As many of you know, I have another blog that’s rather dry and is only focused on recording the interesting bits of trans history I come across. A great deal of what I post has to do with the language used to describe the non-cis experience. Here’s a few bits that I’ve not yet shared on this blog:

1982: Transgenders = Transsexuals says Christine Jorgensen

1885: “Male-Woman” Transgender Person Discovered After Death

1976: Transvestite = An Umbrella Term Inclusive of  all Trans Folk

1981: Trans-Gender = Across Genders

1982: Transgenders = Transsexuals, Christine Jorgensen

1982: Transgender Phenomena

1986: Transgenderism ≠ Transsexualism; GID = Umbrella Term

1988: Transgender = Transsexuals & Crossdressers

Enjoy

While I’m guilty of hating hate, of being intolerant towards intolerance and of having evil intentions towards evil, I’ve no personal issue with Separatists as people.

As I’ve said several times, I’m not invested in what someone else chooses to call themselves or whether they want to be part of any movement or community. I have no problem with any statement of opinion anyone cares to make… even if that opinion is that they think I’m a really horrible person.

The problem I have with many of the Separatists and the Separatist movement in general is the same issue I have with religious fundamentalists and Fox News: They make demonstrably false statements over and over again until it becomes a meme.

There’s a war on Christmas because people write xmas! Secularism is taking the Christ out of Christmas! Never mind that Christians began spelling Christmas this way 100s of years ago… Christians are victims of a cultural war!

Crossdressers were never involved in the fight for trans rights. Prince invented the term transgender. The Transgender Community was invented in the 1990s by a communist. Christine Jorgensen wasn’t a transgender woman. Third-gender pronouns were invented by people in the 1990s who wanted to destroy the male and female gender. Gender identity and expression protections will allow women to be raped! Never mind that the preceding assertions are demonstrably false, Separatists are victims of a transgender umbrella!

I respond to Separatist memes for the same reason I respond to the myths surrounding the ‘war on xmas,’ the hero-worship of Columbus or the assertion made in Littleton v Prange that sex is immutable because at the moment of birth, a god comes down and confers a binding binary sex upon all children without exception.

LET ME BE VERY CLEAR:

My goal is to join in the debate over language, the objective value of communal norms and the sacred cows. Those are conversations worth having. Here’s a list of the conversations I think are not worth having:

• Whether separatism is subjectively good or bad
• What the life circumstance of any particular separatist might be
• Whether or not any specific separatist is a good person
• Speculating about the mental health of a specific separatist
• Whether or not a separatist chooses to self-identify as a transgender person
• Whether a separatist is rich or poor, highly educated or uneducated and/or employed or unemployed
• What separatists think about me as a person
• Whether or not separatists should meet as a group either online or IRL
• The political, religious or sexual persuasion of any particular separatist

None of the above topics have any bearing upon the truthfulness of claims made by separatist and as such are a waste of time. When I come across the posts of Separatist or Inclusionist which focus on something other that objective truths, I know that what I’m about to read is probably just a pile of rhetorical BS.

SEPARATISTS ARE VALUABLE:

Public decent, objection and robust critiques are all functions of a healthy community. Continuously reevaluating our language, challenging our beliefs, testing what is asserted to be true and questioning the sacred cows are all hallmarks of a community health and well-being. Our very language, culture and goals were forged out of this decades long discussion/argument/debate .

The pushing that many Separatists do (or their corollary for any other aspect of community) helps to ensure that leadership egos are kept in check, that communal norms are objectivity valued and that investments of time, energy and attention are worth it. They are the irritant that produces the pearl.

As long a the debate is focused on behavior, objective facts and supporting evidence, then our debate becomes of vital significance. When the debate becomes about something other than behavior, objective facts and supporting evidence we’re probably wasting out time, energy and attention. For example…

A while back, two of us got together and formed an internet group. We formed with just one premise, i.e., to speak individually, but as one voice, in challenging the transgender at every opportunity. We don’t sit around writing endless narrative. We don’t sit around quoting the latest research. We are coordinated. We act…  Our group is growing and we’ve succeeded in shutting down threads spouting TG non-sense… All of us share one thing in common: a sense of loyalty and unity in our quest to speak with one voice to the transgender. If one of us goes at someone, we all go at them. If someone attacks one of us, they may as well attack each and every one of us.

