I received a comment on an old post that I wanted to address. Forgive me, I am going to preface this post with a personal anecdote.

When the guything boyfriend and I had our first date, almost a year ago, as we sat together in the car winding through the mountains of Boulder, the conversation turned to feminism (having already meandered through interesting personal anecdotes and basic personal information, and long deep conversation about politics and history which I think left us both impressed), and he said, casually, “You know I don’t expect you to shave your legs or armpits or anything for me.” I told him he’d better not, because any guy who gave a shit about my body hair was obviously not boyfriend material. And then he, completely unbidden and with no input or prodding from me, unleashed a tirade about women internalizing patriarchal beauty standards (oh yes, he used the word “patriarchy” and everything), his male/white privilege, and the wage gap, and that basically sealed the deal for me. Maybe not love at first sight, but definitely lust at first angry highly-controversial leftist political rant. This man was a keeper.

Do I think men can be feminists? Certainly. I wouldn’t be in a relationship with one if I didn’t think he was. This is, yes, personal prejudice, but I also don’t think we’d have been able to stand each other otherwise. I also don’t usually (ever) date guys, and this is one of the big reasons why — men can be feminists, but most aren’t.

The question at hand is, however, an issue of contention among feminists and I understand arguments to the contrary. And I am pretty fucking skeptical of a lot of liberal men who claim to be sympathetic to women’s issues who really aren’t… (An aside: I find it hilarious how consistently readers continue to miss the point of that post, summarized completely in the last sentence. Seriously, folks.) But…in my experience, the only men willing to call themselves “feminists” or “feminist allies” in the first place are usually extremely feminist, whatever political disagreements we may have — otherwise they would not want to use a label which does them no favors socially. Personal experience with some men very committed to and passionate about gender equality and women’s rights has taught me that, yes, men can indeed be feminists, rare though they might be.

There is a radical feminist viewpoint which believes that all men are active agents of a monolithic patriarchy — which, in essence, is true, but this is a gross oversimplification of the structures of oppression and I think an unforgiving understanding of the nature of privilege. I think it is unfair to act as if all men are consciously complicit in and benefit directly from the system. It is wrong to state that gender oppression is the root of all evil, and assume that oppression due to race or sexual orientation or class or physical ability are not also of equal significance and importance. It is true that all men must essentially be sexist — but only because all women have also internalized sexism, because everyone of every race has internalized racism, etc, etc. The only difference is that those with privilege suffer less from these toxic attitudes than do those to whom the hateful stereotypes and beliefs apply. I do not think the fact that not all men are malicious agents of The Patriarchy needs to be disclaimed at every turn and I hesitate to point it out, as it seems both obvious and also derailing from the real point and the big picture. The fact that oppression and privilege are significantly more complex than the radical feminist viewpoint, however, bears discussion.
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AUDIO: Fairytales My Mother Told Me

When I was young, my mama told me, little girl, you can do, you can be whatever you please, and you can do anything that a boy can do, and you can be anything that a boy can be, and you can do it just as well and, maybe, even better. She told me, little girl, nothing in this world can ever stop you.

When I was young, my mama told me, little girl, fairytales do come true, and Prince Charming will come for you, and you can find true love that never dies. She told me, little girl, you can have faithfulness and fidelity, a perfect happy family, if you are good and follow all the rules.

When I was young, my mama told me, little girl, God has a plan, though it cannot be seen or felt or understood by man, and He will always forgive you and love you no matter what you do (at least if you do nothing really bad). She said, He wants us all to be together for eternity, so if you do all that I say he said, maybe when we die in Heaven we can see each other, always be with one another, again.

Lisa at Feministe has a great post up entitled Can We Talk About Porn Without Having the Same Fight Over and Over?. Some excerpts:

Sure, mainstream Hollywood movies and TV shows often send messages about gender and sexuality and body image that are just as hideous [as porn], yet no one argues that filmed entertainment is by its nature bad for women. We all know that any actual legal action against pornography is going to be constitutionally troubling and impede access to queer and feminist writing. Because they don’t even begin to substantively address labor exploitation in the sex industry. Because it’s too easy to slide into relatively simple-minded analyses.

