Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. Once a year, there’s a candle-light vigil for every transgender person around the world in the previous year who was killed in a hate crime. Alas, there is never a shortage of names on the list. Shakesville has a list and some other background information in a thoughtful post.
One thing she mentions is that often, the killers of trans people, if they’re even brought to trial, try a “trans panic” defense, where they claim that discovering the other person was transgender was just so traumatic that murder is acceptable. It’s the old “gay panic” defense, resurrected. In Philadelphia, in just August of this year, in the 21st century, this worked.
Which brings us today’s very timely Agnes: 
What a fitting newspaper comic for today, eh? What could be better than a kids comic which depicts rage against a trans person for “keeping secrets”? How fucking great. Fuck you too, Agnes.
Author: Charles Céleste Hutchins
Supercolliding since 2003
Disengaged
I don’t feel engaged on the Prop 8 thing. Some of this is distance, certainly, but not all of it. I mean, I have benefited personally from Same Sex Marriage. My (now ex) wife and I got married in Canada in 2003. And then, alas, got divorced in California in 2005, in what was likely the state’s first ever same sex divorce.
The value of divorce as a civil institution is extremely high. Unfortunately, things don’t always work out and couples need a structure to disentangle their finances and lives. As divorce is usually an adversarial process, having things like precedent and laws protects both halves of the divorcing couple. Otherwise, the stronger half of the ex-couple would steam roll the weaker half, whether that strength be emotional or financial. Divorce is an important right for that reason and also for tax consequences. If you own property, as in land or a house, it’s going to most likely change ownership status during a divorce. If it’s a divorce, the state doesn’t ask for taxes on this transaction, which is good because splitting up is already incredibly expensive.
So my disengagement with this isn’t because I don’t see the value of gay marriage. I’m very much aware of how it has helped me. But when they started same sex marriages in California, the larger gay rights groups put out word that a ballot measure was coming and asked gays to please look presentable. Which meant: no men in dresses. Because people like me are embarrassing.
Obviously, LGB people should have all the same rights as straight people. But this battle for marriage is incredibly normative in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. No, I am not just like you, Mr. Cis Hetero, and I refuse to pretend that I am. Which means that I’m not really invited to the party. And despite that exclusion, we lost anyway.
We can’t have ENDA protection for trans people because we’re too weird and gays come first. We can’t have marriages for visibly-trans people because we’re too weird and gays come first. Not that we have either of these things, mind you, but just in case let’s make sure trannies are out.
The support-gay-marriage “cause” on Facebook, which is a pseudo charitable thing one can join, is attached to the HRC, a gay rights group which actively lobbies against trans people and gives assloads of money to Log Cabin Republicans. Are you fighting to be included in the right wing? Is it your dream to be an oppressor instead of oppressed?
I want our side to win. I want the State Supreme Court to decide that narrowing the Equal Protection clause of the state constitution, or declaring marriage not to be a fundamental right, would be a major revision and not a minor amendment, as this would seem logically to be the case. I want marriage for everybody, including me. But can we stop pretending that all queers are just like straight people except we happen to fall hopelessly in love with people of the same normative gender? Because I’m tired of being told to keep quiet and these kinds of normative lies leave too many of us unprotected.
Further Adventures with the NHS
I went today for a psychiatric assessment. I spend a lot of time being evaluated, alas. This one was at a Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust medical center. It seemed like most of the other people there were for more body-focused medical stuff. It didn’t have the kind of security that Dutch mental health centers have. Indeed, the doors opened automatically as I approached.
My appointment letter was for “Ms Celeste,” which is better than Miss, at least. The receptionist looked at the letter and looked at me and asked who the appointment was for. I said my name. She looked at me a long second and then said ok and told me to sit.
The shrink was youngish. He had a student sitting in, a man about my age. I said I was ok with that. “Just ignore him” said the shrink. Right.
He had me go on and on about my childhood. Which, frankly, is not that interesting. Any fascinating memoir of my life would start later. I mean, the first time a gender shrink asks you about your childhood, you get to construct a narrative of yourself in regards to gender. Did you always know something was different? Were you blissfully unaware? Did others point out locations of difference that you didn’t see for yourself? All of this tempered by the understanding that the receiver of said narrative is a hurdle between you and hormones/surgery/whatever you’ve come for.
So I banged out a narrative for an hour about how I’m a totally reasonable sane person. He wasn’t a gender specialist, so when I said FTM, he asked what that stood for. So gender issues weren’t even that present in the conversation. He did use the phrase “Gender Identity Disorder” though, and it got my hackles up a bit.
