sophiaserpentia | (no subject)

Well, i feel i need to say a few things about this.

The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday declined to hear the case of a transsexual woman who was denied a job at a rape crisis center because she was not born biologically female.

For 12 years Kimberly Nixon has been battling the Vancouver Rape Relief which turned her down for a job at its facility in Vancouver which provides a safe-house for battered and raped women, and a crisis phone line.

from Supreme Court Of Canada Declines Transsexual Case

I don't agree with VRR's exclusion of Nixon, but i disagree MUCH MORE with the decision to take this to the courts at all.

Issues of disagreement between transactivists and radical feminists are not going to be resolved by calling in the state's apparatus of coersion. The state is singularly ill-equipped to handle disagreements between radicals. Adversity in this disagreement should not be escalated -- which is the only way that the legal system really knows how to handle disagreements.

Reconciliation between these two groups of activists is not about "winning victories," because a situation where any radical is forced against her will to submit to a state-enforced "remedy" against her conscience is not anything to celebrate about.

There is no real solution if one comes at this with the attitude of, "Well, i'll bring you around to seeing things my way." That attitude is reminiscent of the society of domination which we are trying to unravel. So the starting place is willingness to find an understanding.

In looking for a starting place for the solution here, i'm thinking of the essay on coalition politics by Bernice Johnson Reagon which i cited a month ago:

I feel as if I’m gonna keel over any minute and die. That is often what it feels like if you’re really doing coalition work. Most of the time you feel threatened to the core and if you don’t, you’re not really doing no coalescing. ... The only reason you would consider trying to team up with somebody who could possibly kill you, is because that’s the only way you can figure you can stay alive.

Running with this... the solution begins with recognizing that you don't really have any choice but to figure out how to co-exist and work towards your mutual goals together. In the case of transactivists and radical feminists, the thing is that individuals from both camps already encounter one another in the community, and their lives are frequently intertwined -- so there is no avoiding one another.

But anyway, if someone will not or cannot recognize mutual need, then that one is not ready to be your ally and there are no grounds to begin reconciling yet.

IMO a good next step is agreeing to sit together, even if silence in one another's presence or conversation about other topics is the only alternative to argument. But i think underlying this there needs to be an understanding that one will not just easily give up and walk out. Togetherness and respect for sisterhood is meaningful, even when there is disagreement, and it can be the foundation for further understanding.

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I don't think much higher of anti-trans feminists than I do anti-trans fundies. Both groups have radical political goals that don't see me as a person.

IMO they are only anti-trans if they are actively doing things like trying to block the addition of "gender identity and expression" from being included in anti-discrimination or hate crimes laws.

There are plenty that do that. However, they often go much further. It doesn't take much poking around in some radical feminist forums to find a level of trans-bashing that can go toe to toe with the trans-bashing of the radical christian right.

There are plenty that do that.

::shrug:: Anyone who does that is my foe. I'm not convinced it is the majority of radical feminists. They typically worry about other things first.

It doesn't take much poking around in some radical feminist forums to find a level of trans-bashing that can go toe to toe with the trans-bashing of the radical christian right.

I've been shocked by a lot of the antagonism i've seen on both sides.

I've been shocked by a lot of the antagonism i've seen on both sides.

I'm not... why should liberal bigots be treated any differently than conservative ones?

I feel like all i can do really is point back up at my original post. These aren't people who stand on the other side of a picket line from us, they are people who live in the same communities and social circles as we do, sometimes (not infrequently) even in relationships with us, so in this case you have two groups of people who live together and who really do need each other. In those cases it's good to ask whether it is helpful to escalate disagreement.

There are also conservatives that live with us, share our communities, and even sometimes stand in our picket lines (think conservative Catholic anti-war protesters). Sometimes conservatives share our relationships, for instance I myself have dated a Christian Republican. Perhaps, toning down the antagonism all around might allow more progress to be made (something I should take more to heart as well).

It occurred to me a few moments ago while pondering our exchange that in the past you have had to be the voice of moderation for me, in conversations about theists vs. atheists. So, yeah, i have a lot of progressing to do on this road myself.

I see that type of feminism as reactionary instead of radical.

Their views on gallae are derived directly from radical concerns about misappropriation and colonization. I'm sensitive to those concerns, even if their conclusions seem reactionary from where you and i stand.

I've mulled this over a lot actually.
Some of the anti-trans fems are actually essentialists in disguise (the most pernicious to deal with actually, because they're similar to Leninists), some of them are just trapped in mammalian politics (bigger monkey gets to hit smaller monkey), and some of them are confused about gender in general.
On top of that you have repressing FTMs.
And then, there are a certain portion (maybe the largest) who have merely drank the kool-aid put out by the above, and haven't considered the issue much.
On the other hand there are legitimate grievances with what I call "classical transsexuals" but these grievances are similar to those they have against non-feminist women. And in both cases, the rejoinder is that these people have been internally colonized and given an ideal image of "woman" that contains oppressive ideas, and they've internalized it. Spreading awareness is the answer.

Thanks for this. I agree.