Radfem HUB Archives Now Open
May 19, 2013
just wanted to let everyone know that the HUB has been reopened as an archives. please note the new address: radicalhubarchives.wordpress.com.
also, the original wordpress address, which was radicalhub.wordpress.com still works, and all links to HUB content which include the original wordpress.com address, that is, links dropped PRIOR TO january, 2012 -- when the domain was purchased -- will still take you to the content.
The following is the first video to emerge of events that took place at last weekend’s Portland University “Law and Disorder” conference, where two feminists were assaulted by angry transgender and “queer” activists who were enraged that women were offering materials which presented the feminist belief that sex-roles or “gender” are harmful to women and girls. The attackers believed that sex-roles must be supported and that women should not be permitted to voice opinions or write books critical of gender. The queer/trans politic (as seen in this video) believes that uttering such opinions is so offensive that feminists who express them should be silenced by any means necessary, including threats, censorship and violence. In Saturday’s attack the feminists were threatened and terrorized, their books were destroyed, and one of the women was marked up with a magic marker by one of the men. Read the previous post here: http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/feminists-assaulted-in-transgender-attack-at-portland-conference-for-social-change-womens-books-destroyed-and-bodies-defaced-with-permanent-magic-markers/
This two-part video captures some of the events that took place at the conference the next day, when feminists and some of the male members of DGR attempted to again present materials from Deep Green Resistance – including feminist materials critical of gender.
Again: this is NOT footage of the violent attack. This is footage of queer/transgender activists surrounding the table of Deep Green Resistance the day AFTER the Saturday attack. Footage from Saturday has not yet emerged. To GenderTrender’s knowledge, NONE of the people in this video are accused of committing the violent attack and destruction of feminist books the day before. (More information including the identity of those attackers is emerging and will be posted shortly.) Regardless, this video shows the timbre of the male-centric queer/trans community’s approach to feminist theory and activism which is critical of sex-based social roles or “gender”.
Deep Green Resistance have issued a public statement about the attacks. Here it is:
Three incidents occurred at the “Law and Disorder Conference” in Portland May 11 and 12 concerning DGR and transgender/queer activists. A lot of lies have been told about these incidents. We need to tell the facts of what physically happened.
Two women were tabling, handing out DGR literature and selling books. A group of five transgender/queer activists came up to the table. One of the male queer activists began shouting at the women, using aggressive language. This man made threatening gestures toward the women. He grabbed and defaced table materials. When one of the women went to protect the materials, he marked her arm and hand as well.
This conference states it has a policy of safe spaces, but “safe spaces” evidently doesn’t apply to women, because although most people in the room had no choice but to hear the shouting, no one, including the organizers, intervened to stop this man and his aggressive behavior.
A half an hour later, a male DGR member tried to engage in respectful conversation with these queer activists. They began chanting at him and insulting him, culminating in them throwing trash and food at his head.
The next day, Sunday, the DGR crew went back, for more tabling, and an angry mob of queer activists again approached the table, yelling and cursing at them, and demanded that they leave. You can watch the video of this. Once again, for all their talk of “safe spaces,” the organizers did not intervene, nor provide a safe space.
You will see that throughout all of this, the DGR members were respectful and courteous. They tried to de-escalate. Nonetheless, they were the recipients of bullying, threats, and silencing.
One of the organizers, Brandon Speck, witnessed much of this, and at least pretended to express concern for the women. He originally said that the perpetrators would not be invited back next year. He also promised that he would write up a statement of solidarity with the victims condemning the attacks. He further promised to run this statement by the victims before publishing it. He was not telling the truth. He did not run the statement by the women, and the statement he did publish indeed blames the DGR members for their own victimization. Women from all over responded en masse to this by pointing out that this was the classic victim-blaming that characterizes patriarchy and misogyny. The thread was deleted, and the organizer falsely claimed this was because of “violently transphobic comments.” This was as much a lie as their original release blaming the victims. The only violence in the comments was directed at DGR members.
DGR has never threatened anyone, and has a code of conduct that disallows making threats against people. Any DGR person who behaved as violently as any of the queer activists did at this conference would be immediately banned from DGR. Instead, what has happened is a barrage of threats against DGR members, up to and including mass beheading. And yet these comments are allowed to remain.
We ask everyone to stand in solidarity with all victims of patriarchal, male-pattern violence, starting with the women who were subjected to this at the Law and Disorder conference.
Prescient conference graphic: women blindfolded and having arms chopped off
Breaking News: In what has been described as a “horrifying” incident two women were attacked by a group of men who identified themselves as “transgender women” at the Portland State University “Law and Disorder Conference” which billed itself as a “provocative space for comparative critical dialogue between activists, revolutionaries, educators, artists, musicians, scholars, dancers, actors and writers”.
The women were attacked in a coordinated assault as they sat at a table which sold feminist books and literature. The men destroyed the books and marked up the table display with permanent markers. One of the women was also marked up by the men. Predominantly male conference onlookers by all reports allowed the attack to take place, watching in stunned silence. Two males affiliated with the same group as the feminists -Deep Green Resistance- were also in attendance and the “trans women” threw a projectile at the head of one of them.
