marjaerwin

I don't know what to think of this discussion:

http://arletterocks.tumblr.com/post/26452521377/on-creepiness

http://radtransfem.tumblr.com/post/79174724869/the-only-way-were-given-to-deal-with-it-is

Point one: there are genuinely threatening people out there.

Point two: I'll always have trouble recognizing the genuinely threatening people, without overtly threatening acts. I can't really define that. I'll always have fight-or-flight responses but these aren't restricted to the genuinely threatening people [someone in a police uniform, some man in no shirt, someone walking a dog, some several men talking together]. I mean I have a fairly strong 'creepdar' but it is prone to false positives and false negatives.

Point three: I'm going to suggest that some of our 'creepdar' is actually 'xenodar' and rooted in unconscious xenophobia. If our first reaction is to be afraid of someone, we ought to ask ourselves why we're afraid of them. A lot of the time, it is a bad reason, rooted in racism, or sexism, or fear of 'strange' behavior. A lot of the time it can mean hurting someone when we need to help them. At one point I heard a woman shouting and saw a man staggering and not speaking. I was confused and scared until she explained that he was having some kind of medical emergency and needed water. So I got water. I worry that trusting in our 'creepdar' can mean ignoring people in genuine emergencies, and ostracizing people with disabilities.

I think I've already posted on this, but it is a recurring issue.

I think womyn-born-womyn was originally intended to emphasize connections between cis mothers and cis daughters, and then became a convenient way to exclude trans womyn. Even though we are generally speaking born womyn. But I always thought the term womyn was intended to decenter men.

I don't speak Old English, but iirc, manna originally meant any human being, although it was also grammatically masculine; cwen and wyf meant female human being; guma and wer meant male human being.

In effect, hegemonic English opposes (unmarked) man and (marked) woman, just as it opposes (unmarked) woman and (marked) transwoman, although in the first case its opposing two groups, and in the second case it's opposing one group and a subset of that group. Trying to get male human beings to identify as wer men, when that's relevant, is at least as difficult as trying to get cis human beings to identify as cis people, when that's relevant. Saying, 'well, we're not a subset of men, we can change the root' is easier here.

Can we find some better way to discuss the creeps without demonizing the folks who fall in love with their friends or don't feel safe enough to let themselves fall in love with anyone but their trusted friends?

I’m getting sick of the denunciations of nice guys/nice girls. I know everyone’s aiming at the creeps, but all too often they hit the socially awkward folks, the demisexual folks, the other folks who fall in love with their friends, the loveshy folks, and the folks who are survivors, or trans, or struggling with body image issues, who don’t want to be romantic with someone they aren’t already close friends with.

I contacted Elsie to ask this last December. I have not heard back yet. It's possible they didn't get my question, but at this point, I'd like to share it even without an answer.

Hi,

I subscribed to Lesbian Connection a few years ago, understanding that it was intended for the whole lesbian community. I am trans. I suggested Lesbian Connection to a few of my friends, and one of them pointed out the language under the guidelines. I had not seen this before. She thought the definition, "women-born-women who identify as lesbians" was intended to exclude us. I don't know whether that was the intention and whether that is still the intention. I do know that I am who I was born, and I am a woman.

I am trying to decide whether to renew my subscription and whether to suggest Lesbian Connection to my trans lesbian friends. I would like to be able to share a reply to clear the confusion one way or the other.

Thank you.

I still consider myself a radical feminist. Also an anarchafeminist and trans feminist. I take a lot of criticism, and sometimes hate, for being trans and for having unorthodox feminist views. But this maddens me more than all of that.

Commenting on this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/20/condom-seizures-sex-workers-hiv-aids#start-of-comments on the criminalization of carrying condoms, I noted:

"Sometimes it seems that the purpose of the law is to keep the powerful powerful and the powerless powerless. In this case, it's to punish/endanger/sometimes extort sex from prostitutes and punish marginalized demographics, not to protect prostitutes from abusive clients. Anti-prostitution sweeps target poor womyn, womyn of color, and trans womyn, and profile the targets."

And someone called me a "propagandist in favor of prostitution" who "serve[s] as the mouthpiece of sex traffickers."

*headdesk*

Okay, so you arrive at the game. You've spent a lot of time coming up with your character, her backstory, and eventually her game stats. You've been looking forward to the game. So you talk with the other players, and start playing. Something turns sour, or even creepy, and the game isn't fun any more. You don't want to give up quite yet. You don't want to leave and disrupt the story. So you keep playing and keep talking with the other players as if nothing had happened. And the guys might not realize that anything had happened.

