Derp

Separatism and Inclusionism: The Difference

February 3, 2012
Cristan

I recently noted that Separatism made the news:

New group steps out from under trans umbrella
New Zealand Daily News

Transwomen who are fed up with being lumped under “the transgender umbrella” are joining through social media and are urging others who feel the same to get in touch, in the hope of creating an independent voice.

Post-trans normality New Zealand and Australia is a new Facebook group which was started by women who say recent events have highlighted the vast differences between the many people who are currently being grouped together.
“The term ‘trans’ has shifted to cover a wide range of people, who have little in common,” says spokeswoman Jacquie Grant. “Straight male cross dressers, ‘weekend’ women, the ill-defined and constantly shifting gender queer and true transsexuals. We are supposed to accept that we are part of a ‘spectrum’, from sexual fetishist male through. This does not sit well with a lot of us. For us, we are simply women,” she says…

In another news story Jacquie Grant said, “The term ‘human’ is just simply too wide a range of people, who have little in common. This also includes straight male cross dressers, ‘weekend’ women, the ill-defined and constantly shifting gender queer. Since we are apposed to any umbrella term which includes crossdressers, today I’m happy to announce our independence from the word “human”.

Actually, I’m not writing this post to PWN their loopy logic; I just wanted to PWN their newsworthy group:

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Comments

      1. its the TG folk who have an issue with TS folk that are the problem. And its privacy. i’m female. i don;t want to discuss transsexual female issues with males.

        1. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with having a TS group anymore than there’s a problem with having an intersex group. However, conflating the reality of groups with different types of non-cis experience, history and expression and having a linguistic taxonomy to collectively talk about all the types of people with a non-cis experience, history and expression is what most call an equivocation.

          We have an amazingly strong transgender community in Houston with post-op MTF transsexuals groups, transsexual groups, drag groups, general trans groups, FTM groups, SO groups. parents groups, youth groups, gender-queer groups and much, much more. Each of these parts are allies in working to improve the quality of life for all types of trans folk. The drag community has been putting on fundraisers for transsexual surgeries for years. That’s the point of the graphic.

  3. Cristan group membership totals on public sites are meaningless, particularly in the first few months. But then you know that. I have a question since you asked. What is your objective in going into attack mode against people who hold opinions at odds with your own. Do you perceive a threat?

    I’ll let you in on a little secret. There are non public groups you have never encountered. They grow by personal invite only.

    1. By way of reply, I'll say to you what I wrote to this group's leadership just last night:

      As I've sad to you numerous times, I totally get wanting to have a TS-only group. I've also said that I too am a member of a TS-only group too. The difference is that we don't go around pretending to be victims of those mean ol' crossdressers who are tying to appropriate our identities *rolls eyes*

      So to be very clear, I never said that you should not have a support group. In fact, I've said the opposite numerous times. What I did do was poke fun at the idea that English language taxonomies are somehow oppressive. I also poked fun at the hubris so many Separatists display. For example:

      "For me it is also, and equally as importantly, about developing a clear voice so that we can talk to governments and health systems and get early intervention for other true transsexuals, so they do not need to go through the horrors of puberty and the ravages of testosterone."

      Yes, this is a great goal. Very admirable. However, believing that you can be politically powerful with a group of > 20 is hubris. If you want to make real change, learn to work with people who are different than you, who you disagree with and who you might not even like because the lives that hang in the balance are worth more than your personal discomfort or need to have others tell you that you're opinions are valid.

      Hence, my graphic comparing groups and how they think work gets done.

      I don't attack people, I attack truth assertions when they seem to be demonstrably false. I attacked because they made the following unsupported assertions of fact to validate their need to meet as a group:

      “Personally, we think the surfacing of this old issue again is timely, highlighting a problem with the legal definition of trans women, and drawing attention to the problems that mixing sexual fetish with transsexualism causes for our dream of wider acceptance in the community,” she says.

      “Repeatedly, male cross dressers are standing on public platforms and claiming to speak for us. These are people who have no belief that they are female and no desire for hormonal or surgical correction. It is time that we had an independent voice so we can stand and speak for ourselves.”

      In the first paragraph she's asserting that there's a problem and that the problem is due to "mixing sexual fetish with transsexualism". Did she offer any evidence to support this assertion of fact? Nope… she expects all readers to simply take the validity of her victim status on faith alone.

      In the next paragraph she complains about all the crossdressers who are apparently speaking for transsexuals… again without evidence. Ironically Dana Taylor wrote a post about a month ago crowing about how there's no crossdressers out there speaking up. There is an objective truth to be found; either there's a glut of crossdressers speaking on behalf of transsexuals (in which case transsexuals are victims) or there isn't (and she's making a false assertion of fact).

      Do I perceive a threat? Nope… not at all. Interestingly, the perception you (and seemingly many other Separatists) apparently have about my motivations is the topic of the post I'm working on right now and will publish today 🙂

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