According to reports, the transgender males or “trans women” took issue with the feminist content in the Deep Green Resistance materials. Specifically, a portion of the materials reflected the feminist position that social roles based on sex are undesirable and harmful to women.
The transgender males believe that social roles based on sex are natural and innate and that it is instead the unchanging nature of biological sex that is undesirable. They believe that women should not criticize social roles based on sex, in deference to the feelings of men like themselves who embrace such roles. The men reportedly stated that all feminist writing and voices should be silenced by males with force if necessary, and they then proceeded to do just that.
Conference organizer Brandon Speck posted a statement on Facebook today following yesterday’s attack. He claimed that women should not be able to disseminate materials that might offend those men who support sex-roles. He claimed that the women deserved to be attacked for offering materials that contained feminism. He stated that no feminists should be permitted to sell books that men might not like. He said that as a man he had no authority to dictate the behavior of other men who might choose to assault women who offend them. Here is his statement:
Conference statement condoning attacks
Here is the link to the page where his statement is posted:
https://www.facebook.com/lawanddisorderconference?ref=stream&hc_location=timeline
The attached comments include threats by transgender activists to continue violent attacks against women who promote feminist thought.
I am withholding the names of the women who were attacked until they issue a public statement, which will be published here. The feminists are reported to be terrorized but did not require medical care. No arrests have yet been made. Stay tuned for updates.
*UPDATE* the statement and thread referenced above have been entirely deleted. Here is a link to the page where the former statement was posted:
Enza Anderson, a massive male drag queen and attention-seeker with awful taste in feminine attire vows to file complaint against a female employee who acknowledged his actual and legal sex, reports Xtra.
Hi I’m a big drag queen standing next to an actual woman
Enza, featured performer in the 2003 documentary “A Man In A Dress” and perpetual failed political candidate (Mayor Toronto 2000, Canadian Alliance 2002, City Council Toronto 2003, City Council Toronto, 2010) was offended by a female employee at the Pearson airport who failed to pretend that he was female as he was expecting her to do. Enza, a male with a passport labeled male felt the employee should have pretended he was female due to his cwazy drag queen get-up. She didn’t. And dude-bro Enza had his male ego bruised as the speshul-ness of his sekret “female-NESS” was not HONORED by the female worker who was there to SERVE HIM.
Hi Sir – I mean laydee-sir
In Enza’s cwazy-ass entitled male-prick mind females working in secure airport environments exist to pretend males who wear insane drag shite are “female” even though said males are massive towering dickhead assholes whose IDs say male. Asshole Enza believes that women who exist in a reality-based universe deserve to be targeted and harassed by men like him.
The airport employee in question is claimed to have uttered the following hate-crime statement in reference to the towering flamboyant man: “He’s a guy”.
OH. MY. GOD.
The male is “a guy”. Ohhhhhh! Oh my gosh but bitch don’t you see my cheap-ass laydee wig? How DARE this female employee do her job and not suck my proverbial laydee-dick and SHE HARSHED MY WHOLE ERECTION AND SHITE. Imma FILE a COMPLAINT!
Bitches should know that male divas with male passports wearing gross tacky-ass cross-dresser garb should NEVER be looked at in the eye! Or NEVER be referred to as male! Because LAYDEE, dumb bitch, LAYDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Men have a right to have women employees pretend they are female if said men wear stereotypically sexist female garb! Even if all their documents read male! Dumb Bitch!
IMMA COMPLAIN ABOUT A BITCH! STUPID FISH!
Jesus Christ can Enza be any more fail as a human being? Any more self-centered and hostile to employees just trying to get through a shitty-ass minimum wage day (because speshul!). Holy shit.
Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
WWWWWHHHHaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
What a fucking diaper wearing piece of shit.
Not Enza’s first time at the rodeo. He made the press in 2008 complaining about lesbian singer Katy Perry who made the following hate-crime statement to him at a fundraiser: “Oh! You’re a man!”
In 2009 a reporter covering his mayoral campaign documented Ezra terrorizing some high-school students who committed a hate-crime by asking: “Are you a man?”
Excerpt:
The boys were of the same age, but racially diverse, much like the rest of Toronto.
Hey jerk-off. You’re a man. You just are. We all know it and we always will. Have some fucking respect for women. And have pride!
Sure you wanted to be a cut-rate William Belli. But you lacked the intelligence, creativity, style, self-awareness and sense of humor. No one is buying what you’re selling DUDE. And that’s okay. Accept yourself.
Tom Ammiano: Rollback for Women’s Rights
The California assembly approved a measure that upends federal equality protections for government-funded sports programs based on sex. Bill 1266, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, replaces female equality measures with a “gender” based sports program which allows athletes of either sex to compete in women’s sporting programs based on their willingness to conform to, and proclaim adherence to, stereotypical social norms which the California government legally redefines as the definition of female-“ness”, regardless of actual sex. In doing so the state removes sex-based equality protections for female athletes and replaces them with state-mandated guidelines for behaviors, feelings and stereotypes that the state defines as “female”, regardless of sex.
Ammiano believes that reproductively female persons are a disposable class, and as such require no government representation or protection, despite vast objective data showing overwhelming systemic discrimination and marginalization of females socially, economically, and legally. The assembly approved Ammiano’s replacement of female as a protected class with a newly created class defined as individuals of either sex who claim to possess what lawmakers define as “female feelings”. In accordance with this premise the assembly ruled that facilities such as urinals and locker rooms should be used by students based not on anatomy – but on their willingness to adhere to the sex-based stereotypes, which are illegal under federal law Title VII.
