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More Cotton Ceiling
Someone commented anonymously on my previous post as follows:
Why shouldn't a lesbian, of which I am one, decide that she only wants to sleep with women - and by women I mean people with female bodies. In my book, that is the definition of a lesbian. I am not being prejudiced by declaring i will never sleep with men or never sleep with Trans people with male bodies, I am simply stating my preference as a lesbian.
I think actually it is quite arrogant for Trans people to tell lesbians what their definition of a lesbian should be.
I don't know who this is. though psrticular coincidences of phrasing make me think that it may be Cath Brennan =@bugbrennan on Twitter- who seems to regard herself as totally my nemesis. But, I don't actually know it is her and I choose to prefer to believe that someone who has tweeted me links to hate sites with my photo on them would have the good taste not to post here. Later Not Brennan apparently, just someone who shares her views and uses some of the same phrasing.
So, to address the point raised...
In the first case, what do you mean by 'female bodies'? Do you mean 'the bodies of people assigned female at birth' or do you mean 'those bodies I regard as female by some criteria I will tell you about but have not'? And when you say 'female', is there, as oddly there sometimes seems to be in people who take the position you are taking here. a subtle distinction between the word 'female' and the word 'woman'? Are you saying that you would never want to sleep with someone who had a penis, however else they presented, or are you saying that you would never want to sleep with someone who had ever had a penis, no matter how much surgery they had had?
Do you insist on a full physical examination of your potential lovers? An up-to-date report from their gynaecologist? Or do you, like some of the people who comment on GenderTrender, believe that you just always know when a trans woman is in the room? That your womb twitches, or the hairs on your neck dance widdershins, or that you can smell them out? That their vaginal juices just taste different? (For people late to this particular conversation, or too sane to go near Gendertrender,I am not making this shit up. Honest. Not even exaggerating much.)
In which case. presumably, you also think it arrogant of trans people to want to have sex with anyone without full disclosure of their past. present and future genital configuration? Or do you think that lesbians. of whom you are one, should have some rights in this matter greater than those allocated to straight women, straight men and gay men? You did say 'trans people', but did you actually mean 'trans women'? Or are you choosing to regard as 'female' the bodies of trans men? Wouldn't that too be rather arrogant? And I notice, when you talk of arrogance, that you regard your own ideas about what constitutes a female body as trumping the ideas of the person who is that body?
Am I being arrogant in asking to have a conversation when your particular brand of lesbianism gives you a full and total answer and anything I might say is redundant?
No one here is telling anyone what they ought to think or to whom they ought to be attracted. I wrote my original post as the start of a conversation. The question is, rather, to ask them to justify that preference. Some lesbians like to talk as if they could never sleep with women who had ever slept with a man; is that a justifiable preference? One of my lovers was told that, if she slept with me, no decent woman would ever want to touch her again' - would that be a justifiable preference? Some straight men say that, if they ever found out that someone they'd slept with was trans, they would kill them. Is that justified? Or at least, do you understand that level of anger, rather than regarding it with abhorrence?
I certainly would not want to sleep with any woman who had strong views about my past. I don't know any lesbian trans woman who would want to. For me, this has not always been an abstract question. I'm out and have always been out, and don't try to pass past a level that ensures basic social safety - I have nonetheless had occasional unequivocal passes made at me by women I had reason to believe shared your views and have regarded myself as obliged to make specific and explicit disclosure, just as I had to, back in the days when I was still sleeping with men. I certainly would not want the consequent awkwardness to happen after sex rather than before it. On occasion, though, I've thought it a shame, because I am weak and human, and my preference not to sleep with transphobic bigots is sometimes something I've had to weigh against sexual attraction.
It must be nice to be encased in certainty as to who everyone you meet is, and have perpetual hard guidelines about which of them are off-limits - or maybe not. How would you feel about a woman who said she would only sleep with women of her own race or religion? Or who had preferences about body weight, class, level of able-bodiedness? Just saying.
Why shouldn't a lesbian, of which I am one, decide that she only wants to sleep with women - and by women I mean people with female bodies. In my book, that is the definition of a lesbian. I am not being prejudiced by declaring i will never sleep with men or never sleep with Trans people with male bodies, I am simply stating my preference as a lesbian.
I think actually it is quite arrogant for Trans people to tell lesbians what their definition of a lesbian should be.
