Thursday, October 6, 2011

Fear-The New State of Feminism

I recently received this message from a young feminist:

My name is XXXX and I'm a 26 year old woman currently working for a feminist organization serving rural women and girls in XXXXXX. I have always identified as a girl/woman but only in recent years have really come to appreciate the awesomeness of what that means. I love my body and would never want to part with any aspect of it. I have enjoyed wonderful sexual and romantic experiences with men and women, and have expressed my gender in various ways from feminine to androgynous. What bothers me these days is that I have observed several young women in my community transitioning and embracing male-centric identities. The movement is very strong here to educate the public about trans people and their experiences, and as someone working in the field of social justice/feminism I feel obligated to support trans people as an equity-seeking group. Deep down, however, I'm very concerned about the shrinking of the category "woman" and the violent influence of misogyny on all of us, particularly the pressure on women to alter and in some cases mutilate our bodies. I've seen people on the internet attaching the "hate" label to your posts and videos, but what nobody (except you) seems to be talking about is the internalized hatred that every female faces in this deeply misogynistic world, and how this is linked to transitioning. Yet, were I to publicly agree with you I would a) be disowned by my FTM friends/acquaintances and b) be shunned by others working in my field. I have only spoken with one other feminist who expressed a view similar to yours, and she is a long-time activist who I admire and respect. There is just so much silencing of dissent around this issue that I'm afraid to speak my mind. Thank you for having the courage to articulate your perspective. I suspect that there are many feminists who, like me, feel silenced but glad that someone is raising these questions.

More and more feminist are expressing similar sentiments to the feminist's predicament above. The trans community takes the mass feminist silence as trans approval, but nothing could be further from the truth. Feminists are women, and women from our earliest teachings are taught to either be "polite" or "say nothing at all". Since postmodernism's conservative backlash against feminism first spewed Queer Theory from its muck funnel, there has been a rising tide of pressure for women/feminist to accept anything no matter how inane, from their fluid PC driven politic.

The greatest failure of feminism is silence in the face of violence against women. And make no bones about it, transition IS violence against women on a multitude of levels! Whether it is being silent about men co-opting "woman", allowing these men in female spaces or watching with cringed expressions and tight lips while women and girls are being brainwashed with acute misogyny then violated by the male medical machine perpetuating that misogyny for a fucking buck!

Silence IS the enemy! Silence permits violence against girls and women because when there is no one saying NO, it is presumed that everyone is thinking yes.

dirt

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Trans Pathological Need to Silence

I received both these emails this morning indicating that someone first tried to hack into my Blogger account and when that failed tried hacking into my Yahoo mail account. This is the deep level of hatred and desire for silencing the trans community has become notorious for. In comment after comment we hear from hormonally poisoned minds how they do not care what I write, how I am only one person and cannot change anything, how no one is listening to what I have to say.

Yet time after time if there isnt copiously amounts of trollish comments utilized for silencing my posts, there are by trans to other trans demands for mass emails to be sent to google/blogger to close my blog under the pretense that it is "hate" centered and when all that fails let the hacking fucking begin!

So much for one lone voice having no measurable weight. But history has long shone it is ALWAYS the individual challenging, changing and inspiring change.

dirt

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Daring to be Different-Anne Sexton

In lieu of the anniversary of Anne Sexton's death October 4th, 1974.

How It Is

By Maxine W. Kumin

Shall I say how it is in your clothes?

A month after your death I wear your blue jacket.

The dog at the center of my life recognizes

you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic.

In the left pocket, a hole.

In the right, a parking ticket

delivered up last August on Bay State Road.

In my heart, a scatter like milkweed,

a flinging from the pods of the soul.

My skin presses your old outline.

It is hot and dry inside.

I think of the last day of your life,

old friend, how I would unwind it, paste

it together in a different collage,

back from the death car idling in the garage,

back up the stairs, your praying hands unlaced,

reassembling the bits of bread and tuna fish

into a ceremony of sandwich,

running the home movie backward to a space

we could be easy in, a kitchen place

with vodka and ice, our words like living meat.

Dear friend, you have excited crowds

with your example. They swell

like wine bags, straining at your seams.

I will be years gathering up our words,

fishing out letters, snapshots, stains,

leaning my ribs against this durable cloth

to put on the dumb blue blazer of your death.

Sexton was very much a victim of the male medical machine and her choice to commit suicide when stripped of the veneer of freedom was no choice at all. Somewhere between misogyny's noose, the male medical machine's poisons and cold green corridors and patriarchy's lead foot revving the "death car" in the garage, choice never figured in.

dirt

Monday, October 3, 2011

I Remembering Always Feeling Like a Boy

Feeling like a boy from their earliest memories is something we hear quite often from trans~~men~~. I have felt happy, sad, angry, elated, in love, depressed, thrilled, scared etc etc, I cant say I have ever felt female. I can say I have felt female experiences, biologically speaking, but outside of that, my feelings are emotional, and emotions are not sex based.

That being said, and thats only my experience, for those who have always "felt like a boy/guy", explain exactly what that means. How do you feel like a particular sex? And before anyone says they as a female feel "masculine", explain how you feel like secondary sexual characteristics.

dirt

Edit to add: If you are not legitimately answering this question, describing how it feels to be a "boy", do not respond. Only legitimate answers will not be deleted. And any response saying you thought you should have been born with AB and C will also be deleted because that describes what you would like to have possessed, not how you "feel like a boy". Boys do not wish they had a penis or wish they could pee standing or grow up to have excessive facial hair, they already know they do and will.