A few months ago I posted an events notice for a MichFest Women’s Festival event in NYC. I screwed up big time in that original post by not including any text noting the trans-exclusionary policy of MichFest, which has excluded trans women as festival participants for many years.
I apologise unreservedly for neglecting to highlight this as part of my original post. We did discuss the issue in comments, and I did amend the post after some prodding, but I should have challenged the trans-exclusion from the start, or better yet not promoted the event at all.
Here’s the promise: I will not give any trans-exclusionary feminist event any promotion here in the future. If I do unknowingly post a link to some event that is trans-exclusionary, I will delete it as soon as I am made aware.
I am aware that this decision is likely to affront some trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), but it must be said: marginalising trans women at actual risk from regularly documented abuse /violence in favour of protecting hypothetical cis women from purely hypothetical abuse/violence from trans women in women-only safe-spaces strikes me as horribly unethical as well as repellently callous.
I wish that I had fully realised the callousness much earlier instead of initially regarding the TERF position as simply a regrettably prejudiced yet rationally divergent opinion. I’ve also come to view the arguments put forward to bolster the TERF position as logically inconsistent.(I go into much more detail about this conclusion over on my primary blog, Hoyden About Town, please comment on that thread if you wish to discuss TERF arguments.)
I would prefer that this thread be trans*centred rather than cis*centred, so please leave links to your favourite trans*activist and trans*accepting blogs in comments below. Which blogs are safe spaces for trans* women and allies to discuss the trans* experience of violence and marginalisation? Let’s discuss the violence that is levelled at trans* women and how it intersects with misogyny, race and sex-work to cause people to murder them simply for being trans*, rather than discussing the politics of gender transition here (you may discuss the politics of transition on my other trans* post over at Hoyden if you wish).
If you are a cis woman with questions about the trans* experience either personal or political, you’ll probably find more and better answers by lurking at some trans* blogs rather than through asking trans*commentors to do Trans101 for you right here and now. If you don’t know the names Angie Zapata, Kellie Telesford, Rosa Pazos, Ebony Whitaker and Sanesha Stewart at this moment, I suggest refraining from discussion on trans* issues until you know about how they died and have read some posts mourning them as people, not just news reports that treat them as freaks.
Here’s a few links to start with:
An open letter to cis-feminists: a post about cis feminists overlooking violence against trans women in favour of arguing about gender theories
Radical Feminism and Cis Privilege: dehumanising trans* women is not a feminist act
Questioning Transphobia: a blog devoted to discussing hostility towards gender transition
Filed under: Solidarity & Sisterhood, allies, feminism, identity, op-ed, sexual expression & exploitation, violence | Tagged: abuse, apology, cis, marginalising, michfest, promise, TERFs, trans, trans-centred, trans-exclusionary, transgender, violence-against-women, women-born-women, women-only space
Alyssa, I’m aware of Second Life, although I’ve never had a go at it. Frankly, I’m concerned that it would become yet another giant time-eating thing, so I’m reluctant to try.
I’m happy to correspond by email, though, and perhaps others here will follow your link and check it out.
There is a comment in moderation which I have not published because it discusses the politics of gender transition, something I specifically requested commentors to avoid in this thread.
Feel free to leave your comment instead at the end of the Trans Thread of Doom over at my other blog, because the original semantic debate there has fizzled out, and the concerns you raise are different.
Thanks for your answer. I won a bet because of it
That said, I would love to know the reasoning that led your from your odd “moral” position of adamantly refusing to censor a dominan groups discrimination, and batting down of a minority group’s complaints to your current apologia.
I think everyone would be served by an introspective post that explains just what woke you up… if that has in fact happened.
Truth is, I have a community in SL that has followed our interactions with great interest. They will be disappointed that they will not get to meet and speak with you.
Perhaps a blog post on your change of heart, and the internal processes involved is… appropriate.
Alyssa, have you read the post on my other blog? I’m fairly sure I adequately explain the reasons for my change of position there.
Yeah. I read it. I tend to be extremely thorough before I post.
Then, I reread it just now. Twice. My head is still spinning. And yes, I am asking myself, “Am I reading this correctly?”
But then again, I am used to more personal and informative discourse like Maia at Touchingly Naive when she recanted her hate of trans women. I do not have the link handy, but Lisa Harney does at her site where she critiques that post.
Sterile, academic, and absolutely devoid of any emotional comment. Like you were discussing a novel technique for preparing a chemical assay.
Only without the enthusiasm one would show for improving the state of the art.
So, as far as introspection and understanding go, total fail.
As a dry, academic, rarefied critique of m andrea and her um, antics, pretty good. type it up, and hand it in by the due date. You’ll get an A.
So, once again, where’s the introspection? There are dry academic debates by cisgender feminists aplenty debating my right to exist as a woman. Where is the self examination? The Eureka! moment! The revelation of your growth (assuming it happened) as a feminist?
As we say here in the US, “Where’s the beef?”
Sorry for being so harsh, but you weren’t even there for that essay.
(Though I must admit that you rallied a little bit in the comments)
.
That was entirely deliberate to counter the emotionality of mAndrea’s allegedly “logical” writing.
Quite probably, as that was not the intent of the article.
As you explained to me at length in email, no-one owes another person a detailed soul-baring before they can be accepted as a fellow human being. I still feel that you misread me then and are continuing to misread me now, but that is your prerogative.
I have no intention of soul-baring now either, but here’s a summary: whatever Eureka there was for me was simply doing some more reading and realising that the TERF position was repellently callous regarding the humanity of trans women. As I said briefly above, I hadn’t fully realised that level of callousness existed because I simply had not read enough of the TERF posts. Your email communication inspired me to do so, so there you go, it was all down to you.