- A Separatist opinion leader

Deriving a sense of empowerment by intimidating others and “shutting down” the free exchange of ideas is the definition of bullying. “Shutting down” the debate is the last thing I want; I want all facts to be freely and openly reviewed. I want a chance to review all the evidence Separatists have and I want my evidence-based fact assertions to face the same scrutiny. I want a free and robust debate about the things that matter.

These community debates are culturally important and will continue because it’s serves as the “conscious” of our community. They are the collective compass we use to find our way home.

PWNING FALSEHOODS ≠ PWNING PERSONHOODS

I’ve noticed some Separatists tend to conflate my denigration of their unsupported assertions of fact and/or their obdurate behavior with denigration of their personhood.

I love taking sledgehammers to a demonstrable falsehood. I enjoy using colorful language to describe dishonest tactics when they are used in place of facts. I enjoy PWNing an objectively bad idea, a proven falsehood or dishonest tactic. There’s nothing wrong with attacking these things.

What’s harmful is attacking someone’s personhood. Dana Taylor spreads demonstrable falsehoods and trades in the same rhetorical tactics used by almost all hate groups. While I’ve strongly denounced her obdurate behavior, her factual errors and logical fallacies, I’ve not attacked Dana personally. I’ve never said that she’s a poo-poo head or used her life circumstance to dishonestly turn public opinion against her arguments. I stick to attacking what she does, not who she is.

I know a number of Separatists that I like and respect as well as some that I don’t like or respect. However, my like and/or respect is completely irrelevant to the objective validity of an assertion of fact. Someone I don’t like can be right and someone I like can be wrong. Having someone question my assertions of fact is what should happen in the adult world. My denigration of your truth assertions ≠ my dislike of you as a person just as my agreement with your truth assertions ≠ my like of you as a person.

Being able to engage in a colorful debate is a healthy thing (IMHO)… A bit like Christopher Hitchens and Pastor Douglas Wilson. They were two great and colorful debaters who never made their spirited debate personal and who went on to collaborate on a number of projects (including a movie). They both enjoyed their debates and called each other friends even though, where religion is concerned, they were on opposite sides.

There’s nothing wrong with being colorful when demolishing a falsehood and there’s nothing wrong with robust and vigorous debate… in fact, there’s everything right about that process.  The continued tradition of robust debate around language, the objective merits of Separatism vs Inclusionism, communal goals, etc. is a sign of health and should be valued. Community is about unity and NOT uniformity.

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:

Nikki and her husband Thomas

I’ve largely stayed out of the ruckus over the whole “Nikki’s a jewel thief” meme going on because it had little to do with the trans community. However, it’s gotten to the point where I think that bias has come into play. As many of you know, Nikki just spent 15 days in jail and was just given 50 additional days in jail for her role in the supposed theft of a watch.

The facts of the case are that Nikki and a lady went out drinking. Then, depending on who you believe, the drunk lady traded watches with Nikki or, if you believe the drunk lady,  Nikki took this lady out drinking as part of a plot to secretly drug her so that Nikki could then steal her watch… and in a stoke of genius, Nikki replaced the stolen watch her old watch.

My opinion is that the lady she was out drinking with made a drunk-trade (it happens). Under Texas law, you have 72 hours to back out of a contract (verbal or written) and from what I can tell, the drunk-trade lady wanted to back out of the trade within the 72 hour time limit. However, by then the watch had already disappeared.

So, instead of taking this to some small-claims court like any normal person would, the drunk-trade lady begins to ham it up in the media. She actually claimed to be the victim of a nefarious plot wherein she was suspiciously drugged and the jewel thief’s (Nikki) best and brightest idea was to replace the stolen watch with the thief’s own watch. The media pounced on the story without question and MANY people actually thought that this was the best, most probable explanation for what happened that night.

I suspect that this wouldn’t have turned into a 3-ring circus had the drunk-trade lady made a trade with just some random person that night and I’m sure that Nikki isn’t the first person to show up to court late. In the end, I think Nikki was guilty of not knowing the 72 hour rule, for being late to court, for not having the cash to pay for a criminal defense in this case and therefore having to instead accept a plea deal…  that’s all.

Is spending the better part of a quarter of a year in jail plus paying the ‘victim’ several thousand in restitution a reasonable outcome in this case? I’m thinking no… I can’t help but notice that there seems to be this sense that Nikki should pay for something… that she’s guilty of something and that it’s good that she’s finally getting her comeuppance. That collective feeling is called bias.

