She kept a picture of her breasts in the drawer beside our bed (On loving someone with transgender surgery regret)

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“You can terrorize a woman with her own body, and then she’ll torture herself”.
Carolyn Gage, The Second Coming of Joan of Arc

She always kept a picture of her breasts in the drawer beside our bed. She had removed them over a year before we met. But she kept the picture there, and asked me over and over again if I wanted to see them. She asked me heavy with self-doubt and focused on my response, for any answer the lines of my face might give her, any disapproval of her shape I might express. To her constant querying I always responded, no. I love you like you are. I love you how you are. All of you. As you are here and now.

She showed only carefully designed cutouts of herself to everyone else in her life…I was shocked at how skilled she was at slicing and folding herself up…for her closest friends, her most loved family members. What made me different than them, I saw, was that I was the one with whom she’d share all of herself, the secret corners of herself, every unfolded edge.

She learned this art of folding herself up, cutting herself into pieces as a child. She was trimmed and formed into whatever made her parents look good, then she learned to bend herself into shapes that would gain their approval, because narcissistic parents love you (or hate you) for how you make them look.

Hathor and Neferiti Are you sure you don’t want to see them, she would ask. Wouldn’t you love me more if I still had them? No, I said. I love you like you are and how you are. I want you to also love yourself as much.

She also learned shapeshifting to cope with the abuse. Screams in her face at drunken midnights- what, are you going to cry about it, you little pussy? So she learned not to cry. She was so, so small. What child endures beatings and incest and emotional torment without questioning their worth? …maybe if you change shape again your mother will finally love you…?

My love for her was never something she felt sure and worthy to accept, without checking in, to see if I approved of her shape. Don’t you want to see a picture of the breasts I used to have, she would ask? You are not an object for other people to approve of, I would respond. You are the person I love, you in relationship with me.

The lifelong experience of twisting herself around and cutting herself up meant she knew the medical industry like a safe and familiar aunt. The safe place to run to when things at home were unbearably bad. Doctors and hospitals gave her care and love, nurtured her with drugs and surgery. She had to rest up, though, and gather strength before returning home. Home placed a harsher diagnostic criteria on her person. Home demanded conformity of herself into shapes foreign to what she would imagine on her own. Drugs and surgery, she learned, could maybe sometimes provide relief with this struggle. When she told me she was taking testosterone, I said, I’m worried about your health…have you asked your doctor if that is safe? She was flabbergasted- that’s your only concern?! she asked, in disbelief……..I can’t believe all you care about is my wellbeing……..she hung for a pregnant pause, thinking maybe, just maybe, she could deliver a new and happier self with someone that loved her like she is.

I’ll ask my doctor, she said. And she did.

I do want you to be happy with who you are, he said, but changing your sex is bad for your heart. Don’t change. He wasn’t speaking in metaphors. Soon she could no longer walk up the stairs- her heart couldn’t breathe through this new cut out of who she had thought she should become. And just a few months after that, she had a heart attack. The change she underwent had started to shut down her arteries. Testosterone, it turns out, is great for shifting your shape, but not so great for empowering your heart to give you life. Look it up, the heart surgeon said. It’s dangerous, and it will kill you. And we did. There’s a very big chance that changing your body with hormones will kill you.

She asked me again about the picture
She still kept
In the drawer beside our bed.

After surviving what we might consider the attempted suicide,
or maybe the long, drawn-out torture of her body,
I acquiesced.

Show me the breasts this one time, I said, so I can get back to loving you as you are now.

Slowly she reached for the breasts in the drawer.

They were beautiful, beautiful breasts. They seemed perfect.

They’re just breasts, I said, maybe a little smaller than mine. Now put that away, please.

And I loved her a little more.

Then, in the silence of our cut up embrace, my questions also unfolded. Did you really have the experience of not feeling right in your body, I asked. No, she said. That’s just something I said to the therapist to get the surgery. Did you not love your breasts, I asked. I did, she said. I loved making love with my breasts and my wife loved them too. Then why did you remove them, I asked. Because I hated how people looked at me, she said. I hated what people thought about me. I wished for my mother to be proud of me. I wished for her to believe that my daughter would feel proud of her parents.

Who’s responsible for this violence? Of the body and of the heart? It must be a survival tactic, I think, to cut off the pieces that don’t fit into the mold that other people insist on. To shift your shape so that you are no longer the target of other peoples’ hate.

But also, there has to be a better way, to remove the weight of the hate of others, and to love and heal our broken selves.

Quiz for Liberals

Identity Theft: Transgender Movement Takes Wrong Turn (Part Two)

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By Jeanne Neath

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From Part One… Over decades of activism, not a single marginalized group tried to claim any identity other than that of their own group. What does it mean that a newly-created minority group, transgenders, is now asking for something that no other minority group has ever asked for? When male transgenders claim that they are women, they are attempting to usurp an identity that very clearly belongs to another oppressed group of people – women. This is not a legitimate claim! What does it mean that the transgender minority group is not satisfied to simply and proudly claim its own identity as “transgender”? This is all any other minority group has ever wanted.
************************************************

THE TRANSGENDER MOVEMENT appears to be very strong, but that strength largely comes from its outside support: big Pharma, the medical industry, extremely wealthy trans supporters, funding from philanthropic organizations, and run of the mill liberals who are not (yet) thinking beyond their concern with the prejudice and discrimination faced by transgender people. The transgender movement itself has a critical flaw – the refusal of the movement and its members to be satisfied with the transgender identity that they can legitimately claim.

Consequences for the Transgender Movement

A misdirected social movement. By taking a wrong turn from the path established by other minorities, the transgender movement has created strong opposition among many people who otherwise would have been allies. Almost anyone outside the right wing would support transgender people claiming a transgender identity. But, when transactivists insist that male to transgender (M2T) people have the right to usurp the identity that belongs to women, feminists who think through the implications for women, girls and lesbians become strong critics of this illegitimate claim.

Graph showing increasing referrals to gender clinic in London

Referrals to children’s gender clinics have increased from very few in 2010 to around 2000 in 2017. Data shown are for the Tavistock clinic in London.

A great mix of gender critics have emerged, many concerned with the harm inflicted on children and adults by the practice of transitioning (i.e. claiming the identity of the “other” sex instead of claiming a transgender identity). Gender critics can include anyone from parents who don’t want their children subjected to hormone treatments, to concerned teachers, men opposed to patriarchy, detransitioners, and transgender people who don’t buy the party line. Gender critics find radical feminist understandings of sex roles and gender of great use. As GenderCriticalDad writes:

“I had to learn from feminism, it was the only discourse that made sense of a transcritical perspective, but also forced some hard questions about myself and how I live my life. Encounters with feminism on my journey as GenderCriticalDad have made me realize how deep sexism goes, how it leads me to be a misogynist sometimes and how this limits me. The Radical Feminism I found teaches me that I need to reject masculinity, not as a grand gesture to the world, but in life and actions with those I care about.”[1]

The transgender movement does not respond well to criticism. Transgender people with their “shaky” selves and easily hurt feelings (as discussed in Part One) require an unusual amount of social validation. Transgender ideology is shaky too because it is based in the defense of illegitimate claims and the need to protect the insecurities of transgender people. Transactivists are desperate to silence critics, prevent open discussion, and censor deviations from the party line. As a result, radical feminists and gender critics are the primary targets of the transgender movement, instead of the dominant society. Every other social movement has had great clarity about the need to fight its actual oppressors.

