An Open Letter to Alix Olson

August 11, 2008

I found this open letter (via video) to Alix Olson at Questioning Transphobia.

It’s also appropriate because this week marks the beginning of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (aka Michfest). It’s a festival that has been going on for 33 years, an intentional community that is built out of nothing in Michigan and creates a space for womyn to come together and celebrate music.

I’ve never been, but the festival has also caused a lot of controversy around it’s gender policy. Specifically, trans women feel they are being kept from attending the festival via the “womyn born womyn” policy. There was an incident in the past where a trans woman was removed from the festival when it was discovered (in the communal shower area) that her genitalia did not match the festival goers idea of female genitalia.

In response, Camp Trans was founded, a concurrent festival and protest of Michfest. It happens right across the road and many trans people and allies attend that festival instead. Julia Serrano has written extensively about this exclusion (including in the piece I linked last week) as have other feminists and activists.

Alix Olson, along with many other female artists and musicians perform at Michfest every year, which I assume is the reason she is the audience for this open letter. I actually had the opportunity to meet her at a performance she gave at American University last year, and I asked her about the Michfest controversy. Her response was that of all the conversations she had heard over the years about trans exclusion at the festival, the most productive or important ones had actually happened AT Michigan.

That might be a cop-out, and I know from talking to friends who have gone to the festival that it’s complicated since many of them really appreciate the space and community it creates. I personally think the festival should be open to people who identify as women (or womyn), and if there are issues with safety or harrassment (which seems to be a fear) then they should be dealt with directly, not via discriminatory policies.

Cross-posted at Feministing

No Comments » | gender/sex | Permalink
Posted by radicaldoula

Blog discovery: Lesbian Dad

April 22, 2008

Thanks to the handy dandy Google Reader (looking for a quick way to read/skim a lot of blogs? check it out) I stumbled upon a blog called Lesbian Dad. I’ve only just started looking it over, but this caught my eye in the about section:

    les•bi•an dad n, neologism 1. a. A lesbian or genderqueer parent who feels that traditionally female titles (i.e., “mother”) don’t quite fit, and who is willing to appropriate and redefine existing male ones (i.e., “father”): She was a tomboy when she was a kid, so it’s not surprising she’s a lesbian dad as a parent. b. Often a non-biological parent in a lesbian family, whose role relative to the child in many ways resembles that of fathers.

Rock on. Sounds pretty rad to me, and I can definitely relate to some of LB’s thoughts on gender and parenting (even though I am not yet a parent). There is even a glossary of terms related to queer parenting. Check it out.

No Comments » | Blogroll, LGBT issues, gender/sex | Permalink
Posted by radicaldoula

Some thoughts on gender and pregnancy

April 16, 2008

So I’m a little late on this hot news item, but I’ve been trying to process some of the media and reactions before commenting. To get the low-down on the Thomas Beatie situation, read his own testimony about his pregnancy here. In short, he is a transgender man who decided to carry he and his partner’s child.

What has fascinated me most is the media reaction to Thomas’ pregnancy. At first, the media headlines seemed to question his pregnancy: Man claims to be pregnant, read the headlines, instead of Pregnant Woman claims to be Man. The fact that they questioned his pregnancy and not his masculinity was striking.

It seems some people thought the whole thing might be a hoax (maybe because he just looked SO masculine!) but after Thomas went on Oprah and People Magazine, the hoax possibility was disregarded.

What this case brings me back to is the ideas and definitions around gender and sex. When people define what makes someone a “woman” the definitions shift shakily depending on the circumstances. For example, ability to reproduce and birth a child is often cited as a defining category of woman. But, as Judith Butler points out, there are many times in a woman’s life when she is not actually able to birth a child. Before puberty, after menopause, not to mention the larger number of women who experience infertility. Are people who cannot bear children still considered women? Yes.

The gender definition shifts again if you look at chromosomes–women are XX and men are XY. Well, increasingly we are discovering that there are people who aren’t either XX or XY, and that the gender categories don’t fit neatly with the chromosomes either. Same thing with secondary sex characteristics (Women are people with breasts. What about men with breasts? Women without breasts?).

These are things I think about a lot–not just the social construction of gender (the ideas that are associated with men or women, like weakness and strength) but also the social construction of biological sex categories. Particularly being part of a birth activist community, which in many ways is centered around essentialist ideas about gender (women know how to give birth), constantly makes me reflect on how we use these categories, often in ways that are limiting and too narrowly defined.

Thomas Beatie is a very stark example, and an exercise in gender definitions for the general public, who don’t often think about these categories. We take for granted the ways our gender identity (and our biological sex) define and limit who we can be. I believe this is because our gender is at the core of our identities.

Ever walked around in public with a pregnant woman? The primary question she will be asked is “What is it?” referring to the sex of the child. When we call something so fundamental to our identities into question, it is extremely destabilizing.

Is there room in the birth activist movement for more radical ideas about gender and sex? Here’s to hoping.

3 Comments | gender/sex, pregnancy | Permalink
Posted by radicaldoula

Transgender Day of Remembrance

November 19, 2007

Tomorrow is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Julia Serano, a writer and activist whose work I really love wrote a great short piece for Feministing about the day. Check it out.