Assemblyman Phil Ting explained his vote for the measure by citing the sex-based social role change of his (apparently courageous) staffer Heather: “This courageous person is a part of a courageous community. … We have to do everything possible to make sure we are supportive of that and support their courage.” [sic]
The California Assembly also approved in tandem a measure that provides state secrecy in name changes if those changes involve social sex-role change, due to the “humiliating” nature of such name changes. According to bill 55-16, name changes including those of convicted felons can bypass normal channels as long as such changes are attached to a claimant’s self-reported change in social role.
Men who state they are willing to adopt a female social role will now have their name changes bypass regular procedures used by name change applicants, as such changes will not appear in any legal court record or in media ledgers. “…the measure’s provisions are similar to the privacy options available to domestic violence and sexual assault victims,” Reports the Sacramento Bee.
Both bills will now head to the Senate.
The mother of a “transgender child” who blogs at TransformingFamily.net authors a long and thoughtful response to a few comments that were left about her blog by GenderTrender readers last week on this post: http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/from-dirt-trans-trending-who-is-transitioning-the-violence-against-lesbians/#comments
Trans*forming Mom – who is “transforming” her 15 year old daughter into a lifetime program of dependency on sterilizing medical treatments designed to disguise her true sex, as well as “transforming” her into a 15 year-old recipient * of a medically-unnecessary double mastectomy- classifies the comments left on the GenderTrender post as “the most harsh criticism” she has ever received.
[*According to information on the TransformingFamily blog, Dr. Beverly Fischer of Baltimore MD performs “cosmetic” double mastectomies on healthy girls as young as 12 ]
Dr. Fischer doing cosmetic double mastectomies on 12 year old girls
Trans*forming Mom describes her background being raised as a Christian Fundamentalist and relates her experience of receiving a lifetime of violence and abuse from men. “I had not only experienced violence, objectification, abuse, and assault from men beginning at the earliest stages of my life, but i had seen other important women in my life experience this too,” she writes.
Mom writes about her daughter’s distress at her failure to adequately perform, or find satisfaction in, oppressive sexist gender roles assigned to females. “He has shared that, because he didn’t feel comfortable as a girl, he didn’t have an identity. So, he threw himself into ballet and “being the perfect daughter” as a way to distract himself from the reality of his male-ness. He has told me that there is only one thing that he ever felt that he had to do, and that was to be a girl, and when he allowed himself to accept that he was not one, he felt that he failed. This breaks my heart. And he wasn’t taught or told that he had to “be a girl” in any certain way, or be any type of girl. He just knew he was expected to be a girl because that is what we told him and how we raised him based upon his birth assignment, and he knew he was not one,” she writes.
Trans*formingMom makes repeated analogies between the medicalization of gender and homosexuality. She compares irreversible pediatric sterilization and surgeries on dysphoric children to young children who identify themselves as homosexual and implies that feminists should get right on board. For the record, I don’t know any feminists, gays, or lesbians including myself who suggest that children or adolescents should make permanent lifetime decisions regarding their future sexual interests or self-concepts. Trans*formingMom compares trans people who de-transition or come to reject genderism with the “ex-gays” of religious fundamentalism.
Mom also seems to have confused me with Dirt, since the post in question was re-blogged from Dirt’s excellent site.
The saddest part of her post for me was in the comments where she explains the lengths she went to convincing her daughter not to seek out and read the comments, and the blog, that Mom is writing about. Her daughter is old enough to opt into lifetime medical dependence and cosmetic disablility and sterility and breast removal, but is not old enough to be exposed to the world of feminist thought on “Gender”.
Unlike Trans*formingMom (and many gender believers), feminists aren’t afraid of exposure to other points of view. Her post is re-blogged here: http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/criticisms-and-misconceptions-from-people-who-just-dont-know-what-theyre-talking-about/
[Note: The comment from “GenderTrender” on the post is not me. That is “Manfeminist” Natalie Reed – yes THAT one!- who enjoys harassing lesbians and feminists by running imposter accounts.]
Keisling after feminising facial plastic surgery (and I’m guessing a lid lift)
ENDA the Employment Nondiscrimination Act was intended to be a Federal protection against employment discrimination against individuals who were fired- or not hired- by employers on the basis of homosexuality.
ENDA was passed by the House of Representatives in 2007 but transgender activists mounted a protest against it. They claimed the act did not support the rights of transgenders: those who believe conservative social sex-roles including behavior, interests and psychology now widely regarded as sexist and oppressive to females are instead biologically based on reproductive function and located in some scientifically yet undiscovered portion of the human brain (perhaps located near the “Negroid brain” of years past).
Legal protections for homosexuals contained the dangerous idea that female relations could be accorded the same legal status as relations accorded to men. This was an accidental and unintended byproduct of the male homosexual rights movement. Genderists protested (and sought to correct) this female right, and gay males supported them. Further, they claimed that females should have no legal status at all. Less than what they came with. They sought to undermine all political and legal rights for women.