The Radical Feminist Threat: Get Rid of Gender! Radical feminists understand that gender is deadly for women and girls. Training in ‘masculinity’ creates male dominators; training in ‘femininity’ creates females who will submit to male domination. Without male dominators there could be no patriarchy, so patriarchy depends on gender for its existence. Gender does not just harm transgender people, but constricts everyone’s behavior. Gender is socially constructed; gender can, and must, be abolished.

The conflict with transideology is obvious. Radical feminists want to do away with gender while transgender people base their lives on the belief that their own gender preferences (and “gender identity”) are set in stone. They believe their only option is to change their sexed bodies to try to match their “gender identity”. Transgender people need gender to exist or “transgender” makes no sense at all. They need sex role stereotypes to provide the script for the act of appearing as the “other” sex.

The Radical Feminist Threat: Sex, Not Gender Identity.

Several years ago I ran across the “Spectrum of Spectrums” chart created by the trans-friendly Rhizome Consulting Project which depicted many forms of oppression, including colonialism, race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, age, religion and more.[2] The chart included “gender,” but this referred to the oppression of transgender (and intersex) people by “cisgender” people. I was stunned to find that sex oppression and male domination of women were nowhere to be found!

Sex oppression is not included in this chart showing types of oppression

The Spectrum of Spectrums chart of many, many oppressions completely leaves out sex oppression. For gender, “cisgender” oppresses transgender. This is a small slice from the entire chart.

The absence of sex oppression on that chart was no accident. The transgender movement tries to erase concern about sex oppression and replace the concept of sex with their own concept, “gender identity.” Transgender people can claim whatever “gender identity” they want to because “gender identity” is a concept made up for and by transgender people. Sex is a big problem for transgender ideology because transgender people cannot, despite all efforts, change their sex. Most don’t even try very hard: transgender males usually want to keep their “ladysticks” and “bottom” surgery has never been very effective for transgender females. The cost is prohibitive for most. Transactivists just want people to stop paying attention to that pesky sex concept.

Who stands smack in the way? Radical feminists are not about to let go of our own understanding that women are oppressed on the basis of sex and that men (males trained in masculinity/domination) oppress women. Many radical feminists are not shy about saying that women are female and that transgender males can never be women. Is this threatening to transgender people? Off the charts!

Transgender movement attacks another minority group – women! The transgender movement is not the only misogynist social movement, but transactivists have taken misogyny to an extreme with its erasure of females, erasure of sex oppression, and attacks on its critics, many of whom are women and radical feminists. Transideology has taken and twisted words of power from feminism and the gay and lesbian movement and transactivists hurl accusations like “transphobe” and “transmisogynist” at its critics to silence them.

Anti Terf Kids Long Sleeve T-Shirt Design. This t shirt is for children!

The transactivist’s invented word, “TERF” (i.e. Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) targets radical feminists. Slogans like “shoot a TERF today,” “kill all TERFs” and “I punch TERFs” appear all over the Internet, on t-shirts and in an exhibit at the San Francisco Public Library in 2018. Threatening language and behavior has spilled over into physical violence, as happened at Hyde Park in London on September 13, 2017 and at the 2018 San Francisco Dyke March.

Transactivists feel threatened by the most basic understandings of feminism and their response has been a desperate, vindictive attack. Sadly for those in the spell of transideology, radical feminism is the only system of thought that offers people troubled by sex roles and gender (everyone!) an understanding of the the roots of these problems and directs resistance at the actual enemy – patriarchal society.

Consequences for Girls, Women and Lesbians

We have here an odd case study. What happens to the targeted minority group – women – when another minority group lays claim to its identity? What happens when the intruders are, yes, a minority group – transgender – but also male (i.e. M2T) and therefore part of the dominating group in this patriarchal society? The consequences for girls, women and lesbians unfortunately could fill a book, but here is a partial overview:

Women and girls lose their rights to privacy and safety in public places previously reserved for females: public restrooms, locker rooms, shelters for battered women and homeless people, women’s prisons, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing homes, services for women who have been raped.
The grassroots women-only groups that are the backbone of the Women’s Liberation Movement are harassed, invaded, prevented from meeting, and forced underground.
Feminist women are silenced, censored, de-platformed, erased, threatened and physically assaulted by transactivists, most of this with the strong backing of liberals.
Male-bodied transgenders unfairly outcompete women in women’s sports and win scholarships and awards meant for female athletes.
Lesbian culture is disappeared and lesbians are accused of discrimination for wanting sexual/emotional relationships only with females.

Conclusion

What would the transgender movement be like if it fought a legitimate battle for the rights of transgender people and its members claimed only their transgender identity? There would be an end to dangerous medical treatments for transgender people. Transgender people could proudly embrace their own biological sex as male or female. If they did not want to identify as a man or woman, they could proudly proclaim they are transgender.

Blood and Visions booklet of stories by detransitioners

Blood and Visions contains the stories of detransitioners.

Anyone experiencing gender dysphoria could use coping techniques pioneered by detransitioners. Transgender people could stop performing an act and be free to be themselves, behaving in whatever “masculine,” “feminine,” or other ways come naturally to them.

The transgender movement would be able to turn its full attention to ending prejudice, discrimination and violence against gender non-conforming children and adults. Instead of viewing sex roles and gender as immutable, transgender people could join feminists in changing society so that no one is forced into “masculine” or “feminine” behaviors on the basis of their sex. The movement could follow the lead of gender critical transgender people, like Miranda Yardley, who reject transgender ideology as it exists today. Yardley sounds like a radical feminist:

“Here are some of the things that transgender ideology needs to do so that it may support the lives of women: …Accept that innate gender identity is based on ideas with such a tenuous link to observed science it is barely a conjecture. The transgender claim to womanhood (or manhood) is completely dependent on this concept of an innate gender identity, and taking this away strips the movement of its cloak of being a civil rights movement, championing the fight of an oppressed minority… [A]ccept that sex and gender are not the same thing. Sex is a biological reality based on reproductive potential, and gender is a social system that harms women through stereotyping behaviour, by giving women the negative stereotypes and men those that are positive; gender itself is oppression, not a civil liberty. All transwomen by definition are biologically male…”
(From “Transgender Ideology Does Not Support Women by Miranda Yardley”)

Transactivists could develop a new ideology based in an understanding that the dominant patriarchal society is the problem. The movement and many of its members (and supporters) would need to do some serious work dealing with their sexism and misogyny. The transgender movement would then be free to fight against its actual enemy instead of attacking radical feminists. When radical feminists criticize the transgender movement we are extending a hand to assist transgender people back on a time-tested path toward liberation. We could become powerful allies in the fight to end patriarchy and free everyone from sex roles and gender.