We—and by “we” I mean feminists who fall anywhere and everywhere on the pro/anti continuum—desperately need to get past this impasse. But how, when it’s so hard to actually occupy the middle of that continuum? My own experiences trying to hang out there have only pushed me further out toward the pole again, throwing up my hands at the way all attempts to engage seem to lead inexorably to defensiveness, rigidity, and impugning of other people’s sexuality and life choices. And how can anyone not get even more defensive and rigid when called—NB: inaccurately in 99.44% of all cases—a withered sex-hating prude or a slutty brainwashed sexbot?

I can’t emphasize enough just how little I think I have the answers here. But, in the spirit of reconciliation, I humbly offer…

Some points on which I think we can all agree: Our culture’s relentless commodification of women’s bodies and (approved versions of) sexuality is damaging. This commodification is by no means confined to pornography or the sex industry.

Some points I’d like to see some agreement on: Sexually explicit material is not by its very sexually explicit nature always antifeminist. A feminist world can contain sexually explicit material.

Some of what I want from a useful porn-critical theory: A labor-rights argument centered on workers’ experiences (some interesting perspectives and sources of information on how the tenor of current conversations is hindering this can be found here), connected to labor organizing in other industries. Content analysis that doesn’t assume violence as its starting point. A holistic take on body commodification that links by content and message (what does this say about women and gender?), not genre (is this sexually explicit?).

Hear, hear!

And this is my biggest issue with most feminist discussions of porn. I am not anti-porn, by which I mean I think sexually explicit material is a necessary part of the world (since we are animals unduly obsessed with sex and reproduction) and, dare I say it, not in theory an unhealthy thing. Sexual material is not, by its very nature, “bad”, or harmful, and in fact I would argue the opposite. I think an openness about sexuality would serve people much better than this behind-closed-doors, abstinence-only bullshit which only serves to endanger the physical and mental health of, well, everyone, but most importantly the children who are raised to be totally ignorant about their own bodies and options. And I find the argument that porn is inherently harmful, from a feminist standpoint, to be little different in practice from the radical religious objections on the same and similar subjects, though of course, I know anti-porn feminists mean well. (But, well, we all know what the road to hell is paved with.)

And in many cases, I would argue sexual depictions of certain groups could, at least in theory, be empowering, the same way that any depiction in the media of marginalized groups can be empowering. Especially when you have certain groups which have systematically had their sexual identity stripped from them, either made into sexless creatures or objects of fetishization. (Some examples: fat women, transfolk, people with disabilities, people of color, women in general — all of which, of course, are exploited in mainstream pornography and even in less “mature” entertainment, but do not necessarily have to be depicted in such a way, and, I believe, can and are occasionally depicted in ways which are not exploitative, which are healthy and empowering, in both sexually explicit and other media.) I don’t think this is necessarily possible within the framework of the mainstream porn industry, but, shit, am I the only one who’s read some damn good, sex-positive, written erotica around here?

On the other hand, I do have a lot of huge problems with the pornography industry. I have huge problems with most industries, being the radical pinko commie that I am. I know the industry harms women, both those who participate in the making of pornography and those who are exposed to it, and that is wrong and needs to be changed. I don’t disagree with the anti-porn crowd on the harm mainstream porn does.

What I disagree with is how best to handle this — I am more interested in empowering sex workers from a legal and economic standpoint than I am in attacking the industry in a way that risks penalizing those it exploits. I support talking to the women involved and helping them implement their own solutions to these problems in ways which work for them, whether or not I approve of their profession (hypothetically, of course, since mostly I don’t care how people pay their bills), rather than trying to subvert the first amendment with bullshit standards of “obscenity” when one man’s porn is another man’s classical art (or one woman’s porn is another woman’s feminist statement), anyway.

What I disagree with is the definition of “pornography” from which the anti-porn viewpoint operates — so often, the definition seems to be, “porn is sexually explicit material I don’t like, but erotica is that I enjoy, and erotica is fine”. All sexually explicit material is pornographic, and not all of it is necessarily bad. Just, you know, most of it, which is true of a lot of other less controversial things in this sick, misogynistic world. Admitting that there are other ways of depicting sexuality and that not all depictions are bad doesn’t really hurt the anti-mainstream-porn case, so far as I can tell — but using definitions of “pornography” which are not standard and highly subjective is harmful to those of us who use sex in our art and writing as a way of exploring female empowerment.

