Male Medical Establishment as G O D-From Dirt's blog

My response:
First off, ever since the Dyke Witches who were STRONGLY FEMINIST brought me out, literally, I rejected the male god, because that system of belief wiped out the WiseWomen, the healers, the powerful Spinsters, Amazons and Crones during the Middle/Dark Ages with the infamous witch trial book; Malleus Maleficarum. It was to destroy the powerful Pagan/indigenous Tribal cultures where women had real spiritual, political and Warrior power, and a place and a say-so.

All the knowledge these women possessed to heal their tribal members was suppressed to make room for MALE doctors and priests who often did more harm than healing. Such is the same medical model today, and women were DENIED the ability to go into the medical colleges and learn the craft, until the 20th century.

Women who used their tribal, natural, Earth centered herbal remedies who were found out were accused of being Witches and tortured, tormented and burned at the stake, including the revolutionary Sacred Maiden Joan of Arc, who dared to wear men's clothes, though still FULLLY FEMALE, and lead armies defying the Church and the inquisitors.

That fear still lives in the bones of Western women, should we grow too powerful, too independent, too Spinster like, and take on doctor like alternative medicine roles, as many Lesbians have done. Congress will shut them down, with the voice of the extremely conservative AMA, and the rightwingers still howling at ANY independent women, especially Lesbians.

So, this shit goes deep. End independent Dykes and Dyke and women healers, for the male medical machine and dependency on it, and you have real social control. Again, you've silenced the women to make them reborn in a male image.
-MasterAmazon

A little questionnaire from Dirt about women only space: my responses

Tuesday, December 14, 2010Topic Tuesday-Women Only Spaces
Todays Discussion topic is Women Only Spaces, feel free to comment however you like, so long as its on topic.

Some possible questions:

1) Do we need more women centered spaces? We not only need more women centered spaces, we need specifically Dyke centered spaces. As a Butch, I dont' feel comfortable in mostly hetero or feminine female spaces...where there are few or no other Butches. But Butches are abandoning women only spaces and women only events at an alarming rate. There is definitely a different and more radical feel to dyke centered spaces of all types, that may or may not include other women, but that is exceedingly rare. As long as they are Dyke positive and bio female, I feel comfortable in such spaces.

2) How can we keep womens spaces, womencentric? Keep them for ONLY those who are fully PROUD to be female. Lesbian and womon positive, whether it's women only leather spaces, social spaces, ritual spaces, ect. And preferably for women born women only or primarily. Perhaps there needs to be an 'outer' type space for all females(so the MTF's don't close them down) and an 'inner' type space for bio-female only.
I will NEVER see MTF's as women...though certain ones I may treat 'em as such, and sadly, most FTM even genderqueer types are so male identified they've fallen out of the Butch energy...but some have not....if they wanna be a dude, why are they crashing all our dyke/women only spaces?

3) How can we nurture the women spaces we have?MONITOR them and have Amazons and DykeAMazons ENFORCE them as women only spaces.
Don't be beholden to groups or grants that would stop us from organizing and having OUR OWN spaces BY AND FOR ourselves. This means they'll have to be 'membership only' even if membership is only $1 a year, and members are vouched for as friendly to the intents of the space(bio female only, dyke centered or dyke only, or 24/7 living as female only).

4) What do you love about being in womencentric spaces?
I can be all of who I am in most such spaces, providing they're not lesbophobic and Butch positive or Butch welcoming, and not too 'girly girl'. I am going to one or two women only rituals this weekend cuz I need that infusion of Female energy, which I LIVE for. Also I am on women's land for 5 days every summer, and only there do I get to be MY WHOLE, REAL, MAGICAL DYKEAMAZON WITCH/WARRIOR SELF, AND RECOGNIZED AS SUCH. When I have to be around men, even gay men, there is a certain kind of invisibilizing or lack of recognition because men always put themselves and their egos first and foremost, and they also hit on women, even lesbians, they drain our energy and divert our attention AWAY from each other!
Only in women only space do we put ourselves FIRST AND FOREMOST!

5) Do womencentric spaces put YOU more in touch with your own womanhood?Yes see above. I come out of my cage, and CAN BE MY FULL, DEEPEST MOST POWERFUL SELF IN AN AMAZON WOMON CENTERED EMPOWERED ENVIRONMENT.
-In Sisterhood,
-MasterAmazon

Distorted sight(refer to Dirtboi's blog on the women looking at their false mirror image)

Keep on keeping on, and I go for the full figured gal anyway....I don't like skin and bones or skeletal types...not only reminds me of anorexics but crack or meth addicts as well, the rail thin look.

But you're right, it's a very narcissitic movement, and the boyz bolster each other up, to go one more step, one more step, sharing tips on how to pack daily, how to wear those rubber bands around their breasts and where to get them, how to 'pass' as male, how to dress as male, what haircut to have to look male, and NOT like a Butch dyke, yet they want to crash every single Lesbian space???????

It is a total mirror narcissitic obsession that as you've pointed out is a disease peculiar to the entire trans community, on either side.....body self hatred, body obsession, whether FTM or MTF.

It is a movement based on fantasies and smoke and mirrors. I made that mistake only once, thinking someone was a bio-female and found out they were not. When I found out, I was very pissed off, and it fucked me up in the head for two weeks. People don't like being fooled, and if it's truly an HONEST movement, then BE HONEST, ESPECIALLY with intimate partners, otherwise you're living a fucking lie.

I mean coming out as a Dyke is all about coming into who I am as a womon loving womon, same as coming into going from tomboy to Butch....but the Trans movement is the exact opposite, it's about going BACK in the closet about one's background, one's past, one's life, and lying and decieving just about everyone around you in an attempt to 'pass'.

Why not just be a third or fourth sex, don't crash our Dyke/Women spaces,create your own, and don't coopt our communities...create your own....and dont' brainwash kids with your lies...
-MasterAmazon

Countering Sabotage of WBW at Michfest 2011

Re: Countering Sabotage of WBW space at MWMF 2011
As usual the same suspects saying the same things we've always been saying, and the trans and transapologists saying the same damn things they've been saying shaming us for guarding our Amazonian territory and our Amazonian womon born womon space. What, do we take swords to defend the matter? and yet we're using the keystroke AS our swords/Labryises.

The trans have Cybele, the Goddess they worshipped to give permission to remove their members in ecstasy and to live the rest of their lives out as either eunuchs or 'females'. I'm sorry, but feminininty, that line of lies DOES NOT equal Female. So no matter how 'feminine' you are, DOES NOT make you Female. Any self respecting Female centered Butch NOT trying to 'pass' as male(except for safety on the street late at night), but in her daily way, is more female than ANY feminine MTF. Femininity, along with masculinity are social constructs. Biological Females and males can fall anywhere within that construct, and do, according to their personal proclivities, upbringing, tastes, and rewards. I was Butch/tomboy from a very young age, and I was never 'feminine' enough, always too 'mannish', too 'masculine', and thus censored by family, those in school, coworkers and bosses, and the rest of the world for that lack of conformity, BUT I was still FEMALE nonetheless...even if at times I hated being so, because of the stereotyping of 'acceptable' roles left open for females, and NONE that catered to my Butch/young tomboyish sensibilities. I distinctly DID NOT want a dallywhacker, a penis between my legs..I WANTED EQUAL POWER AND OPPORTUNITY!

However, the trans movement has nothing to do with a 'gender binary' or even with that meaningless word, 'gender'. In fact, it is a conservative movement, which is why the Iranians will pay for sex reassignment surgery to halt homosexuality, which is punishable by death. Some Fundamentalist Christians insist on the same, even if unlike Iran and other Arab Moslem countries, cannot enforce it. They also expect their women to be feminine and their girls in dresses...cuz they may turn out to be a Dyke, if they get to express their tomboy/Butchy natures! Some will be, some won't.

The trans movement is all about gender conformity...that is, if you fail to fit one sex, that is, too masculine as a female, too dykey, too much of a womonlover, and too Butch/Macha/Amazonian/boyish ect. then you MUST belong to the other..and there you are with all the cheerleaders to go get some hormones and some "T", to dress more hetero male to 'pass' which means nothing more than falsifying one's history/herstory, and eventually to have one surgery or another, mostly the breast removal surgery, since the genitally mutilating penis implantation surgery is dangerous, unreliable and destructive, and really doesn't work. Wow, I saw a film on it, and it is INDEED genital mutilation for the sake of false parts. As bad as any genital mutilation done to Female bodies across the world for an ideology, a religion, ect.

So, the trans movement leaves maimed bodies without full sexual sensation as a result in it's wake. The same goes for the MTF surgeries as well, though the doctors have bragged they've nearly perfected that one....not nearly enough in our Dykely opinion..it's still window dressing that will NEVER replace the multi-orgasmic capabilities that bio female women have. EVER. Or the mystery of bleeding the Sacred MoonBlood, or the hope/fear of impregnation, ability to choose to give birth, or not....one cannot replace the womb with the prostate.

So, you want what you can't have, the male born, and the wanna be male..this is the essence of MALE privilege..not 'doing in Rome as the Romans do', that is, asking the native inhabitants of women only and born female space whether it's o.k. to join in, or not, it is IMPOSING OF YOUR MALE WILLS upon us....all the 2000 plus years of privilege, even hearkening back to the time of Cybele when the de-membered began to take the place of bio females in the temples, the eunuch priests began to gain ascendancy and power over the powerful Female Priestesses, to what we have today. Men in frocks and robes telling women not to have abortions, not to allow Lesbians to marry, or homosexuality at all..while they have their boys in the background. And I mean, boys, not men...those pedophile priests, whose sexuality has been so repressed because of religion and it has twisted them and made them cruel and mean and destructive...like the black frocks, the Dominicans that have done all too many cruelties on women and native peoples, and homosexual folks. Forced eunuchism, not from surgeries, but from religious vows that are completely against human instinct.

The trans movement inherits much of that, maybe not the whole anti-sex thing, but the whole trying to be something you are not....instead of resolving the differences between one's self-expression and a society that only allows us to live in a small set of parameters, and invisibilizes those who don't. So, those who can't 'make it' as men, must be women....and instead of being a 3rd or 4th sex, and regalling in your OWN history around that, you coopt ours...you coopt Dyke space, Dyke herstory, Dyke lives, Dyke sexuality, all of it....and crash our boundaries over and over again, proving to us the pricks you REALLY ARE....but with a feminine facade. OR an overly masculized facade. Yes, I went to an event in the Twilight Zone, andthe first to greet me at a party, was a full transition body hair, scratchy hormone induced voice FTM. Not a hairy Butch with a deep voice, but a full transition FTM. I was so turned off and I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.