I mean, if people are really going to buy the  ”drunk-trade lady is a victim of a nefarious plot” scenario as being the most reasonable explanation to what happened, then that seems (at least to me) to be a clear-cut suspension of critical thinking due to bias. I’m not sure that Nikki has ever had any real shot at not being automatically seen as some demon hell-spawn who eats mewing kittens for breakfast. Where did that bias come from? Well, these ideas were manufactured through the hard work of print and television media.

From August 2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-x0E5QFRN8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK_lUPdM2P8

Do you think that media treatment just impacts Nikki? Well, you’d be wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiCuLP1xXTk 

Therefore, I wanted to make a quick post and simply encourage people to use their critical thinking. She wasn’t found guilty; she has no money, can’t pay for a criminal defense and took a plea deal. Did any evidence ever arise supporting the idea that the drunk-trade lady was drugged? Nope. Was the reaction of the judge normal for folks who turn up late to court? I don’t know; I’ve never been late to any courtroom… but I’m betting that being late isn’t a rare occurrence. How common is it to know about the 72 hour rule? I don’t know… Did you know about the 72 hour rule?

Here’s an example of the way most of my conversations go when I talk about Nikki:

Random Person: It’s only right! This “woman” lied to her husband about being born a man! (Seriously, they’ve actually made the air quotations with their fingers)

Me: Actually Thomas knew, he used to accompany Nikki to my transgender clinic.

Random Person:  Erm, uh… Well, she left her poor husband!

Me: Actually, it turned out they were living together. Here’s a copy of their new lease signed just weeks before Thomas died.

Random Person:   Uh… okay… But she wants to steal the kids benefits!

Me: Actually, Nikki worked to get the kids their benefits – which they now have.

Random Person:  Okay… But her birth certificate clearly says she’s a man!

Me: Actually, it turned out her birth certificate says she was born female. Here’s a copy of it.

Random Person:  Oh hell. Can’t we just hate her without facts getting in the way?!?

I get it; there’s a lot of people out there who don’t like Nikki and I’m betting that they don’t even know why anymore. And that, my friends, is the entire point of this post.

Erm.. I mean, I’m a proud 1950′s era Republican… Which is to say, I’m a modern Democrat

From the 1956 Republican Platform:

A 1950s Republican

The Ike-era Republican party is the party of Obama! If this is what the Republican party looked like today, I’d be a proud Republican… but it’s not. Today’s Republican party is the party of Newt, Rush and Santorum.

Read what the Republican party used to be here.

Forced child labor = Modern Main-street Republicanism

Sound familiar? It sounds like the arguments of TS Separatism and Religious Fundamentalists, doesn’t it?

Actually, this quote is 40 years old and comes from a pamphlet published by a religious fundamentalist group campaigning against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). While this equality-for-the-sexes amendment was approved by the federal government, a fundamentalist  bathroom argument scared enough states into not ratifying the amendment so that it ultimately failed to become part of our Constitution.

1977 Post Mortem on ERA

The above story is worth a read. It’s a glimpse into the very playbook Separatists and Fundies use in their war against transgender equality.

Here’s just a few quotes:

(NOTE: When the ERA discussion talks about the integration of restrooms, “integrate” meant allowing men access to the women’s restrooms under the cover of an equality law.)

“ERA would… integrate public toilets.”

“Law professor Paul Freund objected in 1973 to being “quoted erroneously and out of context by certain opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment” and commented flatly, “I have not staled, and 1 do not believe, that the Amendment would require the sharing of rest room and prison cells by both sexes.” Yet in 1975 a huge anti-ERA advertisement in Baton Rouge papers credited him with the allegation that the ERA would integrate bathrooms.”

And then the story gets down to the point of restroom scare tactics:

“The hubbub over the implementation of the Amendment is designed to elicit a knee-jerk reaction…”

Compare this to the rhetoric of the modern anti-equality fundamentalist camp:

From nobathroombill.com: Who's going to be waiting for YOUR wife and daughter?

Compare this to the rhetoric of the modern anti-equality Separatists camp:

Dana Lane Taylor, Cathy Brennan and Elizabeth Hungerford Anti-Trans United Nations letter: Trans protections allow men to harm woman and all men are just as likely to harm women.