And it’s so baffling to me that we can come from the same place — “mainstream porn is disgusting, degrading, misogynist, and racist” — and still not manage to even have a rational discussion about the subject.

Oh, yeah, anyway, go read all of Lisa’s post. Damn it.

Yeah, I know I linked to this post about radical feminist critiques of BDSM before, but I’m still thinking about it and still had a few things I wanted to articulate in response. (Sidenote — Trinity totally rocks. That is all.)

One thing that has always really bothered me in feminist discussions about kink is the assumption I often see that a woman could only want to be submissive if she’s been abused, coerced, brainwashed — that nobody could possibly be born with these sort of desires, that they’re inherently unhealthy and abnormal and could not develop on their own in a vacuum. There’s this sometimes unspoken, often articulated, assumption that the only way a woman could want what I want is if she has been emotionally damaged.

I suppose I’m just here to say: well, they can develop in a vacuum, and they’re not abnormal for me. I have never been sexually or physically abused by a parent, family member, friend, partner, or anyone else. As much as I desire a relationship where I am not in control, where there is a distinct power imbalance, where I might get bitten and smacked a little, pushed to my limits and beyond my comfort zone sexually, mentally, and emotionally…I have no desire to be abused. Wanting to be dominated consensually by someone I trust who respects my hard limits but not always the more flexible, softer ones is entirely different from being with someone who forces me to do things I really don’t want to do.

(That’s one reason it’s hard for me to find prospective partners: there has to be an enormous amount of trust and understanding. I always have to wonder what part of this escapes people: being submissive makes finding a sex partner I can trust much, much harder, since I am very aware of the fact that it’s possible to coerce me into doing things I don’t want with my tacit “consent”. More on that some other time.)

So now that I’ve laid that out, the real point I’m trying to get at. One thing that’s been nagging at me for awhile is the realization that these criticisms of kink are exactly the same as arguments about homosexuality. The argument, especially, that women are made queer by rape or other trauma. Most of the normally, otherwise very intelligent women I see arguing that BDSM is inherently harmful and degrading to women would never say such a thing about queer women because it’s plainly ridiculous. Most women do not decide to be lesbians because they’ve been damaged by men in their lives. The assertion is clearly and fatally flawed.

So why is it okay to say these things about submissive women? (And it’s always submissive women. The very concept that dominant women could possibly exist seems to fly over these people’s heads — when they do acknowledge the existence of dommes, it’s usually in a sneering, “it’s all just an act they put on for men, they aren’t actually powerful” sort of way. And forget the idea that a submissive woman might want to be topped by another woman.) Why is it not okay to say that I only like women because of some severe psychological trauma, but it’s perfectly fine to assert that I Must Have Nasty Issues if I want to let a partner (especially, heaven forbid, a partner with a dick) to tell me what to do and be in control?

I am not damaged. I am not queer because of abuse. I am not submissive because of abuse. I have been both queer and submissive my entire life. I can recall having both of these desires from an incredibly young age: an unusual attachment to female friends and a near total absence of crushes on male peers, and a persistent desire to be “owned”, an eagerness to please and take care of everybody in my life. These are the things which fulfill me. These are the things that I need to be happy. Attempting to deny me that because it’s “un-feminist” or “unhealthy” denies and undermines my actual health (mental and emotional, by extension, physical) and my very real dedication to women’s rights.

I should not have to justify my submissive identity (and it is that — it is not simply a role I adopt in the bedroom, it is a basic cornerstone of who and what I am) anymore than I should have to justify my attachment and attraction to women. Would the feminists demanding that I “examine” the roots of my kinky desires for their entertainment ever dare to say the same thing about my queer desires? Of course not! Even if (and this is important!) I did feel I were only attracted to women due to an abusive past, it still wouldn’t be relevant, it still wouldn’t mean there’s anything wrong with my same-sex attractions, and it still wouldn’t be any of their damn business. Because there is nothing inherently wrong with my sexuality, in the queer sense or the kinky sense.

