valeriekeefe

Where Valerie Says Unpopular And Easily Demagogued Things

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:25:01 GMT

We've all read that article on a trans person, a thousand frigging times, where the cissexist person goes back and forth with the pronouns, treating them as their CASAB before they transitioned and their identified sex now that that's generally acceptable to cis society. Everyone hates those articles, because they degender the fuck out of trans lives, trans people pre-transition, treat transition as a sex change when it's an assertion of sex, and ignore the fact that neurological sex is not plastic, no matter how much porn we may have seen or written that likes to imply otherwise.

But when trans people do the same, it's suddenly okay? It's their identity and we shoudn't question their identity, right? Bullshit.

The part of the brain that's sexually dimorphic is non-neuroplastic from infancy, so there's every reason to expect fluidity, non-binary identification, and discovering an identification that works better at a later date. There is, however, no demonstrable case of a boy-that-becomes-a-girl. There are, however, plenty of instances of girl-who-stops-pretending-she's-a-boy.

Trans people were never their CASAB, and a narrative chock full of internalized cissexism, a narrative that treats a young girl as a boy because she wasn't recognized as a girl, wasn't allowed to recognize herself as a girl, should be criticized (though perhaps more in abstract than on a case-by-case basis, because the best weapon against self-hate is acceptance). Narrative, especially one that relies on cis standards, isn't identity. Identity is identity.

You Think You Don't Agree With Us, But Really, You Don't Understand...

Mon, 28 May 2012 17:22:05 GMT

Friend of mine pointed me to yet another tired old trope on gendertrender, which I'm not linking.

Yes, there is such a thing as sexually dimorphic, nonneuroplastic, female neurology and there's such a thing as sexually dimorphic, nonneuroplastic male neurology.

Male however, is neither shorthand, synonym, or analogue, for butch. I know that, other transfeminists know that, but on some level you either don't seem to, or you assume such disingenuously.

male-midbrain/female-midbrain is not the same as femmebrain/butchbrain, the latter of which (doesn't exist/hasn't ever been demonstrated) and is yet another tired attempt to impose heteronormativity on lesbians like me, by the harem guards, the misogynistically cissexist TERFs.

You no longer own my body and you never will again.

New Comment Policy Assigned Name/Sex as Weapon.

Sun, 27 May 2012 17:13:17 GMT

Anyone making any reference to a person's assigned name or sex as carrying any legitimacy that does not accurately reflect that person's lived experience of either will be deleted, the libel in question redacted, and reposted.

This is more generous than the moderation policy on other forums in which I write. The hate will be preserved. The meat of the libel will not. If you want to do that, if you would rather attempt to write things that trigger the womyn this blog fights for, you may go shout into the nearest genital echo chamber you can find, such as Gendertrender.

FYI and this is also more generous than the moderation policy on the hate site I just referenced.

This policy takes effect immediately. The no-anonymous-comments policy already in place will continue.

And on an unrelated note, as I've been telling everybody: If you go to measuringworth.com, and check out the inflation-adjusted, per-capita GDP numbers for Great Britain, you can see the dramatic failure of Thatcherism first-hand.

1948-1979: Annualized Growth of 2.27% 1979-2010: 1.86%, that works out to 3003 pounds per Briton.

Something I've Been Waiting to Say to Cathy Brennan

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 11:09:51 GMT

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)

Once Again, Someone With More Eloquence Than I...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:18:49 GMT

eruca, on February 22, 2012 at 3:10 am said:

How sad it is that you as Pagans are fighting so hard to destroy what little women-only safe-space there is.

Ruadhán, on February 22, 2012 at 11:52 am said:

No-one is doing nor even advocating any such thing.

The fact of the matter is, your definition of “woman” (and, presumably, “man”, for that matter) is rather antiquated, and encompasses only a portion of those who actually are women. Not even all cisgender (“assigned-female-at-birth”) women have that womb and are part of the “menstrual mysteries” that you seem to hold as a pinacle of women’s spirituality –yet I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that you’d still consider them “women” even though, by your own apparent definitions, you’ve made an arbitrary decision to do so.

