Homophobia and Racism at core of Trans criticism of Suzanne Moore
January 16, 2013
Dirt at “The Dirt From Dirt” posted a brilliant dissection of the racism and homophobia at the core of transgender attack (read death threats and harassment) of feminist Suzanne Moore’s use of the term “Brazillian Transsexual” -specifically her comment that sparked the transgender death threats, etc. against Moore: ““We are angry with ourselves for not being happier, not being loved properly and not having the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual.”
Dirt parses the other (non-feminist) venues that have used the same phrase without objection from the feminist-targeting trans politic, and breaks down the demographic – the white racist heterosexual homophobic autogynephile- behind the recent attacks against feminist speech. In short, the same demographic that is always at the core of attacks against feminists vis a vis “gender”.
Dirt argues compellingly that the majority of male transgenders who are privileged white heterosexual male autogynephilles (men for whom embodying the subordinate sex-role stereotypes inflicted on females is an erotic act) are in conflict with the minority of male transgenders who are gay males- largely impoverished non-whites- who adopt transgenderism as a means of survival in a homophobic world.
Homosexual Male – Janet Mock on NBC News
Homosexual male transgenders objectively exhibit “feminine” characteristics from an early age and adopt female personas because they are easy for them to adopt, and increase social functionality and success in a homophobic culture, in stark contrast to the heterosexual male transgender, who exhibits no objective gender-noncompliance in childhood but begins sexualized fetishistic crossdressing at puberty and for whom transgenderism or “autogynephillia” is a sexual orientation. See transvestic fetishism. This is the distinct difference between homosexual and autogynephillic male transgenders and Dirt outlines the ways privileged white heterosexual fetishists colonize and exploit the oppression of impoverished non-white homosexual transgenders to advance a heterosexual white male political agenda.
Heterosexual Male
Dirt is calling bullshit on hetero white male exploitation of homosexuals, people of color, and the women’s liberation movement in the forwarding of a male-supremacist colonizing political platform.
From Dirt:
“There is a conspicuous jealously and homophobia by the majority of trans males aka Mtfs whenever reminded of trans males who pass (perform for their own internal male gaze) better than they. Especially males requiring less drugs and surgeries with which to do so. Those males make up the few percent of trans males who are homosexual. Males who seek transition, unlike your 90+ percent of hetero male transitioners who transition seeking the ultimate fetishist’s high, transition instead because of his pathological homophobia. These gay males, do not have to lie to their “gender specialists” about their attractions or their feelings of believing they “always felt like girls”. Many gay trans males formed close relationships with females their age when young and were allowed into early female spaces, experiences your classic autogynephile wasn’t at all privy to.”
“Not unlike your typical straight male homophobe, hetero trans males are equally homophobic and then some! But theirs is a homophobia coupled with extreme jealousy. That’s not to say they wont use gay trans males for their own political agendas whenever one is beaten or murdered. But outside of that, these men HATE gay men, period! Sadly the gay trans male is usually a minority, he doesn’t have the white privilege and power commanded by the white straight Trans politic. He usually has to put himself into danger if he feels compelled to transition. Dangers from prostituting himself to raise monies for transition, including frequenting life threatening Pump Parties.”
Read more here: http://dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com/2013/01/not-seeing-lavender-suzanne-moore-and.html
I have to say that 99.9% of men who attack feminism and women and lesbians are of the heterosexual male variety. Many (most?) transgender males from the gay community have agreed with the posts here on GenderTrender. I have never had a homosexual type male transgender harass or threaten me in the years I have hosted this blog. They do not attack feminists, they do not fight against female-only spaces, etc. It is only the heterosexual male transgenders who seek sexual access to females who issue death threats, propose corrective rape of lesbians, proclaim themselves “actually female” or “female brained” or fake intersexed. Those who go on rage-fueled rampages against any female who speaks out against sex-roles = heterosexual.
Kudos to Dirt for calling bullshit on privileged straight white male exploitation of the travails suffered by the homosexual, often non-white, impoverished men whose names, lives, and struggles are co-opted to advance an absurd female-hating exploitative and privileged hetero white male political agenda.
Pretendbian Challenges and The Trouble With Lesbians
August 13, 2012
Lesbians = Privileged Assholes
Uniquely Lesbian Corrective
Lesbian Speaks! Call the Police!!
It’s about “correcting” Lesbians, yo
Sexualized Male Gaze = Lesbians. No fellas. Wrong.
