Now, I don’t inherently object to plot lines where a man pursues a woman who isn’t interested. Likewise, this was a show with a lot of clowning, so the physical confrontation was not violent or objectionable in the way it could have been in a more traditional straight play (a term which has nothing to do with sexuality).  Likewise, the rejected man was shamed for his overbearing nature, and kicked out of the show as a result of his behavior. The other guy, the good guy, got the girl and all was right with the world.

At the same time, the way the female lead’s rejection of this man – and, more specifically, the way he responded – made me really uncomfortable. For me, it boiled down to frustration that this production used a character’s belief that “No means yes” for comedic value.

I’ve talked with a number of my friends about this, most of whom had seen the show. The general consensus was, “Yeah, I see where you’re coming from, but it was just for humor’s sake. I don’t think it was such a big deal.” And I honestly think it is possible to overreact to art or theatre or television or whatever with cries of “That’s not politically correct!” I don’t want to be known as an unnecessary complainer, or as unreasonably sensitive. At the same time, I think having a character explicitly say, “Hey! No means no!” (perhaps as the bad guy finally gets shamed in the end) might have gotten an even bigger laugh from the adults in the audience while making also clear the official position of the production.

More broadly, this has gotten me thinking about how being aware of a particular social issue (race/gender/ethnicity/class/religion/sexuality/whatever) makes one more sensitive to how that issue is portrayed. I think many of us have had (or perhaps been) “that friend” for a while, always crying foul at things that – with a bit more perspective – weren’t worth fretting over. Hence the title of this post, which I hope was obviously intended as joke. But choosing which battle to fight is always tough, and something I want to do properly. I just wish there were fewer of these edge cases, where there’s enough to make me want to speak up, but not enough to make me sure it’s worth the trouble.

Last September, the school board offered Buterman $78,000 cash — approximately a teacher’s salary — along with a one-year teaching job in exchange for dropping the complaint. The settlement came with a confidentiality agreement which stipulated he could no longer talk about the complaint or refer to the incident.

Buterman didn’t want to give up talking about the case, since it involves documented proof of anecdotal experiences of many transgender people.

I think that’s pretty awesome, and more power to Butterman. Unfortunately, for financial reasons, it does look like this will be the end of his case against the school: “Buterman’s lawyers have advised him refusing the offer would result in the school board moving to dismiss the complaint because a “fair and reasonable” settlement has been put on the table.”

I want to applaud Butterman for not only standing up to the school, but refusing to accept a settlement which would silence him. I’m always frustrated when I hear stories of injustice silenced after a we-didn’t-do-anything-wrong-even-though-we’re-paying-you-off ‘settlement.’ (I’m not faulting folks who take those settlements, I just wish they weren’t so common.) There’s a good expansion of the issues over at Dented Blue Mercedes.

PS – Check out Show Me Your Feminism, a Tumblr project by a Than Blog reader. (Feel free to take credit in the comments – wasn’t sure how public you wanted your involvement.)

El Saadawi already seems to have lived more lives than most. She trained as a doctor, then worked as a psychiatrist and university lecturer, and has published almost 50 novels, plays and collections of short stories. Her work, which tackles the problems women face in Egypt and across the world, has always attracted outrage, but she never seems to have balked at this; she has continued to address controversial issues such as prostitution, domestic violence and religious fundamentalism in her writing.

Very worth reading.

Next, from Feministe, Hipsters, Hasidim and a Bike Lane in Brooklyn.

…this is where I lose sympathy. I get it you’ve lived here longer. And you know what? I do believe that when a wealthier, more powerful group comes into a traditionally marginalized community, seniority does matter. But at some point, you don’t get to pull the seniority card when it comes to your religiously-based objections to female use of public space and transportation. And here, the hipsters weren’t making rules for the entire community. They were using a public street, paid for with everyone’s tax dollars, to ride their bikes. I run out of patience for objections to people using public streets because your religion objects to the female form. I run out of patience where people object to having to see people who are different from them in New York City. This isn’t about, “Damn, all these outsiders are coming in and driving up the rental market and now I can’t afford my place” or “I moved here to live in a neighborhood, not to have a bunch of loud bars built on my block.” This is, “I think that my religious belief regarding the appropriateness of women in public should trump the rights of women to move through public space.”