I find the allegations I’m not a real feminist actually hurtful. It’s like someone saying that because I like to play video games with fake violence in them I can’t be part of the anti-war movement. One has pretty much almost nothing to do with the other. While it’s definitely worth looking at how violence is normalized in our culture and how that feeds our willingness to do real harm to others, my personal recreational habits don’t disqualify me from standing up for my pacifist principles.

And kink is the same. Real abusive relationships, which are disproportionately a matter of violence committed by men against women, are terrible, evil, horrible, and wrong. My submissive desires, which, if they were unwanted, would in some cases constitute abuse, do not harm women as a whole. My submission has nothing to do with anybody else’s relationship. Just as it’s nobody’s business which variety of genitalia I entertain in the privacy of my own home, it’s nobody’s business whether I want to be spanked, either. It’s not okay for other people to tell me it’s wrong for me to sleep with a woman. It’s not okay for other people to tell me it’s wrong to be submissive.

Let’s try another example, if that one doesn’t work: it’s like arguing that since I personally am not attracted to most men, I’m a horrible misandrist man-hater bent on overthrowing the patriarchy and instituting a repressive matriarchy. It just doesn’t make sense. There’s a small subset of people who believe in female superiority (which I think is way more harmless than the converse concept, since matriarchy enjoys less widespread popularity). There’s some people who believe intimate partner violence is acceptable. Obviously, that doesn’t mean all feminists want to oppress men. Why isn’t it equally obvious that not everyone into BDSM wants men to be able to rape and abuse women?

I’d like to be charitable and believe it’s just ignorance that leads to this glaring gap in logic. But I don’t actually. I think it’s just that people who make these arguments honestly know they’re being disingenuous and hope nobody will call them on it. Well, I’m doing it, because I’m damn sick of reading this tripe spouted as if it’s some brilliant new idea no one’s ever thought of before, as if it’s a criticism that can actually survive the barest scrutiny by someone who actually knows what the fuck they’re talking about.

Roy over at No Cookies for Me (discovered just now through his guest blogging at Feministe — yay!) posted a wonderful, thought provoking entry regarding discussions about the sex industry and how they neglect the actual reality and humanity of the sex workers involved:

I sat there at my desk, talking about sex workers and sex work and porn like they were abstractions… but they’re not, and mythago rightly called me on my shit. It took me a while to realize that, but it was a totally fair criticism. My sitting there saying that stats show this and stats show that and look how many sex workers were this or that… none of that helps them now, and talk like that does make me more likely to find myself allied with religious conservatives who have a “moral interest” in condemning sex work… and sex workers.

And when I allow myself to ally with questionable or even flat-out bad groups, I have to accept that the damage they do in the name of our cause is damage that I’m contributing to. I can’t wash my hands of the harm that my allies do if they’re doing the damage in the name of our mutual cause. If I’m rallying behind the cry of “PORN HARMS ALL WOMEN!” and I allow myself to get backing from a group that’s adding “BECAUSE DIRTY SLUTS ABUSE SEX!” then aren’t I at least somewhat culpable? Because, ultimately, don’t my actions help further that cause, as well? And doesn’t that mean that the damage they’re doing is to some extent, on my hands?

Because those people have made it absolutely clear that they don’t care about the women involved. They’re not working to help end the abuse of sex workers. They’re not condemning poor working conditions. They’re not working to help sex worker’s rights. They’re not even remotely interested in making sure that their voices get heard. They’re interested in keeping the whores out of their neighborhoods.

This is my big problem with a lot of (radical, particularly) feminists. I don’t disagree that most pornography is harmful to women* — and not just in a vague, nebulous sense. I believe a great deal of it has a real, tangible impact on the women involved. The industry can be unsafe and abusive, and sometimes it cheats the women out of the money they thought they were going to make by having sex on camera. Not to mention how it’s clear that depicting women actually experiencing pleasure is apparently pretty low on the priority list. (Because women exist for men to enjoy. Whether we enjoy ourselves isn’t important to a lot of people. It’s actually terrifying.) And it hurts women who buy into it, who think that they have to have labial surgery to be acceptable as a sex partner.

But trying to criminalize porn will not help anyone. The women who are harmed will be harmed more because they will have even less recourse. When people discuss sex work in impassioned, black-and-white moral terms, so often they forget that sex work isn’t just about feminist theory. It’s about the actual women who do it, for whatever reason. The lives of women are not abstractions. They are real people with real lives and their ability to make a living however they can manage is incredibly important.

