fall-of-sophia.livejournal.com (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
fall-of-sophia.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trans2009-08-03 05:52 pm
fall-of-sophia.livejournal.com) wrote in trans2009-08-03 05:52 pm
[Controversial] What matters.
I want to address something that came up in recent controversies, and what I see as part of a backlash to an issue that some of us are in no position to shut up about.
Some trans men and other FAAB trans/genderqueer people have dismissed entirely the notion that they hold privilege over trans women in "dyke" or "women and trans" spaces, because it can seem quite absurd to frame being fetishized as a function of privilege. While that's understandable on the surface, I hope I can illustrate what I see as a complex interplay of privilege and oppression here.
One such person made a particularly faulty analogy to cis male chasers of trans women, and the fact that you don't see trans men complaining that they're not desired by these men. It's certainly true that many women in "dyke" or "women and trans" communities objectify trans male spectrum people in ways that are particularly ungendering and oppressive to trans men. But as we've seen in the entire history of "SOFFA" and "transsensual" communities, many of these people are in long-term relationships with trans men and get involved in activism and aren't the least bit shy about it. Many of us hear and read what these people say about their partners and cringe - my friend's terrible girlfriend who still tells people that she's a "gold star" is a good (bad) example.
Yet, it can still seem like a favorable situation compared to the ones that trans women often find themselves in with cis male chasers. These men are rarely interested in long-term emotional intimacy, and being treated like someone's dirty little secret is something that trans women who seek male partners frequently have to face. I've never once heard of les/bi/queer female partners of trans men who were ashamed to be seen in public, in daylight, with their trans male partners. And this doesn't even touch on the real, fundamental difference between seeking assimilation into the straight world, and seeking to be a part of communities centered on queer [de facto cis] women and trans [de facto male and masculine spectrum] people, which I will get to in a moment.
It's not talked about much, but in addition to being fetishized by men, some of us have found ourselves fetishized by les/bi/queer cis women, particularly within BDSM/kink communities. Yet we are inevitably treated much the same way we would be by cis male chasers, as exotic sex toys and not much else. Would I want these women to take me on their arm to show me off and out me to everyone we meet, to make my transition experiences All About Them, to parade me around queer conferences like a flashy accessory, to complain to other self-aggrandizing "SOFFAs" that being intimate with me can be, oh my gosh, challenging? No, probably not. But I feel that a disparity remains, and to make that sort of analogy is not just grossly inadequate, it's dishonest. This is not Oppression Olympics. This is what a power differential in a kyriarchal world looks like.
So while I sympathize very strongly with those trans men who find it ungendering to be desired by women who don't include cis men in their dating pool, the position of trans male spectrum people who DO continue to place themselves within "dyke" or "women and trans" space, and the relative privilege afforded to them compared to trans women, is about a lot more than who is getting laid and who, presumably, isn't. Not being seen as even remotely desirable IS a perfectly valid grievance for les/bi/queer trans women, but the reason for trans women's seemingly uncontainable rage about this is because there's a lot more at stake. Problematic as their presence may be, I think it's obvious that trans men who remain in these spaces do so for reasons besides gettin' their dicks sucked. They remain in these spaces for the same reasons trans women seek access to them, the same reasons anyone does: support networks and everything else a "queer community" hopefully provides. After all, when was the last time you heard about a trans woman's partner throwing her a party for her breast augmentation fund?
For me, this brings to mind what Susan Stryker wrote about Filisa Vistima, a bisexual trans woman who committed suicide in 1993:
"The Lesbian Resource Center where she served as a volunteer conducted a survey of its constituency to determine whether it should stop offering services to male-to-female transsexuals. Filisa did the data entry for tabulating the survey results; she didn't have to imagine how people felt about her kind. The Seattle Bisexual Women's Network announced that if it admitted transsexuals the SBWN would no longer be a women's organization. 'I'm sure,' one member said in reference to the inclusion of bisexual transsexual women, 'the boys can take care of themselves.' Filisa Vistima was not a boy, and she found it impossible to take care of herself."