For the MTF's like Brenda et. al who think they're pulling a fast one on us...I can recognize 95% of the time when I see an MTF..if not by appearance by energy, but I'll figure it out eventually.....often right away..YOU ARE NOT FOOLING US.

We are the Amazons defending OUR territory, as we did in the ancient past, the last of the Matriarchs to defend the ancient Matriarchies and worship of the Goddess....and we are STILL defending our territory, as womyn, as womyn loving womyn, as Butches, Femmes, inbetweens and all the rest, who are Dykes, Lesbians and DykeAmazon Witches and Warriors who say "NO!" and stand up to this very patriarchal silencing of us.

I'm no longer LGBT...I'm just the L or just the D(as in LEsbian, as in Dyke)....the rest mean nothing to me....
-In DykeAmazon Warrior Sisterhood,
-MasterAmazon

My response from Dirt's Blog: Transition is never inevitable, and from me: How to love your Butch Dyke FEMALE Body/Mind/Spirit

I really have to share about this.
My current partner, who is Butch, once she got online, and began to flirt with/cyber other Butch on Butches, so many of them were 10 years or more her junior, were flirting with gender, genderqueering, and then considering transitioning, rather than owning up to the beautiful/handsome WOMEN they are, as Butch Dykes, so eager and ready to trade in their femaleness, kept asking her when SHE was going to transition, ect. ect. ect.
And my partner(before we met) was a LONGTERM BUTCH DYKE OF AT LEAST 15 YEARS OUT!

It was almost like a cult, they draw you in, tell you what you want to hear, 'love bomb' you, and/or flirt with you, acknowledge you as a Butch in ways you've never heard before, but like ALL cults there is a heavy price to pay...

It fucked with her head so bad, she ALMOST considered transitioning, she had packers, and dildos galore, packing everyday with either softies or hardies, even to work, ect. ect. ect, cuz all the rest were doing the same.....that out of all this, she decided not to date anyone for two years so she could figure out where she was at with all this.

This questioning NEVER happened to her UNTIL she got online. Once she got online, the bombardment and pressure to transition or genderqueer was enormous, just like so many of the young ones are getting today, rather than the pride I got through Dykes in the Lesbian movement, where we were going to change the world, as Amazons, as Warriors as "an army of lovers can never fail", an old Lesbian saying that was new back then, well sadly, we HAVE failed. Even though back then what with our new institutions we were quickly creating, lesbian music recording companies, bookstores, events, festivals, printing presses, ect. ect..our OWN cultural institutions BY AND FOR OURSELVES......so many of them gone, gone, gone. Other Butches taught me PRIDE IN BEING FEMALE, a different KIND of Female, with power and strength, and holding our space as the Warriors for Women, the take no bullshit no man is gonna tell me what to do!

Now instead, they're becoming 'men'. That Dyke Female pride has been sadly lost.

Well, she figured out after two years of this journey she DID NOT want to have her breasts cut off, and she was PROUD to be both Butch and Female, she went back to dating both Butches and Femmes. But it was online that fucked with her head, and because she had been a longterm OUT Butch Dyke in a difficult part of the country to be out, she had more strength than most, who have NEVER been out yet as a Butch Dyke, with that kind of Female Dyke herstory...just new on their journey, and detered offcourse and caught up in the promises and excitement of the trans movement. But the price is a heavy one to pay...not just renouncing one's Femaleness, or even Dykeness, but in having one's body physically altered through painful surgeries, and then to go on hormones that do who knows what to the body in the longrun! All that just to 'fit in'?

I for one am glad, and when she met me, as a Female Identified Butch, I told her she didn't have to 'prove' any of this to me. She could put away the dildos and packers and such, and show me her Female side without fear....and we have both found the kind of match that we know these days would be very hard to find 'out there'. We celebrate our Butchness, our Femaleness, our Dykeness and ultimately our Amazon natures together....AS WOMEN. We LOVE each other's FEMALE bodies...instead of despise them, and from each other's admiration of our bodies, we learn to love our own bodies too....

I'm so glad this woman came to her senses through reading your blogs Dirt.
-In Butch DykeAmazon Sisterhood,
-MasterAmazon

Butch and Proud

Butch and proud, and I've rejected femininity ALL my life. We are another version of Female, and for me, Butch=Amazon, not male, not trans. Period. There is no other definition of womonhood that even comes close to it for me....and I also lust and love other Butch Dykes....who are out loud and proud, both about being Butch and being Dykes, and while I don't agree with the butch writer on "Dykes Loving Dykes" Bev Jo on some matters, I found that section of her book very, very validating on Butch oppression. It is NOT something we can put on and take off..it is who we are at our core, since a very young age...at 7 rejecting dolls, at 10, dresses, at 12 never wanting to marry a man or have children, and always taking up my space, doing ice hockey when no other girl in the entire league did, and karate even full contact, when no other female in the dojo would, at the age of 15...and severely censored and harassed by family members, classmates, and teachers and the world for not being properly 'feminine'. I was a lifelong hardcore tomboy who grew up to be a Butch Dyke and when I came out I found a place that honored me, in a way no other culture or subculture does....along with other Butches.

As Female Identified Butches, we ARE organizing and taking back our identities, one Butch Dyke at a time.
-In Sisterhood,
-FeistyAmazon

Keeping College Women's Spaces by and FOR WOMEN

I have something to say about this, LIVED this past week. I was in a situation with my brother and nephew where they were threateningly violent, and had to call cops and leave the situation. Fortunately it did not translate into the physical, but the intimidation was very, very real.

The next day I took my partner across my campus, my alma mater in that town, and we ended up in the Women's Resource Center with two lovely young women, EXACTLY where we need to be. Now, 30 years ago when I was going to school, I was part of the Feminist Alliance and Lesbian Caucus. These two groups faded away, and now there's the Women's Resource Center. It is where we needed to be after male violence and threat in my own family.

I felt safe, acknowledged, the only thing that dismayed me was when they mentioned men were permitted in there too, so women really didn't have a safe male free space to just be..but any men were expected to behave with dignity and respect towards the women, and were INFORMED of that should they come into the Center. At least there were SOME rules.

Fortunately, none appeared while we were there, and we got just the validation we needed from the situation we had just been in with family...the male violence and intimidation.

They also informed us that they also hosted a 'queer women's group' which sounded good to me. There also was a major LGBT center on Campus too in another building.

For us, in a town where we didn't know anyone but family, a State where we no longer had connections, this safe haven ON CAMPUS was ESSENTIAL for us.

The same is true if I were to take Women's Studies, and did take Women's Studies back in the day.
Women's Studies was taught by WOMEN! What a fucking concept! It was revolutionary because we were learning our OWN HERSTORY, our OWN VOICES, and OUR OWN REALITY reflected back at us, after 2000 plus years of completely patriarchal civilizations, religions and values.

Alixx Dobkin's "The Emperor's New Gender"

Excellently written article which kept me going when all this insanity was starting to really take off, before we had blogs stating these opposing points of view, that Alixx finally brought up in her truthfilled and well thought out article.

minstrel blood
"The Emperor's New Gender"
by alix dobkin, originally published in off our backs
April 2000

"...disappointment takes out its knife..." Butch resisting the pressure to change gender – Elana Dykewomon
You know that glazed look certain born-again Christians get in their eyes when they're not listening? Or how voices of loud mouthed Republican politicians and TV pundits get even louder to out shout the opposition? To foreclose debate defends the fainthearted against attack, even when no attack is intended. Beloved tactic of cowards and bullies everywhere, shutting down discussion stymies challenges to the firmly held, vulnerable doctrine of the True Believer. Thus does insecurity unite with bluster to frustrate education's advance.

This brings to mind an incident occurring twenty years ago in Europe. At a concert in Zurich I identified myself as Jewish, whereupon a small group of women got up and left the theater. Why? They didn't say, but we can guess.

My deal with myself was that if I agreed to tour Germany and Switzerland it would be on condition that I declare my Jewishness at every show. Otherwise I could not have endured setting foot on those killing fields. But I was as unprepared for the shockingly defensive reaction that statement would provoke in my audience ad they were to hear it. Naively assuming that German Dykes were as used to discussing sensitive race issues as we USA veterans were, it never occurred to me how personally they would take this (seemingly) simple declaration. If I hadn't immediately calmed my audience with friendly assurances they would have shut down and shut me out, and by the time I reached Switzerland I understood that going public as a Jew required the following instant affirmations:

1) that I did not believe in God
2) that I did not necessarily support Israel's every action, and
3) that I did not blame any of them for the holocaust

These three disclaimers usually relaxed most of the crowd enough so that they could sit through my show without excessive distress. Passionate English and German post concert dialogues proved wrenchingly difficult, but they moved everyone forward, and we were all glad to have stuck with it.

I hadn't thought about that old story for many years until Elana Dykewomon told me of a similar experience at a reading only weeks ago of San Francisco Jewish Lesbian writers. When she spoke the name of her new poem (Butch resisting the pressure to change gender) a group of transgendered individuals and their supporters got to their feet and left the theater. Had they stayed they might have learned what this award winning writer and long time survivor of Lesbian community struggles (since before some of them were born) had to say, proving that closed minds are not limited to anti-Semites.

Like my Swiss departees, this bunch also refused to listen. Too bad, they lose. Experiences such as these and others have prompted this extensive preface to my (next) column on transgender, particularly FTM (female to male). I am well aware of how volatile an issue it is in our community and how personal it can feel.

Jim Fouratt, long time activist, writer, independent thinker and faery has lately taken quite the trashing for his forthright critique of Genderpac's "ruthless and aggressive attack in the gay and lesbian community based on gender bias..." Jim and I agree that, "once again men are defining who and what women are."

That's our opinion and we are entitled to it without being called "nazi," "fascist" and the like, as we each have in the past when overstepping the party line on gender. Therefore, in the hoops of contributing more light than heat to the discussion, let it be known that I am aware that:

1) transgender issues present complex and difficult terrain loaded with quicksand and stumbling blocks which I approach respectfully and with an open mind.
2) Over the past decade I've accumulated masses of information and engaged in much study, reflection, thoughtful discussion and process with a variety of people representing diverse perspectives.
3) In conversations with transgendered individuals and their supporters, some of whom I like and some not, I am aware of their pain and try not to add to it.
4) Everyone needs a community where they feel respected and safe.
5) There is more to learn.

