More Cotton Ceiling
Apr. 17th, 2012 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rozkSomeone 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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 02:07 pm (UTC)1) You choose to sleep with cis women.
2) You refuse to even be polite enough to use transfolks' chosen terms and identities in their own spaces.
#1 is your choice.
#2 is participating in the Patriarchy's gender- and body-policing, falling perfectly in line with the majority rule. Which is sad and rather pathetic for a feminist, and really tragic for a lesbian, who, by nature of her self identification chooses to buck gender roles enough to sleep with and engage in romantic relationships with her own gender.
It wasn't that long ago that straight culture commonly told lesbians that they weren't real women, that they just wanted to be men, that they were broken and wrong and crazy and physically unfit. It is completely tragic that you can't see that you're just playing the scapegoat game by pointing fingers at people you think are more broken and wrong and crazy and physically unfit in order to distract Patriarchy from picking on you and your chosen people. You're wallowing around in your own internalized homophobia, as well as cultural transphobia and biphobia.
It's things like this that make me ashamed to be a cis woman and a lesbian who even once identified as a rad fem separatist.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 03:27 pm (UTC)I actually think transgenderism reinforces the patriarchy rather neatly. Don't fit into your society given gender role, don't bother challenging that role, just chnage your body. That reinforces patriarchy.
Staright culture told lesbians that they wanted to be men. It didn't tell lesbians they were physically men, as obviously physically they are women.
Biphobia here seems to mean a lesbian who doesn't want to sleep with men? Or have I got that wrong? And how have I been homophobic?
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 03:55 pm (UTC)Straight culture did often tell lesbians that their bodies were somehow wrong or broken, as well as their minds. Medicine has a long, long history of trying to surgically, pharmacologically, or otherwise "fix" gays, lesbians, and transpeople.
Plenty of people challenge their gender roles. For some, that is insufficient unto the cause of giving them peace and sanity. Western culture does not have a tradition of a third or fourth sex or gender, which often allows people who are not comfortable in their bodies cultural space to place themselves in a way that gives them a role outside the Western gender binary (but I note that there are often surgical solutions even in cultures that DO have traditions of third or fourth sexes/genders in order to better fit those sexes/genders).
To police other people's bodies and choices, though, the way that you're doing, is falling directly into line with Patriarchy and its mind control. By failing to use a person's chosen pronouns and identification, YOU ARE POLICING THEM -- you are telling them, in no uncertain terms, that they are MISBEHAVING and to GET BACK INTO THAT BOX that you have identified for them. You are telling them that THEY are lesser beings and that ONLY YOUR DEFINITION IS THE RIGHT DEFINITION. You keep saying that you're just stating your belief, but you are actively oppressing a minority by spouting the company line of the majority.
Biphobia here is directly applied to your statement about being "tricked" into sleeping with a transwoman. OH NOES YOU MIGHT HAVE SLEPT WITH SOMEONE WHO ONCE HAD A PENIS YOU MIGHT NOT BE A REAL LESBIAN. That is biphobia (AND transphobia), and it is no better than the men who, upon discovering that they got uncomfortable in their pants for a transwoman, feel it is perfectly allowable to beat or kill said transwoman.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:02 pm (UTC)Straight culture tried to "cure" lesbians and others through surgery, medication, etc of being lesbians. But they did not say that biologically they were not women.
I would actually be happy with the idea of a 3rd or 4th gender and I wish our culture did have this. And feminists challenge gender roles too you know.
So I am not allowed to have an opinion of what other people's choices are?? For example paedophilia. I am not conflating transgenderism with paedophilia, just pointing out that it is rubbish to say that we should never say what someone does with their body or the choices they make are wrong or inauthentic.
No it is not biphobia. I am a lesbian who sleeps with woman. To say that is discriminatory is to say there is no such thing as a lesbian.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:31 pm (UTC)It depends on who you read. And there's also this pervasive current work on the so-called gay gene, which has been used to claim that lesbians do not have brains like straight women do, and it has been suggested that "lesbian brain structure" is actually male (the same way that "gay men's brain structure" has been suggested to be feminized, and thus more womanly).
You're allowed to have opinions. How many people in this post have told you that gosh, you're allowed to have opinions? But when you, as part of the privileged majority (and by being a woman with a morphologically-from-birth-within-mostly-arbitrary-medical-standards female body, you have OODLES of privilege here), start addressing people by the gender YOU CHOOSE FOR THEM, you are acting the oppressor.
