Trans Safety v. Disability Access: Both are Very Important!

5/18/2016

I am SO angry and disgusted that I'll burst if I don't speak out about this, so hang on for the ride - it's going to get brutal!

What the actual HELL is wrong with some of you disability activists?

I'm referring to a small, but vocal minority of disabled folks who have the infernal GALL to assert that the right of trans people to use the bathroom that fits their gender identity is nothing in comparison to the right of people with disabilities to have wheelchair access to public restrooms. They say that since trans people make up less than .03 percent of the U.S. population and there are at least 54 million disabled folks here, trans people shouldn't matter.

Really? Are you kidding me?

For those who don't know, let me give a quick definition of the term, trans. Trans refers to people whose assigned gender at birth does not match the gender that they actually are. I am cis. That means that the gender that I was assigned at birth matches the gender that I actually am.

Some may wonder that if I am cis, why do I care about trans people and their rights? Because that's who I am! I care about and fight for the rights of all marginalized groups. I grew up with a trans sibling when I was in foster care. There are trans people whom I love and trans folks who are my friends and colleagues. I cannot sit by while trans people are dismissed, disrespected, discriminated against and murdered for who they are!

When I called out someone with a disability a couple of weeks ago for making the assertion that disability rights and wheelchair access to public loos are more important than the rights of trans people to pee where they feel safe, I thought that it was just an isolated case of one obtuse, ignorant person. I didn't expect to hear any more of this foolishness.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Each day since then, I have heard and seen more and more hatred and vitrol spewed at the trans community by people with disabilities, especially since that horrible law passed in North Carolina that says people must use the restroom of the gender noted on one's birth certificate.

So, disabled folks and activists, what the hell is the problem? Why are members of our community, who ourselves experience hatred and discrimination, perpetrating that same thing on the trans community? Why are some of us playing the "our rights versus theirs", Oppression Olympics game? Are we that petty and jealous that trans people are, for now, in the spotlight over the bathroom issue?

Apparently, those of you hollering about trans people getting rights that disabled don't have don't get it that there are disabled trans folks. Hello, intersectionality is real, folks!

Look, we should be allies fighting for each other's right to pee and do our business with access and in safety. We have commonality in that we aren't always able to use the restroom where we want or need to. Sometimes, we can't get into public restrooms, but trans folks can be, and are murdered for using the "wrong" restroom!

This hatred and violent rhetoric from folks in the disability community towards the trans community needs to stop! NOW! There are trans people with disabilities actively and passionately fighting for disability rights and what do you do? Throw them under the bus! Indeed, in the past few days, I've seen some disabled folks throw every marginalized community under the bus, making insensitive, inappropriate comparisons, playing the "we've got it worse than you" game, and asserting that disability rights are more important than other's rights because there's more of us. Then, when people from other marginalized groups, including trans folks, call you out, you have the unmitigated nerve to respond with unparalleled arrogance, hostility and tears! Really, y'all, really???

All of you disabled folks talking and writing smack about trans people and why their rights aren't as important as ours because "they choose to be trans, but we don't choose to be disabled" need to stfu and sit the hell down! Trans people DON'T "choose" to be trans and their rights and safety are EVERY BIT as important as us disabled folks!

Let's stop this ish NOW, ok? Hating on, comparing and playing Oppression Olympics doesn't help either of our groups; in fact it hurts, even destroys us both. Both of our communities live with oppressions of different kinds that, due to intersectionality, sometimes overlap. We must be allies and fight for each other or we'll both go down!

One last thing. If there is ANYONE on my social media who thinks that trans people shouldn't have the same rights as others, delete and block me! I don't care if we're family, friends or colleagues. I don't play that!

10 Comments

Andrea S. link

5/18/2016 03:18:37 pm

Thank you for this, Anita. As I said in Facebook, my wife and I both have multiple disabilities (though none impacting bathroom accessibility at present) and my wife is a transgender woman, so this one hits close to home. Once again your anger serves a needed and righteous role.

Rainbow link

5/20/2016 02:28:26 pm

Disabled people and trans people can and should be allies when it comes to accessible bathrooms. Gender-neutral bathrooms are often needed by both trans people and disabled people, especially if the disabled person needs a person to help them in the bathroom. The parents who protest that they need a place to change their disabled children more than trans people need a bathroom where they can do their bodily functions in peace don't seem to realize that a gender-neutral bathroom with changing facilities would help both of them.

Crystal Hall

5/20/2016 06:53:19 pm

Been thinking about this and following you for a while. I know some black women use womin to describe themselves and get rid of the man centric ways but womyn has been used almost exclusively by terfs and terfish people to tell trans women that we aren't real woman because we weren't assigned that way. Hard to see that word used here

AngryBlackWomyn link

5/20/2016 08:56:50 pm

Crystal, I have never heard of the terms you use. If you have been following me as you said, you should know that I don't tolerate discrimination of any kind. If you discount the fact that I have no tolerance for discrimination against anyone including trans folks, by the the name I choose to refer to myself, then I don't know. My record of nondiscrimination and fighting for rights and justice for all should matter more than a name. It's what I do that really counts and matters.

