Dear Trans Exclusionary Lesbians

Just so we're clear; if you're a cis woman who identifies as a lesbian and you refuse to even consider dating a trans woman solely because of her genital configuration? Solely because you'll only fuck other women if they have a vagina? Who will happily tell yourselves that trans man you're fucking is just a really butch dyke and not a man?

Congratulations! You are not actually a lesbian! You are a vagina fetishist!

"Lesbian" means "woman who is sexually attracted to/romantically interested in other women". Trans women are women. Trans men are men. If you claim to be a lesbian but you are willing to date/fuck trans men while absolutely refusing to do so with trans women, you are not a real lesbian. If you care more about a pussy being in your face than about the fact that you're dating a man who happens to have one, you are not a lesbian. If you were hot for that cute chick at the bar until she said she had a penis, YOU ARE NOT A FUCKING LESBIAN. You are a fetishist obsessed with vaginas and you have ZERO clue what lesbian love truly is. 

A lesbian loves women. Period. That is literally what being a lesbian mean.

You're not a lesbian. You're a hetero porn cliche.

Let's make a point here shall we?

Assuming you identify as a lesbian, look at these two pictures and tell me which one you're more likely to want to date, fuck, or maybe even marry someday.

  If you said the woman on the left without any hesitation? HUZZAH!!! You are, thus far, a healthy normal lesbian.

HOWEVER! 

Let's ask again, this time let's ask that same question, except now we'll point out that, duh, both of these people are trans, and you have no way of knowing what you might find in their underwear. Or let's go a step further, and assume that both of these people are pre or non-op. The woman has a penis and the man has a vagina. She's still the same woman you were attracted to just a minute ago, and he's still the man that you didn't even give a second thought to before you knew what was in their pants.

Are you still more likely to date the woman? Do you care more about who a person is than how a tiny section of their flesh is arranged? Congratulations! You ARE a real lesbian!

But... if your answer changed? If you decided you'd rather fuck the guy with the beard than the beautiful woman? You're not really a lesbian. You care more about body parts than people. YOU ARE TRANSPHOBIC, no matter what you tell yourself to the contrary. No matter what intellectual hoops you jump through to justify your skewed shallow preference.

And you really need to ask yourself WHY your preference is so focused on body parts instead of the person who owns them.

But the bottom line is that if your dating criteria puts the contents of someone's underwear above all else on your list of criteria, you're not a lesbian, and you need to take a good long look in the mirror.

Fuck the Bigots and Haters, This is Who and What I am!

I have real, natural 48 F breasts. I did not buy them from a surgeon. There is no plastic, no silicon. I grew them when I turned twelve. I am very proud of my breasts, and very comfortable showing them off.

Yet TERFs will and have repeatedly claimed my being proud of my breasts and willingness to show them off, (because no cis woman has EVER done that or felt that EVER right?), is proof that I am a male crossdressing autogynophile. Despite the APA long ago discrediting Autogynophilia as even being an actual real thing. It doesn't exist. I DO.

I was born with a uterus and a penis. I was born with one testicle and one ovary. I recently had the testicle removed. I was born with a tiny vaginal opening that a doctor surgically destroyed and sealed up.

Yet TERFs, (none of whom are actual doctors or biology experts. NOT A GODDAMNED ONE), will shout in my face telling me "Intersex doesn't work that way liar! You're just a confused man!"

I have no sex drive. I rarely masturbate if at all, and prior to my recent surgery only to make unwanted erections go away. I don't date, I don't pursue anyone, I don't look for sex. I'm a Demisexual, meaning I can only even ENJOY sex if it's with someone I'm already emotionally connected to on a deeper level. I don't do one night stands or casual sex.

Yet TERFs inst I'm a "Pretendbian", that I'm a man crossdressing to con lesbians into hetero sex, to "trick" them into sexually interacting with a penis. Even though I NEVER ask or expect ANY of my sexual partners to even LOOK at it let alone touch it if they don't want to, and even though EVERY woman I have EVER had sex with knew EVERYTHING about my body going in and STILL chose to fuck me of THEIR OWN GODDAMN FREE WILL. But try telling TERFs that. To TERFs I'm just a rapist dressing in drag to trick poor unsuspecting lesbians into my bed so I can sexually assault with my evil penis.

Speaking of my penis, I still have it. This is not by choice. I still have it because a minor day surgery to remove a testicle can be done locally and all related expenses are fully covered by Pharmacare. Full SRS is an invasive surgery that in my state of physical health I would be highly unlikely to survive, cannot afford the non-surgical expenses, and cannot afford the airfare. Pharmacare pays ONLY for the SRS itself, not any travel or hospital costs outside of BC, And I would have to travel outside of BC to get it if I could find a doctor willing to ignore the likelihood of my not surviving the operation. So I long ago made peace with my penis. I'm stuck with it. It's permanent. I can either hate it and end up killing myself in dysmorphic despair, or I can accept it's just a body part and get the fuck over it. So I got over it. Besides, unless I'm aroused it looks like a normal cis female clitoris anyway.

Yet TERFs say that BECAUSE I accept my genital as is and made peace with them, it proves I'm not a real woman, because if I was really a woman NOTHING could make me accept having a penis, even though they don't think trans women who DO have SRS are "real" women either, and are thus directly contradicting themselves by saying so.

This. ALL of this. This is what I deal with EVERY FUCKING DAY. EVERY day TERFs and other transphobic assholes like MRAs attack who and what I am as a person, invalidate my body and my history, deny my personality and experience, and deem themselves more expert in who and what I really am than I myself am.

This is DAILY LIFE for me. And for so many other trans and intersexed women worldwide. This is the kind of derailing invalidating dehumanizing pure raw unadulterated HATRED we face every day just for EXISTING.

Go ahead, tell me I CHOSE to feel this way. Tell me I CHOSE to be a woman with boy parts because it just gets me horny. Tell me I CHOSE to live a life guaranteed to include the risk of being beaten to a pulp or even murdered every single day just by leaving my apartment.

Go on. Tell me that. I DARE you.

No one would EVER choose this. The only choice I ever made about my gender was to stop living in fear and denial and to just be who I really am.

I am a woman with factory extras I never asked for.