They proclaimed that females didn’t actually exist. There was no such thing as a female human, even as those humans were being raped, enslaved, and thrust into a social caste system worldwide. They forwarded the political ideal that female was a state of mind. Females weren’t those fighting oppressive discrimination, violence, and sexual slavery based on their reproductive capacity. Rather, females were any individuals who enjoyed embodying or playing out the sexualized stereotypes forced onto women (even part time as a fetishized sexual role-playing leisure activity).
The men leading the gay rights movement were okay with this. Women were there to make the coffee and provide support (and be grateful) as far as men were concerned and if other guys wanted to support the male sexual rights agenda well then hell, the more the merrier. But they ran into the same political sticking point as they did with gay male sexual rights activists Harry Hays and Allen Ginsberg in their support of NAMBLA: Other fucking men. Hetero men.
Hetero Men didn’t like NAMBLA. Some men didn’t like the idea of other dudes sticking their dicks into male children. The Gay Rights movement crossed a line. Female children are fine – it’s accepted all around the world with nary a male shrug- but males? Some guys objected to male children being treated like female children.
Gay men were fine with the trans thing philosophically. What the hell do they care? Drag is da bomb. Fish is fish. And the whole “females don’t exist” thing is cool. Whatever! But some Hetero bros get upset when other dudes shower naked with their impregnable livestock. Because females actually do exist as impregnable property owned by men. Just like goats! Ixney on the IxDey on my wife dude. Keep your impregnator stick away from my livestock. Thems are mines to impregnate. I’ll be in charge of the animal husbandry, thanx.
Mara Keisling, the heterosexual running his National Center For Trans Equality explained the whole dicks in showers with your wife and daughters thing with the due diligence warranted. The whole right of women to say NOOOOOOOO to a dick-wielding dude in female spaces where exposure is unavoidable (showers, locker rooms) is a simple matter of a “small technicality”. That’s right bros. Small technicality. Get on board.
Keisling, a divorced father who followed the typical road to male womanhood (investment of 60 grand into facial feminization surgery from his savings as a middle aged man after a lifetime of sexualized crossdressing fantasy life) described the new penis in women’s showers version of ENDA as follows:
“There are small technical changes made to ENDA since it was last introduced in 2011. ENDA is being introduced in substantially the same form as it was in both 2009 and 2011, but there are some technical changes meant to reflect legal and other advancements that have occurred in ensuing years. The most significant change for transgender people is that we fought for and won removal of language that clarified use of showers and locker rooms “where being seen unclothed would be unavoidable.” None of the states that have passed and successfully implemented a gender identity anti-discrimination law includes such a provision, and neither should ENDA. NCTE will work tirelessly to make sure that members of Congress stay focused on the important and core issue of job discrimination and do not get sidetracked with extraneous and discriminatory issues like restroom use.”
That’s right folks! You won’t see this being reported by (male) LGBT sources. ENDA2013 is now officially PRO dick in women’s showers. Minor technicality of no consequence to those that matter: Men.
Cristan William’s Huge Sweaty Balls
May 3, 2013
…and your little dog toto too
Cristan Williams is a man who hates women, who hates lesbians and gays, who hates feminists most of all. He hates them because he feels they interrupt his relationship with the object of his greatest desire: His sexualized image of himself “as a woman”.
Cristan is what is known as a “Men’s Rights Advocate”. Such men believe that women prevent men from realizing their true potential. In Cristan’s case, that “potential” is his right as a man to become a sexy lady. Women get in his way because their existence- as actual female humans- interferes with the male definition of woman as “person who embodies sexualized porn stereotypes of females”.
Cristan has spent years authoring various widely unread blogs and vlogs where he posts overly-long MANifestos explaining how women, lesbians, gays, and feminists have deprived him of his entitlement to womanhood. Also trolls reddit under various names including “GroovemasterGeneral”, “Two”, and “I’mNotanMRAbut”.
He recently inherited the TransAdvocate website from retiring trans MRA Marti Abernathey. TransAdvocate is an aggregator site for anti-woman, anti-lesbian, anti-gay, anti-feminist trans bloggers. The site is entirely male except for occasional re-posts from sole token female Matt Kailey, a heterosexual “ex-fag-hag” F2T.
This hilarious exchange took place in comments on this post, and is illustrative of the total lack of awareness of actual women’s lives so prevalent in today’s trans politic. Not only is this funny (in a sad and awful way) but exposes the ignorance and disconnect from actual women’s lives and experiences that informs the “womanhood” of the sexual fetishists like Cristan who are spokesmen from the men’s transgender rights movement. Also on display in the rest of the exchange (not quoted here- hit the link for more) is the incredible mean-spiritedness of transgender males towards female reality: a reality that would destroy the male-centric entitlement and fantasy of “womanhood” if such everyday truths of female lives were ever acknowledged and respected.
Without further adieu. GH in this exchange is the sister of a Canadian transgender pioneer now profoundly disabled due to blood clots caused by his pharmaceutical estrogen “treatment”.
gh : stop this nonsense with the prefix, cis. a woman is a human being born with the reproductive capacity to reproduce, intersex people are a rare and wonderful exception. i was born a woman. pure and simple, my transsexual sister was not born a woman. she is a MtF woman. no need to address or apologize for what you are when you are born. it is the trans community that makes the addition…. the number 1 is not 2 minus 1, just 1…we get to 2 by adding. we do not get to 1 by subtracting. don’t apologize for the way you are born….
