The Double Bind

This morning, before going for a bike ride, I went to the store.  Along the way, I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in a while.  She recently completed her Master of Fine Arts degree.  For her thesis, she made multi-media collages that celebrated women’s sexuality.  While she was working on it and taking her classes, she had a job in the same institution where she earned her degree.

She talked about the shame and guilt she had to overcome to do her creative work.  It occurred to me then that women still have to get past the notions that we are tainted and damned simply because we are women and have sexual desires, whatever they may be.  And people denounce us whether or not we express who we are.  Those who tell us that we’re being too conservative or dowdy are the first ones to condemn us for wearing anything that even hints at our sexuality, and those who denounce us for being “too sexy” are the ones who complain that we’re “too boring” when we “tone it down.”

I’m thinking now about Segolene Royal, who lost the French Presidential election to Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.  She’s been voted “the best-dressed politician in Europe and, while not provocative, does not play down her physical attractiveness.  In response to those who criticized her for that, she’s said, “Who says politicians have to be ugly and boring?”

It occurs to me now that this is one of the dilemmas trans people face all the time.  Those of us who identify as women experience everything I’ve just described and, because we have lived as males, we are probably even less prepared for it than people who’ve lived their entire lives as female.  It even happens to someone like Caitlyn Jenner:  There has been the sort of praise and damnation we’ve come to expect, from the people we’ve come to expect.  But there are also people who’ve criticized her for being too glamorous or, as one female celebrity said only half in jest, “Who does she think she is, looking better than I look?”

Now I realize that this bind women, and trans people in particular, face is one of the things that exacerbated the plight of the Lost Generation of Transgenders to which I’ve alluded in other posts. After gaining some visibility—and even a little support—during the 1960’s and 1970’s, trans people were rendered visible, at best, and vilified, at worst.  As I’ve mentioned,  the more extreme aspects of Second-Wave Feminism—sparked by Janice Raymond’s Transsexual Empire and by other writers, scholars and activists like Mary Daly and Germaine Greer—helped to undo the small gains we made during the previous two decades. 

During the time when we—all right, I’ll say it—were moving with the moment of the nascent Gay Rights movement—trans people were taught to efface all signs of the gender they were assigned at birth and to, in essence, re-invent their pasts.  In brief, we got by (to the degree we did) through induced amnesia and denial.  That, of course, was not a healthy way to live, but it was better than simply being denied and negated altogether.

However, around the same time as Raymond, Daly and their ilk were saying that we were simply men who wanted to take jobs in Women’s Studies departments, there was a “conservative backlash” against whatever gains women, including trans women, made.  Ronald Reagan had been elected; while he is by no means the only cause of the backlash, he at the very least galvanized it.  Although women were becoming lawyers, professors and corporate executives, they were always “under the microscope”:  criticized when they tried to look professional and vilified when they tried to express any kind of personal style.  This actually dovetailed very neatly with Second Wave feminism:  Phyllis Schlafly and Germaine Greer were both saying that womanhood existed only within a very rigid set of boundaries.  What neither Schlafly’s Evangelical Christian conservatives nor Germaine Greer and the Second Wavers never acknowledged, however—or perhaps didn’t realize—is that they were defining womanhood in terms that were set by men long before they or their mothers or grandmothers were born.

The few (at least in comparison to the numbers who came before and after) trans people who decided to live as the people they are during that time were therefore doubly damned.  In addition, the Gay Rights movement focused its attention on the newly-developing HIV/AIDS pandemic—as they should have.  As most of those afflicted at the time were men, HIV/AIDS activism—and, with it, the gay rights movement—became  almost wholly male-centered.  Even lesbians had to subsume their interests and needs; there was almost no room, it seemed, for trans women to simply exist, let alone define ourselves, as a group and individually, and flourish. 

Thus, I think it will be some time before trans women—and women generally—will be able simply to express who we are, sexually and otherwise, and reap the fruits of our labor and talents.  In the meantime, we’re going to be damned—by some people, anyway—whether are or aren’t, can or can’t, will or won’t, do or don’t.

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.

Why Do You Want To Go To The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival?

You know it's summer when....you start hearing about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.


Thinking about it--to the degree that I do think about it, which isn't much--reminds me of what Groucho Marx said:  "I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member."  What that means, of course, is that people (some, anyway) want to belong to clubs that wouldn't have them as members.


I can think of no other reason, at this point, why a trans person would want to go the Womyn's Festival, or would even bother protesting its policy of excluding us.


I mean, really, why should any of us want to spend time with hateful, bigoted people to listen to performers who are interesting only to the extent that they're part of the Festival organizers' agenda?  Or, to put it more plainly, why should we want to spend any of our precious time listening to (mostly) mediocre musicians play for stupid, nasty people?


Those organizers, as best as I can tell, are stuck in the 1970's--or, at any rate, a sitcom parody of that time.  Even in those days, most people--especially women working in almost any environment besides the then-nascent Women's Studies departments of colleges and universities--saw the so-called radical feminists as comic-book versions of fighters for equality.  


But their most toxic quality is their absolute rigidity about gender identity and expression.  The so-called Archie Bunker blue-collar conservatives of the 1970's--who used to be most of the make population of neighborhoods like the one in which I now live--found out they had gay grandchildren, and had children or nieces or nephews who "changed" gender.  So, some of them were able to change their views about what "men" and "women" are, and came to realize that's it's not all a matter of the genitalia people are born with (which, by the way, are not always as clearly "male" or "female" as people assume they are).  The Archie Bunkers of this world--some of them, anyway--have therefore allowed themselves to become more educated than Festival organizers and other so-called Second Wave Feminists.


That means all of those nominally conservative people who've allowed themselves to realize that people like me are indeed women (and folks like Chastity Bono are men) are actually less defined, in their thinking, by the patriarchal gender norms than Lisa Vogel and other Festival organizers and Second Wave Feminists claim to oppose!  


So, to be blunt, and perhaps a bit crass: What use, exactly, do we (transgender people) have for the Festival, its organizers and the mentality behind them?  Other than excluding us from the Festival, how do they affect our lives?  Few, if any, of them are in any position to hire or fire us, to rent, sell or deny us housing, or even to allow us to attend, or prevent us from attending, any college, university or institute.  They aren't in a position to give us, or help us get, the health insurance that the majority of us don't have.  They're not even the ones voting for or against non-discrimination laws in local, state or federal legislative bodies.  Heck, almost none of them can deny or allow us access to anything besides the Festival!  So, why should we even bother with them?  


Hey, we can even go to places where we can hear much better music than we'd hear if we were allowed in the Festival!  There are much better reasons to take a trip to Michigan:  There are places in that State (which was the first in the US to outlaw capital punishment) that would be far more welcoming to us, and everyone else--including the organizers of the Festival!

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.