And by bringing up pedophilia in this thread, you have just conflated it with transgender issues, despite your immediate denial (which just shows that you're AWARE that you're doing it). You're really going for ALL the Transphobia (http://metalsunflower.wordpress.com/bingo/sexuality-and-gender-expression-bingo/2/) Bingo (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0om5mQRmB1qjc47uo1_1280.png) squares here, aren't you?
This is typical derailing behavior. I suggest you take a stroll through Derailing for Dummies (http://www.derailingfordummies.com/) to try to find some new strategies. Or maybe figure out why you shouldn't do it.
I never said there is no such thing as a lesbian. I'm a lesbian. I am so far pegged over on my Kinsey score that the meter is broken. But if I were sufficiently attracted to a woman to actually be contemplating sleeping with her, that person would be a woman no matter what her genital configuration might be.
You betrayed your biphobia and transphobia with the "tricked into sleeping with" comment. You're afraid that if you slept with a transwoman without knowing she was a transwoman that someone would come and take away your Certified Lesbian card. (And you admit that you would revoke someone's lesbianism for sleeping with a transwoman, though you would be "too polite" to tell her so. Except, presumably, by referring to her chosen partner as "he".) Because you yourself don't believe that transwomen are women. If they aren't women, how could they possibly "trick" you into sleeping with them?
This is all theoretical, since transwomen have no interest in somehow maliciously sabotaging your self-identity by jumping into bed with you, then laughing evilly and twirling their nonexistent villainous moustaches. The fact that you somehow think this is possible, that transwomen are part of some great Patriarchal game to try to sneak into wimmin's spaces and wimmin's beds and convince wimmin that they are really straight women, they just need the right surgically-removed or hormonally-altered penis to convince them to tear up their Lesbian Certificates? This is called TRANSPHOBIA.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 08:42 pm (UTC)Yes if a Trans man slept with me I would feel tricked.
Trans men as men are born and brought up with privilege as however you identify yourself, as a boy and young man you will have been viewed by society as a man. Yes lesbians can organise to exclude Trans men from women only spaces such as the Michigan Festival, but although that gives some privilege, in the overall scheme of society is a pretty small privilege to have.
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Date: 2012-04-19 08:33 am (UTC)it even happened in the feminst movement, their was rally strong move to exclude lesbians from the fieminist movement since they weren't really women
this is all about peoples insecurity about gender and how people define themselves in realtion to gender
we use different models, if i sat with you for a couple of hours I think i could help you change your understanding of how gender and sex work and why you and I are both women but at the end of it you might also they - well all that makes sense in theory but where is your definitive proof and i would have to admit I don't have any and nor does anyone else
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:07 pm (UTC)Oh does it? Then explain why the Patriarchy brutally punishes us in exactly the same manner you are doing when we dare defy their precious gender binary. Explain the more than 500 murders of trans people in the past 4 years if the Patriarchy so approves of trans people reinforcing them.
Well?
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Date: 2012-04-18 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:47 pm (UTC)When I challenged you to back up that claim you backpeadaled.
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Date: 2012-04-18 08:57 pm (UTC)As I asid before, I don't really understand why individual people and from what I have seen individual men hate and fear transgendered people so much. I think it might be because men can not understand why someone in a male body might want to change their body and self identity to a woman's. After all men being called a woman or being told they behave like a woman is an insult that is not uncommonly used.
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Date: 2012-04-19 08:46 am (UTC)when i used to go to dyke night new women coming in would ask why that bloke was in here. I know because i had this story related to me by people, who have said exatly that, several times. How they would come in, be told: "oh that's kate, you should chat to her" and they would chat to me and realise pretty quickly that i was just another dyke.
i'm huge btw, I am over 6 foot and currently carry quite a lot of fat, something i am hoping to lessen. i working on building my muscles up, you see i like muscles on women and thus want them myself (I can't wait for the olympics all those women swimmers..yum!) I'm a typical hacker/geek type - long hair, glasses, black coolmax t-shirts, black cargo pants, don't wear bras except when in the gym, vibram five finger shoes, makeup, what's makeup? Hang on this is starting to feel like an ad on ok cupid
no subject
Date: 2012-04-19 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:10 pm (UTC)Why is this so upsetting when we do it to you? Why do you so emphatically deny us our right to place ourselves on an equal footing with you? Can you not see your hypocrisy yet?