Cristan Williams : I’m guessing that you’d assert as fact that there’s no cis-privilege, amirite?
gh : so what is cis-privilege? this is not about privilege. i remember telling a friend about my brother/sister and her reaction was: who the hell wants to CHOOSE to be a woman??? sexual harassment from a young age? menstrual pain and bleeding (and embarrassments) when we are twelve? worry about birth control? pregnancy? lower pay at work? sexual harassment at work? no promotions because we need to go home to the kids? childbirth, which is a wonderful miracle but takes a toll on our mental and physical health? excessive bleeding? worries about breast and ovarian cancers? other womanly health concerns like yeast infections, std’s, aids, infertility, or fertility? sexual harassment and assault on the streets, even as we age? menopause for years, night sweats, hot flashes, depressions? sexual disinterest as we age from our lovers? rape on buses, in parks, in our homes, in public washrooms? domestic violence? the beauty industry making us feel insecure and ugly? anorexia? all of these are privileges? to you maybe….but then when a man becomes a woman she does not have to deal with the same types of problems…they are kind of edited out of the equation for you??
Cristan Williams : Cis-privilege refers to a set of unearned advantages that individuals who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth accrue solely due to having a cisgender identity. Cisgender (AKA: Cis, cissexual) is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of people who are not transgender. For example, this term is used to refer to someone who was sexed male at birth, subjectively experiences their sex to be male, identifies as a male and expresses his identity in a manner consistent with a cultural male gender role.
gh : rubbish. this is an invented term by translobbyists…bullying in the washroom does not imply that another group enjoys a privilege…it only says that one person is bullying another. designating a washroom for example for the sole use of one sex or another, (after the fight for women to have bathrooms in certain workplaces, dining establishments, schools, etc.) does not imply that women enjoy a privilege…it was fought as a right, and won as a right….it is not beyond the advantage of most…there are men’s washrooms, so there is no special privilege….this was about equality, not privilege. this is only one example….i am never cis-gendered…i am a woman. transpeople are the “deviation” from the norm, thus are the transsexual, intersex people are not included as they have their own considerations…why have political interests muddied the waters and made this issue into a binary? priv·i·lege [priv-uh-lij, priv-lij] Show IPA noun, verb, priv·i·leged, priv·i·leg·ing. noun 1. a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most: the privilegesof the very rich. 2. a special right, immunity, or exemption granted to persons in authority or office to free them fromcertain obligations or liabilities: the privilege of a senator to speak in Congress without danger of a libel suit. 3. a grant to an individual, corporation, etc., of a special right or immunity, under certain conditions. 4. the principle or condition of enjoying special rights or immunities. 5. any of the rights common to all citizens under a modern constitutional government: We enjoy theprivileges of a free people.
Cristan Williams : Here’s a few real-world examples of cis-privilege:
1. You can use public restrooms without fear of verbal abuse, physical intimidation, or arrest.
2. Strangers don’t assume they can ask you what your genitals look like and how it’s possible for you have sex.
3. If you are murdered (or have any crime committed against you), your gender expression will not be used as a justification for your murder (“gay panic”) nor as a reason to coddle the perpetrators.
4. You have the ability to walk through the world and generally blend-in, not being constantly stared or gawked at, whispered about, pointed at, or laughed at because of your gender expression.
5. Strangers call you by the name you provide, and don’t ask what your “real name” [birth name] is and then assume that they have a right to call you by that name.
6. You have the ability to flirt, engage in courtship, or form a relationship and not fear that your biological status may be cause for rejection or attack, nor will it cause your partner to question their sexual orientation.
7. If you end up in the emergency room, you do not have to worry that your gender will keep you from receiving appropriate treatment, or that all of your medical issues will be seen as a result of your gender.
8. Your identity is not considered a mental pathology (“gender identity disorder” in the DSM IV) by the psychological and medical establishments.
9. You are not required to undergo an extensive psychological evaluation in order to receive basic medical care.
10. You’re able to assume that everyone you encounter will understand your identity, and not think you’re confused, misled, or hell-bound when you reveal it to them.
gh : Here are a few real-world examples of women’s experiences in the world:
1. You can’t use the public restroom without fear that a sexual predator is waiting in the stalls. If you live in the developing world, you fear going out to collect water, or using the outhouse, or taking a public bus because you fear rape.
2. Strangers come up to you, from infancy onwards, all the time, and ask to have sex with you, or wolf whistle or touch you inappropriately because you have a female body.
3. If you are murdered or have any crime against committed against you, the likelihood that the perpetrator is a close relative or friend is increased monumentally because you are a woman. You learn to trust no man.
4. You walk down the street and are victimized because you are a woman.
5. If you are like me and have a foreign name, you are constantly assumed to be a Mr., or if you are young, a Miss, or old, a Mrs., but you learn to deal with it!! Boy named Sue.
6. If you are a woman and are having a heart attack, your case is not taken seriously because you are a woman…or if you suffer from migraines that look like a stroke, you are considered by the neurologist that you are like other of his female patients to be fat, housewives with nothing better to worry about….BTW, I was having a stroke.