I don’t like being called disordered. At all. The catholic church calls homosexuality “intrinsically disordered,” which is a value judgment that I’m not keen on either. Why must every location of difference be called a disorder? Could it be a condition instead? Some other medical phrase? I’m proud of who I am. Indeed, to be different means that you have to be proud or be crushed. My identity is not a disorder, it’s just atypical.
Then funding came up. He asked me when my student visa expires and started talking about “planned elective surgery.” Which, I mean, Tower Hamlets is not awash in cash. It’s one of the poorest boroughs in London. Why should they allocate their tax money to a foreign student? I don’t know how NHS funding works, but it seems to be geographically divided. Are the residents of Tower Hamlets the main funding source for their primary care trust? Or does it come out of a large pot and then is distributed by population?
In order to change my documents in California, I need to get top surgery. Also, to be able to go swimming or wear a T shirt ever again in my life. So if the NHS won’t fund it, I can . . . wait or self-fund. I don’t think it’s reasonable to try to get it too far from where I’m actually living, so surgery in California is not a good plan unless I move back there. It’s possible for people in the UK to “go private” which means pay themselves for stuff rather than wait for the NHS to decide to pay for it. I have no idea how much this would cost here, nor if it would effect them covering my T prescriptions or anything else. Aside from whether or not I could afford it, there’s issues about recovery time. It’s long. I won’t be able to lift things for weeks. This sort of situation requires close friends and I’ve only lived here since August. So even if I got NHS funding, it still might not be a reasonable plan. So maybe I’m destined to wait years no matter what.
When I do get it, if I still have savings, the first thing I’m going to do is buy the bike jersey I’ve been wanting, which I so can’t wear right now.
Transfeminist Disucssion
I went to panel discussion on Trans Feminism at the London Transgender Film Festival yesterday, which I think was a very good discussion, although emotions did run high. The panel had four people, two of whom were mtf and two of whom were F2-genderqueer.
Near the start, one of the panelists made an excellent point about how gender is a force acting on everyone in society, but trans people end up being perceived as responsible for all gender because of transition. (I’m not stating this quite right.)
The panelists were talking about second wave and third wave feminism. Bridget, a panelist, talked about conflicts between second wave feminism and trans people and noted that the people in conflict were feeling wounded and attacked by society in general. And the people who were the most vocal were the most hurt. And that, I think, shed a lot of light on the conflict between radfems and trans people. Both of those groups have common cause, but both of them have suffered terribly under groups that (falsely) appear to have commonality with the other.
It also came up that a lot of women’s groups avoid having a trans policy to avoid controversy and then trans people don’t know if they’re welcome or not. Given the history of acrimony, these groups should be willing to make a statement for trans inclusion. For example, one of the Take Back the Night Marches last year was not listed as “official” because it had trans participation . . . which is so terrible because trans women have an even higher incidence of rape perpetuated against them than do cis women.
One of the audience members was involved in some women’s march in London (the one that shut down their mics rather than let a sex worker speak!) and she was talking about how she was in favor of trans inclusion and everybody come along, etc. But she wasn’t speaking on behalf of the group, so it was an invitation to push for inclusion.
This didn’t come up, but I want to note that “not having a policy” is a position of privilege. Cis people get to avoid having discussions they’d rather avoid. And then trans people get mixed messages about whether or not they should show up. And then, if they do come, all of the controversy is directed at them. So their quiet allies can avoid having to get involved. I’m a bit bitter about this because I got involved last spring with a feminist thing without an official policy and, as I was on T barely four months by then and feeling incredibly vulnerable anyway, a controversy focused on my own gender presentation was hugely stressful and not ok.
Anyway, somebody in the audience wanted to note that the experiences of trans women resonate with dysphoric (read: eating disorder) cis girls, and trans feminism is thus a valuable contribution to feminism because it benefits cis women. This did not go over well. I know she was well-intentioned, but it simultaneous came off as “they think THEY have it bad, but look at you (exotic) lot!” and “well, your stuff also matters to REAL females.”
The person sitting in front of me tried to defend Julie Bindel, by raising the point that Bindel apologized for the tone, but not the content, of her transphobic column in 2004. But she gave up quickly. During the break, she said she had been hoping for a panel of ftms talking about how we still care about feminism. And she wanted to talk about socialization. Given that this is a cornerstone of why some feminists are transphobic, it’s easy to see why the panel wasn’t keen to bring it up. Also, I’m concerned about why a feminist discussion that mostly included ftms would be more desirable than one that included mtfs. The implications trouble me.