This letter linked back (note the “xxii” citation) to Taylor’s site wherein she asserts “When discussing laws that protect gender identity and expression, for public accommodations, it is crucial to use specific language.” She then goes on to warn the reader about the evils of “broad definitions of gender identity and/or expression.” As part of her warning, she lists a number of incidents wherein men (whose unrelated behavior could somehow/some way be tied to back to breaking some sort of gender stereotype) hurt women. For example,  Taylor cites the arrest of a peeping tom who was wearing panties on his head:

According to Separatists, this guy would be protected under trans equality measures.

• Did the anti-ERA people have any evidence to support their assertion that equality laws nullify existing laws prohibiting rape, assault, stalking and/or public indecency/disturbance? Nope… just fear and a purposeful misrepresentation of the facts concerning the restroom safety.
• Do the modern anti-trans religious fundies have any evidence to support assertion that equality laws nullify existing laws prohibiting rape, assault, stalking and/or public indecency/disturbance? Nope… just fear and a purposeful misrepresentation of the facts concerning the restroom safety.
• Do the modern TS Separatists have any evidence to support assertion that equality laws nullify existing laws prohibiting rape, assault, stalking and/or public indecency/disturbance? Nope… just fear and a purposeful misrepresentation of the facts concerning the restroom safety.

3/25/1973, The Anniston Star: Men in the women's restrooms

If they can integrate restrooms on the basis of race, why not on the basis of sex?

These anti-equality groups have had 40 years to make their evidence-based case showing us exactly how equality laws nullify existing laws prohibiting rape, assault, stalking and/or public indecency/disturbance. Have they done it even once? Nope. When I challenged Dana Lane Taylor a few weeks ago to provide just 10 real-world examples, she shut down her entire site and hasn’t yet provided any examples of how trans protections nullify existing laws prohibiting rape, assault, stalking and/or public indecency/disturbance.

So, what might you expect the forces of anti-equality to do when they can’t actually make  a cogent evidence-based argument explaining exactly how equality laws nullify existing laws prohibiting rape, assault, stalking and/or public indecency/disturbance? Well, they do what comes naturally… they just lie:

"Since Montgomery County passed a similar bill, there have been 4 rapes by men, dressing as women lying in wait for their victims in ladies rooms."

Really? Four rapes you say? Well, lets see what law enforcement has to say about that testable assertion of fact:

"Since this law has been in effect, we have had no reported rapes committed in restrooms by men dressed as women."

What are the forces of anti-equality hoping to communicate with their propaganda? Are they claiming that a rapist in a dress thought they’d get away with a rape due to equality laws? Are they suggesting that equality protections somehow condones abhorrent behaviors like rape? Are they hoping to make the public believe that in the absence of equality protections, a rapist is somehow prevented from entering a restroom due to some force field-like bubble which equality will somehow destroy? Well, yes… those are apparently the basic arguments anti-equality forces have made for decades.

They hope that the normal knee-jerk revulsion against cruel violence will shut down your critical thinking abilities. They hope that instead of thinking of rapists as being the threat, you’ll instead see crossdressers, non-op and pre-op people as being a threat. Because, if they can get you to do that, the process of dehumanization will begin so that you’ll easily conflate rapists (a behavior) with crossdressers, non-op and pre-op people (an identity) and crossdressers, non-op and pre-op people will naturally become possible rapists who should be treated with suspicion. If they can get you to do this mental gymnastic, there will never be any need for them to produce objective evidence explaining exactly how equality laws nullifies existing laws prohibiting rape, assault, stalking and/or public indecency/disturbance. No, with the anti-equality blinders on, the risk crossdressers, non-op and pre-op people pose will seem self-evident.

[Non-discrimination protections based upon gender identity] would allow all males – including registered sex offenders or males subject to a domestic violence order of protection – to assert “gender identity” as a means to invade female-only space. Indeed, these laws provide a legal basis for males to be in sex-segrigated space. It is well-documented that males as a class have a demonstrated history of harming females as a class by exploiting bemale biology (ie, rape, sexual violance, unwanted pregnancy).
- Cathy Brennan and Elizabeth Hungerford United Nations letter in which they use Dana Lane Taylor’s Separatist propaganda to support defeating a UN trans-equality initiative.

