:bowdown:

Thank you. Well-spoken. Both of you. I am genuinely verklempt.

Cheers
Aj

Dapper, Ender... did you see where I, a lesbian feminist woman, pushed back against excluding transwomen? I'm just curious if you saw that part of the dialogue that was going on here? Because one of the things that was important to me, in the wake of the BV/BN split, was that butch women were speaking up, finally about things that had long been festering. Which was an opportunity.

I have no argument with June modding Chazz's comment, but I do have a problem with the suggestion that Chazz leave the site. Chazz is no longer here to read your posts or to engage in discussion, whether it's about transwomen belonging or butch women belonging. That's a loss.

Sadly,
Heart

I must apologize to you (and all, really) as I did a goof by not going to the very start of the thread to read from there (and ALL posts) and stayed with "opening pages." My way bad.

We most certainly do have lesbian transwomen here and I really feel very foolish for not catching this.

As i now have re-read

Kobi/AtLast,

The reason I felt comfortable posing my question/speaking up is b/c I know you both to be women who are not transphobic and care about others' feelings. I really considered you all missed the "once-male" comment.

Kobi, I hear you and do appreciate that the thread had no drama and such and Heart I did see how you did pushed back in a healthy, dialoging way. I would not/did not post when I read about Chazz's comfort in excluding transwomen from MichFest. I know this is to be a safe place, as Kobi said. What put me over the edge was the praising of a respectful discussion, when there were parts that are just simply DAMAGING to a part of your community, lesbian transwomen.

I'm sorry I need to run...I have a plane to catch...no, seriously.

Kobi:

Thank you for explaining your position. You may have noticed that pretty much the *minute* MWMF was invoked, I backed off the conversation and went silent. That is because I *knew* that it was only a matter of time before something was posted where transwomen would be portrayed as 'not really women' or 'not really belonging to the lesbian community'. At that moment, the space--not just this thread but this entire site--became unsafe for me. Now, I don't really expect the world to be a safe space. I would not have made it into middle-age as a black lesbian if I expected the world to welcome me with open arms. I do, however, strongly prefer to be in spaces where I won't be subject to reading things that explicitly state--for reasons entirely beyond your control, you do not belong here. But it goes farther than that. Yesterday, as I wrestled with saying something in response, a question crossed my mind: is there any amount of time or effort a transwoman could spend in the lesbian community that would allow her to not be thought of as an interloper and to be brought into the circle of 'sister'. My gut instinct is that for anyone who uses the term 'once-males' to refer to transgendered women a million years wouldn't be half enough time. I also get the feeling--and I may be wrong--that if a transwoman carried not just her own weight but the weight of the next 10 women around her, those contributions would *still* not be enough.

So what I read was that transwomen had no legitimate place and in that moment, as I said before, this place became deeply 'unsafe'. So why am I still here? Why did I not leave? Because before I was a queer, I was already black. I know unsafe space. I know how to maneuver around unsafe space. My neighborhood was unsafe space--in the way that being the only black kid in your class from kindergarten to sixth grade can be. At some point in between being subjected to the tender mercies of elementary school children picking on the kid who looks most different to the experience of coming out and promptly being told that I was a race traitor (yes, I have had people say that to me) for being queer, I realized that if someone holds a prejudice against me, there is very little I can do to change their mind. I can, however, decide that I will hold my head high, that I will carry myself with dignity and that I will hold to a very high standard of conduct. My logic is that the bigot will still think me low, undeserving or an interloper but I will, in the fullness of time, make that bigot look like a fool. How? By being a shining star. By being honorable, intelligent, erudite, kind, expansive, friendly and hard-working. What could do more damage to any of the myths that people might have about me because I'm black, queer, etc. than to be the kind of woman you could proudly take home to mother?