If she wanted to be a girl she would dress like one!
On the Montreal Dyke March Facebook Page
- All this and single too!
I wanna be your man
July 20, 2012
WPATH President Jamison Green
Gender, the social convention that assigns various characteristics (behavioral, psychological, cultural) to humans based on biological reproduction, is a very interesting topic. Heck, it’s so interesting that you’re spending your valuable time reading a blog about it right now. Gender is the cultural expression of male domination and female subordination.
Lots of people want to talk about gender, including the modern practice of “trans”gender, which is the belief that medical and surgical treatments should be used to enforce conformity to the social tradition.
Transgenderism was invented by patriarchal medical and psychological institutions as an “escape valve” for individuals who might otherwise rebel against gender, and also as a lifestyle option for males who become sexually aroused embodying female subordination. This “escape valve” prevents strain on the cultural expression of male supremacy by siphoning off and channeling subversives into an alternate version of conformity enforcement.
Throughout human history there have been individuals – especially females- that have tried to escape the social conventions of male supremacy by disguising their biology and conforming to the cultural traditions of the opposite sex. (Any plan of actually challenging the male-dominant reproductive hierarchy itself would have been a suicide mission.)
The first female physicians disguised themselves as male and practiced medicine long before the first woman was permitted to do so openly by the male overlords. Medics in the US revolutionary and civil wars discovered hundreds of soldiers who were females disguised as males. “Passing” as the opposite sex through conformity to sex-based cultural traditions is nothing new. But some things have changed. Big things. Like the right of females to own property in many areas of the world. The right of females to vote in many areas of the world.
Hai. If we keep doing this can we vote?
Females have only been permitted to enter the workforce in the last 50 years. I mean fucking think about that. Very few females had ANY source of income – even part time- in the 1950’s. More than 2/3 of the female citizens in the US were fully owned and operated by male overlords. And many women still are, both in the “western” world and elsewhere. We have not even BEGUN to fight. (You can shove that whole .83 cents on the dollar meme bullshit up your white male western ass.) And OH MY GOD birth control?!? The right of females to DECLINE lifetime servitude as reproductive hosts to those who cannot birth offspring (ie males) ?!? ALSO only fifty years old. For the first time in the history of the world females have the right to refuse. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Holy shit. Revolution. Rebellion.
Where was I? Oh yes, the cultural expression of male domination and female subordination, or as I like to call it, “Gender”. Into the current revolutionary and rapidly accelerating war against male supremacy is introduced, by male power structures, a new version of conformity enforcement: Transgenderism.
The foundation of transgenderism is the wholly unscientific belief that human reproductive structures cause or contain (through an unspecified mechanism) the social behaviors of male domination and female subordination.
[*If any new readers are not following me here, go back and watch the video linked to in the first paragraph of this article.]
AND that nonconformity of such behavioral, psychological and intellectual traits constitute a defect.
AND that the clusters of behaviors traits and emotions that we call gender are native, natural innate artifacts of the human condition,
AND therefore the TRADITION of male domination and female subjugation is innate, natural, organic and healthy.
As lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys once stated succinctly : “…in order to support transgenderism , gender has to be supported. So the subordination of women has to be supported in order for transgenderism to be supported.”
The transgender movement began as an answer to the women’s liberation movement, specifically the historic leaps forward in economic independence and reproductive freedom spurred by the so-called “second wave” of feminism, and also –notably- as a response to the homosexual liberation movement (the political psychiatric diagnosis of “Gender Identity Disorder” was inserted into the DSM as a replacement for homosexuality when homosexuality was de-pathologized ). The purpose of the transgender movement is the preservation of the cultural tradition of the continual, pervasive, social expression of male supremacy and female subordination (“gender”).
Transgenderism is a patriarchal conservative “trojan horse”. It forces it’s adherents to vigorously uphold and enforce the very traditions that it’s practice offers a tiny modicum of freedom from. Without supporting those traditions, there IS NO state-sanctioned or cultural measure of escape. Their “escape“ from gender is dependent on supporting the sex hierarchy they are transitioning within. One has no pressing need to be “treated like” an impregnator or “treated like” an impregnable human if both are treated the same.