Footnotes

1. Quote from GenderCriticalDad is taken from “I’m not a hideously bigoted parent who doesn’t ‘get’ it’” in Transgender Children and Young People: Born in Your Own Body edited by Heather Brunskell-Evans and Michele Moore.

2. “Spectrum of Spectrums,” by Rhizome Consulting Project. In Earth First, March-April 2015, p. 20-21.

Identity Theft: Transgender Movement Takes Wrong Turn (Part One)

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By Jeanne Neath

What does it mean that a newly-created marginalized group, transgenders, is now asking for something that no other marginalized group has ever asked for?

Over many decades Western societies have come to a clear understanding that members of minority groups should be able to live free from discrimination and be free to embrace their own cultures, ways of life and self-expression, provided no one is harmed. As one of the newest groups to claim minority status and rights, transgender people clearly deserve:

Freedom from discrimination in employment, education, housing, public accommodations
Freedom to express masculinity and femininity as they wish, regardless of their sex

But, transgender people are demanding far more than an end to discrimination and freedom of self-expression!

“Taking Back Our Hair”: Activism and Self-Love

One of the terrible effects of prejudice and discrimination is the way members of minority groups are made to feel ashamed of themselves and their own group. Sometimes group members go so far as to hide their own identities. Just think about all the lesbians and gay men who have lived or are now living in the closet. Other examples include how ethnic group members may feel embarrassed about and reject family and cultural traditions, racial minorities may desire and seek to appear similar to the dominant group (as Toni Morrison portrayed in The Bluest Eye), and women may prefer spending time with men and think men are superior to women.

Rosa Parks’ refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus to a white man precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama. Her action was the spark that ignited the U.S. civil rights movement.

One of the excellent results when a marginalized group organizes and fights for its rights is that group members develop a strong identification with and pride in their group. Pride in the group leads group members to develop love and respect for their own selves. The lunch counter sit-ins, bus boycotts and marches of the Civil Rights movement, the gay pride parades, dyke marches, and disability rights activists wielding wheelchairs and protest signs in front of the Supreme Court and Congress all forced change on society. Participating in, or even knowing about, these activities changed the internal experiences and self-expression of many minority group members.

By the late 1960s and 70s the Civil Rights and Black Power movements stimulated a celebration of African roots and pride in African American history and culture. Even the physical appearance of many African Americans, such as adopting the natural afro hairstyle, began to reflect the pride they felt in being Black. As Ebony magazine explains:

“In the 1960s, Black folks finally said, “To hell with that!” After decades of subjecting ourselves to European beauty standards, we decided to take back our hair. This newfound self-acceptance was widely known as the Black Is Beautiful movement, which sprang from the Black Power movement.

With political activists such as Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton and Jesse Jackson proudly rocking Afros while fighting oppression, the hairstyle quickly emerged as a symbol for Black beauty, liberation and pride.” (From Princess Gabbara’s Ebony article on The History of the Afro)

Angela Davis with afro.

In the same time period women flocked to consciousness-raising groups and took to the streets. We then expanded our grassroots movement to include everything from self-health groups where we learned about our own female bodies to goddess spirituality that replaced a male god with the original female goddesses. Feminism made women proud to be women. Feminism helped us to love our female bodies. Women who’d assumed they had no choice but to be heterosexual came out as lesbians and loved each others’ female bodies.

Disability activists demanded society accommodate disabilities, but also came to value their own capabilities and what they learned from their own disabilities. They proudly claimed their identities as people with disabilities.

The pattern held true across every marginalized group – activism helped group members shed shame they felt in themselves and their group and become proud of their group and their own identities.

A Special Minority? Transgenders Ask Too Much

Over decades of activism, not a single marginalized group tried to claim any identity other than that of their own group. Each minority group was very simply proud of their own identity and demanding an end to the oppression against their group. African Americans did not claim to be Asian. Native Americans did not claim to be Black (though mixed race individuals might legitimately claim more than one identity). Lesbians did not claim to be gay men. Gay men did not claim to be women.

What does it mean that a newly-created minority group, transgenders, is now asking for something that no other minority group has ever asked for? When male transgenders claim that they are women, they are attempting to usurp an identity that very clearly belongs to another oppressed group of people – women. This is not a legitimate claim! What does it mean that the transgender minority group is not satisfied to simply and proudly claim its own identity as “transgender”? This is all any other minority group has ever wanted.

What about females who transition (i.e. F2T or “transmen”)? The situation is different for women because they are transitioning into the dominant group – men. They are not claiming to belong to an existing minority group, but most of them support the male to transgenders’ (i.e. M2T or “transwomen”) claim to be women. Thus, both the male and female camps in the transgender movement must be considered responsible for the attempts by the M2Ts to usurp the identity of women.

The primary concerns addressed in this blog are the illegitimate claims made by M2T people and the consequences of those claims for transgender people, the transgender movement, and for women and girls.

Consequences for Transgender People

The transgender movement has stepped off the well worn path travelled by other marginalized groups with serious consequences for transgender people. Other social movements have been very clear that society is what needs to change, not the members of an oppressed group. But, what transgender people seem to want most is to change themselves enough to appear as the “other” sex or “gender.” Here we have a social movement strangely advocating change in individuals. The consequences are not pretty. Transgender people could be like other minorities and celebrate their transgender identities. Instead their impossible attempt to take on an identity that does not belong to them is destructive for transgender individuals and their movement, as described below. Even when the transgender movement does work for social change, its activity is misdirected when it targets radical feminists and other gender critics, instead of the dominant society.

Lupron is a hormone blocker prescribed for gender non-conforming children.

Changing vs. celebrating the natural body. Transgender people reject their biological sex and their own physical bodies. Other minorities celebrate their bodies and reject damaging physical regimens like hair straightening, girdles, high heels, plastic surgery, and dangerous psychiatric medications. The desire to make changes to their bodies so as to appear as the “other” sex is so strong that transgender people risk their health to take cross-sex hormones and hormone blockers and undergo risky surgical procedures. Girls as young as sixteen are subjected to double mastectomies, removing perfectly healthy breasts. Pre-adolescent children are prescribed very expensive and dangerous hormone blockers like Lupron, used to delay puberty. All these hormonal drugs are prescribed off label, untested and unapproved for use by transgender people. They all have dangerous side effects. Remember what happened to menopausal women when they were routinely prescribed hormones!

Passing vs. celebrating a transgender identity. No one can change their sex. M2T persons can never be women because women are female and they are male and they have had the life experiences of males from birth on. A large percentage of M2T persons still have a penis! Transitioning is an impossible dream. No matter what lengths transgender people go to they cannot become the woman or man they want to be.

