SurvivorWorld

Why Tumblr Is Perfect For The Trans Community

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 18:53:08 -0400

Why Tumblr Is Perfect For The Trans Community:

Reina Gossett getting some well deserved love.

“If you don’t see yourself anywhere else online, come here.”

I got some tumblr love from Thomas Page McBee of Buzzfeed today alongside some brilliant other tumblr blogs like @brooklynboihood and @thetestshot! check out the piece here!

The Spirit Was...: On Untorelli's "new" book

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:30:06 -0400

The Spirit Was...: On Untorelli's "new" book:

STREET TRANSVESTITE ACTION REVOLUTIONARIES:
survival, revolt, and queer antagonist struggle

Untorelli Press presents a compilation of historical documents, interviews, and critical analyses of STAR, a group of street queens in early 70s New York City who self-organized for survival and…

thespiritwas: “We (Lesbian Feminist Liberation) found out there...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:48:51 -0500

thespiritwas:

“We (Lesbian Feminist Liberation) found out there were plans to have a transvestite as part of the entertainment for the 1973 Gay Pride rally in Washington Square following the march and we decided to make a statement critical of transvestites…we decided we were going to stand up on that stage and tell everybody what we thought. We stayed up the whole night before the rally and typed up this little statement. We thought it was very important. You see, we were creating theory at the time.” Jean O’Leary, founder of Lesbian Feminist Liberation, later the first president of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF)

“The transgender community was silenced because of a radical lesbian named Jean O’Leary, who felt that the transgender community was offensive to women because we liked to wear makeup and we liked to wear miniskirts. Excuse me! It goes with the business that we’re in at the time! Because people fail to realize that -not trying to get off the story -everybody thinks that we want to be out on them street corners. No we do not. We don’t want to be out there sucking dick and getting fucked in the ass. But that’s the only alternative that we have to survive because the laws do not give us the right to go and get a job the way we feel comfortable. I do not want to go to work looking like a man when I know I am not a man” Sylvia Rivera

“A case could be made that we should have included transvestites rights but I don’t think that gay people wanted to be identified with that. We were trying to get away from that image. And we were trying to get the bill passed. So the transvestites were excluded from the bill and they never got reinstated.” Jean O’Leary

“I thought free loving was the thing, I found it doesn’t pay the rent…During the daytime they all call us fags and freaks. At night I get even. I freak on them. I make them pay for all the insults they gave me. I can have a nice conversation with them, give them words of wisdom. But I’m getting back at them. My way.” Marsha P Johnson

"You see it is important to understand how damaged people don’t always know how to say yes, or to..."

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:02:00 -0400

““You see it is important to understand how damaged people don’t always know how to say yes, or to choose the big thing, even when it is right in front of them. It’s a shame we carry. The shame of wanting something good. The shame of feeling something good. The shame of not believing we deserve to stand in the same room in the same way as all those we admire. Big red As on our chests.

I never thought to myself growing up, be a lawyer. An astronaut. The President. A scientist. A doctor. An architect.

I didn’t even think, be a writer.

Aspiration gets stuck in some people. It’s difficult to think yes. Or up. When all you feel is fight or run.

If I could go back, I’d coach myself. I’d be the woman who taught me how to stand up, how to want things, how to ask for them. I’d be the woman who says, your mind, your imagination, they are everything. Look how beautiful. You deserve to sit at the table. The radiance falls on all of us.””

- —Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water (via velvetandbone)

easily one of my most favorite things i have read from a transformative book (for me).

"Anyone can attend yoga, kabbalah classes, church, lectures by the Dalai Lama, yada, yada, yada - but..."

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:04:37 -0400

“Anyone can attend yoga, kabbalah classes, church, lectures by the Dalai Lama, yada, yada, yada - but can you be present for your life, and live with the way you treat other people?”

- Tori Amos, More - February 2005 (via torispokenword)

"Gentrification is a replacement process. So it is where diversity is replaced by homogeneity, and..."

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 00:42:32 -0400

“Gentrification is a replacement process. So it is where diversity is replaced by homogeneity, and this, I believe, undermines urbanity and changes the way we think because we have much less access to a wide variety of points of view. We are diminished by it. So literally, the range of our mind’s reach is much more limited because of gentrification.”

- Sarah Schulman, author of The Gentrification of the Mind. From the interview “An American Witness
Part 1: Gentrification, Trauma, & Sex” from 12th Street

This entire interview (linked) is such a powerful and informative read. And the book is highly suggested.

while the gif isn’t as funny as the real thing, i can and...

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 11:00:58 -0400

while the gif isn’t as funny as the real thing, i can and do laugh at this for uncomfortable amounts of time. my kind of humor.

you are drawing many lines and i am reading closely, between.

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:09:09 -0400

you are drawing many lines and i am reading closely, between.

“The Greek word for danger was peria, which translates into ‘an experience’. What if we had the...

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:42:48 -0400

“The Greek word for danger was peria, which translates into ‘an experience’. What if we had the faith to see what we perceive as dangerous as simply an experience? Instead of fearing the experience, we can try to have some faith in the experience. We can have faith that what is happening or what we are experiencing is not harmful, but is apart of our natural and ever continuing evolving and development. “

http://www.mysticmamma.com/new-moon-in-cancer-july-18th-19th-2012/

Photo

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:32:32 -0400

yes to all of this. in total solidarity. thespiritwas: Sylvia...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:48:05 -0400

yes to all of this. in total solidarity.

thespiritwas:

Sylvia Rivera kicking ass on stage after some radfems & transphobes tried to refuse her the right to speak at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day rally. Said radfems then had their own march in part protesting trans participation in Pride. A precursor to today’s Dyke March.