Now that patriarchal institutions support practitioners like Dr Norman Spack and Dr Jo Olson in chemically halting the maturation of children with “puberty blockers” followed by sterilization via cross-sex hormone regimes, we are effectively witnessing the rebirth of the practice of eugenics. “Sex-role corrective” eugenics in it’s current iteration, with predominately lesbian and gay children as the primary target. (The vast majority of children diagnosed with “Gender Identity Disorder” go on to mature into healthy well-adjusted lesbians and gays if left medically “untreated”.)
These are HUGE issues. HUGE recent social trends incredibly ripe for discussion, research, and analysis. Feminists, Gays and Lesbians, cultural observers, sociologists, sexologists, anthropologists, psychologists, researchers, academics, artists, etc. all want to talk freely about gender.
The transgender movement is also the first “social justice” movement whose platform is based on maintaining and contributing to the oppression of women, lesbians and gays.
The transgender movement demands the “right” to LIMIT THE FREEDOM of women, lesbians and gays.
Those whose liberation is being undermined by the transgender movement have a right and an obligation to critique it.
Nowhere is the impact of the transgender movement felt more acutely than in the lesbian community, as sex-role non-compliant butch dykes are continually pressured to “correct” their noncompliance, as male activists target, surround, and accost lesbians at Dyke Marches, and hold male-only closed seminars at Planned Parenthood to strategize “cures” for lesbians of their distaste for sex with males. Male activists post screeds on mainstream feminist sites demanding that female same-sex attraction “must be stopped”. Mainstream trans activists liken Lesbians to insects and vermin for rejecting sex with males. Transgender activists publicly, openly threaten Feminist conferences with firebombs. Officials from LGBT organizations publish their intention to crack open lesbians skulls with a Louisville Slugger and run over them with their cars. As a patriarchal social movement based on oppression of females and homosexuals the transgender movement has responded to critique with violence.
And now, bookburning.
Jamison Green: author, activist, “ex-lesbian”and the President-elect of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health is calling on the publishing industry to pre-reject unread Lesbian and Feminist manuscripts if authored by lesbians with a public history of critiquing “gender”. I’ll let you read Green’s words for yourself (all misspellings and grammatical errors are as published by Green and co-author Dallas Denny):
“
7 June, 2012
Office of the CEO
Taylor & Francis
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Dear madams and sirs:
We are writing out of concern about the impending publication of Sheila Jeffreys’ and Lorene Gottshalk’s book Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism by Routledge Press.
It is highly usual for either of us to react to a book before it is published, but in this case we fear the publication itself will be a political act with grave consequences for transsexuals and transsexualism—and so we are writing.
Ms. Denny is the author of two books by Garland Press (now a division of Routledge, which is itself a division of Taylor & Francis), Gender Dysphoria: A Guide to Research (1994) and Current Concepts in Transgender Identity (1998). She held a license to practice psychology for many years, until she retired it. Dr. Green is the author of Becoming a Visible Man (Vanderbilt University Press, 2004), and several chapters in Routledge academic anthologies.
Dr. Jeffrey’s writings about transsexualism have to date been highly political, based in opinion paraded as fact, and she has repeatedly said and written false and slanderous things about transsexualism in general and individual transsexual people in particular. She champions “solutions” which would make the well-established process of sex reassignment illegal. Her writing has, in the opinion of many people, clearly and repeatedly crossed the line into hate speech. She is, quite simply, on a vendetta.
Just last week she was barred from Conway Hall, the venue for the RadFem 2012 conference, on the grounds of fostering hatred and active discrimination.
In 1979 Beacon Press published feminist Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Based upon her 1977 dissertation at Boston College, the work was a polemic thinly disguised as a work of science. In it, Raymond asserted that male-to-female transsexuals symbolically rape all women by the mere fact of their existence. She (as does Jeffries) deliberately misused pronouns, using them as weapons. Like Jeffries, she argued for an end to sex reassignment—and she embarked on a tour of government agencies and insurance companies to accomplish just that end. Thankfully, her project was never fully successful, but it did create immense suffering and damage, effectively restricting thousands of people from access to even basic healthcare.
Last month Ms. Denny had the opportunity of reading Raymond’s original dissertation. To her surprise the Method section gave no demographic information about her supposed subjects (the very existence of these subjects has been debated). There were no protocols for her interviews. And yet Empire had a profound effect on transsexualism, playing a huge role in lack of coverage by insurance companies and the formulation of transgender-unfriendly policies by the federal government. Even now, after more than 30 years, the original federal directives remain in effect and have never been reviewed.
