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Kimberly Nixon Case

Kimberly Nixon is a trans woman, and a prime example of how some trans women are excluded from women organizations. She was denied help from the Vancouver Rape Relief Organization. She was battered AND sexually assaulted, just like other women receiving support from the organization. Her case attracted support from human rights defenders. It also inspired the creation of Egale Canada, a national organization whose focus is on promoting equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people of Canada. It is important to recognize trans women as women, just as they identify themselves as women, and that they are just as vulnerable to violence and deserve service to gain support and self-esteem as well

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28 March 2011

I haven’t been around the trans community for very long by some standards, nor the LGB community. Sure, I’ve had friends in the past who were gay or lesbian, but I never partook in their communities because I didn’t view myself as being part of them. All of that changed, of course,...

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Ride

Bex Hollevoet read aloud from Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. She chose Anna Camilleri’s story, “Ride”.

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“Let the Trans Women Speak!”: A Response to Camp Trans 2010

This piece, originally from Not Yr Cister Press, recounts and critiques the events at that year’s Camp Trans, an annual protest held outside the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. “Ultimately, we see the events of this year’s Camp Trans as yet another failure of identity politics and its correlative form, the Community. In the events of this year’s Camp Trans, we once again see the Community used as an apparatus used to recuperate the potentiality of radical struggle.”

click image for pdf on http://zinelibrary.info/

Michigan Womyn's Music Festival is a space for women who are socially considered to be 'gender outlaws," because of sexual orientation (lesbian, bi, etc) or gender presentation (butchness) OR some women who display a double transgression of both sexual orientation and gender presentation. Although staff of the festival admits to refusing to ask gender, they try to enforce a trans police that requires all attendents to be women-born women only. Article quotes that they "ask broad queer and gender-diverse communities to respect [their] commitment to one week each year for womyn-born womyn to gather."

Lamble's Article on Retelling Racialized Violence & Remaking White Innocence

In this article, Lamble raises awareness of the issue of intersectionality and interlocking systems of oppression, especially in relation to race and the trans-gendered community. Trans politics must include issues of racial hierarchies as well as gender identity issues, especially since a majority of the victims of anti-trans violence are racial minorities as well. The first National Survey Transgender Violence in the US did not really touch upon race. Although the race of the victim IS included in the victim's biographically information, race was not highlighted as an issue in relation to issues of transphobia within the US. This failure to acknowledge white supremacy does not FULLY explain all of the deaths we are remembering due to transphobia. There is a denial that some of these violences/deaths are due to not only gender identity, but race as well (maybe this is because our nation does not want to admit they still have a long way to come since the African-American civil rights movement) OR that America does not want to admit to STILL practicing racial inequalities and not being as "progressive" as it seems. The most vulnerable trans-gender person is one who is also a minority in other ways (like racially) and who is oppressed not only because of their identity as trans but as someone at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. Does the trans movement protect, acknowledge and genuinely remember ALL members of its community? Even if they are marginalized by other means as well (like race) Lamble speaks of a goal to confront structural violence and to pay attention to all aspects of WHY a victim died due to their "otherness" and what their "otherness" meant.

Cabral: (Trans)sexual citizenship in Contemporary Argentina

In 2005 was the first time in history a judge had allowed for a legal name and sex change for a trans man. Ironically, ten days before this had passed, Alejandra Galicio, a 33 year old transvestite, was beaten to death. Cabral explains what he calls "sexual citizenship," which he defines as one which enunciates, facilitates, defends and promotes access for people to exercise both sexual AND reproductive rights and runs on a politics which is NOT based on inequalities due to sex, gender, and reproductive capacity. However, he explains how Argentina's sexual citizenship has diminished, and not only poses a threat to trans-people's right but even to their human rights. Trans rights goals ultimately come down to achieving LEGAL recognition on their desired gender identity, BUT this means adhering to corporeal requirements for this verification There are no laws in Argentina which state specific requirements, however judicial authorization/intervention IS required in order to follow through with the desired modifications. This means a trans-person needs to STATE regulation in order to acquire "true" identification of their gender identity. This goes deeper into the issue of the state vs. the individual. Citizens must verify they are "authentically" trans in order for authorization of their "true" identity. However, different individual variations among the trans community exists, and should NOT be based on judicial examination, intervention, or definitive prescriptions of what it means or takes to be "truly-trans."

#statevsindividual trans whatistruth

Beauchamp's "Trans-gendered bodies and U.S Surveillance after 9/11.

Beauchamp brings up some interesting points in regards to U.S. Surveillance post 9/11. I personally find these ideas to be a bit far-reached, however I do understand where he is coming from and he explains his theory quite nicely in the end. He believes though state policies may at first seem to have NO relation to the trans-gendered community, they do begin to show how strictly Western culture enforces normative, binary genders. They are standards for gender which includes bodies, behaviors, identities, roles, practices etc. After Sept 11 attacks, United States advisory explained that terrorism could be anywhere, or everywhere in disguise. The word disguise lead to national anxieties of the "unknown." The Real ID Act was created which now set stricter standards and had a new national database linked through federal driver's licenses and identifications in order to provide national surveillance more "efficiently." These state policies/regulations on stricter U.S Surveillances (though started because of 9/11 Terrorist attacks and the increase fear in terrorists) are related to the nationalism issue of "us vs them" rhetoric. The "deviant bodies" do not follow the "us" standards. This may signify a phobia of those who do not conform to normatives, those who contribute to making this nation "less unified/solidified," a kind of trans-phobia at work. Also trans people are under more scrutiny because of these acts.

