There is literally no wrong way to be female

A commenter by the name of Thomas Reyes stopped by to say hello on my Leaving the Trans Cult post. Here is my answer to his comment:

“Just bc a couple of trans people had a bad take doesn’t mean that you should have decided we all hate you. I really appreciate the time and effort that you originally put in to trying to understand where we are coming from. Trans people have such varied view points and I find myself isolated from the entire most of the community bc of the differences between us. Being trans is just a deeply isolating experience.”

It’s not just “a couple of trans people” who “had a bad take.” Misogyny and homophobia are essential and fundamental components of trans activism and it’s not just a few bad apples, it’s the entire belief system and everyone who upholds it. I’ll agree with you that trans people have a variety of viewpoints, and there are in fact some trans people who I get along with just fine. I don’t actually hate people who transition. I hate misogyny and homophobia.

“Being trans is hard. Every time I go on the internet I am reminded that a huge portion of the population thinks I need to be fixed or killed or that I should just fuck off and never make my problems visible. When cis people that I am friends with say shit that makes me scared that they are among that group of people I usually just try to talk to them about it. But sometimes it’s too scary, I understand why many trans people respond so intensely.”

Is that true though? I don’t know if a “huge portion of the population” wants you killed. I would guess that plenty of dumb assholes with no brain cells probably say some really hateful stuff in the comments below articles and YouTube videos. If I wanted to get really depressed, I’d take those dumb assholes really seriously and fall into despair. But what about thoughtful people who write coherent replies in complete sentences and whole paragraphs? Do any of them want you dead? I honestly doubt it. I think that all sane, regular people are fairly okay with people making body modifications.

I hardly think this needs to be said, but I do not want any trans people killed. I’m not even trying to stop anyone from getting body modifications. Everyone is welcome to do what they want with their own body.

Regarding the word “fixed—” gosh, I think that’s an entire discussion on its own. How would you “fix” a trans person, exactly? Like, I don’t think that people with dysphoria really need any fixing, they just need help with a mental health problem. There’s no shame in that—I’ve needed help with mental health issues throughout most of my life. I’ll probably need help again a few more times. But that doesn’t make any of us “wrong,” it’s just part of the experience of being human. It’s a struggle to learn how to live our lives in a way that feels comfortable.

I could go on about the word “fix.” I think it’s actually trans activists who want to “fix” dysphoric people. Trans activists think dysphoric people absolutely need extensive body modifications because they can’t go on the way they are. But those of us who are radical feminist/gender critical think that trans people don’t need fixing. We believe that all bodies are acceptable, that all personalities and styles are acceptable, and that anybody can express who they are without changing, lying about, or hiding anything.

“I think the girl brain boy body or vice versa shit is stupid. I have no idea why I’m trans. But please understand that when cis people talk about it its predicated on the assumption that if we cant give them a good enough reason then we should die or have to go back to our gender assigned at birth. Last year I tried to be a girl again and it was one of the worst years of my life. I felt so unlike myself and I found it impossible to speak to people. I dont know why I’m trans but I know that I am not a woman. That is all that I have. We are not a united group.”

Whoa, whoa, WHOA. Do you think that I want you to “go back to the gender you were assigned at birth”? Let’s start right at the beginning here and correct the dozen mistaken assumptions in that comment.

Firstly, humans are born with a sex. Nobody assigns a sex to a baby;  the sex is simply observed. However, society assigns a gender role to everyone based on cultural ideas about who boys and girls are. Masculinity is assigned to males and femininity is assigned to females. The feminist movement has been fighting against this for decades because this is harmful to everyone, but it’s especially harmful to girls and women, who are at the bottom of the power imbalance of patriarchy. (We are losing the battle because we are ruled by capitalism and capitalism sells the idea of masculinity and femininity in their advertising to sell more stuff.)

As a feminist, I oppose assigning gender roles to anyone, and I do not want kids to have sexist ideas forced on them. People should be allowed to express themselves as they naturally are.

So let’s get back to this “going back to the gender you were assigned at birth” comment. I do not want any women to feel they have to perform a feminine gender role. A person should only be feminine if their personality is naturally feminine. If you don’t enjoy being feminine, then I definitely do not want you to attempt to fake it just to please other people. Nope, nope, NOPE.