Why do Fundamentalists and Separatists do it? Well, they do it because that tactic works! Not only did the bathroom meme defeat a constitutional amendment that passed the congress and the senate with the support of presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon and even the likes of George Wallace 40 years ago, it’s the only rhetorical tool that seems to gain traction when arguing against trans equality. Whether it’s arguing against the equality of  trans and cis people, trans folk and transsexual separatists, trans folk and radical feminists, the bloody mantle of the bathroom meme serves as their foundational argument from which all other hyperbole is launched.

Now that I’ve touched on the fantasy, here’s the reality…

Trans woman being beaten by a cis woman

I have spent so many hours avoiding public multi-stall bathrooms  that I have damaged my bladder and put pressure on my kidneys. The problem was a daily one. I’d think about where I was going what bathrooms I’d have access to, how much I drank during the day, whether I’d be with people who could help stand guard…
-  Response to a 2002 survey conducted by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission which found that nearly 50% of transgender respondents reported harassment or assault in a public bathroom

We live under the constant threat of horrifying violence. We have  to worry about what bathroom to use when our bladders are aching.  We are forced to consider whether we’ll be dragged out of a bathroom and arrested or face a fist fight while our bladders are still aching .  It’s an everyday reality for us. Human beings must use toilets… If I go into the women’s bathroom, am I prepared for the shouting and shaming? Will someone call security or the cops? If I use the men’s room, am I willing to fight my way out? Am I really ready for the violence that could ensue?
- Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue, p 68 – 69

Police officers often harass or abuse transgender and gender nonconforming people regardless of which sex-segregated bathroom they use. This harassment intensifies when coupled with the stereotyping of trans people as sexual predators. As such, the use of the  ‘wrong’ bathroom . . . often results in arrests for crimes such as public lewdness, public obscenity, or public indecency. Refusing to  comply with or simply questioning a police officer’s direction as to  which bathroom the individual must use can often lead to charges  such as resisting arrest or disorderly conduct.

- Pooja Gehi, Struggles from the Margins: Anti-Immigrant Legislation and the Impact on  Low-Income Transgender People of Color, 30 WOMEN’S RTS. L. REP. 315, 326 (2009)

And it doesn’t stop with bathrooms. This level of violence is something trans folk must consider when buying cloths too. Here’s what State Rep. Richard Floyd (R) said he’d do to a trans person if they dared to buy clothes like anyone else might:

I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there — I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there — I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.

Again, to hit home just how longstanding this meme is, consider the following quote from a 1970 anti-trans equality legal decision:

There are numerous subjects who would want to change their sex identity in order to perpetrate crimes of homicide, tape, robbery, assault, etc.”

- Columbus v. Zanders, 266 N.E.2d 602, 604–06 (Ohio Mun. Ct. 1970)

The time to end this intellectual barbarism has come!

Don’t surrender your critical thinking faculties to the likes of Separatists and Fundamentalists. Don’t fall for their blood-drenched games of rhetoric! The idea the various anti-equality forces seek to set loose within your mind is the same: bigotry. And a bigot is a bigot is a bigot:

Ku Klux Klan Propaganda in favor of separatism and anti-equality

Notice how the KKK uses the same rhetorical tool Fundamentalists and TS Separatists use. They hope that the normal knee-jerk revulsion against cruel violence will shut down your critical thinking abilities. They hope that instead of thinking of rapists as being the threat, you’ll instead see the African-American community as being a threat. Because, if they can get you to do that, the process of dehumanization will begin so that you’ll easily conflate rapists (a behavior) with African-American community (an identity) and the African-American community will naturally become possible rapists who should be treated with suspicion. If they can get you to do this mental gymnastic, there will never be any need for them to produce objective evidence explaining exactly how racial equality laws  nullifies existing laws prohibiting rape, assault, stalking and/or public indecency/disturbance. No, with the anti-equality blinders on, the risk the African-American community poses will seem self-evident.

GET IT?!?

