But I didn't have context enough to shorten the argument, and it felt like inside baseball... but now that she's posting on my blog:



Anyway, moving on, now there's sufficient context from the piece she commented on and her current reply, so I'll say what I've been wanting to say for some time:

Cathy, I'm going to tell you a story, one which you already know the kicker to, but it's of a young lesbian. When she was a kid, she didn't really please her parents, didn't hang out with the other kids very much, because the other kids seemed pretty alien to her. Part of that was her intelligence, she was a pretty smart kid, which made her precocious, something every adult, every popular kid, pretty much hated. They wanted her to sit down and shut up and let them get on with their concerns... suffice it to say she was that girl that everyone hated through most of school, but that was fine by her. She didn't like them either. She stuck to her own interests, tried very much to build a little wall of thought around her life, since that was where she was strongest.

As a result she became pretty good at rationalizing...

It didn't matter that she was bad with her hands, be it woodworking or sewing or cursive script. She was smart and the future was going to open itself to smart people like her... And besides, she could always bury herself in books or video games or golf. She loved golf, very existential, and after all, a body is just a body, right? What matters most is a person and the integrity with which they move through the world, and trying to fit someone else's stereotype about how she should look, trying to be muscular, would've just been giving in to sexist stereotypes. And the crushes she had on strong women, (especially ones in media, since they would never tell anyone, never expose her, and it didn't feel wrong to fantasize about someone who didn't exist) were normal... the constant daydreaming about the bright pagan girl, short with black hair and spectacles, kinda like she wished she could pull off, in her religion class, the desire to be recognized for how she felt, the constant heartache clawing at her chest that she was just beginning to find the words for was normal, in fact, it meant she wasn't even more of a freak, wasn't gay or anything...

After all, boys are supposed to like girls.

And it was much safer for her to be a boy. Nobody would hate her for being a weirdo, and nobody would say she was ugly, in fact, she would be considered somewhat handsome (by everybody but her) and it meant that the cracking of her voice wasn't something to be upset about, and at any rate, she couldn't really think much about her body since that one time some boy groped her breasts in front of like two-hundred people, and instead of rise to her defense, like she'd been taught to do if that had ever happened to anyone else, anyone who bothered to react, even though she told her assaulter to stop while speaking into a live microphone, (she was deejaying the campus 'radio' at the time) just laughed.

Anyway, I won't spoil it for you and go into elaborate detail about the person she tried to bury for years, how it slowly destroyed her ability to function, like some emotional scurvy. I won't bore you with an evocative retelling of how she wept when a woman kissed her for the first time at twenty-six and how remarkable it was for her that she was grateful that nobody ever kissed her and meant it while thinking she was a boy, that the last quarter century of abuse and self-hate was worth the first week of being, and being with, a girlfriend who understood her.

I won't pick up the story with the bad ending it could've had, where that girl decided to run through the pain, to let decades of her life whither, and finally, when the fear of dying still living the lie that they'd been living for decades they found the courage to try to capture a measure of authenticity from a lifetime of fear. I won't because that's not only too painful to think of, but because that story's heroine is much braver than the one in the story I just told you. I'm not going to treat that woman with anything less than the utmost respect and emotional support and understanding. But that's what makes me the kind of lesbian I am, as you say, different, from the kind of lesbian you are.

I understand that while the fiction of a trans man deciding that being male is less othering than being a lesbian exists, it exists mainly for trans women, not men. I understand how gayness is lived even if it goes unspoken, that women are socialized as women, complete with masculocentrism and contempt for the combination of amasculinity and assertiveness, even if they are not explicitly declared to be women.

More importantly, though, I recognize that lesbian sisterhood saves lives.

(fin)

So what level of understanding and sisterhood will come of this? None, just a cissexist and misogynistic repetition of the applicable Nicene Creed... still, it needed saying:

Gayhoods and girlhoods are significant...

... even the erased ones.

