Right after I drafted my response to the attack on transsexual men in pattrice jones' Aftershock, I came across a blog post perpetuating the same vegetarian-ecofeminist cissexism and transphobia.
Lagusta Yearwood posted about the boycott of Feministing, expressing doubt about the site's transphobia:
Claims of extreme transphobia and hostility toward trans women on the site: I can't claim to have read all of the long long long threads that the pages I've seen link to (and if you have specific examples of the perceived horrible treatment of trans women on the site, I'd like to see them), but man oh man! Trans issues are complex for a lot of cisgender people, myself included, and I appreciate Feministing's attempt to work through the more nuanced and complicated aspects in an inclusive way. Also, it seems that most of the problems people are having take place in the comments, and it seems ridiculous to blame the site for that.
Yearwood's doubts cannot be assessed without considering the cissexism and transphobia of fundamentalist "radical feminists" (radfems) in propagating a discourse that perpetuates anti-transsexual repression/oppression. This includes Yearwood's own active participation in perpetuating this hateful discourse about our bodies and lives.
Yearwood's Anti-Trans Activism
In June 2004, Yearwood wrote the anti-transsexual essay "Questioning Transgender Politics." Originally written as "Transgender Politics aka 'I Love Hate Mail,'" it was one of the principle anti-transsexual articles on Amy Winter's (now defunct) hate-site exclusively dedicated to attacking trans people, called Questioning Transgender Politics.
The Questioning Transgender Politics website was explicit about its cissexist and transphobic intent. The site specifically stated its opposition to transsexual women having access to services offered to other women. Furthermore, this opposition to trans women's inclusion in women's services cannot be separated from the transphobic exclusion of trans women from the Michigan Women's Music Festival (MichFest) and the Vancouver Rape Relief (VRR) and Women's Shelter.
In fact, Yearwood specifically recommends Karla Mantilla's trans-misogynistic article "Men in Ewes' Clothing: The Stealth Politics of the Transgender Movement," which she links to on VRR's website no less. The article specifically argues for the exclusion of trans women from MichFest, and goes as far as implying that trans women are actually male rapists. Since trans women are disproportionately targets of sexual violence, it is extremely offensive how often radfems – going back to Robin Morgan, Mary Daly, and Janice Raymond – promote this myth of trans women as the perpetrators as opposed to the targets of sexual violence against women.
The Privilege of Cissexual Oblivion
Given Yearwood's history and on-going dismissal and perpetuation of the "horrible treatment" of trans women, it shouldn't be a surprise when she fails to recognize it on Feministing. Rather than recognize our oppression as real and significant, Yearwood is insistent that the day-to-day issues affecting trans people are too "complicated" for her as a cissexual. This simply reflects Yearwood's cissexist bias where elite, anti-transsexual discourse is used to maintain the power of the existing cissexist relation.
Noah left a detailed comment to my first "Our Bodies and Lives" post discussing a specific example of the horrible treatment that trans women received from Feministing. This concerned protections for trans women accessing public restrooms.
Given Yearwood's own anti-trans activism and her praise of the anti-trans writings of Mantilla, it's not at all surprising that she didn't recognize Feministing's use of Focus on the Family's attack on trans people as oppressive. After all, the Mantilla article that Yearwood promotes contains the same basic trans-misogynistic myths about trans women's inclusion in women's space as Focus on the Family promotes with regard to public restrooms.
Furthermore, Yearwood says in the comments to her post, "a lot of my experience with on the ground feminism was at a feminist restaurant run by radical lesbian feminists who are themselves, in their 70s, just now adjusting to these ideas as well. They are pretty vehemently against trans women using women's bathrooms, for example...but their ideas are evolving." Yet, Yearwood doesn't actually acknowledge the effect her mentors' transphobia actually has on trans women who may go to this restaurant.
This just goes to show that Yearwood neither recognizes our lived experience as a group of oppressed people, nor does she recognize her own power and privilege as a cissexual. Instead, she forces our bodies and lives into cissexist assumptions about the oppression of cissexual women.