However, the SEX you were born with is female, and at no point have you ever stopped being female. You’re still female now and always will be. Being female simply means having female reproductive organs. A woman is an adult human female. If you are born female, and you reach adulthood, you are a woman. All the cultural expectations of what women are is another topic entirely.

It’s scientifically impossible to stop being the sex you were born. It’s also unnecessary. Whether your body came with equipment to produce sperm or ova absolutely should not define who you are. (It only defines who you are because we live in a patriarchy. Feminists oppose defining people by their sex.)

You say that you “tried to be a girl” as if there is some effort involved in this. There is no effort required on your part in order to be a girl. A girl is a young female human. Being a girl is the state of being a young female human. It’s not a performance. It’s just your biological reality. There is absolutely nothing you have to do to be a girl other than (1) be a young female human and (2) exist. There is no more to it than that. Every time someone tells you that you have to act a certain way because you’re a girl, that’s called sexism. As a feminist, I strongly oppose anyone making you think that girls have to perform or work at anything in order to be considered girls. Sexism harms all girls and women, even those who appear to embrace sexist stereotypes.

Every single human female on the planet is “being a girl” correctly, because there is no wrong way to be female. Every personality that every female has is correct, every feeling she has is correct, every style and interest she has is correct, and every way she has of relating to her body is correct. Feeling uncomfortable with breasts and periods is a female experience, and taking testosterone to appear more masculine is a female experience. There is literally nothing you can do to fuck up being female. Nothing. You’re doing it right no matter what.

“Have you ever been close to a trans woman? My girlfriend is very nice.”

No. Why would I? I’m a lesbian. I’m not interested in any kind of man. I prefer that men just leave me alone. Men who make body modifications aren’t any more interesting to me than men who don’t, except for when they campaign to take away women’s rights, and then I’m only interested in them in a political sense, in order to fight their misogyny.

Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to do more reading.

VRR vandals prove, once again, that TERF is a misogynist slur

On August 16th, Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter reported that a dead rat had been nailed to their door:

The unknown vandal was likely trying to intimidate women and express his misogyny.

Only a couple of weeks later, a second act of vandalism occurred. Someone wrote death threats against “TERFs” along with the never-ending mantra “transwomen are women” on the doors of the shelter.

Trans activists are still claiming that “TERF” is just an acronym for a subtype of feminist; however the way they use the word shows clearly that they intend it as a slur. This graffiti is transparently about intimidating women and making us scared to set boundaries that exclude men. Vancouver Rape Relief does not have an anti-trans policy—they have an anti-male policy. Because it’s almost always men who rape and assault women, and because men largely have the power to get away with their crimes against women, shelters are needed that exclude men in order to give rape and assault survivors a safe place to recover. Women who identify as transgender are not excluded from the service.

Trans activists, who theoretically ought to be doing work to help trans people, put a lot of energy and effort into silencing and intimidating women who understand the reality of male violence and fight against it. This appears to be far more of a priority than, say, opening shelters for trans people fleeing violence.

Only the lowest form of scum on Earth would think of bullying victims of violence who are attempting to find a safe shelter in which to recover. The level of cowardice and misogyny on display in this vandalism is astonishing.

Anytime you call women TERFs, you take the side of violent misogynist scumbags who use bullying, intimidation and threats to put women in our place and attempt to stop us from organizing for our liberation.

It was already clear but it becomes even more clear all the time—TERF is a misogynist slur.

My Butch Career, a memoir by Esther Newton

I was absolutely delighted to read My Butch Career, a memoir by Esther Newton. I had never heard of Newton before but I saw a recommendation for this book and was intrigued. Esther Newton is an American lesbian born in 1940 who came out before Stonewall and was a part of the women’s movement and the gay liberation movement. She led a fascinating life and she is very skilled as a writer. There are many things that delighted me about this book, most notably these three: the fact that she wrote about all the social movements that interest me as a lesbian feminist, and how they personally affected her throughout her life; the fact that she wrote explicitly about her sexual feelings and some of her sexual experiences; and the fact that she wrote descriptions of her past that bring the reader right into the action—she wrote as if she has a photographic memory and can still capture every detail, both physical, emotional, and sensory, of the important scenes of her life. It was an intimate and moving read, and I found myself relating to her and appreciating very much what she shared.