I am beautiful, strong, intelligent, compassionate and kind. I am selfless often to my own detriment. I only have sex with people I love and trust and feel safe with, and I HAVE no secrets about my body or who I am. I don't "trick or deceive" ANYONE. The women I've been with are not coerced or fooled or conned. They CHOSE to be with me. And they are not magically bi or straight for doing so, (unless they WERE bi to begin with). A lesbian who chooses to fuck me is still a lesbian because I AM A WOMAN.

I am NOT a crossdressing rapist. I am NOT a confused crossdresser. I am NOT a "Pretendbian". I am not ANY of the hateful transphobic narratives TERFs lob at my head every day.

I am Penny, hear me roar. And feel free to stare at my tits because FUCK the haters, my tits are EPIC.

Why Cathy Brennan and her TERFs are, in fact, TERRORISTS

Terrorist.
ter·ror·ist [TEAR-er-ist] noun
1. a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.
2. a person who terrorizes or frightens others.

Terrorism.
ter·ror·ism [TEAR-uh-riz-uhm] noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

Terrorize.
ter·ror·ize [TEAR-er-rise] verb (used with object, ter·ror·ized, ter·ror·iz·ing.)
1. to fill or overcome with terror.
2. to dominate or coerce by intimidation.

Read these definitions. And then read these quotes.  (Source; TERF Quotes)

TERF Activist and blooger Bev Jo: "They expect we’ll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and don’t realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead."

TERF Blogger Luckynkl: "The male-born are biologically incomplete mutants, useless and obsolete; walking viruses on two legs and a cancer, spreading disease, death and destruction wherever they go. They are the walking-dead and the antithesis to life. Gyn-energy sucking vampires who have to plug into women and feed on them in order to survive. No different than a parasite who sucks the life and energy out of its host."

TERF Blogger Bonobabe: "Personally, I think we should do away with circumcision and replace it with castration."

TERF Blogger WhiteTiger: "If we’re going that road, why not just cull boy babies for awhile? Re-establish a sane balance. Then we can start selective breeding programs for donor males…" [To cull means to reduce the population of by selective slaughter.]

TERF Blogger JourneyMistress: "It might be well and good to “educate” them [males] but that seems to take decades. Only if you are dedicated to educating the Terminally Stupid should you embark on this…Detachment is the key to emotional survival in a world plagued by males. Otherwise you really do just want to shoot them on sight."

I'd paste more from TERFQuotes but I'm already nauseous just from those. If you have the stomach, click the link for more.

Other examples of TERF terrorism include fallout from having a conference cancelled in London once the venue owners realized the message the TERFs were promoting.

On that page you'll see TERF leader Cathy "Bug" Brennan engage in blatant terrorist tactics by trying to incite fear against trans women, ally men and women, and generally ANYONE contradicting her, including calling trans women "all men", and calling an enlightened young man a "rapist" for "violating her boundaries" by simply replying to her PUBLICLY POSTED HATE TWEETS.

Here, from Rational Wiki, is a collection of examples of Cathy Brennan's terrorist campaigns against Trans Women.

One example from that page; "The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) is the ex-gay organization that stirred up the right wing world by claiming that a trans kid (whom we will refer to as Jane Doe, for reasons of privacy) in Colorado was harassing cisgender girls in the restrooms. Right wing media outlets jumped at the story without conducting any fact-checking, prompting members of the right wing community to call for the death of the trans kid. Cathy Brennan's Gender Identity Watch site jumped in to help the PJI attack the trans teen. The Pacific Justice Institute claims that "a male student, NAME CENSORED, who claims to be transgender, has allegedly harassed female students in the girls room at Florence High School." Even after Brennan learned that the teen was on suicide watch, she has left the teen's real name on her blog as well as updating it recently."

Here, Bitch Media examines the harm and hypocrisy of Brennan's tactics.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point.

One doesn't need to Strap on a bomb vest or fly a plane into a building to be a terrorist. One only needs to actively engage in campaigns of fearmongering to knowingly and intentionally incite a higher risk of violence against your chosen target. Like a KKK Grand Wizard never had to dirty his own hands with the blood of black folks because he incited other more gullible people into such fear and rage that they'd go do it for him, Brennan and her TERFs, however few they are, are doing that exact very thing; Appealing to the fears of gullible people with the intentional and malicious goal of getting trans women hurt or even murdered, while smugly believing their own hands are clean.

Now go back up to the top of the page, and reread those definitions.

And then tell me Brennan and her TERFs are not Terrorists in the purist definition of the word.

Click here to sign a petition to have Brennan's group Gender Identity Watch classified officially as a hate group.

Arguing with Cathy Brennan 101

Prominent TERF Hatemonger Cathy Brennan being herself.

Trans Woman; Your statements are ignorant hateful bigotry with no basis in fact.

Brennen; You're a man and a bigot and a racist and I speak for all cis women and lesbians. Also, cis doesn't exist.

Trans Woman; No, you speak fot yourself and your followers only. Cis DOES exist. And exactly how am I racist for pointing out that you're a liar and a bigot?

Cathy Brennan; Stop trying to erase me and replace me with a pink monkey!

Trans Woman: Pink monkey? The hell? When did I ever mention monkeys?

Cathy Brennan; See! You cussed! You're clearly a violernt rapist and want to harm me! I feel threatened!

Trans woman: Wait what? Where did that even come from? I haven't threatened you in ANY way!

Cathy Brennan: Well I'm blocking you now. I've proven you're a violent rapist planning to replace all women with unnaturally coloured primates and EVERYONE can see I'm right. I must now block you for my own safety because you clearly want to rape me. Repeatedly. For weeks on end. Later Mister Pretendbian.

Trans Woman; ............................................................ um............................... what just happened here?

A Rebuttal To Errors In Michelle Goldberg's Gender Article For The New Yorker

The Article in question

I have a very huge problem with this article; It's claim that there is documented proof on Twitter and Tumblr that Trans Women regularly and routinely threaten TERFs with grievous bodily harm and even death. The author of the piece unintentionally admits as much by pointing out that it is TERFs cataloging all these threats.