We find it distressing that Dr. Jeffries has expressed her admiration of Raymond’s work—and even more distressing that her co-author was only recently her graduate student. We see disturbing potential for Dr. Jeffries’ work to be little more than an update of Raymond’s screed, and we fear it will have disastrous consequences for transsexual and other transgendered people—as individuals.
We are morally certain Dr. Jeffries will use Gender Hurts as a political weapon to attack transsexualism and transsexuals, and I urge Routledge and its parent companies Taylor & Francis, Inc., and Informa to ensure the following, at minimum:
1. That the work is rigorously based on empirical data (with no calls for action that are not evidence-based).
2. That the editor(s) establish and maintain correspondence with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the organization for medical and mental health professionals, to ensure #1, above—and moreover establish relationships with at least six medical and mental health professionals in the field so they can provide written feedback on the manuscript.
3. That the use of pronouns be controlled. I suggest the authors be required to write in accordance with the Associated Press Stylebook and relative to the lived experience of any transsexuals or other transgendered individuals discussed. They should not be allowed to see-saw between masculine and feminine pronouns, which a clever writer can do while adhering to the Stylebook’s standard.
4. That the authors not be permitted to libel any individuals they discuss—and indeed, that they should NOT be allowed to discuss individuals who are not by public figures by virtue of their writing or politics.
5. That the editor(s) require the work to have scientific validity and disallow any non-evidence based politicizing.
6. That the manuscript be rigorously policed to remove hate speech, slurs, and defamation.
We doubt those six points will be enough. We would like to further suggest that Routledge withdraw the work and seek a more rational, informed, and balanced author on the same subject. Please know we are not alone in our grave concerns about this book and about Dr. Jeffries in general.
A response to this letter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Ms. Dallas Denny, M.A., L.P.E. (Ret.)
P.O. Box 256
Pine Lake, GA 30072-0256
Mr. Jamison Green, Ph.D.
2420 Clover St.
Union City, CA 94587
[sic]
.
Lesbian sign in support of Cathy Brennan NYC DykeMarch 2012
Participants in the 20th anniversary NYC Dyke March on Saturday were treated to a frightening surprise when groups of transgender activists surrounded lesbians who carried signs in support of feminists who challenge stereotypical gender roles – and those who speak out on preserving lesbian community and events from the incursion of anti-feminist practices. Once surrounded, the transgender bullies screamed, yelled and threatened the women, who the mob felt were “disrespecting” non-lesbians and non-feminists.
This is the first time in the history of the NYC Dyke March that lesbians have been accosted, attacked and threatened with violence. Unbelievably, one of the attack instigators was a trans activist calling himself “Ida Hammer” who actually claims to serve on the official NYC Dyke March organizing committee! Like “Hammer” , several of the other anti-lesbian bigots had strolled along the march route among the lesbians, some carrying signs saying “free blow jobs”, “free [convicted transgender murderer] CeCe” and chanting “We’re Here, We’re “Holes”, We’re Fabulous”.
The pack of anti-lesbian protesters focused most of their homophobic rage against lesbian feminist activist Cathy Brennan, who was marching with a few friends. The mob surged towards her, backing her up and surrounding her, screaming and cursing into her face as close as they could get where they had pinned her. The transgender and hetersexual protesters tightened around her to ensure that she could not move or escape.
Lesbian bystanders called for the mob to back up and give Cathy space and let her move: and to cease the harassment, the verbal abuse and the physical threats but the pack would not let her move and continued to terrorize and hurl abuse and profanity while threatening to violently assault her.
Many of the attackers were apparently enraged by Cathy’s public statements asserting that biology (reproductive sex) is not the same thing as social gender roles and internal gendered self-concepts. Also, her definition of lesbians as females (who are sexually oriented to other females) and her belief that lesbians should not be sexually coerced or labeled “transphobic” for rejecting sexual relations with males. Some were angry that she has verbalized support for the right of females and lesbians to have gatherings and support services that exclude males.
Ultimately Cathy was able to break away but the harassers continued to stalk her and the other lesbians at a restaurant.
Not only did the Dyke March Marshal‘s fail to intervene and protect the safety of Cathy Brennan and the other lesbians present but according to photos recording the incident posted on Cathy’s website HERE, several of those assaulting her were actually wearing red t-shirts identifying them as March Marshals. Details on the perpetrators of the 2012 NYC Dyke March attack are being posted on Cathy’s site as they become known. Video of the attack will (hopefully) be posted on GenderTrender shortly, as well as updates on the investigation and the organizing committee response to the Transgender Anti-Dyke Attacks of NYC Dyke March 2012.
