Transphobia
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This is not, in practice, simply a philosophical dispute. For example, Janice Raymond, radical feminist author of ''The Transsexual Empire'', collaborated with Senator [[Jesse Helms]] during the 1980s in order to deny coverage for sexual reassignment surgery under [[Medicare]].<ref>[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Rogue%20Theories/Raymond/Transsexual,%20Transgender,%20and%20Intersex%20History__Janice%20Raymond.htm "Janice G. Raymond, Ph.D.," Transsexual, Transgender, and Intersex History, 1998]</ref> | This is not, in practice, simply a philosophical dispute. For example, Janice Raymond, radical feminist author of ''The Transsexual Empire'', collaborated with Senator [[Jesse Helms]] during the 1980s in order to deny coverage for sexual reassignment surgery under [[Medicare]].<ref>[http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Rogue%20Theories/Raymond/Transsexual,%20Transgender,%20and%20Intersex%20History__Janice%20Raymond.htm "Janice G. Raymond, Ph.D.," Transsexual, Transgender, and Intersex History, 1998]</ref> | ||
| − | A great amount of the problem, especially regarding trans women in particular, has to do with [[privilege]]. Radfem transphobes insist on referring to trans women as men, and treating them as if they're privileged as such, ignoring the fact that social and other aspects of transition (or to a lesser extent merely contemplating those) are generally met with hostility and derided socially. Considering them to be men, such radfem transphobes might also deny that trans women are subjected to misogyny more than men. Much like transphobes generally, radfem transphobes typically reject the concepts of [[cisgender]] privilege and | + | A great amount of the problem, especially regarding trans women in particular, has to do with [[privilege]]. Radfem transphobes insist on referring to trans women as men, and treating them as if they're privileged as such, ignoring the fact that social and other aspects of transition (or to a lesser extent merely contemplating those) are generally met with hostility and derided socially. Considering them to be men, such radfem transphobes might also deny that trans women are subjected to misogyny more than men. Much like transphobes generally, radfem transphobes typically reject the concepts of [[cisgender]] privilege and cissexism. |
==Neopagan transphobia== | ==Neopagan transphobia== | ||
Revision as of 20:22, 30 April 2013
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Transphobia is fear, discrimination or hatred against transgender people specifically or gender-nonconforming people more generally. It is closely related to the postmodern concept of cisgender.
Transphobia is often closely connected with homophobia and is justified for the same reasons that homophobes use to justify their hatred of gays. (religion, prescriptive gender norms, etc.). Indeed, many clueless homophobes conflate homosexual people with transgender people and cross-dressers. Transphobia also manifests itself in some schools of radical feminist thought, as some feminists resent the idea that people who aren't "really" women might make claims as women.
On a societal scale, it can manifest itself in any number of ways, from systemic discrimination against transsexual people in housing, healthcare, and employment,[1] to a relatively high murder rate,[2][3] to a series of demeaning depictions in the mass media.
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Media and police
Transgender people are regularly discriminated against by the media and police.[4][5][6] Both the media and police when involving a transgender person invariably use the descriptor "transsexual" or "transvestite" (with its associated archaic psychiatric baggage) in place of transgender. Transgender people face high rates of rape and deaths in custody while in prison.[7][8][9] The media, in going for sensationalized stories, typically publish the transgender person's previous name without permission even if they have legally changed their name and that name change is protected by privacy laws.[10] Someone's transgender identity is suggested to be fake or a fraud by the connotations.
When referring to trans women, the use of recycling exaggerated stereotypes such as "long and leggy", "tall physique", "fierce looking", "muscular", etc. combined with negative notions that transgender individuals are perverted or depraved is all-too common in the media.[11] Such stereotypical imagery is imposed on other media such as film and television, where trans women are mostly portrayed in acting roles as sick, twisted, prostitutes or "stranger danger" serial killers.[12] There was some concern that the film The Silence of the Lambs, featuring a villain who was making himself a "woman suit" out of women's skin, would be seen as perpetuating this stereotype of the twisted and violent trans woman, and hence a disclaimer was placed in the mouth of Jodie Foster's character to emphasize that there was no link between "transsexualism and violence."