Except no, they aren't. They're INVENTING threats.The supposed "Documentation" on TERF websites? Yeah those are almost all made up. TERFs create sock accounts and fake blogs and literally threaten themselves so they can have "proof" to point to about what violent confused men we all are. And the few cases where a screenshot IS of an actual trans woman? ALWAYS taken out of context. TERFs find trans women on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook, harass, goad and verbally assault us relentlessly, until in angry frustration we say something to blow off steam, such as "Oh go die in a fire already". The problem is that they screencao and document ONLY the Blowing-Off-Of-Steam, and NOTHING else. Taken so drastically out of context? Of COURSE it looks to the uninformed observer like Trans women are "threatening TERFs with violence". But IN context, viewing the entire exchange in question, the truth always comes out.

There is only ONE proven documented incident of a Trans Woman wishing violence upon TERFs unprovoked, and that was a blogger on Bilerico simply saying she wouldn't lose any sleep if TERFs were all suddenly dead. And after YEARS of abuse and hate from TERFs, it's perfectly understandable why she feels that way.

But the rest? No. EVERY other TERF claim and "evidence" of threats by Trans Women has crumbled under scrutiny. Trans Women are NOT threats in any tangible way to TERFs except Idealistically. A trans woman venting in anger after ceaseless harassment is NOT an actual valid threat of bodily harm. Outing trans women and intentionally putting them in harm's way IS.

TERFs are a DIRECT threat to Trans Women. They Doxx us, outing private pre-transition info that directly puts many trans women in immediate danger of being fired, evicted, beaten, or even MURDERED.

No. This is NOT a "two sides to a story" issue, and there is no "it goes both ways" here. TERFs are the aggressors, Trans Women their targets. And TERFs will not stop until we cease to exist.

We aren't trying to erase their existence. THEY are trying to erase OURS.

References;

Actual quotes from TERF activists online

How TERFs find their "evidence"

Proof of TERFs using Cis Privilege and Doxxing to silence and bully trans women who document their tactics

The Bug Brennan & Friend Comedy Hour!

So... according to a pair of TERFs on Twitter, (one of whom I'm pretty certain was Bug Brennan on a sock account), my Twitter Avatar somehow proves that I'm really an "Autogynophile Man".

My Twitter Avatar

Can ANYONE explain this chasm-like leap in logic to me? Do only trans women have breasts and show cleavage or pose sexy? Have cis women NEVER done this EVER in the history of womankind? Is this one of their sad deluded "Only a man would pose like this" disconnects from reality?

I know one of the accounts tweeting TERF hate at me was a Bug sock, because she claimed I was a "famous violent autogynophile".

1) I'm nothing CLOSE to famous. I'm barely "vaguely heard of"

2) I'm not violent. I haven't been in a fistfight since my mid-teens. I have NEVER threatened a TERF with harm of ANY kind, nor have I ever taken their bait and harmlessly wished they'd die in a fire so they could twist it into proof of my "violent nature". For Bug to say I'm violent is a pure unadulterated lie to pad her false narrative.

3) I'm not Autogynophilic. Autogynophilia is the act of being sexually aroused by dressing as the opposite sex or imagining being them. It is more common among cis women than cis men, and, despite the claims of bigots, not prevalent among trans people AT ALL. I have never in my life been sexually aroused "by the thought of being a woman". I AM a woman. With next to zero sex drive. On the rare occasions I DO get aroused, it's because a woman I love is getting my motor going. Taking the pic above was NOT done for MY own sexual gratification, it was taken for the benefit of people who love me.It was one of the rare times I felt actually beautiful and so I took pictures for my beloveds.

Bottom line, TERFs have, yet again, proven that they're sad bald-faced liars, and that they need to lie to make their case because proven facts are simply NOT on their side.

If by any chance Bug is reading this, (And I KNOW she is because she's proven she stalks me now, trying to make me one of her poster girls for how Trans Women are "All Violent Men in Drag Out To Rape Women"), I'll make you a challenge.

I will give you my birth name, and leave you free to go digging all you like. You will not find ONE violent incident to my name outside of sealed Juvey records, and I've already publicly discussed the fights in my teens that put me in Juvey. You can dig until you hit molten core and will NEVER find ANY facts to prove your claim about me.

But we both know you won't accept my offer. Because you're a Doxxer. You've likely ALREADY picked through my life with a fine tooth comb looking for something to attack me with. You already KNOW your "Penny is violent" claims are bald-faced lies Bug. If there had been anything you could find that you could actually use, you'd have posted it all over the place.

I scare Cathy Brennan. Not because I'm "violent" as she falsely claims. But because she doesn't know how to discredit me. She doesn't know how to deal with me. My being intersexed is a pertinent reminder that she's wrong about sex and gender being immutable black & white constructs. By just EXISTING I prove Bug a liar and a bigot. And she doesn't know how to dismiss me.

She blocked me on her primary Twitter a few years ago, NOT because she was scared of me for harassing her, as she claims on her "I'm a Victim!" blog. (See my last blog entry for further details on that.). Twitter Records prove SHE was harassing me.

No, she blocked me because I was refusing to play along with her childish goading. She was looking for another "Oh go die in a fire!" tweet she could twist to fit her narrative, goading me with simplistic "your penis proves you're just a man" tweets. I kept replying "But I have a uterus too. By YOUR definition that makes me a "real woman" right?"

She couldn't figure out how to respond to that. And blocked me. And yet since then she's tried AGAIN to pick fights with me on Twitter TWICE, through her sock accounts. And always with her sad ridiculous claim that I'm a famous violent fetishist crossdresser. And every time I completely trounce her, not with fists, but with FACTS.

Because I HAVE the facts. And she does not.

I've said it before, I'll say it again; If you have to make up blatant lies to pad your argument, your argument was never valid in the first place.

Bug Brennan Lies In Public. In Other News, Water is Wet

So today on Twitter while I was debating with a bigot from National Review who was spouting some "Trans women are men" crap. I was trouncing him with proven medical science and he quickjly scurried off whimpering, unable to retort.

Then lo and behold Bug Brennan, on her GIDWatch account, came out of nowhere with thi tweet;

And linking to the screencap in the middle of my final word on our debate from TWO BLOODY YEARS AGO.

Except this is blatant proof that Bug lies.