Other posts with more information on the incident are here:
http://davinasquirrel.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/nyc-dykemarch-inclusive-but-not-for-lesbians/
http://ngforequality.blogspot.com/2012/06/its-mad-mad-mad-mad-queer-world_25.html
[More links will be posted shortly- please contact me with updates-GM]
CALL FOR ACTION: Please contact NYC Dyke March Organizers and request a public statement denouncing this incident and demanding that Dyke March co-organizer Ida Hammer, seen in photos physically threatening and preventing Lesbian Feminist Cathy Brennan from her right to free movement- be removed from official position IMMEDIATELY.
You may reach them here:
http://www.facebook.com/dykemarchnyc
Kelly Cogswell:
http://kellyatlarge.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/NYCDykeMarch
Gabrielle Korn:
https://twitter.com/#!/Gabrielle_Korn
http://www.facebook.com/gabrielle.korn.1
From HuffPo:
“Kelly Cogswell is an independent journalist and columnist for New York’s Gay City News whose work has been recognized by the New York Press Association. She was co-founder and editor of The Gully online magazine, one of the first online LGBT publications and the only to offer “queer views on everything.” A founding member of the Lesbian Avengers, she was co-organizer of the first Dyke March in Washington, D.C. in 1993 that mobilized 20,000 lesbians to march to the White House. Afterwards, the Avengers turned into a national and international movement, with more than 60 chapters worldwide. In 2009, she created the Lesbian Avenger Documentary Project.
Gabrielle Korn is a freelance writer, activist, and organizer. She received her B.A. in queer and feminist theory from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in May of 2011. She is the former editorial assistant at On The Issues magazine. Currently, she’s a member of the New York City Dyke March committee and a coordinator at the Lesbian Herstory Archives.”
FauxMo Beatty reclaiming the word “Fag” for hetero females everywhere
More on Beatty:
https://fauxmosexuals.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/47/
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Transgender “Feministing” editor Jos Truitt on how females are wrong about Rape, Reproduction, and Homosexuality
April 23, 2012
Jos Truitt “GirlTalk 2012″
“So apparently, I’m a Pretendbian. So in case you’ve been lucky enough not to hear, Pretendbian is this term radical feminist and transphobe Cathy Brennan came up with, for transwomen who are apparently “pretend” lesbians, trying to trick or force real lesbians into sleeping with them. She has put a list of pretendbians online and actually a couple of us are here tonight. This is all in response to the idea of the Cotton Ceiling, which Drew Deveaux termed for the ways transphobia and trans misogyny keep trans women from getting laid in the queer women’s communities. Read the rest of this entry »
Another long-ass homophobic screed from blogger Natalie Reed, ‘splaining to the ladies how lesbians are transphobic for eschewing the peen. Some excerpts:
“The refusal of lesbians to consider us viable sexual partners, or their seeing intimacy with us as somehow a threat to their lesbian identification (I had a #FunWithSearchTerms the other day asking “what do you call a lesbian who’s attracted to both women and trans women?”) is to ultimately, when it comes to staking your own identification upon how you conceive of our gender, to walk your talk, assert that beneath whatever lip-service you’ve paid to the legitimacy of our identity you simply don’t really regard us as women. At least not fully so.”
“And to be honest, saying as a blanket statement that you have no interest in sleeping with any [male bodied] trans women ever IS a transphobic statement. As I’ve talked about before, there really isn’t any universal or consistent outward trait common to all trans women [except for being male-sexed]. Logically, one can’t possibly experience a basic [Lesbian] sexual attraction to cis women but not trans women, at least not while claiming that supposed lack of attraction has anything to do with trans women and trans bodies. It’s about how you perceive trans women. What you’re “not attracted to” is women you KNOW are [male-bodied] trans, the IDEA of trans women, the CONCEPT. Which is inherently tied into cultural perceptions. You’d have the same reaction to a cis woman claiming to be trans as you would to an actual trans woman. It’s about your perceptions, not our [male] bodies.”
“ [Lesbian] sexuality does not occur in a vacuum.”
“Discussing the ways that [Lesbian] sexual orientation can often be fixed and immutable, that you can’t, for instance, “cure” someone of being gay or lesbian, has been an extremely important step in working towards acceptance of sexual variance. But that does not and should not mean that [Lesbian] sexuality is suddenly sacrosanct and off-limits for discussion. That does not mean everything about an individual’s [Lesbian] sexuality is suddenly unassailable, off-limits for discussion, “just the way it is”, not to be questioned or critiqued or thought about.”