Trans men are reported about disproportionally less, although the amount of trans men and women is relatively equal.[13]
Among fundamentalist Christians
Fundamentalist Christians do not, as a rule,[14] think highly of transgender people. This opinion is generally based upon a handful of biblical verses, such as Genesis 1:26: "And God created man in His image, in His likeness; male and female He created them... and it was very good." From this, through a generous bit of interpolation, conservative Christians conclude that transgender people (like gays) are either actively rebelling against God[15] or have been socialized into it by bad parenting, the liberal media, and other such machinations of Satan.[16]
Some fundamentalists, such as Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, have advocated beating children at the first sign of "gender-inappropriate" behavior; for example, says the pastor, when a four-year-old boy lets his wrist go limp, his father needs to paste him one in the jaw, and if his daughter starts acting too butch, he needs to demand that she make herself attractive.[17]
As being transgender or gender-nonconforming becomes more prominent, it is also becoming a front in the culture war. For example, Fox News psychologist Keith Ablow recently lost his shit over a J. Crew ad which featured a boy having his toenails painted pink.[18]
Radical feminism and transphobia
Several radical feminists indulge in and have been accused of transphobia, such as Julie Bindel,[19] Cathy Brennan, Germaine Greer,[20] Sheila Jeffreys,[21] Mary Daly,[22][23] and Janice Raymond.[24] A quote from Raymond's book The Transsexual Empire, saying roughly the same thing of transsexuals as radical feminists have always said of men, serves as a good example of radical feminist transphobia:
“”All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.
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Academic radical feminism is premised upon the idea that gender is entirely a social construct, and that it must be destroyed to end the oppression of women. Transgender people tend to maintain, on the other hand, that gender identity is to some extent intrinsic (that is, even though they were raised as male/female, they have always identified as female/male, and further, want bodies to match).
As frequently happens, when ideology runs up against someone else's lived experiences, ideologues respond by trying to hammer the problem flat until it fits with what they already believe. There has been,[25] and continues to be,[26][27] a rich current of anti-transsexual bigotry underlying much of radical feminist thought. The radical feminist critique of transsexuality maintains (generally contrary to what trans people themselves have said about their own identities) that trans women are nothing more than effeminate men who have been relegated by the patriarchal gender binary to the status of women (whereas trans men, when they bother to mention them at all, are just women trying to claim male privilege for themselves). Thus they slam transsexual people in general for "reifying the gender binary." There is no out, however, for transsexual people who do not embody the stereotypes of their adopted genders either; lesbian trans women, for example, are dismissed as men who only transitioned in order to infiltrate women-only spaces.
This is not, in practice, simply a philosophical dispute. For example, Janice Raymond, radical feminist author of The Transsexual Empire, collaborated with Senator Jesse Helms during the 1980s in order to deny coverage for sexual reassignment surgery under Medicare.[28]
A great amount of the problem, especially regarding trans women in particular, has to do with privilege. Radfem transphobes insist on referring to trans women as men, and treating them as if they're privileged as such, ignoring the fact that social and other aspects of transition (or to a lesser extent merely contemplating those) are generally met with hostility and derided socially. Considering them to be men, such radfem transphobes might also deny that trans women are subjected to misogyny more than men. Much like transphobes generally, radfem transphobes typically reject the concepts of cisgender privilege and cissexism.
Neopagan transphobia
Largely overlapping with the radical feminist transphobia, certain members of the neopagan community have also expressed sentiments and/or acted to exclude transgender people.[29] This is especially common in Dianic Wiccan circles, and transgender women have been excluded from events at nominally ecumenical neopagan gatherings.[30] Z Budapest, one of the progenitors of the Dianic Wicca community, stated (spelling and grammar errors in the original):
“”This struggle has been going since the Women’s Mysteries first appeared. These individuals selfishly never think about the following: if women allow men to be incorporated into Dianic Mysteries,What will women own on their own? Nothing! Again! Transies who attack us only care about themselves.
We women need our own culture, our own resourcing, our own traditions. You can tell these are men, They don’t care if women loose the Only tradition reclaimed after much research and practice ,the Dianic Tradition. Men simply want in. its their will. How dare us women not let them in and give away the ONLY spiritual home we have! Men want to worship the Goddess? Why not put in the WORK and create your own trads. The order of ATTIS for example,(dormant since the 4rth century) used to be for trans gendered people, also the castrata, men who castrated themselves to be more like the Goddess. Why are we the ONLY tradition they want? Go Gardnerian!Go Druid! Go Ecclectic! Filled with women, and men. They would fit fine. But if you claim to be one of us, you have to have sometimes in your life a womb, and overies and MOON bleed and not die. Women are born not made by men on operating tables. |
| —[31] |
See also
External links
- Trans Media Watch
- Transgender Europe research into global transphobia
- Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Responding to the Feminist Anti-Transsexual Arguments, Alas A Blog!