Crystal Hall

5/20/2016 09:49:55 pm

I understand that you don't tolerate discrimination explicitly but womyn has been used by terfs who are trans exclusive radical feminists who believe that trans women are not real women. The term womyn was created specifically to distance cis women from trans women sometimes used as wombyn because trans women do not have the capacity to give birth. In most instances I wouldn't say anything but since this term has been used with such hate towards trans people, as a trans autistic person, I had to say something.
"What womyn-born womyn means to us is women who were born as women, who have lived their entire experience as women, and who identify as women." This is a quote from the originators of the term who sought to specifically exclude trans women.
And in context "In 1991, at about the same time that the Riot Grrrl Movement was gaining national attention The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival forcibly ejected Nancy Jean Burkholder on the grounds that squea had not been born a woman. The term ‘womyn born womyn’ sprang into light and a national discourse on who counted as a “real” woman appeared within the lesbian community."
I understand you do not intent on using transmisogynistic language but regardless you have and not recognizing is makes us feel that you are paying us lip service instead of actively listening

Georgia link

5/21/2016 07:02:54 am

Crystal Hall,

I am 68 years old and have been a feminist for more than 48 years. The spelling of "womyn" actually has been around since the early 1970s. I have never heard of it being used in the way you indicate. I do not doubt that it has been used in that way, but that is not its original usage.

Another alternate spelling developed at the same time was "wimmin." The point was to remove reference to MEN, not to identify "woman born womyn."

In the 1970s, trangender people weren't much part of feminist frameworks, simply because transgender people weren't part of the larger public conversation. There had been a few trans women who had been in the news, but transgender sexual identity was not a hot topic in feminism back then. If some anti-trans feminists adopted that spelling to refer to cisgender women, that was a peculiar phenomenon of that group and time period and has no bearing on its origins. ("Cisgender" developed as a term only recently.)

The usage you cite doesn't appear to have caught on, as far as I can tell.

I am sympathetic to your feelings of exclusion, and I believe trans women have a place in feminism, but even you have to admit that growing up as a woman from birth is a very different experience from growing up as a trans woman. That is not to identify you as "less than" but rather to acknowledge difference.

Transgender identities ARE subjected to sexism and patriarchal oppression, but not in the same way as cisgender identities, The fluidity of gender -- as opposed to binary gender -- is brought into high relief by transgender identities, and that is a good thing. But it is a two-edged sword. Trans women in many ways also represent a demand for retaining binary gender identities -- i.e., most appear to want to take on the marks of feminine identity as constructed by patriarchy...in other words, the very identity many feminist women have been fighting to reject. What, indeed, does make a woman a woman? And if a man can become a woman, that can be seen as men taking over even womanhood -- just another arm of patriarchy stealing whatever women have left of their own.

Radical feminism was a huge and welcome (in my view) departure from liberal feminism -- whose primary goal was for women to have access to the same social slots available to men without substantially changing the social order. Radical feminism celebrated women as women and honored the characteristics that previously had been denigrated by patriarchy. And as such it demanded a complete transformation of social structure away from hierarchies inherent in patriarchy.

In addition, feminists were deeply concerned (still are) with having safe, man-free spaces, which the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (womyn=no males, not even in the name), so having trans women there felt like men were invading women's space under "disguise." Hell, even male children over the age of 12 weren't allowed, and that created friction for some mothers.

But you have to remember that times were very different 24 years ago with respect to feminism and its multiplicities. Very little was understood about transgender identities back then. Certainly very few stories about the pain of growing up transgender had been told publicly. In many ways the perception of trans women held by feminists back then was similar to the restroom controversy today, where conservatives see transgender women as men in dresses.

We understand it differently now because we have a great deal more information, and that is probably why the usage you cite is not well known.

The meanings of words depend on the contexts in which they are used. In Anita's context, the spelling of womyn retains its original intent.