Cei Bell's 1973 Radicalqueen's Manifesto

This was a very powerful piece for me. I really enjoyed hearing those who practice drag in the 70's exercise their voice, especially on how the gay liberation movement of the time had ignored them as part of the movement, and denied them of their rights as well. They even expressed how they did not feel they belonged to, or was acknowledged as part of the gay community from other homosexual men either. Why would someone who is fighting for and struggling for their rights, deny someone who only wants the same as well. Also, I liked the emphasis on the dichotomies of gender assumed by our society. Men are expected to be macho, aggressive, superior, competitive etc. While women are expected to be passive and inferior, or the weaker sex. Because these 'radicalqueens' were born biologically male, they were pressure by society to assume these "macho," masculine qualities. AND, although they do not possess these traditional qualities, they still acknowledge the fact that men are natural oppressors. They explain that men are oppressors however, macho and straight- identified men are the most oppressive. By identifying themselves (Radicalqueens) as "non-men" they agree not to give into the oppressive behavior. Just because they are men who see no wrong in crying, wearing whatever they please, or touching each other does not necessarily make them feminine, BUT just makes them who they are. NOW, how radical is that!!

Response from "Romanticizing the Transgendered Native"

Gender variants were often written about in anthropological studies for American audiences. They were referred to as the "third gendered" natives.

My first response to this is that the term "third gender" emphasizes how much Western society has defined gender under a binary system. After watching these anthropological accounts, American audiences may be surprised or even a little turned back by some of these gender variants practices. This surprise of the THIRD gender goes to show how much we have relied on only TWO genders to define ourselves, and have left little room for variation within in culture all this time.

Another note: The practice of anthropology requires an observers quietly looking into a culture from the outside, not necessarily participating or becoming a member. Because of this, how valid can these accounts on the trans-gendered natives experience REALLY be? These accounts are being shown to Western society and they are being illegitimately interpreted. The natives aren't given a voice or speaking for themselves. How can a society who knows nothing of these different types of cultural practices, really interpret these gender variations for themselves? "Crisis of Representation"

Colonial Privilege This reminds me much of what I have learned in other Women's and Gender Studies courses about colonialism and power relations. Those who are the colonizers, often feel superior, more knowledgeable, civilized, than those they are colonizing. They feel they have a privilege to speak on their accounts, or teach them to follow their own Western cultures as the "correct, and less primative." Also, often times the colonized were sexualized and eroticized by the colonizers as the exotic "other."

Quick Response to Witherspoon's Story as a Trans-woman in jail.

This article had caught me by surprise. I had not checked the date of the article upon reading it and was under the impression the time period was not so recent, based upon all of the terrible treatments the trans-women were receiving within the jails of Texas. I was surprised to read that the TDCJ has a policy allowing transgender jail mates to obtain their hormones and hormone treatments, however these were taken away from Witherspoon by the nurse of the jail. I understand the high suicide rate in jails from transgender people could be a mixture of fear or loss of hope from aggressive sexual behavior they encounter with their fellow jail mates along with the poor treatment, protection, and misunderstanding from the staff members. I believe the "Safe Keeping" section of the jails (especially in these areas down South) were created just to meet laws and regulations in order to keep the institution operating. Witherspoon had stated that in 2003 there was a Prison Rape Elimination Act put in place in order to protect transgendered cellmates and decreased the rape rate in jails. However, Witherspoon encountered some rape victims anyways and still felt unsafe. There was also a good point made about the guards. Because this takes place down south in Dallas, Texas, it is inevitable to assume most of the guards are traditional "with family--orientated values" white, middle-class homophobia males that represent the more traditional south rather than the more progressive northeast. Witherspoon is right in saying that the transgender voice is not heard both within jails and outside of jails. Some cannot even identify with LGBT organizations and have not found adequate help from them. They seem to be marginalized far more than the homosexuals, especially because their physical ambiguity is more difficult to "keep hidden in the closet."

#trans mayer

Reflections on Eva Hayward's, Lessons From a Starfish

1. 1970s political group STAR: embodies "trans" both as an acronym in the semantics and in their political intent (group to support the transgender community and transgender civil rights movement)

- Antony uses this as his inspiration for music. He speaks of a call or need for a "transformative" sound or kind of music. 'Trans' implies movement/change. It implies that the end result is not the same from where it began. Like a transgendered body itself, beginning in the "wrong body/gender" transforms itself through technology and medical care to end in a better body of choice.

- Trans also disturbs purification processes. The trans body does not signify just one male or one female gender but can be a collaboration of many different kinds of masculinities and femininity.

-The Cripple And the Starfish: transformation involving the fusion of animals, energies and sexes: The line of the song "cut off my finger, it'll grow back like a starfish" I immediately associated the finger as phallic as well. Like Hayward I was thinking that the writer of the song was trans, desperately seeking a transformation (sex change) and this symbolizes his desire to remove the phallus. "It will grow back like a starfish" suggests that the trans identity does not disappear or become hindered through the act of transformations. They are still the same person, now in a more appropriate body for themselves in their own opinions. They can still function and grow as a normal person in society. As Hayward puts it the castration, or transformation on the trans body produces the condition of psychical and physical re-growth. This means the trans does not just want to be perceived as the opposite sex but they want to identify with them and speak from their points of view.

Can transformations bring along NEW MARGINS? Where new identities (who do not fit the norms) and undergo transformations in order to "appropriate" their inner selves to their levels of comfortability do not have to be victimized as abnormal or confused or in the end marginalized for not fitting into the male/female binary.

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Danielle Mendes