Tag Archives: Patriarchy

Lesbians Are Under Attack

This is a piece I wrote for the upcoming anthology: Spinning and Weaving: Contemporary Radical Feminist Theory

 

Lesbians are under attack. Some of the attacks are coming from the usual places: heterosexual women throwing us under the bus, ignoring our contributions to feminism, and ignoring their own privilege[i]; bisexual women appropriating our lives and culture by claiming to be lesbians or worse, “bisexual lesbians” (context: there is no such thing – it’s a lesbophobic concept)[ii]; and of course, men beating, raping, and killing us in the most grotesque ways possible. Oh, we experience violence from heterosexual and bisexual women as well,[iii] but not to the degree, the depth, the depravity of men.[iv] We lesbians have been dealing with the aforementioned for centuries. We’re used to it. We expect it. It’s part of what makes us such strong women, sisters, and friends. But there is another group of people attacking, both verbally and physically, lesbians and lesbianism today: transgender activists and their allies.

I saw a joke on Twitter the other day. It said that “the homophobia is coming from inside the community,” humorously referencing the tag line of an old horror movie, A Stranger Calls, where the police trace phone calls coming into the house to terrorize a woman and the police tell her, “the calls are coming from inside the house!” It’s terrifying because we are supposed to feel safe in our own homes. Surrounded by our things, our family, our pets, and behind locked doors, we all feel safe inside our own homes. Lesbians have never had that safety inside of the LGBT community. We were on the front lines of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, taking care of our gay brothers, marching with them to bring attention to the crisis, etc.[v] But those deeds were never reciprocated. Most gay men don’t really care about lesbians or women in general and some are downright misogynistic. For decades, they took most of the LGBT resources and used those resources on themselves, not bothering to address anything to do with their lesbian sisters.

But, as bad as all of that seems, nothing prepared us for what came next: transgenderism. The vast majority of trans women are heterosexual: straight men claiming to be lesbians[vi]; and a good number of trans men are straight women claiming to be gay men. Almost all of them are homophobic to one degree or another, hence “the homophobia is coming from inside the community.” For the past few decades, heterosexuals have been encroaching on LGB spaces, lives, and culture. They go to our bars, they take over our Gay Pride events, and pretty much the only people calling themselves “queer” these days are heterosexuals, in an attempt to be cool and edgy.[vii]

There’s another reason for that phrase about homophobia coming from inside the community: young lesbians (and gay men, but I am focusing on lesbians for this essay) are transitioning due to homophobia – their own internalized homophobia and/or the homophobia they face from family, friends, their church, and/or their government. That homophobia pushes young lesbians into transitioning so they don’t have to be homosexuals, they can be “men” loving women, aka, “straight.”[viii] This makes transgenderism the new gay conversion therapy for young lesbians (and young gay men).[ix] The young lesbians of today feel lost and without community. That is, until they start searching online and find the transgender community, made up of mostly men claiming to be women, most of whom call themselves lesbians. They drill the transgender ideology into young lesbians’ heads, convincing them that they are attracted to other women because they are, in fact, not women at all, but are really men, trans guys. Transgender activists convince young lesbians that they are not homosexual, but they are actually straight men interested in women. Because so many people are in their ears about transitioning, these young lesbians take testosterone, bind their breasts, causing permanent damage – or worse: have radical mastectomies – and start living “as men.”[x] As I stated earlier, these young lesbians are then preyed upon by men calling themselves lesbians. You can see this happening everywhere; even the media supports this by publishing essays about how lesbians have sex and focusing almost entirely on PIV (penis in vagina) sex and how to have sex with trans lesbians who still have their penises, because almost all of them keep and use their penises.[xi]

Young lesbians are also being coerced into having sex with trans women (men), lest they be labeled “transphobic” and shunned from the community they so need, especially at a young age.[xii] Of course, this isn’t just happening to young lesbians. Lesbians the world over are being called bigots for not wanting to date and sleep with males calling themselves lesbians.[xiii] Transgender activists call this the “cotton ceiling” (its counterpart for gay men being the “boxer ceiling”) and it describes what trans women feel they are entitled to and how they should go about getting: what is on the other side of our cotton underwear.[xiv] I mean, that’s exactly what it is: male privilege and entitlement to women’s bodies. Men the world over tend to get violent when women say “no” to them and they can lash out in myriad ways: beating, raping, throwing acid, killing, etc., the women who say “no” to them;[xv] and since studies prove that trans women commit violent crimes (rape, murder, etc.) at the same rate as other men,[xvi] lesbians have to endure not just being shunned and name called, but also the possibility of violence and rape from men claiming to be women who feel entitled to our bodies when we say “no.”

The transgender lobby is very, very powerful.[xvii] They have lots of money and backing by the left who have taken “politically correctness” to a whole new level. Laws and languages are changed in the name of “inclusivity” – including everyone but women. Women become things – objectified and dehumanized by being called misogynistic terms such as “menstruators,” “uterus havers,” and “bleeders” instead of women.[xviii] Lesbians of color are attacked for the same reasons, but also when talking about the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) that they have endured because transgender activists and their allies object to the use of “female” in FGM. Lesbians of color are even accused of lying about their FGM.[xix] Women who dare to stand up and be heard when it comes to our bodies, our lives, our language, and basic biology are not just called “transphobic,” we are harassed both on and offline, we get rape and death threats, we are doxxed, our employers are contacted in an attempt to get us fired (which happens all too often to women), and we are no-platformed from speaking and performing in venues from public libraries to universities – the very places where ideas are supposed to be exchanged, challenged, and debated.[xx] We have to hide behind pseudonyms online and keep our online groups private, vetting each person requesting to join so that we are not infiltrated by transgender activists and/or their allies wishing to attack or out us; and we have to keep our offline meeting places secret, sending out emails at the last minute with their locations so that transgender activists and their allies don’t show up to harass and attack the women attending the secret event. This all isn’t just happening to lesbians, but lesbians are taking the brunt of it.

For us older lesbians, this is both heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time because we remember what it was like to be young lesbians (in my case, a “baby dyke”) trying to navigate in a world that hates us because we have no need or use for men or sometimes, femininity itself. We remember the lesbian book stores, the stores where we got our Gay Pride gear, going to Gay Pride to get even more gear, riding with the Dykes on Bikes in Gay Pride parades, visiting with and meeting each other at Gay Pride festivals and even festivals like the Michigan Women’s Music Festival (MichFest) held each August for 40 years, until its closing in 2015. We remember lesbian bars where we would hang out on the weekends or after softball games in lesbian leagues, where we could meet, dance with, and pick each other up in relative safety. We remember all of this and are deeply saddened that these things are not available for today’s young lesbians. We all want so badly to be there for young lesbians as friends and mentors, to help them navigate a world that hates them, to help them to love themselves and their bodies, to convince them that hormones and radical surgeries are not needed, that they don’t have to transition, and that they can be out and proud women and lesbians. So we write blogs, make videos, take to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Tumblr in an effort to be visible and to try to find young lesbians. We create groups on Facebook specifically for lesbians and hope that they can find us. We are doing everything we can to find our young sisters and to help them find a community of lesbians, not a community of homophobes and lesbophobes who only want to use them for their bodies and as fodder for the transgender ideology movement.

But it’s hard. So many young women are being brainwashed into believing the transgender narrative and rejecting us older lesbians as transphobic, bigots, and TERFs, which is an acronym created by a straight woman[xxi] and it stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist, but has now been characterized by courts and other organizations as a slur to silence women who understand biology and know that one’s sex is immutable.[xxii] This slur is sometimes used on men and even transsexual males who understand that they are men and not women, but overwhelmingly, TERF is directed at women, most especially lesbians. See, transgender activists and their allies don’t want us talking to young lesbians. They know that their smoke and mirrors of misogyny and lesbophobia gets blown away when young lesbians actually talk to the older generations and realize that they have been sold a bridge to nowhere. That’s why they no-platform, doxx, and threaten women and lesbians: to keep us silent. Because they know if they let us speak, more women and lesbians will follow and our movement against their hate will grow as their movement crumbles.

Now, thanks to women like J.K. Rowling, who came out in support of women a short time ago and has been battling a sustained attack on Twitter and in the media by transgender activists and their allies who have been threatening and harassing her,[xxiii] every day people who never knew this battle was going on are starting to see with their own eyes the madness that women, especially lesbians have been dealing with for decades. People are seeing how transgender activists operate: threatening women, “canceling” women, calling women names, heaping all manner of misogyny and hate onto women who know that the transgender movement is based on misogyny and homophobia. More women are becoming gender critical, gender abolitionists, and even radical feminists than ever before because they can see that what transgender activists are doing to Rowling and other women is wrong on so many levels. I’ve seen women and even lesbians subjugating themselves to men who call themselves women and lesbians. It is maddening because I can see that they want to be good people and that they think they are doing the right things, but they are merely throwing other women and lesbians under the bus in order to gain male approval. My hope, though, is that now that this issue is becoming more mainstream and more and more women & lesbians are waking up to the misogyny it takes to call women “menstruators,” etc., we will start to see a change for the better.

My hope is to be able to give these women whose eyes are opened to the misogyny of the transgender movement a soft place to land so that they can start to undo their conditioning and start centering women instead of men. So, I will keep writing, keep running lesbian and radical feminist groups on Facebook, still tweet about lesbians and the hatred, lesbophobia, and  misogyny we face on a daily basis. All of this so that other women, but especially lesbians can see that it is possible to be ok in your own body, it is ok to love other women, it is ok to exclude men from our spaces and our beds. Because the only way we are going to be able to defeat the misogynistic homophobes in the transgender movement is if we all stick together and center women. Women are powerful. Lesbians are powerful. Together, we can defeat transgender activists, come out of hiding, meet whenever and however we want, and show the world that we not only don’t need men, but we can exist happily without them because we have our sisterhood.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

[i] Giang, Vivian “Stop Throwing Hairy Lesbian Feminists Under The Bus.” FEM News Magazine 2015, https://femmagazine.com/stop-throwing-hairy-lesbian-feminists-under-the-bus/; Czyzselska, Jane. “Lesbophobia Is Homophobia With A Side-Order Of Sexism.” The Guardian 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/09/lesbophobia-homophobia-side-order-sexism.

[ii] Valens, Ana. “The Phrase ‘Bisexual Lesbian’ Is Perfectly Valid.” @acvalens 2019, https://twitter.com/acvalens/status/1152601292717641728?s=20; Lana_003. “Top Definition of ‘Bisexual Lesbian.’” Urban Dictionary 2020, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bisexual%20Lesbian.

[iii] Newberry, Laura. “Two Women Face Civil Rights Violations After Allegedly Attacking Lesbian Couple at Six Flags New England.” Advance Local Media 2015/2019, https://www.masslive.com/news/2015/07/women_facing_civil_rights_viol.html.

[iv] Listening2Lesbians, https://listening2lesbians.com/.

[v] Taylor, Jeff. “Watch Lesbian Activists Talk About Their Work During the AIDS Epidemic.” Logo-NewNowNext 2018, http://www.newnownext.com/lesbians-hiv-aids-epidemic-round-table/08/2018/.

[vi] “Transgender Sexuality.” Wikipedia 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_sexuality.

[vii] Levin, Sam T. “Too Straight, White, And Corporate; Why Some Queer People Are Skipping SF Pride.” The Guardian 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/25/san-francisco-gay-pride-corporate-orlando-shooting.

[viii] “Lesbian Erasure.” Wikipedia 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_erasure.

[ix] Gender Heretic. “BBC Newsnight: Gay, Lesbian Kids Pushed To Transition.” BBC Newsnight via GenderHeretics.substack.com 2020, https://genderheretics.substack.com/p/bbc-newsnight-gay-lesbian-kids-pushed.

[x] Doward, Jamie. “Politicized Trans Groups Put Children At Risk, Expert Says.” The Guardian 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/27/trans-lobby-pressure-pushing-young-people-to-transition.

[xi] Ferguson, Sian. “How Do Lesbians Have Sex? 28 Things to Know Before Your First Time.” Healthline 2020, https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sex/how-do-lesbians-have-sex.

[xii] Robertson, Julia Diana. “Anonymous Letter By A Terrified Lesbian.” The Velvet Chronicle 2019, https://thevelvetchronicle.com/anonymous-letter-from-a-terrified-lesbian-thoughtcrime/; Anonymous. “Get The L Out: Shame Receipts.” Lesbian Rights Alliance, Aotearoa 2020, https://lesbian-rights-nz.org/shame-receipts/.

[xiii] Anonymous. “Lesbophobia – Violence Against Lesbians Online.” Google Drive 2020, https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/13vfYxPdJ-HeeLfk_EDg9fR9lUx2NFWpd?fbclid=IwAR2tYUzwEU6C7_GPY5PbpgefGJ0zsDbPzBvSlN8q6oDb7gnkMUaMyVyTlkE.

[xiv] Girl Dick. “The Cotton Ceiling And The Cultural War On Lesbians And Women.” https://medium.com/@mirandayardley/girl-dick-the-cotton-ceiling-and-the-cultural-war-on-lesbians-and-women-c323b4789368; Anonymous. “Get The L Out.” Lesbian Rights Alliance Aotearoa 2020, https://lesbian-rights-nz.org/shame-receipts/; Wild, Angela C. “Lesbians At Ground Zero: How Transgenderism Is Conquering The Lesbian Body.” Get The L Out UK Report 2019, http://www.gettheloutuk.com/attachments/lesbiansatgroundzero.pdf.

[xv] When Women Refuse, https://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/.

[xvi] Dhejne, Cecilia; Lichtenstein, Paul; Bowman, Markus; Johansson, Anna L.V.; Langstrom, Niklas; and Landen, Mikael. “Long Term Follow-up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden.” Edited by James Scott. The National Center for Biotechnology 2011, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/.

[xvii]  Williams, Joanna. “How Trans Ideology Took Over.” Spiked 2020, https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/19/how-trans-ideology-took-over/; Bindel, Julie. “International Women’s Day Has Been Hijacked By Trans Activists.” The Telegraph 2020, https://www.peaktrans.org/international-womens-day-has-been-hijacked-by-trans-activists-julie-bindel-in-the-telegraph-06-03-20/.