I don't know who this is. though psrticular coincidences of phrasing make me think that it may be Cath Brennan =@bugbrennan on Twitter- who seems to regard herself as totally my nemesis. But, I don't actually know it is her and I choose to prefer to believe that someone who has tweeted me links to hate sites with my photo on them would have the good taste not to post here. Later Not Brennan apparently, just someone who shares her views and uses some of the same phrasing.
So, to address the point raised...
In the first case, what do you mean by 'female bodies'? Do you mean 'the bodies of people assigned female at birth' or do you mean 'those bodies I regard as female by some criteria I will tell you about but have not'? And when you say 'female', is there, as oddly there sometimes seems to be in people who take the position you are taking here. a subtle distinction between the word 'female' and the word 'woman'? Are you saying that you would never want to sleep with someone who had a penis, however else they presented, or are you saying that you would never want to sleep with someone who had ever had a penis, no matter how much surgery they had had?
Do you insist on a full physical examination of your potential lovers? An up-to-date report from their gynaecologist? Or do you, like some of the people who comment on GenderTrender, believe that you just always know when a trans woman is in the room? That your womb twitches, or the hairs on your neck dance widdershins, or that you can smell them out? That their vaginal juices just taste different? (For people late to this particular conversation, or too sane to go near Gendertrender,I am not making this shit up. Honest. Not even exaggerating much.)
In which case. presumably, you also think it arrogant of trans people to want to have sex with anyone without full disclosure of their past. present and future genital configuration? Or do you think that lesbians. of whom you are one, should have some rights in this matter greater than those allocated to straight women, straight men and gay men? You did say 'trans people', but did you actually mean 'trans women'? Or are you choosing to regard as 'female' the bodies of trans men? Wouldn't that too be rather arrogant? And I notice, when you talk of arrogance, that you regard your own ideas about what constitutes a female body as trumping the ideas of the person who is that body?
Am I being arrogant in asking to have a conversation when your particular brand of lesbianism gives you a full and total answer and anything I might say is redundant?
No one here is telling anyone what they ought to think or to whom they ought to be attracted. I wrote my original post as the start of a conversation. The question is, rather, to ask them to justify that preference. Some lesbians like to talk as if they could never sleep with women who had ever slept with a man; is that a justifiable preference? One of my lovers was told that, if she slept with me, no decent woman would ever want to touch her again' - would that be a justifiable preference? Some straight men say that, if they ever found out that someone they'd slept with was trans, they would kill them. Is that justified? Or at least, do you understand that level of anger, rather than regarding it with abhorrence?
I certainly would not want to sleep with any woman who had strong views about my past. I don't know any lesbian trans woman who would want to. For me, this has not always been an abstract question. I'm out and have always been out, and don't try to pass past a level that ensures basic social safety - I have nonetheless had occasional unequivocal passes made at me by women I had reason to believe shared your views and have regarded myself as obliged to make specific and explicit disclosure, just as I had to, back in the days when I was still sleeping with men. I certainly would not want the consequent awkwardness to happen after sex rather than before it. On occasion, though, I've thought it a shame, because I am weak and human, and my preference not to sleep with transphobic bigots is sometimes something I've had to weigh against sexual attraction.
It must be nice to be encased in certainty as to who everyone you meet is, and have perpetual hard guidelines about which of them are off-limits - or maybe not. How would you feel about a woman who said she would only sleep with women of her own race or religion? Or who had preferences about body weight, class, level of able-bodiedness? Just saying.
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(Anonymous) 2012-04-17 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)Please don't refer to me as a cis woman. I am a woman.
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Of course a female body is not just an absence of a penis, as you know that was shorthand. We all recognise what a female body looks like - including Trans MtoT who have surgery, etc to try and make their male body look like a female one.
Interesting that you chose that particular piece of shorthand. And, when people say we all know something to be simple, that is actually very complicated. what they usually mean is that they want to pretend it's simple, when knowing perfectly well that it is not.
I don't know who you are, I have just read your post today so have no idea how you personally have described your transgenerism. However all the "explanations" I have read or heard of transgenderism from Trans people are based around being trapped in the wrong body, having a male brain in a female body, or vice versa, or a similar discourse. If this does not fit with your idea of transgenderism, please tell me how you "know" you are a woman.