The ethics of usurping the identity of another minority group are terrible. The psychological consequences of taking on that false identity are not much better. When M2T persons claim to be women they inevitably create for themselves a “shaky”, insecure self. They become locked in an impossible attempt to convince themselves and everyone else that they are something – a woman, female – that they can never be. Transgender people choose to transition for many different reasons, but for some males the desire to appear as female is driven by an insatiable discomfort with one’s male body. As Andrea Long Chu describes in his essay, “My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy”:

“Dysphoria feels like being unable to get warm, no matter how many layers you put on. It feels like hunger without appetite. It feels like getting on an airplane to fly home, only to realize mid-flight that this is it: You’re going to spend the rest of your life on an airplane. It feels like grieving. It feels like having nothing to grieve.” (From Chu’s New York Times essay, My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy)

Instead of simply acting as they naturally feel, M2T people go to great lengths to imitate women in their attempt to pass (or “blend” is their currently preferred term). They have to think about how they walk, their mannerisms, their speech. Some pay for voice lessons or for apps like the Exceptional Voice App (EVA), sold in 55 countries, that teach them how to sound more like women. Others hire “femme coaches” like Monica Prata of Nouveau She who assists with a complete makeover:

“For around $130 an hour, Monica’s standard rate as a stylist (“I’m not going to upsell them just because they’re trans”), she will provide hair, makeup, and wardrobe makeovers, not to mention guidance on facial feminization and gender reassignment surgery, vocal training, home redecoration, and “comportment.” (From Alex Morris’ article on How Exactly Do You Teach Femininity?)

Transgender people may obsess about how they appear and can feel desperate for confirmation from others that they have successfully “blended”. All the efforts to appear as female may just increase feelings of discomfort with one’s body, as Chu describes:

“Like many of my trans friends, I’ve watched my dysphoria balloon since I began transition. I now feel very strongly about the length of my index fingers — enough that I will sometimes shyly unthread my hand from my girlfriend’s as we walk down the street. When she tells me I’m beautiful, I resent it. I’ve been outside. I know what beautiful looks like. Don’t patronize me.” (From Chu’s essay, My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy)

Other minorities learn to value their natural appearance and identity, while transgender people, male and female, are caught in a lifelong act.

The act could be dropped. Transgender people can stop trying to pass and claim only their transgender identity. Then no acting is required. Transgender people would be able to just be themselves and express “femininity” or “masculinity” in the ways that come naturally to them. Those with gender dysphoria would still need to find ways to handle those feelings (as detransitioners do), but they would no longer be trapped in an act or in the false hope of transitioning. What a relief!

Like other gender non-conforming people (such as butch lesbians) transgender people would face the risks of violence and disapproval from an intolerant society, but they would do so feeling secure in who they are – transgender.

Coming soon! Part Two of this blog asks (and answers) these questions:

How is the transgender movement burdened by its illegitimate claims and the “shaky” selves of its members?
What happens to the targeted minority group – women – when another minority group lays claim to its identity?
What would the transgender movement be like if it fought a legitimate battle for the rights of transgender people and its members claimed only their transgender identity?

“Ain’t I a Woman?” No, Males are Not Women!

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by Paula Mariedaughter

Challenging Extremist Views

Challenging the extremist views present in our woman-hating culture is never easy! A handful of brave women handed out educational leaflets on Wednesday night, October 3,2018 in front of the Town Center auditorium. The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville was hosting its first distinguished lecturer event of the school year. We wanted to express our own point of view about men who claim to be women. We are not criminals or bigots for expressing our constitutional rights to free speech. The trans activists held the stage (literally) that night. The U of A invited this person who is a trans-activist as their “Distinguished Lecturer” –certainly not an invitation extended to anyone with a trans critical voice. See the press release from the university below this article.

The trans voice is now the dominate voice, and that is what they want to protect. Those of us who have concerns for all the unexpected consequences of permitting males to claim womanhood for themselves have every right to express our legitimate concerns. People who are trans activists and some trans supporters do not want our critical thinking views to be expressed in public and have gone to extremes across the country to silence our voices.

Deplatforming of feminist events

Deplatforming of feminist events is a favored way to silence our voices. Tactics often use to target women only events include threats of physical violence, verbal harassment, pressure on employers of our speakers/performers, or pressure on organizations that rent to us. Read about our own experience in Fayetteville when we were deplatformed at the 2017 Goddess Festival by trans activists pressuring and threatening the venue and the organizers of the Goddess Festival. https://xxamazons.org/story-of-the-goddess-festival/

That male celebrity, invited by the university, has stolen Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech from 1851 at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio! He is being paid to do a presentation he calls, “Ain’t I A Woman: My Journey to Womanhood”. Sojourner Truth’s passion was about women’s rights! He chooses that incredible speech by an incredible woman, then twists it into a pro-trans thing. I still feel violated by his decision–that is why I was out there at town center last Wednesday!

Our handout and our approach to people at town center that night was respectful and polite. We are acting not only for ourselves, but for women and girls everywhere, including those women who so strongly criticize us. Free speech is central to our freedoms. We may loose our legal right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, if we do not resist now.

Inspired by Mary McLeod Bethune

Here are the words from Mary McLeod Bethune, famed civil right activist, that I took to heart when I read them this week: “[I urge] you to fight until it’s over. Never stop. If you stop now, it might be a generation before somebody else comes along to take up the fight. Why not this generation?” She was referring to implementation of equal education opportunities for all as required by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling declaring racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional.

It seems to me there is a parallel here–doing all we can to protect women and girls. We, in this generation of women, must not give up our voices. When the university creates an atmosphere for young scholars where even to ask questions about the claims of the trans voices is dismissed as “hate speech”, clarity will not come from those in that generation. Unless, of course, we listen to the voices of the many brave de-transistioners or other young people who somehow escape the indoctrination. These are the people who have seen the inside story of the mass movement to eliminate young lesbians and gay men! These are the people who can testify to the pressures to conform to the feminine and masculine stereotypes that dominate the mainstream culture in 2018.

Our carefully crafted flyer

Here is our carefully crafted flyer–feel free to duplicate our efforts in your own community using this flyer!

My thoughts about the university press release

The provocative, sexualized poster that the university chose to use, is itself, a message about stereotypes proscribed for females. The large photo accompanied the press release. The press release from the University of Arkansas became a messenger for “the dominate forces of the dominate culture”. As radical feminists, we are always seeking the root/radical source of oppressions. We have long named the educational institutions as distributing the propaganda serving the patriarchs. Here is an excellent example–the university is “thrilled” to indoctrinate young people with the current assertion that men can be women should they so choose. In fact, it is fees extracted from young people and their parents that paid for this message!

Actual university press release

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Emmy Award-winning actress, documentary film producer and civil rights advocate Laverne Cox will open the 2018-19 student-sponsored Distinguished Lecture Series with “Ain’t I A Woman: My Journey to Womanhood” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3, at the Fayetteville Town Center.

Doors open at 6 p.m., and tickets are required. The event is free and open to the public. Because students fund the lecture series, tickets will be made available to students first who will be able to reserve tickets starting at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19, by going to osa.uark.edu. Tickets are limited to one per student.