What was largely lost in the whole discussion, was that third wave feminism, as an extension of second wave feminism is thus a validation of the second wave. If the second wave hadn’t been useful and made great gains, there wouldn’t be a third wave. We want to build upon the success of the second wave while, at the same time, making critiques of some of the shortcomings of the previous wave. Second wavers were feeling attacked and third wavers get annoyed and don’t spend much time on the positives of the second wave. Which is logical, really, I mean when you’re complaining about radfem transphobia, you shouldn’t have to start every complaint with an acknowledgement that they were the originators of the concept “patriarchy.” But it should come up more often than it does. We owe these women a great debt, but it doesn’t mean theyre right all the time on everything.
Anyway, the discussion was lively and I think productive and it can’t help but continue.
What I did this last weekend
Oi, I’m knackered. (Gosh, I’m tired.) I just want to list what I did over the last few days.
Thursday
Protested outside of the Stonewall awards because they nominated somebody transphobic. Stonewall is an LGB advocacy group who does not advocate for trans people and, indeed, forgets that the majority trans people are LGB themselves. I recorded a bit of the demo
Friday
Did tech setup for the London Transgender Film Festival Party.
Made a master disk of the FOSSBOX Free / Opsen Source Software disk for Mac. You can get a copy if you follow the link and then ask nicely.
Went to a film about a transgender choir in San Francisco. Before the film, the organizers talk about how the Obama victory meant positive change for people around the world.
Ran tech at the party that I set up for. It was my first time running sound at a party, which is very different than doing a concert. People trying to get into each other’s pants absorb a lot more sound than quiet, seated people. And the gear is flaky. And feedback. And yikes. I need more practice at this.
Watched a lot of Scarface at my next door neighbor’s flat whilst drinking a beer at three in the morning.
Saturday
Went to a film called Still Black, in which African American FTMs talked about their transition.
Went to a club where there was, um, nakedness and um, more. Londoners are properly debauched when they want to be.
Looked at iPhone capabilities.
Sunday
Went to see a whole mess of short films and panel discussions. One of the films I want to get a copy of for my dad. It was a MTF’s father talking about her transition. The dad was sad, but I think it might be good for my dad to watch it. I know he’s been talking to other parents of trans people.
Came home and felt exhausted and had tea with my neighbor.
Decided to officially come out as bi. The term “bi” is much too binary, so I prefer “queer,” but what I mean is that I fancy folks both masculine/male-spectrum and female-spectrum. I’ve been hinting at this for several weeks. I don’t think this is just some effect of testosterone, but rather a result of how I’m positioned in the queer community. Or maybe it also has something to do with T. I don’t know. I kind of thought gay boys were cute before too. Anyway.
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Expatriotism
I read your blog and forgot you weren’t talking to me.
I wanted to ask you something about home,
about what you saw in Oakland the night Obama won.
The hardest part about being away is missing things like this,
holidays, tragedies and sudden defining moments,
where all at once, everything changes forever,
again.
You said it was like we’d won the World Cup.
A foreign metaphor.
What I want to know is: Did you think of me?
But what I want to ask is: Tell me who you saw and what they did.
But what I want to say is: I miss you.
Why we lost on Prop 8
The SF Chronicle wrote a bit about campaign strategy:
That allowed Prop. 8 opponents, worried that many voters were not enamored with the idea of same-sex marriage, to run a TV campaign that almost never mentioned gays or lesbians or showed them in an ad. Instead, the ads charged that Prop. 8 supporters wanted to take away rights from a single, unnamed group of people, which just wasn’t fair.
If we’re not even willing to name ourselves as citizens, why on earth would anybody want to support us? If we’re ashamed of being LGBT, then why are our rights valuable? If this strategy NEVER WORKS, why do the mainstream campaigns keep using it?!
If we want rights, then we have to be gay and proud, not weirdly lurking and hiding. Same sex couples deserve the right to marry! Stand up and say it!
In other news, holy cow, Obama won. oh my god.
The Transsexual Industry
In the UK, the largest LGB* rights organization is called Stonewall. You’ll note I didn’t say “LGBT.”** They don’t say it either. They’re a lot like the HRC in the States.
They’re about to have an awards banquet where they’re going to recognize various people who they feel are good for the LGB community. One of the people nominated is a journalist named Julie Bindel, who is a Radical Feminist*** lesbian who writes for the Guardian. Like most radfems, her writings on trans issues are often transphobic. She has written transphobic things in her column in a major newspaper. Trans activists are displeased that Stonewall wants to honor this writing.