[xviii] Berger, Miriam. “A Guide To How Gender Neutral Language Is Developing Around The World.” The Washington Post 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/12/15/guide-how-gender-neutral-language-is-developing-around-world/; Sole, Elise. “People Are Angry Over This Safe Sex Guide Which Calls A Vagina A ‘Front Hole.’” Yahoo Lifestyle 2018, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/people-angry-safe-sex-guide-calls-vagina-front-hole-012527170.html; Murphy, Meghan. “Are We Women Or Are We Menstruators?” Feminist Current 2016, https://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/09/07/are-we-women-or-are-we-menstruators/.

[xix] Cornel, Jana. “Thread On FGM Harassment.” @RadFemJana 2019, https://twitter.com/RadfemJana/status/1206052001399873536?s=20.

[xx] Anonymous. “Object’s Doxxing Dossier.” ObjectNow.org 2019, https://objectnow.org/objects-doxxing-dossier/; Forester, Maya. “I Lost My Job For Speaking Up About Women’s Rights.” Medium 2019, https://medium.com/@MForstater/i-lost-my-job-for-speaking-up-about-womens-rights-2af2186ae84; Pettersen, Thistle. “Thistle Pettersen: How I Became The Most Hated Folk Singer in Madison.” UncommonGroundMedia.com 2019,

https://uncommongroundmedia.com/thistle-pettersen-how-i-became-the-most-hated-folk-singer-in-madison/.

[xxi] Smythe, Viv. “I’m Credited With Having Coined The Acronym TERF, Here’s How It Happened.” The Guardian 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/im-credited-with-having-coined-the-acronym-terf-heres-how-it-happened.

[xxii] Jaspert, Bea. “Twitter Thread On TERF Being A Slur.” @HogoTheForsaken 2019, https://twitter.com/hogotheforsaken/status/1158355043667664896?s=09.

[xxiii] Rowling, J.K. “Tweet About Menstruation.” @jk_rowling 2020, https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=19; Rowling, J.K. “Tweets About Biological Sex.” @jk_rowling 2020, https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269389298664701952; Rowling, J.K. “J.K. Rowling Writes About Her Reasons For Speaking Out On Sex And Gender Issues.” JKRowling.com 2020, https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/; Tausz, Ramona. “J.K. Rowling Stands Up For Feminism Against Trans Extremism.” New York Post 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/06/17/j-k-rowling-stands-up-for-feminism-against-trans-extremism/; Boodleoops. “J.K. Rowling And The Trans Activists: A Story In Screenshots.” Medium 2020, http://archive.is/DGKqt.

 

(White) Male Privilege

Note: I put “white” in parentheses because male privilege crosses lines of race, religion, country, etc., so while white men are at the top of the pyramid, the men below them also profit from male privilege.

 

The note at the VA dental front desk says, “Please check in at the kiosk. Thank you.”

Naturally, I check in at the kiosk. Because of my conditioning and socialization, I don’t presume to think that I deserve special treatment. Old white male goes to the front desk to check in and the woman checks him in, instead of telling him to check in at the kiosk.

The privilege isn’t just that she didn’t tell him to use the kiosk, as they have done me in the past, the privilege is also the fact that he walked past the kiosk, ignored the sign, and went to the front desk *expecting* the women to check him in for his appointment.

Privilege isn’t just about “getting stuff,” it’s also walking through this world *expecting* stuff – expecting to be first, expecting that the rules don’t apply to you, expecting people to wait on and for you. Expecting to be deferred to, and of course, expecting to be allowed and accepted everywhere, invited or not.

I see it a lot on the road too – white males (deliberately) pull out in front of me, expecting me to slow down for them, turning on their turn signal and thinking they have the right of way, etc. One man did that and hit me, causing a severe accident. He kept on driving because he didn’t notice the commotion that he started. When he got to his destination, he saw the damage to his car and drove back to the accident site, *expecting* someone else to be held accountable. Instead, he was cited for improper lane change – which he fought and lost in court – and leaving the scene of an accident.

They don’t just *think* they deserve more, they actually believe it and walk through life expecting it to be handed to them. Unfortunately, the rest of us are completely conditioned and socialized to give them what they want and not fight it – even getting mad at the few who *do* fight it.

Like when I brought this up to the dental assistant, she gave the excuse that they just refuse to use the computer (to be clear, it’s a touch screen monitor – you stick your VA ID in it, then answer a few Qs, the end). I said, “it’s probably white males doing that, huh?” She blinked and said, “well, yeah, I see your point.” I told her I saw hers as well, because like I said, we are conditioned to give them what they want.

What I failed to point out because I just now thought of it is that they have to use the kiosks in the pharmacy and lab. If they “don’t know how” or “don’t want to,” they have to have someone help them because those two places require us ALL to check in via the kiosks, no exceptions. So crying about it in dental or another clinic is just them imposing their will onto a woman and expecting her to do the work for him by checking him in instead of being firm and insisting he use the kiosk like everyone else.

What’s the big deal? They are taking these women from their other duties: answering the phones, checking patients out, setting up return appointments, and the list goes on. They have to stop doing all of that to cater to these men; and the men expect the women to cater to them.

Imagine how hard these men would fight to keep things like this. That’s why male gamers attack female gamers and developers both on and offline. It’s why male transgenders (TIMs or trans identified males) are so violent towards women, again, both on and offline, who refuse to share in their delusions; and TIMs and their handmaidens are laughably ok with being violent towards women, calling their violence “self-defense.”

See, TIMs view radical feminists’ dissent as violence and they actually believe it is violence to “misgender” them – online. There is not one piece of proof that a radical feminist, or any woman, has killed a transgender. Not one. Still, we are blamed for the violence against them; and let’s be clear, most of the TIMs who are killed are men of color prostituting themselves, getting killed by Johns and pimps. NOT WOMEN. But instead of naming the problem and blaming men for the male violence against transgenders, they blame women and attack us online by using assault, rape, and death threats, sometimes by the dozen(s); and in real life by cornering us, screaming at us, assaulting us, raping us, and yes, killing us.

No, men are not looking to give up their privilege, their entitlement any time soon. It’s why the man who caused my accident became angry and fought his improper lane change citation. He felt he was right because his turn signal was on, giving him the right of way (in his mind). Men, especially white men, expect the rest of us to cater to their wants and needs, no questions asked.

They won’t give up their power without a fight; and the women who can’t see past their own conditioning will always help men fight to stay in control. It is disheartening for us to see women sticking up to, arguing for, and fighting for these men, these TIMs. I liken it to the Matrix: these women, these “transmaidens” are stuck in the matrix, in the false world where their conditioning has them tied down and doing as men wish, even if it conflicts with reality. But radical feminists took the red pill and are free of the matrix, fighting for ALL women, everywhere.

But that’s why radical feminists are so hated: we fight against our conditioning and internalized misogyny and we fight for women’s liberation from male supremacy. Women’s liberation from patriarchy. Women’s liberation from men.

Men have only the power we women give them. If we were to, once and for all, band together over races, religions, countries, and continents, we would be able to topple the patriarchy and end men’s tyranny. Finally.

Jenner’s, “Hardest Part About Being A Woman”

As you may or may not know … wait, who are we kidding? He’s all over the news, he has completely immersed himself into the media because he gets off on all of the attention. So you have most likely already seen the BuzzFeed interview of Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner, entitled “Caitlyn Jenner on The Moment She Felt Most Proud to be a Woman” (sic). In this bit of his interview, he also discusses what he feels is the hardest part of being a woman. He said this:

Jenner - Hardest Part About Being a Woman

There you go folks! The hardest part of being a woman all comes down to: what to wear. 

Of course a man would think the hardest part of being a woman would boil down to clothes. In his autogynephile mind, all a woman is, is her clothing, because that’s what gets him off: dressing as a woman and, of course being seen as a woman.

We are all a part of his pornographic fantasy, nothing more.

This was posted in a group I belong to on Facebook, one that discusses gener critically; and here are what a couple of the womyn there had to say:

First Feminist:

“I was so furious. I posted to my page with this comment…

Woman of the year… The hardest thing about being a woman is what to wear…

Call me when your cramps hurt so bad you can’t walk.
Call me when you have a pregnancy scare.
Call me when men honk at you and make lewd gestures at you at twelve years old.
Call me when you don’t get paid adequately for your increasingly difficult labor, and you go home only to find more labor dictated by gender roles.
Call me when you are force married.
Call me when you are sold by a pimp and then blamed for being “in the business.”
Call me when your entire life’s choices are limited by decades of belittling and social conditioning, to the point where you self limit and call it a choice.

Call me when you stop being a stereotype of what the world wants from me.

The hardest part of my day is NEVER figuring out what to wear.  I defy roles you exalt. Bye.”

Second Feminist:

“It’s unbelievable! Out of all the issues that make being a woman difficult!? Doesn’t this just scream to everyone that this is what he truly believes: that to become a woman, one merely dresses in a certain way. Of course this is the most essential aspect to being a woman for Jenner; playing dressup is the aspect that gives him the greatest (erotic) thrill…despite its oh so many challenges! (eyeroll)…what a burden.”

It is inconceivable to me that anyone can take this man, or transgenderism itself, seriously. I mean, here is this group of people who could have been gender non-conforming people, brave warriors standing along side their gender non-conforming sisters and brothers in the lesbian and gay man communities. Instead, they choose to conform to strict gender roles, uncompromisingly adhered to stereotypes of the opposite sex. These completely gender CONFORMING people, transgenders, all believe that to be the opposite sex, one must only have to dress as the opposite sex and then to either drastically shorten or lengthen their hair, depending on which sex they wish to “identify as.”

Transgenders cannot live as they are, they cannot be their true authentic selves in the body they were born into for fear of retribution, so they wear the clothing that society has decided is only for the opposite sex, then they buzz off or grow out their hair (or, in the case of male transgenders, just wear a wig and you’re good!) and voila! They are the opposite sex!

Or in the case of about 80% of male transgenders, they wear the clothing that society has decided is for the opposite sex because they are autogynephiles. They, literally, get off on wearing “women’s clothing.” They also get off on being seen and treated as women. Going into the women’s bathroom, changing room, etc., also gets them off!

This is all so crazy, I cannot stand it! A man is voted Woman of the Year, taking the award away from women who are ground breakers like, Venus Williams, who has amassed 43 championship titles, won 3 Olympic Gold medals and has the fastest serve on record today. Or how about Tony award winning, Viola Davis, the first African American woman to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Then, of course there is the first woman to become an Army Ranger, Capt. Kristen Griest, who overcame such incredible adversity and against all odds, surpassed both men and women who could not make it and she became the first female Army Ranger, opening the door for other women to not only become Army Rangers, but also Navy Seals!

There are incredible women out there and it is insulting to all of them, to all of us, when women’s magazines and organizations name a MAN to be their Woman of the Year!

This madness has to stop. Women need to rise up together and with one voice, demand that actual women get awarded for this and other awards. It is our time now, sisters! Rise Up!

“TERFs” Do Not Actually Exist, Fellows

I honestly cannot believe that we have to continue to discuss this over and over and over again; but I guess when you are dealing with juvenile young men with male privilege who have yet to have fully developed brains and older men with male privilege going through midlife crisis, not to mention all of the women who, for some disturbed reason, support all of these men, then I guess womyn just have to continue to calmly stay on point and tell these men and the women who support them, again, that they are wrong. In so many ways, yes, but I am focusing on this for a minute.

I am not sure how this has come about, but “TERF” is not an identity. “TERFs” do not actually exist. They are not a community of womyn within the larger LGB community. “TERFs” are not a group of womyn working and plotting against transgenders. They are certainly not working together to exterminate transgenders, something of which I have been accused.

“TERF” is, once again, a slur. This slur is used to silence womyn. None of us actually “identify” as “TERFs.” This slur is actually thrust upon us and shoved down our throats by men who are so upset over the fact that there are womyn out there who are not falling to our knees in our utter devotion to porn sick, cross dressing, autogynephile men who claim to be women, but expect to still be treated and adored as men, with their male privilege, and their penises, intact.

“TERF” may have been created by two heterosexual women trying to give a name to radical feminists who do not wish to have males in their private spaces, but just every other slur in the world, its meaning has changed, morphed into some crazy kind of battle cry for males to use as they attack womyn mercilessly online, threatening to assault, rape, even kill womyn who do not agree with them and who do not fall all over themselves to believe that men (or boys) can be women (or girls).

The slur, “TERF” is a term that includes –all- womyn (and some gay men) who know the truth about biology, all womyn who understand even the most basic science. I am not a radical feminist, but I have been called a “TERF” over and over again, just for stating my opinion, an opinion I am allowed to have and share online or anywhere, an opinion that I share with hundreds of thousands of other womyn (and some men).

I don’t know how much more plainly I can state this, dear reader. “TERF” is not an identity, it is a slur used to silence womyn. We who are labeled as such are not the violent ones here. We do not issue threats of violence. We do not keep lists of male or female transgenders with their contact information so that we may harass them in real life.

Oh yes, dear reader, you didn’t know that? Male transgenders and their female allies keep lists of womyn who they decide are “TERFs.” They say they keep such lists so as to warn other transgenders to steer clear of us, but what they are really doing is targeting women. They keep us and as much personal information about us on a list they call “TERF tracker.” One of the founders of “TERF Tracker” was a woman who aligned herself with the most violent transgenders against womyn. She later tried to align herself with womyn who know the truth about transgenders, but she did so as a ruse, to befriend women (and a few men) so that she could gain information on us. She then turned back to transgenders and now runs a gay and lesbian liberation page that does nothing more than attack womyn like me, womyn who know that men cannot become women and that women cannot become men.

This woman is one of those who makes the assertion that “TERF” is an identity women take on and share with other womyn. She puts forth the idea that a woman who is not a friend to other women is the “leader” of the “TERFs” when there is no such organization of “TERFs,” so there can be no such “leader.”

The other founder of “TERF Tracker” was later found out to be a violent child rapist, He even admitted as much. Just another entitled, cross dressing, porn sick, autogynephile who was later found out to be a child rapist or a rapist of women.

