[Martina]

i thought the Daryn thing was annoying. i appreciate that the mods acknowledge they could have handled it better. He also made a snipe on another thread about Japanese lesbian feminists or something like that. Maybe he was angry after the big reaction he got. But i didn't see his participation as particularly well-intentioned.

i also think that whether it crops up frequently on this site or not, there is a lot of lesbian bashing still common in our community. i have heard it. i get way tired of it. And sometimes you know what someone is saying even if they stop short of saying something that one could report.

That said, i think this thread has bordered on transphobia off and on throughout. i tried to make that point, but was every so gently shown the door. Maybe i didn't make it well.

Talking about pure feminism is a dangerous discourse. It suggests an other, an impure feminism (gender theory?). Also talking about what it used to be like to be a lesbian compared to now suggests to me that people feel displaced, unrecognized, not valued for their contributions. The context of the Butch Voices controversy makes it pretty clear who the other is, the other whose voice is supposedly heard and valued more. Framing the conversation this way requires that it be understood as either-or, as a conflict.

Reclaiming from whom? is the question.

As i said to someone in PM, even the great gender outlaw posts seem to be trying to reclaim a status that was lost or has lost cache. If we are saying we were the original badasses, we're clearly also talking about who is now considered to be a gender outlaw. i am just saying that there has been an invisible other present throughout, and to my mind, it is at least in part the transperson.

Interesting that instead of a transman, the eruption of bigotry was that older anxiety, the presence of transwomen in our communities.

i am going to be offline for a couple of days. i have a new smart phone that should allow me to see stuff, but i don't know if i can use it well enough yet.