Drumming Amazon

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Big Dyke from SF Dyke March

Big Dyke from SF Dyke March
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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Bess Hungerford: The Mantra that 'trans women ARE women' erases bio female experience and womonhood

I really love the way Bess expresses this. Very direct and to the point. Brilliant thinker. -M.A.
Bess Hungerford The mantra “trans women ARE women” falsely posits “trans” as an adjective that describes an *additional* characteristic of “women” who simultaneously possess all of the other shared qualities necessary for membership in the larger group. An adjective is used to provide more information about an existing noun, not less.

“Trans,” however, is not an adjective but a *modifier* that actually serves to eliminate an axiomatic characteristic of the host word “woman:” her girlhood. The effect of adding “trans” to “woman” is to intentionally erase or nullify the shared experiential reality of *life-long, from birth, involuntary* socialization AS "girls" and AS “women" on the very subject at issue: "women"!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Transwomen are NOT Females

This young African American woman makes so much sense in all she says, from 'Cis' is NOT a word we use for ourselves, it is a trans derived word, NOT our word, and we name ourselves.  FEMALE is the word...because it's about our Sex, and the Sex Discrimination WE receive worldwide against our bodies, to  the real male privilege by the fact that all trans'women' grew up with a penis, whether they have it removed or not....to the silencing of Females and our physical and social oppressions against our bodies that continues and is ongoing, to the political correctness of the 'queer' movement, a male identified movement that silences Females, to genderqueer have that same oppression BEING Female. Ect. ect. Really, a very good video where she makes all the relevant points, and she also talks about the 'Cotton Ceiling' phenomena, though she doesn't name it that, against Lesbians and how MOST Lesbians are into other FEMALES, NOT trans'women' and that transwomen have NO RIGHT to pressure Lesbians into having sex with them if they don't want to, and calling them 'transphobic' if they don't. Really, really a good stream of consciousness to further the fight!
                                                                 -In Sisterhood,
                                                                    -M.A.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMTpFHHwpF0

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Seeing Red: It's about ongoing FEMALE oppression

And here's the link to the 'Seeing Red' article.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/seeing-red-power-female-anger

Our Dyke Amazon Warrior Gallus Mag is BACK UP on GenderTrender!

 The good news is that Gallus' blog is up and running, but for herstory's sake, we NEED this reminder that all our blogs are vulnerable. Back 'em up.

In her own words:

“As some of you may know, my posting access to my GenderTrender wordpress.com blog was suspended at the end of the business day on Friday January 18. My last post, on Friday morning, was a collection of screen caps: a random sampling of the abusive and threatening tweets directed at Suzanne Moore following her “SEEING RED: THE POWER OF FEMALE ANGER” article re-publication.
Prior to Friday morning’s post I did five controversial posts in succession:
  1. I outed an MD and Phd who threatened to murder a bunch of radical feminists, also specifically targeting myself and Cathy Brennan. 1/10/2013 FRI
  2. I posted the text of Professor Sheila Jeffeys’ submission to the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 1/12/2013 SUN
  3. I posted the entire text (and published imagery) of Julie Burchill’s “Transsexuals Should Cut it Out”, which was subsequently censored in toto by the Guardian/Observer and for which she is now facing a government criminal inquiry. 1/13/2013 MON
  4. I posted commentary and photos and a partial re-blog of Dirt’s article calling out the racism and homophobia at the core of the initial trans response to Suzanne Moore’s use of the term “Brazillian transsexual” in her “SEEING RED: THE POWER OF FEMALE RAGE” article. 1/16/2013 THURS
  5. I posted a video of Precious “Jewel” Davis, a (self-professed) gay drag queen who recently “turned trans” from the “We Happy Trans” project . 1/16/2013 THURS 
 What a week!
My blog is “newsy”. When things are going on, I post them. And there is a lot going on right now. Specifically, there is a peak of public discourse around the feminist critique of gender. We have about a week before the general public becomes bored with this topic (as they do with all topics). Right now, this discourse is peaking- into the mainstream- in a way I’m not sure it has ever done before. This is a critical time.
Some of you have taken issue with the language Julie Burchill used in her now criminalized article and claim her bombastic tone has undermined the message. As if there was EVER a platform for that “message”. Suzanne Moore wasn’t “bombastic” and look what the fuck happened to her! Some of you have actively taken steps to discredit Burchill or distance yourself from her. Must step lightly, you say. Throw her off the boat! Backstabbing is a pointless discussion to have at this point. Clearly the trans politic is seizing the moment to re-frame their violent suppression of feminist – of WOMENS and LESBIAN voices- as an anguished “what about the menzzzz” cry to promote further censorship and no-platforming of feminist gender critiques, but remember, that is the same tact they use whether you are rude or polite. The polite Conway Hall feminist conference was no-platformed by the MRA/Trans alliance with terrorist bombing and murder threats. Mainstream feminist discourse has been taken over by males in an “oh so polite” way- backed up by threats of rape and death. Feminists who have tried to discourse with the trans politic have been- at best- mocked and distained. Whether you give an inch or a mile. Burchill simply chose to take on the abuse in stead of her friend Suzanne Moore. Julie is not a stupid woman. She has lanced a boil. That boil is the silencing of feminist voices by the transgender lobby. Whether that wound heals or encapsulates will be determined by our response. She has directed attention to this issue by throwing herself on a pyre into the angry mob. Immolation. That Burchill broad kicks some balls and goes down swinging. And where the fuck are you?
Let’s not waste this opportunity, shall we? We have the world’s attention. LET US SPEAK.
Unfortunately for me at GenderTrender, my voice has been silenced now by my website host at wordpress.com.
Yesterday Janet Mock of People Magazine, (he of “Girls Like Us” fame), decided to start a campaign against my blog. Early Friday morning (before my Suzanne Moore Tweet post) I became aware of a censorship campaign against GenderTrender, and all wordpress radical feminist blogs. There have been a million of these campaigns, but Mock is a very powerful man.
Mock initially became enraged when he read my post (Number 4 above) and saw a photo of himself, and “misgendering” (because it mentioned that he was male) and decided that women have no right to discuss or post photos of public figures on feminist blogs.  Instead of filing a complaint with wordpress or messaging me with his demands (or just shutting the fuck up) he started a twitter campaign to ban my blog which was quickly seized by trans activists smelling blood in the water following their successful censorship of Burchill and success in driving Suzanne Moore off of twitter. All the usual suspects came on board within minutes: Hetero female “fag” Stephen Ira, Lefty “TGirl” inventor of the ladystick Savanna Garmon, Transfeminist Natalie “Die cis scum” Reed and all the rest. NO DISCUSSION of TRANS ACTIVISM by WOMEN they railed. GAG THESE BITCHES.
When I did not notice Mock’s campaign (because I never check my tweets and I was sleeping) he engaged his pals to post news articles complaining about wordpress.com’s hosting of gender critical and trans-critical blogs. The proposed banning of all female voices re: politics relating to gender, especially mine. I took action when I became aware of Mock’s campaign, specifically his charge that the public news-site photo I had used was off limits. To placate his male rage I replaced that pic with an alternate screen cap from another (NBC) appearance, and I kindly tweeted him that I had resolved his photo issue.  Seriously, these guys literally think they can lobby on the national news and women have no right to discuss it. HOW DARE IT SPEAK???
I posted a few of the Suzanne Moore tweets, went to work, and when I came home my blog had TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND hits. And I was LOCKED OUT by wordpress.com.
I now have NO WAY to POST on MY OWN BLOG due to wordpress.com. It’s all well and good for feminists to have blogs and such that are gender critical, as long as no one is paying attention to them. You can post the most intelligent, elegant legal critique of the ways “Gender Identity” status negatively impacts woman AS LONG AS NO ONE READS IT. AS LONG AS NO ONE IS LISTENING. Women can have their tiny corners, their sekret cabals AS LONG AS NO ONE IS READING. Let the gals blow off steam in dark corners on Facebook. As long as it doesn’t hit the mainstream. Let the edumacated upper class folks have their little talks that no one finds interesting or engaging. But god forbid feminist voices start being heard en masse. God Forbid Julie Burchill says what EVERY FUCKING WOMAN ON EARTH IS THINKING. GOD FORBID Trans Media Watch cites GenderTrender as a SOURCE in the women vs. gender discourse.
Someone said this as a comment on my blog recently, much better than I’m about to mis-quote, but it was basically that the transgender politic around the social hierarchy of the sexes is so utterly flimsy that it can tolerate no critique whatsoever from women, and as a male-centric philosophy the realities of female experience CANNOT be tolerated.
WordPress.com, hosted by Automattic, has prevented me from posting this on the blog I have built up from the ground against all odds. And Gosh who cares about that? Who cares about Bindel and Greer and Jeffreys and Brennan and Moore and Benvenuto and Burchill? We still have our little corners where they can’t silence us. Keep voices hushed. Avert your eyes, sisters. Let’s spectate.
IF YOU GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ANY OF THIS – and I know many of you DO, I encourage you to RAISE A HOLY FUCKING SHITSTORM about the silencing of feminists who critique GENDER and PLASTIC SURGERY and MUTILATION and RAPE and FREEDOM FROM THE PEEN and ETC ETC ETC.
I mean this literally: SPEAK NOW or FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE.
Have a blog? UPDATE IT TODAY with a focus on FREEDOM OF SPEECH for women. COMPLAIN about death threats on women- and NOT to your “friends” on Facebook. COMPLAIN about CENSORSHIP of women. Call the fucking news agency. Call ten fucking friends to meet on Tuesday night to set out a goal-oriented political action plan to support freedom of speech for women. ASSERT the right for women to DISCUSS POLITICS even if those public figures are “TRANS GENDER”. Make that lame fucking account so you can leave that comment on that awful news story. Take action every single fucking day. But ESPECIALLY TODAY. It’s time to say NO to the censoring of women- even if they are more (or less!) plain-spoken than you would like.
You liked GenderTrender, you counted on me- well I have been ELIMINATED. Fucking GAGGED because people were listening.”