But I digress. I do not wish for my blog to be about these women, one of whom aligns herself with violent transgenders, the other of whom is a woman who enjoys attacking womyn, outing anonymous bloggers such as myself, or that man, that child rapist. They deserve no time or attention on my blog.

No, this post was intended to assert to you, dear reader that “TERF” is not an identity, not a label womyn call themselves, and certainly not a term womyn “reclaim” in an effort to take its power away. Since we never claimed it as ours in the first place, we certainly cannot “reclaim” it now!

No, “TERF” is and has always remained a slur used to silence, threaten, and harass womyn. Make sure to spread this truth around, my sisters, as those who do not know what a “TERF” is are vulnerable to believing the transgenders who call themselves “activists” when they try to assert that “TERF” is an identity we call ourselves. Post about “TERF” being a slur, tweet about “TERF” being a slur, talk to your friends about “TERF” being a slur. Just get out there, sisters, and inform others about this slur!!

Make sure that your friends all know that this label, “TERF,” that is shoved down our throats by transgenders, the very people who claim that self-identification is the most important thing, the people who claim that people who ID them as someone they are not (i.e., “misgender,” which is a misnomer, it should actually be, “missexed”) are actually committing violence against them, the people, mostly men, who claim that “TERF” is an identification that we use to describe ourselves when in reality, they force the label onto us, make sure that your friends know that “TERF” is nothing more than a slur used against women, to silence us and to threaten violence against us.

I call upon all of you, dear readers, to tell, post, tweet, text, whatever you need to do, to make sure that people know that “TERF” is not an ID, it is a slur!

Political and Born This Way Lesbians – Why The Battle?

Last night, I found and was reading a post on Facebook from several days ago that was a discussion between several women who identified either as political lesbians or born this way lesbians.

First, some quick definitions so we all know where we’re at on this:

A lesbian is an adult female who is attracted to other women physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, and intimately. There are no penises on lesbians or in lesbian relationships (so no men or males).

A born this way lesbian is a lesbian who feels she was born gay, that being a lesbian was not a choice for her.

A political lesbian is a little trickier, because there is more than one definition. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, a political lesbian was a heterosexual woman who was tired of men personally and politically, so she became celibate and called herself a lesbian. But she was a lesbian in name only for political reasons.

A few years ago, the definition morphed into a woman who came to her lesbianism through her politics, but she was a lesbian in every way.

Now, the definition of a political lesbian is that a woman chooses to be gay because of her politics. Through her work in politics and activism, she realized that heterosexuality was a learned behavior to further oppress women and instead of continuing in that, she decided to make the conscious decision to become a lesbian, but she is a lesbian in every way. Quite a few political lesbians under this definition are late in life lesbians, becoming so after one or several relationships with men and maybe even some children.

I think that covers it. I am sure that if I am wrong on any point that someone will come along and correct me (well, except for the definition of a lesbian)!

Anyway, on to my post. As I was saying, I observed a post between some born this way and political lesbians and almost all of them were being respectful of each other and not arguing against each other’s beliefs, simply arguing for their own beliefs. It was a nice discussion. At first.

Then came a couple of political lesbians who so strongly believed that both heterosexuality and homosexuality are choices that women make, they were convinced that they were right, they were convinced that born this way lesbians were not only wrong, but ignorant for holding their beliefs.

Of course, what I failed to talk about when I was laying out definitions of both born this way lesbians and political lesbians is that neither can prove that they are right or that the other is wrong. These are feelings, you see, beliefs based on how women feel. So while one can believe strongly that they are right, they cannot prove that they are right because, well, it’s kind of like religion: they have faith that they are who they are based on their internal feelings as women and lesbians.

So I was kind of shocked to be reading this, not only the part about the political lesbians thinking they were right and born this way lesbians were ignorant, but the blatant disrespect from these couple of political lesbians toward the born this way lesbians was something I have seen, but that I had hoped we were passed by now.

It was like watching the bad parts of religion, the “my religion is the only right religion and you all are going to hell!” kind of thing; and it was very, very sad to watch.

It made me wonder why we battle so much over this. Why aren’t we just a bunch of lesbians who believe that we arrived at lesbianism in different ways, but that we were all here now and working together?

Based on some of what the one or two disrespectful political lesbians said in that thread, I suppose they would say that by believing one is born a lesbian, one must also submit that others are born straight women and if a woman is born straight then she is born into a life of sub servitude and sex, whether she likes it or not, whether it is painful or not, whether she wants it or not. So by believing one is born a lesbian instead of it being a choice that one makes, one is then buying into and supporting women’s oppression.

That seems kind of harsh, doesn’t it? That because a woman believes she was born a lesbian, she is supporting, ignorantly, women’s oppression?

I don’t believe that for one second. As you may remember from the last post that I did on this subject, I a one of the lesbians who considers herself born a lesbian. I didn’t make the choice to become a lesbian, it was not my choice. It was not my choice to be bullied, bashed, and harassed for being who I am. It was not my choice to be left out in the civil rights department simply because I love women. It was not my choice to not be able to get married simply because I was born a lesbian. Knowing all that we know, I find it difficult that ANY woman would choose this. Even later in life lesbians. I believe they were born lesbians, but they were just in denial for a while and now they are realizing their true selves.

BUT, even though I believe all of that, I still respect political lesbians enough to support them as lesbians, as sisters. I am of the “live and let live” model when it comes to other lesbians. So, I support political lesbian’s right to not only believe whatever they wish, but to also express those beliefs. I support their fight against women’s oppression in any way they can fight it; because, after all, isn’t that what we are ALL fighting for here?

Remember that, sisters. Because yes, we may have come to lesbianism in different ways, on different paths, but we are both discriminated against. We are both denied rights. We are both harassed. We are both bashed. We are both beaten. We are both killed. For being lesbian women. And as lesbian women, we are both fighting for the same thing: to end women’s oppression by liberating women from men and this patriarchy.

Let’s end this battle, sisters!

The Thing About Third Sex, Cis, and TERF

Here’s the thing. Do you know how I know that transgenders do not really believe there are more than two sexes and that they are somehow another, third sex? Men who claim to be women aren’t out there trying to garner donations and support for healthcare on behalf of a third sex. They are not creating new medical spaces, shelters, prison wards, etc. for a third sex. They are not trying to create spaces where this third sex can go to get away from the oppressive men who threaten them, beat them, rape them, and kill them. Nope. What are these men doing? They are trying to take away spaces from women. They are trying to take away medical services from women. They are trying to take over spaces designated for women like bathrooms, changing rooms, prisons, shelters, etc.

Do you know how I know that “cis” is nothing more than a slur? Just listen to them when they try to explain why we should all be embracing “cis.” Listen to them as they tell us, with straight faces, that we are all comfortable with our bodies, comfortable with our sexes and the sexual stereotypes that go with them, and comfortable with our “gender presentations,” whatever they are. While they are saying all of that out of one side of their face, they are spitting the term at us with phrases like, “Die Cis Scum!” This was a term created to other women because some straight white men with a fetish for being seen as women felt othered when they were called trans women and not simply, women. So they, being men, had to take their frustrations out on women and coined the term “cis” in order to other everyone else, so they could feel special and dominant again.

Do you know how I know that “TERF” is simply a slur against women? Well, aside from the fact that many transactivists have admitted that it is a slur, I mean. Well, I actually wrote a whole post on this, but it boils down to this: when you create a term to describe me and you center that term around yourself, you are doing it wrong. My life is not centered on you. I am not trans-centered. I am woman-centered. I am Pro-Woman. So creating a label that you are now going to force down my throat while crying about how I had better not label you in any way but that which you deem appropriate or else you will set me on fire or whatever, you are using that label as a slur.

I keep hearing about how if we take away their ability to use “cis” and “TERF,” then we are crippling trans people in how they interact with, well, people in general. This is simply not true. I am a woman. Period. That’s it. I am not “cis” anything and I am certainly not a “TERF;” but those two labels keep being forced onto me by a group of people who only want to self-label and damn everyone who don’t give them that right. Anyone else see the irony here?

I don’t understand why this is so hard for transgenders to understand. “Cis” doesn’t describe us, “woman” does; and “TERF” is a hateful slur designed to silence women, which I guess is why they keep using it. But, even though we keep telling them that and keep telling them we are offended by these terms (because with these professional victims, you have to use victim language to get them to understand), they disrespect us by continually using it and then get mad when we won’t use “proper” pronouns!

So that’s how I know these things, dear reader. There is nothing about their own safety, their own healthcare, their own spaces because they want what women have; and they keep using “cis” and “TERF” quite simply because they are slurs that they can use to silence and gaslight women. They want to self-label and still have the control to label us. They want to take our spaces because, right now, they don’t can can’t have them.

Put simply, men want what they don’t or can’t have and they want to have the right to continue to control women even when they call themselves women.

 

The Real Goal of Male Transgenders or Trans “Women”

Here’s the thing. The real goal of male transgenders, or trans “women,” if you will is not to be or become women, it is not to be safe from other men, it is not to join women in the fight against the patriarchy. It is simply: to control women.

I was approached on Twitter the other day (accosted really, since he bombarded my feed with tweets even after it was clear I had him blocked) by a male transgender who, after reading my post about the term “TERF” being a slur, had nothing to say about the term “TERF” nor had he any remorse for using a word that a woman (actually, women, plural) was telling him was a slur. He also stated quite emphatically that men were not the problem; because in my post, I mentioned how women feeling safe was a main issue of wanting to have our own spaces and when I mentioned how some male transgenders argue for the same safe spaces, I said that they should create their own spaces because men were their problem as much as ours and we should not bear the brunt of their needs for safe spaces by losing our own.

No, this man was not concerned about using a slur or especially about no longer using it (a perusal of his Twitter after blocking him showed me that he continued to use it as a slur), nor was he concerned about safety from men. His main and, well, only concern was that women see him as a woman. That’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? Male transgenders don’t want to change the violent ways of men, especially since so many male transgenders are, themselves, violent men. They don’t want protection from said violent men and they of course would never advocate for women to be safe from violent men. No what they want, what they have always wanted is to control women, to make us call them by the names and pronouns that they choose while they force us to be called the names that we do not choose (read: they are hypocrites). These men want to force lesbians to have sex with them by shaming us into accepting the penis as a female body part and that we are bigots if we do not fuck them. These men want to force us to give up our personal and private spaces so that they can have them instead; not for their own safety, but simply because they want them. These men want to force women to see them as women even though our own common sense, science, and biology, hell our own eyes tell us differently. The goal of these men has not been to be safe from violence and share spaces under that common need, it is and always has been to control women. Period.

Here’s the thing, dear reader: if these male transgenders really believed they were women, they would not need confirmation from women. They would not need confirmation from anyone because they would know they are women. Does it piss me off when people see me as a man and don’t see the woman that I am? Of course! It makes me feel invisible as a woman. But I am still a woman, regardless of what others see. Their inability to see that at first glance does not negate the fact that I am a woman. I do not need other people to confirm that fact for me.

Another thing: I am a woman who is very woman-centric; and no, I do not believe that is because I am a lesbian, as I think any woman can be woman centric, regardless of her sexual and/or intimate partners. By woman-centric, I mean I put women first. I advocate for female causes, I donate to women’s shelters, I fight for women’s rights to have women-only spaces, etc. I even buy books by women authors, try to shop at women owned businesses when I can, and even hired a woman when I need to get things done on my property. You don’t see this with male transgenders. They are all still male centric. Even their name for us, “TERF,” is male centric because is supposes that we are centering our wanting to be around other females as an anti-trans thing. The very term is flawed not just because it is a slur used to silence women and not just because not all of us are radical feminists. No, this term is flawed for the very simple reason that it centers us around transgenders when we are not. We are women-centered.

But we all know that male transgenders were born male, socialized as male, and have male privilege, whether external (recognized as male by society), internal (the feelings of privilege they hold), or both. When I say they are male-centric, I mean that they center everything on being male. They come at women instead of to women, they try to dominate women, conversations, and situations, they don’t respect women, female causes or issues, and they could care less about women’s rights.

We even see this kind of behavior and worse from some of the men who have had surgeries to create some sort of facsimile of a woman out of their bodies. They still need outside confirmation. They still act like the men they were socialized to be from birth. They still treat women the same. Look at Janet Mock. Here is a man who is held up as the ideal trans “woman,” who other male transgenders consider the end of the rainbow, where they want to be themselves, who, we all assume, had the surgeries to make him into a Frankenstein-esque version of a woman; but he is still a sexist, misogynistic asshole who clearly has no respect for and, in fact, hates women. That is the man he was socialized to become and a few hormones and surgeries didn’t take those misogynistic feelings away, nor did they change how badly he treats women.

So here’s what I don’t understand, dear reader. Why do women keep falling for this? I mean, intellectually I can understand that women are socialized, conditioned to believe that men are more important, their opinions, wants, needs, etc. matter more than our own. But I still have a hard time grasping how so many women can be so blind to what these men are really doing. In my opinion, it isn’t that they can’t see it, but that they won’t see it. They refuse to see it because they are so conditioned and socialized to clear the way for men that they refuse to see what these men are really doing: trying to control women from the inside.

We saw the same kinds of things in the LGB movement for years and years: lesbians standing up with gay men for male causes, but when it came time to step up for women’s causes, there were no gay men to be seen. Even though we were lesbians and therefore had no need for men in our lives, we were still women and therefore socialized to put men and men’s needs first and foremost.

I do have hope though. I mean, more lesbians have opened their eyes over the years to see that the gay rights movement has actually been the gay male rights movement, so I have hope that more and more women will open their eyes and see that these men are not and cannot become women. These are men still trying to control, dominate, harass, and violate women. They are just doing it under the disguise of “being” women.

Make No Mistake, “TERF” Is A Slur

I find it difficult to believe that we women have to keep saying this and writing about it, but I guess we do because men’s voices are the only ones people want to listen to, not ours’; but make no mistake, “TERF” is a slur created by men to silence and even shame women. I was reading a post by GallusMag the other day where she talked about a man who claimed to be a woman who works for Twitter and who is accused of rape. In the comments section, GallusMag (who was locked out of her WordPress blog because of that post, which is WordPress’s way of telling women that if you write about their friends and colleagues, they will shut you down and fast) posted a pic of a news agency, The Daily Dot, actually using the word “TERF” as if it is a normal, accepted word by everyone and not a word made up by men in their ongoing effort to silence women in the issue of transgenderism. It made me incredibly angry because this was supposed to be a news organization, or at least, that is what I am lead to believe. Maybe they are a trash-rag that doesn’t really report the news so much as they report gossip and innuendo?

