bitching about bitch

[dilemma]

Dyke performer Bitch was removed from the program of performers at the Boston Dyke March because she supports the anti-trans policy of (and performs at) the Michigan Women's Music Festival.

There's a protest.

March organizers responded.And the whole thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and I have far more questions than I should. Most of them,

Comments

[dilemma]

I heart your equal opportunity intolerance. :)

from what I'm told, if the character of Max on L Word was the only experience with transpeople she had, no wonder she doesn't have a high opinion of the T. I've been warned not to see it because it would make my eyes bleed.

Re: i disagree in part.

[dilemma]

I agree with that sentiment... to a point. I get nothing out of rage, and certainly no amount of my fury would do anything to them. It might even make some of the more vile transphobes smile, and I would never want to provide such satisfaction.

Is Bitch a hypocrite? Yeah. Is she actively supporting an oppressive and divisive policy? Yes. But getting angry about those things is like getting angry at the sky for being blue.

I choose to believe that anti-trans people are, at the end of the day, rational people, and I do everything in my power to respect that, if not their beliefs. I can even sympathize and empathize with them, and genuinely see them as lashing out in pain more than any sort of deliberate premeditated bigotry.

And if I'm wrong, then it's back to just writing them off as people not worth my time, and people to whom I owe nothing at all/

[kalligraphy]

Much of the hatred towards transwomen that is perpetuated by the lesbian community derives from "The Transsexual Empire" by Janice Raymond. In that hateful screed, Raymond rips into anything transsexual in any way she can. The book became a missive in the radical feminist library. Since then, transwomen have been fighting to be recognized for the women we are. What it comes down to is that these people do not recognize transwomen as women, but instead as men somehow attempting to invade women's space. It is also interesting to note that transmen are permitted to enter MWMF. Which means that their policy of Womyn Born Womyn, somehow includes Men Born Womyn. Or more specifically they do not respect the gender identities of transmen any more than they respect the identities of transwomen.

[dilemma]

Yeah, I've even subjected myself to flipping through that vile tract from time to time when I see it in bookstores.

However, I don't consider it a work of scholarship as much as reactionary xenophobia and hypocrisy. Were someone to cite such a text to me at any point, that would be a loss on the level of Godwin's Law ("Whoever mentions Nazis in an internet argument first, loses"). It would be like citing Klan writings in a discussion of race theory, or Mein Kampf when discussing Judaism. (and there are the Nazis... :P)

I choose to ignore Raymond's ideas that I can see underpinning all of their concepts as a way of not thinking quite as poorly of those self-proclaimed "feminists". All rational discussion has to be hinged on respect for each party, and if it were the case that they'll forever and always see me as a man, then I simply have nothing to say to them.