ann-tagonist:

harrybenjaminsyndrome:

ann-tagonist:

harrybenjaminsyndrome:

ann-tagonist:

You are showing your misogyny. I support your right to trans-only spaces. In fact, I’d go so far as to do what the Quakers did for the Black Panthers during the civil rights movement in the US. The Quakers and the Black Panthers had diametrically opposing politics (like radical feminists and trans activists) but when the Panthers wanted to meet and needed a safe space to do it, the Quakers would form a circle around them, holding hands, to prevent white supremacists from invading their space. Why can’t trans women show born women the same courtesy? No one is saying you’re not women, you’re just not female and your experience of womanhood is fundamentally different to mine because of that. Not worse, not better, just different. I would like to stand in solidarity with you but I can’t if your boot is on my neck.

Perhaps if you read Roz Kaveney’s Guardian article about this, you’d learn that the trans opposition to this Conference had nothing to do with cis-only spaces, and everything to do with the presence of Sheila Jeffreys. Anjem Choudary and Fred Phelps have both been banned from speaking publicly in the UK, so why would Jeffreys be any different? Choudary, Jeffreys and Phelps are all hatemongers who speak out against the civil rights of people they don’t like, which is why the 2010 Equality Act is used to stop them spreading their propaganda in the UK.

For the record, there weren’t any trans people who wanted to attend the event anyway, even if they had been allowed.

If you read Sheila Jeffreys, you’d learn that her primary interest is the liberation of women from male oppression. Professor Jeffreys does not propagate hate speech and that is a libellous accusation. To compare her to a holocaust denier and two religious extremists is fucking offensive at best. Anyway, we heard Sheila speak. Twice. So you’re late to the party.

Yes, I realise Jeffreys wishes to overcome male oppression, and I can only commend her on her efforts with it. However, that does not negate the fact that she has propagated hatred and prejudice against bisexuals and trans people, along with making it clear that she thinks of femininity as inferior to masculinity. She said that “the notions of love and human relationship in much bisexual practice are extremely impoverished”, making bisexuals all look like a bunch of sluts. She’s constantly critiquing any legislation protecting trans people - comparing Tony Blair to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for being trans-positive, and she’s trying to get our right to healthcare banned (anyone attempting to strip away the civil liberties of others can be regarded a hatemonger). She also theorises that femininity “is the behaviour required of the subordinate class of women in order to show their deference to the ruling class of men”. I don’t think it’s libel to claim that this is a highly prejudiced woman.

Ohhhh, you think gender is “natural”. It’s not hate speech to disagree with that claim. 

Now you’re derailing. I have never claimed that it’s hateful to disagree that gender is natural.

Zinnia Jones’ brilliant response to someone who asked something along the lines of “what’s the difference between transsexualism and a person deciding to identify as a dolphin?”. I’ve noticed a lot of similar analogies - all who conveniently forget the genetic causes of transsexualism.

senor-bizarro:

Reminds me of college where I was pressured to come out as a butch lesbian by the very lesbian-separatist radfems on campus and got ditched and/or or mercilessly harassed when I came out of the “wrong” closet.

So yeah. Butch guys get this too. You’re not alone.

I’m sorry you had to go through this. Radfems are extremely misogynistic in the sense that they hate on anyone - cis or trans - who is remotely feminine. Mary Daly referred to feminine women as “painted birds”, Germaine Greer said they were “feminine parasites” and Sheila Jeffreys argues that femininity “is the behaviour required of the subordinate class of women in order to show their deference to a ruling class of men” and gets over the intellectual problem of feminine males through saying that they’re sexual masochists (Serano 2007: 334). So basically, they hate trans people for “reinforcing the gender binary” and still hate them if they transgress the gender binary after transitioning. Either way, being trans means you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

My voice on this subject is not representative of all transgendered people. But when a minority group has been silent for as long as we have, as disjointed as we have been, the tendency is for those in the majority to listen to the loud ones when they first speak up; and to believe that we speak for the entire group.

Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw (1994: 14)

hedonisticparadise:

Just to clear something up, you goddamn morons, Janice Raymond said that transsexuality as an ideology needed to be morally mandated out of existence, NOT individual trans people. Stop misquoting her and breaking down into hysterical shrieks and whines about how radfems want you dead.

Other than a transsexual’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, I know of no “transsexual ideology”. We are people, not political statements.