Years ago, when I came out and first discovered that there were two groups within the queer community--particularly the lesbian community--that were considered once and for all time outside the circle of sisterhood; bisexuals and transwomen. The blatantly racist or anti-Semitic statement had no place and any woman fool enough to utter it in public would have the wrath of Sappho herself visited upon her. But bisexuals could be spoken of in terms of being vectors of disease contaminating what would otherwise have been an ostensibly disease-free lesbian community. At least bisexuals were not thought to be intentionally volunteering to be disease vectors while transwomen were thought to have truly evil intent--although this being the 90s and post-modernism being what it was, no one used the term evil. Rather, it was couched in terms of transwomen having some nebulous, shadowy but nefarious intent to do undermine the lesbian community from within. At the time, I was writing for every gay or lesbian newspaper or magazine that would publish me. I stumbled across a question that was relevant in 1991 and is relevant 20 years later, what are we in this for? By this I mean the Movement for the rights of queer people to live their lives as full citizens with agency. Are we in it because--as I believe--that it is simply wrong for individuals to be discriminated against in either law or custom because of some arbitrary characteristic OR are we in this because such discrimination is happening to *us*. This is a non-trivial difference. If you believe that bigotry and prejudice are wrong then one would hope one would spread that net as far as possible. It goes beyond the discrimination that happens to me, it is the discrimination I make others the target of. If, on the other hand, one believes that the discrimination that happens to one's own group is wrong but not that bigotry or prejudice are generally wrong, then one need not look to the plank in one's own eye. All that matters is that the other person standing on one's foot get the hell off your foot. IF the queer movement is against bigotry or prejudice based upon arbitrary characteristics of gender or sexual orientation, then our movement cannot give much quarter to a form of bigotry that says "I don't care, nor do I have to care, how long ago you transitioned you will always be, in my eyes, whatever your chromosomes say you are". If, on the other hand, we are concerned only with the more limited question of "lesbians and gay men are subject to injustice because they are gay or lesbian" that allows for the community to have a space for bigotry against bisexuals or transsexuals or transgendered people or, for that matter, butches and femmes.

Twenty years ago, I cast my lot in with that part of the community that believed that the discrimination that happens to bisexuals or transsexuals *within* the queer community is no better than discrimination that happens against all queer people. I would have preferred that gender theory were not the vehicle by which transgendered people gained a greater level of acceptance because I think that post-modernism, upon which gender theory is based, is deeply and profoundly broken because it is incoherent. I almost feel guilty at having benefited from gender theory and its ancestor, post-modernism, because I would be quite happy putting the final nail in the coffin of that ideology.

Cheers
Aj

June:

When I was little--probably 12 or around there--I was baking biscuits with my grandmother and I asked her if she hated white people. She was born in 1903 and lived her whole life in the same town in Louisiana (Ruston). If anyone had a reason to hate white people, it was Mama Gus. She looked at me, sat me down and gave me this which, to this day, forms the core of my ethics:

"Baby, we can't hate them back. See, maybe the Klansman just don't know any better. He might not know that black people are also children of God. But you and I know what it's like to be hated. Now, if you do evil out of ignorance, God will forgive that because only He knows everything. But if you do evil because you have seen it, you know it is evil and you choose to do it anyway, that makes you worse than any Klansman. It means you wanted to be evil, even though you know that it hurts real people."

Every time I feel tempted or seduced by hatred--and hating others IS seductive, looking down on others is the easiest mental trick in the world--I remember her words. When I think of Michelle Bachmann, who I have no doubt would happily sign laws that would all but outlaw us, I remember my grandmother's words. I can think her a fool, I can certainly point out that the woman knows slightly more American history than my dog only because my dog can't read, I will absolutely rush to the barricades to defend my nation against the theocracy she wishes to bring but I cannot *hate* her. Oppose, yes. Hate? No.

Cheers
Aj

I have been reading the thread and there have been some great points made. I was put off by some of the remarks earlier about qualifying who was lesbian and it felt exclusionary to me. That's pretty much when I checked out. Also, I certainly am not going to support any lesbian or any organization that attempts to exclude or "other" transwomen.

I am proud to be a lesbian and celebrate our diversity.

Safe space and queer conformity-
 

Hummmm... and are we ready to discuss discrimination and bigotry against butch lesbians of every corner of our community dating or partnering with a lesbian transwoman? Where does the crux of this conversation usually go first- the "once a woman" issue? Are these relationships viewed with the same disdain that I have read in threads (mainly in the dash site) about butch on butch relationships and bi-sexuality?

We have many areas in which there existing a safe space is not felt to be so. hell, there have been times I have felt disdain for having been heterosexual in my life time on these forums.