Now, Filisa Vistima sure as hell didn't end her life out of sexual frustration. And she didn't live to see a community where "transmasculinity" would be seen as sexy and revolutionary while she would likely have continued to be seen as marginal and suspicious; tokenized at best. She probably didn't live to see cis queer women talk about their love and lust for "trannies" - but not the women like herself who found themselves at the end of that slur. She probably didn't live to hear about her "brothers" saying misogynistic things about us to cis women when she wasn't around in order to impress them - something I and many queer trans women now get to hear about ALL THE TIME.
"Did Filisa Vistima commit suicide, or did the queer community of Seattle kill her?"
I think it bears mentioning a point made by Vivane Namaste in Invisible Lives - that these discussions often stand in to erase what is a reality for many of us - that we are already as integrated into women's social and work environments, and that our status as women is sometimes not even controversial in our daily lives. As this relates to queer women's communities, this takes the form of what Julia Serano termed the "insider-outsider myth." We are already a part of these communities, yet still often treated like we're on probation, under scrutiny for signs of "male energy" or vestigial "male privilege." And the hurt and rage we feel at this situation is not a product of blind Seranoist dogma or a "radical transfeminist orthodoxy," it's a fight for something that is critical to our lives.
So when I see trans men exclaiming "I don't even hang out with dykes because I don't want to be seen as one/because I don't want to be feitshized/because I only date men/etc.," I think that's great. But don't use it to dismiss our concerns. Don't use it to erase the past 10+ years of trans men attending "WBW" spaces and having their differences celebrated while claiming to speak for us. Don't use it to cop out of confronting privilege where it exists or of owning the potentially less-fun things about appearing male and/or masculine in the world. I think we can acknowledge that cis women exercise cis power over trans men, but trans men are not simply victims - the cis lesbians I know who have been aggressively pursued by predatory trans men can speak to that. The way in which the culture of Special Decaf Men has undoubtedly enabled a well-knowntrans man "XX Boy" to evade accountability for multiple rapes (and still end up with lots of fanboys and featured on the original version of the "Top Hot Butches[sic]" site) can speak to that. So clearly, in kyriarchy, one power differential does not cancel out another, and this is why I think it's disingenuous to say that trans men collectively have NO responsibility for addressing what they may not, on an individual level, take part in, or that have harmful effects on them. The fact that I am transsexual, fat, femme, neuroatypical, "mentally ill," a woman, and a queer, coupled with the fact that I am not typically an averse racist, doesn't erase the fact that I am white, or infer that I have no responsibility for the systemic effects of whiteness (a social construct, not a skin color) - even in those situations where whiteness works against me or when it seems mitigated by oppressions I face.
The "transsexual [white gender-conforming middle-aged upper-middle-class women's] community" that makes you feel excluded? Yeah, young trans dykes and gender non-conforming female spectrum folks don't exactly find shelter and support there either. We get told that we're not really trans, that we're transitioning the wrong way, that we're kidding ourselves about finding any kind of acceptance as queer women (since most of us aren't already married/partnered), that the trans women who "make the most noise" are the ones who will never be passable and couldn't assimilate if we/they wanted to, that we can't successfully transition without a lot of money, that sex workers give trans women a bad name, and at best, told that we have it so easy transitioning at a young age. If that isn't your experience, take a moment to consider just how toxic and damaging it must be for a vulnerable and terrified young girl who is just coming out. So instead, many of us do find ourselves in communities where trans men and FAAB genderqueers outnumber us by a factor of 10 or more. Hell, the first time I had the guts to walk into a dyke bar was as a trans man's girlfriend. I'm not the only trans woman I know who didn't feel the most glares coming from angry androdykes who survived the 70s and 80s, but from trans male and masculine-spectrum people and their cissexual woman+femme partners in our own cohort. And this is NOT universalizing experiences of trans women in Portland, San Francisco, or Northhampton or a few annual hipster queer conferences, as I've never even been to any of those places and live just outside of a not-so-queer-friendly city with less than a million people, and this is still very relevant to my own life.
