| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
bean
Member
Joined: 23 Jun 2008
Posts: 91
Location: western mass
|
 Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:01 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
Hey Cicely,
I call it like I see it. You don't have to agree, I don't expect you to, it's okay...
But at this point you are really distorting my comments in order to create yet another baseless argument. I'm not familiar with the scenario you describe, I have not experienced this particular situation, so I will refrain from judging it. But yes, I have experienced transmen on womyns land, and transfolks attempting to "educate" me, and yes, that felt like male identified behavior to me.
You can call it prejudice or you can, more appropriately, call it experience. This is my experience.
Bean
|
|
| Back to top |
|
cicely
Member
Joined: 04 Jan 2008
Posts: 433
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 9:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bean wrote: | Hey Cicely,
I call it like I see it. You don't have to agree, I don't expect you to, it's okay...
But at this point you are really distorting my comments in order to create yet another baseless argument. I'm not familiar with the scenario you describe, I have not experienced this particular situation, so I will refrain from judging it. But yes, I have experienced transmen on womyns land, and transfolks attempting to "educate" me, and yes, that felt like male identified behavior to me.
You can call it prejudice or you can, more appropriately, call it experience. This is my experience.
Bean |
What baseless argument? You weren't familiar with the WBW only pharmacy in Vancouver either - where the owner stated publicly in writing that any WBW is welcome to have her prescription filled there. You wrote that you wouldn't second guess another woman or tell her how to run her business and that if you didn't approve you wouldn't support her business by going there. But it's not about you. It's about the principle. You didn't respond to my comment that I doubted you'd be so cavalier about a white woman pharmacy owner stating that any white woman is welcome to have her prescription filled there.
It is prejudice when you call the behaviour of a trans woman or a group of trans women male identified when the same type of behaviour can be observed among women - including radical feminists - on any day of the week. Because you interpret a behaviour as 'male identified' doesn't make it so. It's a handy dismissal that takes no account of individual trans women's experience, character or personality. How do you feel about lesbians or feminists being characterised and dismissed as 'man-hating' - particularly as we engage in activism in our fight for our rights?
Last edited by cicely on Sat Oct 24, 2009 9:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
cicely
Member
Joined: 04 Jan 2008
Posts: 433
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 9:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bean wrote: |
I have experienced transmen on womyns land, and transfolks attempting to "educate" me... |
I used to write 'transwomen' as one word until I saw an explanation of why it's not appropriate. (It would be like writing 'homowomen' next to 'women'.) Lots of people still do it not meaning any offence, probably including trans people themselves, but I thought I'd share what I'd learned.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
bean
Member
Joined: 23 Jun 2008
Posts: 91
Location: western mass
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:23 am Post subject: |
|
|
Cicely writes
"It's about the principle. You didn't respond to my comment that I doubted you'd be so cavalier about a white woman pharmacy owner stating that any white woman is welcome to have her prescription filled there. "
Why does that require a big response? Personally,I would avoid financially supporting her business.. I would use another pharmacy. I doubt many folks would support it, and in time it would close...
But I believe your question is weak and prejudiced. I don't see how comparing an act of blatant racism is appropriate in comparison to WBW wanting a week to ourselves in the woods. Clearly no one here is expressing a hatred of transfolks.. I think you're reaching more than just a little bit here Cicely...
It's not about being cavalier, transphobic or racist.. it's about realizing that this world contains people with radically different values than mine. I make conscious decisions every day, in regards to how I spend my money and which businesses I support. Why am I going to get all worked up about a pharmacy in another country? There are real issues of racism, classism, homophobia and transphobia in the community where I live. I tend to invest my energies locally.
Personally I don't have need of an all WBW pharmacy. I don't take allopathic medicines, and in 99% of my life, I appreciate shared spaces. The clinic where I have my annual exam is for womyn/en and transfolks, thats no issue for me, my circle of friends includes all types of folks.. WBW, MBM, and transfolks (by the way, I hope you 're not laboring under the impression that all transfolks agree with what you're saying, as you take the liberty of speaking for them)
Again, here I am speaking about my experiences, and yet again here you are invalidating what I'm saying. Again I have to ask, why do you feel that you have that right?
Bean
|
|
| Back to top |
|
cicely
Member
Joined: 04 Jan 2008
Posts: 433
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bean wrote: | Cicely writes
"It's about the principle. You didn't respond to my comment that I doubted you'd be so cavalier about a white woman pharmacy owner stating that any white woman is welcome to have her prescription filled there. "
Why does that require a big response? Personally,I would avoid financially supporting her business.. I would use another pharmacy. I doubt many folks would support it, and in time it would close...
But I believe your question is weak and prejudiced. I don't see how comparing an act of blatant racism is appropriate in comparison to WBW wanting a week to ourselves in the woods. Clearly no one here is expressing a hatred of transfolks.. I think you're reaching more than just a little bit here Cicely...
It's not about being cavalier, transphobic or racist.. it's about realizing that this world contains people with radically different values than mine. I make conscious decisions every day, in regards to how I spend my money and which businesses I support. Why am I going to get all worked up about a pharmacy in another country? There are real issues of racism, classism, homophobia and transphobia in the community where I live. I tend to invest my energies locally.
Personally I don't have need of an all WBW pharmacy. I don't take allopathic medicines, and in 99% of my life, I appreciate shared spaces. The clinic where I have my annual exam is for womyn/en and transfolks, thats no issue for me, my circle of friends includes all types of folks.. WBW, MBM, and transfolks (by the way, I hope you 're not laboring under the impression that all transfolks agree with what you're saying, as you take the liberty of speaking for them)
Again, here I am speaking about my experiences, and yet again here you are invalidating what I'm saying. Again I have to ask, why do you feel that you have that right?