One of the first things Newton wrote was a description of what ‘butch’ and ‘femme’ mean to her, and as regular readers know, this is a favourite topic of mine. In order to explain what femmes are, she compared them to Baby Houseman, the heroine of the film Dirty Dancing. I was resistant to this at first because why would you use a straight character to explain what a lesbian is? But after fully comprehending what she was explaining, I found this was an absolutely wonderful description. Newton thinks of a femme as a woman who is “gutsy and determined,” who will pursue the lover of her choice despite it being socially unacceptable. She understands that a femme has femininity but is anything but a doormat, and is actually quite subversive despite having a conventional appearance.

This leads me into telling you my favourite part of the book, which is pretty near the beginning, when Newton describes the first time she had sex with a woman. It happened when Newton was a young adult in college and she was attempting to dress feminine and blend in, and yet a femme woman spotted her and saw right through her disguise—saw that she was a dyke and that she was the masculine type. The femme was “gutsy and determined” just like Baby, and pursued what she wanted immediately. The tale of seduction was breathtaking and I read over it multiple times before moving on with the book. Today while writing this review I discovered that Esther Newton has recorded herself reading this passage and put it on her website—go listen to it!

I’ve always considered gender nonconforming women to be my heroes, but the way that Newton describes the femmes of the past makes me realize I should be in just as much awe of them. When I try to imagine being a feminine-looking college girl in the 1950s and having to spot butches, who were sometimes in feminine disguise as they didn’t feel free to express themselves properly, and make the first move on them, in an extremely homophobic environment and under pressure to marry a man, I think it would be extremely difficult and nearly impossible. After reading the story of Newton’s seduction by a young femme who knew what she wanted and went for it, I feel extremely grateful for every femme who’s ever done that.

I was thrilled to find out that Newton was a lesbian feminist during the second wave of feminism—what a time to be alive! I loved the way she described her emerging feminist consciousness:

“I was watching the Miss America pageant on television when suddenly from the balcony a banner appeared with two words: “Women’s Liberation.” I don’t recall seeing footage of the protests outside the hall, or the picture of the woman marked up like cuts of beef, or the crowning of a live sheep as Miss America. What I remember is my astonishment that women were protesting womanhood. There were other women out there, even women with long hair, feminine women, who were fed up with being good girls. As I saw it, they were joining me. I was no longer alone with my anger.” p132-133

It was beautiful to hear about Newton’s transformation from insecure girl to confident adult thanks in large part to the women’s movement.

Later, Newton got somewhat involved in the lesbian s/m movement that emerged after lesbian feminism had enforced a politically correct sexuality on the lesbian community. Regular readers of this blog know that I oppose the sex-positive movement on the grounds that it’s more positive toward abuse than sex. However, Newton is mature and reasonable and doesn’t demonize any group, not like the overly dramatic queer activists of today—she learned from and respected both movements and used what she learned from them to accept herself and express herself more fully. Come to think of it, I’ve actually done the same thing myself—after diving into a (purely historical, as the movements have already ended) study of the lesbian feminist movement and the “sex-pozzie” movement, I’ve also retained those lessons that I value and rejected those ideas that I thought were erroneous, and assimilated all I’ve learned into my conception of myself.

Before Newton accepted herself as a lesbian, she had a lot of relationships with men, and this was shocking for me to read. I had a moment of wondering if she is actually bisexual, but after finishing the book, I understand that she is truly lesbian, but pre-Stonewall life was so anti-gay that she feared getting kicked out of school and fired from her job if anyone thought she was gay. She felt she had to date men in order to survive. This was an important lesson for me, as a lesbian who came of age right around the time when same-sex marriage was legalized in my country, where GSAs are common in high schools, and where gays and lesbians can usually be out at work with no negative repercussions. Esther Newton is one of the people who changed things so that I can live the safe life I live, and I’m extremely grateful for her.

Newton succeeded in becoming an academic, after much struggle. I was moved by reading about how she struggled with sexism and homophobia on top of the usual setbacks and frustrations that occur when a young person embarks upon a career, and how she pushed herself through the pain and succeeded despite it all. She studied gay topics in anthropology when no one else was doing so and become a pioneer of gay and lesbian studies.