“We are thrilled to be able to bring such an accomplished woman to campus this early in the school year,” said Christine Carroll, chair of the student Distinguished Lecture committee. “The committee has planned a slate of excellent and diverse speakers, and we look forward to kicking off the series with this dynamic presenter.”
Darinda Sharp, director of communications
School of Law
479-575-7417, dsharp@uark.edu

article by Paula Mariedaughter

Amelia Earhart imagined this shop: “Tinkering: For Girls Only”

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by Paula Mariedaughter
When Amelia Earhart imagined “Tinkering: For Girls Only”, she planned a fully-equipped workshop for girls to “tinker to their hearts content”. She wrote about this shortly before her disappearance. These thoughts were published in the book Last Flight by Amelia Earhart, 1937.

Amelia wrote:
For a couple of years I had been pleasantly associated with Purdue University of Lafayette, Indiana, as a periodic and rather peripatetic faculty member. Purdue is a forward-looking institution building an important aviation department. It is one of the few universities in the world with its own landing field.

Additionally, it is co-educational. Of its 6,000 students approximately 1,000 are women. The problems and opportunities of these girls were quite as much my concern as aviation matters. Perhaps I have something of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to modern feminine education. Often youngsters are sadly miscast. I have known girls who should be tinkering with mechanical things instead of making dresses, and boys who would do better at cooking than engineering.

One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren’t routine, often don’t get a fair break. The situation is not new. It has come down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs which produce the corollary that women are bred to timidity.
No timid girl here!

The mechanical-minded boy may have a field-day from the time his legs are long enough to toddle down to the corner garage. For all anyone cares, he may be weaned on piston rings and carburetors, and may remain beautifully grimy for indefinite periods. But with his sister it is different. With rare exceptions, the delights of finding out what makes a motor go, or batting the bumps out of a fender, are joys reserved for masculinity.

The girl who wants to do that sort of thing has such a hard time finding a place to do it that for long I have harbored a very special pet ambition. Among my other somewhat suppressed desires it is classified under the letter “T”. The imaginary file card reads, “Tinkering: For Girls Only.” The plan is to endow a catch-as-catch-can machine shop, where girls may tinker to their heart’s content with motors, lathes, jigsaws, gadgets, and diverse hickies of their own creation. Where they may sprawl on their back, peering up into the innards of engines, and likely as not get oil in their hair. Where they can make engines perk, clocks tick, radios yowl, and something of the everyday mechanical marvels which –given the chance—many of them would master quite as well as Brother Bill. And emerge somewhere in the scale between grease-moneys and inventors. Or, negatively, with at least their lack of aptitude revealed.
(Quote from page 25-26 of Final Flight)

According to HistoryNet, Earhart “kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings that highlighted women entering occupations in motion-picture directing, law, advertising, management and automobile mechanics.” Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and was considered one of the most famous women in the world, yet she was fully aware of the limitations placed on girls and women. Once flying became her passion, it was her mother who helped her buy her first airplane.

left photo: Amelia Earhart visiting her mother, Amy Otis Earhart, at home in Hollywood, Calif., on Jan. 14, 1935. Just days prior, the pioneering aviator had completed the first solo flight from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California; the 2,400-mile flight took her 18 hours, and she collected a reward of $10,000 for the feat…… Childhood portrait photo of Amelia

Her first flight instructor was Neta Hook in the early 1920s. Later, Earhart was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots and was chosen its first president in 1930. As she wrote above, Earhart became a visiting faculty member at Purdue University as an advisor to aeronautical engineering and a career counselor to women students. Girls and women were a priority in her life. She was a member of the National Woman’s Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

left: Flight instructor Neta Snook with her student Amelia Earhart at Kinner Field, Los Angeles, in 1921. (Smithsonian Institution) right: Rare photo of Amelia (far left) at play.

Yes, Amelia Earhart (born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937) and her navigator were lost at sea after nearly completing their round the world trip. Her legacy as a woman who lived her life with zest and courage is not forgotten. She was truly “one-unto-herself” in my mind.

Amelia demonstrating the mechanics of flight to an interested girl.

by Paula Mariedaughter

OMNI Center Claims To Be “Fair”? Apparently Lesbians and Women Don’t Count

1 Reply

By Jeanne Neath

In 2017 the OMNI Center in Fayetteville Arkansas and the Goddess Festival de-platformed the XX Amazons, Paula, Susan and Jeanne, preventing us from giving our workshop on “The Disappearing L – Lesbians Rise Up”. This was the result of transactivists and their supporters protesting the workshop. (See “The Story of the Goddess Festival” for details of the de-platforming and our resistance.) A few days ago I received the OMNI Center’s weekly newsletter touting itself and its members on their fairness: “You and your neighbors are right here, working our tail ends off to make the world FAIR, FREE and HEALTHY.” OMNI always advertises itself as the “Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.”

I find OMNI’s continued absolute favoritism toward the transgender community difficult to stomach on an ordinary day, but this kind of self-congratulatory lie coming from a group that is so unfair and unjust made me angry enough to email the OMNI director and OMNI Board of Directors the following statement.

Jeanne Neath’s Letter to the OMNI director and Board

OMNI is not doing everything it can to make the world “fair, free and healthy” (as you pretend to be at the top of your recent newsletter) when OMNI will not even allow women-only groups to meet at OMNI and you host a so-called Goddess Festival that silences and excludes radical feminist voices. OMNI has taken sides in the conflict between transactivists vs lesbians and all the many women who want and need women only space. This is an incredibly unfair position.

I don’t think the OMNI board has a clue as to what a woman hating and lesbian hating position it has taken (or if they do understand, then I am even more appalled at OMNI’s behavior). I suggest that OMNI educate itself on the harm that transactivists and their supporters are creating or at least stop pretending to “work its tail off” to make the world fair. Women only space is an essential prerequisite for a women’s liberation movement to exist. OMNI is acting to prevent the liberation of women and at the same time pretending to be fair. Pretty appalling!

Lesbians attacked at 2018 San Francisco Dyke March.

For starters, I suggest you inform yourselves about the attacks by transactivists on lesbians at the 2018 San Francisco Dyke March. (See the accompanying image showing what happened to a lesbian’s sign at the SF Dyke March which said “You can’t silence us with violence. Resist Lesbian Erasure.”) I also suggest reading the blogs (including one about the SF Dyke March) and other materials on xxamazons.org, reading relevant materials on feministcurrent.com, and reading the book Female Erasure, edited by Ruth Barrett and now available at the Fayetteville Public Library. There is no excuse for OMNI Board members to be informed only by the transactivist political perspective!

I don’t particularly want to hear back from you about this correspondence until OMNI is prepared to start making things right in its policies and practices toward women. I would appreciate an invitation for women’s groups to once again be able to hold women-only events at OMNI (and women-only means no “transwomen”). I am still waiting for a real apology from OMNI regarding the events around the 2017 Goddess Festival.”

Jeanne Neath, Former OMNI Board Member

OMNI Director Responds

The director of the OMNI Center responded in a semi-private, personal email to me saying only that she was sorry I was badly hurt. This was not an official OMNI response. I have no idea if the OMNI Board of Directors will even read or discuss my communication to them or respond in any way.

However, members of a local group of women who are resisting transactivist domination and fighting for women only space jumped into the fray with their own comments to the OMNI director.