You see her little caption at the bottom of the screencap? The one that reads "Only in a male mind would harassing someone into submission and having them take such measures to avoid interactions in the future be a success"?

Bug harassed ME. Because I was calling out TERF bigotry. SHE started mouthing off at ME on Twitter. Calling me a man, a rapist in a dress, trying to goad me into screaming at her. I didn't "force her to block me to escape my harassment of her", I forced her to block me because I wasn't taking her bait, and she couldn't think of a good reply to me pointing out that I have a uterus. 

"LOL Sure you do" is NOT the final tweet of a woman who feels frightened and harassed who is blocking to escape someone she feels terrified will harm her. 

It's the parting shot of a troll who's fleeing the fight THEY picked when it becomes clear they're in over their head. Bug does not get harassed. SHE harasses. She attacks, she doxes, she actively encourages violence against trans women. If anyone is violent it's HER. 

And her ridiculous assertion that "only a male mind" would view being blocked as a success? PLEASE. I know WAY too many cis women who would outright brag that they got a loudmouthed hateful bigot to block them because they straight up outdebated her.

Bug did not block me because she felt threatened. I never threatened her or even insulted her when she picked a fight with me. She blocked me because I refused to take her bait, and likely because she feared some of her followers might be swayed by my factchecking.
So, any of my cis ladypals want to comment on this blog and tell Bug how wrong she is?

A Disturbing Trend

As the professional hate lobby loses battle after battle in their war on gay tights, and they suck less and less money from donors through fearmongering against gay people, I'm seeing a very unsettling but sadly unsurprising trend.

You see, the hate groups won't admit it publicly, (well, most of them, a few have conceded), but they know they've lost this contrived culture war against gays. They still fire volleys but there's no gunpowder left in those shells.

They know that more and more people actually KNOW real gay people. And knowing real actual flesh and blood gay people dispels all the fearmongering bogeyman stories that the Religious Reich likes to spin to scare the fearful and ignorant into giving them money. They know their donor base is either dying off or waking up.

The problem is that these hateful people, who swear they're not bigots while blatantly lying through their teeth about gay people to sow fear, NEED that donor money to survive, because as hateful and dishonest as they are, there's pretty much NO other way for them to have an income that grants them the life they've built on the backs of gay people. They NEED to have a bogeyman, an intangible "other" they can use to terrify the ignorant into paying for their mansions and caviar.

And so, while trans folks have always had to deal with ignorance and hatred, even FROM gay people, the Religious Reich in the United States has heavily ramped up the transphobic bile of late, stirring up more anti-trans fear than ever before, and it's working.

Articles about trans stories like that of Coy Mathis have always attracted ignorant hateful and stupid people to the comments sections. But of late the transphobic bile has multiplied. Where it used to be reasonably balanced in comment sections between the ignorant haters spouting bile and actual trans folks countering them with facts and reality, lately the haters seem to be drowning us out, overwhelming us with sheer numbers and shouting over us to drown us out. The hate is a flood now and it's difficult to not drown in it. 

And it's Religious Reich hatemongrrs like Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, Jennifer Roback Morse, Brian Brown, Peter LaBarbara, and Linda Harvey ramping up the whole "Transsexuals are just men in dresses who want to rape your women and children in bathrooms!!!" Meme that has caused this sudden surge in trans hate.

You'll note they almost never discus trans MEN when they spout their bile. Trans men don't even exist in their eyes.

And that makes it even more important now more than ever for us to stand up to these professional bullies, to counter their every lie with the truth, to dissect their dishonest fearmongering with facts and reality.

To show the world we matter as much as anyone else and have every bit as much right as everyone else to be protected from discrimination and abuse under the law. 

No matter how hard it gets, how much bile we have to wade through, how hopeless it often seems, we MUST keep fighting. The Gay lobby isn't going to stick their necks out for us. WE have to fight for our right to exist. 

Because the haters are getting us killed. And we have to disarm their transphobic bile as the gays did their homophobic bile, and render their bigotry impotent and powerless. 

Because the alternative is just rolling over and dying. And that is no alternative at all.

Because It's On My Mind Now

So the story of the 11 year old trans girl in Germany being institutionalized has been especially touching a raw nerve for me of late.

When I was 16, about a half a year before my juvey rapes, I was institutionalized for 30 days at the asylum (I REFUSE to call them "psychiatric hospitals" because that would imply they heal anyone), for an evaluation to determine the cause of my anger issues.

So one day I'm drawing naked women, and the staff and doctors zeroed in on it. They tore up my drawings and told me very matter-of-factly my problems stemmed from a misogynist personality, that I hated women and was sexist and violent because of it. Having dealt by then with a good decade of shrinks and authority figures misdiagnosing me and NEVER listening TO me, I started screaming at them. I wasn't drawing naked women because I hated women and just saw them as fucktoys, I was drawing MYSELF as I was SUPPOSED to be.

They proceeded to restrain me violently enough to bruise me and dislocate my bad shoulder despite my only yelling and making ZERO physical threats, doped me up to the point of being all but lobotomized, and threw me in a padded room naked. I was so doped up I couldn't control my bodily functions or even stand up and pissed myself sitting there, (which they determined I was faking somehow) and was left laying in my own filth without food for 3 days. They refused to let me out or stop shooting me up with drugs, (and refused to EVER tell me WHAT I was being drugged WITH), until I "admitted" that I was making up my gender issues and that I was a bitter angry misogynist who wanted to hurt women.

And after 3 days without food sleeping in my own waste, I gave in and told them what they wanted to hear. Until the day I was transferred back to Juvey when I was put in the truck, and I looked squarely at the shrink who ordered all this and told her "I lied to get out of that room. YOU lied to put me in it. I am a girl, and you are a horrible abusive evil person, and I hope you rot in hell for what you do here."

She fumed and told the guards to make sure the Juvey staff ignored anything I said and to ONLY acknowledge HER report. Which of course the guards agreed to. It was primarily BECAUSE of her bullshit report that I got transferred to the hardcore prison wherein I was raped every night for 3 fucking months.

I fear for that little girl. I KNOW what those bastards will do to her to convince her she's a boy. And it terrifies me that she'll learn to play along so they'll stop mistreating her.