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:12 pm (UTC)Interesting how your perceptions of what is actual reality can differ so much from someone elses. Why is it so threatening to you to accept trans woman as women? I've been raped several times, sexually assulted and generally have waaaay too much direct physical and emotional experience of living in the patriarchy (I am a staunch feminist and bisexual to boot). But I have no fear of trans women. They *are* women inside their heads. The inside of our heads is where *we* as humans live.
What is it that is so precious to you about the notion of 'pure' woman and anyone who was not born into a female role in life? Why do you think that these women are problematic? If they are fighting patriarchy, if they're willing to admit that their life experiences up to living as woman are different (not better or worse, but different) to natal born women, why is this a problem? The chances of being sexually assulted by a trans woman are minute. As most MtF women can tell you hormones do a real number on your physical strength and even the ability for a penis(if one is still present) to even be able to rape you. Trans *want* to learn how to live as women, to be the gender role they feel they are, in whatever way they define it. I've never met a trans woman who was disrespectful of my fear of male strength or of my genuine concerns about how our socialisation affects communications.
However casting aside the issue of socialisation as women (which is going to become less of a problem as trans kids get hormone blockers at puberty so they can live safely in their chosen gender from the time they declare it) being a woman is an internal experience. I understand that you're trying to say (I think) that being treated like a woman from birth in the patriarchy is what you consider to be the only true and valid way of being a woman.
You can believe what you like, but the law disagrees with you, a lot of feminists disagree with you and it doesn't seem that you will get to enforce your particular views within a wider society for very much longer. I'd try to find a way to cope with that. If it mean you and your particular group of feminist lesbians all want to stay purist about it, by all means do. But in feminist spaces you don't have the right to define what is and isn't female in the way you seem to want to. Yours is not the only view and yours is not the only vote. If you are a minority then you have to deal with that. When it comes to human rights (and defining what gender you are and live in is a pretty fundemental one) you don't get to tell others what they are and enforce it in any meaningful way. Go and keep yourself off in your pure faith (which is effectively what it is).
As to the original article of the 'cotton ceiling' I don't think Roz was saying she thinks that all lesbians must sleep with trans women. No one should ever feel like they must. I read it as bemoaning the fact that some lesbians don't accept trans women as women. She isn't expecting you to change, she just wants to be able to talk about it. If people change their mind after reading that's fine, but she's not forcing that on you. You're wrong, for so many reasons, but I'm too ill and tired today to write anymore.
Yours,
Disabled mother of a MtF trans kid, who's been telling me he wanted to grow up into a woman since he was 2.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:41 pm (UTC)I am so sorry to hear you have been raped and sexually assaulted, that is a truly horrendous experience. At no time on here have I talked about Trans men raping except when I was told that the definition of Trans includes men who wear a dress for a day.
"Trans *want* to learn how to live as women, to be the gender role they feel they are,"
Surely if they are woman they don't have to learn how to live as woman - they would just live as themselve.
You are right the law does disagree with me and as i have repeatedly pointed out, I have no power to enforce anything on anyone. I do have the right to say what I think though.
Sorry to hear you are feeling ill and I do wish your child every luck for the future.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 04:55 pm (UTC)This is precisely what we want to do, except you and your fellow essentialists do not wish to acknowledge our right to do so, and actively campaign to supress us, just as you have been attempting to do throught this thread.
And still again you force your definition of trans women as men into the conversation. Still.
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Date: 2012-04-18 05:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-04-19 09:11 am (UTC)theitr is transgender men who are men who are trans for example the drag up as women, but they see themselves as men
their are also transexual women who you have defined as men and you seem to shorten that to trans men
they are two distinct groups the first are men the second see themselves as women and have considered themselves to be female since they were were aware that society differentiated between men and women i..e sometime between 2 and 5 years old
when we are talking about transwomen we are talking about group two not group one
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Date: 2012-04-18 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-18 10:34 pm (UTC)Sorry for dragging out the drama in your blog, Roz. I just couldn't resist helping her make such a fool of herself.
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Date: 2012-04-18 10:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-04-19 08:23 am (UTC)this isn't our space, this is a point of meeting unless i have readically misunderstood what Roz has said
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Date: 2012-04-19 02:38 pm (UTC)