Further credentials are available upon request.

Now here is the question to my Queer/LGBT community, particularly young butch Lesbians who are considering "changing" genders: Is thoughtful, open discussion possible without personal attacks and hurt feelings?

"A thousand years from now... the archaeologists who dig up their bones will know that they were women"
– The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer
"FTM" means women, usually young, who undergo hormone injections, sometimes breast reduction ("top") surgery in their pursuit of "maleness." Reservations about this procedure, when voiced at all, are frequently answered with hostility and charges of "discrimination," discouraging even further candid exploration of the "transgender" vogue and it's meteoric rise to the top of the "queer" order.

Transgender presence and issues dominated the 1999 "Creating Change" Conference. Notable and new, to me at least, was the spectacle of matronly gents dressing up as their mothers, aunties and schoolmarms in dowdy conservative outfits, cheerlessly dispensing disapproval over all. More unsettling though, were the sheer numbers of FTM's everywhere in evidence, their flight from womanhood conspicuously endorsed by the oddly invisible gay men and Lesbians running the show and bent on "inclusion."

When at the end of a butch/FTM panel I asked how constructed "males" felt about the lifelong commitment to the medical establishment and their utter dependence on doctors and drug companies for their identities, the only response was a noticeable chill in the room. If I was FTM I wouldn't want to think about that either.

Germaine Greer notes, in The Whole Woman, that, "Born women are all too aware of a disharmony between who they are and what their gender role requires of them." Everywhere at the conference young FTM's defied gender roles and "performed" "masculinities." But say, isn't "masculine" a construct preserving male rule? And isn't being/creating our own individual version of a woman what lesbians have always been about? So why would a Lesbian embodying infinite female potential ever think she needs to be - or actually could be - a man? Impatience for male power and privilege combined with monumental lack of faith in the future of women could explain it. But "woman" is much bigger and expansive than a stunted masculinist vision of female possibility.

Can you conceive a population more exquisitely groomed to "change gender" than the generation informed by deconstructionist Queer Studies? In the blur of "Gender," represented as little more than a "social construct," injustice might easily be confused with inconvenience. To girls confronting their powerlessness, scant attention paid to "gender's" political roots and historic consequences leaves "masculinities" looking good, and personal adjustment through technology even better. Hey, why not jump at the chance to escape "gender distress" - the universal female condition forever afflicting "the second sex"? How instantly gratifying, how perfectly consumer friendly. This postmodern all-American quick fix comes complete with academic sanction.

In today's "LGBT" hierarchy the last may indeed be first, but beneath the surface of lock-step acceptance lies an unspoken universe of discomfort. Doubts and qualms fill the closets of newly silent Lesbians and gay men now afraid of being labeled "bigoted." Rather than injure feelings or appear oppressive toward a sexual minority, many remain silent, unwilling to deviate "...from the politically correct gender rhetoric (which) subjects one to being called and dismissed as transphobic," as long time gay activist and independent thinker, Jim Fouratt, writes.

To my eyes and ears, young butch dykes walking the FTM path look and despite vocal alteration, sound , quite like the young butch Dykes many of us have been and known for decades. However, these days we hear mostly their echoes and see only their backs as the flee womanhood. But they are our line, and by rejecting their female bodies along with our shared history, they break our hearts.

Gays and lesbians have struggled for decades to be able to name ourselves and to BE ourselves. But now, in our own community we are expected to applaud Dykes rejecting womanhood and embrace men taking it over. In our smart, brave and compassionate community, being "different" is the unifying thread holding us together in a diverse crazy quilt of which queers are justifiably proud.

But while we're at it, let's also honour our identity and history. And our women. Then maybe our girls won't be so eager to run. So lets put away the knives. Can we talk?

Who Defends Dyke Spaces/Identities? Who says no to the FTMs?

"You know, here, the bisexual and straight women leather groups, they don't have any problem at all saying "No, sorry, you're a guy," to FTMs, keeping them out. It's sad that the only women who can't say no to these guys are lesbians. To me it speaks to how weak we've become. That separatism, I'm sorry, made us week. the minute guy energy came into our spaces, we couldn't stand up to it, because our skills in dealing with it had been weakened by lack of use, and all our training to put mens needs first reasserted itself. The straight and bi girls, they have no problem saying "No" to FTMs in womens spaces. And the FTMs if they get angry, are told, "too bad." We're weak."-Taz

This is in response to a pal who stated that it's Dyke separatism that made us weak, unlike straight or bisexual women, who can stand up to an FTM and tell them they can't come into women's space, "No, sorry you're a guy" that its only the lesbians who can't say no to these guys because of separatism, that our ability to say no to men and their needs is weak because we quit dealing with men and our ability to say no to them had been weakened through lack of use...like there are TONS AND TONS of Dyke Separatist spaces to choose from these days, bookstores, Dyke bars, tons of Dyke Lands, events, conferences, women's music festivals, ect. ect. ect....NOT...most of these spaces have sadly disappeared BECAUSE they've been coopted by those women who weren't strong Dykes or Separatist oriented, with strong Female/DykeAmazon boundaries.....fuzzy logic if I've ever heard it. It's the Separatist and aware Dykes, who truly VALUE Dyke culture and women's space who have CONTINUALLY fought to keep those spaces intact!

Feisty Amazon August 25 at 12:42am I don't believe in transsexualism. I don't believe in it's premise, and it's a lie. You know I've already spoken about this. To me, it's a sham movement. Every Separatist or separatist oriented Dyke, whether Leather or Vanilla, has ALWAYS been the strongest in keeping women and dyke space, women and dyke space. To me, it's all the trans apologists in the queer women's communities and sold out dyke communities, that shouted down every Separatist oriented woman, or even Dyke that wanted Dyke and women's space to STAY Dyke and women space, that threw around the Separatist word to silence US, that has sold our community hook line and sinker to the FTM's, and MTF's.

Yes, they're incredibly 'male'. In all the ways you describe, especially the full transition ones, with the hormones, body hair, attitudes, testosterone and surgeries, but MOST don't have the bottom surgery, because it really doesn't work. So no, they aren't REAL men. They may not be sissies, but they're not intact 'men'. Any more than one can convince me that MTF's are really 'women'. They've had male experiences, male attitudes, and male privileges(especially the autogynophilic ones, who choose to transition later in life, and start with crossdressing, and incredible narcissism. It's all about him, wanting to imitate his wife/girlfriend, borrow her clothes, then want to be a her...in a sexual way) The young effeminate MTF ones from early childhood/teenage who transition, date men, they're different, just like the intersex, but the autogynophilic ones had REAL MALE POWER, from CEO's, to professional male sports athletes, to military men, to executives, men used to being in power, married to a woman, AS a man, initially, so with that male privilege and assumption of male privilege and ways of being, they run roughshod over the young transsexual MTF's, the intersex, the Dykes who hold up strong boundaries, and just about everyone else, much less their wives and girlfriends. It's crazy making. I've done alot of research, alot of talking, alot of networking around all this and the trans movement, with radical vanilla dykes, radical LeatherDykes, Female identified Butches who feel entirely under siege with so many Butches transitioning right and left, and pressure being put on them to transition too..making it less and less o.k to be a Butch Dyke....we should all be FTM's cuz in some folks book, just by being Butch we're trans...NO WE'RE WOMEN, and PROUD TO BE SO.

every Separatist Dyke I know has fought HARD to preserve women only space. I don't understand why your Canadian Lesbians have been so wimpy, or the current generation of so called Lesbians. Used to be that Lesbianism and Lesbian Centered space was 'no man's land'..that is: no past, present or future males. Many of us Separatist oriented Dykes still feel the same, and will fight to our dying day to preserve those mysteries and that space, us true Amazons....our Amazon space, our Amazon Sisterhood, our Amazon sexuality womon to womon.....and some are Leather Amazons.....always have been. I saw that energy just two weeks ago.

No, it's NOT Separatism that made Dykes weak, unlike the straight or bisexual women, we continue to assert OUR RIGHT to Dyke and women only and even wbw spaces, mysteries, places, it's those who would sell us out...allow their gay men to go wherever, while those same gay men have fences up to US when it comes to some of THEIR spaces....many wouldn't date an FTM, and they don't see FTM's as substitutes for a bio-male, some may see them as temporary substitutes for a moment. It's the ex bisexual and straight Femmes who aren't really Lesbian Femmes, fueled by Butch/Femme.com who are the problem. Who treat Butches as 'hes', who pressure their partners to transition so they can live basically a heterosexual lifestyle, or at least appear so, and I have felt that energy from certain types of femmes, those WITHOUT a Dyke Femme identity. And those WITH a strong DYKE Femme identity are really bemoaning not having Butches to date, that Butches and FTM's ARE NOT interchangeable parts, as they see more and more jump on the bandwagon to hormones and surgeries...and it terribly saddens them. They want a Butch Dyke, a Butch FEMALE.

You gotta go with your gut, and I gotta go with mine, and for me, it's NO MAN'S LAND, no past, present or future males will I date...and preferably only those Butch or Femme with a strong Dyke identity. I've been burned by bisexual women because ultimately their loyalty is to the man...ultimately.

But because of the trans and genderqueer movement, everything has gotten twisted on it's head..more and more women are thinking of themselves as 'queer', NOT Lesbian, NOT Dyke, and more and more Butch young women think of themselve as boys/bois/boyz, NOT as Butches, or if so, with a strong genderqueer/trans/male component, instead of the Butches I came out with and came up with, who still exist who were very PROUD to be a strong, defiant, take up their space Amazonian woman, Amazonian Dyke loving Dyke, or woman loving womon, whether they were into other Butches or other Femmes or both.....whether Leather or vanilla....which is why so many of us have dropped out of the mainstream communities, because things have gotten entirely too weird. And yet, for all their so called 'maleness' these genderqueers/transButches/ FTMS, they STILL want access to Dyke/womon only space and parties, instead of MOVING ON with their identities and living in the world as the men they claim to be.
No, it's all mixed up, and everybody thinks they can grab from column A and column B as suits them, and damn ANYBODY, especially a strong Feminist or Separatist oriented Dyke, Leather or Vanilla, who says "no, and no more. This is OUR space.....and you have chosen to leave it..." We are saying it, we are organizing, and we will be rising soon.....us Female Identified DykeAmazon Butches, and yet we've always been here.
-MasterAmazon

HOME: Women's Land

I rejected femininity at a very young age, because I saw this inequality, and did everything to take up my space and to compete with boys/and/or men, and not be relegated to a 'less than' housewifey role.....classic hardcore Tomboy grow up to be Butch.