So let’s talk about this slur for a minute. A lot of transgenders and their allies like to keep saying that it is simply a description of radical feminists who are “trans-exclusionary.” But let’s get real here, ok? This slur may have started out as a simply description by a man who felt slighted by some women who feel that men, even in dresses, should not be allowed in certain spaces that are for women, spaces like restrooms, changing rooms, showers, dressing rooms, etc.; but the word went way beyond a description and into slur territory within a few minute of it being created.

First, there is no “TIRF” or trans-inclusionary radical feminist. There is, in fact, no term that is opposite of “TERF” that is used, ever. There is only “TERF”; and that term is used to silence, to bash, to put down, to shame, etc. not just radical feminists, but all women who see biology as a real thing and gender as a social construct. It is used against women, especially women who disagree with men who claim to be women, in any way.

Second, the term is not just hurled at radical feminists. I as just called a “TERF” this evening and I have never purported to be a radical feminist, not in any of my tweets or writings’ but there I was, having  label thrust upon me against my will, a label that by its very “definition” shouldn’t include me. But as I said, this slur isn’t just for radical feminists, it is for all women who disagree with men, especially men claiming to be women, i.e., trans “women” or male transgenders.

Let’s think about that for a minute. Let’s think about how (metaphorically) rape-y that is to have a label such as “TERF” or “trans-exclusionist” or “trans-exterminist” thrust upon a woman against her will. Slurs that she has never claimed, never called herself, never acknowledged, but slurs that are forced upon her, whether she likes it or not. That is a part of rape culture, is it not? To force something onto a woman that she does not want? Something that she has not given you permission to do. Especially when this comes from a group of people who want to self-label and do not want others to label them. How hypocritical of them to then force women to accept a term that they all know well and good is a slur meant to silence women.

Third, the only time women can even seem “trans-exclusionary” is when we want to have women-only spaces, like restrooms, dressing rooms, social gatherings, rape crisis centers, shelters, etc. But that is no more “trans-exclusionary” than it is for POC to be “white-person-exclusionary” when they desire POC-only spaces. Just like POC should be able to gather without white people so they don’t have to watch what they say around white people or cater to white people or have white people take over everything, we women should be allowed to have our own spaces without men, without having to worry about what we are saying around men or that they men will take over. Just like POC whould be able to gather and discuss what it is like to be a POC in this white-dominated world, we women should be allowed to gather as sisters and discuss what it is like to be females in a male-dominated world. We should not be slurred with “trans-exclusionary” simply because we wish to gather with other women in female-only spaces.

We should also be allowed to feel safe. We should be allowed to have penis-free restrooms, dressing rooms, shelters, jails, rape crisis centers, etc. so that we can feel safe. For thousands of years, the penis has been used as a weapon, as a weapon to control women, to hurt women, to exert power over women. It has been used as a weapon and we are seeing more and more how trans “women” are accused of or convicted of the rape and murder of women but they continue to be allowed to be placed in female prisons even if they still have their penises. This is so wrong on so many levels but in today’s PC culture of not wanting to offend these men, they are not placed where they are supposed to be: with other men. Instead, the rights and the safety of women are circumvented for the rights and safety of men who claim to be women because they are afraid of, you got it: men.

Before someone jumps into the fray and says that trans “women” have the right to feel safe as well, to that, I say two things: (1) of course, (2) but women are not a threat to trans “women,” men are. Men are dangerous and men do almost all of the damage to women, transgenders, and every other group out there. Women should not have to forgo their own safety to guarantee the safety of men from other men. If trans “women” wish to truly feel safe while respecting women’s need for safety and privacy, why don’t they create their own space, their own restrooms, their own rape crisis centers and shelters, their own changing rooms, etc.? The answer is clear: because (a) they don’t respect women and (b) they don’t want to be safe from men, they want what women have, they want to take over everything that woman is and that women have.

Finally, most women care about other women. There are some women who are so conditioned by the patriarchy that they believe the misogynistic bullshit that men and rape-culture spews down all of our throats. But most women want other women to be safe, they want us all to have our own private spaces, away from men and their penises. As I said, the penis has been used as a weapon against women for thousands of years and most women would agree that not allowing men and their penises, even if under dresses, into our private spaces where we are half naked and vulnerable or where we are running away from abusive men or where we are going for help and treatment after having been raped is something that all women should have without being called “TERFs” or “trans-exclusionary” in any way.

I know this because, as a butch woman, I have received the “look” from women in restrooms or changing rooms when they think I am a man. There have been women who say things to me in an effort to get me to leave the restroom or changing room; and in one instance, there was even a woman who physically tried to keep me out of a restroom, thinking I was a man and shouldn’t be in the women’s restroom. So I know that most women care about other women and other women’s safety; but men are trying so hard to shame these women into hating the rest of us for wanting our own space and using the slur “TERF” is one of the ways that they do this.

They threaten all woman with “TERF” if they don’t allow all men into all women’s private spaces and that is how “TERF” is used as a slur. It is used to control women by using shame to get them to see men in dresses as women and treat them as women when they are not. It is time for women to stop fighting against other women and fight with us. Stop allowing men who claim to be women walk all over you and demand that you see them in a certain way when common sense and science tells you to see them as they are; and stop allowing men to create and use slurs like “TERF” to silence your sisters who do see them as they are: men trying to re-define woman and abolish what the word really means so they can take over all of our spaces, once and for all.

Is Being Gender Critical and Butch Mutually Exclusive?

I’ve been meaning to talk about this for a long time now. Can one consider herself butch, aka, a masculine woman while also being critical of gender? It’s a question I have been thinking about for several months and now is the time for me to put my thoughts down on paper, so to speak, and figure this thing out for myself. Some of you will, of course, disagree and that is cool, but I would be willing to bet that there are a lot more of us out there than we think.

I’ve been an out lesbian for half my life now (over 20 years) and I didn’t consider myself butch (or “a” butch, ymmv) until almost 10 years later. It took me a long, long time to come to the realization that butches were women, we didn’t wish to be men, we were women who just happened to be masculine. Once I came to that realization, I was able to accept my true self: a gender non-conforming, masculine woman, or more simply, a butch lesbian; or even more simply: a butch.

It’s hard to be a butch in this world. Don’t worry, I am not about to play the oppression Olympics here, I completely understand that there is enough discrimination to go around and there are hard times for all of us. But let’s be honest here, I cannot speak for femmes, straight women (even the butch ones), gay men, straight men, or lesbians who are neither butch or femme because I am none of those things. So I will stick to what I know: being a butch lesbian in this patriarchal society.

Before I continue, I wanted to put out there that even though I am not speaking about femme’s experiences here, I welcome their input about this post or their own experiences; especially the anonymous femme who briefly talked with me about the hierarchy of femmes and butches in my last post (Who Gets To Decide What “Lesbian” Means?). I hope she sees this post so she can come back to leave her thoughts on the issue.

So let’s dig in to this complicated subject matter, shall we?

As I was saying before I digressed a bit, being a butch lesbian in this patriarchal world is tough. We have almost no “in real life” role models, very few, if any in the media, and when I was a young dyke, there were even fewer than there are now if you can imagine that. Because this society believes that men own masculinity (and women own femininity), we butches have therefore had no choice but to model ourselves after the men in our lives and go by how the media presents men; and this is nothing if not problematic. Because of this society, because the patriarchy frowns on women wearing “men’s” clothing (and vice versa), and because there are almost no butches in the media, these are two very big reasons why a lot of straight and even gay people assume we all want to emulate, if not actually be men.

The lack of butch role models and having to use men or the media’s idea of men as our guides (well, I don’t, but I did when I was younger because I didn’t know any different and I see it more and more in these young butches today) presents other problems. For those unfamiliar with on-line butch-femme communities, there is a clear hierarchy of “butchness” or masculinity and it discriminates against butches who do not identify as male and it especially celebrates the female transgender, or the trans “man.” In this hierarchy, there are the levels of butchness that I mentioned, such as soft butch, butch, hard butch, male identified butch, and trans “man.” Usually we butches who know what sex is and celebrate the women that we are, are set low on that totem pole, somewhere around soft butch.

You see, even in the (on-line) butch-femme world, a lot of people are conditioned into the patriarchy just enough to believe the bullshit that men/males own masculinity and women/females own femininity, that females cannot be masculine, and that to be masculine, one must either be male identified or they must transition into some facsimile of a man, aka the trans “man.” So even in the butch-femme (on-line) world, female, and therefore feminine is “less than” and most people do not consider a butch to be masculine if she doesn’t deny biology and instead accepts and even celebrates that she is also female. In the comments of my last post, I said this maligned treatment comes from femmes, but I meant some femmes, not all; and to be honest, quite a few male identified butches and trans “men” feel this way as well, that female is less than; or more appropriately, that feminine is less than masculine. Like I said, a lot of this comes from the male identified butches and trans “men,” but it can also come from femmes as well. There are quite a few femmes out there these days who clearly want straight men without actually having to date straight men. They like the analogy that butch = man, that they can have only PIV sex, that they use male pronouns, etc. It is quite frustrating, to say the least. As I said, not all femmes are like this, but more and more of them are coming out of the woodwork as sex becomes more and more conflated with gender and the binary, as dictated by the patriarchy, wins out above all else.

To be fair, I don’t have to be a femme to see this coming from the other side of things as well; but even more than the hierarchy of femme, I also see things like how so many butches expect femmes to be like straight women and how a lot of them even toss femmes aside in favor of straight women. I also see the masculine and feminine stereotypes of the heterosexual world playing out in that a lot of both butches and femmes expect the butches to be the dominant ones, or the “tops,” to borrow a BDSM term and they expect the femmes to be the submissive ones or the “bottoms.” This is problematic in so many ways because it relies on society’s assumptions that feminine is always and only for women while masculine is always and only for men, so the above butches and femmes assume the woman (feminine) is always supposed to submit to the man (masculine). That is unbelievably sexist and it is almost always internalized, born of the conditioning we face being born and raised female in this society; and the sickest part, for me, is that all of that sexism is coming from and pointed towards females, women. So because there are not a lot, if any, butch and femme role models, we end up falling into the traps of our own conditioning by believing the bullshit of the binary, by seeing feminine as women and women as feminine, as well as masculine as men and men as masculine. That, dear reader, is where the idea of male identified butches and trans “men” come from: that blind loyalty to the binary and the patriarchy that conditioned us so very well.

I have always held the notion that transgenderism is a fad, a way of being a special snowflake, of distinguishing yourself from the “norm” so that you can be considered “cool.” It’s exactly like the on-line BDSM fad of several years ago in the butch-femme world (the straight and gay men’s world as well, but again, I cannot speak of what I don’t know). Suddenly, there were daddies, babygirls, masters, and mistresses all over the butch-femme on-line communities. Why? Again, it was a way to be different and special, to separate yourself from the “norm” and appear to be “cool.” Transgenderism is the same thing: a fad. I have said before and I will say it again: if society would stop with the preconceived notion that females or women own femininity and males or men own masculinity and instead allowed people to express themselves in any way that they wish, dress as they wish, wear make-up or not, have long, short, or no hair, walk, talk, and act as they wish, all regardless of their sex, then there would be no need for transgenderism and no need to “transition” into anything.

Masculine and feminine, like gender, are socially constructed, but I don’t view them as genders. Masculine and feminine are simply descriptors that do not belong to either sex. This means that that men can be feminine and that there is nothing wrong with that. On the flip side, women can be masculine and there is also nothing wrong with that.

So with that, I think I have come to the end of it, dear reader. It started as a question in my head: whether or not I could consider myself a butch lesbian and gender critical at the same time. While I consider myself a lesbian essentialist, I do not consider myself a butch essentialist. I may have been born a lesbian and was quite the dyke for a long time, but I found butch through exploration and an ultimate discovery of who I was (and am) as a woman.

I was chatting with a friend the other day (at least, I would like to be able to call her a friend) and she said that for her, “lesbian” is a “descriptor that others can understand.” I liked the way that sounded. Oh not for lesbian, but for butch and masculine. For me, butch has always meant and will always mean, masculine woman, but in this society, people get confused by putting those two words together, masculine and woman, so I say butch.

In that context, butch is a descriptor that others can understand, to varying degrees, of course. Like I said, there is the fad of being male identified and/or transgender, neither of which are actually butches, but the premise is the same. I use butch, not as a gender or an identity, but as a descriptor to signify to the world that while I am masculine, I was, am still now, and always will be a woman. I am a masculine woman, a butch.

So the answer is: yes, I can be critical of gender and be a butch lesbian at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.

Humorous or Sexist?

sexism-at-work

Is this harmless humor or sexism at work?

While this isn’t just about shaving, of course, since we can also see how the woman is portrayed as: alone & living with her cat, not dressed, no make-up, eating pie, seemingly depressed, etc., the major focus is on her very hairy legs and that is what I am going to write about in this post.

Quickly, for reference, I found this on imgur (http://imgur.com/gallery/5viGqt2) and I’d like to note that, as of the writing of this post, it has 5003 ratings with only 153 dislikes, giving it 4850 likes. 97% of the people who rated this pic liked it; and reading through the comments, one can become disheartened at how “liked” this pic really is and how women, especially single women, are really viewed in this society.

Women shaving is a huge thing in our patriarchal society. We are conditioned from a young age to believe that women’s legs, armpits, and now even pubic areas should be completely haven clean. To do otherwise, we are taught, is to be unclean, not hygienic, gross, ugly, etc.

I noticed how it has gotten worse since the 1970s when there was a shift in the porn industry from women who were natural with their pubic hair to women who have virtually or completely no pubic hair. The porn industry decided, and society has followed suit, that the way women should look is completely hairless. It has not only become the norm and what is expected, boys and men, and even a lot of girls and women find pubic hair on a woman a turn-off and “gross.”