Newton is definitely a lesbian hero, and her story will inspire any lesbian, particularly those who struggle with being a non-conforming woman in a sexist society. Please read this book! Read it for the important lesson in lesbian history, for the gorgeous and sexy writing, and to celebrate one of our important lesbian pioneers.

A question about social constructionism

Commenter Generalheinz57 asked a question this week and I always answer a question if it’s sincerely asked. I thought I’d write the answer as a post because I tend to be long-winded.

you talk a lot about gender roles, and unless I am misunderstanding your position, you seem to be of the opinion that they are almost completely, if not 100%, patterns of learned behavior. women are submissive, timid, fragile, nurturing, sensitive, empathetic, while men are domineering, gregarious, combative, independent, courageous, assertive. my question is, if you are willing to believe that there is an innate basis for MBTI personality types, and that you have to heed your nature in order to care for yourself, why do you believe that so-called “gender roles” are simply socially constructed, toxic for both sexes, and that they should and must be shed? do you think there is no value to the idea of balance between the sexes, in a yin-yang sort of way? do you not think that rather than shedding the roles entirely, there are healthy ways of embodying both sets of traits, and that it is okay for men to find feminine women desirable, or women to find masculine men desirable?

As regular readers are aware, my views have shifted a lot over the last few years. Some of my views have adjusted a bit and one of them (political lesbianism) did a complete 180. The topic of social constructionism is something I’ve shifted on.

I see a continuum between social constructionism and biological determinism where many feminists are pretty far to the side of social constructionism and many conservatives are pretty far to the side of biological determinism, although there are lots of exceptions and nuances. Feminists tend to believe that gendered behaviours are socially constructed and if we construct a different society, we can construct different behaviours. However there are a lot of different versions of feminism out there and there are some feminists who are biological determinists. Those are the “men are inherently evil” variety and from what I’ve observed they’re fairly rare. Generally it’s understood among our movement that people can change, and we don’t have to embody stereotypes and male violence can be solved by raising boys differently and holding criminals accountable for their behaviour. Feminists will sometimes point out that if we did believe that men were inherently evil, there would be no need for feminism at all because there would be no hope of changing anything.

I would say that around 5 years ago I was pretty far on the side of social constructionism, and I’ve been steadily drifting away from it. However, I’m not going to drift all the way to being 100% biological determinist either—surely both nature and nurture are factors in our behaviour, and nobody is unaffected by either force.

Where this leaves me in terms of gender roles is that I do think women tend to be more nurturing and more emotional, and men tend to be more aggressive and violent, due to the effects of estrogen and testosterone on our bodies and minds. After having listened to trans men talking about how they change going on and off testosterone injections, it’s hard to deny that a person with more testosterone in their body cries less often, feels more anger, and has a higher sex drive.

This doesn’t mean I’m giving up on feminism though. I don’t believe that men are hopelessly violent with no possibility of reform. I think they are competent people able to control themselves and behave properly. And I don’t think women are too emotional to be in positions of power. We may cry more often, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use our brains. We certainly can. There are some people who would probably want to burn me at the stake for saying there is a biological basis for masculine and feminine behaviours, but I think there is. I think we can acknowledge that while still calling for a culture that is less misogynistic and that doesn’t constantly promote stereotypes about men and women, to the benefit of us all.

This might sound contradictory because I always say that masculine and feminine behaviours are complete bullshit. When I come across as contradictory I’m always willing to examine what I’m saying to try to make it more clear.

There is a tendency in popular culture to present people as very one-dimensional and stereotyped, and we are actually a lot more complex than the way pop culture presents us. For example, it is probably true that women purchase more chocolate than men do. That’s fine and I don’t need to pretend that difference doesn’t exist. However, if you look at a TV commercial, women are senseless chocolate-obsessed animals who will run in front of a truck trying to get their hands on some chocolate. This is a silly example, but I think you can see what I mean about the difference between (a) a real-life difference that exists between the sexes and (2) that difference turned into a ridiculous spectacle by pop culture.

I don’t have a problem acknowledging a statistically proven difference between men and women, but what really makes me angry is when people expect others to behave just like the over-the-top stereotypes that pop culture sells to us.