Is it right that a woman’s only option to support herself might be sex work? Absolutely not. (Although if she really enjoys doing it, and, yes, I think that’s possible although perhaps rare in a world this fucked up, and she can make a living on it, more power to her.) But it doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. What matters is that this is a human being who needs the money to live.

And one would think, one would hope something feminists could agree on is that women being able to live is important — but somehow, we manage to forget that for many women that’s exactly what’s on the line. The lives of sex workers get lost in the discussion and suddenly they don’t matter. I wouldn’t argue that most people are intentionally devaluing the lives of these women, but that’s the end result. Isn’t treating women’s lives as negligible exactly the attitude we need to get away from?

1. I also don’t think porn should be criminalized because I don’t think it’s inherently harmful or wrong, but that’s another discussion entirely.

I know I haven’t been very active since I moved the blog to a new host. Hell, I’ve hardly been approving comments (I’m also thinking about turning off comments on old posts, because while it’s always cool to see a supportive comment a year after posting something–hell, even flames on old posts remain hilarious–the spam is too much to deal with). I’ve had some things I wanted to write about, mostly about sex. Not even the kind related to gender and physiology! The kind that word makes most people who aren’t me think about!

I’ve been a little down lately, though…I haven’t been able to find any resources specifically talking about BDSM/kink from a feminist perspective (unless it’s an extremely negative one) and that kind of steamrolled my enthusiasm for posting about such things because I’m pretty sure I’m just going to get a lot of abuse for it and I frankly don’t feel up for it…

But! BUT! Apparently there is a new blog out there, let them eat pro-sm feminist safe spaces, the existence of which makes me pretty happy. I’ll have to keep an eye on it to see how things develop, but it sounds promising.

One thing I hope to post about later is addressed in this post by Trinity, which discusses anti-BDSM feminist arguments and, well, why those arguments are effective in theory but don’t actually apply to the reality of kinky life:

So there’s not much knew I have to say. All I really want to mention is that, as a woman who tops not only women but also men, there really isn’t much about us in the internal warfare. And I wonder why this is. on the one hand, I know that it’s because the radical feminist analysis (Yes, I realize that not all radical feminists agree with this analysis, but that’s what it’s most often called, so that’s the short cut that I will use.) is concerned about dynamics between submissive women and dominant men. I know that their interminable analyses of lesbian sadomasochism, as well, center around a faulty idea that all leatherdyke are butch-femme, and at a butch is emulating men.

All that means that a woman top, unless she is very strongly masculinely identified (oddly, I think I might actually qualify on some of these analyses, though I doubt people would expect me to top men since this would slot me into “butch” if anything), doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t show up on the radar at all. Neither does a male bottom, unless he is into such stuff as feminization, in which case he’s slumming for fun. ( gay men don’t fit into this well at all either, since these sorts of feminists pride themselves on not caring much about men. The assumption is sometimes a similar butch-femme dynamic, which totally misses the hypermasculine emphasis in much of gay leather.)

…

And that’s the thing. I happen to believe, probably unlike many other sadomasochists who’ve run afoul of these people, that their analysis is actually impressively internally consistent, and difficult to argue with in some ways because of that. But the big problem with it is that it’s extremely narrow. It works, if it works at all, for a tiny set of textbook cases. Not only are they all male dominant and female submissive, or *maybe maybe maybe* *possibly* butch-femme in an extremely traditionalist way, but they are all male dominant and female submissive in a cartoony way. No one’s dynamic actually looks like that, not even the M/f folks I know who consider themselves old-fashioned.

And that’s the problem. What they’ve come up with is a theoretical analysis of a theoretical problem. It’s internally consistent enough that it can convince people that they understand what’s really going on — if said people don’t actually know or want to know about the real nuts and bolts of sadomasochists’ lives, play, and (possible) power relations (remember, they’re optional!)

More later.

A transwoman in Vancouver has just had a discrimination suit dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada. Heart actually has a detailed overview of the case posted at her place, but I refuse to link to it due to the disgustingly transphobic remarks she and her readers have made in the comments. (Yeah, um, don’t bother trying to argue about this. This is a queer blog. It won’t go over well.)