Lastly, here’s a cuddling seal for your enjoyment:

Raise the subject of sexism, and you are met with illogic that I can only compare to that of the tobacco companies trying to deny the link between their products and cancer. Because I took a feminist stance in public, I have been abused in every way possible — being called irrelevant, a saboteur, coward, homosexual, and even a betrayer of the community.

As Slashdot is a mostly-male discussion site, I expected resistance to any claims of sexism, and wasn’t disappointed. To be fair, some of them were totally legit, indicating that the examples given in the article weren’t representative of the community as a whole:

If I haven’t seen it, and no around me has seen it, isn’t the onus on you to give some more proof other than, “Really, guys! Sexism in OSS is real!”

At the same time, there were a lot of people who missed the point, and trying to find examples of tactics listed at Derailing for Dummies quickly got old – there were just too many of them.

However, there were also some great comments in support of the idea that maybe, just maybe, the highly educated and libertarian individuals who tend toward FOSS can also be sexist, and that simply dismissing cries of sexism isn’t really helpful.

From pdabbadabba:

Feminists say that the structure of society and individuals’ prejudices make it more difficult for women to succeed in (e.g.) the workplace than men. Your response to that seems to be “Get used to it. You’ll get a lot farther by growing a backbone than by bitching.” This is only true in the short term, if its true at all. Tomorrow’s women will be better off if we, today, address the prejudices than if today’s women merely “grow a backbone.

From ObsessiveMathsFreak, responding to this claim: “So if only 1.5% of developers are women … but fewer than 0.1% of comments on development mailing lists are sexist … what is the real “problem” that exists?”

It really wasn’t surprising that most of the comments in the discussion seemed to boil down to, “There isn’t an issue, and anyone who disagrees is wrong.” (Which is just as bad as their claims that the author of the articles was saying, “There is an issue, and anyone who disagrees is wrong.”) I was pleased, however, to see posts (like the ones quotes above) that didn’t go in that direction, and that were still moderated up.

Christine and Shayna are doing a study on third wave feminists and their spirituality:

Are you a 3rd Wave Feminist?
How do you experience spirituality?
Share your voice with us. We’re doing a pilot study on third wave feminists’ experience of spirituality. If you identify as a woman and a third wave feminist and you’re between the ages of 18-40, fill out our short (we estimate under 20 minutes) narrative survey!

The study is at http://ThirdWaveSpirit.questionpro.com and Christine and Shayna said they could be emailed at ThirdWaveSpirit@gmail.com. I just completed the survey, and I’d say their time estimate is pretty accurate. It also has some interesting questions that required some thought about where I am with religion, spirituality, and my sense of self.

To cis feminists, when you are building new resources, what do you gain by excluding trans women? Is that gain worth the harm you cause trans women? Is that not status quo with the rest of the patriarchal world – to see trans women as disposable, valueless and not worthy of protecting – and shouldn’t feminism be doing better?

Likewise, in light of the ridiculous cis debate, it’s refreshing to see a really constructive discussion surrounding a trans-related issue.

Throughout the evening, and particularly later in the evening as I was more and more tired and my mental filter dropped, I found myself looking down and being somewhat awestruck at the sight: Boobs (my boobs!) in a dress (my dress!) framed by hairless arms topped with painted nails (my arms and nails!) leading down to smooth legs (my legs!) ending in heels (my heels!) tipped with painted toes (my toes!).

This was the most femininely I’ve dressed up since starting to transition, and even though I was exhausted from helping out rather than having fun, I sort of couldn’t get over the experience.

The getting-together of the outfit was still rather stressful (my roommate can attest to that) and the dress I was planning to wear definitely looked better in the dressing room and did not, in fact, fit me. But I got my nails done today, and managed to get my hair together in such a way that wasn’t unacceptable, and I looked pretty. So there.