“Some aspects of [Lesbian] sexuality probably are innate, “Born This Way”. But a whole lot more of it is socio-culturally mediated. How cultural attitudes play out in [Lesbian] sexuality is not something that needs to be protected from discussion, and given the fact that this often has real, actual consequences (such as perpetuating the oppression, alienation and dehumanization of trans women), it is something that needs to discussed.”
“The fact that simply trying to broach the subject of the cotton ceiling is something met with such a considerable degree of hostility and opposition is itself pretty strong proof that the cotton ceiling is in fact a real phenomenon that is actually limiting how trans women are conceived and talked about in the queer community.”
Donna Nebenzahl’s Transgender Children
July 3, 2011
When I started reading today’s article “Making The Transition” in the Vancouver Sun about the medical transgendering of youth who struggle with cultural sex role enforcement, I knew I had read the same article before. I checked the date- no, it’s a new article published today. But I knew I had read it before so I googled the author Donna Nebenzahl and sure enough, I had read the same exact article with a few minor changes back in March in the Ottawa Citizen as “Life in Transition” . Or was it the Montreal Gazette where it was also published back in March as a “special to the Gazette” feature “Gender Identity Crisis”?
Who was this freelancer pimping out the same article to three different – possibly more, (too lazy to check)- newspapers over the last six months? Donna Nebenzahl is a freelance “lifestyle” journalist and Genderist who mainly writes articles supportive of the chemical castration and medical mutilation of gender non-conforming youth and those children who reject or struggle with cultural sex roles. She does a few other genderist articles on topics such as “Society’s Lost Boys: Child-Men Delaying Adulthood” (Donna reports: “It’s an epidemic, says American family doctor and psychologist Leonard Sax, author of the books Why Gender Matters and, most recently, Boys Adrift.”
“While this change has developed alongside the successes girls now show at university and in the workforce, girls can’t be blamed for it.” Donna continues,” In other words, schools are not boyfriendly places. It starts in kindergarten, where children are expected to sit and learn, which wasn’t expected of them until Grade 1 just a few decades ago. Problem is, reading drills are really boring for a boy, who is hardwired, some psychologists believe, for rough-and-tumble play at that age. He’s distracted, underperforms, gets scolded, hates school.”
“This large gender divide has ramifications, write Frenette and Zeman,” Donna reports, “Women are delaying the age at which they have their first child, and will likely reduce the gender wage gap.” (OH NOEZZZZZ!!!!! -GM)
Donna helpfully leaves us a list of resources at the end of her article. (click on the link above to read the whole piece of crap)
and “Guyland- Why are so many young men adrift?” (“While this change has developed alongside the successes girls now show at university and in the workforce, girls can’t be blamed for it” Donna says familiarly. She warns: “In the past, marriage and family were markers of adulthood, writes Michael Kimmel in his book Guyland, but in a world where young women put off children for careers, where job security is a thing of the past and their parents’ values hold little allure, young men can postpone adulthood almost indefinitely.”) and also some overtly genderist home design articles such as “Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice- That’s What Little Girl’s Rooms Are Made Of” which was published two weeks ago Also years ago when she was pretending to be feminist (or at least sucking up scant feminist grants) she authored a book ostensibly about Women Activists called “Womankind: Faces of Change Around The World” in which she and a photographer, according to Publisher’s Weekly: “With funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, they traveled the world “to get to the heart of why women care enough to dedicate their lives to helping others.” For each of the 45 women or teams of women, they present four pages of photos and text in various font size, with a listing of contact information at the book’s end.”
“A few, mostly in the developed world, work to improve the status of women (e.g., Kathe Kollwitz’s Guerilla Girls fighting sexism in the American arts community). The volume skews toward African activists (caring for AIDS orphans, empowering rural women) and is curiously devoid of Middle Eastern women. American readers may be surprised to find so few grassroots activists (there’s Katsi Cook, a native healer; and Clementina Chery, an anti-gang violence activist in Dorchester, Mass.), but a full spread on writer Robin Morgan. Although the sepia-toned photos are very handsome, the selection seems strange: some of the American entries are tired, recycled and even irrelevant in the company of other women struggling for more basic causes.”