I really wish radfems would listen to Immanuel Kant over Martin Heidegger, and see transsexuals, devoid of ideology, as ends in themselves rather than as things to be eliminated “for greater good” as a means to an end for a radfem utopia.

While sociological models of transsexuality and transgenderism have not had as direct an impact on the lives of trans people as sexological models have, both models foster the false impression that cissexual “experts” (whether academic or clinical) are capable of understanding transsexuality better than transsexuals themselves - an idea that is as problematic as suggesting that male “experts” can understand womanhood better than women, or that heterosexual “experts” can understand homosexuality better than gays and lesbians.

Julia Serano, Whipping Girl (2007: 140)

As more and more [transsexual] people came forth requesting treatment and medical resources, interested investigators began to compile substantial data about the medical and psychological histories of these individuals. While the histories were consistent, in that all of these individuals had suffered similar distress, there was no commonality in terms of environmental features or in any of the particulars of their biographical data. Some reported unhappy childhoods and broken homes or blatantly dysfunctional families, while others were born to privilege or claimed to have had happy childhoods (Buhrich & McConaghy, 1978). Few of the population were sexually abused, as some theorists had speculated, and there were no similarities in terms of birth order, sexual experiences in childhood, or childrearing practices of the parents. In short, there was no empirical evidence that environmental factors alone could account for the origin of the condition.

Interestingly, the most compelling clues as to the origin of the condition came from a seemingly unrelated group of people: baby girls who were born with adrenogenital syndrome. In this syndrome, baby girls are born without an important enzyme necessary for the making of an adrenal hormone called cortisol. They have mixed genitalia, which include an oversized clitoris that resembles a penis. Left untreated, at four years of age their appearance will begin to show signs of masculinity.

Treatment for this condition became available in the 1950s. It consists of administering corticosteroids from birth on and surgically correcting the appearance of the genitals so that they become decidedly female. With this treatment, these babies are indistinguishable from other infant girls. But as they mature, they show behavior more typical of boys than girls (Zucker et al., 1996). Longitudinal studies of these children found them to be tomboys, and as they grew, they all remarked that they would have preferred to have been male. This paralleled the transsexual experience and cast further doubt on the nurture component of the nature vs. nurture controversy.

Looking at pathophysiology of the female-to-male transsexual, Van Straalen, Hage, and Bloemena (1995) used histological investigation to conclude that an anomalous inframammary ligament extending from the sternum to the lateral margin of the pectoralis major muscle is present in female-to-male transsexuals. Several studies have documented a higher rate of potycystic ovaries in this population (Bosinski et al., 1997a; Futterweit, 1983; Futterweit & Deligdisch, 1986; Futterweit & Krieges; 1979; Futterweit, Weiss, & Fagerstrom, 1986; Spinder, Spijkstra, Gooren, & Burger, 1989).

Bosinski et al. (1997b) examined the relationship between body build, androgens, and female-to-male transsexualism. They assessed anthropometrical measurements in hormonally untreated female-to-males in comparison to healthy female and male controls. The female-to-male group differed from control females on seven of fourteen sex-dimorphic indices of masculinity/femininity in body build. The transsexuals were more masculine in body shape, primarily in bone proportion and fat distribution. Levels of testosterone and androstenedione were significantly higher in the female-to-males than in the control females. Unbound testosterone was also higher in female-to-males than in control females, and correlated positively with masculine body configuration.

Source: http://www.gendertree.com/Gender.htm

I find it slightly amusing that Sheila Jeffreys would like to see transsexualism banned as a “human rights violation”, yet fails to explain exactly which Article of the UDHR it violates.

peaktrans:

My peak trans moment came when I started seeing warnings like: “not all women have female reproductive systems,” or “men can get pregnant, too,” every single time any feminist (oh hey, it also happened to be my peak libfem moment) talked about anything important to females. I suppressed my annoyance at that for a while, but once it became obvious how much misogyny transpolitics had brought into the libfem circles I just left. Once you start silencing women’s discussions about their own lives, bodies and problems to allow trans people cuddly feelings about themselves you’ve stopped being a feminist.

I’ve been seeing this on Tumblr - girls talking about their reproductive systems and special snowflake “trans*” people jumping in to say something like “it’s not just girls that have periods, y’know!” (when the conversation had nothing to do with trans people anyway) as if they think that somehow helps trans acceptance. It really doesn’t. If anything, it pushes people away from accepting teh trans because these special snowflake kids make it seem like all trans people are annoying, self-righteous imbeciles like they are.