No Comments » | LGBT issues, gender/sex | Permalink
Posted by radicaldoula

Police Brutality Strikes Fifth Anniversary of Sylvia Rivera Law Project

September 27, 2007

This is just sad.

Police Brutality Strikes Fifth Anniversary of Sylvia Rivera Law Project

Contacts:
Jack Aponte (jack@slrp.org)
Naomi Clark  (naomi@slrp.org)

NEW YORK - On the night of Wednesday, September 26, officers from the 9th Precinct of the New York Police Department attacked without provocation members of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and of its community. Two of our community members were violently arrested, and others were pepper sprayed in the face without warning or cause.

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project is an organization that works on behalf of low-income people of color who are transgender, gender non-conforming, or intersex, providing free legal services and advocacy among many other initiatives. On Wednesday night, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project was celebrating its fifth anniversary with a celebration and fundraising event at a bar in the East Village.

A group of our community members, consisting largely of queer and transgender people of color, witnessed two officers attempting to detain a young Black man outside of the bar. Several of our community members asked the officers why they were making the arrest and using excessive force. Despite the fact that our community was on the sidewalk, gathered peacefully and not obstructing foot traffic, the NYPD chose to forcefully grab two people and arrested them. Without warning, an officer then sprayed pepper spray across the group in a wide arc, temporarily blinding many and causing vomiting and intense pain.

“This is the sort of all-too-common police violence and overreaction towards people of color that happens all the time,” said Dean Spade, founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. “It’s ironic that we were celebrating the work of an organization that specifically opposes state violence against marginalized communities, and we experienced a police attack at our celebration.”

“We are outraged, and demand that our community members be released and the police be held accountable for unnecessary use of excessive force and falsely arresting people,” Spade continued.

Damaris Reyes is executive director of GOLES, an organization working to preserve the Lower East Side. She commented, “I’m extremely concerned and disappointed by the 9th Precinct’s response to the situation and how it escalated into violence. This kind of aggressive behavior doesn’t do them any good in community-police relations.”

Supporters will be gathering at 100 Centre Street tomorrow, where the two community members will be arraigned. The community calls for charges to be dropped and to demand the immediate release of those arrested.

- END -

For more information visit, www.srlp.org

No Comments » | gender/sex, news | Permalink
Posted by radicaldoula

Transgender people in the media: Anti-trans women bias?

May 9, 2007

I haven’t touched much on transgender issues so far in this blog, but recently there have been three interesting pieces.

The first is a story on ABC News, I Want to Be Seen as Male, about a transgender (female to male) teenager, Jeremy and his process and struggles around transitioning. I thought it was a (surprisingly) thoughtful piece.

The second is a short film, Mookey’s Story: A Transgender Journey,  that has been entered into the VC Filmfest in Southern California, also about a transgender (female to male) person and his transition. It’s good to see trans people of color being discussed and highlighted as well.

It’s important to note that these stories–which represent trans people in a mostly positive and humanistic light (yay!)–are both about trans MEN (female to male). Trans activist and writer Julia Serano, author of the upcoming book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, has written some really interesting stuff about the representation of trans women (male to female) and I think this is another example of her theories about how most depictions of trans women in the media are negative (like trans women prostitutes) and focus a lot on their appearance (particularly the act of getting dressed or putting on make-up).

A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

The most recent example of trans women being represented in the media is the NY Times video and article about a shelter for homeless transgender youth in Queens, NY. While not an entirely negative depiction, it does paint these women in a light which emphasizes their difficult pasts: broken homes, sexual abuse and drug problems. A very stark contrast to the seemingly well-adjusted trans men in the first two pieces.  

Is this just another reflection of sexism? There has been some discussion around the idea of trans male privilege (that by living and identifying as men, trans men achieve some level of male privilege), and this seems as if it could be related. I also think that people are more frightened by the idea of men giving up their male privilege to become women than the idea of women wanting to be men, leading to what could be called trans woman phobia. Just some thoughts.

2 Comments | LGBT issues, gender/sex, news | Permalink
Posted by radicaldoula

Blog against Sexism Day!

March 8, 2007

Blog Against Sexism Day

So, in commemoration of International Women’s Day (which I want to make a plea for us all to have as a holiday–let’s replace Columbus day, come on) it is also Blog Against Sexism Day, or Blog for Gender Liberation. I personally like that title the best, and will interpret it in my own way.

I like the opportunity to bring up this subject, because it’s one of the main reasons I identify as a radical doula. It’s also one of the reasons I pulled back from the midwifery/birth activist community a few years ago. As I got deeper into theories about the social construction of gender and sex (particularly Judith Butler), I started to push back on the rhetoric used by midwives and birth activists about women’s bodies.

How did some of this logic fit into an understanding that the biological difference between men and women is really socially constructed? How do birthing women (and the ability to reproduce) fit in? Butler has some interesting responses to these ideas, which I admit are kind of obtuse and difficult to decipher. But once you get through the intense academic language, there are some important ideas there. Bear with me.

The midwifery/birth activist movement is very heavily based on embracing femininity and the female body, particularly its perceived reproductive capacity, as the necessary center of the movement toward gender equity. This idea is kind of problematic, particularly if you believe that we need to move beyond these perceived biological differences.

Keep reading for more explanation…

Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments » | gender/sex | Permalink
Posted by radicaldoula

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