Again, Yearwood falls back on disguising this transphobia by calling it "complicated." She say, "I've gotten a lot of hate for my complicated feelings about what I call, in my mean moods, the medicalization of gender."
For Yearwood, trans people calling her out is "hate." This is a pattern going back to her use of "I Love Hate Mail" in the original title to her transphobic essay. Basically, Yearwood is trying to play the victim in order to dismiss criticism of her transphobia. This is akin to claiming that people of color are being "reverse racists." That is, Yearwood attempts to deny how she is the perpetrator of anti-trans hate by claiming the targets of her transphobic hatred are real perpetrators when we talk back.
Bloodroot: Serving Up Transphobia
The restaurant where Yearwood experienced on-the-ground "feminism" is Bloodroot, currently run by co-founders Selma Miriam and Noel Furie. Yearwood also worked with Miriam and Furie on two of the latest Bloodroot cookbooks, as well as the Bloodroot website.
In an essay "Ethical Vegetarianism," Bloodroot makes it clear that its lacto-ovo-vegetarian-ecofeminist politics is intimately connected with cissexism and transphobia. In the essay, Bloodroot specifically recommends selections from Mary Daly's transphobic and trans-misogynistic book, Gyn/Ecology, where Daly claims, "if some gynecologists have their way ... it will soon be abnormal for a woman over fifty to have her own breasts and/or uterus," with a footnote stating:
The normalizing and popularization of such maiming should not be seen in isolation from the increasingly popular phenomenon of transsexualism. As Janice Raymond points out: "Transsexualism has taken only 25 years to become a household word" ... Although, as Raymond points out, the majority who undergo "sex change operations" are men who want to become women, the same vested interests are being served here as in gynecology.
Controlling the Bodies of Others
On July 18, 2006, the Connecticut Post quoted Miriam of Bloodroot claiming, "The secret of life is transformation. You take a bit of wool and spin it [to make a scarf], that's magic. You take an egg and make an omelet. It's how I transform what [comes from] Mother Earth."
In a letter published in the Post, I disputed Bloodroot's magical thinking about the exploitation of other animals, saying, "Wool, eggs and dairy products are not magic, but are derived within systems of control over others' reproduction and offspring. Once these animals can no longer produce for us, just like animals raised as meat, they will be killed."
It is ironic that Bloodroot celebrates the non-consensual transformation of animals' bodies into commodities, yet would deny transsexual people the freedom to willfully transform our bodies. Since Bloodroot exerts control over the bodies of other animals, it is unsurprising that they seek to exert control over the bodies of other humans.
Furthermore, Bloodroot's hatred of transsexuals is made even plainer when they specifically recommend Janice Raymond's infamously transphobic and trans-misogynistic polemic The Transsexual Empire in the Ethical Vegetarianism essay. Raymond is perhaps the most notoriously transphobic radfem.
Cissexist Power
It is in the context of this transphobia that we need to consider Yearwood's "medicalization of gender" comment. Yearwood is continuing these infamous attacks on transsexuals when she takes it upon herself to denounce trans-related health care – something she has no need for and no personal experience with, yet feels comfortable not only telling others not to seek it, but that those who do are perpetuating oppression.
It is almost impossible to believe Yearwood when she claims, "I'm trying to learn about it and be a good ally." Recall that Yearwood has been making this sort of claim for over five years, and yet she still continues to perpetuate the same oppressive discourse about trans people.
Regarding trans issues, Yearwood says "it IS complicated, and I don't think we can deny that–we just have to make sure that we don't end the discussion there." What transsexuals and our allies need to recognize is that the way Yearwood and other anti-trans radfems define the discussion of our lives is the very means by which they maintains their privilege over us. Like I said in my previous post:
Certainly, cissexual, anti-transsexual vegetarian-ecofeminists are exercising control over our bodies and lives when they purport to know – that is, define – the reason why transsexuals get sex changes. Given their socially privileged position, they can declaim transsexuals all they want without ever having to consider our everyday lived experience. Of course cissexism supports a system that invests them and other cissexuals with legitimacy as individuals and in societal institutions, while also denying us our self-determination.