The fact of the matter is, now *all women* are claiming a right to “women-only” spaces.[emphasis mine]

A question for Cathy Brennan

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:52:57 GMT

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.

Fuck You Maryland.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 08:02:58 GMT

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.

Considering a Campaign Slogan For my Inevitable Re-entry Into Electoral Politics:

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:49:14 GMT

Valerie Keefe: For a much cooler prime minister.

Thought For The Day:

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:54:58 GMT

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

Things I Try to Work On:

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:17:58 GMT

Imagine a world where people don’t think ‘lesbian’ means “a cis woman who only dates other cis women, and who hates and is completely disgusted by penises”

Someone had a Problem With My Position on Domestic Violence

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:52:10 GMT

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.

Another Salvo

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:10:01 GMT

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*

A Refresher of my Comments Policy, and an Aside.

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:17:59 GMT

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.

---

On Blending, Perceived Gender, and Misogyny Masquerading as Feminism:

It's something I do, and have done since about five months before that picture was taken. I get ma'amed. I'm not proud of this. It didn't take any special work other than fighting for decent Endogenous Endocrine Intervention, which, in our lookist society, was easy for me to get in the first place. I did have to get into a row because I refuse to present high-femme for medicine. It's ridiculous and objectifying at best.

At any rate, I used to get really stressed, because, well, it's easy to overlay what I used to look like with what I look like now. But then, it's easy to do that with everyone. Julia Serano has pointed out, before and after counterparts frequently just look like the male and female versions of a person's bodily presentation. That's to be expected. Transition is about changing presentation, for one, and the less you needed, the less dramatic it ultimately looks when done.

So one day, skeptic that I am, I tested that assertion. I sat on a train and just for a thought experiment, asked, 'what if everyone on here had transitioned?'

Ultimately, you can see whatever assigned gender you want in a person if you look, in almost every case. So when people claim otherwise, always on the internet, never in public (In public I get triple-takes when my ID is required. It's really a before photo at this point) I am always reminded of the thought experiment on the crowded subway car. If you're a raging cissexist, you're never going to see the vibrant woman who's regained a measure of happiness... if you know about my birth assignment that is.

Misogynistic Radicalfeminists are so paranoid that they see men where none exist, and so dependent on hateful writers that they see a sister where a dyke-bashing womon hater exists. I don't envy them their particular insurgency, doomed to lose, drawing the boundaries of their world ever smaller, and shutting out an ever-increasing number of womyn. There's something to be said for ideological purity. But Roz Kaveney put it best:

What strikes me increasingly about that crowd is how in the name of fighting stereotyped behaviour they act more and more like the most unpleasant kind of school children, the ones too smart to be the bullies that hit you but who try to make you miserable instead.

Pure, but not that pure. Smart but not that smart. So endeth the aside.

Look. I Don't Want to Be Superficial...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:33:00 GMT

But here's me, with a crappy low-res camera, without makeup as usual:

Here's four-star general Stanley McChrystal

Here's the female-identified blogger who accuses me of being a man

So, um, yeah. In a sapient species, I think using a cursory visual inspection as the arbiter of gender is a bad idea. See above. Neurological sex is the only metric that makes sense.

So, I am The Radicalfeminist Flavour of The Month, Apparently

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:41:18 GMT

I haven't gone to look at it, but apparently gendertrender is referencing a Dirt article from two years ago (Neither of them get linked) where someone who looks like Stanley McChrystal called me a man appropriating female experience, because, when they'd sent out a call for people who had regrets about being on testosterone, I acted under the assumption that they were referring to both endogenous and exogenous testosterone. They used a name I don't use, one that came with my coercive assignment, and one that felt as illegitimate to me as I imagine a chosen name would to a detransitioned regretter.