(As a postscript, I do have to admit I feel something like a bad feminist after tonight. On the way to the event, someone creepy man at a crosswalk commented on how he liked my legs, and I of course was disgusted. But also secretly more than a little flattered. Likewise for the guys who checked me out on the street.)

sorry, but cis trumps. Born this way. You chose the new territory, so perhaps you’ll be able to be a feminist in time, but right away? No way

Once again, I think I’m just going to quote myself:

Neither Dictionary.com, nor Wikipedia, nor Stanford, nor any other resource I could find indicates feminism is a philosophy exclusive to women, or people raised as women. Feminism, at least the feminism I identify with, isn’t a womyn-born-womyn space, and doesn’t benefit only women. CrimethInc says it better than I could but, in short, for every girl who was told she couldn’t be a firefighter there is a boy who was told he couldn’t be a ballerina. Yes, women are ultimately the victims of sexism and the benefactors of feminism more often than men, but it’s naive to think sexism doesn’t cut both ways and its elimination wouldn’t benefit people other than those who have “been oppressed because of their genitalia or reproductive organs.” (Which, by the way, trans women have too.)

And that’s that.

Anonymous’ second comment was to The Transphobic, Cissexist People in our Lives. It’s a little long, so I’m going to break it up and respond section by section.

So this is something that makes me angry… Trans people, specifically the M to F people, saying they are feminists. They weren’t raised as women, they were never oppressed because of their genitalia or reproductive organs, never told they couldn’t be firefighters. Perhaps they were told they couldn’t play with dolls?

I don’t understand why they think they expect to be automatically considered “women” when they are obviously MID-TRANSITION. You are, by definition, IN THE MIDDLE, not on either side.

So claiming to be a feminist!? is distasteful to me, at the very least, because you want to shuck your privileges as a male and then whine about how hard women have it. When YOU WERE NOT BORN THAT WAY. You have CHOSEN to become a woman, so STOP THE FUCKING WHINING.

I think that Anonymous was responding more generally to my blog, and not to this specific post, as it (and the discussion that followed) didn’t really cover feminism.

However, that’s irrelivant to the larger claim that anyone, let alone trans people specifically, can’t be feminists. Neither Dictionary.com, nor Wikipedia, nor Stanford, nor any other resource I could find indicates feminism is a philosophy exclusive to women, or people raised as women. Feminism, at least the feminism I identify with, isn’t a womyn-born-womyn space, and doesn’t benefit only women. CrimethInc says it better than I could but, in short, for every girl who was told she couldn’t be a firefighter there is a boy who was told he couldn’t be a ballerina. Yes, women are ultimately the victims of sexism and the benefactors of feminism more often than men, but it’s naive to think sexism doesn’t cut both ways and its elimination wouldn’t benefit people other than those who have “been oppressed because of their genitalia or reproductive organs.” (Which, by the way, trans women have too.)

I’m also really interested the anger Anonymous has towards mid-transition trans women who wish to be considered ‘women.’ Unfortunately, until there’s a trans-only bathroom/pronoun/clothing line/dressing room/etc I’m forced to pick one or the other. On top of which, there is no gatekeeper to gender. Every definition has its exceptions (intersexed, AIS, infertile, too feminine, too masculine, too something) and I don’t see how my self-identification as a woman harms anyone.

But finally Anonymous gets to the root of the matter: male privilege. Well, on that, I’m going to go ahead and quote myself:

As for accusations of having been male and suffering from misogyny, I’m not going to pretend I’m magically free of the effects of having been socialized as male for twenty-plus years, and that transitioning hasn’t been a humbling experience. Transitioning has helped me understand exactly how insidious culture and socialization is in creating expectations about appropriate behavior, and I am learning that certain things I was socialized to think were OK really aren’t. You have every right to call me out if you perceive something I say to be misogynistic. But you don’t have a right to presume I don’t know what I’m talking about, or that everything I say, as a trans woman, is automatically misogynist.

But we’re not done yet. That’s right, there’s more:

I couldn’t choose to be a man.  I was born into this body, born into the Mormon society that automatically strips women of their rights except in regards to childbirth and the home.  You are CHOOSING this life, although you have neither the genetic makeup(XX chromosome) nor the hormones, nor the biological structures associated with “being female”.  So why the fuck you’re crying when people call you out on not “passing” for female or when they challenge your right to be called a feminist, or when they just get sick of your sensitivity to trans-centered jokes or transphobia (or homophobia for that matter)… I mean, it’s probably because you’re being RIDICULOUS.