Ha Ha Tranny Jokes are So Funny! (To Privileged Rich White Gay Men)

So everyone favorite gay celebrity, Neil Patrick Harris, is guest-hosting in what is now Kelly Ripa's morning show until Regis is permanently replaced. During the opening banter segments, he offhandedly makes a stunningly disrespectful transphobic joke, about sounding like a "tranny" by DEEPENING his voice. Because AHAHAHA!!! Trannies are men in dresses amirite? Ohhhhhh that's so hilarious!

Well, unless of course you're one of the millions of trans women who will face verbal and physical abuse today just for leaving the house trying to be themselves. We don't find dehumanizing humour that funny.

Now of course we all know that if NPH had made a joke about sounding like a black men and then done a "Sho 'nuff Massah, I shines it up reel gud fuh you!" voice, the media, the NAACP, all sorts of people would be ripping NPH to shreds for such blatant bigotry. But we're just trannies, it's still okay to tell hateful, hurtful dehumanizing jokes about us. We need to lighten up you tell us. Don't be so damn sensitive you tell us. Learn to laugh and take a fucking joke you tell us.

We hear such condescending dismissals a lot. Sadly we get most of it from white gay men.

Popular and widely read Gay Blogger Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God has a pretty good track record for being supportive and respectful of trans issues. He's posted positive articles, deleted blatantly transphobic comments, and generally been a decent guy to trans folk.

Well, that is until trans activists targeted Dan Savage. Dan Savage is a popular influential wealthy white gay advice columnist with, (I'm sorry, suck it the fuck up, it's the fucking TRUTH), a long documented history of transphobic bullshit.

When trans activists glitter-bombed him twice, out of very justifiable anger, well, suddenly Joe changed. He stopped deleting blatantly anti-trans bigotry from the comments on his blog, and according to his blog entry about the afore-mentioned NPH slur, now apparently finds it perfectly okay to be condescending and dismissive of trans people when a white affluent gay celebrity makes a tasteless, unfunny, hurtful and casually dangerous transphobic joke.

I expect the bullshit that you see in the comments on his blog. I'm used to Joe's readers showing nti-trans bias. The majority of his commenters seem to think the following as a rule.

1) It's just a joke, we shouldn't take it so seriously.
2) We're oversensitive crybabies blowing things out of proportion.
3) We should focus only on the religious right and not attack our gay "allies".

Let's answer those one by one shall we?

1) No it is NOT "just a joke". Transphobic jokes of that nature are told purely at our expense. Trans people themselves are the punchline. Jokes like that feed off of the worst and most-reinforced negative trans stereotypes. When the ONLY point of a joke is to emphasize how weird and different and freakish someone is, it's not comedy, it's negative affirnation of the stereotypes that get us beaten up or murdered just for existing. I know, I've been hospitalized by teenagers shouting tranny and other lovely things at me as they bet me.

2) Trans women, especially trans women of colour, get beaten up, bashed and outright murdered at near ten times the rate of gay men. So tell me how, knowing this, we're blowing things out of proportion? And yet a gay man getting beaten up or killed will always be widely and extensively covered by gay media, while most trans assaults and murders barely get a mnention in their own local news, let alone much notice online.

3) We focus on the religious right AND our gay "allies", because the bulk of gay activists have repeatedly proven they simply DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT US.

There are boatloads of evidence of this. In attempting to get ENDA passed, gay activists kept cutting more and more trans-inclusive clauses from the bill, until we were essentially erased from it entirely. They claimed this was to make the bill easier to get passed, and that they'd come back for us. But it was really just throwing us under the bus. Once gays have equal rights in every aspect, they won't care about helping us. Most gay men look down on us anyway. They view us a lesser because we've happily thrown away the masculinity they so cherish.

There are so many fights going on across the USA to push for gaty marriage, gay adoption, gay job and housing protections. But bills try to grant those same rights to trans people rarely get much attention except from Religious Right assholes drumming up fears of crossdressing rpists in bathrooms to prevent thebills passing. Where are most of our gay allies then?

"We'll get to you, honest. We just gotta finish our stuff first. Try not to get killed while we fight for marriage!"

I'm sorry but, well, fuck you Joe Jervis. You crossedthe line, and now you're just yet another privileged white gay man throwing us under the bus when we become inconvenient.

You may have just lost a regular reader.

Dealing With Classic Derailing When Teaching About Trans Lives

Crossposted on Pam's House Blend

For the past two weeks I've been all over the damned net trying to maintain my temper while dealing with a very depressingly high concentration of white middle to upper class gay men posting comments on various websites in reply to articles or blogs about the SNL Estro-Maxx sketch or the Craig Ferguson "My long lost half sister Peg" sketch. There are reasons so many trans folk are losing faith and trust in a large chunk of the gay community, feeling like we're conveniant tools to help fight their pet causes but to be discarded or thrown under a bus when WE need them. Honestly I actually have less issues with femisogynist lesbians bashing us the last two weeks than with smug dismissive gay men.

The general consencus among these white Gay en is that we in the trans community should just lighten the fuck up because these two skits were all in good fun, just harmless jokes doncha know? We're just too damn oversensitive, we need to lighten up and grow a funnybone.

Yadda yadda yadda.

I've cited Derailing for Dummies so many times the past two weeks I almost have the whole bloody thing memorized.

So I'm going to paste a couple things here. The comment of mine that got the most likes on Disqus and got the most people saying "Okay maybe you're right" of the hundreds I've posted the past two weeks, and the classic derail attempt it was in reply to.

The Derail attempt. (After I'd been pushed to start cussing in frustration at the bullshit lengths these guys were going to to avoid admitting the harm being done. 500 points if you can spot the classic derail attempt).

"It's really too bad that you can't keep a civil tone and refrain from the profanity (and that goes for everyone)--it would really give more credence to your arguments. That said...do you happen to notice that "Peg" seems pretty happy with herself? So, if you're taking the leap to casting her as transgender, she's out and proud. But I agree with the previous posters who equate this to Milton Berle, Flip Wilson and I'll add Jonathan Winters and all the Kids in the Hall and Catherine Tate (look them up). The comic conceit of "obvious bad drag" does not a transgendered character make. So before you cast stones at CBS and Craig Ferguson, consider what you're really criticizing. (In this case, it's simply a monotonous skit."

