Why is it that seemingly reasonable people wish to marginalise trans-women and trans-men?
Part of the problem is a seemingly legitimate fear of the male invading the 'safe' spaces of the female. There are some cases which seem to legitimise this fear, those of Christopher Hambrook, Robert Kosilek and David E. Megarry Jr. All of whom have committed crimes against cis women either whilst being trans gender or have begun the process of trans gender transformation after the crimes whilst in jail.
Yes, it is undeniable that these cases are concerning. However, they are concerning because abusers and rapists attacked vulnerable people and may be in a position to do so using transgender safe rules and laws to do so.
Instead of calling trans women 'he' and focusing so much on whether they have been able or willing to go through the full gender surgery, there are many risks in re-assigning a penis, for example, to a vagina such as damaging the urinary process, lack of any sensation, incontinence, infection. All feminists need to listen and empathise with each other. Women, be we cis or trans, attacking and harming other women does nothing to keep any of us safe.
We must stop abusing each other, and learn to listen to each other and find a way to create safe places for all of us.
I will say it again you can NEVER gain rights for one oppressed group by removing them from another group, and granting trans women rights of safety and gender identity removes nothing from me as a cis woman. Not even bathroom safety as I've been threatened in bathrooms by outright cis men and outright cis women, not trans women - so my bathroom safety is dependent on the nature of the other people in the bathroom, NOT whether that person is trans or not.
We need to speak together about creating safe places for ALL women, not just cis women - THAT is what my feminism is about. Safe places for ALL, NOT a select few!
Thursday, 19 June 2014
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
"Feminism is not an equality movement"? The danger of anti trans 'Feminism'
A group on facebook (at least one) that is run by a notorious anti trans 'feminist' C Brennan.
Their main position is that gender disassociation isn't real, you can't be trans because gender is purely biological and if you're born male or female then that is what you are. They generously allow that you can be a butch female or an effeminate male, you can indeed be heterosexual, homosexual or lesbian, you may be bi-sexual but they tend not to really accept that either, but you may NEVER be allowed to be trans. If you happen to read the site Gender identity watch re-loaded ~ link you will notice that the sheer violence of the language used against trans women is frankly scary. It is scary to me as a cis heterosexual woman, it leaves me feeling unsafe. If I feel unsafe then how must this violent oppression makes trans women and trans men feel?
As a cis heterosexual woman I am simply an ally, as an abuse and rape survivor I do understand the need for safe spaces for women, however I choose to feel this means all women irrespective of whether or not a woman is cis or 'trans'.
This blog The cotton ceiling ~ link is a simply wonderful response to the attitudes of transphobia as spouted by these radical 'feminist' groups ...
I would like to add that this focus this brand of transphobic feminism has on the idea that cis women created gendered bathrooms as safe places for cis women is utter rubbish. The idea of separate bathrooms was to protect men from the provocation of women without those women having the protection of their designated male protector/owner i.e. father, husband, brother, other male protector/owner. The entire idea of maintaining essentialist gender norms is protecting patriarchal systems NOT women. Please STOP using your transphobia as a reason to speak for all cis women and indeed all cis lesbians. You d not speak for all of us, you speak for yourselves out of ignorance, fear and hatred. Please just step back and empathise, listen to trans women and trans men with empathy NOT judgement. To do otherwise is simply NOT feminism.
I will say it again you can NEVER gain rights for one oppressed group by removing them from another group, and granting trans women rights of safety and gender identity removes nothing from me as a cis woman. Not even bathroom safety as I've been threatened in bathrooms by outright cis men and outright cis women, not trans women - so my bathroom safety is dependent on the nature of the other people in the bathroom, NOT whether that person is trans or not.
We need to speak together about creating safe places for ALL women, not just cis women - THAT is what my feminism is about. Safe places for ALL, NOT a select few!
Their main position is that gender disassociation isn't real, you can't be trans because gender is purely biological and if you're born male or female then that is what you are. They generously allow that you can be a butch female or an effeminate male, you can indeed be heterosexual, homosexual or lesbian, you may be bi-sexual but they tend not to really accept that either, but you may NEVER be allowed to be trans. If you happen to read the site Gender identity watch re-loaded ~ link you will notice that the sheer violence of the language used against trans women is frankly scary. It is scary to me as a cis heterosexual woman, it leaves me feeling unsafe. If I feel unsafe then how must this violent oppression makes trans women and trans men feel?
As a cis heterosexual woman I am simply an ally, as an abuse and rape survivor I do understand the need for safe spaces for women, however I choose to feel this means all women irrespective of whether or not a woman is cis or 'trans'.
This blog The cotton ceiling ~ link is a simply wonderful response to the attitudes of transphobia as spouted by these radical 'feminist' groups ...
I would like to add that this focus this brand of transphobic feminism has on the idea that cis women created gendered bathrooms as safe places for cis women is utter rubbish. The idea of separate bathrooms was to protect men from the provocation of women without those women having the protection of their designated male protector/owner i.e. father, husband, brother, other male protector/owner. The entire idea of maintaining essentialist gender norms is protecting patriarchal systems NOT women. Please STOP using your transphobia as a reason to speak for all cis women and indeed all cis lesbians. You d not speak for all of us, you speak for yourselves out of ignorance, fear and hatred. Please just step back and empathise, listen to trans women and trans men with empathy NOT judgement. To do otherwise is simply NOT feminism.