Of course I was not rewarded for such behavior by family, peers, or anybody else, until I came out as a Dyke, and found I had a place.

And that place is certainly on women's Land. I got my fill last week, shared my women's and Amazon mysteries, and felt so completely empowered and SAFE in those woods, just like I felt SAFE in the woods of Michfest, one year, when I got lost in them like 3am....in a long walk back to my tent....because I KNEW ONLY WOMEN were sleeping all around...NO MEN. If there was even one man in those woods, I would have felt that learned almost instinctual fear. My only fear was that I was lost...but I just kept going down hill..till I got to the Triangle, and there still were some women up at that late hour(about 5am by that time). At the Festival I went to last week, I did Security, to keep our space secure, and it was, walking in the woods around our campground till 1 am, feeling completely safe, with an Amazon Sister at my side....I NEVER would feel that if I was NOT on women's land!

There is NOTHING like women's land, to share our Sacred Mysteries, to open up to our deep psychic powers with one another, to shed that fear, even for a temporary period of time, and to bond very deeply with one another, in an unexplainable way, unless you've done it, away from the world of men...it is Sacred Amazon Land...our time with each other, surrounded by Mother Nature away from men..and so many of these youngsters, these 'queer girls' and 'genderqueers' and the gender confused bio females, many HAVE NEVER spent time in such intense women only space...they do not know the sacredness of that which we speak, and WHY we defend it so strongly.

I do agree: it is the ROLES and the boxes those roles put us in that are the problem...and I too feel if folks could just be themselves, without that shaming of not being in the proper "box" much of the percieved need for these surgeries would be eliminated. Get these young women to women's land, and watch them become EMPOWERED by it.....
-In Sisterhood,
-M.A.

Repost: My Amazon Role

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
My Amazon Role: From Amazons to Amazons, Dykes to Dykes

My role is to teach young(and other) Butch/androgynous women to have PRIDE in their female bodies, minds and spirits, tap into their Amazon potential, and their full sexual and spiritual freedom AS FEMALES, and share those very powerful Mysteries with them....
-In DykeAmazon Sisterhood,
-MasterAmazon
Labels: Amazon Mysteries, Amazon Spirit, Butch Pride, Female pride, Female Spiritual Power

Binding, Butch Posers, Self Hate around our Butch Breasts

In response to an old post of Dirt's, I am giving my reply. I also want to mention last week on women's land, during my Amazon ritual, I ALWAYS allow my breasts to fly free, and there is a connection between our Amazon rites, and being bare chested as the Wild Women that we are! This has taught me much self love to be in the presence of other strong and powerful and PROUD DYKEAMAZONS honoring their Female minds, bodies and spirits, and validating both ourselves and each other. THAT is the essence of true Sisterhood!

"For many years I hated my breasts, because I have unusually large breasts(probably inherited from my mother, and because I'm a big dyke too). Like Dirt said, it took me years to begin to accept them, one was getting rid of the binders(bras), even sports bras hurt to wear...so mostly, except when I'm new on a job, they fly free! As long as I don't have to missile tit them, then I'm fine with them...and on women's land, I like to pull my shirt off and wear them proudly! Women's land has been so healing for me!

So has a lover who LOVES my big breasts, and has taught me to love them because she does...and that even though I have big breasts, I'M STILL BUTCH!

That's what this is all about, teaching each other self-love about our bodies, NOT self-hatred, and it may be dependent on one Butch mentoring another in this, and certainly finding partners whether Butch, Femme or otherwise who ADD to your self-loving and NOT your self-hate!"
-In Sisterhood,
-MasterAmazon

Death Knell of our Feminist Bookstores, ect.

Part Two
Part of the reason our Lesbian/Women's/Feminist/Dyke cultural spaces have disappeared is because of the economy, being starved out, because of Amazon.com(using our own name against us, what a cooptation!)and dykes buying thru commercial venues like Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobles, instead of supporting our independents and lesbian/women's/feminist bookstores, AND the trans movement which has so effectively dismantled and destroyed women's and lesbian space after space....
Mama Bears, Old Wives Tales, WomonCrafts West, Boadecia's, SisterSpirit, the women's bookstore in Santa Cruz, Whiptail Lizard Lounge, Changemakers, A Room of Our Own, (gay/lesbian bookstore in Sacramento, not sure if that's the right name), community bookstore after bookstore and space has disappeared from us. Without spaces that we can call our own, there IS no community left for us....it is disjointed and jumbled, and we have nowhere's to learn and get new information or support our artists, musicians and authors. That spells the death knell of our communities......as they give in to cooptation to barely survive..just for a minute before the final blow....
-MasterAmazon

Transmen: Whose Transitioning response to Dirt's blog

It surprises me how absolutely GIRLY most of these individuals are. They could NEVER be Butch,none of them have an ounce of Butchness in them, so maybe they think they'd be more Butch than us if they were a 'real man'. But all it is another form of cosmetics and cosmetic surgery for the insecure. Maybe they were victimized in their female bodies, minds or spirits, or they had a smack of androgyny and were smacked down with even that....

I've met these 20, 30 somethings and most are androgynous at best...could just as easily wear a skirt or makeup or lipstick as Butch or male drag. And most of these cuz they ARE so girly would probably end up dating gay boys too. Faghags.

The old timey FTM's were close to or Stone Butches, the most hardcore of the hardcore Butches, in the distant past, like 15-20 years ago, and they just couldn't 'make it' as women, like you said, their internalized misogyny, or continual discrimination because of their very masculine appearance as Butches that led to them getting beat up, discriminated against or unable to get work. So they transitioned and then quietly disappeared from the lesbian/gay communities. Most were into Femmes...but these days, there's an EXPECTATION that these ones have a RIGHT to be in women's/lesbian/dyke space, WHILE wanting to maintain so called 'maleness'...just confused young girls....in my book, not proud to be women, or not having the strength to REALLY oppose both sexism and lesbophobia.
-MasterAmazon

My Response from Dirt's Blog: Real Lesbians do not stay partnered to TransMen/FTM's

That is really a concern of mine. I've worked so hard to convince especially nonleather lesbians to practice safe sex(most leather lesbians know about and practice safe sex with casual/nonfluid bonded partners). I've known too many to come down with Herpes or other STD's. To include gay men in the mix because FTM's want to date EVERYONE, from Gay/bi men to Lesbians, puts us in a much higher risk category.

But hey folks, it's SIMPLE. Dykes want to be with DYKES..with other FEMALES, that's why we ARE Dykes/Lesbians...and Lesbian has got to be almost a dirty word(replaced by those coopting the term Dyke, who are not, or using the term 'queer woman' for 'anything goes'.)

I remember one year when I went to my leatherwomen's group at the time, and there was one well known and loved figure in the community who was having a double mastectomy because of breast cancer, no choice in the matter and we had an event for a fundraiser for her since she had no insurance and AT THE SAME TIME, was another interloper who came to said WOMAN TO WOMAN meeting and proudly pulled up her shirt and bragged about how she had her breasts removed, and showed it off...I was so fucking disgusted, it was one reason I quit going back to this group...
fast forward several years later and this self same individual is now leading a FEMALE IDENTIFIED BUTCH group...no breasts, and no longer identifying as FTM, supposedly, but still the hormone induced voice.

Meanwhile the double breast cancer survivor is nowhere to be found, or minimally so, having struggled just to survive, and still Female as far as I know....

Comparing yourself(the MTFS) to a woman who no longer has a womb and enforced hysterectomy because of cancer or other female disease and can't get pregnant and is forced into premature menopause, or the FTM's comparing themselves to a breast cancer survivor when you CHOSE to have your breasts removed, is just so absolutely misogynist and disgusting to me that it shows just how insensitive the trans movement is to bio-female reality and Being.

Keep on keeping on! Dykes and Lesbians date FEMALES WHO ARE PROUD TO BE FEMALE, whether they be Butch, Androgynous, Femme or any other XX combination thereof...

Otherwise, just call yourself a 'queer woman' and quit coopting OUR IDENTITIES. I've said this before and I'll say this again. I've known too many Dyke Femmes who have told me they just can't find a Butch to date, or are having a very hard time, because so many are identifying as MALE, or some version thereof....and they really, really are mourning the loss...the other coopters are 'queer women' or bi/queer/pansexual femmes, NOT Dyke/Lesbian Femmes....

There is power to womon to womon love, and NOTHING will replace it, no matter how much whining you do, or attempts at cooptation. Those Dykes/Lesbians who know, KNOW the difference.

If you're dating a transman, unless you've been in relation to this individual already, you'll be mourning the loss of this individual's female parts/identity/Being/Dyke Self....if not sooner, then later....cuz well, We're Dykes, and we LUST for the authentic FEMALE whatever package it comes in, Butch, Femme, ect.
XX...no penis or induced testosterone for the purpose of changing 'sex' between us friends/lovers.
-In Sisterhood,
-MasterAmazon

My Amazon Role: From Amazons to Amazons, Dykes to Dykes

My role is to teach young(and other) Butch/androgynous women to have PRIDE in their female bodies, minds and spirits, tap into their Amazon potential, and their full sexual and spiritual freedom AS FEMALES, and share those very powerful Mysteries with them....
-In DykeAmazon Sisterhood,
-MasterAmazon

FTM misogny and hatemail against Dirt, and the rest of us Dykes

Sounds like the Tea Partying Redneck motherfuckers against healthcare, limiting the banks and other finance companies from ANY LIMITS, or basically anything Obama does...accusing him of being socialist, nonAmerican, Hitlerian(yes there was a comparison in your above blog, bring out the Nazis every chance to shut someone up), ect. ect.

