Trans people have been working for GLBT rights right alongside GLB people for a long time. We’re also the ones who get shoved aside, vilified, and sacrificed when we become too inconvenient (which is a slippery definition itself).

John Aravosis just doesn’t know his gay rights history.

My vitriol was directed mainly at Aravosis himself, something which I did not make clear in my earlier comment.

RE Michfest, I’m on the fence, and I can understand both views. But maybe that’s because I transitioned late in life and feel that I’ve had more “male” socialization than I like to think, regardless of how much I resisted that socialization. Eh, maybe it’s just internalized transphobia.

But anyway, no worries. You did not offend me.

I say this not to contradict or dismiss your comments in any way. As a cissexual woman, I obviously have no idea what it is to be a transwoman and have never faced these obstacles. I’m simply trying to explain to you what my thought process was at the time of writing those words, even though they were largely sarcastic, because I respect both you as one of my regular readers and the trans community as a whole.

I do apologize if I’ve been insensitive or offensive and I appreciate you taking the time to comment about your experiences.

Oh, and for the record, I personally do not support the WBW policy. As you said, you were born a woman. Though I think that transwomen definitely have a different experience of “womanhood” than cissexual women do, I don’t personally find that to be an excuse. I share different experiences from black women, poor women, lesbians, etc., but we’re all women and the policy is bullshit.

From your post:
Aravosis claims to not be bigoted against transfolk. And maybe he’s not.

I know that you probably mean “and maybe he’s not” almost as an expression of disbelief that he could be any other than bigoted. But his statement is one of a particularly disgusting level of transphobia, one that ignores our self-identity and that is used to justify violence against us. There’s little difference between his statement and those made by Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, Alix Dobkin, Michael’s Bailey and Savage, and many others.

John A, you may think that I’m some kind of sicko “man” who wants to cut off “his” penis, but you have obviously never actually listened to a trans woman. I was born a woman, just in a body that was assigned male by others, against my will. Get that through your head.

You know, I can deal with cissexual woman who are in favor of the WBW policy at Michfest, especially if they are arguing from the point of having been raised as a girl. While I don’t fully agree with that, I can understand that point of view, and have a reasoned discussion about it (what about trans girls who transition when they are 3 years old?, etc).

But there’s no way to reason with the rank hatred being spewed by Aravosis. He, and people like him, simply need to be stopped.

And yes, unfair as it may be, I am so angry about this and the whole ENDA mess, that my support for same-sex marriage is eroding. Not that I think that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be legal – it should – it’s just that put against the kind of hatred that I’m facing from so many SSM advocates, I don’t feel like putting much energy into it.

And I would just like to close by saying that one should not need identify with a person to recognize and fight for their rights. I cannot relate to the experiences of black women. But I still support and fight for their causes as a feminist, and if legislation was being passed that would somehow benefit predominently white women while primarily disadvantaging women of color (a taxation or health care bill, for example), I would in no way support it. Because I don’t want my life to be better at the expense of anyone else’s life being worse. If you support the transphobic ENDA, that’s your right. But do not lie to yourself that you are not abandoning the transgender community and making their fight for equal rights much, much more difficult.

The first sentence of the paragraph whose quote, in this blog, begins “Civil rights legislation — hell, all legislation…” actually begins in Aravosis’ article as “The main argument, which I support: practical politics.” And he’s right. Yes, I agree fully that it sucks that women did not get the vote (federally) for fifty years after black men. And I fully understand the consternation of everyone on account of that. However, and I am saying this as a white gay female — I think it is better for a minority to be partially represented than Not Represented At All. Furthermore, if you get into the history of the suffrage movements, for one thing it was a huge step for black men to even be recognised as men (and for black women to be recognised as women), and for another, there was precedent for -men- to vote. Women voting, no matter what their race, was a whole other kettle of fish for the country to deal with.

Does this make it right? Hell no. Never, at all. But it -is- the political evolutionary process. Things take time because people are stubborn. For me (or anyone) to argue passage of ENDA with the T or not at all, we would have to cease taking advantage of civil unions, domestic partnerships, and the domestic benefits offered by some employers. Why? Because our ultimate goal is marriage, and anything less is an insult, right?

I disagree — while I would prefer (of course) federally recognised marriage, right now I would be happy knowing that any kids/cats/wealth I produce with my future wife would go to her if something hideous happens to me, and vice versa. If the government has to call that a civil union in order for that to happen, then so be it.

I fully understand that my example is different from the “T or not to T” issue — but my point is that -any- step towards protection for the nontraditional/heterosexual community is a step in the right direction, and I believe that would be the point which Aravosis is arguing.

As for Aravosis being judgmental, the full sentence reads “I’m not passing judgment, I respect transgendered people and sympathize with their cause, but I simply don’t get how I am just as closely related to a transsexual (who is often not gay) as I am to a lesbian (who is). Is it wrong for me to simply ask why?”

So the man is saying that he does not identify with the transsexual/transgender experience, but that he DOES identify with the gay experience. It looks to me like he’s being honest. He is not being judgmental; he is saying that he does not feel related to a man who identifies as a woman. What’s wrong with that? I cannot begin to identify with the experience of any given black person, and you know what? I cannot identify with the transsexual or transgender experience either.

Does this mean that I, and therefore Aravosis, find that the T does not deserve protection? By his own words, no, and neither do I.

The passage of ENDA (sans the T) at least puts the gay community into a better position to provide support and protection for the T community, and that alone is reason enough for its passage. Is it ideal? Not at all, and as soon as it passes we have to immediately begin work for an amendment to include the T, but progression and reform in this country has NEVER happened at once, it has NEVER been anywhere near good enough on the first go (just look up how Jim Crow affected the black man’s vote), and it has NEVER affected all parts of any community equally.

We have to keep working for that, and in the interim, turning on people who dare be honest about their opinions (which may or may not coincide fully with our own) will be only a slide backward.

Uh huh. No judgement there at all.

They don’t.