently false claim Johnston makes is this, “[Jeffreys] simply asserts controversial hypotheses without providing arguments, data, or other support to back them up.” This is an absolute lie. The book is rife with data and references to academic, medical and psychological works relating to her subject matter. I’m certain that many people don’t LIKE Jeffreys’ secondary sources (they hurt feels), but they do exist within her work. Or maybe secondary sources are subject to po-mo questioning too? I mean, really, what is a secondary source? Who’s to say what a citation is? I mean, isn’t using peer reviewed scholarly sources demeaning to all the unreliable information that feels like it’s been peer reviewed?

“The entire text is a striking example of how not to criticize a group of which you are not a member,” writes Johnston. (After clarifying that it’s fine for HIM to criticize a group – radical feminists – that he doesn’t belong to, because . . . um . . . he says so.) And why, according to Mr. Johnston, is Jeffreys’ text a “bad critique”? Mainly because she fails to “use transgender peoples’ preferred names” and because she “ignores their individual humanity.”

Okay, first of all, when one engages in analysis, one must generalize. So there’s that. Secondly, this isn’t a book about special names and feelings. This is a work exploring how problematic gender constructs are – not only for women, but also for men. Gender Hurts is NOT, as Johnston and many others would like people to believe, some screed against trans folk.  Does it ignore “individual humanity”? Yeah, I suppose, because this isn’t a fucking Studs Terkel tome about all the special people who inhabit transland. This is a scholarly work that examines gender, not “individuality.”

This next quote really spoke to me though. Here, Johnston (a man), posits that, “[Gender Hurts] is not a meaningful contribution to feminist theory.” Well thanks for clearing that up, dude! I happened to think it was a refreshingly radical contribution to feminist theory, particularly in a world where the predominant “feminist theory” amounts to, “Yay! Porn!” and “Yay! Anyone can be a woman!” As a woman, as a feminist, as a prolific reader, I found Gender Hurts to be one of the first contemporary works of feminist theory that didn’t make my brain turn to oatmeal. I felt that Gender Hurts was an essential, if not challenging, read for women in a world where we’re being told that conforming to gender norms is “only natural.” So maybe, Mr. Johnston, given that women don’t run around screaming about what’s “meaningful” for gay dudes, you can let women, moreover feminists, decide what is “meaningful” for us.

Moving along . . . toward the article’s merciful end, Johnston illustrates the distinction between radical feminist philosophy and queer-trans philosophy. He concedes that “feminists have a good reason to be attached to this foundation” because “women are violently persecuted because of their sex” and “methods like [. . .] forced reproduction often involve female anatomy.” Um, “often” involve? Come again, bro? Try always. Always involve – unless, perhaps, Johnston is of the belief that neo-vaginas can be subject o “forced reproduction” (they cannot). Was he afraid to imply that some forms of persecution – like “forced reproduction” – don’t always involve women because in doing so he might hurt some MtT’s feelings? I don’t understand.

The section where he attempts to explain trans-philosophy is decidedly less clear, and more about showing how mean feminists with their critical thinking hurt trans feels. In this paragraph he says, “Cisgender people must realize that a trans woman did not become a woman after transitioning, she has always been a woman, and because she is a woman she deserves access to women-only spaces.” This is motherfucking rich! I mean this is positively WONDERFUL coming from a MAN. Ladies, listen up while this man here explains how delusion reality works. Ladies, this man, who hasn’t the slightest clue what it’s like to live as a woman, is here to tell you that you better let anyone who imagines themselves a woman into your spaces.

How about this? How about women who feel like men start, en masse, going to your gay male events and joining your gay male organizations? And how about you start sleeping with women who feel like men and if you refuse, happily accept that you are now labeled a bigot? How about that? Until men have to deal with the impostions of the trans agenda the same way lesbians and radical feminists do, I don’t give a flying fuck what they “think” about the issue.

After his “males have always been women if they say so” symposium, Johnston goes on to cry about “the fact that every person has a unique relationship to their body” and that Jeffreys’ is a big meanie for not acknowledging it in her book about gender constructs. This is what really makes me laugh about the queer/trans movement – the notion that everyone is so fucking special and important that one cannot engage in critical analysis because someone’s unique experience might be overlooked. We all have “unique relationships” to our bodies.  This is a completely moot point. It’s like saying, “Jeffreys shouldn’t have written that book because she doesn’t acknowledge that some people prefer poetry!” Who fucking cares? The narcissism of males and the queer/trans movement is truly astonishing.

Lastly, Johnston says, “I feel comfortable ignoring [Gender Hurts].” Yeah? Good for you, bro. Then why didn’t you ignore it? Why doesn’t everyone who thinks women should embrace queer/trans’ bullshit dogma ignore this book? You know why they don’t ignore it? Because Gender Hurts pulls back the curtain on the misogynist lies perpetuated by the trans agenda, because Gender Hurts illustrates in compelling, logical terms the devastating harm that comes, particularly to women and girls, from conflating sex with gender. The reason why Johnston didn’t ignore the book he “feels comfortable ignoring” is because he doesn’t want women to read it. Men don’t like when women read things that wake them up to their own oppression. Men don’t like when women read things that might cause them to challenge patriarchal constructs that benefit men.

The takeaway? “Ladies, you can read Fifty Shades of Grey and Jezebel, but you definitely should not read this book by a noted feminist scholar and activist because it might make you realize queer/trans ideology is bullshit and that you are being mislead.”

If you must, you can read the original fuckery here: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/06/it-s-time-end-divisive-rhetoric-sex-and-gender-and-create-trans-inclusive-feminism