So they ARE living up to their 'male' potentials, might as well get a gun, wear a swastika or a confederate flag, jackboots ect....cuz that's what these FTM's sound like...their hatred of the Female, from their own bodies outwards ripples forth their vitriol. Da poor little oppressed males..some of us DON'T want to give ANY males that kind of power in our lives...they've been in power for 2000 years, forced their agendas on us, murdered our strong women, our Butches, our Dykes, our Priestesses, our Amazons, and our outspoken women throughout the world...and now they are trying to eliminate ANY powerful nonfeminine women by sticking some "T" in her, or convincing her she's really 'one of them'.

No past, present or future males for me, thank you very much.....

Not that all FTM's are this way, but the types responding to you sound no different than the racist, homophobic, woman hating, anti-semitic Tea Partiers, Fundamentalist rightwing, ect. ect....all of the same ilk.

And then there's that episode where an FTM murdered a woman who was on Butch/Femme.com and that all got swept under the rug. I've SEEN that aggressiveness, and it's not pretty. I don't hang around teenage boys for a reason, or males for that matter, except when making money....because of that very Dyke, Woman, Butch, and Female hating mentality. And who could hate Females more, than one who has renounced all their Femaleness and attempted to erase it from their very Being?
-MasterAmazon

Reply to Dirt's post on the 7 different questions of what Butches feel at a young age

I rejected dolls at age 7, dresses by age 10, never wanted to marry a man or have children and knew this by age 12, and always fought with my parents that I wasn't a 'girl', meaning feminine,frilly, ect. but knew I wasn't a boy either when they'd say that, so I'd say I was 'an alien from outer space' when they asked what I was...(being the Trekker(Star Trek fanatic) that I am).


I did play with the boys cuz the girls games were stupid, boring and housewifey....but I DID connect with particular Greek Goddesses who left the men's world to live in the woods, amongst only other women in independence and freedom...

And yes, I did always imagine myself in the men's/boys roles cuz the girls roles were helpless nitwits who couldn't defend or take care of themselves without some man's/boy's help.

I never had a big deal about the bathroom thing, cuz I didn't want to share that with boys, they were the enemy and mean to me cuz I didn't 'fit in'. Always preferred pants and androgynous clothes to anything 'girly'. Yes, I didn't like developing breasts, refused for several years to wear bras(and mostly don't anymore anyway), but was teased mercilessly by feminine girls in P.E. for not wearing them, till finally I succumbed so I could be left alone, and also pressure from my mother and grandmother to wear them.

Fortunately, in puberty, I got into martial arts at age 14, which became my lifelong niche as a young Amazon, and I could 'kick ass', and no longer got picked on once I acquired some skills and much greater athletic ability as a result. The martial arts gave me a power, strength and self-confidence that many other teenagers, girls and women lacked. It gave me purpose and pride in my body and it's growing strength. This was at a time not many women were doing martial arts..some, but not many.

I LOVED that men had one weakness, despite their superior strength, which of course I envied...that one kick to their nuts could put them on their knees!
-MasterAmazon

Eliminating Lesbianism and Butchness in Females

This is very frightening and a threat to ALL Women, Dykes and Butches!!!

June 30, 2010
Homo / News / ??!! / Sex Doctor Treating Pregnant Women With Experimental Drug To Prevent Lesbianism
Posted by Dan Savage on Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 9:05 AM
Originally posted yesterday afternoon at 3:15 PM.

That's not fair, as Hanna Rosin at Slate will shortly point out. Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University—isn't just trying to prevent lesbianism by treating pregnant women with an experimental hormone. She's also trying to prevent the births of girls who display an "abnormal" disinterest in babies, don't want to play with girls' toys or become mothers, and whose "career preferences" are deemed too "masculine." Unbelievable:


The majority of researchers and clinicians interested in the use of prenatal “dex” focus on preventing development of ambiguous genitalia in girls with CAH. CAH results in an excess of androgens prenatally, and this can lead to a “masculinizing” of a female fetus’s genitals. One group of researchers, however, seems to be suggesting that prenatal dex also might prevent affected girls from turning out to be homosexual or bisexual.

Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University, and her long-time collaborator, psychologist Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg, of Columbia University, have been tracing evidence for the influence of prenatal androgens in sexual orientation.... They specifically point to reasons to believe that it is prenatal androgens that have an impact on the development of sexual orientation. The authors write, "Most women were heterosexual, but the rates of bisexual and homosexual orientation were increased above controls . . . and correlated with the degree of prenatal androgenization.” They go on to suggest that the work might offer some insight into the influence of prenatal hormones on the development of sexual orientation in general. “That this may apply also to sexual orientation in at least a subgroup of women is suggested by the fact that earlier research has repeatedly shown that about one-third of homosexual women have (modestly) increased levels of androgens.” They “conclude that the findings support a sexual-differentiation perspective involving prenatal androgens on the development of sexual orientation.”

And it isn’t just that many women with CAH have a lower interest, compared to other women, in having sex with men. In another paper entitled “What Causes Low Rates of Child-Bearing in Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia?” Meyer-Bahlburg writes that “CAH women as a group have a lower interest than controls in getting married and performing the traditional child-care/housewife role. As children, they show an unusually low interest in engaging in maternal play with baby dolls, and their interest in caring for infants, the frequency of daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood, or the expressed wish of experiencing pregnancy and having children of their own appear to be relatively low in all age groups.”

In the same article, Meyer-Bahlburg suggests that treatments with prenatal dexamethasone might cause these girls’ behavior to be closer to the expectation of heterosexual norms: “Long term follow-up studies of the behavioral outcome will show whether dexamethasone treatment also prevents the effects of prenatal androgens on brain and behavior.”

In a paper published just this year in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, New and her colleague, pediatric endocrinologist Saroj Nimkarn of Weill Cornell Medical College, go further, constructing low interest in babies and men—and even interest in what they consider to be men’s occupations and games—as “abnormal,” and potentially preventable with prenatal dex:

“Gender-related behaviors, namely childhood play, peer association, career and leisure time preferences in adolescence and adulthood, maternalism, aggression, and sexual orientation become masculinized in 46,XX girls and women with 21OHD deficiency [CAH]. These abnormalities have been attributed to the effects of excessive prenatal androgen levels on the sexual differentiation of the brain and later on behavior.” Nimkarn and New continue: “We anticipate that prenatal dexamethasone therapy will reduce the well-documented behavioral masculinization...”

It seems more than a little ironic to have New, one of the first women pediatric endocrinologists and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, constructing women who go into “men’s” fields as “abnormal.” And yet it appears that New is suggesting that the “prevention” of “behavioral masculinization” is a benefit of treatment to parents with whom she speaks about prenatal dex. In a 2001 presentation to the CARES Foundation (a videotape of which we have), New seemed to suggest to parents that one of the goals of treatment of girls with CAH is to turn them into wives and mothers. Showing a slide of the ambiguous genitals of a girl with CAH, New told the assembled parents:

“The challenge here is... to see what could be done to restore this baby to the normal female appearance which would be compatible with her parents presenting her as a girl, with her eventually becoming somebody’s wife, and having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother. And she has all the machinery for motherhood, and therefore nothing should stop that, if we can repair her surgically and help her psychologically to continue to grow and develop as a girl.”

In the Q&A period, during a discussion of prenatal dex treatments, an audience member asked New, “Isn’t there a benefit to the female babies in terms of reducing the androgen effects on the brain?” New answered, “You know, when the babies who have been treated with dex prenatally get to an age in which they are sexually active, I’ll be able to answer that question.” At that point, she’ll know if they are interested in taking men and making babies.

In a previous Bioethics Forum post, Alice Dreger noted an instance of a prospective father using knowledge of the fraternal birth order effect to try to avoid having a gay son by a surrogate pregnancy. There may be other individualized instances of parents trying to ensure heterosexual children before birth. But the use of prenatal dexamethasone treatments for CAH represents, to our knowledge, the first systematic medical effort attached to a “paradigm” of attempting in utero to reduce rates of homosexuality, bisexuality, and “low maternal interest.”

So no more Elena Kagans, no more Donna Shalalas, no more Martina Navratilovas, no more k.d. langs, no more Constance McMillens—because all women must grow up to suck dick, crank out babies, and do women's work. And the existence of adult women who are not interested in "becoming someone's wife" and "making babies" constitutes a medical emergency that requires us to treat women who are currently pregnant with a dangerous experimental hormone. Otherwise their daughters might grow up to, um, be nominated to sit on the Supreme Court, serve as cabinet secretaries, take 18 Grand Slam singles titles, win Grammies, and take their girlfriends to prom.

And we can't have that.

Two things: Gay people have been stressing out about the day arriving when scientists developed treatments to prevent homosexuality. The preventing gay sheep freak out is here, Twilight of the Golds is here, and I recall—but can't quickly find a link for—a "fellow" at the Family Research Council or the American Family Association who backed in-utero hormone treatments to prevent homosexuality. Well, here we are—the day appears to have arrived. Now what are we going to do about it?

And will the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee invite Maria New to testify at Elana Kagan's confirmation hearings? New could argue that Kagan—childless, unmarried Kagan—is unfit to serve on our highest court because her "low maternal interest" pegs her as abnormal, well outside the "maternal mainstream." Maybe GOP senators would be mollified if Kagan knocked back a few bottles of dex during her confirmation hearings?

UPDATE: A little more about dex from Alice Dreger:


The specific drug we're talking about, dexamethasone, is not a benign drug for pregnant women, nor for the children exposed in utero. The studies we do have on the early prenatal use of "dex" are worrisome. The number of women and children missing from the follow-up studies of this drug use is more worrisome still.

This drug is unequivocally experimental and risky. That's why, back in February, I organized interested members of the Bioethics community to fight to make sure every woman offered dex for CAH knows the truth about its experimental and risky nature. (You can read about our efforts in Time magazine. And you can about the medical establishment's resultant mad scampering to make sure everyone knows this is experimental here.) Make no mistake: In spite of Dr. Maria New's outrageous FDA-regulation-flaunting claims that this off-label drug use "has been found safe for mother and child," it ain't been. New is a rogue pediatrician whom medical societies have been nudging (and sometimes yelling at) for years. Because she apparently wouldn't stop experimenting on these women and children without ethics oversight, in January I got called in to help by a few freaked-out clinicians. And I called in my colleagues to call out the feds. New just looks and sounds safe for mothers and children. Which is why she's really dangerous.

Gender fluidity???

I need to post about this nightmare era of the scariest of 21st Century science fiction, where they're giving women shots who are pregnant to eliminate the possibility of an 'androgynized' baby who might end up becoming a Lesbian, Butch or FTM...but another elimination of Butch Dyke tactic.....so the girls would want to have babies, worship men and marry them..instead of refuse, grow up as hardcore tomboys and become Butches...just read the article this week...anything to get rid of us Butches.