If masculine and feminine behaviours are biologically determined, that may appear to justify trans people’s claim that they have the mind of the opposite sex based on the fact that their natural personality reflects the usual gendered behaviour of that sex. But I’m not buying that line of thinking, because there are always exceptions—there are men with “feminine” traits and women with “masculine” traits and this is because humans are all unique. Just because a person is an exception to a rule doesn’t mean they are literally a member of the opposite sex.

If I was born with a personality called “INFJ,” then yes, that does mean I believe other people are also born with personalities. They might be born with certain traits that are classifiable as masculine or feminine, and they might be born with tendencies to be violent, and they might be born with tendencies to develop dysphoria, and any number of other things.

When someone describes what INFJs are like, they are definitely generalizing about a large group of people. Stereotypes can definitely emerge. Sometimes when I see a narrative posted online about how an INFJ would behave in a certain situation I identify with the overall message but disagree with specific details. We are all, of course, individuals. I’d say about 95% of what I’ve read about INFJs deeply resonates with me, and that’s enough to make me unlikely to worry about a few details I don’t identify with.

I hope that answers your question, and if anything is still unclear, feel free to ask.

I’m going to throw in one more subject I’ve been shifting on lately, just for the fun of it. It’s regarding the subject of how much blame should be given to structural and external problems versus our own attitudes and behaviours in creating our personal life problems. I used to be really far over to the side of blaming structural problems, such that I’d be full of rage when anyone suggested that a change in attitude and behaviour might help a person. My blood would boil and I’d shout that there’s no way that the way a person thinks has any effect on what bad things happen to them in life. Bad circumstances surely are born from the physical world around us and are not created by our thoughts! Ridiculous!

I think that’s partly because people are not sufficiently nuanced for my taste when they talk about this. It’s pretty easy to scoff and dismiss someone who says that the physical world is literally created by our thoughts. Because the physical world is literally not created by our thoughts. But if these people would stop being so simplistic about it and say something like “If you keep expecting bad things to happen you’ll be super sensitive to anything that can be perceived as bad and you’ll feel as though bad things are always happening” then I would be able to buy into that.

With a bit more life experience, I’ve come to see that some people react to bad experiences and circumstances by milking them for all the suffering they can get, rather than trying to rise above it and overcome. And I’ve come to see that I can heal myself and gain a better quality of life by changing my limiting and negative beliefs. I’ve actually started doing some new-age healing methods that I would have dismissed as ridiculous bullshit not too long ago. However, they are working.

Well, since I’ve already wandered down a tangent into the topic of “other things I’ve been thinking about lately,” here’s something that’ll feel kinda random to leave you with. I’ve been researching how people lived in historical times, and it’s been giving me amazing perspective on life today. For example, I watched some YouTube videos of people making soap out of ashes and animal lard. Our ancestors had to collect ashes from many fires, mix them with water, boil them, strain them, mix them with exactly the right proportion of animal fat from animals they had to hunt and kill themselves, stand at the pot stirring for hours, and then end up with a finished product of one bar of soap, which they then had to use to wash with. These days we just buy detergent at the store, pour it into the dishwasher, and press one button. Voilà! Instant clean dishes. This just shows you so much about why people are the way they are these days. People have become much less resourceful and brave and strong, and they’ve become much more entitled, lazy and spoiled.

I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to write a historical novel, and maybe I won’t, but the journey so far has been so rewarding. I’m fascinated by human behaviour and learning about the past is really quenching my thirst for cultural analysis.

I have even more disdain for people who think “misgendering is violence” these days. These overprivileged college kids sit in their ivory towers with all their modern conveniences and cry oppression over nothing, when their ancestors experienced more hardship every day before breakfast than they’ll ever experience in their whole lives. What a disgrace!

Well, thanks for the question GeneralHeinz, and sorry about the long tangent!

Merry Christmas, friends!

Hello! Here is an actual post! This is a little Christmas present for any of you who still might be lurking on WordPress even though most of the feminists have been kicked off.

For a personal update, over the last few months I actually haven’t been working on fiction as I was supposed to be doing. Instead, I was taking care of a lot of tough stuff in my personal life. After making some massive changes, I am now living in a new location, working at a new job, and newly single. I’ve matured a lot this year and I’m much more aware of my boundaries, more aware of my needs and limitations and more likely to give myself what I need in life. It hasn’t escaped my notice that I’ve also developed some new lines around the corners of my eyes. Hopefully they make me look “distinguished,” as they say.