I’m choosing to transition. But it’s the same choice a diabetic makes when taking insulin: treatment or death. The only thing that kept me going before transitioning was the thought that I might one day be able to do so. Had I felt that door was forever closed, I would have killed myself before hitting puberty. I did not, however, choose to be trans.

And I don’t know – I haven’t gotten a chromosome test, but (as I said above) any definition of gender is fraught with those who don’t quite fit, and who straddle the line. Likewise, I know women who have had mastectomies or hysterectomies. Does that mean they’re no longer women, because they lack “the biological structures”? (And, although I’m forced to admit I don’t produce them myself, I do have the hormones. My curves are mine, thankyouverymuch.)

But moving on:

I dated a man who decided towards the end of our relationship that he really wanted to become a woman, wanted the surgery, hrt, the whole shebang, and well, since I’m attracted to men, not women, we decided to break up.  Being the kind-hearted, open-minded individual I am, I tried to remain friends with this person.  He changed his name to Tiffany.  So Tiffany began changing radically from the man I had known and loved, changing into this uber feminine pre-teen sort of person, which is not the sort of person I’d hang out with anyway– I’d chosen this person because they were the kind of person I enjoyed hanging out with, and now they decided to radically not be that person anymore, belying any of their genetics or biology — which to me, is really what you ARE — and they became this person I just didn’t enjoy talking to anymore.

And then I got accused of being “insensitive”.  I’m sorry?  I’m not really expected to be friends with someone who I don’t like, am I?  Moreover, someone who doesn’t respect my own perspective AS a woman, specifically the perspective that rejects society’s view of women as objects and anyone not uber feminine isn’t a real woman– I mean, seriously, these are things I’d spent my whole life learning, and to watch someone else stumble through it like a noob when I’m right there trying to help is FRUSTRATING.

At last, we get to the root of the issue. Anonymous is an essentialist, equating biology and genetics with destiny. This argument always confused me, particularly coming from someone who I assumed considers herself a feminist. In addition to not being gender-exclusive, a big component of my understanding of feminism is biology not being destiny. Going back to a diabetes analogy, I hope Anonymous wouldn’t begrudge a diabetic their insulin, even though it goes against their genetics or biology.

I’m not trying to say genetics and biology have nothing to do with who people are. I know that I have a lot of my parents in me, and I’m thankful for it. But to say I’m biologically destined to be something is just silly. And again, I didn’t choose to be trans – but I’d argue strongly being trans was biological in origin, which means not transitioning would be going against my biological ‘programming.’

All that said, I’m truly sorry Anonymous couldn’t stay friends with Tiffany. She’s right, in that a lot of trans women (and men, to a lesser extent) change drastically in their transition and undergo a very awkward, very stereotypical, very hyper-feminine stage, which they may or may not grow out of. It’s the same reason girls go through a very similar stage, with excessive makeup and ridiculous outfits, as they try to develop their own identities as women. I don’t think Anonymous was insensitive for calling Tiffany out if she did become a stereotype or a parody of femininity. But I do strongly suspect Anonymous did so in an insensitive way anyway, simply because nothing she’s said thus far indicates she ‘gets’ what being trans means.

Lastly:

Anyway.  I understand that being trans is hard, but life is hard all ways.  Even if you do decide to stick with what you were born with and not use your “gender confusion” as a cop-out to obfuscate your REAL PROBLEMS and REAL LACK OF COPING SKILLS.

I lied. The root of the issue had a deeper, uglier, root. (Like with pie.) Anonymous, by using quotes to dismiss the possibility gender dysphoria is a real thing, doesn’t believe trans people really exist. She’s not denying my actual existence as a person, but she’s saying I don’t really want to transition – I’m just using it to cover up what’s really going on in my life. How kind of her to clue me in on my secret motivations…

I would suggest growing some figurative balls and stop being such a baby about things in general, but that’s just the way *I* deal with things.  As a woman.

Does this mean you’re not coming over so we can do our nails and cry at Gilmore Girls?

But first, lets go back in time a month or so and look at a similar discussion on trans issues which happened at Feministing and Feministe in mid April.

Here’s the timeline, as best as I can reconstruct it. It’s worth noting that I was not making a good habit of reading comments on these blogs, so didn’t really realize there was a controversy brewing until it was already in full swing. As always, I imagine there are other blogs with other posts that I missed – feel free to let me know about any of ‘em and I’ll try to update the timeline.