I believe in REAL gender fluidity. The kind that doesn't require shots, hormones or surgeries....but I especially believe in women, including Butches LIVING AS THE WOMEN WE ARE, and expressing ourselves in MANY different ways, AS WOMEN, that is often heavily repressed in patriarchal cultures. Us Butches show other women that you CAN live outside the box, like the ancient Amazons did. Like the Joan of Arcs, and those who had to pass as male to marry another woman, or to be a writer, a soldier, an artist, a full human being, when women's roles were so heavily constrained.

You're right, it's not 'genderfluid' to then go and conform to the opposite sex's 'rules' from haircuts FTMs are supposed to get that are conservative masculine, to conservative masculine dress, not tank tops and jeans, cuz they could be mistaken as Butch Dykes, ect.......or that there are organizations like Tri Ess for MTF's to appear, talk and act like properly submissive, obedient, sexually revealing soft spoken females in highly feminized clothing, while they could be 6 ft 2" and have linebacker shoulders and very masculine faces they have to cover in tons of makeup, giving themselves away, with their platinum blonde hair..that is NOT 'genderfluid' either. It's conformity.

Both conform. Because if they don't they are so terribly afraid they could be 'outed' as the falsities they are. Genderfluid is can appear as either sex, but in a celebratory way..one day you're in a suit and tie, the next in skirt and heels, with a beard or drag....or so inbetweener you're hard to read as either male or female, a combination of a bit of both(and there are fine boned individuals like that who are indeed hard to read), but they're being just themselves, and playing with their gender presentations, not hiding who they are, like the whole transitioning industries expect....properly stereotypically masculine or properly stereotypically feminine behavior....which is learned, false, and faked. They're all patriarchal social constructs anyway....I say do away with the social constructs, and get REAL about exactly WHO you are...and the real truth is the biological one...the rest is all show and a smokescreen to fool us! But us Dykes know, we're not as easily fooled, and that's why we're hated!
You can't pull the wool over our eyes so easily!
-MasterAmazon

Radical Self Acceptance Part Two-a response to Dirt's Blog on 'top surgery'

I'm fat and I'm asthmatic too, as well as a Butch Dyke...and radical self acceptance has helped me to make healthier choices...whether in food, working out more frequently on a regular basis, self and body love, because self-hatred and shame helps NOBODY and leads down to the path of addiction, distortion and nothing good can come out of it...like I said the ONLY ones who benefit are the doctors counting all the cash they get off members of our communities and BENEFITTING from their self hatred and lack of self acceptance. This has NOTHING to do with your friends, it has to do with oneself....

Even with asthma, I laid down the weed close to 20 years ago, and am now 19 years clean and sober off it or any other addictive substance(with the exception of chocolate).
There are always ways to improve our relationships to our bodies. Working out has helped my endurance, as well as not being around tobbaco smoke or scents and perfumes and toxic chemicals as much as possible. In the long run it's better not to be around that stuff anyway.

Radical self-acceptance also means fully owning not just our bodies but our minds and spirits. In so many ways it's like the distorted mirror opposite of women who have their breasts inflated with silicone implants, some of which have burst and had numerous health side effects. So many bio-females and even MTF types are sold a bill of goods that you can't be happy unless you have something done to your body, whether to keep away aging effects(look at all the Hollywood distorted faces after their face lifts), increase or decrease their breast sizes, augmentation or deflation of this body part or another, and the plastic surgeons continue to live in their exclusive neighborhoods with their yachts and boats and privileges while women and those who hate their bodies are left in their same ordinary circumstances living with those side effects or aftereffects, especially if the job is botched. And that includes all the shaming around body size as well.

Love yourself and your body within, as best as you can,ACCEPT it on the deepest level you can, and ally with those who do, and you'll have no need for that kind of 'fitting in', social control or shelling out bucks for a chemical or surgical solution.

Women for millenia under patriarchy, whether fat or thin, or inbetween, butch or femme or andro, too masculine, too this too that, or those bio males who are too effeminate to live/survive as males, are sold the same bill of goods that SOMETHING must be done for your 'abnormality', even if the body parts are perfectly healthy. Just leave us the fuck alone, and just let us Butches, Dykes and women be our OWN wild Selves.
-MasterAmazon

On the subject of the Matriarchy, or what matriarchy is...and it's values

This is in response to another site I'm on, one of my posts, in a Dianic forum. Unfortunately that whole forum is coming down due to the server becoming a pay only
server. I did not want to lose this tidbit....

Damn, in all my study of close to 30 years as a DykeAmazon Witch, I have NEVER seen ANYTHING about Satanism and matriarchy. Satan is a distinctly patriarchal Christian invention. True matriarchal societies existed before Christianity, women did rule, especially spiritually, as High Priestesses, representative of the Goddess. And one only has to look indeed to see what has been done in the name of the patriarchal monotheistic one God(or Trinity in relation to Father, Son, Holy(male) spirit), religions. They ripped off the Maiden, Mother, Crone original trinity, they murdered Priestesses, Goddess temples, and peace loving matriarchal cultures and people, they conquered and killed by the sword, standing armies and war, and they enslaved women in monogamous marriages, or where the woman had to be solely beholden to the man, and thus reproduce only his offspring(like you rightly mentioned, once they figured their part in paternity, is when we really lost our matriarchal powers and cultures.) The patriarchal cultures and religions have led to the ruin of the planet with ideas like Armageddon, murder, rape, violence, constant war and cruelty. This was way before the belief in Satan. The biggest part was all the rape stories told in relation tothe Goddess, various Goddesses, nymphs, maidens being abducted by male dieties(as in the Greek myths about Zeus and other Father/Brother type Gods) reflecting the actual abduction of womyn, murder of Priestesses to the Goddess, reusing the temples to mouth the voices of the Patriarchs, like the oracular Sybil who originally spoke for the Great Mother, being redefined as speaking for the Sun Brother God Apollo. It's the redefinition by the patriarchal conquerers that defines the lie...the original Goddesses had great size and were truly awesome figures to be respected, primal and powerful...but as time went on, Her power continued to diminish to the patriarchal forces, lies, and Father/Brother types. Who can only gain their power through death dealing, constant war, rape and murder.

Artemis had to ask special permission from her patriarch father Zeus, to be free of connection to men, to run in the woods wild and free with Her maidens, and protecting animals in childbirth and women as a whole.

Athena, very likely a much older Goddess connected to the most powerful of Amazons, the Gorgons and Medusa, was rebirthed from the head of the patriarch, rather than born from her Great Mother.
This is a retold patriarchal myth...much like Eve being birthed from Adam's rib, rather than from the Great Mother.

So many lies have been told, but what really got me to worship the Goddess, amongst other things, and fight for the Goddess religion, spirituality, ect was when I read about the matriarchal culture Catal Hyuk..which worshipped the Goddess and had Priestesses in power and a more egalitarian culture...they had 1000 years of peace, not the current ills of what patriarchal societies continue to do to women, children, animals, and Mother Earth. And now they want to discredit our matriarchal herstory because they see we have too much power. And to crush our women's wisdom and spiritual power once again! Do not trust their lies.

As far as Matriarchal societies, the most matriarchal culture I've EVER been in, is Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, a two month town created particularly for the one week festival, but women who want to live in a fully matriarchal environment(except what we bring with us in our hearts)can serve there for up to two months. Not only do womyn create the whole town of 5000 womyn, they erect every year a 30 foot Goddess statue and do extensive rituals there too..recreating on that Land the matriarchy in every way possible in modern day society. It truly IS an Amazon village, and yes, I do believe fully the Amazons existed and evidence has been uncovered sustaining some of this, I'm sure evidence has also been uncovered and destroyed by those who don't want womyn to KNOW we honored the Sacred Female and had that kind of power we even lack to this day.

A Matriarchal society is far more than a woman president. How is she any different if all her advisers are mostly males, all the values are Christian and male, and with the largest and most powerful death dealing military on earth? A matriarchal society would have different values, not believe in Armageddon and that the destruction of the world is holy and should be hastened any way possible. The land would be honored, since it's the body of the Mother, women would be honored because they have the possibility to create life, whether they choose it or not, and the crime of rape was hardly imaginable, since all womyn were potential mothers, it was a heinous crime against the Mother, punishable by death, and that the man who did so was cursed for life, followed by female dieties like the Furies who haunted him till the end of his days....Imagine how TRULY POWERFUL we would be with a world not ruled by war or the crime of rape????That those crimes against women, humanity, children, Mother Earth, Her animals, ect was not even concievable, or barely so?

THAT indeed would be a Matriarchy, a whole civilization of differing values. And matriarchal values are reflected in women I've known and observed that rescue homeless cats and feed them, that work for the peace movement, so devoid of males, that are truly ecologically and environmentally conscious, and that those men who also are, are taking on some of those female values of cooperation and connection rather than divide and conquer and competition. It's not enough there be a woman president or leaders or even Speaker of the House, and I truly respect Nancy Pelosi, and voted for Hillary Clinton...but it's the VALUES of what women bring to the table that makes it matriarchal. Diplomacy rather than militarism, peaceful solutions, than kicking ass(except in self-defense, strictly, yes women need to be Amazons to some degree..and learn to defend themselves), cooperation rather than constant competition. These are matriarchal values. Neither Indira Ghandi or Margaret Thatcher were matriarchs, they indeed fulfilled the patriarchal agenda. The female values NEED to be reflected, and Nancy Pelosi, our San Francisco Speaker of the House of Representatives, perhaps one of the most powerful women in the government reflects those female values, by fighting for health care for ALL of us, taking care of our own, as women do, rather than the patriarchal attitude of 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and if you fail, you're left out in the cold to fend for yourself!'