Please understand that talking about complex, systemic oppression in which another oppressed group has a hand is not about "painting everyone in X group with broad strokes" (the cliche I'm expecting most of all in response). Before you accuse me of being divisive, ask yourself: is it members of the dominant group who are usually framed as "divisive?" Whose interests do accusations of divisiveness serve? What effect does that have on the "dialog" that we are often accused of shutting down? And you know, I'm open to learning that I'm wrong about conclusions I've drawn. I'm really just trying to articulate the experiences and emotions of myself and many young women I know - in part because when older queer trans women speak up about this, or when we allow supportive trans men to speak for us, it's those of us who are more vulnerable who are usually most affected by the backlash. And I do not want, nor do I have the resources, to be a ~trans woman separatist~ anytime soon.
Some trans men and other FAAB trans/genderqueer people have dismissed entirely the notion that they hold privilege over trans women in "dyke" or "women and trans" spaces, because it can seem quite absurd to frame being fetishized as a function of privilege. While that's understandable on the surface, I hope I can illustrate what I see as a complex interplay of privilege and oppression here.
One such person made a particularly faulty analogy to cis male chasers of trans women, and the fact that you don't see trans men complaining that they're not desired by these men. It's certainly true that many women in "dyke" or "women and trans" communities objectify trans male spectrum people in ways that are particularly ungendering and oppressive to trans men. But as we've seen in the entire history of "SOFFA" and "transsensual" communities, many of these people are in long-term relationships with trans men and get involved in activism and aren't the least bit shy about it. Many of us hear and read what these people say about their partners and cringe - my friend's terrible girlfriend who still tells people that she's a "gold star" is a good (bad) example.
Yet, it can still seem like a favorable situation compared to the ones that trans women often find themselves in with cis male chasers. These men are rarely interested in long-term emotional intimacy, and being treated like someone's dirty little secret is something that trans women who seek male partners frequently have to face. I've never once heard of les/bi/queer female partners of trans men who were ashamed to be seen in public, in daylight, with their trans male partners. And this doesn't even touch on the real, fundamental difference between seeking assimilation into the straight world, and seeking to be a part of communities centered on queer [de facto cis] women and trans [de facto male and masculine spectrum] people, which I will get to in a moment.
It's not talked about much, but in addition to being fetishized by men, some of us have found ourselves fetishized by les/bi/queer cis women, particularly within BDSM/kink communities. Yet we are inevitably treated much the same way we would be by cis male chasers, as exotic sex toys and not much else. Would I want these women to take me on their arm to show me off and out me to everyone we meet, to make my transition experiences All About Them, to parade me around queer conferences like a flashy accessory, to complain to other self-aggrandizing "SOFFAs" that being intimate with me can be, oh my gosh, challenging? No, probably not. But I feel that a disparity remains, and to make that sort of analogy is not just grossly inadequate, it's dishonest. This is not Oppression Olympics. This is what a power differential in a kyriarchal world looks like.
So while I sympathize very strongly with those trans men who find it ungendering to be desired by women who don't include cis men in their dating pool, the position of trans male spectrum people who DO continue to place themselves within "dyke" or "women and trans" space, and the relative privilege afforded to them compared to trans women, is about a lot more than who is getting laid and who, presumably, isn't. Not being seen as even remotely desirable IS a perfectly valid grievance for les/bi/queer trans women, but the reason for trans women's seemingly uncontainable rage about this is because there's a lot more at stake. Problematic as their presence may be, I think it's obvious that trans men who remain in these spaces do so for reasons besides gettin' their dicks sucked. They remain in these spaces for the same reasons trans women seek access to them, the same reasons anyone does: support networks and everything else a "queer community" hopefully provides. After all, when was the last time you heard about a trans woman's partner throwing her a party for her breast augmentation fund?
For me, this brings to mind what Susan Stryker wrote about Filisa Vistima, a bisexual trans woman who committed suicide in 1993:
"The Lesbian Resource Center where she served as a volunteer conducted a survey of its constituency to determine whether it should stop offering services to male-to-female transsexuals. Filisa did the data entry for tabulating the survey results; she didn't have to imagine how people felt about her kind. The Seattle Bisexual Women's Network announced that if it admitted transsexuals the SBWN would no longer be a women's organization. 'I'm sure,' one member said in reference to the inclusion of bisexual transsexual women, 'the boys can take care of themselves.' Filisa Vistima was not a boy, and she found it impossible to take care of herself."