Men, on the other hand are expected to be naturally hairy in all places. In fact, the only time I ever hear a negative thing about men and their body hair is when it is on their backs. Or when/if they are being teased for having no or shaving their chest hair; but the reason for that is because it makes them seem womanly, which in this society, is a bad, bad insult for a man because women are considered weak and less than.

But this post isn’t about men, so back to women and our body hair.

I remember, vividly, walking out to go play a softball game when I was a junior in high school and as I stopped to pull up my knee pads and adjust my socks, a teammate stopped and noticed the stubble on my legs (I hadn’t shaved in a week or so). She made a disapproving sound and asked me, quite loudly, “Ugh – don’t you believe in good hygiene??” in an effort to shame and humiliate me.

I decided that day that I was not going to shave anything on my body ever again. I didn’t need or want the approval of men or anyone else and I didn’t see the difference in hygiene when it came to women vs. men shaving their bodies. I also didn’t need or want a pre-pubescent body, which is basically what this amounts to: women’s bodies appearing as pre-pubescent as possible because that is what men, in general, want: young, thin, hairless, child-like women; and in this society, that is not only OK, it is celebrated. Older men are constantly coupling with younger women and no one seems to bat an eye, but Demi Moore dates a man half her age and it becomes headline news.

But I digress…..

Of course, over the next few years of my life, I occasionally shaved; again, in this society, women are expected to, shamed into, and sometimes even coerced into wearing dresses: in college when my friends wanted to “make me over” and get me ready for a frat party (good god, how boring those were!), when I was a bride’s maid at a wedding, etc. But as I reached my early 20s, the decision to never shave again became cemented into my mind and I made it a permanent thing: I would never again shave my legs, armpits, pubic, or other areas of my body ever again.

I have wavered in my decision over the years. How could I not? I am still a woman and I have been conditioned to believe certain things about my body just as other women have (that’s what’s known as: shared girlhood). Add to my own conditioning, the conditioning of the women around me, even other lesbians, who think it is gross or “man-like” for me not to shave and I have, at times, felt ashamed and as though I should shave every damn inch of my body so that I, too, could be accepted by everyone in this society.

But I never did. The decision to never shave again hit me that day in high school when I was a 17 year old kid, humiliated for not keeping my legs hair-free enough to please a bully on my softball team. The decision was strengthened once I realized who I really was and that I not only didn’t want men, I didn’t care what they thought about me.

Make no mistake, dear reader, girls are taught from a young age that they must be clean shaven, dressed in a feminine manner, have on make-up, etc. All to cater to the male gaze. I know some of you are shaking your heads and thinking to yourselves, “No way, I do those things for me, because they make me feel good about myself!” or “I do those things because I like to do them. I like wearing pretty dresses, high heels, make-up, and keeping clean shaven on all parts of my body!”

But the hard part about sexism is owning the fact that the reason why you “like” to do those things is because you were taught to like those things through conditioning. We are all taught as girls to behave in certain ways and to do certain things in an effort to please men; and growing up thinking that we like dresses, high heels (which are damaging to the feet and legs, btw), make-up, and yes, even shaving are things we like to do just means that our conditioning is complete (sorry, that sounded like the Emperor from Star Wars in my head and I couldn’t resist typing it that way).

Oh, I am not saying that women everywhere should throw out their make-up, razors, and high heels (well actually, yes on the high heels), but I am suggesting that we each take a few moments to actually think about the whys behind our doing those things. Own the real reason and start (or continue) to see the conditioning that we, as women have gone through and continue to go through thanks to the media and especially thanks to the porn industry.

 Just like with white and male privilege, the first step to dismantling our conditioning is to first recognize it, then call it out and see it for what it is: men oppressing women.

Shared Girlhood Is Important

Here’s the thing. Shared girlhood is so damned important!

I saw this brilliant hashtag pop up on Twitter a few weeks ago: #sharedgirlhood; and holy hell, did it start up a shit storm from the men out there who call themselves women. Women everywhere know why this happened: men and their male privilege believe that they own everything, including women and all that we hold dear. So when a group of women get together and start talking about what it meant to grow up girls in a patriarchal society, these men and their narcissistic points of view went, well, insane.

See, we live in a society where boys are taught that (a) girls and women belong to them and (b) they can be anything they want. Two examples:

1. Rape Culture. Yes, we keep hearing these words and then so many of us tune out because we are still taught that rape is the woman’s fault or only strangers hiding in the bushes rape women, etc. But in reality, we are teaching our boys that they can have any girl or woman they want, any way that they want, and by any means they may deem necessary. Take all of the boys in high school who drug girls or get them so drunk they pass out so that these boys can then do whatever they want with the girls, sexually or otherwise. Then when they are caught or she tries to press charges, the boys are protected and the girls are demonized. This teaches boys and men that girls and women not only belong to them, but that we are also expendable, made to be used by them and tossed aside like trash.

2. I saw a video on YouTube the other day where a young man was so intent on becoming something called Super Saiyan and he believed that if he wanted it enough and believed hard enough, then he could become a Super Saiyan. He then had some sort of mental breakdown because he started making fists, throwing his arms out, and screaming. Then at the end, he claimed to have achieved his desire of becoming a Super Saiyan. After watching in disbelief, I had to Google Super Saiyan to see what it was he believed himself to have become and it is a cartoon character. I am not joking. This kid believed he could and did become a part of a race in a cartoon world that are all powerful beings.

If that is not the best example of the trans community, I really don’t know what is. To be so completely engrossed in your own delusion that you believe you can make your body transform from one thing into another, when all the laws of physics and science say otherwise is a very powerful delusion fueled by something clearly broken deep down inside of that person.

In reality, being trans is role-playing. It is like life is a game and they are live action role-playing their way through it. When a person dresses up in an animal costume and believes he is that animal, we all laugh and say that he needs help. When a person gets so addicted to on-line role-playing games like WOW and they begin to believe they ARE that character on the computer monitor, we all laugh and say that they need help.

But when a man pretends to be a woman on-line, as, I have found, is so often the case, as so many of them live their off-line lives as the men they are and only claim to be women on-line; or even dresses up in a dress, a bad wig, some female hormones, and make-up clearly done by someone who has only known women through porn movies, we celebrate that as him being his true self?

What’s sometimes worse for me, as a butch lesbian, is watching other butch lesbians and even the young, confused straight girls who want to escape their lives, putting on “men’s” clothes, cutting their hair, strapping down their breasts (or worse, having them removed completely), stuffing silicone down their pants, and pumping their bodies full of toxic hormones in an attempt to simulate some sort of manhood that only they see when they look in the mirror. What the rest of us see is entirely different and while I have sympathy for these women, I can’t help but wonder what it is that is so broken inside of them that they decided to do this to themselves.

Logically, with women who attempt to become some facsimile of male or men, the answer is pretty clear: growing up girls in the patriarchy, we all learn that boys and men are superior. Of course, it isn’t true, but that is what is shoved down our throats on a daily basis for the entirety of our lives. Breaking away from that conditioning is an everyday struggle. But imagine being one of those young women, seeing everyday how boys are treated better than you are, given more and better opportunities, offered more respect, responsibility, and even love. Wouldn’t it make sense that some of these young women would decide to try to become men in order to escape what this society has decided what their destiny is: lower pay, little to no respect, bodies that are not their own, fear of being raped or killed and not being able to stop it, considered less than on every scale imaginable. Thinking about it in that way, it can sort of make sense how some girls and women would want to jump ship and live their lives as men, doesn’t it?

Men, of course, have different reasons: almost 90% of the men claiming to be women do so because of a sexual fetish. They get off on wearing “women’s” clothing, make-up, wigs, and taking hormones; and don’t get me started on how arousing it is for them to “pass” as women, even if it is barely or badly passing, as is often the case. To have other men desire them as women, to have other women acknowledge them as women, it is all so arousing for these men that are sometimes considered sexual deviants; and let’s not forget all of the men trying to break through the cotton ceiling by trying to shame lesbians into finally having sex with them.

But instead of calling it out, instead of expressing our revulsion at the very notion that these men are getting off on pretending to be and being acknowledged as women, many women celebrate and embrace them, instead shunning those of us who see the truth and try to point it out to them. We have become so “PC” about everything, haven’t we? We don’t want to offend anyone in any way and that is something we can never win because no matter which way we turn as a society, someone will be offended by what is said or done.

Look at young girls, like me, who preferred “boy’s” clothes and toys to “girl’s” clothes and toys. In today’s society, my parents would have assumed I was trans and I would have been put on hormone blockers to keep my breasts from forming and from menstruating. Instead of teaching me and all little girls like me that little girls can wear whatever the hell they want and play with what and whomever they want, the natural inclination now is to change the child instead of changing society.

Instead of teaching boys that it is ok to wear dresses and play with dolls, we shame them into thinking they are somehow less than. Why? because in this society, girls and women are less than, so if a little boy wants to dress in clothing or play with toys society has decided are just for girls, then clearly, that little boy is less than in society’s eyes. Instead of teaching little girls that they can wear, play with, and be anything they want, we shame them into thinking they are freaks or worse, lesbians, which even for all of our advancements, is still a dirty word and an insult.

It isn’t the children and their behavior that needs to be changed, it is society that needs to be changed. Our ideas and attitudes on sex and gender have become so convoluted that I am amazed anyone can rise above the crazy and actually love themselves for themselves.

Shared girlhood IS important, dear reader. It is important for all of us to acknowledge that race, color, religion, class, etc. aside, we women, we females all shared some common histories as girls being born  into and raised in a patriarchal society. We cannot deny those commonalities. We cannot allow men to take those commonalities away from us. We cannot tiptoe around the fact that men have male privilege and men dominate this society in which we live.

We were born girls in a society that favors boys and we have to stop denying that that fact has made a difference in how we were raised, how we see ourselves, and how we see each other. This is why women/female only spaces are so important. Even the most well intentioned male/man will still dominate the conversation and the direction in which it goes. We need to support each other, support our choices, support female-only spaces, support our decisions, support how we choose to live our lives. Because, honestly, this is what men want. To keep women fighting against each other so that they can remain in control. We are more than half of the population of the earth, we bare children, we are the heart of every society and yet we continue to be oppressed by men.

 At what point will you stop supporting men in every single thing they do, even the insane, even the deviant, even when it also harms women? What will you do to help change this society?

 

Gender Is Not “Assigned” At Birth

Here’s the thing. It is a very serious problem when women, feminists, radfems, the media, etc., or a combination of any of the above use the phrase, “the gender they were assigned at birth.” Why? because it is incorrect wording that, when used repeatedly gains notability and with more use, it gains credibility as people see it as a true statement when, honestly, it is not. Gender is not something that is “assigned” to infants at birth. It’s not a seat assignment that someone gives you when they look between your legs and either see a vulva or a penis. That would be sex. Once again, people are confusing sex with gender.

Nothing is “assigned” to anyone at birth. Sex is determined at birth when the person delivering the baby sees its genitals and declares, “It’s a girl/boy!”; and before some joker wants to come in screaming about intersex people, that is a red herring and we all know it. Intersex people are not trans are not intersex people. Stop trying to muddy the waters. The above determination of sex is not gender being assigned to that child like it is a homework assignment or something. Determination of a child’s sex at birth is basic biology 101 and it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with gender.

The sooner people can stop confusing sex with gender the better; and the sooner people can stop using the phrase, “gender assigned at birth,” the better because then we can all start discussing what gender really is and how harmful it is to women.

Gender is a social construct; and it arrives through socialization. True, this socialization may start just after birth when the child’s parents or the nurses at the hospital or who ever decides to dress little boys in blue and little girls in pink so that people know what sex the child is; because in our society, sex is a class and there is a clear hierarchy, with women being on the bottom and men on the top. The sooner the little boys and little girls are discovered and differentiated, the clearer their future will be to the people around them. But that is not the same thing as being “assigned a gender” and having that child (or adult) suddenly and magically “know” what it is like to be a girl or a boy (or a woman or man).

Gender through socialization happens over a period of time; and this is what women mean when they speak about having shared experiences that are different from men who are born and raised boys then decide later that they wish to declare themselves to be women. When we say this, we are not saying that we all share the same upbringing. Obviously, women of color have different experiences than white women, women brought up in a poor household have different experiences than women brought up in wealthy households, etc.; but the fact that we were all born as little girls and then raised in this patriarchal society is our shared experience.

This next part is hard to describe. I honestly thought it was obvious until I started seeing so many male transgenders (aka “MtFs,” which is a misnomer, since males cannot become females) talk about how they know what it was like to be raised as girls, since they “felt” like girls. This was mind boggling to me and reeked of their own male privilege. How arrogant of men to sit there, as the oppressive class, and dictate to women, the oppressed class, what it is like to be women! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and reading.

As women, we all know what it is like to be born and raised as little girls in this society. It is something that, unless you are a woman, is difficult to describe or understand; and sometimes, the socialization of women is so complete, some women don’t even see it. This is why so many women in today’s “feminism” are so pro-male, why they are ok with so many men taking over feminism, why they are ok with men in the government restricting women’s access to healthcare, and why they are ok with men who role play as women co-opt our experiences, our words, even our very private spaces. We women are socialized or conditioned to put men first, always. Men have no idea what it is like to be conditioned to apologize before asking a question, or apologize for asserting yourself and creating boundaries, or to take up as little space as possible. These are just some of the things women are taught since birth; and I don’t mean taught like consciously in school, I mean a deep subconscious conditioning beginning from infancy and continuing into adulthood.

Side note: before a male transgender tries to speak up about how he does know about those things because he is trans or about how women don’t know about this, that, or the other because they are “cis,” try stopping for a moment and actually listening to a woman instead of making this about you. That is what men do.

Now see, any of the transgenders who actually kept reading my post instead of just stopping after the first paragraph when I said that sex is not gender, just stopped reading. It is impossible for men to magically know what it is like to be a woman, just as it is impossible for women to let go of all of their lifetime of socialization and know what it is like to be a man. Sure, I get treated differently sometimes when someone thinks I am a man vs. when they realize I am a woman, but this isn’t the same as being born a boy and raised as male with all the privilege that goes along with it in a society dominated by the male class.