I will say it again you can NEVER gain rights for one oppressed group by removing them from another group, and granting trans women rights of safety and gender identity removes nothing from me as a cis woman. Not even bathroom safety as I've been threatened in bathrooms by outright cis men and outright cis women, not trans women - so my bathroom safety is dependent on the nature of the other people in the bathroom, NOT whether that person is trans or not.
We need to speak together about creating safe places for ALL women, not just cis women - THAT is what my feminism is about. Safe places for ALL, NOT a select few!
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
Survivors and Victims are important
I have read alot of survivor and victim accounts overall but particularly recently. It is so important that all of us see both the statistics and the people. We need to see beyond number to the real people being maimed, raped and murdered by husbands, partners, fathers, brothers...
If you are lucky enough to survive, the mental and emotional scars don't really leave you. Even when you are years into recovery and living a balanced and positive life, triggers are just lurking. They can be very innocuous - this Saturday I was gardening with my lovely family, in the undergrowth I was clearing lay the head of a garden fork. Not the same one that had once been held at my throat by my father many years ago, (that one had been thrown away years ago). Nevertheless, this normal occurrence in safe company was very triggering. Even I said nothing at the time to anyone other than my brother. Why? Because I was embarrassed, ashamed of my reaction. Essentially ashamed that this abuse had even occurred to me, let alone that it still affected me all these years after in safe company.
If a stranger had come up to me in my garden and held a weapon at my throat would I have felt the same levels of guilt and shame? Unlikely. Yet because what occurred was 'family' even I, who know academically the theory and the practice of abuse, and am vehement about survivors being able to speak out, still carry not only a shame but a shamed silence about much of what happened. Including to safe people who know what happened.
We as society and as individuals must stop seeing domestic abuse as somehow only a 'family' affair, it IS a crime, theft, stalking, verbal assault, physical assault, sexual assault, rape, murder - ALL criminal acts in UK laws.
We as survivors and victims must also STOP blaming ourselves. And you guys out there NEED to STOP blaming us too. There is NO excuse for abusing another person. NONE! We do NOTHING to deserve what those abusers do to us.
There is a wonderful, though moving and triggering, piece in the Independent newspaper covering the urgent need for humanising victims and survivors of DV and seeing beyond the 'domestic' aspect to the abuse and related crimes.
My friend the murder statistic ~ article link
If you are lucky enough to survive, the mental and emotional scars don't really leave you. Even when you are years into recovery and living a balanced and positive life, triggers are just lurking. They can be very innocuous - this Saturday I was gardening with my lovely family, in the undergrowth I was clearing lay the head of a garden fork. Not the same one that had once been held at my throat by my father many years ago, (that one had been thrown away years ago). Nevertheless, this normal occurrence in safe company was very triggering. Even I said nothing at the time to anyone other than my brother. Why? Because I was embarrassed, ashamed of my reaction. Essentially ashamed that this abuse had even occurred to me, let alone that it still affected me all these years after in safe company.
If a stranger had come up to me in my garden and held a weapon at my throat would I have felt the same levels of guilt and shame? Unlikely. Yet because what occurred was 'family' even I, who know academically the theory and the practice of abuse, and am vehement about survivors being able to speak out, still carry not only a shame but a shamed silence about much of what happened. Including to safe people who know what happened.
We as society and as individuals must stop seeing domestic abuse as somehow only a 'family' affair, it IS a crime, theft, stalking, verbal assault, physical assault, sexual assault, rape, murder - ALL criminal acts in UK laws.
We as survivors and victims must also STOP blaming ourselves. And you guys out there NEED to STOP blaming us too. There is NO excuse for abusing another person. NONE! We do NOTHING to deserve what those abusers do to us.
There is a wonderful, though moving and triggering, piece in the Independent newspaper covering the urgent need for humanising victims and survivors of DV and seeing beyond the 'domestic' aspect to the abuse and related crimes.
My friend the murder statistic ~ article link
Wednesday, 4 June 2014
Normalised violence against women
.jpg)
So Earlier today a friend shared this picture on facebook. Without saying anything I showed it to my brother, who straight away pulled a face and said "that's bad", "how?" I asked, "It's clealry showing it is not only okay to hit women, but it is necessary to hit a woman who is motivated and has a plan".
It was good to know this wasn't just my thoughts and feelings.
I have seen this meme where the 'internet' was represented as a computer or some cartoon monster, but this is simply misogyny at best, at worst it is actively promoting direct violence against women. (cis and trans women are included in 'women' on my blog unless specifically stated otherwise).
When intelligent, aware, male and female allies can share images like this without seeing the hidden, or not so hidden, message of violence against women it is proof positive that those of us who do see it have a responsibility to highlight the problems and share that widely.
Sunday, 1 June 2014
Some unknown effects of being a survivor
Recently I have been subject to a fairly common problem for survivors online.
That 'discussion' during which strangers think they get to tell you what you think and what you are saying. Rather than actually reading and responding to what you're saying. A bad enough occurrence, worse is the assumption that your zero tolerance for this entitled attitude means you're incapable of having a rational discussion or accept people who disagree with you.
Two of the nastiest things you can do to anyone let alone a survivor are a) speak for another person in words other than their own if they can speak for themselves and have done so; - we fight hard to gain our voices as survivors as our abusers work so diligently to remove our voices our words our power. So imagine then if in order to 'win' some internet conversation that is what you assume a right to do so someone? b) not listening to what a person is saying. Agree or disagree as is everyone's right, but to not listen and deride that person based on your inability to listen is exactly what an abuser done. These are bad enough to do to anyone but to someone who has identified as a survivor to you? These are just outright abuse.
This is why I take a zero tolerance to these tactics being used against me or on any forum I run.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)