Matriarchy will ONLY be restored if we embody it in everything we do, honor every woman and empower every woman we can, or come across, we value her words over the man who tries to dominate and talk over her or talk down to her...we raise women's words up, and look her in the eye, and HONOR her. We give rides to friends and acquaintances late at night so none need be victimized standing alone in the dark waiting for public transportation. We cooperate with each other and work towards a solution, rather than stepping on one another to climb up the rungs of the ladder. We don't buy 'divide and conquer', but win/win for all. We are NOT doormats, and develope some Amazon capabilities so we are NOT easily victimized, thusly we are aware of our environments and don't feign helplessness so a man or other will caretake us. We are gentle with those with less abilities, especially other womyn, we give children safe refuge from violent caregivers or schoolyard bullies. We care for the Mother Earth, our Supreme and Ultimate Goddess who caretakes us all, by treading as gently as we can on Her, by recyling, reusing, planning our trips in our vehicles like a truck route, instead of going hither and thither polluting the air and consuming way more gas. We honor each other, and work towards the empowerment for EVERY WOMAN ALIVE to throw off her chains, veils, sexual and body shame. We work on honoring true images that reflect us, not giving into body obssession or 'thin' magazines, or constant shaming diet talk that takes us away from the REAL ISSUES that women as a whole face. That we don't Dyke bait us Dykes and Dyke Butches, that there are different forms of bio-womonhood, and we are all different and come in different shapes, sizes, and sexual orientations.
That we employ each other as much as possible, support each other in sustaining and life enhancing ways, spiritually, physically, economically, ect. That we honor Goddess, and by doing so, we literally change the world and the dominant patriarchal male paradigm..into a sustaining life enhancing culture that supports womyn and Mother Earth, rather than poisoning and killing Her and us.....we dont' have much time left, as She may be radically changed in a manner that may no longer support human life. It certainly doesn't support animal life, and many species are dying off at an alarming rate....

GODDESS AWAKEN, GODDESS ARISE NOW!!!!!
-IN PASSIONATE SISTERHOOD,
-MasterAmazon

response to trans agenda from Dirt's Women's College thread

Poppycock...I've heard it all before. The militant trans movement has done just about everything it can to destroy women only space, and gotten young dykes/butches, ect to identify as 'queer' and want 'queer' space, rather than identify with the dreaded 'woman'. I don't want to share my bathrooms with M E N, I've done enough of that on the job and I see just how nasty they leave their outhouses, and the misogynist woman hating and homophobic writings on the wall, NO THANKS. Have your gender neutral bathroom if you must, but don't deny I might want one that is women only, and not come behind nasty M E N with it's pissed filled smell. They can't even let the toilet seat down!

I don't believe in the whole 'body disphoria' thing, that too is learned. Believe me, I had it as a kid, it's called SEXISM. I in no way wanted to be a 'girl', because being a 'girl' meant wearing dresses, being powerless, not being the hero, having to play dolls and house and domestic chores, and the work world was limited, as well as the roles females could inhabit, otherwise they/we/I were thought of as 'unwomanly', 'unseemly', 'unfeminine' and 'don't you want to be a little lady?' NO. I crossed out the term girl and she and put he and boy in my textbooks. I hated that we were being trained to obsess on our bodies, on babies, on appearing feminine, when nothing was further than the truth for me. For me, Feminism, with it's promise of complete female EMPOWERMENT, fueled my mind, and gave me pride and hope that I could do anything a boy could do. Unfortunately, due to persistent systemic and overt sexism and homophobia(anytime we should leave the feminine box) this promise hasn't been kept. Women, Butches, Females are still only 2% of the skilled trades, and many, many women have tried, and been kept out by the male systems intact. There's still the worship of male religions and dieties that keep women throughout the world down, and even actively anti-feminist, unwilling to liberate themselves and their sisters AS WOMEN from the chains imposed by men and 2000 plus years of patriarchy.

You can talk once the patriarchy is destroyed, the boot is off my neck. Nobody is 'gender neutral', that is a phallacy, a true phallic lie. Yes indeed. Genderfluid maybe, but never genderneutral. The answer is not in cutting off and sticking on body parts, the answer is in expanding what a women or man can do, dress in, inhabit themselves in a world that denies even tiny differences from the male-macho, female-feminine norm, imposed by politicians, religion, society, cultural and educational institutions, as well as the family itself. Much of it based on the fear of truly feral POWERFUL Females untamed by men, or their female mouthpieces, and on the fear of homophobia/lesbophobia.

Then much of this so-called disphoria would disappear. Maybe a tiny few would decide to take it further, but I simply don't believe that the young boyish/masculine/butch women that are transitioning, strapping down their breasts, taking 'T' in droves would feel they have to if they could FULLY be themselves, and felt FULLY empowered as just the kind of women they are. We come in many different flavors. Feminine does not automatically mean female. The same would be true of the drag queens and effeminate men that get shit on physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, made fun of or beat up for defying the male is macho role, so therefore they must 'be a woman'.

And anonymous, if you are trans(especially MTF), then ask us bio Females whether we want you in our presence, and RESPECT that. Or, come in as a guest to our Tribe, and honor our lead, our struggles, our battles. You never need worry about issues like abortion, birth control, birthing a child, being impregnated by rape, bleeding the sacred moonblood(a sacred bio-female mystery), or female diseases like breast, uterine, cervical, ovarian cancers. These are unique to us. As well as many other things. There IS a huge difference. Come in with respect, without stridency or 'demands' as this is a very male way of doing things, never taking 'no' for an answer, disrespecting our boundaries, AS women, or maybe we want to be amongst our own in some spaces, RESPECT THAT, in the way I would respect women of color wanting their OWN spaces.

But see, this doesn't happen. Both MTF's and FTM's force their way into our Female domains, and then DENY our need for them, and to focus on OUR issues, so much to the point that the Lesbian community IN AND OF ITSELF is almost invisible in my area, for the sake of those who call themselves 'queer' and push the trans issues. And yet hetero and gay men still get to have THEIR spaces....
-M.A.

Lesbian/Dyke Pride goes way beyond just who I have sex with....an entire worldview!

From Michfest List: "How Do You Identify?" Thread

I am a Lesbian/Dyke, and it IS who I am, spiritually, emotionally, sexually, how I view the world, I view it in a Lesbian way..it's my culture, my spirituality, and my complete love for the Female(both Butches and Femmes) from the sexual to the spiritual and on every level inbetween...emotional, intellectual, psychological, psychic. I just don't 'get' why Lesbians don't own their Lesbianism to this depth anymore, whether you're Leather, nonLeather, inbetween, Butch on Butch, Butch/Femme, Femme/Femme or none of the above, just Dyke to Dyke...I can see the difference between us and straight women plain as day, and the chasm between us and males and their privileges..doesn't mean I dont' ever talk to them..but that there is always a gap there for me, things a dude will never understand, whether he's gay or straight. Straight dudes might understand the part of me that lusts and loves women, gay dudes will understand our commonality in our homosexuality, but there still is that gap there which they just won't get.

Sure, there are other roles/personas/titles, parts of myself I enact or that come out but ONLY or preferably with other Lesbians/Dykes, and rarely with nonlesbian women.(and yes, ALWAYS AND ONLY with women). So, I've never ever understood how other Lesbians see it only as who they fuck/love, but not as an essential part of themselves and their worldview! Hetero guys see their hetero maleness AS the entire world view, 'that's the way it is', and gay dudes obssess on their passion for men, and still see the world and play in it's power AS MEN...even though parts of them get discriminated against for their homosexuality.
And straight women, well, they kowtow to said men, and allow the system to go on....they'd rather sit around and talk about dieting, than about revolution! Even some lesbians! So fucking powerless! Nothing important...the typical female body obssession..keep 'em busy about dieting and constantly 'losing a few', and they'll never tackle the more difficult issues or come together in SOLIDARITY as Dykes, or as women....was at dinner tonight with so much diet talk I was ready to just pick up and leave, and much of it was being fueled by just those types of Lesbians who see their lesbianism as 'no big deal'.

-M.A.

Immediate response need to save life of Iranian Lesbian who may be deported back to Iran from England

Dear Sisters,
We have to protect our own worldwide..here's a chance to do something, sign the petition, write the British home office, or cut and paste this and get it around to all your Lesbian and Feminist websites and blogs....please, please help her, don't let her be a statistic of the violently homophobic and woman hating Iranian government!

Here is the initial site I was taken to on her behalf:
http://coilhouse.net/2010/05/save-the-life-of-Kiana-Firouz/#more-14946

Here is the petition for her, sign immediately so she won't be deported:
www.petitiononline.com/Kianaf/petition.html

Here is the documentary she's in about Iranian Lesbians called "Cul De Sac": http://culdesacmovie.com/index.html

Here is about her personal story and how to help also:
http://www.everyonegroup.com/everyone/mainpage/entries/2010/5/6_campaign_to_save_the_life_of_Kiana_Firouz_at_risk_of_deportation_from_the_U.K..html

Hope that link works..let me know if they don't. PLEASE ACT NOW!!! We don't want a sister to be tortured and have to go to the gallows because she's spoken out about her oppression, is a visible figure because of the movie, and because most of all, she's a Lesbian in a totally woman hating Lesbian hating culture!


Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. When clips of her video documentary work featuring the struggle and persecution of gays and lesbians in her country were acquired by Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow Firouz around Tehran, harassing and intimidating her. She fled for England where she could safely continue her work and studies.

She plays a starring role in Cul de Sac, a documentary film produced in the UK about the condition of lesbians in Iran, and based heavily on Firouz’s own life story. Directed by Ramin Goudarzi-Nejad and Mahshad Torkan, the movie will premiere in London in a few days. Since the trailer was posted on YouTube in December 2009, Cul de Sac has attracted global media attention, with thousands of views. Apparently, some of those views included members of Ahmadinejad’s puppet media in Iran. They know who Firouz is and what she stands for. They may want her to come back to the country she was born in to answer for it.


Still from Cul de Sac.

Firouz, understandably, has requested asylum from the British government. Much to everyone’s shock and dismay, the British Home Office has rejected her application for refugee status. Yes, they know she’s gay. Yes, they know she could be deported back to Iran at any time, and that if this happens, Firouz will most likely be sentenced to torture and death after being found guilty of the “unspeakable sin of homosexuality” because she has participated in explicit lesbian sex scenes in the movie, and been a fierce proponent for human rights in her country.

In Iran, the punishment for lesbianism involving mature consenting women consists of 100 lashes. This punishment can be applied up to three times. After a fourth violation of Iranian law, a woman convicted of “unrepentant homosexuality” is finally executed by hanging, often publicly, in front of a howling mob.

From EveryOne Group:

Kiana filed for a court appeal following the Home Office’s decision to reject her application for asylum, but the judge overruled her appeal. According to Kiana’s lawyer, the last remaining chance is to appeal the judge’s decision, but the risk of deportation is imminent.