Oh, yah… and please don’t post replies to this post linking to sites where TS Separatists claim to not hate non-transsexual transgender people and assert that it’s self-evident that all separate trans people need to work on behalf of their own  instead of trying to “force” everyone under some “collective”…  because the KKK engages in the same slimy posturing too:

From the Ku Klux Klan website: "We are NOT bigots or haters"

“[The the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan] was concerned about securing a future for his people…  He wasn’t consumed by hatred for the black man and woman… We believe in self-determination for all people. We believe that the best minds of all people should work together for the advancement and development of their own people without being hindered by another racial group… No, we are not the enemies of the black man, the brown man, the red man, or the yellow man. Rather it is those who attempt to artificially force the different races together who are the enemies…”

Separatists are all too happy to pick up the very same butcher’s tools that everyone from those who would seek to bar Muslims from holding office to the likes of  Dr. Ruth Jacobs would use in their anti-equality efforts and it’s as perverse as it is sickening. Whether it’s a racist separatist, a misogynist separatist, a philogynist separatist, a homophobic separatist or a transphobic separatist, they all trade in the same rhetorical mind games. Separatists (whatever their flavor) have the blood of very real suffering on their hands.

I just HAD to share this attempted PWN before the author deleted her comment:

Epic... just epic...

To me, this post represents the epitome of what’s wrong with TS Separatism. The credulity, the belief that only post-ops can have valid experience, views and/or voice and the hierarchical elitism… It’s just wrong on so many levels.

Unless the author deletes her comment, you can see it here.

From a 1985 New Yorker article

“Tranny” is a hot-button word. Ticked off Trannies With Knifes was bad, but the gay director loves the term “tranny” (as did others in gay media). Just when gay actor Neil Patrick Harris gets through apologizing for publicly using this term, Ru Paul (another gay actor) says that she loves the term.

So, what’s the truth about the word’s origin and its context?
.

Click here to check out my research blog to find out

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This post is a collection of randomness that didn’t warrant its own post; so, I thought I’d lump it all together here…

1.  Dana Lane Taylor took down her site after I issued my challenge:
   

   "I'm taking a break..."

2. After defending the show, ABC’s Work It was canceled and replaced with reruns.
   .
3. Some YouTube comments I’ve gotten this week:
   

   “oh my god fuckin freaks, either be gay or straight, if you are born a man you are a man, looking like a chick and saying you are doesnt make you one you mentally ill depraved scum, i laugh when one of you freaks that lies to someone about who you are gets what you deserve, like that “man” gwen araujo jesus why am i even watching this shit, fucking disgusting chick with a beard on the video” - SirBullet754 in response to Transgender Center on ABC News

   “ur absolutely sick” - LoiGio1 in response to Say No to School Board Bullies

   “this is sickly awesome” - titabeo32 in response to Say No to School Board Bullies

   “she’s a woman! just because she’s transgender doesnt give you the right to call her a MAN! get a clue.” - Queenofhate67 in response to  San Antonio Cop Rapes Transgender Woman

4. Cathy Brennan (co-author of the anti-trans United Nations letter) tried to PWN me for this article in which I quote Christopher Hitchens saying “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence” :
   .
5. I got to make friends with a very cool TS “Separatist” ex-separatist (and middle-path walker) who goes by Lisalee18wheeler this week. She, another local trans woman and I met at the TG Center and then got to grab a bite at Baba Yega’s.
   .
6. On Friday the 13th, I asked my FB friends who their favorite movie monsters were. Here’s what they had to say: Godzilla, Cookie Monster, Dracula, Gollum, The Doomsday Machine, Freddy Kruger, generic demons, generic zombies, the Swamp Thing, Them, the Zuni fetish doll from the third story in “Trilogy of Terror”, the Creature from the black lagoon, Mr. Sardonicus, Gizmo from gremlins, Jar Jar Binks and the Tennessee Republican Representative who said to the press that he would like to bash transgender people. Strangely, nobody mentioned Jason.BTW… my favorite movie monster is Severen:
   .
7. Speaking of monstrous, as noted above,  Tennessee Republican Rep. Richard Floyd has taken Dana Lane Taylor, Cathy Brennan, Elizabeth Hungerford, Mat Staver, the Liberty Council or the Faith & Freedom show’s assertions about transgender protections to the next level:
   

   I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there — I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there — I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.

   Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk. We cannot continue to let these people dominate how society acts and reacts. Now if somebody thinks he’s a woman and he’s a man and wants to try on women’s clothes, let him take them into the men’s bathroom or dressing room.