And my reply, the one which got the most Disqus likes and got through to people.

"Nope, sorry, but you're just classic derailing again to be able to dismiss me so you don't have to acknowledge you're completely wrong. Using a tone argument, "You're being too angry/hostile/profane therefore nothing you say is of any import" is classic derailing done by privileged idiots who don't want to have to expand their worldview to include the lives of marginalized people. This is how you convince yourself you'e better than me and therefore your inherant superiority automatically disempowers my justified rage in your mind, and you can dismiss me as overreacting.

So the only one losing ANY credibility here is YOU. Especially given the examples you cite, which back up NOT your arguments but mine. Earlier you argued that men wearing women's clothing didn't automaticaly equate to trans bashing. I agreed but argued that in the case of the SNL sketch and the Ferguson sketch it did because gender variance was the sole and only point of the "joke" in these cases. By citing comedians like Berle, Wilson, KITH and Winters, you're only strengthening MY argument, because NONE of those comedians were playing gender itself as the joke. They were all always portraying actual women when they crossdressed for comedy. Flip Wilson's Geraldine for example was NEVER played for "Man in a dress" laughs, she was played for "Angry black mother" laughs. The character was a straight-on woman, and the jokes were rooted on her attitude, NOT her bodyparts.

SNL and Ferguson cannot say the same. The entire point of both sketches was to mock gender variance, and you CANNOT argue it away or deny it in Craig's case just because the guy playing Peg has come out before as male characters and tried to disgust the audience.

Both sketches relied on negative demeaning stereotypes of trans women to get their laughs. Both mocked trans women as silly freakish people who are just weird and abnormal and there to be mocked or treated like sexual deviants. Both used facial hair to emphasize the whole "This is just a man in a dress" meme.

So sorry asshole, but your derailing attempts have failed and so has your lameass privilege based argument. And my very justified anger, amplified by your staggeringly self-absorbed ignorant arrogance, does not dilute the fact that I am RIGHT, you are WRONG, your privilege has made you ignorant of what trans people have to truly put up with, the damage shit like this does us, and the damage YOU do by perpetuating it rather than educating.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. YOU are not trans, so YOU do NOT get to tell US what is or is not offensive to us."

I wish it didn't take me being pushed to the limits of my already pain-reduced patience to drive me to a point where I can articulate myself enough to actually get the fuck THROUGH to people, but sometimes anger can be a good tool if you find the right lens through which to focus it.

I just wish I could've gotten through to more people. The bulk of those I've been dealing with still think we're all just uptight humorless trannies who need to take a joke.

But if SNL or Craig had done a sketch with a white guy in blackface singing Mammy, or a guy playing a hyper effeminate gay man looking for 10 year old boys to show his "lollypop" to, these assholes would be first in line out for blood demanding SNL/Ferguson apologize for the bigotry and that they remove the offending sketch.

But hey, we're just silly trannies, we just need to learn to take a joke. Right?

Wrong.

And I don't care who I piss off by having the nerve to stand up for myself and my sisters. Our lives are NOT material for bad comedy.

Every So Often, the System DOES Work!

Cross-posted on Pam's House Blend

I was just woken up by an unexpected phone call.

Normally, this would be extremely irritating as you can imagine. I barely get much sleep, so being woken up when I actually was passed out is a pet peeve.

This however, was a wake-up I can definitely forgive, as it was the BC Supreme Court Crown Counsel calling me.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with my legal battle with Safeway Co. Ltd. please direct your attention here, here, and here.

Why would Crown call me less than a week before my final court date? To inform me that, as the man whose job it is to prove I'm guilty of the crime I'm charged with and convict me, he has, after two months of investigation into the testimony and evidence presented during the first part of my trial in August, determined that Safeway's case is so full of gaping holes and blatant transphobia that it is not even worth the Court's time to persue it further.

I no longer have to law awake at night fearing the system won't care about the transphobic bullying I endured by Safeway employees that lead to the false shoplifting charges, or hope I may be found not guilty because proof and justice were on my side.

Because the Crown decided Safeway's bullshit was so mind-numbingly obvious he COMPLETELY DISMISSED THE CHARGES!!!!

Apparently, inasmuch as he was willing or able to tell me, his attempts to procure interviews with the abusive security guard who the arresting guard was forced at my first hearing to admit WAS there and had been suspiciously left out of his report completely, he determined my version of events was clearly the accurate one and that the security guard who testified had a vested interest in trying to pretend otherwise.

I don't know if I have the energy after a year and a half of my life has been chewed up by this to actually SUE Safeway, but I'm damned sure going to Ask them to reimburse me for the items I had paid good money for which the security guards confiscated wrongly as stolen property.

Today, I am a happy kitty. Sometimes, the system DOES work for us.

I Am Purple Every Day

Crossposted on Pam's House Blend

It's no secret to those that know me that I'm a tad obsessed with purple. I own a lot of purple clothing, a fair chunk of my digital art is purple, and I've had my hair dyed purple more than once.

What very few people know is why. And since a well-meaning campaign has declared today Spirit Day and encouraging people to wear purple to raise awareness of teenage GLBT suicides, now seems as good a time as any to tell you all why.

I've seen several examples today on Twitter alone of trans youth being ignored, ungendered, or lumped in unfairly with gay youth and ignoring the different struggles they face. I know gay kids go through a lot of bullshit, yes, but Trans kids have several completely different struggles on top of those, so before I begin, let me remind you, honor EVERY kid in turmoil today. Do NOT gayjack or ungender trans kids by lumping everyone together as if one universal solution will fix everyone's problems.

When I was young, my femininity was not exactly subtle. I knew at age 3 something was wrong. I knew I was supposed to be a girl. I didn't know I actually WAS a girl surgically jiggered at birth. But I knew I was supposed to BE a girl. And every time I expressed femininity I got beaten up.

If I asked to see a Barbie doll at recess, I got beat up.

If I didn't want to join in at sports or play War or Tackle Tag, I got beat up.

If I said I actually liked cooking my own breakfast, I got beat up.

Anything I expressed interest in that the boys saw as even bordering on stereotypically girly, I got beat up.

