also in SF was the issue of sandy Stone and Olivia Records
Olivia Records hired Sandy Stone to help them record their performers. Olivia Records was the only record company that would produce music with explicit lesbian/women-centered content, and as such was struggling to break even financially. Protestors forced Olivia Records to fire Sandy Stone when it became known that she was a transsexual. The Olivia Collective was supportive, but in the end had to ask Sandy for her letter of resignation for fear of having Olivia Records shut down (it was the only women run record company at that time).
So when it comes down to a question of attidue, which came first, the chicken or the egg. Everything I've read regarding feminist behaviour towards trans people at that time suggests they refused to acccept them as anything other than men in drag and consequently attacked the very basis of the fragile identity these transwomen were trying to establish. If in response trans people became resentful, then I'm not surprised.
however, if some of these transwomen continued to behave in a male way and just felt entitled to be treated as a woman whilst continuing with male cultural entitlement then maybe feminist anger was justified. I dunno, but the headline stories I point to don't support that. rather I think the ideology of the time was driving the interpretation.
There remains even now a whole feminist culture of language regarding trans. If women behave aggressively towards transpeople then it's justifiable feminine outrage and thus acceptable. If transwomen react angrily then it's obviously male-power and entitlement and thereby QED, male behaviour from a man who must be resisted. Equally, if we respond quietly and with dignity, then we are adopting stereotyped feminine behaviours that no real woman would show, so we are seen as acting out rather than being. Either way we lose.
I also note the way these feminist narratives erase transmen. Feminists regard transmen as just extreme dykes, whilst transwomen are agents of patriarchy. Either way, the change of identity is not respected. keep to the Fen Causeway
When Olivia records personnel released a statement saying that Sandy was a woman they trusted, Raymond sneered that they should admit they just needed a man about the place. So, judging by the fact that the women who knew her believed in her transistion whilst those who were ideologically motivated trashed the feminist credentials of those who defended her shows it wsn't an argument about Stone herself, but ideas about feminism and transgenderism.
So if your partner bases her hatred of transwomen on Raymond's say so, I'd suggest she was was relying on hearsay and dogma rather than thought and experience. And sorry to say, that's about par for the course from the feminists I've encountered. keep to the Fen Causeway
And I have to say that I think suspicions of Twisty are unfounded. She let one thread go because she essentially wasn't paying attention, and in hindsight I'm glad she did because the sheer number of feminists arguing against the transphobes drove them off Twisty's blog, which was the best possible outcome. Twisty isn't just 'careful' implying a nefarious double agenda, she has categorically denounced transphobics, and there are several MtF who post on her blog.
Anyway, my partner's early experiences are what got me meditating on the whole personal -experience-becomes -academic-niche-market thing. It seems to have been particularly par for the course in second wave feminism where 'the personal is political' got IMHO taken by some authors far too far, not least because they ignored the fact that the experiences of largely middle class white women wasn't exactly representative. Thankfully feminism has evolved.
I guess I have to say, as a feminist, that I find your statements about feminists pretty anger-fuelled and quite personally confronting / hurtful. We're not the borg, and I'm not & don't hang out with transphobic people. My partner, who's had misgivings and displayed prejudice in private conversations with me, joined wholeheartedly in supporting a local MtF activist, Martine, who has a claim up with the anti-discrimination board about hate speech the conservative party put out about trans people during the last state election. Whatever her personal doubts on one level, she treats everyone with the dignity and respect they deserve, and fights for it.
so please be careful not to cling too hard to people like Heart & Julie B whatsoface and miss the fact that they aren't remotely representative of most feminists, nor are they supported by them. People change, even the older feminists, and we leave behind the ones who won't.
all the best. "This can't possibly get more disturbing!" - Willow
When a radical feminist female uses insulting words in the direction of transwomen, she understand this to be no different from using insulting words in the direction of males. It might be rude, crude, and socially unacceptable, it might be insulting, but it isn't hate speech. It's not discriminatory. Because given power differentials as they exist between males and females, females aren't situated socially so as to be able to discriminate against males, or to be bigoted towards males or to be phobic against males. To the contrary, our experience as females is that males are to be feared because they hurt females and to say so, and behave accordingly, is not "phobic," it is based on female reality
Trans women are men in her book, no debate, no shade of grey. Okay, she wrote that last year, but short of a very public change of mind and a deep apology, let's just say we're not counting her as an ally just yet. {snigger}
As for other feminists, it's difficult to say. Elsewhere I have mentioned that the feminists I knew and associated with (I'm 50) are all 2nd wave greenham common wimminists and, although they have "accepted" my change as being beneficial to me, I'm not convinced it's shaken their core belief that the transwomen are somehow misguided and aren't really women (and that transmen aren't really men) and shouldn't even hope for, let alone expect, sisterhood.
This somewhat colours my ideas of feminism. And seeing as I'm not allowed to participate in feminist discussion or go on RTN marches because I am trans, it's difficult to get any other viewpoint (especially when these prohibitions kinda confirm the idea they're all anti-trans).
So you feel I am anger-fuelled and confrontational towards feminists. I am not angry at you individually but, given that trans people didn't start this fight and there remains a significant number of feminists who continue to be hateful towards us, I think I'm entitled to a little exasperation at least. After all, it's been going on for so many years that transphobia seem woven into the very fabric of many assumptions underlying certain schools of feminism. These happen to be the dominant feminist narratives in the UK media right now. After all, it isn't just bindel, there has been a persistent trickle of articles from feminists that are hostile to trans people and precious few that are even neutral, let alone supportive. If, as you say, people change, then it's taking a lot longer than it ought.
By recently publicising our disgust at bindel's transphobia and the media's and feminist hypocrisy in supporting her we seem to have stirred up a hornets nest and I'm reading a lot of nasty stuff right now. And whilst I see individuals, I don't see feminist groups or prominent feminists complaining. So, paranoia may cause me to draw my brush too broadly, but it's hard to avoid the fact that some feminists are out to get us. We have never forgotten (or fogiven) what real actual damage Raymond's hatred achieved in the US when she succesfully campaigned to close John Hopkins GRU and we always fear a repeat from certain well-placed feminists here.
As poemless says;-
a belief in human equality regardless of gender seems, I don't know, a fundamental pillar of feminism
It sums up what I understand to be 3rd wave feminism. but here in the UK, feminists with a public pulpit aren't yet with the programme. Or if they are, equality doesn't seem to be extended to a bunch of self-mutilating weirdo men who want to be accepted as women; that, it would seem, is a step too far.
I regret sounding angry, but I have much to be angry about. keep to the Fen Causeway
females aren't situated socially so as to be able to discriminate against males, or to be bigoted towards males or to be phobic against males
That world sounds like an interesting place.
I'm not sure it's one that many Western men will have spent much time on, however.
so, you're right, no western man has ever visited that world. keep to the Fen Causeway