My latest research obsession is the Myers-Briggs personality types. I started reading more about my type, INFJ, and it’s been making so much sense, and it’s been so validating to actually see my whole self intricately and accurately described by other people. Because of my personality type, I am easily over-stimulated by noise, chaos, and people, and I need a lot of quiet alone time, and if I don’t get this, I literally lose my shit and can’t function. Instead of thinking there’s something wrong with me, which is what I’ve always done, now I know that I’m just wired this way and I have a right and a responsibility to organize my life in a way that gives me the environment I need, so that I’m not continuously losing my shit. I’m in a much healthier state now, and I no longer feel like I need to be medicated.

So, let’s talk Complaints about Christmas. I’ve made peace with the dumb political comments my extended family makes when we all get together—I’ve perfected the strategy of suddenly having something important to do in another room whenever someone brings up fun topics like how great a job conservative politicians are doing at “improving” our country by taking more money away from poor people, or how minority races are weird and scary, or how sexism is fun and hilarious. Yeah, I can deal with that now because I’ve made my views clear and I’m no longer interested in putting my energy into being angry and yelling. But this year brought with it a brand new nuisance—people who have dumb, ugly opinions on the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” No one particularly cared about the song before, and would have never even noticed had the song not played for a year, but now that people have pointed out the obvious problem that the man in the song continues pestering the woman even after she clearly says “the answer is no,” and that this very closely resembles a lot of the sexual assaults that women endure in real life, now suddenly this particular song is of supreme importance to everybody’s holiday celebrations and must be preserved at any cost, despite the literally hundreds of other Christmas songs available. Not only that, but people have inexplicably decided that feminists are only concerned about this particular Christmas song and that we aren’t concerned about the myriad of much worse problems that women are facing, and they gleefully mock women for not having identified the actually serious problems. But if people had ever listened to anything that feminists had ever said before, they would know that in fact we are much more worried about the bigger problems facing women, such as pornography, prostitution, wife battering, child molestation, poverty, racism, etc, than we are about a Christmas song. Banning a song that sounds pretty rapey is just a small, achievable goal that we can make on the way to creating a culture that values women, which is an extremely large, long-term project. Duh! The lyrics to that song have always made me cringe, but now I cringe doubly when I hear it because I’m bracing myself for the really fucking dumb and ignorant comments I’m about to hear about the banning and subsequent unbanning of this song on the radio in Canada. Barf!

Thank goodness for the presence of smart, confident, well-spoken, brave, and fierce feminists in the world who keep me sane. Did you see Meghan Murphy’s new YouTube channel? Best Christmas present ever!

Now to the second order of business. Or is this the third? I’m not really keeping track. Here’s a heterosexual couple who was not really feeling the compulsory traditional gender roles that most of us are understandably not comfortable with, and therefore concluded that they are a “lesbian” couple. Now, I do enjoy the idea that the word “lesbian” is synonymous with “defying gender roles” in these people’s minds, because lesbians are definitely hella awesome and gender-defiant, but no, a heterosexual couple doesn’t become “lesbian” just because they do a few superficial things that straight couples don’t normally do. This is yet another case of the word “lesbian” being appropriated as meaning anything that men/straight people want it to mean.

For those of you who aren’t going to click on the article, let me summarize: a boy and a girl fell in love during their late teenage years, and were happy together except for “an unnamable discontent” resulting from feeling “pushed to fill roles neither of us had any interest in playing.” These roles are then described more specifically as “the cis-het (or, cisgender, heterosexual-centric) culture into which we had been immersed.”

Of course! No one likes being forced to act out a stereotype instead of being themselves. Totally legit stuff. But is their solution to ignore traditional sex stereotypes and be the people and the happy couple they want to be, in their own way? NO! Their solution is to consider the man in the couple to be really a “woman,” because that’s the only way he could possibly get out of playing the masculine role in a relationship. God forbid a man refuse the masculine role and still call himself a man.

After he made his announcement that he was really a “woman,” their intimacy deepened because he was able to solidify his identity as a woman with his partner by doing fun things together like hair, makeup and nails.