7. You go our on a date and because the man thinks you are flirting because you want sex, he rapes you….your sex has everything to do with it…you learn to question your sexuality, or repress it so as not to be victimized again….
8. Hysteria is/was thought to be caused by a woman’s uterus and other physical attributes. Women have been categorized as crazy for suffering the hormonal storms that accompany menstruation, childbearing, menopause….look at the so called humour industry….
9. “Mother’s little helper” aka Valium was given to women who faced the daunting task of staying to care for and cook for men in the suburbs. Maybe they need to fight for equality? We were not crazy, just victims of a paternalistic society.
10. I was told to leave the law school studies to my brothers. My identity as a strong and intellectual woman was not understood and was denigrated. I have been put down numerous times by men and women for wanting the liberation of women in the world…
Cristan Williams : Eh, Oppression Olympics? Nope. Won’t play.
Lawrence University invokes shocking last minute BAN on Earth Day Keynote Speaker Lierre Keith due to her Feminist views on Gender
April 22, 2013
In a shocking last minute decision Lawrence University representatives no-platformed Deep Green Resistance founding member Lierre Keith from her scheduled Earth Day appearance due to previous feminist comments she has made about gender. Specifically, she was banned from speaking at the university due to her belief that Gender is socially created and not biologically innate.
Keith is the author of The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability and a well known writer, Radical Feminist, food activist and environmentalist. Her scheduled speech “Stopping Civilization’s Violence to the Earth” was booked as part of Lawrence’s Greenfire Earth Week Speaking Series.
An event organizer contacted Keith on April 11 with the disturbing news that Lawrence University faculty lecturer Helen Boyd (pen name of Gail Kramer) who is identified in emails as “Professor Helen Boyd-Kramer, a well-known transadvocate” was organizing a campaign to censor Keith’s environmentalist lecture. Boyd-Kramer is the heterosexual wife of transgender and long-time crossdresser, actor Jason Crowl. Boyd-Kramer is the author of “My Husband Betty: Love, Sex and Life with a Crossdresser” and appears on the transgender circuit as a paid speaker describing her experiences as the wife of a transgender man, as well as lecturing in the Gender Studies and Freshman Studies departments at Lawrence. The organizer informed Lierre Keith that Boyd-Kramer was threatening to mount a public protest at the Earth Day event as well as publish an article in the Lawrence University newspaper damning the event unless Lierre agreed to meet with her “in order to have a private conversation about the issue”. Although Keith’s scheduled Earth Day talk had nothing to do with the transgender issue, the organizer stated his fear that “They would diminish the impact of your talk by making you look close-minded and mean, and by shifting the focus of discussion and re-framing your appearance completely.” Lierre was repeatedly asked if her feminist views on gender had “changed”: “we’d love to hear that and the issue will end there.”
Gail Kramer/Helen Boyd with husband Jason Crowl/Betty Crow
No stranger to controversy, and with the strong support of those in the Wisconsin environmentalist community Keith intended to proceed with her appearance as scheduled on Sunday April 21. Two days before the event she was informed that her environmentalist program had been no-platformed at Lawrence University due to her unwillingness to retract her previous, unrelated feminist statements expressing her belief that gender is socially constructed and not biologically innate.
Lawrence University Earth Day organizer Adam James Kranz posted the following message on the event Facebook page announcing that he would personally replace Keith as speaker and present the aspects of Keith’s ideas that he finds “compelling”:
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Why Lierre Keith is Not Speaking at Lawrence
by Greenfire (Notes) on Friday, April 19, 2013 at 2:06pm
From their website “Deep Green Resistance is an analysis, a strategy, and a movement being born, the only movement of its kind.” DGR’s writings have strongly influenced my perspective on environmental issues, and I think their ideas have a lot of valuable contributions to make. They draw deep connections between violence against the land and violence based on class, race, gender, etc. Their analysis puts modern ills in historical context, comparing the tribulations of agricultural life to the hunter-gatherer systems dominant for most of human existence. They make incisive critiques of mainstream modes of activism and reform. Their appraisal of reform-based activism asks us whether we can afford to wait, and, if not, whether we have any alternatives.
There are plenty of intellectual critiques one can and should make of DGR – I did two independent studies last Spring doing just that. However, I feel that DGR’s perspective is very valuable and poses some tough questions to the conventional brand of activism. Lierre is one of the three main leaders and authors behind DGR, and I hoped her lecture would provoke some interesting discussion. The broad, inclusive resistance to oppression and hierarchy that DGR advocates was my own entry point into activist causes beyond environmentalism. I largely relied on their positions on issues I hadn’t bothered to study myself – especially feminism.
This is why I was so disappointed and betrayed to learn that Lierre doesn’t support the trans community in their fight against the same oppressive forces Lierre spends her life combating. In fact, Lierre’s views are deeply offensive and actively transphobic. If anyone is interested in reading her hate-speech, it is quoted here:
http://vanillaxlight.tumblr.com/post/3748949864/lierre-keith-is-blatantly-transphobic
and a deconstruction/rebuttal:
http://quinnae.com/2010/10/27/outside-an-exodus-from-patriarchy-on-the-backs-of-women/
Lierre’s views are products of an old trend in eco-feminism that I can’t claim to understand. However, it is not defensible under the shield of intellectual freedom of thought. Her statements go well beyond an analysis that is merely wrong to a level that is actively offensive and disregards the lived experiences of millions of people.