(As always, I do not allow anonymous comments. You'll have to give me a name you use elsewhere on the internets)

You write in this piece:

As a Gay Activist, I was able to quell the cognitive dissonance I sometimes experienced when engaging in political work with my Gay Brothers because, well, we were all Gay – we shared the common experience of same-sex attraction and desire. As I got older, though, and more Late-Transitioning Heterosexual Males decided to become “Lesbians,” I felt less and less comfortable and willing engaging in advocacy in the “Gay Community.”

The reason for this is quite simple – Gayhood Is Significant. Being socialized in the Gay Community is different from being socialized in the Straight Community. We have different rituals, different culture, different routine – not better, not worse. Different. This is why I am more comfortable in the Gayborhood than I am in Glen Burnie. The Gays are my people. Even the Gay Boys who engage in misogyny all day, every day – I definitely don’t like them, but I know them. We as Gays and Lesbians have the common experience of same-sex attraction and how that same-sex attraction shapes our both our personal lives and how we as the Gay and Lesbian demographic fit into the larger society.

So is this forty-three year old, a late-transitioning 'lesbian' who should be denied entrance to lesbian spaces because she doesn't have a shared gayhood?

No, the answer will come, because this woman is [large theory-based answer that means cis].

And for those of you who want a larger reply to Ms. Brennan. Rest assured, it's coming.

For enacting a law that'll see Cathy Brennan gleefully step over a homeless trans woman on her way to a cis lesbian marriage.

No ENDA, No peace.

Valerie Keefe: For a much cooler prime minister.

Remember, gendaw is soshiowy constwucted, that's why we can't let the Emmtootees infwiltrate spaces with female enewgy. #wadfemz

Let's acknowledge that there are two kinds of Domestic Violence: Reciprocal, and nonreciprocal. Fairly self-explanatory. Non-reciprocal violence is when someone hits you and you don't fight back. I've been the victim of this kind of domestic violence, (Not going to say who. They've expressed contrition and I don't live with them and that's all you need to know) and I can tell you, that while there may be more treatable injuries that result from reciprocal violence, the climate of fear and powerlessness that results in a nonreciprocal DV situation leaves its own scars, and I live with them and the occasional emotional tripwires they left...

With that as preface, I'd mention this study by Daniel J. Whitaker, PhD, Tadesse Haileyesus, MS, Monica Swahn, PhD, and Linda S. Saltzman, PhD:

Objectives. We sought to examine the prevalence of reciprocal (i.e., perpetrated
by both partners) and nonreciprocal intimate partner violence and to determine
whether reciprocity is related to violence frequency and injury.
Methods. We analyzed data on young US adults aged 18 to 28 years from the
2001 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which contained information
about partner violence and injury reported by 11 370 respondents on
18761 heterosexual relationships.
Results. Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%)
of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women
were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases. Reciprocity was associated
with more frequent violence among women (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=2.3; 95%
confidence interval [CI]=1.9, 2.8), but not men (AOR=1.26; 95% CI=0.9, 1.7). Regarding
injury, men were more likely to inflict injury than were women (AOR=1.3;
95% CI=1.1, 1.5), and reciprocal intimate partner violence was associated with
greater injury than was nonreciprocal intimate partner violence regardless of the
gender of the perpetrator (AOR=4.4; 95% CI=3.6, 5.5).
Conclusions. The context of the violence (reciprocal vs nonreciprocal) is a strong
predictor of reported injury. Prevention approaches that address the escalation
of partner violence may be needed to address reciprocal violence. (Am J Public
Health. 2007;97:941–947. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020)

Not every crime is reported. Not every physical injury gets treatment. And not every injury can be stitched.

Just to remind some of my, shall we say... fans? That I and trykes like me aren't going anywhere soon...

Trans 101: A Primer for the Ignorant and the Intolerant

I would've preferred to call it, Stunning Transgender Change Room Shocker, but you know... editors. *sighs*

I don't accept anonymous comments. Supportive or unsupportive, you write something here, you back it up with a name. This is a blog run by a public citizen and I demand at minimum an internet persona.

Edit before a test case comes up: That internet persona must also be available somewhere else public, so that, should there be any doubt, I can verify your persona at the other forum/blog/friendface or you can get a goddessdamn livejournal account for free like the rest of us.



( The Aside )