As far as I know only one of the activists was talked into being photographed as a nude, so that is a good thing. According to the book jacket she is a married hetero with two children and no ties to the Lesbian and Gay or Trans communities. (Although it is possible she is having one of her children medically treated for gender non-compliance). What I can say for certain is that she is a genderist activist who has no interest in feminism and deliberately avoids mentioning any connection between social sex roles and the female class. As seen above she is mainly concerned with how females are impacting the quality of life for men.
The published and re-published (re-hashed) article published (republished) today, about correction of gender non-conforming (mainly gay) children is the most genderist slanted conservative crap this side of the American Family Association – or the Ayatollah Khomeini- with no mention whatsoever of any viewpoint that questions the nature of sex roles. A pretty amazing feat for someone writing about them. Nebenzahl, if you couldn’t tell from the info cited above, is an unaoplogetic right-wing genderist through and through.
Some excerpts from the piece:
“At age 5, Shamai was a boy in a little girl’s body. He remembers demanding a short haircut and when a lady on the street “mistook” him for a boy, turning to his mother and saying: “This lady knows better than you! She knows I’m a boy.”
(Rejection of sex-role+desiring short haircut= birth defect. See how simple?)
“ They are transgendered youth, all in their 20s now, from different backgrounds but with stories that are similar: moments of childhood clarity when you realize that you’re not who you appear to be turning into an aching discomfort often leading to despair. In the majority of cases, these conflicts and concerns take years to work through, as the young person living inside a body they don’t understand, or want, often deals with isolation, self-loathing, bullying and suicidal thoughts. Then they make the frightening and often lonely journey to transform that body into the gender they identify with, coping with depression, the grief and possibly loss of their family, and a complex medical process.”
(These are actual fucking verbatim quotes. Check the article if you don’t believe me. Tropes Galore. Young adult subculture with shared narrative- nothing trendy to consider there, huh Donna? Then she says these kids are “not WHO you appear to be” she means that sex and sex-roles are “Who We Are” , the ultimate in conservative gender essentialism. Guess what Donna- our sex, our race, our various body types aren’t “Who We Are” on a desert island. They only MATTER in a sexist, racist, ablest society. And it might be okay for you to play a little fast and loose with that for the sake of your exposition were it not for the fact that you are doing it in the context of a piece advocating for the sterilization, castration and medically sanctioned disabling of children. Children you pathologize and refer to as “cases”. And ya know what Donna, you know this. Because in one sentence you refer to the “cases” – I mean children, as not being WHO they are because of their “defective” healthy bodies, but in the next you refer to them as living “inside a body”, beings not defined by their vessel. So get real. We’re talking about social roles applied to bodies according to reproductive function here. And you fucking know it.
The narrative of: they struggle for years and then they transform that body “into a gender” insinuates that all kids that struggle with sex roles have a one way path to “a complex medical process” is an incredibly damaging insinuation to make about children who fight sex-roles, most of whom when left to mature turn out to be well adjusted Lesbians and Gays. The fact that you never mention that 98% of gender non-conforming children referred for “treatment” will, when left to mature naturally STOP suffering from “gender dysphoria” on their own is the HEIGHT OF JOURNALISTIC MALEFEASANCE. Your homophobic agenda is undeniable. NOT ONCE does “Donna” MENTION the statistics of childhood HOMOSEXUALITY in these articles on gender non-conforming children!!!!!!!! NOT ONCE!!!!!! NOT ONE SINGLE TIME! When we know the vast majority of children referred for “treatment” are homosexual kids who will simply grow up gay. Donna Nebenzahl is a gay exterminationist- and anti-gay “correctionist”. And here is the kicker:
“While some professionals continue to see gender identity issues as psychological, ongoing research is moving toward the hypothesis of biological changes that take place in the womb rather than environmental influences,” Donna claims.
“Moving toward a hypothesis”=“Moving Towards a Proposed Explanation for a Phenomenon”. Can you believe the editors at the Vancouver Sun, Montreal Gazette and Ottawa Citizen allowed this bigotry? Would they allow it on an article about race or ethnicity? Or religion? Or any other oppression that involves straight males? Genderism isn’t a hypothesis. Genderism is a philosophy.
A hypothesis is: “human individual and social character traits may be caused biologically” . Genderism is: “Males are inherently dominant and females are inherently submissive to males and if the role doesn’t fit, the physical sex must be corrected because incongruence to this principle is against nature.”
