I came out 40 years ago, had surgery 37 ago. Over the passage of time as female I have found that all of society’s expectations of a female have become my life.

It is hard for those who are new or are still somewhere in-between to separate what is specifically transphobia from that which is simply woman hating misogyny.

My partner and I coined Women Born Transsexual as a term for those of us who have gone beyond sex reassignment surgery and are now women with a history of having been born with transsexualism.

We have been labeled bigots and elitist for seeing the bulk of our oppression being that shared by other females and only a minimal due to our past history. Although we do acknowledge that history and ask the support of other feminists when it comes to writing hate crimes laws and anti-discrimination rules.

There has been some serious trashing of people with transsexualism on the part of certain cultural feminist factions. You and I have probably heard those factions which are often indistinguishable in their attacks from those of our common enemy, the religious right.

That said WBTs have been attacked for following the basic feminist principle of putting the cause of women first and foremost. For assimilating into and becoming one with women, i.e. woman identified instead of remaining transgender identified.

I support Feministing, Pandagon and Feministe as well as other feminist blogs with featured links on both my blogs.

Thank you so much for this post. I’ve been struggling a lot over the past couple of weeks with how to be open to learning from other people in a spirit of humility without, as you put it, being “bullied into responding on someone else’s terms.”

It’s very, very hard for me, personally, to live with the fact that I can’t make sure everyone in the world feels cared for and heard. And I’ve really appreciated your example in this instance, refusing to act in haste.