I'm not actually here to explain myself to you.If I could put into words my feelings and my experiences down the years, I probably wouldn't be a poet or even a writer. What I will say is something like, I felt an ache in my bones that told me that I wasn't a boy or a man that was less the more I thought of myself as a woman. But that isn't it. How do you know you are a woman? Why would my sense of myself as one, irrespective of what my body used to be like, be any different? Some things are simply the case.
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Fighting against harassment is totally different to giving people access to certain spaces. I don't think for example men should have access to woman only spaces. I don't call that harassment. Do you? So no I don't want MtoT to have access to lesbian spaces for women born women.
So maybe you would speak out if you saw someone being shouted at in the street. Well, I suppose we should be grateful for that. But you would bar trans women from lesbian bars - irrespective of whether other lesbians were OK with them being there - and would be upset if we went to law about it. So, trans women are allowed to be lesbian, but not to have anywhere to go - quite a lot of lesbian trans women only date each other but they still wouldn't have a safe space to drink or dance with other lesbians.
And how do you feel about raped trans women in rape crisis centres, battered trans women in women's refuges, dying trans women in women's wards in hospices? People calling themselves lesbian feminists have argued against all of those things using the arguments you use so when you say you oppose harrassment, what does it actually mean? And what is it worth?
I would never abuse or question anyone who decided to date or live with a Trans man because they were Trans. Who people date is up to them.
Really? That's good of you. If they were your friend, would you not be even the slightest bit tempted to try and persuade them not to. Really not? You wouldn't tell them that they would get their gold star badge taken away? Not even a bit. Well, OK
As to 'cis', if you prefer 'non-trans', that's up to you. We are all women, but you don't like accepting me as such.
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"Vampire draining lesbians" - this made me smile.
You're the one who uses weird metaphors about sharing energy.
Do you really not understand the difference between being with a woman and being with a Trans person who has been socialised as a boy and man for at least their childhood and teenage years? There are real difference because of socilaisation in how men and women behave and some of this is extremely subtle particularly in relationships. As a lresbian I have chosen to spend my time with women who also have been socialised as girls and women.
Now, for someone who thinks they are not being rude, you are awfully certain that my relationship of the last two decades is somehow invalid and lesser. I think that, perhaps, as someone who has dated other trans women, and been in a relationship for many years with someone who is not trans, I perhaps know more about what's different and what's the same than you do. But, of course, I am trans myself so you can regard anything I say as coming from a lower state of consciousness.
I know anybody who steps out of proscribed gencder roles including Trans people and women, especially growing up, can have a very hard time. So I know it is difficult for many Trans people growing up. But your experience and socialisation is different to that of girls and women.
You resisted socialization to make you conform to heteronormativity. I did that too, only I also resisted socialization to make me male just as some of my trans brothers resisted socialization to make them female. Sometimes you regard bodies as more important and sometimes socialization - and you think both are very simple linear processes, except when it suits you.
You say I am being rude by refering to MtoT as men or Trans men rather than women or she. I am simply stating what I see as a fact. Just as you tell me that the definition of a lesbian is not as I see it, a woman who is attracted to other women with female bodies only. Is that rude? I actaully think neither of us are rude, we are simply debating.
I'm trying to understand how you 'see as a fact' important aspects of the life of someone you have never met, and feel entitled to tell them that they are wrong about those aspects, and not be insulting.
If you want me to respect your wish to be called she and a woman, then respect my wish to be called a lesbian with a definition where I only sleep with women with female bodies. But you don't do you.
I totally respect your desire to sleep with women - and indeed share it. I'm just asking you to consider the possibility that your definition is narrow. That is not insulting you in the way that misgendering me is - and using language to do so which misgenders all trans women and all trans men. This all started with you telling me that trans people are arrogant. Consider the irony.
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And that fact has no value judgment attached to it at all. You need to get over yourself.
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Cis is not a value neutral term. The word cis is based on the idea that there are:
1. Two types of women, those born with a female body and those born with a male body.
2. Those born with a male body are described as Trans, so the term cis is used to describe those born with a female body.
I do not believe that anyone born with a male body is a woman. So there is no need for the term cis or even non trans. I am simply a woman.
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And once again you stick to your delusion that trans women are not women. Once again you attempt to label us what we are not.
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