Even the woman in the relationship, who had previously identified as straight, suddenly realized she was a “lesbian.” Both of them found much comfort in their newfound “lesbian” identities. He claims:

“For my girlfriend and me, our lesbian identities have given us both personal freedom and blissful security in our relationship that once felt impossible. I like to think that we challenge each other to be better women, and I know that my transition has facilitated personal and relational growth for both of us.”

Unlike heterosexuals, who feel they gain “freedom and bliss” from identifying as homosexuals, actual homosexuals face everything from mildly uncomfortable interactions with straight people to physical violence and murder, as a result of people hating their same-sex attraction. Said violence can sometimes occur even without the homosexual in question actually declaring their identity out loud. Because the discrimination is not resulting from a person’s self-declared identity, it’s about the actual same-sex attraction itself. The couple in this article have not reported ever having experienced same-sex attraction.

I wonder, if you did a survey of all the actual female homosexuals in the world, would any of them describe being a homosexual as “freedom and bliss”? I mean, the love and sex are blissful, but the awkward “coming-out” conversations, the hate from self-righteous religious people, the debates over whether or not we should have basic civil rights, the laws banning our relationships, all of this is kinda limiting the amount of “freedom and bliss” we get to experience.

Trans activists literally can’t speak without throwing in a few strawman arguments, and the chosen strawman in this article is that “It is an act of tremendous resilience to assert a trans identity in a world that tells trans people we do not and cannot exist.”

I’ve been studying this issue for years, and I’ve never come across anyone who is arguing that people who identify as “trans” literally don’t exist. For sure if you find an article online somewhere where someone is arguing that the trans-identified people who exist in the world literally are a figment of our imaginations and aren’t actually there, please send it my way so I can laugh at it, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

Nobody is arguing that trans people don’t exist or that they shouldn’t have rights. We’re only saying that biological sex is real, words have meanings, and homosexuality is a sexual orientation based on attraction to the same sex. Further, although conservatives are in favour of enforcing masculinity on men and femininity on women, feminists who challenge the assertions of the transactivist community are actually in favor of gender nonconformity. We actually want heterosexuals to experiment with different roles and cast off traditional expectations. We want people to be true to themselves and dress how they want. We’re just saying that when male-bodied humans put on nail polish, their male bodies still continue to exist and continue to be significant in a world that treats males and females differently.

Although I’m considered a “bigot” for saying it, I think the man in this couple should feel free to do his hair, makeup and nails, and should go ahead and enjoy himself while doing that, without giving a shit about other people’s sexist expectations. I just don’t think he needs to rewrite the entirety of his identity, claim to have physical biology he doesn’t actually have, or make body modifications in order to justify his doing so.  Horrible of me, I know!

Well, that felt good. You know, blogging is a very good outlet for INFJs.

So friends, what have you been up to? Got any Christmas Complaints this year? Heard any particularly gruesome opinions about Baby It’s Cold Outside? Leave them in the comments below! I miss y’all.

Petition in support of Meghan Murphy

Hello friends,

I’m just dropping in to say there’s a petition going around to support Meghan Murphy who was banned from Twitter. You can sign it here.

In a relatively short time, several gender critical feminist blogs were removed from WordPress and Meghan Murphy was banned from Twitter. We need to do what we can to support our sisters. Please sign and share!

Thanks,

Purple.

WordPress censors GenderTrender. Gallus Mag responds

The removal of Gender Trender is a targeted silencing of lesbian feminist journalism. Shame!

4thWaveNow

4thWaveNow reached out to Gallus Mag of GenderTrender after WordPress dumped the site yesterday. In her most recent post, Gallus Mag  broke the full story of a Canadian MTF trans activist who has launched “human rights” complaints against a group of women’s salon workers who were unwilling to touch and wax male genitalia. GallusMag revealed other details about the activist’s prior social media activities, some of which pertained to underage girls.

GenderTrender’s importance as a groundbreaking investigative reporting outlet covering the excesses of transgender activism cannot be overestimated. The site has also served as an incubator and launching pad for many other bloggers and writers; 4thWaveNow’s founder counts herself among them. The loss of GenderTrender is a huge blow. It is also the latest casualty in a growing clash between–on one side, a loose coalition of feminists, parents, gay and lesbian people, detransitioners, free speech advocates, and many supporters; and…

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UNBC women’s centre posts ‘No Terfs’ sign on door

Hello friends,

This ridiculous sign actually made me come out of my blogging hibernation to make a post. At the University of Northern British Columbia, students have put a “No Terfs” sign on the front door of their Women’s Centre, ironically right above a sign saying “All Welcome.”

