[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by Kobi

This thread keeps going round and round in not very productive ways.

I will say again its intent was for lesbians who are females who partner with other females to have a place to discuss stuff related to our lives, experiences, concerns. That includes feminism and all it encompasses.

In a mixed community I expected there would be some flack, some obstruction, and derailing. It is not comfortable to discuss womens issues these days. Funky defensive stuff is the natural result of trying to do so.

My issue here is, as a female, lesbian who sleeps with other women, we should have a place to go and talk without it being continuous derailed, obstructed, or turned in various discussions of interest to other groups in the queer community. How many times have I said this now? How many more times do I have to?

If I went into the trans threads and injected my lesbian way into every conversation, or the femme threads and interjected my butch point of view repeatedly, I would be handed my head. It would be rude, disrespectful, and just a tad annoying. But, it's ok to do it here?

It is ok for everyone else to trot in here and shove their concept of what my reality is supposed to be in my face? Do you think you might learn something if you actually LISTENED to my reality before refuting it in favor of your own?

This type of interference behavior is a defensive posture. Lesbians like me, wanting space, is very threatening to others. Has to be or we wouldn't keep ending up in the same freakin place everytime. The object of the behavior is to stop whatever is being discussed because it is too threatening. Dont take my word for it, look back your self.

It is easier for us to get caught up in terminology and id's than it is to discuss the trials and tribulation of being a woman and a lesbian these days. It is an avoidance tactic. We cant discuss anything of importance as long as we are fighting about the definition of lesbian ad infinitum.

This thread is not about trans issues but trans issues seem to become the prevailing focus. Check back. A little head of steam about woman focused stuff gets started and wham! someone changes it to a trans focus. It is a pattern. It repeats over and over.

It seems it is safer for some to talk from what appears to be a heteronormative perspective than it is to talk from a woman focused, homosexual, womans space perspective. It's a throw back to the early days of feminism, you know when lesbians were a danger.

It is easier, it seems, to change the focus to trans issues than it is to deal with misogyny in our community or the many ways in which women screw over other women. It is much either to deal with trans issues than it is to deal with pro women issues.

These are the same tactics I saw used back in the 60's and 70's by women against other women. Women frightened to look at their lives. Women afraid of many things. It is sad to see the same tactics used decades later. Maybe we havent come such a long way baby. Always hated that commercial.

And Heart, for the last time, my perception of your flip flopping has nothing to do with your self identity. It has to do with the topic being about the color blue and you injecting one on yellow. Head in the direction of yellow and you change it to orange. Go with orange and you change it to silver.

In the beginning I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you were trying to sort out things like the rest of us, or were trying to be diplomatic or were more comfortable straddling the fence.

But, last night, when you did it, it made me think that you were making John Kerry look decisive. Hence the flip flop comment. For the last time, there is nothing there about who you sleep with or your definition of lesbian - except as it is of your own making.

Aj, again, this is not a tread about trans anything. It is about pro woman. But being pro women is automatically equated with being anti trans. Same dynamics from decades ago when feminism was seen as anti men not pro women. It is very hard to talk about pro women without looking at the many ways women are oppressed by men.

Kobi,

I respect your wanting to have a place to discuss Lesbian pride and Lesbian culture. And when the topics have stuck to those things, I have stayed out of the thread. However, that has not been the only topic discussed here, and some things have been said that I consider VERY relevant to trans people and how they fit into the queer community. I will give you some specific examples to back up this claim:

Chazz said:

How about jettisoning the concept of gender entirely? I know, it's a lot to get ones brain around. Patriarchy is counting on that.

And:

SEX (biology) = female/male, woman/man, girl/boy (nouns)

GENDER (a cultural construct based on sex) = feminine/masculine, womanly/manly, girlish/boyish (adjectives)

And,

Gender theory DOES promote a binary system. It "sanctions" going from point A on a binary scale to point Z. Everything in between is a matter of gender constructed degree.

No, Slater.... Adult females will always be women.

It doesn't matter if a gender system is binary or not. Gender mythology is the issue. Having 10,000 variations of a myth doesn't change the fact that it's a myth, especially when it comes to patriarchy. (Patriarchy is very adaptable.)

Slater said:

But it is also used as a gender identity. At one time, and still pervasively, sex and gender were used interchangeably as though they were one and the same. But if you allow for a non-binary gender system, then you have to allow for the possibility that there will be adult females who are not women, who are, for instance, butch.

The language of sex and gender has been so tightly interwoven, so tightly tied to a binary system, that trying to pull them apart can create these sorts of usage stumbling blocks.

And Heart said:

Your description of what trans men and women may experience via gender dysphoria combined with misogyny and violence is poignant, and actually reinforces my point about the importance of under-girding gender/queer/trans theory with feminism, but it strikes me that you are the one creating an oppression olympics by implying that transfolks somehow experience the pinnacle of oppression. Maybe, maybe not. How would you compare the experiences of a white transman with a lesbian of color? Not that we should compare, but do you see my point?

I get that cutting edge scholarship is about multiple gender presentations and identities being recognized and I think that's valid, I just wish it had not been so separated from feminist theory. I don't disagree that an individual has the right to choose their label, (one of the central tenets of gender theory), but asserting that continues to miss the point (that I think I tried to make) of what a privileged position it is to self-label. Why am I saying that? Not to dismiss self-identity, but to remember that the extraordinary majority of women do not have that option, in fact do not have any options with regard to any kind of self-actualization, including who or if they will marry, and whether or not they will control their own reproduction.

And she said this:

I also agree that identity is personal, but I see a definite relationship between misogyny and the undervaluing of woman in terms of social, systemic, and academic trends related to identity. Plus I have a personal reaction to what I have seen in my own communities about people's decisions to jettison their identities as women, and I shared that.

And this:

What agitates me is not whether a lesbian sleeps with a man. What agitates me is the loss of people identifying as women in favor of trans/gender-queer/3rd-4th-5th gender identities. That's what gets to me. Since most of those abandoning the id of woman are in queer communities, it gets discussed in terms of queer identities, but for me, it's not the creation of ever newer and shinier queer identities, it's the lack of grounding in woman/female/feminism that makes me feel angry, afraid, and alone.

Now do I feel threatened when lesbians talk about lesbian pride and lesbian culture? Not even a little. I think lesbians are great. (I even used to ID that way before I got a better understanding of myself. I didn't transition because I hated lesbians. I don't. I transitioned because of who I am, not who I don't want to be.) But the things I quoted above are not about lesbian pride or lesbian culture. They are talking about gender and ID politics. These are things written by, according to my understanding, people who identify as lesbians. And they are talking about things that directly relate to trans identities. As a transguy, I have something to say about them because they are, in part, about people like me. If you folks talk about things that directly relate to trans identities, do I not, as a transguy, have a right to respond?

And, I have seen some nasty comments made and I decided to speak up about it. I was not responding as a transguy when I spoke up, I was speaking as a member of the human race.