The sort of discourse Yearwood has promoted in her essay, post and comments works to dominate and exploit our bodies and lives. This is what is at the heart of her "questioning transgender politics."
Lisa Harney, of the blog Questioning Transphobia, has done a lot of good work challenging the transphobic discourse of "Questioning Transgender Politics." Of particular interest is her critique of the "questioning" rhetoric in the comments to the post "Transphobia and Radical Feminism – a challenge," on Touchingly Naive:
I find it difficult to accept most "questioning" of transgender that I see from many radical feminists because it's not questioning – it's an imposition of privilege. You're saying, as a [cissexual] woman, that you're in a position to judge my life, my choices, and my identity. You're also saying you can do these things without my input, without listening to what I have to say about my life. This isn't analysis, nor is it theory.
I've seen very few informed discussions about transgender and transsexualism. Most of what I see is centered around trying to force us to remain identified as our birth sex, or denying that our lived experiences could possibly be real. Our own words are rejected outright as biased and subjective, while your words are enshrined as theory, analysis, questions, and challenges.
Harney's words speak precisely to the problem with Yearwood's discussion of our lives and bodies. Yearwood thinks she, as a cissexual, has us all figured out. In the comments to her blog, she stubbornly holds onto her cissexist, ideological belief that transsexual men are actually women suffering from internalized misogyny.
Cissexist Refusal to Listen
In an introduction to her essay, Yearwood claims she's not "anti-trans." Yet, Yearwood claims, "women who want to become men, who feel and have always felt that they are men living in a female body, have institutionalized [sic] misogyny (hatred of women) to a horrifying extent." (Trans men have single-handily "institutionalized" misogyny? Hopefully she meant "internalized.")
Yearwood insists that it is the "made up construct" of our "patriarchal and misogynist society" that causes transsexuals to "go around cutting up their junk and taking pills forever to fit society's ideas." Yearwood says that these "women who want to become men" (Yearwood resists acknowledging that they are men) "are obviously extremely stupid."
Yet Yearwood is unable to consider the possibility that it is she who is missing something, that it is she who is the one not comprehending the reality of transsexuals' lives – that her whole premise that trans people are trying to "fit society's ideas" is completely backwards. She is the one who is continually forcing transsexual people to conform to her ideas.
What I find particularly offensive is that Yearwood thinks forcing her cissexual theory onto our bodies and lives will make her a "better ally." Yearwood says:
If gender binarism is the problem, why just SWITCH genders? Why not DISMANTLE gender itself? When I understand that, I think I will be able to be a much better ally to trans people.
I think the simple answer is: it’s easier than changing all of society. And that's perfectly acceptable. But I still think it’s only the simple answer.
Again, Yearwood is not listening. By claiming that transsexuals are simply assimilating, rather than challenging society, Yearwood is falling back on radfem anti-trans propaganda about why we seek access to trans-related health care. It is very offensive to see her claim that this dis-understanding of our bodies and lives actually enables her "to be a much better ally to trans people."
Yearwood is nothing close to an ally. By claiming that transsexuals only exist as a result of a sexist society, and suggesting that we wouldn't exist in a non-sexist society, Yearwood is actually denying that our bodies and lives have any inherent worth. Framing the lives of transsexuals in opposition to countering sexism is deeply cissexist. She's in fact exploiting our bodies and lives in order to promote transphobia under the spurious claim of opposing misogyny.
If Yearwood really wants to be an ally to trans people, like she claims, then she needs to stop questioning our bodies and lives and start listening to us. She needs to start recognizing and questioning her own position of dominance and cissexual privilege. And she needs to be active in support of our efforts for social change, including standing against those who would deny us services, health care, or the access to the appropriate bathroom.
Yet in every respect, Yearwood has done exactly the opposite of what an ally would do. Yearwood's discourse about trans people perpetuates cissexism and transphobia. As such, it is only appropriate to acknowledge that she is in fact a perpetrator, not an ally.
