A message to people who identify as allies to the trans community.

November 4, 2012 at 3:56 pm (bigotry, bullshit, discrimination, trans feminism, Uncategorized)
Tags:


This message isn’t to all allies of the trans community, only to those who use misogyny as a weapon against people who are anti trans, please if you want to be an ally cut that shit out, it is doing harm and no good will come of it however good your intentions may or may not be.

By reinforcing patriarchy with misogynistic comments you are showing yourself as no true ally to our community. Trans women identify as female, we identify as the class woman, ergo when you allow your brain to be overridden by your anger and say sexist shit you aren’t just belittling the person you are arguing with, your actions also impact directly on those you seek to defend.

Furthermore reinforcing patriarchy makes it harder for trans men to be accepted as not the gender they were mistakenly assigned at birth by reinforcing the very power structures that make transition difficult, and identifying their gender label they were incorrectly assigned at birth as if it is somehow inferior. This also do a hell of a lotta good for those who identify non binary either.    So please please please think before you post , we do not need more enemies, and if we are going to convince people we speak the truth about who we are and want anybody to believe us the last thing we need is to allow sexism to speak for us.

11 Comments

Mispronouning, gender therapy, and the fallout. (extreme trigger warning)

June 3, 2012 at 11:08 pm (bigotry, discrimination, life, past, personal history, trans feminism, trans identity, trauma)


Quite a few people come to us to discuss the validity of our identity, that in itself would be fine, however the manner of approach is not.

“I respect you as a woman but……….” do you see the problems there? let me break it down for those who failed to grasp the issues.

Problem 1, but………. , this is fairly simple really, if you respect somebody as who they are would you really need to add the but?, let’s rephrase it a little, “I respect you as a human being but…….” How about “I respect your opinion but……..,” try “I respect you as not a complete asshole but………” Now once more with feeling do you respect my identity or not? adding a proviso to respecting my identity just shows me you have about as much respect for my identity as is convenient for you at the time, it tells me your respect for me is worth precisely jack shit.

Problem 2. If you respect me as a woman why would you need to validate it in such a way? would you go up to a white hetero non trans individual and say “I respect you as a white hetero non transsexual”? didn’t think so, why not? because if you respect a person then you don’t just play lip service to respect, you respect a person in your actions. So we reach my problem, in many communities the but mentioned earlier is added , “I respect you as a woman but you are not a woman” being the usual one . So you respect my identity yet you are now going to completely invalidate it? So respectful. Here’s the kicker though, did you know when you say those words to a trans woman, or tell  a trans man you are not a man you are not the first person to tell them that?

It is standard practice in the gender clinics to remind all trans women of this fact throughout the process, because believe it or not, despite whatever you may have been told gender transition is an actively discouraged practice within the NHS.

Transition takes usually a minimum of half a decade, during that time do you assume we are helped? no, what happens during that time is all the indoctrination of a childhood, all the misoginy, all the bullshit, neatly compressed into 5 years. During transition you don’t get forced into present day gender roles, you get pushed back into roles better suited to the 1940s. Dress adrogyne, refused treatment, dress too masculine, rejected, dress like any other woman on the street and you’ll be told you’re not even trying.

Ever been refused medical care because your eyebrows weren’t waxed? I have, have you ever had a medical professional laughing behind your back as you walk away from hospital? How about having your records actively lost for over a year?

Oh also did I forget to mention the NHS have an additional requirement before hormones? a period of time living full time in role, that means going out every single day presenting as best you can as the gender you are transitioning to.

While this gender roles bootcamp is ongoing people outside the medical system decide to attempt DIY reparative therapy, corrective rape, assault, being spat on, cursed at, and publicly humiliated are day to day routine if you do not pass, and believe me no matter how good you are those first few months you will not pass.

Over recent years I have been assaulted over 30 times, had a knife shoved in my face twice, being sexually assaulted more times than I care to count , and being raped twice. After the second assault I couldn’t even go to the police again, I was crossexamined by a male officer after a sexual assault, who repeatedly mispronouned me, made it clear it was all my fault, and did fuck all to find my attacker.