I really did want to ignore it. Far better that they focus on me than someone important to the movement, but whatever. I'm only going to say this, and then I'm going to continue to say it every time the issue is raised:

The name is illegitimate. It's the equivalent of calling me Toby (from Roots, not West Wing..) It long ago ceased to have any power over me. You're confusing my refusal to dignify it with a response with fear. I was never that person. I was performing him, a character, a drag king act, with hints of the actress that eventually shone through and broke that character that I had been trained from birth to play, and had been consistently refusing with the only words I had available at the time.

I'm tall. I'm fat. I carry it ridiculously well, considering. This is because I got my height (6'2" now that I've gotten Exogenous Endocrine Intervention) from both parents and my thunder thighs from my mom. Last time I checked being tall didn't disqualify one from womonhood. Last time I checked, being fat didn't either. I weighed 180 in high school. That didn't make me more of a womon.

I'm Valerie Moira Keefe, and despite your libelous assertions to the contrary, I am a proud, loud, lady, and I'm going to remain such.

Feel free to signal boost.

Just a Simple Thought:

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 23:21:10 GMT

Well, eleven-thousand and sixty-two comments in, most of them from people who have never commented on this site before this story, I have but one thought:

Bobby Montoya is celebrating Christmas today. She's opened her presents, and she's surrounded with people who love her. Including a mother who, to support her daughter and the life she's made it clear that, at this point, she wants to lead, have been willing to have people who've never met her and never will meet her call her:

An opportunist.

A dilettante.

A misandrist who really wanted a girl.

And someone who hasn't made a good faith effort at ensuring their child was 'normal.'

Bobby Montoya got something really special this Christmas: A mother whose actions measure up to the rhetoric we usually surround motherhood with. Bobby Montoya has a mother who would walk through fire for her. And if she's reading, I want to thank her for giving me a bit more hope too.

Merry Christmas to the Montoyas, and everyone else who still has a measure of unconditional love available.

To No-One In Particular

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:24:51 GMT

If you could give less than a shit about the fact that only 1 out of every 14 workplace fatalities is female, you're a really shitty feminist... now you're just a misandrist-with-theory.

That smarmy self-proclaimed ally that you wish wasn't a self-proclaimed ally...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:24:31 GMT

Not to appropriate the experiences of Artificial-Americans or anything.

If you really liked me...

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:51:05 GMT

You'd come to Huffpo and read my new column on Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, and the unaddressed cissexism and misandry of the 2nd wave and give people your honest opinion*. (Read: You'd tell them you desperately love it.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-keefe/degender-her-erase-her-de_b_1113654.html

New Huffpo Column Up

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:25:41 GMT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-keefe/not-to-praise-barney-fran_b_1117559.html

And I want to thank the editor. He made a couple of good tweaks that made the knife go in much more quietly.

This is my word! I invented it! You can't have it! (Actually, feel free.)

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:48:49 GMT

Mediocritopian

That is all.

A Friend of Mine Was Talking About Protest Songs

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:29:36 GMT

This one really resonates for me:

Also, I have a new article up at Huffington Post.

Finally! (Edit: Never Mind.)

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:48:59 GMT

Took you long enough, Massachusetts.

Thank you.

No public accommodations protections... Fuck. Never mind.

Israel Luna Should See This:

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:18:01 GMT

Transmisogynistic slur used by character instead of author as a necessary part of characterization...

Also known as Keefe's Theory of the T-Word:

When used by a character or in reference to a character's prejudices to denote their ignorance: Provides blunt reality and accepts that we live in a cissexist society. Good.

When used by an author or a character who should know better: Thinks it's a fun word to say, which it can be if done right, but you aren't, trust me. Fucktacluarly stupid.

Wherein the Authoress Crows About Being Ahead of The Curve

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 06:33:24 GMT

So marjaerwin linked me to this petition asking Rachel Maddow to actually at some point cover trans issues, considering, you know, she seems to enjoy the dynamics of minority rights politics and such...

Again the url is: http://www.change.org/petitions/rachel-maddow-and-msnbc-acknowledge-and-cover-the-rash-of-transgender-murders-and-suicides

And I wondered, gee, might I have any thoughts on the issue?

I might.