So instead, I’ll quote this article:

The Supreme Court will not hear arguments about whether a women’s service organization erred in excluding a trans person from working with the Vancouver-based group.

The Feb 1 decision denying “leave to appeal” to the Supreme Court Of Canada leaves Kimberly Nixon without further recourse for her exclusion from Vancouver Rape Relief.

The battle began a decade ago when Nixon filed a human rights complaint against the organization over her treatment.

The BC Human Rights Tribunal found that Nixon had been discriminated against on the basis of her trans identity and ordered Rape Relief to pay her $7,500 in damages.

But the victory was short-lived. Rape Relief appealed to the BC Supreme Court, where the tribunal’s decision was overturned. At that time, Rape Relief did not dispute the allegation that it rejected Nixon because she is trans, but argued it was allowed to do so. Nixon appealed to the BC Court Of Appeal, who upheld the province’s Supreme Court decision in 2005.

The argument here is that a woman raised with male privilege has such a different experience that she can’t relate to or counsel cisgendered women who’ve suffered violence. (Well, that’s the relatively benign argument. We won’t get into the paranoid “feminist” arguments about “appropriation” and “infiltration”, or the otherwise outright offensive arguments.) The reality is far from this simple.

The reality is that there is no universal, essential experience of womanhood. The mainstream American feminist movement has often and rightly been criticized for ignoring the experience of women of color, queer women, poor women. None of us have grown up or been raised the same way. None of our experiences have been exactly the same or meant the same thing to us, impacted us in the same ways.

My experience as a biracial, queer, ex-Mormon feminist can’t be compared to a straight, white, Christian woman. It can’t be compared to a woman who grew up in poverty, or another culture, or another part of the world. We are not the same. There is no unifying thread which connects us, nothing magical or spiritual binding us all in sisterhood with one another except those threads we weave ourselves, those bridges that we build, and our shared humanity, which, might I remind you, we also share with men.

What is this experience transwomen can never have or understand which makes them not “real” women in the social sense? We can’t argue it’s dependent on the presence or absence of female sex organs; there are women with birth defects and women without wombs. There are women who have been victims of Female Genital Mutilation. There can be women born with ambiguous genitalia. And, so, there can be women with male sex organs, too.

An appeal to blood is useless here for the reasons stated above: not all women, even cisgendered women, bleed. Some women have reproductive health issues. Some women have been through menopause. Not all of us bleed the same way. I can hardly relate to women for whom menstruation is a horrible, agonizing ordeal — for me, it is something I hardly even think about. Given the huge amount of physical variation, the ultimately subjective nature of our interactions with our own bodies, I hardly think a woman born with a penis can be much different from me than a woman with endometriosis. Both are foreign. Both are certainly women.

There is no biological congruence. There is no identical socialization. Even women who have endured the same event will process it differently, come to different conclusions. Nobody is an island, but neither are any of us the same. It’s been argued that no one can ever truly understand another person, and I agree. Given that, how can anyone really believe there’s anything essential that ties all women together? Even if we all emerged from the same common background, I don’t think that would be true.

Those who claim transwomen experience some overwhelming male privilege which makes them incapable of understanding women, empathizing with women, being part of women’s groups, I think are woefully ignorant of what it means to grow up gender-variant or queer.

Growing up queer means that you know from a very young age that you do not belong, that there is something wrong with the world or wrong with you. Girls who are tomboys are teased, discouraged from pursuing their interests, but in many ways are tolerated because it’s okay for a girl to want to be a like a boy, to be “better”, more “masculine”, as long as she understands that she can still never be as good as the genuine article. But effeminate boys? There’s nothing worse in the world; a boy acting like a girl? That’s a huge step down. Being “feminine” is wrong, bad, less. Women are flawed and men who resemble women in any small or superficial way are not treated kindly.

