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| Feminist Dilemma: Separating Women From Trannys |
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| Opinion - Guest Columns | |||
| Rev. Cathryn Platine | |||
| Saturday, 23 April 2011 09:00 | |||
 Palenville, NY, USA. As the transgender movement pushes itself more and more on the public this question has become more and more important to feminist women: How can you tell trans people from women, where do you set the bar? This has proved out as a larger problem than it first appears.For the past fifteen or so years, the gender studies branch of theology, administered by the gender therapist priests, has been busy approving sex reassignment surgery for pretty much anyone who comes to them and tells them they feel like a woman. As a result, the common sense method of those with female bodies ceased to be an accurate indicator of "woman" by flooding society with post operative crossdressers who then insist on forcing themselves into women's spaces. It is far simpler in the case of those who desire to keep primary male attributes and claim womanhood, that's just patently nuts on its face. A pre-corrected woman born transsexed would die of embarrassment before she would enter a place of female nudity so she really isn't all that hard to separate out. The Holy Grail for trannyland became the Michigan Wyman's Music Festival, which had decided lesbian separatist roots. [N1] Recently this issue rose in Pagan Circles as well when a Dianic group held a ritual at a public Pagan get-together that was to be "skyclad" (or nude). A bunch of uncorrected trans women insisted on taking part as well as an out and out male.Back when I first transitioned I took part in a series of what is known as Trans 101 presentations where a panel of experts would do a presentation for groups on the basics of transsexuality, transgenderism and related gender issues. Lots of us do this at the early stages of transition. I found myself on the same panel as the local gender therapist guru and what I called her traveling troop of trannys at a local, large Unitarian Universalist (UUA) church. [N2] She actually made these women do these presentations as the cost of getting their surgery letters. One of the women was a newly post operative woman I was simply in awe of. Perfect figure, beautiful and with the most feminine voice I'd ever heard. As a result of that presentation, both she and I started attending services at that church and as I got to know her a bit better I discovered she was unhappy, a constant victim of transphobic attacks on her property and very insecure about her own presentation. And I noticed something else as well. I was immediately welcomed among the women of the church, especially the lesbian and bi women. I was invited to the informal brunches, the lunches during the week, the walks in the botanical gardens, the evening get-togethers and so forth and she was not. While both of us were known transsexuals from the original presentation, she was much much more classically feminine in appearance than middle aged, broad shouldered and Bea Arthur voiced me. And yet, I had no problem just being one of the girls and she did. When I finally asked a couple of my friends what was going on the answer surprised me. I was told it was because I was obviously totally comfortable with my own womanhood and in my own skin and she wasn't. That I vibed woman and she didn't. In the past I have been forced to use the concept of woman vibes to explain this but it is probably much more simple. Women do not need any actual validation of their own womanhood; it simply is. Trannys need constant validation of womanhood — therein lies the difference. Even with a transsexed history, if you actually accept your own womanhood it is not threatened by some random radfem rantings because it can only be taken from you if you agree to it. [N3] But transpeople feel the need to answer each and every challenge. The Michigan Wyman's Music Festival is a perfect example. You pay money to camp in the woods, work your butt off, get eaten alive by mosquitoes the size of fighter planes and listen to marginal music — big money. If this is your thing, fine, but personally I can and do camp out without all the costs and my own choice of music. But this is the holy grail of transdom, forcing their way into this festival as validation of womanhood. You see, women simply do not force themselves on other women out of a need for validation because women do not need validation of what they know they are, women. Another excellent example is Janice Raymond and Mary Daly. Almost every informed feminist knows and most likely has read Daly. [N4] Unless they have come into contact with transwomen though, they never heard of Daly's lover, Janice Raymond. But you will be hard put to find anyone trans anything who has not heard of Raymond. She is evil incarnate because she wrote a book about transsexuals being agents of the patriarchy and invading woman's space. [N5] The question is, why does anyone give a damn at this point in time given almost no feminist women even know who she is let along read her book? The answer apparently is that most transwomen do not accept themselves as actual women regardless of all the claims to the contrary and as a result, when they are in woman's space, everything has to be all about their womanhood all the time, all trans all the time, no breaks. Frequently you can see this clearly when they encounter a woman of transsexed history who is comfortable in her own womanhood, more often than not they will attack that womanhood with some sort of grade school  genetics about they will always be male because of XY chromosomes or occasionally attacks directly on the woman's genitals as "not real". [N6]They do so because they are projecting their own insecurity in being women themselves. But a funny thing is that if you are secure in your womanhood, just as any other woman basically is, radfems and trannys are left with nothing, religious bigots have nothing to work with and you will find you can then move on and have actually conversations with them and they will, at least in your case, default back to you being a woman because they have nowhere else to go. With the trannys, conversations with them are almost impossible because of their own insecurities that put them in an endless feedback loop. So how do you separate women from trannys? Women have no pressing need of self validation and those born transsexed blow it off just as any other woman would. Trannys know they aren't women down deep. It's probably that simple. You are a woman or you are not, and if you have a trans history inside you know the answer whether you are or not. Notes[N1] Michigan Wyman's Music Festival (MWMF). The MWMF is an annual feminist music festival with international attendance that takes place in Hart, Michigan every August. Feminist politics is the source of an alternative spelling that results in womyn. Since its founding, the MWMF has specified acceptable attendees as "womyn born womyn" (WBW), defined as those born and raised as girls, currently identifying as women.
[N2] Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) of Congregations in North America. The UUA is a liberal religious association that is defined as non-creedal (that is, not limited to Christian beliefs or affinities). Each participant combines their sources of wisdom from a variety of religious traditions — including Buddhism, Christianity, Humanism, Judaism, and other spiritual disciplines. [N3] Radical feminism, or radfem, is a type of feminism that centers attention on the system of patriarchy, which organizes society based on a male imposition of supremacy to oppress women. [N4] Mary Daly (October 16, 1928 – January 3, 2010) was an American philosopher, theologian and academic who taught at the Jesuit-operated Boston College for 33 years. Daly described herself as a radical lesbian feminist. While she allowed male students to take her introductory class, she imposed private tutoring for those who requested the advanced coursework. [N5] Janice G. Raymond (b. 1949) is a professor emerita of women's studies and medical ethics at the University of Massachusetts. In her highly contentious book, The Transsexual Empire: the making of the she-male (1979), Raymond contends that male-to-female transsexuals are part of a plot by men to infiltrate the women's movement and "colonize feminist identification, culture, politics and sexuality." She says: "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves .... Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive." [N6] The criticism that an individual will always be male because of the XY chromosome is based on the "Y", or presumed male, portion, a position invalidated by overwhelming scientific evidence. Occasionally, some attack the reality of the female's genitals, ignoring the homology of sex organs and validation from untold numbers of gynecologists.
 Rev. Cathryn Platine is a founder of the Maetreum of Cybele and the author of The Cybeline Revival, a revival of the ancient Cybeline faith. Cathryn also hosts her blogs, Riding the Second Wave and Telling My Stories: A life lived outside, and her personal Facebook page.Rev. Platine's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. She welcomes your comments.
 The TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates.We welcome your comments. Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission. TS-Si is dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, and legal protection of individuals correcting the misalignment of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens. To create link towards this article on your website, copy and paste the text below in your page. Preview :
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| Last Updated on Monday, 25 April 2011 11:06 |
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