But male transgenders actually believe that putting on a dress and/or taking some hormones negates everything they have been taught while living as boys and men and they suddenly “know” what it is like to be women. Forget all of the male privilege that has been shoved down their throats for years, they don’t see that that is what makes them think they are allowed to have access to everything and that if they say something is true, then god damnit, it’s true.

And there is where we come to it: how gender harms women. Let me relate a story really quickly. I was reading a blog post of a male trans on Tumblr. This guy was, as he put it, “presenting in women’s clothes” while out with some friends bar hopping. They decided to go to a mostly straight bar in a mostly gay neighborhood and while he was there, he took off his top (he was wearing something leather underneath) and security told him to put it back on.

The interesting thing at this point of the blog is that the man honestly thought he was passing as a woman. He mentioned in his blog how he wasn’t sure if or how security could make any determination that he was trans, so he didn’t think it was about him being trans at that point. He posted a picture of himself at the bar that night and there is no question in anyone’s mind but his own that he is a man dressed in what society has deemed “women’s” clothing.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine a delusion so powerful that what you see in the mirror is the complete opposite of what the rest of the world sees, but you are so determined in your delusion that you dare anyone to contradict you? It’s like people with an eating disorder who look in the mirror and see a very fat person staring back at them but the rest of the world sees the reality: an unbelievably, unhealthy skinny person who is killing themselves. This is how some of these male trans are. In their delusion, they look in the mirror and see a beautiful feminine woman, while the rest of the world sees the reality of what is actually there: a man in what society deems as “women’s” clothing.

Anyway, I digress. Nearing the end of the evening, he decides to use the bathroom before heading home. Now, this bar did everything right: they had a women’s bathroom, a men’s bathroom, and a unisex bathroom. This is the best compromise for male and female transgenders who feel they should not have to use the bathrooms of their own sex out of fear, while also allowing the women in the establishment the privacy and respect they should be given, as well as keeping female transgenders safe from being attacked in the men’s bathroom.

But instead of using the unisex bathroom, this person who was, clearly, a man, decided it was his right to use the women’s bathroom; and when he did so, he was confronted (rightfully) by security. He held his ground and he sat down on the floor of the women’s bathroom and called the police, claiming that he feared for his life. The police were confused as to (a) why he called them and (b) why he was in the women’s restroom. He asked to be escorted out of the bar safely and they did just that. He is currently in the process of making complaints to any lawyer or legal entity he can in an effort to “change” things at this bar, because the compromise of a unisex bathroom wasn’t enough for this guy. He “said” he was a woman so that should be good enough for the rest of the world and damn any woman who wants any kind of privacy or safety of their own.

When you make laws based on something as ambiguous as gender and the law makes it clear that if someone states they are such&such, then they must be recognized as such&such, regardless of the reality of the situation, you open the door to all sorts of privacy and safety issues for women. A male transgender who is, by definition, pre-op and most likely not living as a woman full time should never be allowed into women’s private spaces; but because sex has been overlooked for the sake of gender, women are, yet again, getting thrown under the bus for the sake of men.

If this man had actually be raised as a girl and socialized to live as a woman, he would never have inserted himself into another person’s space like that and then demanded that he be allowed to stay or else he would sue. If he had actually been a woman or even if he had been someone who respected women, he would have known how nervous and uncomfortable women would be in an enclosed private space like that with a male-bodied person and he would have used the unisex bathroom.

For men like this, it is all or nothing. he either gets his way every single time or else people are being transphobic and must be sued or arrested or, if they are radfems, they should be beaten, raped, or killed for their horrible offense of knowing, seeing, the truth.

Sex is not gender, ladies and gentlemen. Sex is a class and women are at the bottom of that class, dominated by men in a patriarchal society that will always put men first. Gender is a social construct that is taught to all of us through socialization and it re-enforces sex stereotypes in an effort to keep the female class on the bottom of the heap.

My hope is that more women stop choking on the kool-aid these men are shoving down their throats and wake up to see that we are the equivalent of the human batteries in the Matrix. We are sold a bill of goods from the moment we hit this world and waking up out of that coma is not only hard, for some women it is almost impossible. But more and more of us are waking up everyday and realizing that sex matters. Our sex matters; and giving up our rights for the sake of men is not something we should be blindly accepting, it is something we should be fighting against tooth and fucking nail.

The Truth About Why Transgenders Are Really Angry At Women Like Me

I touched on this briefly in my post before last: how so many of the responses, discussions, complaints, and trolling that I have read concerning my post, “Another Sister Lost to the Madness” were so interesting to me because of all of the misconceptions surrounding me and my posts, what these individuals believe I am saying, how they are interpreting my posts, etc. When you write something and you have a very clear intent with that writing and you make every effort to make that intent clear to your reader, you can tell when someone isn’t really reading what you are writing, they are merely reading what they think you are saying based on their own mis- or preconceptions.

A lot of that has happened over the last week or so as the above mentioned post made its way to a few communities and web pages or female transgenders, which reminds me that I wanted to bring something up really quickly before it also gets pulled apart, misconstrued, etc. Since both FtM and MtF are misnomers, in that no female can magically turn into a male and conversely, no male can magically turn into a female, as both are biologically impossible; and since using the terms transman and transwoman seem to bring about the need of these individuals to “other” the rest of us by insisting on using the slur, “cis,” I have been looking for better descriptors when speaking about these individuals.

I have come to like the terms female transgenders for women who attempt to transition into some facsimile of “men” and male transgenders for men who attempt to transition into some facsimile of “women.” I also like the terms, F2Tg and M2Tg, which would mean female to transgender and male to transgender, respectively. Both have the same meaning, neither should be considered transphobic since they are more accurate depictions of what transgenders are actually doing with their bodies, and both sets of terms satisfy the need to move away from the idea that one’s biology can be somehow changed with medication and surgery.

So, after reading some of the comments, complaints, discussions, and trolling, I really feel that I must point out some things; and I will number them so I can make sure I cover everything I mean to cover:

(1) Just because I have an opinion that differs from yours, just because I point out the reality of biology and transitioning, and just because I bring up the homophobic and misogynistic parts of transgenderism, this does not equal hate speech and this is not transphobia. I am not advocating violence against transgenders, I am not trying to get transgenders fired, evicted, or jailed, I am not trying to bring laws about to make transgenderism illegal. Nothing about what I am saying is hate speech or transphobia and all that you do when you accuse me of that is prove that you have no actual valid points, so you must deflect, deflect, deflect.

(2) Along with the above, just because I have these opinions, this does not make me this or that poster under a different name. Believe it or not, a LOT of women hold these same opinions. Some of us cannot be vocal with their opinions because the trans trolls are so violent and so relentless in their harassment; some of us can only be anonymously vocal, voicing our opinions while trying to keep the violence from being directed at us; and some of us are out there for all the world to see and taking all the shit that comes with voicing these opinions.

Just because I share the same opinions as some other women, this does not make me these women; and to be honest, the fact that people seem to think that this is true and/or that it is ok to attribute these opinions to one women who has hundreds of sock puppets is frighteningly misogynistic because it assumes that we women cannot think for ourselves and that we are all not allowed to have supporting opinions. So whoever it is that you think I am, dear reader, odds are very good that I am not her; and honestly? Who I am shouldn’t even matter. The message is the same, regardless of who I am.

(3) Do you know that saying, “Don’t shoot the messenger”? That is part of what seems to be happening here. Of the angry transgenders that are reading my posts, instead of actually reading the whole of each post or instead of actually reading what I am saying, they are reading what they think I am saying. Or rather, they are reading what they want to hear so that their level of delusion and martyrdom can continue. So when I pointed out that a young woman is made to believe that because she dresses in male clothing and loves women and likes to tinker with cars or whatever else it is that society has deemed “man things,” then she feels she should transition, that isn’t me telling someone how to identify themselves and it isn’t me telling someone what clothes to wear or who to love, etc.

These readers are confusing me with this patriarchal society. It is society that tells little girls, “Oh, you can’t do that, only little boys can do that.” It is society that tells little boys, “Oh, you can’t do that, only little girls do that.” Carrying that forward then, transgenders go forth believing that, well, if I like to wear these clothes, do these things, love these people, then I must be the opposite sex trapped in this horrible body. I am not saying these things and making transgenders feel this way, society is.

What I am saying is: fuck the patriarchy and homophobia. Little girls should be allowed to wear what they want, roll around in the mud, play sports, play with “boys’ toys,” and dream about growing up to marry the princess and save her from the evil witch, all while still being little girls who aren’t conditioned to believe that the only way they can live these lives of which they dream is by “becoming” little boys.

What I am saying is fuck the patriarchy and homophobia. Little boys should be allowed to wear dresses and make-up and high heels, have tea parties, play with their Barbie Dream House, and dream about growing up and being rescued from the evil witch by their prince charming, all while still being little boys who aren’t conditioned to believe that the only way they can live these lives of which they dream is by “becoming” little girls.

It is society that convinces people that gender is innate and not a social construct designed to enforce sexual stereotypes that keep male/men/masculine above everything female/women/feminine. To give in to this conditioning doesn’t make you a non-conformist, it makes you the biggest sheep on the planet because you are helping the patriarchy to enforce these woman-hating sexual stereotypes called gender.

So while I understand being angry at someone showing you the truth, if you are going to be angry and disagree with me, disagree with me for the right reasons. Don’t disagree with me because you haven’t read what I said and just think you know what I am about to say. Don’t disagree with me because you have misunderstood what I said. Don’t disagree with me because I am pointing out that the patriarchy has sold you a bill of goods. I didn’t create the patriarchy, ladies and gentlemen, I didn’t tell you that you needed to transition in order to “feel whole.” You told yourself that because that is the kind of fucked up society in which we live. We have the kind of society that has taught you from birth that you cannot live the kind of life you want to live unless you are the opposite sex.

I am not the one judging you, dear transgender reader, I am not telling you how to identify yourself or even telling you how to live. That is the patriarchy telling you all of that. That is homophobia telling you all of that. That is male privilege telling you all of that. That is this male dominated society shoving all of its collective stereotypical bullshit down your throat while calling it gender identity so it can get you to swallow it without choking.

I am simply one of the many pointing it out to you. 

Let’s Talk About Lesbophobia

The word is considered a joke by many and is never really taken seriously. Why? Because (a) it concerns women and (b) it concerns women who have no need or desire for men, or their penises. I see a lot of people throw around words like bigot, homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia. Sometimes these words are being used correctly and there is some hatred going on where the words are being used. But most of the time, these words are being used as a silencing tactic to keep some women from speaking critically about things like transgenderism, the patriarchy, rape culture, misogyny, etc. Moreover, lesbophobia is rarely used and when it is, it is never taken seriously. So let’s talk about it for a minute because as much as men (including male transgenders) try to dismiss it and laugh it off, this is a real thing and it is silencing, harming, and even killing lesbians.

The responses to my post, “Another Sister Lost to the Madness” have been interesting for a variety of reasons. First, I need to make note that a LOT of misconceptions about me and my writing have surfaced; and while they didn’t start with this particular post, seeing the discussions and claims surrounding me and my intentions with this specific post are at the forefront of my mind tonight. I have seen people misread what I say, misrepresent what I write, and even claim that I am someone they know under another name. I will address these things in another post because, while they are important to discuss, what I discovered as I started writing this is that I have something else to talk about first.

I have noticed that with all of the comments, complaints, and down right trolling over my “Another Sister Lost to the Madness” post, for once, not ONE male transgender has commented, been upset about, or otherwise had any kind of reaction to one of my posts. Interesting, yes? This is important to notice and call out because it says something to me and it should say a lot to women everywhere, including those who wish to transition into some facsimile of a “man.” These men don’t care one iota about women, women’s rights, women’s needs, etc. Since that post was about female transgenders and not male transgenders, the men didn’t  so much as peep about it, because they are narcissists who only care about themselves and their needs, which means, sisters, that THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT WOMEN.

You should note that when I make a post about male transgenders, women come out to support them; straight women, bisexual women, female transgenders, even some misguided lesbians, all kinds of women come out in support of these poor, helpless men who just want to live their lives as “women.” Women support these men. Women stand up for these men. Women fight for these men. But when a post pops up that doesn’t directly concern them and instead focuses on female transgenders, where are the men? Oh yeah. They are over there –> trying to figure out how to make the “cotton ceiling” sound like a good thing so lesbians will finally have hot “lesbian” sex with them without pointing out how the whole idea just adds to the rape culture of our society that women have to deal with every single day.

The same thing happens in the gay community. Lesbians have gone out of our way to be supportive of, stand up with, and fight for our gay brothers. We were there at the Stonewall Riots. We were there during all of the AIDS walks and AIDS awareness projects. We have been there with them, side-by-side through every crisis, every equal rights march, every bashing, every death. But we and our wants, needs, rights, etc. are often ignored by gay men. If it’s not about them and their lives (read: penises), they don’t want to hear about it, much less be bothered to stand with us and fight for it.

When the world at large says the word, “gay,” they are almost always talking about men. When the media talks about gay slurs, you never hear them talking about the words “dyke” or “bulldyke,” only about the words “fag” or “faggot.” Whenever discussing gay rights, it is almost always about men, unless of course, they can parade an old lesbian couple around for the “cuteness” manipulation effect. When you read a gay magazine, there is almost always nothing about lesbians in it, unless it is making fun of us. Hell, when you check the inside cover to see who works at the magazine, the list is almost, if not all male, so is it any wonder they have no clue what it is like to be a lesbian today?

Unless it directly affects them and their lives (penises), men couldn’t care less about not just women, but especially lesbians. So it wasn’t really a shock for me to open up my email and see comment after comment made by “male identified butches” and female transgenders who were unhappy with (and mostly misreading) my post. By the way, as a side note, I even got some mail about trans butches. There is no such thing. You’re either trans or you’re butch but you don’t get to be both. Pick one and move on with your life and stop co-opting another person’s identity.

But does any of the above clue you in, dear sister readers? Do you ever wonder where the men are when it is time to discuss rape and rape culture (and note here that I am talking about men in the plural, as in the men of this male-dominated society; not one specific man)? Do you ever wonder where the men are when a lesbian or lesbian couple are bashed, raped, even killed? Do you ever wonder why popular culture focuses so heavily on gay men and if they decide to focus on a lesbian, she needs to be feminized so she doesn’t offend the male viewers? Do you ever notice that the gay magazines rarely cover anything relevant to you? Or how about the gay bars; ever wonder why they are so heavy with gay men and their hags and never really care about whether or not the lesbians even show up to have a drink there?