My dentist is now advising me my jaw may need surgical correction for the sheer number of hits it has taken, it cracks every time it moves. All these attacks have one common factor, they all start with somebody guessing my birth sex, when you deliberately or accidentally use the wrong pronoun it isn’t big, clever, or harmless.

Those 5 little words are like a cork in a bottle of trauma, every time they are said all that pain, all those memories, all the nightmares spill out. I’m pinned again while that maniac holds a knife to my face and mutters how he thinks I’d like it if he cut it off then raped the wound. I’m back in the park, alone where I was ditched by people who used to be my friends, when they found out about my transition used those 5 little words. I’m surrounded again by 5 grown men all the other people around just walking by looking away, none of them will stick their neck out for me because “you are not a woman” Those words to a trans woman are trauma incarnate. Still think mispronouning does no harm?

If so go back read again and think about it a little, then come back and talk to me I’ll be happy to do so in a respectful and polite manner, however if you mispronoun me I reserve the right to be pissed off.

20 Comments

The Third Person

May 14, 2012 at 9:40 am (Ableism, bigotry, discrimination, trans feminism, trans identity)


Who is this third person,

who follows me into the room?

I’m sure I heard them mention her,

which never is good news.

When they mention her, it costs me my autonomy

they even mix the pronouns up,

and take away identity..

Does she get to decide for herself?

when to eat?

when to sleep?

what to do with her health?

All through they never really offer a voice,

they must decide for her,

that isn’t her choice.

why can’t she dress up more?

try looking the part?

like the roles all that matters,

right from the start.

Maybe more frilly clothing?

and a big plastic grin?

what is she a barbie?

I think deep within.

They seem to dullwitted,

to just understand

that the roles are not really the issue at hand,

It’s like your damn body,

has a weird second head,

they could try to fix it,

but slap on makeup instead.

Or just try to hide it,

with false smiles and a dress,

they’re too foolish to see,

the bodies the mess.

Isn’t surgery drastic?

they ask every time,

like she hasn’t the right ,

to make up her mind.

Must be a desire to belong, they all say,

to a community that hates her?

oh no fucking way.

Next they try taking,

her pets and her home,

supported accomodation,

for not playing the role.

Comorbid Autism,

a wretched excuse,

for taking a persons freedom to choose,

I just wanna scream,

why can’t they see?

instead of a magic third person

try talking to me.

3 Comments

The Echo cave

May 11, 2012 at 5:08 pm (bigotry, life, pointless commentary, trans feminism, trans identity)


hello……….

echo………..

just goes to show,

the less you know,

the more vocally you show it,

didn’t we all just know it all along.

Hello…………

Echo………….

listen here’s the thing,

we aren’t one big patriarchal sting,

We’re actually human beings,

ya never would have thought it,

or ever would have bought it ,

still the truth.

Hello…………..

Echo……………

We didn’t wanna fight,

We aren’t just men in tights,

or butches in denial,

and even if we were,

that wouldn’t make the hatred right.

Hello……………

Echo…………….

Seems no matter what we say,

you just want us to go away,

and leave your hatred circlejerk intact,

but listen, here’s a fact,

no matter how you act,

the truths distorted by the echo cave.

Echo

echo

echo

echo

let go.

Leave a Comment

For those who still believe trans people support gender roles and choose their identity. (warning highly triggerry)

May 7, 2012 at 5:28 pm (abuse, discrimination, life, past, personal history, trans feminism, trans identity, trauma, Uncategorized)


I am sick and tired of people making it sound like life as a trans person is a massive thrill ride of male privilege sunshine lollipops and rainbows. Most of the people who do so wouldn’t know the truth of transsexuality if it bit them on the ass. So I figured I’d try to tell my story so people can see what trans life is really like.

Right lets try this another way, for now I will use the term self integrity in the place of gender as in self identity, and use gender as a term to describe gender roles place in society etc. I chose the term self integrity for a reason, it is something constant and unwavering inside myself that has never changed, even as my perceptions of gender and the world around it have shifted.