Kobi, lesbians who are also transwomen should feel safe in a thread on lesbian pride.

Lesbians who are partnered with male identified people should feel welcome in a thread on lesbian pride.

Lesbians who have a different idea of what lesbian pride means than you (for example me) should feel free to share our thoughts on lesbian pride.

Your opinion is one lesbian's opinion. So is mine.

*sigh*

The thing is Kobi, a choice was made to use terminology that was, in fact, transphobic. The phrase "once-men" was erasing of the butch lesbian transwomen that were participating in this thread! The moderation was appropriate. Why are you making it about silencing lesbians overall? That's just counter-productive.

I do have a beef with the fact that months ago when a male-identified butch called lesbians "man-haters," the comment was parsed and explained away, diluted as part of that person's "truth," and lightly moderated, if memory serves.

The rest of the paragraph that was moderated in this thread, about lesbians doing the "heavy lifting," spear-heading the funding and building of domestic violence shelters, could most certainly be called someone's "truth."

So inevitably and defensively I find myself wondering... do trans identities just have more currency at this juncture than lesbian identities? How else to compare the swift modding of a transphobic slur and the support that followed with the lack of moderation of a phobic stereotyping of lesbians?

But beyond the issue of moderating, which is at best an inexact art form, I am feeling, (based in part on a discussion with a very smart femme lesbian), like the whole issue of "re-claiming" lesbian pride has a whiff of "othering" about it. Like we are taking something back from someone who isn't really "one of us." In light of what happened -- that feels off to me. I don't want to participate in that. I'm not interested in pure feminism or pure lesbianism for that matter. Hell, there are plenty of reasons why I am quite impure myself.

I'm down with lesbian pride, but if it means that a transwomen who is a lesbian isn't fully included in this space, then like MWMF, I'm out.

Heart

So, in order for lesbians like you to be heard, to be validated, it was necessary for someone to be able to use a term that was rather bigoted. Look, if the only way that lesbians like you can feel that this is your space and that your concerns are being addressed, is for women like me to have to just put up with terms like 'once-male' being thrown around without challenge, then okay. Okay, here, doesn't mean I'm going away. It does mean that that is a piece of information that is useful to have and I'm glad I now know.

I am not arguing--and my presence here does not militate for--not airing issues that need to be aired. Yet, I have two questions for you:

1) If, instead of saying something about transwomen, the statement had been that black women--for whatever reason--had no legitimate place within lesbian community and had people spoken up against it, would you still feel that lesbians like you had been silenced? If not, why not? Why is it that, if all you knew was that I'm a black lesbian, it would be unacceptable to say that 'women like that' (who are not, after all, lesbians like you) are not legitimately apart of this community but since it is transwomen, that is in bounds?

2) Is there any amount of time, any amount of effort, any action whatsoever that would EVER earn a transwoman the right--in your eyes--to legitimately claim a seat at the table?

I, too, was enjoying the conversation right up until the point where it became clear that transwomen--in the eyes of some--aren't woman enough to deserve to call themselves lesbian. At that point, I had a decision to make; do I risk starting WW III or do I just let someone else speak up and see what happens. I chose the latter path.

I think these issues are important. I think they need to be discussed. I don't, however, think they need to be discussed at the cost of letting statements of the "transwomen, you are not welcome here". If some transwoman did X, where X is some horrible thing, then she should have to answer for that. Not because she is a transwoman, but because she did some act that was unacceptable. Being trans should not make one subject to a lighter standard or a heavier standard but the same standard, as much as is possible. But that's not what was being put forth. What was being put forth was the idea that transwomen qua transwomen are not, cannot and should not be welcome in lesbian community. Not actions, simply the fact that the woman in question has a Y chromosome and that's enough.