If you have never wondered about any of the above, I challenge you to do so now. Think about it. Think about all of the times lesbians have been pushed aside in this society as an anomaly or as women who just need a good man or some “good dick” to become better or “real” women. Think about all the slurs we endure day-in and day-out that no one even bats an eye at because they are so accepted. Think about all the times one of our sisters is bashed, raped, and/or killed and it barely makes a blip on the gay media, let alone the main stream media. Think about all the times your opinions and ideas are dismissed by both the gay and straight communities, only for you to find out later when a man or straight person has the same idea, and it is applauded.

While we are at it, we could be discussing why some of those angry female transgenders aren’t thinking about how dismissed they are. We keep hearing about male transgenders getting caught, literally, with their pants down in women’s restrooms, dressing rooms, showers, etc., and all anyone seems to care about are the poor men who just want to use the lady’s restroom and damn the women who don’t want to be in a close, private space, in the nude, with a naked man. But what about all of the female transgenders who get booted out of the male restrooms or worse, get the shit kicked out of them for daring to both look masculine and be in the men’s restroom? You don’t hear about female transgenders demanding to have their naked bodies in the men’s dressing room or shower with other men because hell, they are just one of the guys. True, this has more to do with male privilege than lesbophobia, it has to do with men feeling like they own every single space and are entitled to everything they can see; but it is all rooted in the same pile of bullshit: the patriarchy.

It all boils down to this: we lesbians are dismissed, we are ignored, we are laughed at and not taken seriously, we are even bashed, raped, and killed. Why? Because we all dare to be women who do not need or want men or their penises and that, sisters, is one of the most dangerous ways to live.

It’s time for women to start standing up for women.

Another Sister Lost To The Madness

I was at the store the other day when I heard one of the most heartbreaking things that a dyke can hear one of her sisters say. It was a convenience store, so when we all stood in line and were then waited on, we were all side-by-side facing the 2 clerks behind the counter. When I got up to the counter, this young butch dyke who was helping me was talking to a young gay man (customer) next to me. I would guess they were both around 20 years old. The young dyke was saying that she didn’t know how to tell her mom something, which being gay, made my ears perk because hey, we’ve all been there, right?

Then she says that her mom already knows she is a “lesbian” (she used air quotes there), but that she wasn’t a lesbian, she was “trans” and “wanted to live her life as a man;” and she didn’t know how to tell her mom this.

As I said, this was sincerely heartbreaking; to see and hear a young butch dyke talk about transitioning and living her life “as a man.” I wanted to reach across the counter and shake her like a mom who just caught her child running across the street without looking, consequently almost getting hit. It was sad to see this young woman, a sister to me in many ways, speak about transitioning; and I have to say, she didn’t seem happy about it either. She seemed resigned, like it was something she had to do, not something she wanted to do.

I wanted to tell her not to drink the trans kool-aid. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to take drugs or have surgeries and mutilate a perfectly healthy female body. I wanted to tell her to not give in to the binary and conform into societal demands. I wanted to tell her that it’s ok to be any kind of woman you want to be, patriarchy be damned.

I wanted to say all of that and more, because it sickens me to see the kind of pressure young women like this deal with on a daily basis. I dealt with it as well. I was so masculine looking, I was “passing” in high school, even with long hair. In my early 20s when I came out, people still thought I was a man, but it was made worse because I was a lesbian and to so many people, a masculine looking lesbian “wants to be a man.”

Forget that I didn’t want to be a man. Forget that I loved being a woman. Forget that I loved my body. Forget that I was ok with the non-conforming woman that I was. I received so much pressure to transition, I almost did. I figured I was supposed to transition, that it was something everyone expected me to do, so I should just do it.

I am thankful everyday that I decided against it.

But not every young lesbian is that lucky. So many of them feel so much pressure from society and from the trans community that they should transition, they end up making the biggest mistake of their young lives. Sometimes, that mistake is irreversible.

I was reading some comments yesterday from straight men and women and it was pretty astonishing to see not only how little they know about lesbians and trans people, but also how little they really actually care about lesbians. Here is this blog, created and written by a butch lesbian about her lived experiences and her opinions based on those lived experiences and these straight women and men were commenting about how there is no such pressure to conform, there is no such pressure to transition. Hell, they even commented on how harmless the cotton ceiling is and how it doesn’t attempt shame lesbians into having sex with men who call themselves women.

Instead of believing a woman who has lived these experiences and knows about them first hand, these straight people also drank the trans kool-aid and believed the rhetoric spewed forth by the trans community. Instead of listening to what I had to say about lesbians, butches, and trans people, these women and men decided that I was just another silly woman screaming about how awful the menz are and that they shouldn’t take me seriously.

So it shouldn’t be surprising to see young butch dykes out there who are subjected to the trans propaganda, feel like they should transition. It shouldn’t be surprising that young dykes out there who are confronted daily by a society that ignores, ridicules, and even tries to exterminate butch lesbians, feel like they should transition. I shouldn’t be surprising that young dykes out there who hear from the straight community all of the homophobic, lesbophobic, and misogynistic crap they say about lesbians and women, while praising trans for “being brave,” feel like they should transition.

It isn’t surprising to those of us who felt, and still feel that kind of pressure from the straight, trans, and sometimes even gay communities. but it is heartbreaking. When you are a woman who doesn’t conform to what society believes a woman should be and then you thumb your nose at society again by not conforming to the man they believe you should transition into because of how you look, dress, or act, life isn’t just hard, it can sometimes be down right unbearable.

Life as a non-conforming lesbian can be especially difficult when faced with women from your own group, such as other lesbians or feminists, who are so conditioned by the patriarchy that instead of celebrating the kind of non-conforming woman that you are, they also disbelieve your lived experiences, they also feel that you should just transition already, and they also put your needs as a woman on the back burner for the sake of men.

No, it isn’t surprising that this young woman was resigned to her fate. It isn’t surprising  that she was ready to stop being a lesbian and conform to what people everywhere shove down non-conforming women’s throats about transitioning. It isn’t surprising that she was ready to live life “as a man.” It’s heartbreaking, because I, like so many other women out there who refuse to conform to this patriarchal society’s demands, have been there; and sometimes, it’s just easier to go with the flow of those around you and do what is expected.

Someone on my Twitter joked about staging an intervention for this young woman; and I really wish we could. I wish a group of us could sit her down and tell her that she is beautiful and handsome and wonderful just the way she is, that she is part of a community filled with a rich and amazing history, that she is loved and cherished for the non-conforming woman that she is. Our intervention could even consist of women who I keep meeting through my blog, women who went through the transition stages in their attempts to become men and who, years later, regretted that decision and are on their way back to the women they always were.

I could tell her what I told myself so many years ago when faced with the pressure to transition: Fuck society. Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck conforming. I like the woman that I am and I refuse to become something I am not, nor would I ever want to be in order to satisfy the world’s misogynistic view of woman.

Lesbians, Dykes, and Butches: The Real Gender Non-Conformists

Let’s talk about public bathrooms. And airport security. And dressing rooms. And all of the other places that lesbians who don’t conform to the patriarchy’s ideal of what a woman should look like go where we are incorrectly identified as not being women. Places where we are accosted, detained, assaulted, barred from entering, humiliated, mocked, abused, beaten, and even raped; all because we dare to thumb our noses at the binary and proudly remain the women that we are, the women we choose to be, regardless of what the patriarchy demands.

You can even include all of those places where we go for doctor’s appointments, job interviews, etc. Places where our name is called and when we respond, the person calling our name is confused and unable to reconcile the woman’s name on their form with the person in front of them because of how the patriarchy conditions all of us to view women.

A lot of lesbians, dykes, and especially butches don’t fit that perception. We never have. We have always done woman in our own way without a care in the world about how society sees us, while refusing to change who we are when society tries to change us through shame and violence.

We all have the stories, you know the ones. I am walking towards the woman’s bathroom when an older woman walks out the door and then stands there, trying to keep me from entering while telling me this is the ladies restroom, as if I cannot read or see the small female figure in a skirt on the door. Or the times, so many times, I lost count of when I am finishing up in the woman’s restroom, washing my hands when a woman opens the door, looks at me, pauses, looks at the sign on the door, looks at me again, and then just stands there frozen. Or even those times when they don’t stand frozen, but feign confusion asking if this is the ladies room.

We butches, as well as non-conforming dykes and lesbians, we all have stories like these, with varying degrees of danger and humiliation. I have butch friends who flat out refuse to use the woman’s restroom unless a femme friend or lover accompanies them to keep the stares, and the violence, to a minimum. Other butch friends won’t go to the woman’s restroom, no matter what, because they have dealt with such humiliation and violence before that to even consider using a woman’s public bathroom gives them an anxiety attack.

There are other stories, of course: being denied entry into the woman’s dressing room at a clothing store, the stares and murmurs, and even some women moving to another area, while we are changing in a woman’s dressing room at the YMCA, having to go through airport security more than once or, worse, being detained because the people at security look at us and see: men.

These stories go on and on and on for all of us, so it really wasn’t a shock to see news reports online of a woman, Susan Ho, who was using the woman’s restroom at a casino where she was entered in a bowling tournament, only to be unlawfully detained and assaulted when she tried to exit the bathroom and was accused of being a man in the woman’s restroom. At one point, the people detaining her even went so far as to discuss the possibility of removing Susan’s shirt to see if she was actually a woman, as she said. Read the full article here: http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/10/08/61853.htm

I say I am not shocked when I see this sort of thing in the news, but it doesn’t make reading about it any less disheartening. As I said before, some lesbians and dykes and especially we butches don’t fit the patriarchal view of what women “should” look like.  When people see me in my jeans, t-shirt, and hat, they make a snap judgment and see what their conditioning tells them to see: a man.

See, we are the real gender non-conformists. I know that transgenders and their apologists and allies love to make the false claim that trans men and trans woman are gender non-conformists, but that is all smoke and mirrors to hide what is actually happening. Trans people are the very opposite of gender non-conformists. They do everything they possibly can to completely and utterly conform to the binary.

Look at trans men. When on T, what is the first thing trans men do? Go out of their way to grow facial hair because, to them, facial hair is one of the biggest defining factors of maleness, of being men. Forget the fact that there are women out there who have no choice but to shave their faces because for one medical reason or another (this differs woman to woman), they have facial hair.

Then look at trans women. They are one hundred percent about presentation; and that presentation is driven by male desire, by the patriarchy, by what they, as men, find attractive in women. They must dress and act in extremes with the long hair, tons of make up, and dresses all the time because when men think about women, this is how they see women in their minds’ eyes: as a completely vamped up, stylized version of woman.

Both trans men and trans women go out of their way to be as “manly” or as “womanly” (respectively) as they can be because that is what the patriarchy, what the binary demands. Pick one or the other, the patriarchy says. If you wear men’s clothing, you must be a man; and if you wear women’s clothing, you must be a woman. If you are going to be a man or a woman, make sure to be the most über man or woman you can be so that we are positive that that is what you are. It is this same line of thinking that has parents turning tomboys into little trans men and feminine boys into little trans women. In the parents’ eyes, they are doing their child a favor but what they are really doing is forcing their child into the binary box.

Butches, as well as non-conforming lesbians and dykes on the other hand, are who they are while still being women, the patriarchy be damned. Instead of conforming, we, literally, stand out and are the most visible women in the lesbian community. We take a lot of heat for that, yes, but we love our bodies, we love being women, and we are not going to “transition” into some variation of men simply to please the patriarchal binary system.

Transgenderism is, at its very core, conformity. That is the number one goal of transgenderism: conforming to the binary. Butches and non-conforming dykes and lesbians want the very opposite.

Transgenders try to co-opt our words by claiming to be women and even lesbians. They try to co-opt our spaces by forcing their way into women’s restrooms, dressing rooms, and other woman-only spaces. They try to control our bodies by shaming us into having sex with them or else be labeled bigots and transphobes. They even try to steal our histories by turning women like Teena Brandon into a trans man, by claiming the butch and drag queen who started the Stonewall riots were actually a trans man and trans woman, etc.

They do all of this under the guise that they are gender non-conformists, when the truth of the matter is simply this: if trans people were truly non-conformists, there would be no transgenderism. Women would be women and men would be men, regardless of how they dressed or acted; and there would be no back lash, no mocking or shaming, no violence toward them, towards all of us, for being who we are.

No, the true non-conformists are butches, lesbians, and dykes. A professor once told me in college, “You are a genderfuck.” He was right; and I am damn proud of it.

 

Follow-up to “Ass”uming Butches Into Extinction

Since there were, understandably, a lot of questions about how this butch woman, Doffy, responded to her doctor’s gross misjudgment of who she was as a person, I thought I would follow-up with that information.

I would first like to point out that yes, I know this person, she is a real human being, she is a butch lesbian, and she took and posted the pic herself.

Secondly, As you will see in one of my pics that I will post here, I would like to add that Doffy had absolutely no problem with sharing every inch of the picture, including all of her personal information. The decision to redact personal information including her address, phone number, date of birth, and hospital record number, as well as the doctors’ names, and the hospital she visited was mine and mine alone. It is one thing to say, sure I am fine with you posting whatever, but it is an entirely different beast to have every piece of your personal information posted out onto the internet like that. So I decided her name was enough; and while I am in possession of both the original pic and the redacted version, I still feel that way.

Now that those bits of information are out of the way, on to her response.

When Doffy originally posted this information, a mutual friend of ours asked her what a lot of people are asking: “This was outrageous! How did you respond?”

I was quite vocal at the registration desk. I said with a loudish voice…I am NOT trans, I do NOT take drugs to look this handsome and I have fallopian tubes…the secretary looked at me like I had 3 heads and laughed a bit. Said she’d make sure to note it…which she did not…and I said “I am surprised that the medical industry would assume without question! I am taking my drug free fallopian tubes to the waiting area”

Later, she followed up with:

But dont be mad or upset on this account. I made sure to inform the entire registry office and the registry office in the triage AND the 5 doctors and 3 nurses that I am in fact female… that the doctor who wrote the chart was obviously and easily confused. And the fact that she (the doctor who wrote that without questioning me) did not even order an x-ray on a finger cut to the bone and that that very finger is broken…only proved my point of incompetence both medically and physiologically.