Even before I knew the biological differences between boys and girls I knew who I was, I knew that parts of my body shouldn’t be there as long as I can remember. I physically had to concentrate to pee, my body responded in ways that physically repulsed me it wasn’t just feeling like a woman as you put it, that is a gross oversimplification. It is more like something felt fundementally wrong with me, like if you woke up with an extra head one morning level of dissonance, forcing me to ask questions no child of any age should ever have to ask themselves, why is my body so freakish.What the hell is wrong with me? About this point in my life gender started to be something rigidly enforced, like the entire world was trying to fix me as something was claimed to be wrong with me , but I knew who I was, and fought my little 5 year old heart out to be myself. Against such odds who could win?I was forced into a male gender , and even a toe out of line was penalised harshly, childhood toys destroyed in front of me, as I got older assaults were commonplace as people felt something off About me and were more than willing to use fists weapons spit on you sexually assault you , and any means were considered my own fault for something I didn’t even understand.

Through all this I stifled my self integrity, retreating into myself. At 10 years old I made my first suicide attempt. Tied a dressing gown cord around my neck , and the bunk beds, and jumped off. I passed out just as the cord snapped. My second attempt I was 11 years old I attempted to electrocute myself, even that had to be better than living stuck in a body that in no way belonged to me, that would never reflect who I was.

By the age of 18 I was alcoholic, suicidally depressed, and had buried myself so deeply my self integrity long since smothered by 2 sets of gender  conditioning, 1 set normal for a male of non trans origins the other set comparing myself to all those women in my life, mothers friends, family, the models on the catwalk, until something inside me broke, Seeing the perfect little stepford wives types on tv repulsed me as much as the macho men , All gender roles are complete and utter bullshit, a failing system propped up by years of misoginy. That was when I figured that out, but that didn’t make me any less a freak. My entire body was still like an ever changing monstrosity, the enemy, Eventually at 23 I learned of gender transition, and tracked down my doctor to ask for a referral. Until that point the only exposure I’d ever had to transsexual realities was sadly the jerrry springer show,was I supposed to like men? Because they did nothing for me but terrify me, then again I was scared of a lot of women too, all people hurt.

I eventually got to the gender clinic and was pleasantly surprised with the pre screening counsellor, he respected that we did not want to live our lives as eternal stereotypes, encouraged activities outside the binary gender , and reminded me of my self integrity , so deeply buried for so long. Encouraged me to be myself, above anything else. That made it extra jarring what came next, I was literally LOST for a year they lost my file and didn’t even bother contacting me. Then I got to the psychiatrist, she was obsessed with gender and forcing the roles, they wanted a satire of humanity, I had a choice, do or die. I jumped through their hoops then they decided to try to get me classed as mentally unable to decide for myself. They used my autism to try to cancel treatment and take away my physical and financial autonomy, and push me into supported accomodation.

They failed . I am still in transition, not for gender roles, those labels are bullshit but for my self integrity. For a body that physically matches and doesn’t make me miserable,

I know I’ll never have kids, and I’m OK with that even if it hurts like hell , I know that I could never ever ever have been the father of a child, the fact I will never be a mother either is something I learned to live with. Like everything else in my screwed up life,

I now dedicate my life to making sure some other kid doesn’t have to suffer through this shit. To trying to remind the gender clinics they are supposed to help the patient, forcing these roles upon them and refusing treatments until you act according to gender does NOT do that, in the end what matters is our integrity, our inner selves, if the bodies don’t match why should we be denied help? We know who we are, I am a woman of trans history and proud of it.

2 Comments

Biological determinism vs. enviroment, if you’re not an apple you must be a banana.

March 19, 2012 at 12:23 pm (discrimination, life, trans feminism, trans identity)


For years this debate has waged on, Radical feminists often attacking trans women or trans men based on the claim that our behaviour reinforces biological determinism. Something that would be very harmful to the feminist movement and womens community as a whole were it completely accurate. While from the trans side of things the majority opinion seems to be that our nature is an immutable part of who we are. Any attempts to force us back into a stereotypical assigned at birth gender role are met with resistance. Rightly so , nobody should be forced into a gender role against their will.

Both sides in this debate have valid and very real concerns that overlook one small fact, the theories are not mutually exclusive.