On April 1, Miriam at Feministing posted about a Focus on the Family FUD-inducing email about “Men in Women’s Bathrooms.” Likewise, on April 3, Cara at Feministe posted about an essay written by a cis man about things he learned from a trans student. In both cases, the posts themselves were fine, addressing trans issues with respect. However, in both cases, the comments drifted and became transphobic and/or wildly off topic. When Voz and GallingGala called people out on this at Feministe, they were told, “Not all discussions that crop up will be concerns to all women. Isn’t that bound to happen?”

On April 6, Lucy at Catspaw posted It’s Always About Cis Women, calling out Feminsting and Feministe on their inability foster trans-friendly spaces, ending her post with, “But maybe the Feministe commenter is right. Any discussion that crops up about trans issues is bound to not include the concerns of trans folk. It is always about the cis women. With a few (wonderful) exceptions, it seems as though cis women can’t be bothered to consider any experience outside their own. At least not the cis women found at major online feminist sites. Way to include all women.”

On April 7, Queen Emily at Questioning Transphobia posted Bathroom Panic, it’s totally feminist, calling out those in the Feministing thread on being transphobic.

Finally, on April 9, Voz Latina posted a call to boycott Feministing and Feminste saying that bloggers should “send a message that hurting trans women is NOT in fact feministing.”

Still with me? Good.

On April 14, Cara responded with her post, On Cis Supremacy, Feminism, and Feministe. She basically said that trans women had a right to be “absolutely furious,” that she should have stepped in earlier, and that she planed “to take full responsibility if [a similar situation] happens [again] and to not expect second chances.” The discussion in the comments was pretty positive, and began to turn towards how to keep future conversations on topic and not allow people to derail them with offtopic posts, trans 101 questions, or transphobic speech.

Then, on April 15, Miriam likewise posted In Response to the Dialogue, where she acknowledged what had been happening and promised a followup post with comments enabled. On April 20, she indeed posted Gender discussions at Feministing, which explicitly called for a conversation on how to discuss trans issues at Feministing. In the interim between the two posts, a number of Feministing community bloggers wrote posts worth reading, which are linked to from Miriam’s post on April 20. Miriam’s post garnered 350 comments, most of which tried to further the discussion, but comments almost instantly turned (once again) to trans 101 questions, offtopic discussion, and transphobic posts. Moderators did step in and stem this, so I do have to give kudos where they’re due, but it sucks that it continued to happen in the first place. (I want to specifically call attention to LenaD’s comment, which I agree with, calling for better trans 101 resources and for moderators to be specific as to why they are deleting or moderating a comment.)

So now what?

In the end, I’m upset about how the discussion at Feministing happened following my question and Proffesor Foxy’s response. First, as Caoimhe noted in the comments to my previous post on this subject, it would have been nice if Prof F had quoted some trans people she’d talked with. It’s entirely possible the “people” she spoke with are trans, and simply threw up their hands in confusion at my question, but I find that difficult to believe. Likewise, I naively thought that, after the huge discussion at Feministing about gender and trans issues, people would be able to hold their shit together and comment on a trans-specific question without veering wildly off topic.

I also don’t think any moderators stepped in to do anything about it. Indeed, Prof F said she was going to leave up a transphobic comment to provide “a great example of people on feministing responding to these kinds of comments.” Screw that.

I realize this is all in direct opposition to how I ended my previous post, where I said that “I want to reiterate that the experience of reading (and responding to) all these comments has been more positive than negative – it’s reassured me that, on the whole, Feministing’s community is able to be supportive when discussing trans issues. But not 100%, and not without veering offtopic along the way.”

I think I have to take that back. Feministing’s community was able to (almost across the board) not be transphobic. That’s definitely worth something, and is reassuring. But I’m not convinced that’s the same thing as being supportive.

I’m going to try and continue to participate in the Feministing community but today was an eye-opener. I’d like to think I could have appreciated how offtopic and transphobic discussion can be silencing and remove the possibility of a positive community experience without having it directly apply to something about myself. But I sure as hell can see all of that when it is around a question I asked, and a discussion I prompted.

-R