Greenfire is committed to maintaining a safe space for everyone on campus. Hosting Lierre, knowing her opinions and knowing that members of the community know them as well, would disregard the feelings of members of our community, and this is unacceptable. I personally apologize for not making this decision sooner.
Instead of Lierre’s lecture, Greenfire will now host a lecture and discussion forum on radical environmental activism. I will present aspects of DGR’s ideas that I find compelling and try to ask questions that create a productive dialogue about our own tactical choices and analyses. Everyone is welcome to join us. The event will still take place on Sunday, 4/21, at 1 PM, in Steitz 102. Adam Kranz
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Lierre has issued the following statement directed at the President of Lawrence University:
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I am writing to tell you about an incident on your campus about which you should be concerned.
I am the author of multiple books on environmentalism. A student at Lawrence, xxxxxxx (cc’d here), invited me to speak for Earth Day. The lecture was scheduled for tomorrow, April 21. Yesterday, I received an email from Mr. xxxxxx (pasted below), canceling my appearance because some students take issue with my ideas.
I will get into the content of this disagreement later. My overwhelming point of concern is the purpose of higher education and the defense of the liberal tradition itself. I don’t know if I can state this strongly enough. Universities are supposed to be institutions founded on the bedrock principle of an open and robust exchange of ideas. I am appalled that anyone would be barred from speaking at your school over a disagreement. Intellectual engagement is the entire reason universities exist. It’s also why institutions of higher learning are vitally important to a pluralistic society. The young adults in your care need to understand this principle. If they learn one thing at your school, it should be this: ideas qua ideas are our only defense against the human tendency to fundamentalism with all its attendant horrors.
Mr. xxxxx’s email (pasted below) stated my appearance would be “threatening” and “offensive” to some students. Given that I have threatened no one, and that I am a middle-aged woman with a degenerative disease and no upper-body strength, I think we can set aside the notion that I pose a physical threat to anyone. What they mean is “uncomfortable.” But people don’t go to college to feel comfortable. They go to be challenged. They go—or, they should go—to learn to engage with new ideas, to examine themselves and the world, to interrogate their beliefs and the society around them as deeply as possible. Some of your students are not preparing themselves for citizenship in a pluralistic democracy, which by definition means a civic society of people who hold differing–often, profoundly differing–beliefs. The entire project will rise or fall on how we as a society negotiate those differences. That some of your students don’t understand this–and are, in fact, actively rejecting it–leaves me gravely concerned for the future. That is why I am bringing this to your attention. I hope you share my concern.
To the details of the disagreement. I will try to be brief. I am a feminist. I have spent three decades fighting male violence against women. My analysis is informed by a century and a half of feminist theory and activism. My views are in no way unique. I believe that a social system of male domination starts with human beings who are biologically male or female and creates two social classes of people: men and women. Socialization to either group can be a brutal process.
Men are made by socialization to masculinity. Being a man requires a psychology based on emotional numbness and a dichotomy of self and other. This is also the psychology required by soldiers, which is why I don’t think you can be a peace activist without being a feminist.
Female socialization is a process of psychologically constraining and breaking girls—otherwise known as “grooming”—to create a class of compliant victims. Femininity is a set of behaviors that are, in essence, ritualized submission.
I see nothing in the creation of gender to celebrate or embrace. As a feminist, I am an abolitionist. Patriarchy is a corrupt and brutal arrangement of power, and I want to see it dismantled so that the category of gender no longer exists. This is also my position on race and class. The categories are not natural: they only exist because hierarchical systems of power create them (see, for instance, Audrey Smedley’s book Race in North America). I want a world of justice and equality, where the material conditions that currently create race, class, and gender have been forever overcome.
There are, of course, people who disagree with feminism. In their view, men and women display domination and submission, respectively, not because of social conditions, but because we have different brains. Gendered behavior is natural, they say, a function of our biology. Boys are naturally aggressive and active, while girls are naturally emotional and passive. The claim is often that prenatal hormones create these propensities, and that the wrong hormones can produce the wrong brain. Hence it is possible to have a man’s body with a woman’s brain (which adherents like to call a “lady brain”). Cursory research will reveal the variations and disagreements amongst the genderists. Some, for instance, believe that gender is a matter of costuming—what they call “presentation.” The problem with gender isn’t gender per se, but that there are social constraints on what men can wear. On the other extreme are people who argue that their genitals are a “birth defect” that require surgical removal.
I can’t do justice to the range of genderist beliefs in an email. My point is that I disagree with them, and because of that disagreement I was disinvited from your school. I don’t know what could be more important in a college environment than an examination of social reality and ideas about justice, but that examination has been shut down at Lawrence.
I would urge you to encourage the opposite in your students, for their sakes, certainly, but more importantly in defense of the values central to the liberal tradition. Encountering ideas that differ from one’s own has never hurt anyone; indeed, it is the only way to a better world.
I would be happy to send the text of the talk (which frankly had nothing to do with the subject discussed above) I had planned to give if you have further interest.