Footnotes
- ↑ Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Foundation
- ↑ Trans Murder Monitoring Project, Trans Respect versus Transphobia Worldwide
- ↑ "The victims of prejudice", BBC News, 26 December 2003
- ↑ Kermode, Jennie (2010) How Transgender People Experience the Media. Trans Media Watch: London, United Kingdom. http://www.transmediawatch.org/Documents/How%20Transgender%20People%20Experience%20the%20Media.pdf
- ↑ Signorile, Michelangelo (12 June 2011) "Escalating Police Violence and Transgender People", Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/escalating-police-violenc_b_1131343.html
- ↑ "You're Rooting a Bloke", SameSame, 6 February 2008
- ↑ The punishment doesn't fit the crime: More on transgender women, prison, and Maria Benita Santamaria, The Bilerico Project, 6 January 2010
- ↑ "To keep me safe from harm? Transgender prisoners", Deakin Law Review, Volume 9, Number 2
- ↑ The death of trans woman Veronica Baxter, Community Action Against Homophobia
- ↑ In many countries, changes to birth certificates and/or issuing of gender recognition certificates are covered by privacy laws. In the UK for example, Section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 states: "It is an offence for a person who has acquired protected information in an official capacity to disclose the information to any other person." Article 8(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that: "Everyone has the right to respect for their private life." In Australia, change of name privacy is protected in the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 (NSW), Gender Reassignment Act 2000 (WA) etc. but the media for a story still publishes previous names, ignoring the laws.
- ↑ For example, when rumours in the mid-1970s began circulating that Ramatam guitarist April Lawton was trans, she was described in one music review as a "muscular guitarist", "plays guitar like one of the guys", etc. Before these rumours she was described as "a hot chick with a guitar". Images of Lawton, available on her website, show her not looking physically masculine.
- ↑ "Ed Gein and the figure of the transgender serial killer", Jump Cut, no. 43, July 2000, pp. 38-47
- ↑ Serano, Julia (2007). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Seal Press. pp. 46-47.
- ↑ Although there are some very surprising exceptions
- ↑ http://www.dallasvoice.com/group-backing-sally-kern-calls-transgender-opponent-brittany-novotny-a-confused-it-1043177.html
- ↑ http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.4222623/k.8B00/What_is_a_Biblical_View_of_Transgendered_People_and_Hermaphrodites.htm
- ↑ http://jezebel.com/5906907/horrible-pastor-advocates-beating-the-gay-out-of-young-kids
- ↑ http://equalitymatters.org/blog/201104120004
- ↑ CL Minou - Julie Bindel's dangerous transphobia, guardian.co.uk
- ↑ Prominent feminist espouses her bizarre "theory of transsexualism" in the book The Whole Woman (1999, 2000)
- ↑ Transmeditations Blog - A Transphobic Hate-Monger Comes to Boston: Sheila Jeffreys Given U.S. Platform at Wheelock College to Spread her Bigotry
- ↑ Feministe - Acts of Contrition: Feminism, Privilege, and the Legacy of Mary Daly
- ↑ Frankenstein, Necrophilia, and The Final Solution: How Transphobic Was Mary Daly, Really?
- ↑ Transgriot - Why The Trans Community Hates Dr. Janice G. Raymond
- ↑ Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire: the Making of the She-Male (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979).
- ↑ Cara, "Germaine Greer Paints a Portrait of Transphobic Feminism," Feministe, 2009 August 22.
- ↑ Julie Bindel, "Gender benders beware," The Guardian, 2004 January 30.
- ↑ "Janice G. Raymond, Ph.D.," Transsexual, Transgender, and Intersex History, 1998
- ↑ Thompson, Sarah; Pond, Gina; Tanner, Philip; Omphalos, Calyxa; and Polanshek, Jacobo (2012) Gender and Transgender in Modern Paganism. Circle of Cerridwen Press: Cupertino, California, USA. http://st4r.org/genderbook.pdf
- ↑ PantheaCon and Gender Matters…, Aedicula Antinoi, 26 February 2011
- ↑ In the comments section here