Here’s another winner from old Donna Nebenzahl:
“Psychologist Françoise Susset’s specialty, within her family practice, is sexual minority issues. President elect of the Canadian Professional Association for Transgendered Health (CPATH), she is particularly concerned with supporting parents and with educating educators about gender expression – especially when exhibited by boys.”
Whut? Why especially when exhibited by boys? WE DON’T KNOW. Donna’s comment is completely unqualified. Never explained. Like it should be obvious to us all. Look at the article- I’m not making this shit up! To exterminate gay boy children more effectively? One might think with all the recent coverage on psychiatric abuse of gay boys Donna might feel it prudent to qualify that statement but no, we are all supposed to “know” what that means. Wink wink nudge nudge.
Listen to this unselfconscious gem quoted from “counsellor Rhonda Buckland at the youth advocacy centre Head & Hands.” ”Buckland, who teaches human relations in the department of applied human sciences at Concordia University, has been seeing trans clients for more than eight years. “Some come because they’re really trying to establish their gender identity and Dr. Tellier will often suggest they come to see me before starting hormones”
Donna reports: “Just think, says Buckland, how complicated it is for the average person to go through puberty and adolescence – “and on top of all that to feel so uncomfortable in your own skin and to be so ashamed of your body because you don’t feel the body parts fit how you want to approach the world.”
Duh. Why would body parts have to fit how you want to approach the world? On a desert island, how does skin color or sex effect how you “approach the world”? This is fucking HATE SPEECH. We’re talking about constrictive outdated conservative right wing SEX ROLES here. And this from a person with the professional authority to green light mutilating sex role protesting children.
Donna on “James” a 14 year old girl hospitalized for anorexia:
“He recalls the psychiatrist asking him why he presented himself in such a masculine way. “And I really wasn’t sure. She said, ‘If you could become a guy and no one but you would know, would you do it?’ I said, ‘Of course!’ I realized I thought all girls wanted to be guys!”
The psychologist (sic- Donna does not know there is a difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist and neither do her editors) gave James the number for Project 10, a resource centre for trans people that provides names of trans friendly doctors and psychologists, who might write letters to give them access to hormones and surgeries – and he began his journey into maleness.”
Donna on a gay male youth:
“Samantha’s struggle was also acute, and lonely. “I suppressed or denied it. Used mental acrobatics. But I wasn’t really good at acting like a boy,” (he) says. “I’d wear a T-shirt and jeans and sweaters but in high school people would say that I was feminine.”
On lesbian Shamai who Donna states: “At age 17, (she) came out as a lesbian, but discovered it wasn’t enough”. (According to Donna, Lesbian is a lesser form of “male”. Thanks Donna!)
“The therapist asked to see (her) journal writings and pointed out to Shamai that the journal, written in Hebrew, was written in the masculine form.
“She said, ‘Will you talk to me the way you talk in your diary?’ and when I tried it, talking in a masculine form, I felt like someone released something from inside. It changed everything.”
Hey I’m an authority figure and you’re a baby dyke. Your writing is very “masculine”. Please talk to me in that masculine way and I will give you approval. Funny you didn’t talk that way on your own without being prompted, but hey, that’s what I’m here for. Let me give you a number to call for some treatment. You must be a man.
Donna elaborates,“Shamai started dressing as a man, although never at (her)parents’ home”
Whaa? This sort of hyper- genderist fear may sound strange to most Gays and Lesbians but it’s why these kids get taken in by the authority figures who want to “correct them”. They are raised very conservative and very fearful at being gender non-conformist. They are terrified! The rest of us started wearing gowns or suits for fun when we were kids and insisted on choosing our own clothes but these kids have internalized the right-wing conservative genderism philosophy. Can you imagine a girl being afraid to wear “men’s clothes”? Jesus maybe a boy wearing a dress takes some balls – although many do, both gay and straight- and more every day- but jesus a girl hiding “men’s clothes”? This is a level of Genderist conservatism unprecedented in the modern age- major cultural backlash. If you look at any of the trans sites there are thread after thread about “getting a male haircut” and “how to stop trembling while shopping in the men’s department” and for the boys “how to grow your hair out” or “how fun it is wearing a blouse”. Holy moley less than 2 centuries ago it was the men wearing powder and wigs and being the fancy peacocks. We need a revolution and we need it NOW before one more kid gets run through the medical machine that trash journalists like Donna “Hack” Nebenzahl make nickel promoting.
(All bolding in this article is mine-GM.)