Crystal Hall

5/21/2016 01:24:39 pm

Well not often I find a person who actively defends being a terf so better make the most of it *cracks knuckles*

So first you say that you are not familiar with feminist used womyn before but you talk about the Michigan Womyn Music Festival which if you read up on your research was created in 1978. Why would this be the case if it already wasn't an issue, Why would the French Feminists make such a big deal about cisgender people being the only real women vs trans women who were fake. Just sounds like you weren't paying attention, not that I am surprised. Also wondering how what i am describing the word being used is not precisely the way it was used in the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. Also curious how it wasn't a feminist agenda when it was feminists that had things like our surgeries and our hormones banned from Medicare and Medicaid in 1980 because they didn't want us entering their circles.
In addition ever heard of the Transsexual Empire one of the key works that has been used by cisgender feminists to differentiate themselves from transgender women. Probably important to understand that work before you try to be some expert on how Womyn has been used and has been used by feminists. And there has not been an major redefinition of the word that has not taken it back to that particular root.
Next par, you say that trans people experience different things than cisgender people and frequently remark about a man being able to change to be a woman whenever he wants. First you are right but for the wrong reasons. We do experience every once of sexism and misogyny you have ever experienced. And things that cisgender women experience that are oppression that transgender women experience is experienced by trans men which means it is not a unique part of misogyny but rather of the biologically category which gender is not. You say it is different growing up "male" then it is different growing up female. In what way, I experienced passing male privilege but I am not any less of a woman for it, I have always been a woman and have experienced sexism my whole life. Yes I was invited to the male concert but that doesn't mean I was ever part of the band. There is a similar thing that can apply to passing autistics and assuming that autistics who pass as abled bodied are somehow not autistic is pretty despicable. Your male coding arguments are ridiculous, I'm not a misogynist or a threat because of my growing up the real implications since I wasn't allowed to come out for a while are that I wanted to kill myself on the daily and that I was forced to bury my emotions and make it impossible for myself to cry. Those are the direct results but I'm a woman because a woman is defined as what is in her head, not her genitals. There is conclusive and great scientific research showing that our brain patterns are the same as cisgender women's. And reducing women to just their genitals actually makes you a misogynists. You know when you talk about men seeing you as nothing but a walking vagina, you are doing literally the same thing to trans women which is despicable and instead of getting your radical gender ideas, you are sticking yourself further and further within the binary
Next part, defending transmisogyny in the past, that's a pretty low blow. We aren't men we have never been men and saying well they needed it is super disgusting. There is no reason to defend transphobic actions in the past anymore than the torturing and institutionalization of disabled people in the past. Why is this justified? Because you are so afraid of trans women that you want to hold onto the past in which we were not validated. The past is the past is never a justifiable argument and the fact that you are willing to say such means that you aren't a real feminist or radical at all because it was the past we were departing from in the first place and that the violence men did to our bodies was never justified and needed to be stopped.
Next the trans people maintain the binary. So let's think about this, trans people who you are incorrectly assuming only maintain binary identities, (um ever heard of nonbinary people. There happens to be a lot of them and probably a lot better at destroying the gender binary than you will ever be). Being trans is embracing that gender is not something that is necessarily static but something that is different for everyone. That one person might be both genders or no gender at all. But trans women aren't perpetuating the binary by existing anymore than you have by existing. I've always been a woman and I know that my body needs to look more feminine. That is my experience. I know people who's bodies need to look more androgynous. And this isn't some random thought we have it is a physical feeling that punishes us every day of our existence until it is changed because we know our current body needs to be different to feel at piece with ourselves. I know to feel right my body needs to have longer hair, a more feminine

Crystal Hall

5/21/2016 01:33:44 pm

Looks like it cut off my comment prematurely.

a more feminine face and breasts. I know that this is how my body is meant to be because in my core my soul I am a woman. And my body needs to reflect that femininity which it often doesn't. I didn't choose this. What I experienced was the constant wanting to kill myself because I was incapable of expressing my gender to change my body to hurt myself for all of the pain that was inside because I couldn't be myself. It was no choice, it was the last chance of a life that was so terrible so numb so depressing and agonizing that I had to transition even knowing that I face an over 75% chance of being sexually assaulted, a 1/12 chance of being killed and an average life expectancy of 35. I always knew that I wasn't a boy and wondered and punished myself for not fitting in like the rest when I wondered why I was more emotional or couldn't be like them. The fact that you see us as nothing but men is despicable and transmisogynistic and most importantly no feminist worthy of the name. Check yourself because you are no different to us than the men who are killing us

Alex

5/20/2016 09:52:56 pm

So sorry to hear of this happening. The rights of both disabled people and trans people developed from the earlier struggles of the black community in the USA and their success in being recognised for who they are. We as disabled people should not be discriminating against any other group no matter how large or small they may be. The fight for the rights of black people, disabled people and trans people still goes on. Despite what some may believe, these rights have not been fully achieved and we should be close allies and not enemies in these battles. Divide and conquer has long been a weapon of the rich and powerful against minority groups, so don't let them successfully use it again.

AngryBlackWomyn link

5/20/2016 11:14:22 pm

Crystal, I don't play or do lip service. That's not my thing. I can't help if you don't believe me. Everything is bound up in this name that I had no idea was oppressive. I'll change it when the time comes to renew and pay up but if you think I'm all about lip service, you don't know anything about me and there's nothing I can do to convince you.

Trans Safety v. Disability Access: Both are Very Important!

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