Not just for Lesbian Separatists or second Wave Radical Feminists anymore.
First order of business: TERF has to go. Why? Because it completely fails to describe the range of people who are engaged in building a case for the extermination of trans-folks. Besides which most trans-folks I have met over the years both women and men have been pro-feminist as well as pro-LGBT movement.
The Trans-Eliminationist Bigotry has never ever been the sole property of radical feminists or even the radical feminist lesbian separatists.
Over the years we have received some pretty shabby treatment from professional feminists such as Gloria Steinem, people we admired and who should have treated us better. When we were accepted as members of both the feminist movements and the lesbian movements we were often tokenized and patronized. Treated as the acceptable exceptions. Our skills, our work, our willingness to put our bodies on the line… Wonderful. But don’t look for recognition as that might call attention to our being part of these movements and the trash talkers would give the women born women shit about their not hating us bad enough to exclude and abuse us.
Those of us know the litany of names. Daly, Raymond and the rest. The meanness of the Michigan Wymon’s Music Festival. The lies, the pettiness.
Sort of like the poison of antisemitism. Starts with one or two groups spreading lies.
And…
Before you fucking notice, Pamala Paul is spewing the same hateful bigotry in the pages of the Sunday New York Times: The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count.
Now I don’t know if she would call herself a radical feminist or even a feminist. Sort of like J.K. Rowling. Claiming to be a feminist doesn’t seem fashionable anymore. But if they do identify as feminists it would seem as though they are so blinded by their own bigotry that they miss those actually banning abortion and attacking women’s rights to focus on the imagined power of a tiny minority group.
Trans-Eliminationist Bigotry has long been open to all sorts of bigots. From the likes of the anti-gay people like Charles Socarides to people like Dr. Richard Green, an early champion of trans-folks who decided to turn reparative therapist so he could abuse trans-kids into straightness or at least non-trans- gay manhood. Then there was the Opus Dei snake from John’s Hopkins, Paul McHugh, with his irrelevant study (in the 1970s) that showed we didn’t turn 1950s style Stepford Wives.
Trans-folks are a tiny minority of people, something we share in common with Jewish people. Some 50 years ago Jan Maxwell and I read sociology works that described the strategies used by members of small, despised minority groups to survive in a hostile environment.
In the years since I have studied the nature of antisemitism at length. Trans-Eliminationist Bigotry shares a great deal of structural similarity with antisemitism.
Really. How do the chants of the white supremacists in Charlottesville, “Jews will not replace us!” differ from the likes of Macy Gray or J.K. Rowling claiming “Trans-women are out to erase “real” women.”
Add in the blood libels of trans-folks grooming and seducing innocent children, claims currently favored by Fox News and everyone from Texas Governor Abbott and AG Dan Patrick to the Gov of Florida and the rest of the sleazy army of MAGA hat wearing conspiracy loving bigots and imbecilies.
The right wing loves to protect the purity and virtue of its women. Stop me if you have heard this one before. Protect the purity of women’s sports from trans-women. This one goes back to the Cold War, when Russian and communist bloc athletes were the target. Hormone level and chromosome tests which only prove there is more overlap in the sex traits of men and women than insecure folks are comfortable with. From today’s Washington Blade “Zambia soccer captain fails ‘gender verification’ test“.
The right wing is obsessed with trans-women, especially when it comes to their trying to claim that white supremacist terrorists who engage in violent mass shootings are really left wing Democratic trans-women. Their conspiracy theory lie machine works overtime on that one.
I could go on. Feminists like Katha Pollett of The Nation, “Who Has Abortions?” as does Bette Midler who should know better.
A few years back Derrick Jenson of Deep Green Resistance started attacking trans-women and left me going WTF. Was our caring about the environment wrong or somehow infringing on someone’s turf? Bill Mahar and Andrew Sullivan have also been the cause of many WTF moments with various comments.
Weird.
I mean I expect this crap from the Nazis of the right wing. I emotionally armor up to deal with their hate and so I expect their attacks. I dismiss them as bigots and hateful POSs.
Well Pamala Paul’s headline was partially correct. The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Trans-Eliminationist Bigotry.
I apologize in advance to any hateful bigots I may have offended by calling them out on their bigotry.