I ended up suspended from Grade 3 for a week because I admitted to liking Jem and the Holograms, and when the teacher pulled the bullies off of me and said I should expect to get beat up if I was going to be a sissy and not like GI Joe instead, I told him to go fuck himself. I got beat up and yet it was ME who got suspended, because I stood up to a teacher reinforcing stereotypes and condoning the bullying.

When I started to grow breasts, I got beat up.

When I tried to resist my rapists in Juvey, I got beat up.

And every time I got beat up, I waited til the next day. And the next day, when the bruises formed, I saw my only friend, Purple.

Purple, who appeared on my skin to remind me I was different and had to fight to survive.

Purple, who reassured me I had survived another hate fuelled beating.

Purple, who told me I was still alive, that they hadn't broken me.

I love purple. Purple tells me I'm alive. That I'm strong enough to survive the abuse. Purple tells me I'm allowed to be me.

I admire the girl who came up with the idea of a Spirit Day. It's a noble thought, even if some idiots are already distorting her noble idea to ungender trans kids. I wish there were less such idiots and more kids like Brittany McMillan who want to do something positive.

But I'm purple every day of my life. And so should all of us be. Every day should be a day we talk about and support young GLBT folks. ALL of them.

I love purple.

When A Stupid Choice Outweighs A Deplorable Crime

Crossposted on Pam's House Blend

I'm very sad and angry about the recent spate of gay teen suicides. Two 13 year old boys and one 15 year old boy in the past two weeks have killed themselves because of relentless homophobic bullying. These poor young boys were abused to ridiculous extremes not only by hateful classmates, but by school officials who did absolutely nothing fearing conservative reprisals.

These were children, who, regardless of their actual sexuality, (two were openly gay, one had never said he was or wasn't, and his misguided mother seems more concerned that people are told he wasn't than with fighting what drove him to kill himself), were abused and threatened and harassed and made to feel worthless until death felt like the only option for peace. These are tradgedies, crimes against vcompassion and humanity. They deserve what media coverage they're getting, because homophobic bullying in American schools is an epidemic that has lethal consequences.

While the so-called and extremely erroneously defined "family values" wingnut groups like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association constantly oppose every effort to address homophobic bullying, pulling all sorts of bullshit out of their ass to explain why they are perfectly content to let innocent children die as long as "the homuh-seckshuals" don't get a foothold in schools, these suicides should be a wake-up call to anyone with actual morals and compassion that things need to change in the USA. Once again, it deeply disturbs me that I can brag about Canada's superiority to the USA in yet another area, when our countries should be on par.

As a Canadian, I'm proud that Canada is light years ahead of the States in regard to things like same-sex marriage, gays in the military, equality under the law, and anti-bullying programs in our schools. Things that, to a rational, thinking fair-minded society should be no-brainers. As someone with family and dearly beloved friends in the USA, I'm ashamed of just how far ahead of you my country is.

And while I know a lot of you are going to be seriously pissed off at me for what I'm going to say next, it's the truth, and it bloody well needs to be addressed.

There's one more way that Canada trumps the USA, and it's the one that sickens me the most. Our GLBT groups and our media actually acknowledge the T equally, with fairness and equal standing. When a trans woman is murdered here it makes the news, and the victim is almost never ungendered in said reports, because our media follows the trans guidelines in the AP style book, and our GLBT organizations stand up for the T. Gay men, lesbian women, and straight folks of all kinds came out in proud support of trans women during the Lu's Pharmacy debacle. Trans people are protected under national law, and trans surgeries are for the most part covered in Canada.

Why am I bringing this up because of gay teen suicides in the USA? Because the suicide getting the most coverage is the one that deserves it the least, and all the massive coverage it's getting is repulsively shameful when compared to the almost non-existant coverage of the murder of a trans woman of colour that happened less than 30 miles away only two weeks before.

Seth Walsh, Asher Brown and Billy Lucas were children. They were constantly harassed, occasionally assaulted, and no one was helping them. They felt trapped and alone and lost, and they were desperate to escape. They deserve the media coverage, their deaths are tradgedies, part of an epidemic of bullying.

Victoria Carmen White was a post-op trans woman of colour, young, vibrant, attending college, and living her life. The ONLY local news report that addressed her murder did so thusly;

"Sept. 13, 2010

Newark – On Sunday, Sept. 12 at approximately 5 a.m. Victoria Carmen White, 28, of Newark was fatally shot at a private residence located at 159 Jacoby Street in Maplewood. Information released immediately following the shooting identified the victim as James White.

The victim’s legal name is Victoria Carmen White. Following an examination by the Medical Examiner and further investigation, it has been confirmed that the victim was a post-operative transgender female having undergone sex reassignment surgery. The victim’s birth certificate was legally changed to identify her as Victoria Carmen White.

The case is under active investigation. No other information is currently available."

Post-op, full legal documentation, and STILL the police and the media felt a need to ungender her post-mortum. And this is the ONLY media coverage she's gotten at all not counting a few dedicated bloggers like TransGriot and Questioning Transphobia who've tried to give her a voice in death. Like the three young boys, she too deserves massive media coverage that she's not getting anywhere, to bring to light another epidemic in this country.

Which brings me to Tyler Clementi, and the part that will likely piss people off but is nontheless true.

I feel genuinely sad for his family for their loss. And it does sadden me that another gay man is dead because straight people were idiots. But all available reports, accounts, and evidence shows that Tyler wasn't routinely bullied or harassed like the kids were. He was never relentlessly abused, or made to feel worthless by all his peers while school officials sat on their hands. Tyler Clementi had low self-esteem because his parents were reportedly deeply Catholic, and likely he himself felt conflicted about his sexuality, but the facts are he wasn't routinely bullied or harassed like the kids were.

Tyler was simply the victim of an admittedly cruel and tasteless prank, not of constant homophobic bullying. Tyler was an adult, not a child. Tyler was not trapped in a hopeless ceaseless cycle of abuse, he was embarassed by a video that invaded his privacy. And all evidence suggests Tyler killed himself because he was embarassed at being on public display.