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Space station tour

I LOVE this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=doN4t5NKW-k

From the blog 'Popping Your Delusionary Bubbles': See, the transactivists think I'm unreasonable





See, the transactivists think I’m unreasonable


But I will repeat here - with updates- the proposal I made for cooperation years ago. It was vehemently rejected by most trans who read it then and I’ve no doubt it will be vilified now, therefore I have no real expectation that it will be received in a positive light and am only reposting it to prove a point :
1. Admit, if you are a transwoman who transitioned in adulthood or late adolescence (which is virtually all of them), that until the point you transitioned you received male privilege and this has affected how you behave and perceive the world.
2. Understand that being perceived as a girl from birth onward is not a privilege no matter how you “identify “.
3. Understand that you are merely taking on a constructed social role (gender) and not actually changing sex.
4. Understand then that both men and women who are solely attracted to one sex (and that one not being your birth sex) are unlikely to be attracted to you and that they are perfectly within their rights to fail to consider you as a sex partner due to your assigned birth sex - IOW you do not have the right to have sex with anyone who does not wish to have sex with you no matter what their reason.
5. Understand that since the vast, vast majority of women spend at least several years of their life as beings capable of becoming pregnant whether they want to or not, and that since society both pushes pregnancy inducing sex upon women, pushes pregnancy upon women; and then punishes them simultaneously for having sex, becoming pregnant, being capable of becoming pregnant, or refusing to have anything to do with either - that issues surrounding motherhood, pregnancy, contraception and abortion rights are central to any discussion of women’s rights and you have no cause to be offended by this or complain.
6. If women wish to have a born female meeting only, stop trying to attend and stop harassing them for failing to pretend that someone born male who transitioned in adulthood is exactly the same as someone who has always been and lived as female.
7. Stop minimizing and denying the oppression of women.
8. Stop engaging in misogyny to sound “edgy “.
9. Stop saying “die cis scum “.
10. In fact, stop using the prefix “cis-” altogether. Women have the right to name themselves and you don’t.
Until all of these very reasonable, reality - based criteria are met, there can be no cooperation between transgenders and feminists. None. You are not the most oppressed of the oppressed and women are not “privileged” over you. I refuse to pretend.
 
 

Monday, January 7, 2013

The Dyke Witches brought me out, THANK GODDESS!!!



