Phyllis
Chesler, Ph.D, is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s
Studies at City University of New York. She is a best-selling
author, a legendary feminist leader.
In
2005, I published a book with the title The Death of Feminism.
I saw it all coming. But I did not foresee the rise of
a transgender movement.
On
March 31st, an allegedly feminist Open Letter Supporting Trans
Women and Girls, was circulated. Among other things, it stated
that “We acknowledge with clarity and strength that
transgender women are women and that transgender girls are
girls. And we believe that honouring the diversity of women’s
experiences is a strength, not a detriment to the feminist
cause.”
Interestingly,
there is absolutely no mention of trans men -- those who were
born female but who have or want to become male. As we now
know, there is an alarming spike among teenage girls in America
who hope to solve their teenage sorrows such as low self-esteem,
body image discomfort, trauma based on sexual violence, eating
disorders, psychiatric suffering, etc., by cutting off their
breasts, surgically removing their uteri and ovaries, and
taking potentially lethal hormones to prevent puberty, and
to grow facial hair and muscle.
The
Open Letter continues: “It is time for the long history
of assaults (legislative, physical, social, and verbal) against
trans women and girls to end.”
I
certainly agree with such a goal but wonder why the letter
does not mention, even as an aside, or as context, the long
history of sexual, physical, legal, economic, social, and
verbal assaults against biological women, in their homes,
on the streets, at work, in shelters, and as sex slaves. The
letter remains silent about who the perpetrators of such violence
might be. I believe they are mainly gay and straight men who
buy sex from trans women or who become enraged because they
desire them.
The
letter loses its way when it claims that “anti-trans
sports bans are as unnecessary as they are harmful -- and
that women athletes at both the professional and college level
support inclusion.”
Is
this really true?
I
wonder whether these mainly Hollywood Lights (in both senses
of that word), who have signed this Open Letter are only in
favour of expanding their concept of what is female to include
those who wish to dress in stereotypically “feminine”
ways? Or those who wish to appear as ungainly, even “ugly”
as possible, in female dress and jewellery? Or, more to the
point, to those who wish the right to service both straight
and gay men sexually for money free of police harassment?
What
am I not understanding here? In what way does this constitute
liberation for women? If the issue is poverty, racism, illiteracy,
and unemployment, why not say so? Why choose to deal with
these realities by making it easier for poor girls and women
of color -- and trans women of color, to work as prostitutes?
The
letter insults radical feminists by describing us as “self-identified
feminists . . . whose vitriol is, in fact, not feminist at
all . . . who now cloak their bigotry in language about protecting
or supporting women.”
The transgender movement is well known for shaming, harassing,
and silencing all those feminists who have a rational, objective
critique of what has become a well-funded, Orwellian movement
of Big Brothers in which disagreement is not tolerated --
in fact, it is howled down. Any other point of view on the
trans issue has already been disappeared in the academic world,
in the media, and in international and national legal instruments.
In fact, it has already made its way onto numerous government
medical forms in which unsuspecting elders, waiting in line
to be vaccinated, are asked if they are trans, non-binary,
or other.
Am
I now one of those “self-identified feminists who have
been promoting damaging and violent ideas about trans people
for years?”
Me?
Really? I barely wrote about this subject; I did not even
think about it.
Ideally, I believe in civil and equal rights for every human
being. However, I do not believe in focusing on a trendy,
diversionary minority over and above the totally unmet needs
of a majority. We have never had enough shelters for battered
women (of all colors, yes) including prostituted girls and
women. Why are these signatories not fighting for that?
Ah,
but when I read the names of the signatories I grew very quiet.
I understand the psychological “rush” that attends
being asked to sign a petition with some Very Famous Names
on it. The thrill of belonging to a tribe of some kind. The
desire for popularity—especially among women.
I
understand why Hollywood actors, comediennes, models, celebrities,
veterans of the shill game known as the Women’s March,
Black Trans activists would sign on. But why would the Center
for Reproductive Rights do so? Chelsea Clinton -- is she planning
to run for the Presidency? The Coordinator of the Lesbian
Herstory Archives? The local Domestic Violence Shelters in
Connecticut, Iowa, Memphis, and South Carolina? Legal Momemtum,
the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund? The National
Women’s History Museum? Planned Parenthood Federation
of America? Is the Tahirih Justice Center inundated with trans
women of color who are immigrants? Do they outnumber biological
immigrant women? Do lesbian activists really believe that
the increasingly all-male gay and trans movements include
or will include them?
Oh,
I would really like to know.
I
remember the lesbians who handed out condoms to gay men on
Fire Island as the AIDS crisis raged when their ferries docked.
I do not remember gay men fighting for funding for research
for ovarian or breast cancer.
However,
what are Gloria Steinem’s, the Ms. Foundation’s,
and Catharine MacKinnon’s names doing here? Are they
now all wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party
or of Hollywood? Do they just need to remain au courant? Or
do they actually have a feminist and political analysis of
the very well-funded transgender movement? If so, I would
dearly love to read it.
Do
these signatories all really see transgender women as somehow
liberating all womankind? From gang-rape? FGM? Honour killings?
From sexual harassment, sexual slavery, pornography? And mainly,
from bone-grinding poverty?
The
Open Letter quotes Audre Lorde: “I am not free while
any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different
from my own.” Lorde also said that we cannot abolish
the Master’s House by using the Master’s tools.
Thus, these revolutionaries-on-the-page alphabetize the signatories
by first, not last names. Thus, Alicia Garza may be found
under “A” not “G” and “Ashley
Judd” is also listed under “A,” not under
“J.” Am I to assume that our last names are all
slave names? That my honourable father’s name which
I have kept all my life was a slave or a slave-Master?
At
this moment, I cannot view any of these signatories as part
of the solution.