This statement is not meant to be silencing, nor is it meant to be putting lesbians like you in their place. I am no apologist for patriarchy. I feel that my years in this community--and by this community I mean the lesbian community--have earned me a place at the table. I earned it at the Whiptail Lizard Lounge in San Francisco, where I spent two years volunteering every weekend. I earned it going around the Bay Area in the mid-nineties, when the Internet was just starting to come to public consciousness and either wiring up organizations that helped women, building their web sites, or training women how to use computers. It was earned teaching classes at a DV shelter so women could use the web to find safe, permanent housing for themselves and their children. It was earned by doing *precisely* the opposite of what Chazz said transwomen did. Instead of showing up and saying "seat me", I showed up, asked permission to enter, and then said "how can I help". When I came out as trans on this board last year, I talked about asking whether or not women like me were welcome at the Whiptail Lizard Lounge. I got blasted because people said I shouldn't have had to ask for permission and maybe they were right. But I had read my feminist theory, I knew about male privilege and I wasn't about to be one of those transwomen who pretended that since we had been at war with our own bodies since childhood, we could pretend that male privilege never had anything to do with us. Instead, I intuitively grasped that the way to approach things was to show up, be useful, live my feminism, and I would gain acceptance. It worked spectacularly and that attitude has served me well for 22 years. It serves me well to this day.

To this day, I still try to give more than I take from the lesbian community because I like the feeling of being a sister who, when the hard work needs to be done, is right up at the front, painting the walls, or dumping the trash, or doing whatever needs doing whether it is pleasant or easy or not. That, to me, is part and parcel of being a sister.

This isn't an apologia nor is it asking for your acceptance. I am too old and too strong to need the acceptance of anyone else. It is a statement that regardless of what others might think, I AM a strong black woman and I AM a lesbian who is proud to be a lesbian. I will never apologize for that nor will I ever apologize for standing up for myself. I will also not apologize for being grateful that people stood up and spoke for women who might otherwise not have been spoken for.

In sisterly spirit
Aj

June,

I have no issue with the moderation. It was necessary. It was a derogatory term. I expect stuff like this to be moderated.

What I also expect is, it was moderated. To have Dapper and Ender come in and add fuel to the fire, to me, was the patriarchy coming in to silence and chastise the lesbians. It was unnecessary except to send a message.

I also expect moderations to be fair across the board and they are not. Trans issues and racial issues are moderated with a very heavy hand. I have no problem with that either. But, I expect when lesbian issues crop up or female issues, they will be given the same weight and the same forcefulness. In my opinion they are not.

I am not going to be dragged into a debate about the definition of a lesbian. Lesbian connotates something very specific, very particular and very unmistakeable. I havent seen any dictionary change it over the last 40 years.

And this is not about "othering". It is about being "othered". This about voicing a right to exist along side others on an equal par. And it is about having the right to voice the right to exist and have it validated. It is about speaking to the truth of feeling marginalized. From where I stand, only lesbians, like me, have to sit here and defend themselves in discussions like this. No other id has to defend itself. Why do I?

Lesbian has become a huge, widespread thing to basically mean anything other than male. That, to me, diminishes me and my identity. Yet, I am not supposed to be offended by this or even speak to it. But, I do have to defend it....over and over and over.

I have deliberately not used the volatile word "censorship". And I will continue to avoid it.

Again, the issues are being swept under the rug while we focus on terminology and bigotry.

Aj,

I have a great deal of respect for you.

I am dismayed to learn you and others saw something going on in this thread that I didnt. And rather than speak to it, even privately, you and others decided to sit back and see what happened. And, now, after the fact, you and others almost seem to be patting yourselves on the back for having knowledge others didnt. You sat back and did nothing but it is ok to chastize others after the fact?

Wow. Kind of a throw back to women against women days of the old feminism.

I, of course, feel you set me and this thread up. And that feels pretty shitty. Not surprising but still feels shitty.

And I am getting getting really tired of taking the brunt of this. I did not say a freakin thing about transwomen but the entire thing is getting dumped on me. I didnt see it. I didnt understand the implications of it.

I am happy to own my shit. I anxiously await the day others begin owning theirs.

Oh btw, thanks to those "friends" of mine who had the need to distance themselves. What a powerful message that sends along.

Kobi - Aj had just read herself termed as a "once-man" yet you think she owed YOU something? She wasn't setting you up by withdrawing, she was protecting herself - which she has every right to do. Taking the victim position here really stretches the limits of credulity.

Nothing is being dumped on you, no one is holding you solely accountable for this thread, or what happened in it, but it's also nobody else's fault or responsibility that you didn't see something or understand it. Least of all Aj.