Thank you L. for sharing your truth with us. As a kid I so wanted to be a boy, hated being a girl, hated forming breasts, and being teased because I wouldn’t wear a bra, and most of all the type of things you mentioned. However I was a hardcore tomboy, whoh FINALLY found a place when I came out as a Dyke, in that I could go from tomboy to Butch! And that there were others like myself with similar background and proclivities. I was no longer alone with it all, and had Sister Butches to talk to who were PROUD to be Female. POWERFUL FEMALES out of the mold, and strong and Amazonian, but nonetheless female. I came into a strong Lesbian FEminist commmunity, well, multiple Lesbian communities, some that got along, some that didnt’. But there was none of this transitioning talk.

IF INSTEAD I came out into a strong Trans community, INSTEAD OF a strong Lesbian and/or Lesbian Feminist community(not that we agreed on all things, or even some things, I had some great disagreements with them), nonetheless there was PRIDE in being Female, whereas if you’re the least bit Butch/masculine/tomboy/boyish/babydyke, there’s all the genderqueer/trans talk, looking at my background, hating my Femaleness cuz I wasn’t feminine and didn’t like any kind of feminine things, I think I too could have fallen under the pressure to at least genderqueer if not transition on some level, or identify as male or try to pass as male…..THANK GODDESS I CAME OUT INTO A COMMUNITY OF STRONG DYKE WITCHES! THEY TAUGHT ME SUCH PRIDE IN BEING FEMALE, MAGICAL, AMAZONIAN AND STRONG. AND ONE THAT TAUGHT ME THE MOST WAS AN OLD SCHOOL BUTCH WHO was very well versed in magic and matriarchal herstory. Wow, she and I did some POWERFUL rituals together! I am so glad for that, and I tell every Pagan that asks that it was the Dyke Witches that brought me onto the Path of Witchcraft and the Goddess..and how healing that was: that womyn COULD be powerful, strong, magical and come together in strength and unity. These days there is such little pride in that, or it’s all been catering to feminine straight women, no longer Dykes and a matriarchal alternative, as we were all researching back then for other stories and channeling those powerful FEMALE energies. No, this generation has bought the ‘males are powerful’ line instead, and that since they don’t conform to feminine behaviors, then THEY MUST BE MALE, and thats where the power lies, for them….it is very, very sad to see…all that work to create alternatives, alternative ways for womyn, Dykes, Butches, Amazon types to be, and now they all wanna be ‘male’! Very, very sad…..

But thanks again for you telling your story. We need to keep telling our stories…more and more womyn are finally waking up to the tran smokescreen lies, the more vicious they get the more they lose us, but there will always be the apologists that think it’s a ‘whole new paradigm’(yeah had to suffer through that today at an event I went to, the whole new paradigm of ‘genda’. Or how does Gallus Mag say it? ‘Jenda’).
-IN DykeAmazon Sisterhood,

Saturday, January 5, 2013

When FTM's disparage the term Lesbian-From Gallus Mag's blog Gender Trender: My response