    

As some of you know some Separatists recently colluded in a bid to have the United Nations remove trans protections based upon gender identity and expression. Dana Lane Taylor, Cathy Brennan and Elizabeth Hungerford happily sent the following letter to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women:

This letter linked back (note the “xxii” citation) to Taylor’s site wherein she asserts that a number of sick fucks who like to hurt women would be somehow protected/encouraged by trans protections based upon gender identity and/or expression: ”When discussing laws that protect gender identity and expression, for public accommodations, it is crucial to use specific language.” She then goes on to warn the reader about the evils of “broad definitions of gender identity and/or expression.” As part of her warning, she lists a number of incidents wherein men (whose unrelated behavior could somehow/some way be tied to back to breaking some sort of gender stereotype) hurt women. For example,  Taylor cites the arrest of a peeping tom who was wearing panties on his head. How is this type of behavior allowed, encourage and/or protected by trans anti-discrimination protections based upon gender identity and/or expression? Conveniently for their argument, Taylor, Brennan and Hungerford never actually gets around to offering an evidence-based explanation.

Were any of these incidents – in any way – protected by trans non-discrimination policy? Nope; but Taylor, Brennan and Hungerford were obviously hoping the UN wouldn’t notice that fact. Did any of the sick fucks get away with abusing someone due to trans protections? Nope; but again, Taylor, Brennan and Hungerford were obviously hoping the UN wouldn’t notice that fact either. Did Taylor, Brennan and Hungerford offer ANY actual evidence to support their premise that trans protections = men abusing women and circumventing existing laws protecting people against abuse and exploitation? Nope; but, Taylor, Brennan and Hungerford were obviously hoping the UN wouldn’t notice that fact either.

Which brings me to the point of this post…

Is their any substantive difference between what Taylor, Brennan and Hungerford did (and continue to do) and what the The Liberty Council (a right-wing fundamentalist Christian organization) has recently been doing?

“This was a man, everyone recognized it’s a man, going into the women’s restroom. Now whether that person has good or ill intentions towards women, no one knows, but the fact of the matter is when you defy common sense and when it says ‘women’s fitting room’ and you allow people other than women in that fitting room, you’re just asking for trouble. This is just an absurd policy, this is the so-called LGBT sexual anarchist agenda gone awry, I mean this is the absurdity to which this agenda goes when you ultimately follow it to its logical conclusion… [women] may be watched by a peeping tom or even worse, sexually assaulted or raped.”

- Liberty Council’s Mat Staver on Crosstalk, discussing the firing of a Macy’s employee who refused to follow company policy on transgender customers.

Would Macy’s trans protections allow someone to circumvent laws protecting people from abuse and exploitation? Nope; but Mat Staver is hoping you wouldn’t notice that. Did the trans woman suffering possible androgen damage physically harm anyone? Nope; Staver is hoping you wouldn’t notice that. Was she caught trying to harm anyone? Nope; Staver is hoping you wouldn’t notice that.  Did Mat Staver offer ANY actual evidence to support his premise that trans protections = men abusing women and circumventing existing laws protecting people against abuse and exploitation? Just like Taylor, Brennan and Hungerford, the answer is, of course, a resounding NO!

Am I the only one who sees the similarity here?

But wait, there’s more! Building on Separatist/Fundamentalist mythos, the Liberty Council’s Faith & Freedom radio program now claims to know of someone (they couldn’t remember his name) who has some sort of job at Macy’s (they couldn’t remember exactly what he did) who absolutely, positively knows of a bunch of women (they didn’t say how many or where all of these incidents occurred) who were assaulted (or maybe it was raped) at Macy’s BECAUSE OF Macy’s trans protections:

Yes, and because – and only because - this unnamed man showed someone at Macy’s what amounts to Taylor’s website, he was fired.

Again… all I have to say to Dana Taylor, Cathy Brennan, Elizabeth Hungerford, Mat Staver, the Liberty Council or the Faith & Freedom show is:

How is the propaganda Taylor, Brennan and Hungerford spread substantively different than any of the following fundamentalist right-wingers when it comes to trans protections based upon gender identity and expression?

• http://politicalvindication.com/?p=8704
• http://readychurch.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/macys-allows-transgendercross-dressing-men-to-use-women-fitting-rooms/
• http://www.independentsentinel.com/2011/12/macys-looking-out-for-men-in-womens-dressing-rooms/

(BTW – Google News has nothing on any incident(s) of mass rape/assault at Macy’s.)