The worst is when one of the male players starts making sexual advances. If they are doing this out of game, this is just creepy. If they are doing this in-game, it could be because the character is creepy, rather than the player, but they should be careful not to make the other players uncomfortable.

Another problem is when one of the male players stares at your boobs for the entire game. I have had this happen as much as most female gamers.

Another problem is when one of the male players decides to sexualize female characters, or to create his own female character and sexualize her. I'm all for male gamers playing female characters and female gamers playing male characters, especially because it gives people another perspective on the gender system. I know that some male players can play female characters whose sexuality is an important part of their character without sexualizing their character.

But few men realize how threatening the male gaze is. How many of them have been subject to the male gaze? How many of them have to deal with men shouting obscene sexual demands? How many of them have been sexually assaulted? bashed or raped? How many of them have helped their friends through the trauma? Maybe if some of these men knew how threatening the male gaze is, they would know better than to sexualize their characters, and be more aware of other issues that may be triggering to other players. Maybe.

First: A recent article via Boing Boing, on how the dance industry standardized dancers' bodies, and wrecked dancers' feet, with the introduction of pointe shoes.

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/08/ballet-shoes-as-technology.html

Second: A recent post on a certain transphobic blog, on how "women's sports" enforce femininity, and in some cases require breast implants.

I haven't read the original article which Boing Boing links. I'm too angry and triggery right now, and nauseous, just from reading this.

I want a world where people can alter their bodies. I hate a world where people have to alter their bodies, and often wreck their health, at the discretion of employers, states, etc. And half-measures, which preserve hierarchy/subordination while trying to limit or regulate the abuses, are not enough. As long as hierarchy/subordination exists, it is abuse, and it will lead to future abuses. As long as the class system and the job system exist, they are abuse, and they will enable abuses from those higher-up and work to silence complaints from those below.

We see this with rape. Womyn who do not report sexual assault to the state, but speak out to other people, are silenced, as though only liars would have ethical, personal, or other reasons not to report to the state. And womyn who do report sexual assault to the state, depending on poverty, occupation, minority status, and which rulers' turf they were born on, may face harassment, jail, beatings, deportation, etc. Men, and womyn mistaken for men, face their own barriers.

If you want freedom and justice, then work towards equality and solidarity.

I'm unfamiliar with the religious requirements, but to me, almost any workaround seems better than cutting children's genitalia:

http://www.bilerico.com/2011/06/the_anteater_vs_the_mushroom_debating_circumcision.php?utm_source=front_page&utm_medium=top_story&utm_campaign=Top_Story

Since the requirement only applies to sons, why not provisionally raise all children as daughters, until they are old enough to declare their sex and their willingness to undergo circumcision? Simple, really, and so much kinder.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/09/german-feminist-alice-shwarzer

It isn't vital now and probably never has been vital. Reproduction doesn't even require turkey basters. It is amazing how people take heteronormativity for granted.

When men consider how they should treat other men, it is moral philosophy. When womyn consider how we should treat other womyn, it is feminism. It has taken feminism to separate the were-centered moral philosophies from the human-centered ones. It will take feminism-in-practice to discover the full potential of feminism-in-theory.

What do I look for in feminism-in-practice? (besides, of course, my beloved V.?)

I honestly don't know, but I'd suggest, for starters:

Womyn's freedom-in-equality, that is a social relationship of mutual respect, mutual cooperation, self-directedness and self-realization.

Womyn's completeness, recognizing that womyn are not the matching halves of men, but are whole among ourselves.

Womyn's space, that is a community defined by womyn's needs and contributions.

Womyn's originality, that is the rediscovery of our identity and potential as womyn.

P.S. Most of these are inclusive of men as well as womyn. Womyn's equality certainly has to encompass men as well as womyn; we will fail to treat ourselves rightly if we come to treat men wrongly. Womyn's completeness is just as important. It requires a strong push-back and heterosexism and against subversivism. I think that creating gynocentric spaces can help to encourage womyn's completeness. I think that once we defeat misogyny as well as patriarchy, then we can create spaces which are for all humans at once. In any case, the perception that we are incomplete on our own encourages many of the attempts of men and of other womyn to deny us individual control of our own bodies. I would point to the recurring argument that, among hetero people, husbands should be able to deny their wives access to birth control or abortion.