The Company Cathy Brennan Keeps

What do Paula Deen, John Galliano, Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Charles Murray and Cathy Brennan have in common?

After very public expressions of bias against people different from themselves, all of them claimed they aren't bigots.  

The chief difference between them is the kinds of bigotry they denied.  Dean, Richards and Murray claimed not to have hatred toward those whose skins are darker than theirs.  Galliano and Gibson claimed they harbor no prejudice against adherents to the religion borne of the prophet Moses, or their descendants.  And the estimable Ms. Brennan claims she has no beef with transgender people.

In addition to their undeniable loathing of those who make the world uncomfortable for heterosexual cisgender Aryans, there are other commonalities in the ways in which they "outed" themselves, then denied what they wittingly or unwittingly revealed.

Their scenarios all went something like this:  Someone caught them making (or, in Murray's case, implying) a slur against some group of people.  Then they made public "apologies" laced with self-pity over their perceived victimhood--and, of course, denials that they are bigoted.  Some blame alcohol or drugs.  Others use coded language--or, in Murray's case, out-of-context statistics--to say, in essence, that there is some truth in stereotypes.

Really, they are no different from religious bigots who couch their homophobia in  claims that they "love the sinner, hate the sin"--or who quote any number of Bible verses, not only out of context, but also in translation.  You know, the sorts of folks who, as soon as the tables from their prayer breakfasts are folded, change the topic from how God hates the sin to how obnoxious the sinners are when they publicly kiss their same-sex partners.

(At least Rev. Fred Phelps and his followers have the integrity, if you can call it that, to say "God hates fags" whether or not they are in their pews or at the pulpit.)

If you don't believe that Ms. Brennan is transphobic, look at the statement she and Elizabeth Hungerford wrote and tendered to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in August, 2011.   To me, it reads like the "bathroom" argument on steroids.  The irony is, of course, that their statement ultimately disempowers women--including those they define as "real" women--by reducing them to their urinary and sexual organs, as well as to a particular body function most have from the time they're adolecents until they reach middle age.  It also makes the unbelievable assumption that all men are not only capable of impregnating women, but would use that ability to coerce women to their will.

Yet they--like all of the other "second wave" feminists and RadFem ideologues--fail to cite even a single case in which a pre-operative transgender woman raped, let alone impregnated, a cisgender woman in a bathroom.  Moreover, they claim that trans women have experienced the same sort of male privilege as cisgender men and have not suffered from prejudice, or even violence, for not fitting societal stereotypes of males.  

But, in at least one way, Brennan--and Hungerford--are even more mean-spirited than the other bigots I've mentioned.  They submitted their statement moments before the submissions deadline, which prevented trans people or our allies to responding to their misinformation and hateful rhetoric before a UN assembly.

That makes them bullies, pure and simple.

Worst of all, Brennan's behavior continues to amplify her hatred which, I believe, is an expression of resentment.  She's now doing the bidding of the Pacific Justice Institute, a misnamed group if there ever was one.  The PJI is making up, and using Brennan to circulate, stories of trans women attacking "real" women in bathrooms and locker rooms.   Oh, but it gets even better:  PJI staff attorney Matthew McReynolds has asserted that in merely entering a women's facility, a trans woman is committing assault.  On that basis, he, Brennan and transphobic feminists want to prevent states and municipalities from enacting policies that would allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of the gender in which they identify and spare many from harassment, violence and worse.

So...a high-profile bigot and bully is helping the cause of a group of bigots and bullies.  How much lower can someone go than that?  How much more proof do we need that Cathy Brennan is just as bigoted as Strom Thurmond ever was.

 

The Catholic Connection

A former co-worker once accused me of being a "self-hating Catholic."  She--who was attending a seminary while she worked with me--claimed that I would defend Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or just about any member of any ethnic group or race, before I would stand up for Catholics.

She was wrong about the "self-hating" part.  However, she might have been right about the other part of her claim.  As I pointed out to her, there aren't many places left--at least in the Western world--where the rights of Catholics have to be defended.  In most of the currently or formerly Judeo/Christian parts of the world, whatever discrimination Catholics suffer has to do with their race or ethnic heritage.  Francophone Canadians, nearly all of whom are (at least nominally) Catholics, are examples of what I mean.

Also, as I pointed out to her, I don't think of myself as Catholic, simply because it wouldn't be proper for me to do so.  I go to church only for funerals, weddings--and the occasional Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, which I attend for the music.  (Actually, I don't think of the latter as "going to church", any more than I see going into a cathedral to look at the stained glass or sculpture as church attendance.)  Furthermore, I don't participate in any other aspects of church life.  

I don't even factor my disagreement with much of Church doctrine into my non-identification with the church, for many Catholics--including some who are  relations and acquaintances--attend Mass and partake in other parts of Church life even though they disagree with even more of the ecclesiastical mandates than I do.

And then there are those who probably no more consider themselves Catholics than I do, but who agree with pronouncements from the College of Cardinals that are bigoted or simply illogical.  Their arguments--such as they are--can be summed up in such as this post.  