Sincerely,
Lierre Keith
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Please take a moment to show your support for Lierre Kieth and your support for the great tradition of academic free speech by dropping your own message to Jill Beck, The President of Lawrence University expressing your concern at the following address:
jill.beck@lawrence.edu
Thank you.
Girls are growing up saying JUST HELL NOOOOO to “womanhood” and the sick-ass sex caste system. The treatment of women as stepping fetching fuck-hole invalids – even in the most “advanced” nations on earth is so stark- NO FUCKING WAY do girls want to be “that”. And they’ll do just about anything to opt out. Is the price of escaping the female lot a surgeon’s knife? YES. And to many young women the price- any price- to escape is one worth paying. Tired of being assumed incompetent because of your vagina? Tired of cleaning toilets while the bros stand around back-slapping and “supervising”? Don’t wanna tart yourself up as a porn star before work every day? Being treated as a freak of nature for failure to submit? Asked to show your teeth constantly (what, no smile honey)? Matter-of-fact interactions taken as castrating failure to soothe males constantly, which is your job as a human born female (and failure to do so means you’re a “bitch”)? Don’t care for babies and child-rearing? Sick of constant rape threats? Tired of being targeted every moment of every day? Had enough of less pay for the same work? Don’t enjoy watching entitled penis-bearers being fast-tracked while you work your ass off? Sick of watching guys get pandered to constantly? See no future in this whole “stupid cunt” thing? See the men in corporate snicker together about your female boss? See the articles parsing the female presidential candidate’s choice of footwear? Sick of getting ridiculous estimates from your mechanic? Tired of your opinion being worthless? See a possible escape from the whole fucking lot of it? Thus we have an entire fucking epidemic of female trans-trenders. Possibly the most practical women on earth.
From Dirt:
GRAPHIC IMAGES
“Transwomen”: How to Gut a Fish
April 14, 2013
“Psychopaths never quit.” – Margaret Singer
Criminal memoirs, like parole hearings, are not usually known for their authenticity, honesty, self-reflection and accurate reportage. In the criminal memoir every hapless burglar is a master thief, every two-bit hood a mob capo, every sociopath a revolutionary.
Criminal memoirs are: Jack Henry Abbott waxing bromantically to Norman Mailer about the inhumanity of his incarceration -just prior to committing another murder, serial rapist Eldridge Cleaver expounding on the act of rape as a revolutionary act, Tex Watson intoning on the redemptive power of bible-believing among guys who hang pregnant starlets alive while cutting them open.
In the Crime Memoir sub-genre of the “wrongly convicted” the tropes are even more hackneyed as the memoir essentially serves as one long desperate attempt to explain away all that blood. Kosilek’s memoir is of the sub-genre category, flavored with a heaping dose of self-pity, narcissism and sociopathy.
Most of the U.S. “Son of Sam Laws” (enacted in the wake of serial killer David Berkowitz’ attempts to sell his story for profit) have been repealed or overturned on First Amendment grounds leaving murderers free to profit from the dubious celebrity of committing horrific acts and selling them for entertainment to an audience hungry for carnage. Any of the millions of average boring bastards that murder their wives are free to offer their suddenly compelling and unique tale on any of a number of online vanity publishing sites for a few bucks. Kosilek’s memoir “Grace’s Daughter” is one of those, and it was on just such a site that I found it. Yes, I persuaded a friend to kindly give Kosilek two dollars and ninety-nine cents for a copy of his tome. For that ethical indiscretion I am sorry.
I was curious though. Slightly curious. Under three dollars curious.
There are very few reasons to subject oneself to 400-plus pages of self-serving criminal lies. Some of these reasons may include curiosity about a particular crime or crime spree. Perhaps a historic crime is so distinct that the reader longs for some insight to explain the psychology of the perpetrators or details of the era (think “Symbionese Liberation Army“ or the “Manson Family”). Maybe an author relates an inside experience of the justice system and incarceration compellingly. Perhaps the perp is just an entertaining storyteller and a fantastic writer.
Kosilek’s memoir has none of that. Men like him who brutally decapitate their loving wives are, sadly, a dime a dozen. He is a terrible writer and a bad liar. But Kosilek has one thing going for him and his memoir: A judge has issued an order forcing the populace of Massachusetts to pay upwards of $100,000 (including surgery, travel, security including 24 hour hospital guards, post-op care, follow-up appointments both surgical and endocrinological, possible revisions) so that a decapitation killer can have his genitals cosmetically refashioned into a fleshy sheath for other men to stick their dicks into. Because the murderer thinks such a procedure will make him a woman, and the murderer has threatened to be upset and/or harm himself if his delusions are not indulged (and enabled) by the legal system and the public at large.
Again, there is nothing unique about that. Plenty of people believe doctors can perform actual changes of sex, creating women out of men and vice versa. Well maybe not plenty. But lots are willing to pretend they believe, or at least go along with the idea, out of politeness or the hope that doctors and judges know what the hell they are doing. And plenty of people think the presence of a fleshy sheath that men can stick their dicks into defines the female sex.
Perhaps in reading the 103,010 word tome I would gain a new understanding of Kosilek’s savagery and rage for the woman who loved him, who married him, the one whose decapitated body he dumped like so much trash before cooking and enjoying a delicious steak dinner with the victim’s unsuspecting son in the very space he had garroted her hours before?