When I was thinking about posting about this, our mutual friend asked Doffy for her permission to post the pic of her chart notes and she responded with the following texts:

 

 Doffy-text-1Doffy-text-2

 

As you can see, she was OK with posting the pic containing all of her personal identification and even had a sense of humor about the whole incident; but that’s what we women do, isn’t it? Sure, we get mad in the moment that it happens, but later we laugh it off as someone’s silly mistake. That is part of what makes this so dangerous and why I felt such a need to post about it. We women need to stand up and know that it is OK to be angry in situations like this, that we can be offended about someone catering to the patriarchy like that and it is OK to do so.

What Doffy went through can happen to any of us who don’t succumb to societal pressure and conform to the binary way of thinking and being. When I was discussing this last night, a horrible thought occurred to me: what if this butch lesbian had been unconscious or unresponsive when she was brought into the ER and the assumption that she was a trans man had been made? It is clear from the texts, that her doctor didn’t do any kind of checking with Doffy when it came to meds. So, what if she were unconscious and they decided to be “helpful” and prescribe this, in their misinformed opinion, “John Doe” testosterone for the duration of her stay at the hospital?

I realize I am taking this to an extreme, but if something like that is even a possibility, how frightening is that for butch lesbians or for any woman who doesn’t conform?

“Ass”uming Butches Into Extinction

Just yesterday, I wrote about how bisexual women, straight women, and men claiming to be women were co-opting the word lesbian in their effort to twist and distort it until it means nothing; and I wondered if the patriarchy, with the help of the “I hate labels” and the “sexuality is fluid” crowds, would swallow the term whole, taking lesbians’ identity away, once and for all. Of course, that is a hard pill to swallow and the majority of lesbians will fight tooth and nail against people who think they can co-opt our words and spaces, bully us into silence, and shame us into having sex with trans women and their accompanying penises by calling us transphobic and bigots because we do not want to have relationships or sleep with men.

So imagine my horror when I was sent this screen cap of a visit to the doctor recently. A butch lesbian, a woman who does not fit society’s definition of what a woman should look like or how a woman should dress, behave, or present herself went to the ER. She checks in, sees the doctor, and before leaving, takes a peek at her chart to see something so unbelievable, for a second, I thought I was being punked when told about it.

 

Doffy1

Posted with her permission,
including leaving her name visible.

 

This doctor decided that the butch lesbian in front of her was not actually a butch lesbian but a trans man in denial. In the chart, she writes that this butch is a 48 year old trans man but adds that the “chart will say female.” There was no conversation, there were no questions about whether or not this woman believed she was trans, there was nothing but an assumption; and that assumption was based on this butch woman’s appearance.

Instead of inquiring, instead of taking a good look at the person in front of her and seeing the woman inside the butch, instead of accepting that a woman can look and dress in a manner deemed by society to be masculine while still being a woman, the doctor assumed this butch lesbian was a trans man and put forth that assertion into the woman’s chart without even so much as a by your leave.

I can tell you, as a butch, that having something like that happen: the complete erasure of the woman that you are in order to appease a group of people with such a debilitating disorder, they cry “bigot” at the slightest foul, is nothing short of humiliating. In induces a rage that, to be honest, I have no analogy for at the moment. I get irritated when I am mistaken for a man, sure, but when the person hears my voice or takes a more-than-glancing look at me, they realize their mistake, see the woman that I am, and, most of the time, apologize for not paying enough attention to the person in front of them so as to see more than a hat, t-shirt, and pair of jeans that led them to their erroneous assumption in the first place.

This is different; and, no, it isn’t the same thing as a trans person being “misgendered.” That’s silly, actually, when you take into consideration that gender is a social construct that, with so many people, changes with the wind. No this is the obliteration of butch women.

Worse than that, this is a person, a doctor, proclaiming that the patriarchy, that men mean so much to her and her conditioning is so complete, she has decided to, without consent, assign maleness to the woman standing in front of her; and she expects that gross misjudgment to be rewarded with thanks and praise for being such a good sheep in the gender pasture.

This is why we must band together and stop this madness, this trans epidemic, this erasure of women, and this annihilation of butch lesbians. Butch female lesbian visibility is a feminist issue, one that is much more important, and vitally so, to women; more so than prioritizing men’s issues. Lesbians should not be erased for the sake of men’s “delicacy.”  

 Our words are important. Our spaces are important. Our sex is important. Every time we take another step back to readjust the lines that should not be crossed, we get closer and closer to the cliff leading to our extinction.

Butch Visibility in a Man’s World

I was doing a very normal thing this morning: taking out my trash. I was casually dressed in sweats, a t-shirt because I was outside getting a few things done; and a ball cap because it was sunny outside. As I get to the trash can at the end of my driveway, a truck pulls up and a guy yells out, “Hey Buddy!” I told him I wasn’t his buddy and asked him what he wanted. He got upset, mumbled something about how he wanted to ask me something and that he didn’t know what he did to me but whatever. I ignored him and went back into my house.

Was I a little harsh? Maybe. A lot of people, and I mean a LOT of people judge me based on my clothing, how I walk and stand, how short my hair is, my ball cap, etc and they conclude within 2 seconds of seeing me that I am a man. I won’t lie, it is upsetting for us butches to be mistaken for men like that. It makes us feel invisible and it discounts the fact that we are women, which is something we still are no matter what we do or wear and we are proud of this fact. We are absolutely nothing like men, so to be mistaken for men shows us that the world did and does see us in the black and white of the patriarchal binary system.

Do you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t threaten to kill him or threaten him with rape for his mistake. I said a few words and wasn’t a polite timid woman apologizing to him for HIS mistake, but I didn’t do what so many men who pretend to be women do: I didn’t threaten, harass, or stalk him for mistaking me for a man.

As I said, we are completely different from men. We don’t think or act like men and we sure as hell don’t want to BE men. When people accuse us of this, it is either because they truly don’t understand what and who butches are or because they are trying to humiliate, discredit, and/or silence us.

Butches are at both the forefront and at the back of the LGB community. A butch was right there at Stonewall as one of the people who started the riots that sparked the LGB civil rights movement. Butches are highly visible, which leads to taunts, slurs hurled at us, beatings, rape, and death. We are antagonized for being butch women because we are not, according to society, the “right” kind of women.

At the same time as all of the above, we are also invisible. We are not represented in TV, movies, or other media. When we do happen to end up on TV, it is either as a caricature that is made fun of or we are expected to dress, act, and BE more feminine to please the general audience.

And then you have a group of individuals who are trying to erase butches from the planet completely. They are doing everything in their power to render us extinct. This group is comprised of 2 types of people: (1) the men who claim to be women and then further claim to be butches (see Tobi Hill-Miller, etc.); (2a) the women who feel the right course of action in this patriarchal binary system is to attempt to transition into men, but still call themselves butches (FtM or F2Tg); (2b) the women who are butches, but insist that they are also somehow male by labeling themselves “male-identified” butches.

These people make it almost impossible for young lesbians who are “different,” who are baby butches, but don’t know where they fit in this world to be ok with the women that they are. These young women are encouraged and even brainwashed into transitioning into something similar to men because they are taught that to be a different kind of woman is bad. They are taught that the binary is king and that they must choose: masculine = man and feminine = woman.

To be anything else, a masculine woman or a feminine man would be an abomination in these binary-loving people’s eyes. So they preach and they intimidate and they brainwash and they bully these young women (and sometimes even older women fall into this trap) into taking hormones, having healthy breasts cut off, having healthy uteri and ovaries removed, all in the name of patriarchy.

So we are disappearing. As we watch our sisters try to embrace all that is male in order to be more accepted by the patriarchy and as we watch more and more young women trying to transform their bodies into something more acceptable to this male-dominated society, butches are disappearing and being replaced by fakes who distort who we are.

Something has to be done soon about this trans epidemic or we will eventually end up with the total extinction of butches; and that would be a shame. Transwomen are already bastardizing the very idea of what and who a woman is by trying to claim the one thing men have never really owned: femaleness. We cannot allow women to continue to hurt themselves by trying to change their bodies and delude themselves into thinking that change will make society accept them.

There is a whole generation of wonderful butch voices that needs to be heard. There are butches still out here who could be role models to young lesbians, showing them that it is k do be different, it is ok to love your butch body, it is ok to be women who the patriarchy and this binary system of being will never accept.

Acknowledge our existence.

Acknowledge our experience.

Know there is a better way of being butch in this man’s world.

Male Privilege

I think it’s time we talked about male privilege; because that’s what’s really happening here with MtF transgenders’ violence towards women, attacking women, calling women bigots, etc. They are so filled with their own privilege, they cannot even fathom why women are not cool with allowing these men into their private spaces, seeing them nude, and having sex with them; or why women would have minds and opinions of their own and not take these men’s word as law.

Even for those MtFs who present as and may be viewed by society as women (very strong emphasis on “may”), they might put up with some sexism and see a change in their male privilege outwardly, but inside, they are still the same. Inside they still hold the same attitudes about women and the same view of the world that they did as boys and men. Putting on a dress and make up, even taking hormones doesn’t change the internalized male privilege they still have and display every chance they get.

Male privilege begins at birth. The doctor looks between the infants legs and either declares, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” and from that moment on, our fates are sealed because of how this patriarchal society is set up and how girls and women are viewed vs. boys and men.

From that moment on, men are treated differently than women. Men have all of the advantages, the opportunities, the better jobs, the higher pay. Women grow up being taught that they need a man to take care of them, that they need to be and remain young, thin, and beautiful to get a man, and that the man is always right and just in his actions; and if you think he isn’t, it is you, not him.

Men are taught to take what they want, even through violent means, if necessary. They are taught that women are less than and that using words like bitch and pussy are wonderful put downs for other men. Even the term faggot is rooted in misogyny and male privilege since a fag is considered a feminine man; and femininity in men is frowned upon in this society. If feminine men wasn’t such a stigma, I posit there would be no need for transgenderism at all, but that’s another post altogether.

No one who is born and raised a male in this society can understand what it means to be raised a female in a patriarchal society. They can’t know the fear that comes from knowing that any man on the street can take what he wants or that any date or outing to a club can end in rape; and odds are good that he will get away with it. Putting on a dress does not suddenly take away their male privilege because it is ingrained in them. Their attitudes and the way they conduct themselves and speak at (no to, at) women doesn’t just “go away” with a dress and some hormones.

Women like me see it every single day. The violent rhetoric. Being called transphobic or a bigot for pointing out biology or refusing to have sex with someone who has a penis. Men who purport to be women constantly telling me how I should think, feel, and speak.

Women do not talk at each other like that. Women do not tell each other how to think or feel or what to say. Women don’t react violently when another woman disagrees with them.

These are things that men do. Why? Their internalized male privilege. The attitude that they can do and say anything they want and we women are supposed to accept it as truth without question; and if we question them, then there must be something wrong with us, not them (see “transphobia”).

I wish male privilege could “go away” so easily and magically. I wish that every man who declares himself a woman while wearing a dress and make up and even when taking hormones could know what it is truly like to be a woman in this society. If they could, they might treat us a little differently. They might be less likely to go straight to violence. They might be willing to let us have our spaces as we let them have theirs. They might even be able to see things from our point of view and build a bridge of communication.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. Without examining and combating their male privilege, things will never change. They will always wish to dominate, humiliate, intimidate, bully, and manipulate women.

So, gentlemen, every single time you call me a bigot, every time you come at me with violence, every time you try to tell me what I can think, say, and/or do, you are only showing me that you have not done the work to examine and combat your own internalized male privilege. You are showing me that you still see women as objects that you need to possess and control. You are showing me that you are, indeed, still men.

What ARE you, anyway? She or he?

1238114_508918125850806_1503116597_n

I saw this on Facebook yesterday and it made me think of all those times when a woman around me clearly thought I was a man and treated me as such by clutching her purse, looking over her shoulder, distancing herself from me, etc. On the one hand, I applaud women protecting themselves. After all, men are the number one cause of violence against and death of women; so, yes, please make sure you are mindful of the men around you who you think might do you harm.

On the other hand, when this and a thousand other little things like it happen to me daily, I can’t help but feel invisible in this patriarchal world. People, in general, see the hat and the “men’s” clothing and they automatically see a man standing before them, while the woman who is actually there is completely invisible.

As a Butch, I am invalidated by the straight community, shunned by parts of the lesbian community, and outright mocked by the trans community. The straight community thinks I should be more feminine, parts of the lesbian community think I just want to be a man, and the trans community thinks I am a transman in denial who should just transition already.

But I am a woman.

Butches are women.

We were born women and we were raised women in a male dominated society.

We may be masculine, but we are still women.

True, there are some butches who like to play the pronoun game on-line by demanding that everyone use male pronouns when talking to them. These are women who feel like they cannot be masculine unless they are as close to being male as a woman can possibly get, which includes using male pronouns. These are butches who live completely in the binary that the patriarchy has forced down all of our throats and with which the patriarchy has blinded so many of us into thinking that only men can be masculine and only women can be feminine.

This way of thinking and being is troublesome for butches as it perpetuates the invalidation of the women that we truly are. It continues to make us invisible in this world and creates a false sense of security for those butches who take on male pronouns; as if they are somehow now immune to what the world at large truly thinks of us because they make people call them “he” on-line.

This has also caused a shift in the butch-femme community where most femmes on-line use male pronouns with butches as the default. The very people who know us best, the women who have always seen us and have always been there for us now see only the maleness and no longer see the women that we are. It’s as if, suddenly the yin is invisible to the yang, making neither whole.

In the real world, of course, this does not happen. Butches are all women and we embrace the women that we are, accepting and relishing in the use of female pronouns; but on-line, we are bombarded with male pronouns and treated as if we are strange for not accepting and embracing them as our own.

Butches are not men.

Butches don’t want to be men.

Butches don’t want to be compared to men in any way, shape, or form.

We are women who love women.

Period.