Darlene Clubb writes to the OMNI director

What kind of response is this? This is a dismissal in my opinion. Please do not lay this at Jeanne’s feet like she is some isolated, wounded individual. From where I stand, OMNI has totally been positioning itself in support of the trans view of reality and appears to have dropped all pretense of concern or interest in the issues raised by lifelong lesbians and radical feminists concerning serious violence against women and the destruction of women’s legal standing/rights that the trans ideology poses. Billionaires are funding the trans agenda. Billionaires from corporate, pharmaceutical dynasties are funding think tanks that are designing and coordinating this homophobic and misogynistic social engineering project that is having devastating effects on lesbians and women’s very basic concerns in general (such as the ownership of the legal term “woman”, issues concerning birth and midwifery, menstruation,etc.)

Paula Mariedaughter’s comments to the OMNI director

Your crass dismissal of Jeanne’s concerns is an indication of your own loyalties. The war on women includes the war on women only spaces! Omni is a collaborator in the efforts to silence women and our strong political differences with all of you so ready to redefine woman.

In Female Erasure, edited by Ruth Barrett, she wrote, “Political disagreement is an opportunity for discourse that is part of a free society, and should be encouraged. When any questions or concerns are written off as hate speech, bigotry or ‘transphobia’, discourse cannot take place.” This is the situation here in Fayetteville, Arkansas where your “fair-minded” organization refuses to sponsor any opportunity for discourse that differs from your political decision to support trans activist’s version of reality.

“As part of the conservative backlash, segments of the left have shifted away from political and structural analysis of oppression and injustice, towards an individualistic politics whose primary demand is for the recognition and validation of individual identities. Gender becomes an identity based on an internal set of feelings that must be believed and accepted without question, and that is unrelated to biological sex. They claim that one set of traits is inherently masculine and another set of traits is inherently feminine, and our identity is dependent on how we align with those traits. Gender identity is seen as innate, and being transgender is entirely a matter of self‑identification. They do not see gender in our patriarchal society as a hierarchical construct of a male supremacy.” This is a quote from Pelican Lee written on the XX Amazons website.

We will not be silenced by the exclusions and expulsions and the threats. Women and girls, our children and our grandchildren are depending on us women!

Linda Barnes writes to the OMNI director

The fact that we are even having to discuss who is a woman is really unbelievable to me. A man can never be a woman and vice versa. We know that is biologically impossible. The confusion seems to be with the word sex and gender. A person may change their appearance to look like a woman (in some cases) because society says a woman should look and dress a certain way and men should look and dress a certain way, but that is not sex, that is gender straitjacketing. We know from the beginning of time there was a man and a woman because otherwise there would not have been anyone else. So we know there are two sexes, but race has been a social construct, yet when Rachel Dolezal tried to present herself as a black person and was found out to be white, she was removed from her job and highly criticized for trying to cross a racial barrier. And, yes, blacks have been and still are an oppressed race, but women have been oppressed and held back and their long history of matriarchy almost erased from history. The black man got the vote before women did. And yet the left and the many trans sympathizers seem to have no problem with men saying they are women. Yes, let them go into women’s bathrooms and changing areas, even though most of them still have penises. They are now trying to develop uteri to implant into male bodies so they can have children. The midwifery is eliminating mother from their vocabulary and using birthing parent instead. Have you read “Female Erasure”?

The Disappearing L Here is a quote from Jenn Smith, a male to trans person, “It is my contention that young people today are being brainwashed and turned into Orwellian servants of the state for a much larger agenda. It has been suggested by others that the assault on sexual distinctions and on the perception of basic biological reality is part of a game to give absolute power to the state in the interpretation of reality itself. If the state can force people to admit that men are women, they can force them to believe anything. War is peace. Slavery is freedom. Men are women. All of these are equally contradictory.” I truly believe there is much more to this trans movement than we know and it is really scary. Have you questioned how this has come about so fast and tracked down where the money is coming from? Many lesbians and gays feel that the T should be removed from LGBT because they are just out for themselves and care nothing about gays or lesbians, except to try to force lesbians to have sex with the male to trans so they can feel more validated.

I think you and Omni are going to be on the wrong side of history when this mess gets straightened out. When people try to change the very definition of half of the world’s inhabitants then they are trying to distort reality itself. If the trans people had really wanted to be non-controversial they should have called themselves what Ruth Barrett suggested, “gender non-conforming men, a no less sacred expression of humanity.

Jeanne Neath Sends a Second Communication to OMNI

After reflecting on the OMNI director’s condescending response and the obvious ignorance of the OMNI Board about gender critical thought, I decided to send a second communication in an attempt to educate the OMNI leaders about just how deadly the transgender ideology they are supporting is.

Jeanne’s second communication to the OMNI Director and OMNI Board:
Everyone – women, lesbians, “transgender” people, OMNI, you and me – is being seriously harmed by the misunderstandings about sex and gender that transactivists are proclaiming as a truth that no one is allowed to question. OMNI is not doing itself, or anyone else, including “transgender” people, a kindness by unthinkingly subscribing to an inaccurate view of reality AND silencing the women who have legitimate criticisms of the transactivist position on sex and gender. What does it mean for OMNI and you, its director, an organization and woman concerned about justice, about “fairness”, to take sides in a conflict between oppressed groups and act to silence lesbians, radical feminists and me, a former OMNI board member with over forty years of experience as a feminist activist investigating the problem of sex and gender in patriarchal society? Every day you and OMNI continue on this misogynist path you are on and then congratulate yourselves on how “fair” and just you are, you stray further and further from your mission of “justice.”

“Gender,” the sex-typed behaviors and characteristics society trains males and females to perform, is constructed by society. The behaviors considered masculine and feminine change over time within a society. Do you think that girls were showered with pink clothes and toys one or two hundred years ago in this society? Gender is set up differently in different societies around the world too. The transgender movement is built around the notion that people have an innate, biological “gender identity,” but this is impossible because what is masculine and feminine is set up by each society. Do you think that our foremothers living in gathering and hunting societies over the millenia prior to the development of agriculture wore pink? But, more important, do you think OMNI should be silencing women who want to talk about gender and the ways that patriarchal societies use gender to maintain male power over women?

People who identify as “transgender” are being terribly hurt by their own movement and ideology. Feminists have fought for decades to eliminate the constrictions of gender for everyone. Since gender has been created by society, society has the power to do away with gender and free girls and boys, men and women from being forced into harmful sex roles. But, transgender ideology insists that gender (and “gender identity”) is not changeable and that, instead of changing (eliminating) the social institution of gender, the people who are unhappy with the gender prescribed for their biological sex must become transgender. This would not be problematic – many lesbians, for example, identify as butch and act in so-called masculine ways – but the transgender movement advocates changing one’s body to correspond to (socially constructed) gender (as well as confusing sex and gender and appropriating – stealing – the identity of being a woman). Because trans ideology is supported by progressive organizations like OMNI, by powerful national non-profit organizations like the Human Rights Campaign, and by obscenely wealthy individuals, many of whom are tied to the pharmaceutical industry, being transgender has become “cool” and more and more children and young people are identifying as transgender, especially girls and young women. Many of these children and young people are taking hormone blockers and hormones and having irreversible surgeries to remove breasts, testicles and to reshape genitals. Children are being sterilized and given off label drugs with unknown long-term effects. When OMNI supports the transgender movement and silences lesbians, silences radical feminists, silences me, OMNI supports all of these dangerous, often irreversible medical treatments and the sterilization of children, children who probably would outgrow their desire to become “transgender” (a likelihood demonstrated by the scientific evidence).