When I came out, and I was a hardcore tomboy who NEVER fit in with feminine roles, I did not like the word “Lesbian” because I was called “Lezzie” in school for liking to kiss girls on the head. When I was in an all girls school it was ok, but once I went to mixed sex schools, it was not.
So, the Lesbian community at the time was reclaiming the word “Dyke”. Since nobody ever called me a Dyke derogatorily, I claimed the word fully. It still fits for me better than Lesbian in that I’m an out loud and proud Butch Dyke….but back then there WERE strong Lesbian communities, so I began to take that term on too.
In certain communities, women were differentiating between Dyke and Lesbian, but they are REALLY the same term for the same thing…..so that’s bullshit to separate the two. Both mean women loving women…Dyke just happens to seem more outlaw, in your face, harsher and more associated with Butches…some Femme types won’t use the word for themselves at all, others like it who are more out and in your face. I think the ‘passing’ types don’t like Dyke at all..the more in your face types, do….in any way, it fits me.
But ‘gay’ is so generic, so bland, so associated with ‘gay male’ that those Lesbians who use it tend to want to identify more with the gay male community and less with the politicized Lesbian one. Sometimes the politics and the fences created have been our own undoing. I am all for accepting ALL our Lesbian/Dyke Sisters(born female of course), and bringing them ALL into the fold, so NONE feel left out.
This includes those questioning their ‘genders’ who feel too Butch, too ‘manly’ to be considered Lesbian…they have a place too, and always have had. Though I’m not much for the Stone Butch phenomena, it mostly seeming to me to be a denial of one’s FEMALE body and recieving female pleasure IN that female body, I know many Butch/nonfeminine females ect. feel distanced from their female bodies, because like me, they have never been feminine, never ‘fit into’ female roles, and were told ‘you’re a nasty lesbian/dyke’ ‘you just want to be a man’, ‘you’re a freak and a weirdo’ ect. ect. ect….so FOR THEM to identify as male, can have as much to do with their Lesbianism as it does with their identification with bio males.
It’s also the ‘gendering’ from such a young age with the toys, the clothes, the department stores, the religions, the media, the schools, the parents, the videos, the movies, the t.v. shows etc, in other words the BRAINWASHING of what things girls are allowed to do(very proscribed generally, either in the domestic or sexual sphere or caretaking of others) and what things boys are allowed to (go on adventures, conquer the world, go out into space, be President of the United States, ect. ect.).
The same goes for little boys. Except add sexism for little girls. And little boys get ‘beat up’ for being too feminine by other boys. Us little tomboy girls, if we can fight, can find a grudging respect, SOMETIMES from boys, but still derision and shaming from the more feminine girls. The same can be said, like the IT women mentioned above. I have experienced ALL of what they speak of in the nontraditional construction trades. They don’t want us around, and will find ways to get us out! Sometimes explicitly, sometimes subtly. And not to include us. This goes back to the playground of ‘gender conformity’ and roles learned from childhood that from children to adults, impose on each other.
If either sex DOES NOT CONFORM to their ‘gender roles’ then all kinds of pressure are put on them TO COMPLY. And the basis of MUCH of that fear is that the children will end up homosexual. The worst thing anybody could be. In my mind being a rapist, murderer, serial killer, thief(like Bernie Maddow stealing billions) ect is much much worse a thing someone could be than homosexual. But the Pope makes homosexuality equivalent to any of the horrible aforementioned criminals. And too many people believe in these conservative woman hating and homosexual hating religions. Including homosexuals and Lesbians themselves.
SO it’s not surprising these teen or 20 somethings HATE the term Lesbian. It’s not used as a term of pride. There are no longer STRONG AND POWERFUL Lesbian communities, bookstores, coffeeshops, businesses of all types. Oh sure, a few, but not what we once had. Our own printing presses, so many things we’ve had and lost! AND most of all OUR OWN SPACES which weren’t gate crashed.
And what this woman said above: “I think wanting to be special, combined with self-hatred and wanting to escape slave-caste female status probably all play into it. After all, girls are routinely ignored, told they don’t matter, that they’re not good for anything other than being sex objects, and any achievement that they do manage to make is still ignored, or else attributed to the nearest male relative ”
Yes, slave-caste is a big reason I wanted to escape femaleness as a kid, and wanted so desperately to be a boy. Not till I came out into a strong Lesbian community did I LEARN TO FEEL PRIDE IN MY FEMALENESS! When I saw other Butches and met and talked to them, women who LOOKED LIKE ME, had some similar proclivities and sensibilities, but WERE STILL PROUD TO BE FEMALE! Going to my first Lesbian Conference, of ALL Lesbians..no men, no trans! And my first Lesbian concert. (Meg Christian). It TAUGHT me Lesbian pride, and power! But we don’t have anything focussed on just dykes anymore, OR the remaining social institutions. They have all either been coopted or failed….
So I mourn for these fucked up kids who think they are ‘men’ either ‘straight’ or ‘gay’, but they aren’t either…and they HATE Lesbians, who REMIND them of their femaleness…that they are trying so hard to run away from. We gotta keep on keeping on…and reach out to those who would hear our message….and be compassionate WITHOUT being codependent or compromising boundaries we feel strongly about. We have given away too much already.
-In Sisterhood,
-FeistyAmazon