Some Common Sense About Trans*-Inclusiveness

madgastronomer:

“…in light of this knowledge of the tenets of radical lesbian feminism, you can see that in their day, these women of their own volition and accord chose a definition of “femaleness” which was absent any real scientific basis in fact, a definition which rejected science, actually, on the grounds that science is corrupted by patriarchy, and therefore “women’s mysteries” are the only trustable source of knowledge.

In this system of quasi-religious belief, there is an ineffable mysticism about femaleness that cannot under any circumstances be acquired by anyone not “born woman”, and thus the claims of trans women to womanhood are inherently invalid, appropriative, false, and oppressive to “real women”. And because it is their central belief that oppression of women by men via patriarchy is the most fundamental oppression that exists, their resistance to comprehending our reality rests upon the fact that they do not acknowledge that we are, in fact, women.

You can see the natural outgrowth of this fervent belief in the mystical feminine in such areas as the wholesale construction of such anachronistic religious practices as Wicca, Dianic Paganism, and the Cybeline cults which have grown up around radical feminism, using the flimsiest of historical evidence as the basis for modern practice, and rejecting the dominant academic and intellectual tendency toward Atheism, which they regard as patriarchal (not entirely without cause, of course).”

— Gemma Seymour-Amper, Comments on Facebook in the aftermath of the death of Adrienne Rich, 30 March 2012 (via gcvsa)

When I attended the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival for the first time, over a decade ago, I was aware of their policy that MWMF was open to what they refer to as “womyn-born womyn” only. I didn’t have a problem with the policy, at first, because trans* women are born women (well, girls); they’re just born with a condition that makes their bodies appear male.

That’s just common fucking sense.

It wasn’t until I heard about, and investigated for myself, Camp Trans (across the road from the MWMF main entrance, and so not on ‘the Land’) that I discovered what the founding members and property owners meant by “womyn-born womyn” — that the term was intended to exclude both trans women and trans men. (The existence of any other possible genders was, and is, not considered by the MWMF.) I wound up spending much of my time out with Camp Trans, or attending workshops with and about trans women and trans men, as well as participating in one of the meetings held to discuss the past, present and future of trans inclusion at the festival.

During the latter meeting, which was held at the dining tent several hours after dinner ended, and for which Camp Trans participants had been specifically and officially invited onto the Land by festival organizers, and which was open to anyone attending the Festival that year as well, a woman approached the tent, stood across the dirt road in the dark, and repeatedly screamed, “You’re raping me! You’re raping me!” at all of us under the dining tent pavillion. She equated our being allowed to participate in a conversation with a direct, violent and violating physical assault against her body — whoever she was, hiding in the shadows out there. And honestly, I think that woman more accurately represented the feelings of MWMF’s organizers better than their grudging dialogue that year did.

The problem is, of course, that that attitude is completely wrong. It’s rooted in extreme prejudice, willful ignorance, and tremendous cis privilege. One of the women I met at Camp Trans that year had been born with an intersex condition. I didn’t quiz her about her medical or surgery history (because I’m not a cis asshole who thinks I’m entitled to that information) but she did disclose to me that she had had surgery which brought her genitals in line with the ‘expected’ appearance of female anatomy, and that she was pretty insecure about how she looked there. By MWMF’s official definition of the term “womyn-born womyn,” she never was and never can be a ‘real’ woman (or ‘womon’). But of course she was — and presumably still is — a woman.

That’s just common fucking sense.

Neopagans, particularly (but by no means exclusively) those who identify as Wiccan, Dianic and Cybeline, are also wont to define women artificially-narrowly as only the people born with fully-female anatomy and fully-female gender identity. (Is gender identity even present at birth, when self-awareness is generally considered not to develop until some months later? I’m not sure, but I am 100% certain gender-‘essentialists’ don’t know either — regardless of what they may claim.) They exclude trans women, trans men, intersex-identifying people and genderqueer people and those who identify with no gender at all, and make otherwise-‘acceptable’ women who have never menstruated and those who no longer menstruate feel excluded. But… surely their creation goddesses created all of us, including those of us who according to the ‘essentialist’ definition are neither men nor women.

That’s just common fucking sense.

I have a thing I say about the notion of common sense, though:
“I don’t know why they call it common sense, when it’s the rarest thing in the world.”

• I do take issue with the othering description of neopagan beliefs or practices as “anachronistic” in the quotation at the top of the post. Virtually every feature found in such belief systems can also be found in the practices of at least one of the indigenous peoples in numerous parts of the world who managed to preserve non-monotheistic spiritual beliefs and/or religious practices into the 20th or even 21st centuries. This is not to say that the cultural appropriation sometimes committed by (usually White and Western, often wealthy) women eager to ‘reconstruct’ their own ancestors’ religions is acceptable or excusable. But it’s possible to condemn those women’s prejudices without at the same time casting anyone in the developing world as backward, primitive or “anachronistic” simply because they don’t subscribe to Western-style monotheism or atheism.
• Holy crap did Tumblr give me fits with formatting this post. What’s with the disappearing spaces around italicized (via the em tag, not i) text? Is this yet another bug?