And media across the country is harping on him as if he was the next Matthew Shepard. Gay Rights groups like HRC are loudly publicly demanding his roommate be charged with manslaughter because the video drove him to suicide. They are pushing his story past the three kids now. In most stories currently Tyler is the focal point of discussing the teen gay suicide/homophobic bullying epidemic, and Billy, Asher and Seth end up as footnotes and afterthoughts, mentioned mostly to show there were more than one suicide, while the authors focus on Tyler.

And Victoria? They don't mention her at all. Joe Solmonese isn't loudly calling for her killer to be brought to justice. GLBT groups aren't crying out for more attention to be paid to trans murders. While gay groups demand blood for Tyler, who made a stupid choice because someone embarassed him with a cruel prank, (which at best is worthy of a mischief charge under the law and doesn't qualify for manslaughter, or even criminally negligent homicide), no one is demanding Victoria's killer be found except a few angry bloogers.

An actual murderer is running around free and anonymous with a police force under absolutely NO pressure from ANYONE to track him down and arrest him, but a dead gay white man overreacts to being embarassed and people are calling for blood from an idiot douchebag who played a really stupid prank, who certainly deserves to be expelled from college but is NOT a murderer.

I'm sorry, but the truth is, the biggest tradgedy here is the subtle racism, trans-phobia and complete trans-erasure that has not only relegated three children's deaths to the background to focus on an adult white gay man who made a stupid choice while being nowhere near as beleagred as the three children were, but a black trans woman's murder goes ignored and forgotten completely because hey! A gay white man killed himself because a douchebag broadcast his sex life! That's way more important than some black tranny being FUCKING SHOT TO DEATH IN HER OWN FUCKING HOME!!!!!

Priorities. Canada has them. You folks don't. Give Tyler a rest. Put the focus back on Seth, Asher and Billy. And give Victoria the respect she deserves. Talk about HER death.

And people wonder why Trans folk don't trust white gay men when they want our money and swear they won't throw us under the bus again like they did with ENDA. Fuck you HRC. You don't give a shit about us.

Hat-tip to Gemma Catherine Seymour, as I'd never heard of Victoria's case until someone linked to her blog.

Looking For Clouds In A Silver Lining

EDIT 04/24/2010 - I have since seen the actual film and am utterly horrified by much of it. But i stand by my opinion that we can use it to our advantage as a tool to teach people what NOT to believe about us. Therefore i'll leave this blog entry as is, with this added note that i think isreal luna is a fucking hateful little moron and needs his ass kicked.

************************************************************************************

Yesterday, on Twitter, my friend Autumn Sandeem from the always effervescent blog Pam's House Blend brought a movie trailer that she found horrifying and offensive to my attention. Video below.



Now, I love Autumn and she is a very smart cookie, but I look at this movie trailer and think something completely different than she does. Autumn's complaints are as follows.

- The film looks to be exploitative and trashy
- It potrays Trans Stereotypes
- It trivializes real trans violence
- Using real trans murder victims in the marketing is offensive

Now a lot of my trans sisters have openly admitted to being awed by my ability to stay positive about my hope for the world regarding trans issues when we still get so much shit just for being us, but I watched this trailer and I saw something completely different, and I'd like to take this time to explain to all my trans sisters why I think this movie is a good thing and should be supported and celebrated actively, not shunned and villified.

First of all, yes it's trashy and exploitative. It's an Homage to trashy sexploitation revenge movies from the 70's. It bloody SAYS so. But that's a good thing. Because the audience for cheesy trash like this is generally made up of cis folks who otherwise wouldn't pay much attention to trans issues. Seriously, do you know how many men realized how evil rape really is after watching I Spit On Your Grave? This is EXACTLY the kind of subversive message movie that changes minds. People who watch this movie will subtly be persuaded as they watch it how wrong transphobic violence is.

As for using the names of real trans murder victims in the trailer. This too is a GOOD thing. Why? Because at least half of the people watching this who aren't Trans are going to be curious about those names. Some guy for example who's never really been exposed to news about Transphobic violence, will see Angie Zapata's name and get curious. So he's going to go and Google her and read about an innocent vibrant young woman who was brutally murdered by a bigoted asshole who targeted her just for being different. He's going to read statements from her mother and siblings tearfully lamenting what that asshole stole from them.

He's going to learn about a real flesh and blood three dimensional young woman whose loss has hurt people and he's going to be horrified and he'll learn to be more sensitive to trans people.

That is a GOOD thing.

I'd also like to point out, however trashy this movie is going to be, the trailer makes it a point to call the acts it draws from, and the attack in the movie that sets up the revenge plot, HATE-CRIMES. It's not whitewashing it. It's not for a moment suggesting we deserve it. It never comes CLOSE to saying "These people are freaks and it's okay to hurt them".

No this trailer is saying "These women are going to go get revenge on some hateful douchebags who hurt them just because they were different".

Another point I'd like to bring up is that while, yes, most of the ladies starring in this movie look like drag queens, there's still diversity here. There's a fat one, there are a few different races among them, and a few of them just look like plain average women. The one who got hospitalized and comatose for example, NOWHERE in the trailer, even once she dresses to kill so to sopeak, does she ever look like any "tranny" stereotype. She always just looks like a woman, period.

I DO understand why some of my sisters hsave a problem with this movie, but I honestly think they're looking at this all wrong. This movie is a HUGE opportunity, if we react to it right.

Instead of screaming "TRASH! STEREOTYPES! EXPLOITATION!", which will just make a lot of people tune us out, here's what we all SHOULD be doing.

Support this movie. Get it played as often as possible to as many audiences as you can reach. And BOOKEND the movie. Explain what this movie gets right about us and then close with a Q & A. This movie WILL make people more curious about our real lives, and it WILL make a lot of people more open to seeing us as worthwhile and deserving of respect.

The truth is, the loud hateful bullies are NOT as numerous as you think. You just see more of them because they ARE loud. Most cis people don't hate us, they just don't understand us, and no one is educating them about us in a way that they can relate to. This movie will open that door for a LOT of people, and instead of screaming about how the door itself is decorated, we should be the concierge, showing people through that door and helping them to a comfortable table.

This is a situation we can use to our benefit. Kneejerk reactions to the trashy stuff won't help any of us in the long run.

For now let's just help as many people as we can through that door. You can complain about the paintjob later.