______, you were seriously off-track in your comment about being sorry I am (supposedly) hurting so badly. Stop trying to dismiss my concerns! OMNI took a serious wrong turn when it bowed to pressures by transactivists and their supporters to de-platform Susan, Paula and me at the 2017 Goddess Festival for our workshop on the “Disappearing L – Lesbians Rise Up”. Your attempt to have a “dialogue” group to bring transgender people and gender critical women into discussion was deeply biased from the start when you selected two trans supporters who were completely ignorant of gender critical thought as moderators. I am asking the OMNI director and OMNI board members to educate yourselves about gender critical/radical feminist perspectives and to make reparations to the women and lesbians you have silenced. Making space at OMNI for women to hold publicized women-only events (that exclude “transwomen”) is a necessary part of these reparations. I, personally, would like a real apology from OMNI once your organization has educated itself enough to understand the great harm you have done to women, to lesbians, to the people who identify as transgender, and to everyone else who is being harmed day in and day out by the pressures to conform to “gender” prescriptions

Conclusion

I am proud of all the women in northwest Arkansas and at XX Amazons who are resisting the silencing of women, transgender ideology, and transactivist attacks. We stand together fighting these patriarchal forces attempting to control women.

Domination by Trans Rights Activists at Dyke March in San Fransciso

5 Replies

By Jeanne Neath

Twelve old lesbians marching in the June 23, 2018 San Francisco Dyke March were verbally harassed and two of them physically assaulted by transgender rights supporters. Instead of supporting the lesbians being harassed, both the Dyke March and the National Center for Lesbian Rights are falsely claiming that the old lesbians were the ones acting in a threatening and violent manner. As I understand it, the dyke marches across the country have been largely taken over by persons who are not lesbians. How has this happened?

Bats carried by transactivist group at marches

Bats carried at marches by the Degenderettes, an international transactivist group active in San Francisco. Local chapters of the Degenderettes are forming.

In her XX Amazons’ blog last week, Paula Mariedaughter described how “Lesbians [are] Not Welcome at a Women’s Center started by Lesbian Feminists.” That unnamed women’s center in Fayetteville, Arkansas is under the spell of lesbian trans supporters who have abandoned lesbian feminist politics in favor of the transgender politics of so-called “inclusion.”

So far, the board of directors there is all female and may be all lesbian. Some board members support women only space, but are unable to allow women only events due to the power of the trans supporting faction (and the fear of attack on the center by transactivists and their liberal, progressive, and “feminist” supporters). It looks to me like the Fayetteville center is in the early stages of losing its female and lesbian identity and sliding into trans domination. If they are successful in becoming increasingly “inclusive” it may just be a matter of time until lesbians who value women only space are purposefully excluded from the board and a male to transgender person is invited to join the board. Read Paula’s blog for more details of the situation there.

I believe this process of liberal lesbian trans supporters gaining increasing sway over a lesbian organization, adopting a policy and politics of “inclusion”, welcoming transgender persons into the organization, and, finally, welcoming male to transgender persons who claim to be lesbians onto the board of directors has become commonplace. Once this process has been completed, what was once a lesbian organization begins to put the interests of transactivists front and center. If the lesbian organization is considered a valuable enough target, powerful forces from outside the organization may become involved, perhaps training transactivists to infiltrate the organization’s board, providing advice on strategy, or supplying funding.** Some are calling this kind of trans takeover a “transjacking”. Whoops, there goes another piece of our once thriving lesbian culture!

Male to transgender persons are not only appropriating our identity as women, but are stealing our organizations.

Male to transgender persons are not only appropriating our identity as women, but are stealing our organizations. Many women and lesbians are doing our best to stop these thefts. Awareness of what is transpiring is a key part of our resistance.

We offer below links to several personal accounts by lesbians of what happened to them at the San Francisco Dyke March, the Women’s Liberation Front’s (WOLF’s) open letter to the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and a link to a Change.org petition from one of the women whose sign was torn up by the trans rights activists at the San Francisco Dyke March (see photo below).

WOLF’s open letter to the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) demands that the organization retract its slanderous and false allegations against the 12 lesbians who were harassed at the 2018 San Francisco Dyke March. In a classic reversal, “demonstrating a stunning degree of anti-lesbian bias”, NCLR falsely claimed that the lesbian marchers had “chanted transphobic slogans and violently harassed and threatened other marchers.”

See Max Dashu’s account of what happened at the San Francisco Dyke March. Max Dashu writes: “All of the old lesbians in our group were quickly surrounded, subjected to chants of “TERFs go home!” and blasted with hatefulness for the entire course of the march. Young queers berated, hounded, and crowded in on us. Most of them refused to speak with us, only glaring, chanting, and screaming.”

In “Young Women Attack Dykes their Grandma’s Age” Lavenderjoan writes: “It was a nightmare scenario. Imagine the Lavender Menace meets Lord of the Flies. Twenty-something participants in the Dyke March swooped down on our small contingent of old lesbians like crazed predators thirsty for blood…”

Here is Sherri Golden’s petition calling for The San Francisco Dyke March, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Bay Area Reporter to retract their “defamatory and libelous statements” claiming that the lesbian victims of threatening and violent behaviors by trans rights activists were instead the attackers. See Sherri Golden and what happened to the sign she carried saying “You can’t silence us with violence – Resist lesbian erasure” in the photo below.

Lesbians attacked at 2018 San Francisco Dyke March.

By Jeanne Neath

** Interview with Mary Lou Singleton, Women’s Liberation Radio News Edition 16 transcript

** Sue Donym, Inauthentic Selves: The modern LGBTQ+ Movement Is Run By Philanthropic Astroturf And Based On Junk Science

Response to the Exclusion of Max Dashu from the Modern Witches Confluence

The most common exclusionary act that supposed terfs commit is being lesbian. Lesbianism is considered an exclusionary sexuality. It is frequently said that having a sexual preference is thinly veiled transphobia, and sexual preferences actually do not exist.

When you removed Max from your conference, you cited that you had not done your research or realized that she is a “terf”. TERF is an acronym for “trans exclusionary radical feminist.” The most common exclusionary act that supposed terfs commit is being lesbian. Lesbianism is considered an exclusionary sexuality. It is frequently said that having a sexual preference is thinly veiled transphobia, and sexual preferences actually do not exist.

lesbian symbol

It is unfounded slander to consider somebody to be violent or hateful without any evidence to support that allegation. Lesbians and radical feminists are not performing acts of violence against trans women. Max has never done anything to harm or exclude any trans person from anything. Trans activists are commonly saying that it is the equivalent of actual violence to have the “exclusionary” sexual preference of lesbianism, or to hold the political ideology of radical feminism. Without intending to or realizing it, you have upheld this targeted attack against lesbian radical feminists. This is not ok. You’re being used as a tool to yield darkness and damage, against an extremely marginalized, extremely small community.