Alas, I am not talking about subtle differences in opinion. She has used slurs and thinks that trans people shouldn’t have access to hormones or surgery, saying, “Sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation.” While she’s apologized for past slurs, the other stuff she hasn’t. She recently issued a statement about the controversy, which does not back away from those positions. (Indeed, the quote above is from it.) Instead, she says, “I am the victim of an organised group of bullies who seek to discredit me and silence any radical feminist debate around the issue of GID**** and of the transsexual industry.”
The transsexual industry? Does she imagine that trans people are some kind of profit center for the NHS? That’s as mad as making claims about the “abortion industry” in the US! In fact, it’s almost exactly identical.
Earlier in her statement, she talks a lot about Claudia, somebody who had SRS and then regretted it. She writes,
In 1985, after a consultation with Reid that lasted only 45 minutes, Claudia was diagnosed as transsexual and referred for surgery. . .. In May 2007 after a case lasting three years, the General Medical Council’s disciplinary committee ruled that Reid had prescribed hormones to five of his patients too soon, and referred them for genital surgery without properly assessing their mental and physical suitability. . . .. [G]etting to know Claudia was the catalyst for me in deciding to research the hidden side of sex change surgery, namely the validity of the original diagnosis of GID, and the stories of those who regret taking the hormones and having the surgery.
In the States, anti-choice activists claim that there is an abortion industry, where woman-hating male doctors cajole their patients into having abortions which leave them mentally and physically scarred for life. They mention the cases of some unhappy women who wish they hadn’t done it. They bring up some doctors who have faced discipline for unethical acts. Based on this, they argue that abortion is harming women and ought to be made illegal.
Bindel is using the same argument. And this betrays a fundamental truth about her perspective. Anti-choicers want to remove agency from women, so they imagine that somebody else has already done so. They see themselves as guardians of a helpless and contemptible class of people. Similarly, Bindel imagines that trans people have no agency and should not be allowed control over their own bodies. Like anti-choicers, she imagines a sinister “industry,” eager to prey upon weak victims who fall into their clutches.
And yet, in both cases, most of the people who utilize these “industries” don’t see themselves as victims at all, but as agents empowered to take advantage of what was a hard-won right. I would like to imagine that the parallels in argument would give any feminist pause, but as right wingers have happily co-opted language from the left to paint themselves as victims, I can’t imagine anyone of any political stripe would be above borrowing language and arguments form their ideological enemies. If painting others as victims works for your cause, then you would use it. I’d hope that the agency-denying aspect of the argument would give leftists pause, but, alas, this gets into a larger critique of radical feminism.
If seeing trans people as full adults won’t work, maybe she’ll note that medical malpractice is a real issue, but when somebody has their spleen unnecessarily removed, we don’t condemn all spleen surgery as a result. But if logic doesn’t work for anti-choice activists, it won’t work on their ideological twin. After all, there’s a sinister industry afoot.
* Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual.
** T is for transgender or transsexual or other gender minorities.
*** Not the fun kind
**** Gender Identity Disorder is the diagnosis used to give hormones and whatnot to trans people want them.
Old Men
The sort of charm of pipes and shaving kits and things made of leather.
The charm of men who drink Jenever
and fought in the war.
They are old men.
Our fathers or grandfathers.
Charming with their tweed and antique handguns and easy masculinity.
They wish they spoke like Hemingway,
so they chop their feelings instead of their sentences,
show their affection by talking about your car.
“You dress like an old man,” my last girlfriend said about my hat.
I want to skip straight to old, missing awkward and gawky and this second puberty.
I envy them their beards,
their unquestioned assumptions,
their bodies which, at least once, matched
before they needed doctors to make things work.
We have that much in common.
Crap Poetry
The hospice volunteer read from a book of poems about death.
It contained rainbows.
And also wolves, bald eagles, spotted owls, blue whales,
a veritable who’s who of the endangered species list.
All of them welcoming a freed spirit
Maybe they didn’t know my mom had let her membership to Greenpeace lapse.
Or maybe they did, but also that when that quack came around saying shark cartilage was a magic cure,
I’d said no.
Not just because it wouldn’t work
but for the sharks
Or maybe, as the poem implied, they were just overjoyed at the death of a human.
Any human.
Thinking, “Thank gods. If enough of them die, we might get to live after all.”