Everybody seems to forget one simple fact, in all the madness people forget it is not nature vs. nurture, for the plain and simple reason both play a part in the development of human life and identity. Holding an exclusive viewpoint one way or the other in this inevitably means standing up for one groups rights while decimating the others. If you favour the biological determinism theorem you automatically minimise the voices of women all over the world who have fought damn hard to be recognised as more than just a societal role, and no matter how you colour it that aint right, However if you choose to favour societal conditioning and control as the cause of the problem you inevitably hurt a large number of trans women and trans men who are fighting equally hard for recognition in a society geared to force them back into what society considers an acceptable role for them against their will. Either way somebody gets pushed back in order to further somebody elses reality. This wouldn’t be right no matter what the reason, but the fact is both arguements are fundementally flawed.So I propose we look at a different theory, the one currently favoured by an overwhelming majority of biologists , anthropologists, psychiatrists, and quite a lot of laymen too.

Suppose for a moment Both played a part in defining who we are, Biology does indeed play a major role in setting our base identities, which means forcing somebody to fit a role does not work, any attempts to define who a person should be based on their biology alone harm both groups massively. If a person was defined by biology alone then society as a whole would stagnate, nothing would ever step outside the confines of their programmed preferences and identities. so we get to the issue at hand. Yes I agree nature plays a major part in defining who we are in my opinion , however so does a persons free will , a persons ability to be influenced by their enviroment and in turn change it for better or worse.

So yes women are conditioned by society, and it is a very noble thing to do to change society for the better, destroying privilege and sex based discrimination is vital work, Here is where things get problematic though.because both groups have massively different experiences being forced into roles that do not match who they are.The reality of this situation from both sides of their experiences are massively different.
For a trans woman based on experience we are told from the outset that we have to fit a male gender role, we are forced to dress a certain way, act a certain way, walk how we’re told, people even try to tell us how to bloody talk  or we face physical consequences . A trans person is forced into a hyper exxagerated role as a way to “fix ” them is the assumption (the creator of reparative therapy should be shot for what he has done to innocent people) in many cases by their own parents, in my case my mother decided to buy me a toy once I loved , but according to my father (a homophobe of the highest order who was already violent towards me)  it was a “girls toy” whatever the fuck that means boys toys girls toys are just another way to mindfuck you even in childhood, I’m sure you can figure out what happened.It was destroyed in front of me under the assumption I was turning gay. Over a toy , Ironically while I have no interest in sex whatsoever I have romantic tendencies that lean more towards dating women than men and always have yet society tends to assume I’m a gay man in denial even going as far as to attack me physically verbally and on occasion sexually . I was told how to dress how to act how to speak how to walk like a stereotypical male, and harshly punished when I didn’t fit his tidy little preconcieved boxes. He eventually kicked me out age 13 at which point my mother and stepfather took me in for which I am eternally grateful. Eventually I as told of transition after desperately seeking help (I’d been suicidal since I was 10 years old and at that age made a genuine bid to end my life but failed). I confess I did after breaking free of the stupid control of my identity for a time go hyper girly, yes it was stupid and idiotic but how else are we supposed to figure out our identity and comfort zones.

Looking back at that now I see how offensive it was, but sometimes you need to do something in order to grow as a person. Whether you are proud or ashamed of it later it is hindsight. Female assigned at birth FtM often have the same issue from the opposite direction.

While women assigned the role at birth are often forced into the trappings of supposed femininity, dressed up like dolls, forced to dress act and think as society is conditioned to think a girl should . young girls are constantly bombarded with plastic smiles, irritating platitudes, constant patronisation, billboards showing stick thin supermodels photoshopped so much they are barely recognisable as human anymore. Society plasters images of perfect little dolly stepford wives all over TV, it’s all so much brainwashing as to make you lose your lunch.

I could go on forever and not be able to point out all the injustices done to either party , not by the others existence, but by society itself, meanwhile master sits upon his phallic throne laughing his ass off while we squabble over his fucking tools.

For anybody interested in the biological proof of transsexuality here is an early study

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19341803?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Note the report uses the term gender identity,

it does not in any way imply that a person does not have free will beyond their identity to define everything about themselves.

For more on the influence of enviroment, look around you, people are constantly exposed to sexist genderist propoganda wherever they go. I will be posting links in the sidebar eventually.

3 Comments