In very short order people are going to realize that terf is a misogynistic slur, it is the equivalent of the new McCarthyism.

I understand that you run an incredible risk if you choose to stand on Max’s side, because there are more and louder trans activists speaking up at this point in history. However, in very short order people are going to realize that terf is a misogynistic slur, it is the equivalent of the new McCarthyism. Any woman can be called a terf at any time for any reason, and if a woman is outed as a radical feminist she can lose her job, housing, and live with constant threats of actual physical violence.

Please do your research, and tread carefully as you move forward. I know you are a small organization, but please do not set the precedent of harming women by denying them a livelihood for being feminist lesbians. Please take this opportunity to support women’s basic human rights, rather than pandering to bullies who are threatening, committing, ignoring, denying, and excusing violence against women.

Thank you very much for your time,
Chelsea

By Chelsea Byrd

Lesbians Not Welcome at a Women’s Center started by Lesbian Feminists!

5 Replies

by Paula Mariedaughter
Lesbians Not Welcome at a Women’s Center started by Lesbian Feminists! How could this be? This local women’s center in Fayetteville, AR began three decades ago. It was funded, in part by a lesbian organization, the Lesbian Natural Resources.

Here is an excerpt from the Fayetteville public radio program describing the organization in an interview on June 3, 2015. The “intentional retirement village for elder lesbians and women in rural Madison County, conceptualized thirty years ago, is finally being established–but as a senior women’s community center in Fayetteville.”

Two years later, The Gayly newspaper on October 1, 2017 in an interview with the manager of that community center declared that the organization “has come to be an inclusive retreat for people of varying genders/orientations”.

However, lesbians and feminists who wish to have women only meetings or events are rejected based on our desire to experience women only groups. For over a year, many of us have tried to work with the board of directors. We are denied meeting space because we do not wish to include male to trans persons as women. We are considered noninclusive and our position is considered unacceptable. Therefore the board of directors continues to deny us women only meetings. The lesbians and women who support the claims of men to be women refuse to see our stance as a legitimate political disagreement.

In Female Erasure, edited by Ruth Barrett, she wrote, “Political disagreement is an opportunity for discourse that is part of a free society, and should be encouraged. When any questions or concerns are written off as hate speech, bigotry or ‘transphobia’, discourse cannot take place.” This is the situation we are facing as members of that un-named organization here in Fayetteville, Arkansas!

Early last February, several member women who want space for women only events spoke about our strong desire to use this facility to meet with like-minded women. We attended the organization’s annual meeting, but we entered a hostile environment that night.

Proud to be women identified and women centered!

This is my statement to the board and the members at the annual meeting:

Discrimination as Boundaries
I am a lesbian. I came out in 1973. Choosing to be with women is the best decision I have ever made. Being a lesbian means I discriminate against men every day of my life. I do not wish my life to be dominated by the needs and desires of men.

For forty-five years I’ve lived as a dyke. I am a gender non-conforming woman! I am proud to call myself a Radical Lesbian Feminist. At times, I have been considered too “femme” by some of my dyke friends. At the same time, I have been considered too “butch” by the straight world. My desire is to live as my authentic self. I want this for everyone. Socially enforced “femininity” and “masculinity” are straight-jackets meant to restrict all of us.

I cannot accept the view that there are people born in the wrong body. The biological fact of being born female or being born male is based in physical reality. Discomfort with the roles assigned to each sex is a healthy rebellion to sex role stereotypes, otherwise known as “gender.” The world view of people pushing transgendering as a solution to the oppression of sex roles is a dangerous concept — especially for young people.

I understand that others have embraced another world view. I do not condemn those people. I am an advocate for peaceful coexistence. Women like me, who want to meet in women only space, must be respected. We will resist every effort to allow men to claim womanhood for themselves. Male domination is central to patriarchy. Men claiming to be women is stealing our birthright.

I want women like me to have equal access to the use of the space since we are members. I want young women to experience the reality of women supporting each other in women-only space. I welcome male allies to all open events. We all need for this women’s center to thrive as a unique community resource.

I have a right to set my boundaries. Yes, I am willing to discriminate against men. As I said earlier, I do not wish my life to be dominated by the needs and desires of men, especially the men who call themselves women.

I left that meeting depressed and numb. I walked alone, in the dark, to find our car parked a block away. I could not tolerate another moment in that threatening space.

In trying to comprehend how exactly this disregard of women’s and lesbians’ strong desire to meet together has become illegitimate, I found understanding in these words from Pelican Lee: “In response to the conservative backlash, segments of the left [including women, my addition] have shifted away from political and structural analysis of oppression and injustice, towards an individualistic politics whose primary demand is for recognition and validation of individual identities.” Full article: https://xxamazons.org/emperors-clothes-radical-feminist-view-gender-transgender/

Women and girls are victimized daily by men and by the male dominated institutions of patriarchy. By refusing to acknowledge this reality, many on the left and many liberal lesbians deny the oppression of women and name women and lesbians as oppressors when we refuse to accept the notion that men can be women if they so choose.

In reading and thinking and feeling about all these events and my own experiences, I’ve often encountered a disdain or dismissal of those of us who have lived as lesbians for decades and powered the lesbian feminist rebellion of the 1960s, 70s ad 80s. How did this happen?

Jocelyn Macdonald helped me see into today’s queer culture in her article, “Today’s Shameless Lesbians Won’t Be Queered”. Macdonald provided me with vital information about myself as one of those lesbians who will not even consider being “queered”!

She explained in that Feminist Current article that, “In queer circles, ‘lesbian’ is synonymous with second wave feminism. In a way, this is right on, as it was during the second wave that women fearlessly occupied what it meant to be woman-loving and many of radical feminism’s fiercest sisters are members of the “lavender menace.’ Queer women owe their rights to the radical resistance and separatism of their lesbian foremothers, but are embarrassed by lesbian culture and history.” Read the full article on Feminist Current here: https://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/01/13/todays-shameless-lesbians-wont-queered/

I’m going to close with a favorite photo sure to embarrass those young and middle-aged queer women who have turned their backs on lesbians like me who choose women, not men, as the center of our lives. To be embarrassed by us and to dismiss our radical feminist analysis of the oppression of women is directly related to their attitudes of ageism, misogyny, lesbian-hating and especially to their worship of pop culture! We are led to believe that, as old dykes with our unfashionable dress and generally uncool image, our determined loyalty to women and girls is outmoded. However, we are the dykes who can boldly testify to the rich connections we have built with other women in our woman-loving lives. Queer women have no idea what they are missing. Come join us! We need all the lesbian energy we can get!

Paula (on left) and Martha carrying our Lesbians Unite sign at the Anita Bryant protest in downtown Kansas City MO, 1977.