The EveryOne Group, an international human rights organization, which was involved in the asylum cases of the lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh, who risked being deported from London to Tehran in 2007, and of the Iranian gay, Mehdi Kazemi, appeals to the British government and the democratic forces of the European Union, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, that Kiana Firouz be immediately guaranteed adequate humanitarian protection and that the order for her deportation be repealed, given that on return to Iran she will face a death sentence not only because a lesbian but because of her civil rights activism.

The EveryOne activists invite concerned readers to send protest e-mail messages to the British Home Office (public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk) requesting that Kiana receive refugee status as soon as possible, for she is a symbol of the international fight against homophobia and repression of gays and lesbians in Islamic countries.



I’ve spent a fair amount of my day researching, fact-checking and [edit for clarification: attempting to] verify this story, and I can’t figure it out: why is this news not EVERYWHERE right now? Why is this petition for Firouz so anemic? There should be hundreds of thousands of names on that list.


And yet, I am only just catching wind of Firouz’s story from a chance visit to Kim Boekbinder’s blog, where Kim posted a heartbreaking letter written by an Italian friend of hers, Sylvia K. An excerpt:

No major newspaper even remotely talks about Kiana’s story, nor do gay activists. People don’t seem to care much at all. I do. Last night I wrote to Kiana. Nothing much, only to say that I was so saddened and angry, that her story had moved and inspired me and that I was SO thankful to her for standing up for what she truly believed in… This morning before going out I found her reply. It goes like this :

“Dear Sylvia
I am proud of you. we should proud of each other for being strong. I am so thankful for your supportive and kindly letter. It does not matter what is going to happen to me. Its all about freedom.
Take care and do not forget you are not alone, we are many…
Kiana”

I wrote it on a piece of paper and hurried out of the house.

I spent the greater part of this rainy day sitting in one of the University’s courtyards, crying alone [...] I look at myself, always complaining about homophobia in Italy, about the fact we have no equal rights, and I feel like a fucking piece of shit. Because for me, it is SO easy to go to London, to Paris, to Berlin and be the butchest fiercest lesbian around, without having to be afraid of being lashed 100, 200, 300 times and then hung, a thick rope around my neck, people rejoicing all around.

It does matter what happens to Kiana Firouz. This should not be a reality for her, or anyone else.

Here is the official Cul de Sac website.

Here is the petition endorsed by Kiana Firouz herself.

And this is her story.

Let’s make some noise, comrades.

______________________________________

UPDATE #1, WED, 12:25pm:

Not sure if messages addressed to that email for the BHO (public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk) are going through.

I’m hoping to hear back from Kiana herself via email so Coilhouse can do a bit more follow-up and fact-checking.

Meantime, commenter Ethan suggests “writing a letter to either of these two as well. Taking the time to write a personal letter is much more effective than just signing a petition, please do both.”

Minister of State (Borders and Immigration) -
Home Office, 2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
Fax: +44 870 336 9034

Secretary of State for the Home Department -
Home Office, 2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
Fax: +44 20 7035 0900

_______________________________________________

UPDATE #2, WED, 2:56 pm

Still waiting for a personal response from Kiana.

Called the line listed on the Cul de Sac website for press inquiries, and a man who did not give his name answered. I told him that I’m further fact-checking a story about Kiana and the film, and requested more information about her situation. The man declined to answer any question directly related to Firouz’s potential deportation, and asked me to use the email address listed on the site instead to officially state my reasons for contacting Kiana. He told me that this message would be passed on to her.

I hope to hear more from her soon. Knowing more concrete facts about this case, and hearing directly from Kiana, will either a) help to give this fight more tooth and claw or b) expose it as a fabrication. If the former, all the better. If the latter, I’ll be swift to apologize on behalf of Coilhouse for propagating something unsubstantiated. Thank you, everyone.

Posted by Meredith Yayanos on May 11th, 2010
Filed under Activism, Culture, Events, Film, Gender, Grrrl, Politics, Queer, Religion, Revolutionary, Serious Business, Sexuality, We disapprove, Why

21 Responses to “Save the Life of Kiana Firouz”
Natasha Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 12:23 am


Making noise NOW.

Nadya Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 2:29 am


Guys, I highly encourage everyone not only to sign the petition, but especially to email public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk. Signing the petition is good, but writing a letter is even better. Also, please spread the word about this!

I wonder if this is her Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiana-firouz/

This should be everywhere: Bust, Curve, AfterEllen, Feministing, Bitch, Jezebel. And then it should spill over into mainstream media. Maybe they just haven’t heard of this story yet. Let’s get it out there!

Ethan Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 2:37 am


Hello everyone,

Please consider writing a letter to either of these two as well, Taking the time to write a personal letter is much more effective than just signing a petition, please do both.

Minister of State (Borders and Immigration) -
Home Office, 2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
Fax: +44 870 336 9034

Secretary of State for the Home Department -
Home Office, 2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
Fax: +44 20 7035 0900

Syd Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 3:04 am


I had no idea. I’m going to try hard to raise awareness of this issue.

Elana Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 5:17 am


I’m confused – was any explanation given for the rejection of her application for asylum?

Jamie Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 6:47 am


Sent an email. Thanks for bringing this to light.

Save Kiana Firouz! - Nerdcore Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 6:50 am


[...] Save Kiana Firouz! Maggy schreibt mir: Hey, ich weiß dass an dem Thema nichts nerdiges ist, aber da du mit deinem Blog eine sehr große Reichweite hast, dachte ich, du kannst vielleicht eine Ausnahme für eine echt wichtige Sache machen. Es geht um Kiana Firouz, 27, lesbisch, eine iranische LGBT Rights Aktivistin, Schauspielerin, Filmemacherin, die kurz davor steht, aus England zurück in den Iran abgeschoben zu werden, wo sie mit ziemlicher Sicherheit gefoltert oder hingerichtet werden wird. Und das alles weil sie einen Film gemacht hat, der genau die Situation von Homosexuellen im Iran schildert.. Die Regierung hat davon Wind bekommen, weshalb sie nach England geflohen ist, wo man ihr jetzt aber kein Asyl gewähren will. Das mal als kurze Zusammenfassung… Hier steht das alles nochmal besser: http://coilhouse.net/2010/05/save-the-life-of-kiana-firouz/#more-14946 [...]

Archer Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 7:18 am


I attempted to send an email to public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk but it didn’t go through.

Andy Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 8:03 am


Just signed that petition as well. Sadly, the only way this could get resolved in an acceptable way would be if mainstream media got ahold of it and decided it was a worthy cause. A simple petition doesn’t stand a great chance of influencing anything.
I’ve seen that happen so many times here in Sweden where the Immigration ministry has been forced to reconsider it’s stances on a number of humanitarian cases where “common sense” should have settled it all. It’s when national media starts getting indignated that things start happening since no-one wants bad press.

Laura Gardner Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 9:14 am


I emailed the home office and will now go and find the petition. Her story should not have a sad ending.

.typhoid Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 9:41 am


While I have not found mention of Kiana by name in the newspaper, the Guardian did run this story recently:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/09/supreme-court-gay-lesbian-asylum-seekers

Kate Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 10:15 am


I also tried to email the Home Office at the address listed above, and it didn’t go through. Does anyone have a different email address? I looked through the British Home Office’s website but didn’t find any useful information or a general contact email address.

Syd Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 11:49 am


I quickly put together this page incase anyone is interested in making some noise over on crowdrise

http://www.crowdrise.com/campaigntosavethelif/fundraiser/sydlow#top

please show support there and encourage others to do so!

Rettet Kiana Firouz!!! « mädchenblog Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 12:05 pm


[...] Rettet Kiana Firouz!!! schokolade am 12. Mai 2010 in allgemein Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. Wh… [...]

Mer Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 12:19 pm


Update:

Doing some more research on this story. I’m hoping to hear back from Kiana herself via her Flickr site. Also, have emailed Kim to email Sylvia to find out what contact info she used to write Kiana.

I just called the line listed on the Cul de Sac website for press inquiries, and a man who did not give his name answered. I told him that I am further fact-checking a story about Kiana Firouz and the film, and requested more information about Kiana’s situation. The man declined to answer any question directly related to Firouz’s potential deportation, and asked me to use the email address listed on the site instead to officially state my reasons for contacting Kiana. He told me that this message would be passed on to her. I can definitely understand his wariness. I hope I hear from her. Knowing more concrete facts about her case, and hearing directly from her, will help to give this fight more tooth and claw.

Some more articles and mentions of Kiana on the web:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/middle-east/100407/iran-lesbian-gay-rights-ahmadinejad

http://madikazemi.blogspot.com/2010/04/protest-at-british-embassy-in.html

http://eurout.org/2010/04/25/uk-gay-asylum-seekers-will-be-send-back-despite-facing-death-penalty-their-home-country?page=0,1

http://www.irqr.net/English/240.htm

http://eurout.org/2010/04/25/uk-gay-asylum-seekers-will-be-send-back-despite-facing-death-penalty-their-home-country?page=0,1

Jeff Floss Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 12:26 pm


I feel we should all try to email the mainstream media papers, magazines, and TV stations to try to get them aware of Kiana’s story

Alan Tyson Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 2:22 pm


I just sent off an e-mail to both the Home Office and a local GLBT activist group in Iowa who I’m sort of involved with. Hopefully they’ll spread the word. I suggest, if anyone is affiliated with/on the mail list of any such groups, they get the word out about this.

Maria Ferrreira Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 3:14 pm


At 26 April the email Public.Enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk works
I received a answer at 5-05-2010 from Treat Official Correspondence [CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk]
Dear Ms Ferreira
Thank you for your e-mail on behalf of Kiana Firouz concerning their immigration matters.
Your support has been noted.
Yours Sincerely,
Public Correspondence Team
UKBA

I Lacey Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 4:07 pm


As well as emailing the Home Office, I have also emailed the editor of The Independent newspaper, which ran an extensive, eventually successful, campaign to stop the deportation of gay Iranian teenager Mehdi Kamezi, to bring her case to their attention.

Richard B Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 6:19 pm


You might want to create a petition at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ rather than petitionsonline – petitionsonline is less than worthless,

Matt Bell Says:

May 12th, 2010 at 6:54 pm


Posted it on Digg and several social media sites. Hope it helps to get the ball to roll that little-bit faster..

http://digg.com/world_news/Save_The_Life_Of_Kiana_Firouz