Bean |
I'll go back a step. In response to my example of radical feminists planning to literally silence the voices of other feminists by drowning them out with a megaphone at their own organised conference and my asking you whether or not you would call this 'male-identified behaviour', you said - to paraphrase - 'I don't know anything about that', which is pretty much what you also said about the WBW only pharmacy. In other words, you dodged the question.
My question is still - when is behaviour male identified in your view? If cis women/WBW do the same thing in terms of dissent or protest as trans women do, is it male identified behaviour? Or is it only male identified behaviour when trans women do it?
No, I don't claim to speak for all trans women. All trans women don't agree with each other as it happens, their being individuals and all.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
Nedra
Member
Joined: 06 Nov 2006
Posts: 738
Location: New York
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 3:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| I think Cicely is saying that when trans women are obnoxious you should not call the behavior "male-identified" if you do not call the behavior of WBW who are obnoxious "male-identified" -- that anyone can be obnoxious. The thing is, you'd call a man on male privilege because you feel like their behavior is informed by male privilege. Some trans women deny ever having access to or having their lives be informed by male privilege as if not wanting to be experienced as male would allow one to not receive male privilege or have one's life be informed by the fact that they are experienced as male. So all that to say, when someone is being an ass, I think Cicley feels you should call them an ass and not tell them that they are being male-identified.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
bean
Member
Joined: 23 Jun 2008
Posts: 91
Location: western mass
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 4:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
In my view, male identified behaviors are the action/s of any person(yes, WBW lesbian feminists are capable of this as well as anyone else) in the attempt to devalue, diminish, or control womyn/en. So it seemed appropriate to me, to consider the actions I mentioned male identified, as the actions are carried out with the intention to silence womyn/en.
I'm working from what I know, and who I know, In my life I have known WBT who do admit that they carry male privilige.. who do not deny that their external growing up experience was different from that of most WBW (even though internally they felt very different from the way they were treated by the world) Within the circle of folks in my life, this is not such a dirty word, it's just a fact of life. One friend in particular felt that she was definately shaped in many ways by growing up percieved by the world as male.. for her there was no denial that her life experiences had shaped her. I don't (personally) know many folks, trans or otherwise, who feel as though the type/amount of privilige they have recieved has not affected their relationship to the world, or helped shape their personalities. This is where I'm coming from, these are the conversations I have with friends in real time.
I wasn't dodging your question Cicely, as much as I was avoiding judging situations I know little about. You're right, I didn't know about the situations you mentioned... I try not to pass judgements on people/situations I do not have adequate knowlege of.. In the past you once asked me what the difference between us is, why I support WBW space, and why you do not.. again, that was an impossible question .. I only know you through this thread.. how does that qualify me to tell you our differences? I'm saying what I'm saying in this thread because I can speak from my experiences.
Bean
|
|
| Back to top |
|
bean
Member
Joined: 23 Jun 2008
Posts: 91
Location: western mass
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 4:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Nedra writes
"I think Cicely is saying that when trans women are obnoxious you should not call the behavior "male-identified" if you do not call the behavior of WBW who are obnoxious "male-identified" -- that anyone can be obnoxious. The thing is, you'd call a man on male privilege because you feel like their behavior is informed by male privilege. Some trans women deny ever having access to or having their lives be informed by male privilege as if not wanting to be experienced as male would allow one to not receive male privilege or have one's life be informed by the fact that they are experienced as male. So all that to say, when someone is being an ass, I think Cicley feels you should call them an ass and not tell them that they are being male-identified."
Ah, okay, I get it. Thanks.
Bean
|
|
| Back to top |
|
Brenda
Member
Joined: 06 Nov 2006
Posts: 1184
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 4:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bean wrote: | In my view, male identified behaviors are the action/s of any person(yes, WBW lesbian feminists are capable of this as well as anyone else) in the attempt to devalue, diminish, or control womyn/en. So it seemed appropriate to me, to consider the actions I mentioned male identified, as the actions are carried out with the intention to silence womyn/en.
|
Does not where you sit affect how you see such things? In other words speaking out against prejudice certainly is often viewed by those who are prejudices as attempts to silence/control them because they feel they are 'right'. Yet the person who they say is doing it, is often only responding to what they see as the accuser doing EXACTLY that.
Disagreeing with and pointing out the consequences of certain attitudes, actions and policies is not an attempt at silencing or controlling... it is an attempt however to make people aware of what they are doing and it's effects, and hopefully get them thinking about it in a different way, and maybe that could lead to change.
| Quote: |
I'm working from what I know, and who I know, In my life I have known WBT who do admit that they carry male privilige
|
That is such a nebulous term and one subject to great differences in degree. But I can assure you that in society someone is is known to be a WBt has a lower social standing in general in "mainstream' society than MBM and WBW regardless of sexual orientation.
What matters is who person is and how they are treated in society NOW. Judging people because of assumptions based on how they were born or raised is just as wrong as judging them buy the religion they were born into, how they were raised, or the color of their skin.
A person is more than the sum of their experiences and the same experience affect different people differently because of who they are.
So in conclusion, I don't think we agree on who is trying to silence/control whom here... and to me i seems that what you see is a reaction to exactly that being done to those being accused of that behavior.
- Brenda
|
|
| Back to top |
|
AmazonTrader
Member
Joined: 07 Nov 2006
Posts: 831
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| There's nothing 'nebulous' about male privilege bredna, you demonstrate that quite clearly each time you intrude on our spaces.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