This is 2018, and women who understand human reproductive anatomy and whose activism focuses on rights for female humans are no longer welcome in places that purport to enhance rights for female humans. Such women are such loathsome garbage that they aren’t even considered part of the ‘everyone’ who is supposed to be included in all-inclusive spaces. Organizers aren’t able to grasp the basic illogic, stupidity, and misogyny of this position.

Video: Butch documentary

This is an absolutely beautiful mini documentary about an artist doing a photography project on butches. Her name is SD Holman and you can find information about her project here.

She talks about butches but she also mentions her femme partner and how meaningful her support was. I wrote down this awesome quote:

“I was hoping that young butches especially, but all butches or masculine-of-center women, would feel the way my wife Catherine made me feel, which was disastrously handsome.”

Here’s the video:

Human rights abuses against the waria of Indonesia

From the Guardian:

Stripped naked and beaten: transgender women flee Indonesian city in fear

Transgender people have been fleeing the sharia-ruled Indonesian province of Aceh amid fears of further violence, an exodus that comes in the same week the national parliament proposed criminalising gay and all extramarital sex.

In the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, scores of transgender people have fled following the arrest and public shaming of 12 trans women in neighbouring North Aceh.

The 12 women, known as waria, were arrested on Saturday night when police, accompanied by locals, raided beauty salons and forced them to strip off their shirts and have their hair cut in public.

In detention the waria were compelled to undergo an ad hoc form of “gender re-education”, which included wearing men’s clothing, physical exercises such as push-ups and sit-ups, and instruction on lowering their voices, until they were deemed suitably “macho”.

Sources close to those detained say they were also stripped naked and beaten by police, and upon release are suffering psychological trauma.

I found this BBC article explaining who the waria are. They are cross-dressing males: “the word waria comes from the Indonesian word “wanita” meaning woman, and “pria” meaning man.” This word reminds me of the word “he-she” that was used in the U.S.A in the mid-20th century.

According to the BBC’s information, the waria work as street vendors and some are in the sex trade. According to the Guardian article, some of them work in beauty salons.

Photo source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/asia_pac_indonesia0s_waria/html/1.stm

It is common that men who are naturally feminine are homosexual, and it’s also common that such men are assumed to be homosexual whether it’s true or not.

From the Guardian article linked above, “A recent survey found that nearly 90% of Indonesians who understood the term LGBT felt “threatened” by the minority and said same-sex relations were not permitted in their religion.”

Interesting how people are so “threatened” by working-class men wearing makeup that they need to create laws against them and get police officers to torture them. How much power and influence do a small group of poor men have, that this level of state intervention is required to stop them?

In fact, the same thing has happened in North America. Cross-dressers, both male and female, were harassed by both police and private citizens and severely punished for being cross-dressers and for being gay, in the not-so-distant past.

The Guardian is calling these waria “transgender women,” which is certainly the way the Western world would prefer to label them. I am concerned that calling male cross-dressers “women” erases the likely fact that they are gay men, and I don’t like the erasure of gay people.

Indonesia is cracking down on homosexuality and feminine men because they are threats to patriarchy. The traditional family unit where a masculine man is in charge of a feminine woman and their children is essential to maintaining patriarchy. Feminine homosexual men, as well as masculine homosexual women, are a double threat to patriarchy because they break the rules of sexuality as well as traditional gender roles. They are also the most visible members of the gay community, since their difference is obvious and cannot be hidden. Targeting the most visible members of a community keeps everyone else in line.

It’s possible that some of the waria could be bisexual, heterosexual, or asexual, but that wouldn’t change my analysis of the reasons why they are hated.

The treatment of these waria is an abhorrent violation of their human rights. They should have the right to wear clothing normally designated for women, as well as the makeup and accessories that go with it, and wear their hair long, without being punished.

I do not believe the solution here is to pretend they are literally female. The solution is to stop sexism and homophobia.