I guess I shouldn't be too shocked.  After all, Elijah Muhammad and George Lincoln Rockwell agreed that the races should be segregated.

But here's what I find interesting:  Three of the most prominent writers and activists in so-called Second Wave Feminism--Janice Raymond, Cathy Brennan and the late Mary Daly--have their origins in the Catholic Church.  Janice Raymond was a Sister of Mercy.  Daly,  a longtime professor of theology and feminist ethics at Jesuit-run Boston College, got all of her schooling in Catholic institutions.  And, to my knowledge--I am still researching this--Brennan also studied in schools and colleges connected with the Church.

And their fellow-traveler (at least when it comes to transphobia) Germaine Greer studied in a convent school before going to the University of Melbourne. I suppose her schooling gave her a lesson or two in standing up for her principles:  Shortly after she was appointed as a special lecturer and fellow at Newnham College of Cambridge University, she opposed the election of her transsexual colleague Rachael Padman to a fellowship.  Greer lost that fight and resigned after the case generated negative publicity.

I plan to explore the topic of this post in more detail, in later posts and, possibly, in other venues.  It isn't enough to merely equate the transphobia of the Church heirarchy with their transphobia.  After all, the Church is not the only institution whose leaders espouse homophobia, and hardly the only such institution to have schooled large numbers of people.  Also, there are plenty of people--including at least two whom I love dearly--who are practicing Catholics who were educated in Catholic schools but do not share in the transphobia expressed by the likes of Greer, Brennan, Raymond and Daly.

Learning more about how and why such trans-haters came from Catholic backgrounds is of more than passing or personal interest.  Those so-called Radical Feminists are, I believe, among the reasons why we have the Lost Generation of Transgenders I have mentioned in other posts.  They helped to create the climate of fear and paranoia--which dovetailed quite nicely with the agendae of the so-called Moral Majority and other right-wing religious zealots--that led to a generation of trans people opting not to transition or delaying their transitions--or, worse, dying horribly as a result of violence, homelessness and AIDS.  I want to hold them to account for that, but I also want to further understand how they became the sorts of people who complained about their own repression while doing everything they could to aid the oppression of people who have suffered at least as much discrimination as they have.

How Low Will Cathy Brennan Go--And For What?

In spite of the evil I've witnessed, I still have had hope for this world.  That hope was based on, among other things, that folks like Cathy Brennan and Janice Raymond didn't have children.  


Actually, I haven't thought that much about them, until recently.  Years ago, long before I started my transition, I read The Transsexual Empire and thought it was one of the most ludicrous things I'd ever read.  I still do.  Next to it, any of Professor Leonard Jeffries' rants about "Ice People" and "Sun People" seem like Nobel Prize-worthy science.


As I read further, one of my suspicions was confirmed:  Raymond, Brennan, et al, have no influence outside of a very small circle of so-called Second Wave Feminists.  Ironically enough, even though their hatred has more in common with that of folks like the Reverend Fred Phelps and certain members of the College of Cardinals and the Supreme Court, even they would never pay any mind to the nonsense Raymond and Brennan were spewing.


However, as demented as their so-called theories and arguments may be, I simply can't laugh them off anymore.  At least, I can't do that to the estimable Ms. Brennan.  You see, now she's doing what, in my old neighborhood, would be called some "real bad, real serious shit."


From Kelli Busey of Planetransgender, I have learned that Ms. Brennan has viciously "outed" a transgender teenager.  We saw what happened when Dharun Ravi, in essence, outed Tyler Clementi.  Making a trans teenager's identity public puts him or her at even greater risk  for being subjected to violence, and committing suicide (whether in the way Clementi did or slowly and more painfully through substance abuse or other means) than "outing" a gay or lesbian teenager would .




As vile as his actions were, at least Darun Ravi could claim, and many people would agree, that his actions were childish pranks gone horribly wrong.  However, Brennan can make no such claim.  In fact, she has no defense at all.  The only rationale she has is her own hatred, whatever its sources and purposes.  


In other words, it was a purely malicious act.  What I find really reprehensible is that she is trying to use the fears and stereotypes some people have about trans people to destroy a young man's life.  That stereotype is the transsexual-as-sexual-predator whose modus operandi--in sex and everything else in life--is deception.


Call me selfish, but one of the reasons I think what Brennan did is especially vile is that I have been victimized in the same way.  Someone I've mentioned on this blog tried to destroy my life--and succeeded in causing me health problems which are just now coming under control--by falsely accusing me of sexual crimes against other people.  


So, when I read about that seventeen-year-old trans boy whom Cathy Brennan  "outed," I felt as if she had assaulted me personally.  And, I would expect, a lot of other non-cisgender people felt the same way.


After pressure from Busey and others, the courageous Ms. Brennan removed the post in which she "outed" the young man from her website.  However, one of Kelli Busey's friends, Stephanie Stevens, saved it, and Busey published it on Scribe.  I am grateful to, and for, Ms. Busey and Stevens.