Now, Filisa Vistima sure as hell didn't end her life out of sexual frustration. And she didn't live to see a community where "transmasculinity" would be seen as sexy and revolutionary while she would likely have continued to be seen as marginal and suspicious; tokenized at best. She probably didn't live to see cis queer women talk about their love and lust for "trannies" - but not the women like herself who found themselves at the end of that slur. She probably didn't live to hear about her "brothers" saying misogynistic things about us to cis women when she wasn't around in order to impress them - something I and many queer trans women now get to hear about ALL THE TIME.
"Did Filisa Vistima commit suicide, or did the queer community of Seattle kill her?"
I think it bears mentioning a point made by Vivane Namaste in Invisible Lives - that these discussions often stand in to erase what is a reality for many of us - that we are already as integrated into women's social and work environments, and that our status as women is sometimes not even controversial in our daily lives. As this relates to queer women's communities, this takes the form of what Julia Serano termed the "insider-outsider myth." We are already a part of these communities, yet still often treated like we're on probation, under scrutiny for signs of "male energy" or vestigial "male privilege." And the hurt and rage we feel at this situation is not a product of blind Seranoist dogma or a "radical transfeminist orthodoxy," it's a fight for something that is critical to our lives.
So when I see trans men exclaiming "I don't even hang out with dykes because I don't want to be seen as one/because I don't want to be feitshized/because I only date men/etc.," I think that's great. But don't use it to dismiss our concerns. Don't use it to erase the past 10+ years of trans men attending "WBW" spaces and having their differences celebrated while claiming to speak for us. Don't use it to cop out of confronting privilege where it exists or of owning the potentially less-fun things about appearing male and/or masculine in the world. I think we can acknowledge that cis women exercise cis power over trans men, but trans men are not simply victims - the cis lesbians I know who have been aggressively pursued by predatory trans men can speak to that. The way in which the culture of Special Decaf Men has undoubtedly enabled a well-known
The "transsexual [white gender-conforming middle-aged upper-middle-class women's] community" that makes you feel excluded? Yeah, young trans dykes and gender non-conforming female spectrum folks don't exactly find shelter and support there either. We get told that we're not really trans, that we're transitioning the wrong way, that we're kidding ourselves about finding any kind of acceptance as queer women (since most of us aren't already married/partnered), that the trans women who "make the most noise" are the ones who will never be passable and couldn't assimilate if we/they wanted to, that we can't successfully transition without a lot of money, that sex workers give trans women a bad name, and at best, told that we have it so easy transitioning at a young age. If that isn't your experience, take a moment to consider just how toxic and damaging it must be for a vulnerable and terrified young girl who is just coming out. So instead, many of us do find ourselves in communities where trans men and FAAB genderqueers outnumber us by a factor of 10 or more. Hell, the first time I had the guts to walk into a dyke bar was as a trans man's girlfriend. I'm not the only trans woman I know who didn't feel the most glares coming from angry androdykes who survived the 70s and 80s, but from trans male and masculine-spectrum people and their cissexual woman+femme partners in our own cohort. And this is NOT universalizing experiences of trans women in Portland, San Francisco, or Northhampton or a few annual hipster queer conferences, as I've never even been to any of those places and live just outside of a not-so-queer-friendly city with less than a million people, and this is still very relevant to my own life.
Please understand that talking about complex, systemic oppression in which another oppressed group has a hand is not about "painting everyone in X group with broad strokes" (the cliche I'm expecting most of all in response). Before you accuse me of being divisive, ask yourself: is it members of the dominant group who are usually framed as "divisive?" Whose interests do accusations of divisiveness serve? What effect does that have on the "dialog" that we are often accused of shutting down? And you know, I'm open to learning that I'm wrong about conclusions I've drawn. I'm really just trying to articulate the experiences and emotions of myself and many young women I know - in part because when older queer trans women speak up about this, or when we allow supportive trans men to speak for us, it's those of us who are more vulnerable who are usually most affected by the backlash. And I do not want, nor do I have the resources, to be a ~trans woman separatist~ anytime soon.