Male privilege looks very different when people think that you’re a fag (or, for that matter, a butch dyke). You’re a target, you are harassed and tormented, beat up, murdered, simply because you challenged some sociopath’s sense of propriety. Is that privilege? Is it a privilege to be gay-bashed? Certainly, most transwomen will have had some advantages in their upbringing, but I can hardly fault any woman who wasn’t raised thinking she was worthless, thinking she simply wasn’t as good, that she was dumber, more emotional, capable of less, an object for the pleasure of men. Any woman, trans or cisgendered, who has managed to escape these messages has nothing but my astonished pleasure for her good fortune (and it’s ignorant to assume that transwomen haven’t had some exposure at least by proxy before transition, and that they don’t experience life the same way any other woman does afterward, at least if they “pass” — if they don’t, I think their experience is much worse).

Kimberly Nixon is post-op. Any arguments revolving around the presence of a penis are at this point incorrect and irrelevant (although they’d be bigoted and wrong in any case). Any arguments about her experience as a woman, her ability to empathize with female victims of violence, are similarly flawed. Transwomen experience life as women, and are disproportionately victims of prejudice, discrimination, violence. This leaves only her experience growing up as justification for the actions of Vancouver Rape Relief.

None of us have had the same experience growing up. None. Most of us have trouble understanding the forces which formed other people, looking through that lens sympathetically to try to understand why people are the way that they are, or are not. Kimberly is no different from any other woman in that regard, and it is no excuse for this kind of shameful prejudice, especially at the hands of so-called feminists.

I have said it before and I hate that it’s necessary, but I will say it again, as often as I must: any feminist who does not fight for the rights of all women is no ally of mine.

From Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains:

An Abortion Ban Bill Comes to Colorado

Senate Bill 143 (Renfroe, Lambert), “End Freedom of Choice,” would ban all abortions in Colorado except those performed to save the life of the pregnant woman. There are no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. [Emphasis mine.]

This unconstitutional measure forces women to carry a pregnancy to term as the consequence of rape or contraceptive failure.

Colorado does not need extremist bills like SB 143 to distract us from the real solutions. We know that only increased access to family planning and comprehensive sex ed can reduce abortion. Our representatives need to look forward and find commonsense answers, like SB 60 “EC in the ER”, not backward to the dark days when women’s bodies were governed by the state, not themselves.

If you’re in Colorado, send a message to your representatives! I know a lot of women here who will fight tooth and nail against this thing no matter what. If you’re in Colorado, PLEASE take any action possible to help fight this terrifying bill.

Blue has posted some good links to editorials about the Ashley Treatment. This article really struck me.

If you believe in basic human rights, you have to extend them to all humans. You can’t say that you believe in human rights, but not for people who can’t articulate their value. You can’t say that you believe in human rights but not for people who would be better off dead. If you’re able to tell yourself that in this one case, it was okay for parents to mutilate their daughter with absolutely no cause, and no medical argument, then you need to rethink your definition of basic human rights.

That’s why it’s important to talk about this. That’s why it’s important to condemn it.

People with disabilities are first and foremost people with rights. This includes a basic right to bodily integrity. It’s very sad to me that feminists can forget that so easily. You cannot work for equality if you do not work to uphold the rights of all people. (It seems self-evident. Like so many things, apparently, it is not.)

I think this post by Thirza is worth reading. She looks at the Ashley Treatment through the lens of her personal experience with a disabled sister.

Sour Duck has linked to some other posts about the subject. And here’s more at The Procrastinator’s Handbook.

I’m still disappointed that there’s not more outrage in the major feminist blogs. (Amanda at Pandagon’s response can only be described as completely bizarre. Piny hasn’t made a post yet but he’s been active on other threads so I expect to see something at Feministe soon. Feministing? Who the hell knows?) But if this whole matter has made one thing clear it’s that I need to have more disability rights bloggers besides the Gimp Parade in my regular reading list.

A shout out to those of you on LiveJournal: I’m starting a new community for feminist writers. There are a several purposes to this community: to receive comments and criticism of your writing from fellow members, to dicuss writers and writing, to promote the published writing of community members, and to provide information about publishers seeking submissions of material which fits the scope of the community. So if you write fiction in your free time, or you just blog, please check it out. All genres and styles are welcome, including fiction, poetry, and nonfiction essays and articles!

Read the rules and decide if this is the community for you — it is not a exactly safe space, but there’s a lot of things I won’t put up with, either, because I truly believe there need to be some standards in order to maintain a “feminist” community and not a “debate with anti-feminists” community.