40 years later in the very same park trans women are still fighting for space within Pride as this year’s Dyke March fiasco demonstrated. I’m feeling challenged and troubled by the narrative that trans women’s response to transphobia must take the “form of serious, calm, point by point analyses of why radfems are wrong” as Stephen Ira pointed out.

What strikes me about this video is that she isn’t trying to be calm and collected after being attacked. She’s not internalizing the notion that fighting transphobia has to take on the oppressive notion of “respectability.”

These conversations have left me wondering: has the non profit industrial complex and professionalized activism gentrified our political activity?

So within all of that, I say: nothing but love and power to trans women creating space for ourselves in queer community! Special shout out to Voz who inspired this post!

the only thing that matters.

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:34:32 -0400

the only thing that matters.

thegreyblogofshadows: It’s hard to see it but the moons are...

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 13:41:25 -0400

thegreyblogofshadows:

It’s hard to see it but the moons are glittery.

"Feminism should, by default, include trans women. I’d go so far as to say that, as trans women are..."

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 19:21:33 -0400

“Feminism should, by default, include trans women. I’d go so far as to say that, as trans women are many, many times more likely to be raped, killed or discriminated against on the basis of their gender than cis women are, we cis feminists should not just be including them but making them central in our activism. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. We’ve long known that feminism as a movement is overwhelmingly white, able-bodied and middle class. It is also overwhelmingly cissexual.”

- Why Cis Attendees of Reclaim the Night are Letting Trans Women Down (via slutgrrrlinternational)

reblogging so the transcript is present. and i am sending so...

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:52:59 -0400

reblogging so the transcript is present. and i am sending so much love. ida is the bravest and the calmest.

transfeminism:

Ida Hammer attempts to talk to Cathy Brennan after the NYC Dyke March 2012

New York City—On June 23, 2012, Ida Hammer approached Cathy Brennan in Washington Square Park after the Dyke March in order to clarify that the NYC Dyke March supports all women whether they are cis, trans or otherwise.

This interaction was prompted by a number of women who attended the march coming up to Ms. Hammer to express concerns about how Ms. Brennan has been targeting women and girls because they are trans. Ms. Hammer asked if these people would like to go talk to Brennan in person.

Ms. Hammer approached Ms. Brennan and said welcome to the New York City Dyke March where we support trans women. Ms. Brennan did not seem intimidated or threatened by this welcome and said she too supports trans women. Ms. Hammer tried to have a discussion with Ms. Brennan about the concerns the women who approached her had with her aggressively targeting and harassing women and girls.

As you can see in this video captured by a bystander, Ms. Hammer is unable to communicate these concerns as Ms. Brennan continues to talk over her. So Ms. Hammer exits the conversation. Ms. Brennan continues to talk with the other women moving to another area of the park.

Later that night, Ms. Hammer posted on Twitter:

“The @NYCDykeMarch is for ALL women! All self-identified women are welcome. All lesbian, bi and queer women whether cis or trans.”

Ms. Brennan replied on Twitter:

“@IdaHammer @NYCDykeMarch except wbw are not welcome. And you assaulted me. Well done dyke march! Video forthcoming.”

Ms. Brennan is encouraged to post the video she has of her interaction with Ms. Hammer as a video response.

Ms. Hammer has not interacted with Ms. Brennan before or after the conversation at Washington Square Park, yet Ms. Brennan has since been aggressively targeting Ms. Hammer with the very harassment that Ms. Hammer wanted to have a discussion about with Ms. Brennan.

ETA: Transcription of Video:

Brennan: And that’s what this is about!

Hammer: Well okay…

Brennan: That is what this is about!

Hammer: (?)

Brennan: What’s your name again?

Hammer: (Laughs) I don’t want to be put on your hit list.

Brennan: (simultaneously) because, like I…

Brennan: I don’t have a hit list! Do you not know what these guys are doing?

Third person (to Brennan ): I’ve seen your hit list!

(Simultaneously)

Hammer: Look, I’m trying to… I looked at your twitter feed and every twitter that you write is “Fuck you” “@ so and so, Fuck you” “@ so and so fuck you”

Brennan: Do you not know what these guys are doing? Do you not know what these people are doing to lesbians in the community? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?

Third person (to Hammer): Do you have to…? We don’t need…

Brennan: No! No.

(Conversations split, Brennan and Hammer no longer talking to each other)

Third person (to Hammer): I have a question. (Hammer turns attention to this person). I have a question. I’m not trying to be anything, okay? Women…. (drowned out by fourth person yelling).

Fourth person (to Brennan): But how often do you like, actually let trans women have a voice? Because she… (drowned out by Brennan yelling).

Brennan (to fourth person): I have…!

Fourth person (to Brennan): No! Because she’s trying to talk to you and…

Brennan (to fourth person): She’s not trying to talk to me! She came up to me with her…(?)

Fourth person (to Brennan): She is trying to talk to you! (Hammer turns attention to this conversation for a second, but returns it to the third person quickly and they walk out of scene).

(Incomprehensible talking between fourth person and Brennan).

Fourth person (to Brennan): As a cis-woman, as a fellow cis-woman, I’m very disappointed.

Brennan (to fourth person): I am not cis! I am not cis!

Fourth person (to Brennan): Then Why, why..?

(video ends).

tastyanagram: bugbrennan: dyksfunctional: bugbrennan: dyksfun...

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 14:30:40 -0400

tastyanagram:

bugbrennan:

dyksfunctional:

bugbrennan:

dyksfunctional:

bugbrennan:

Trans “activists” attempt to make Dyke March unsafe space for dykes. Two trans allies apologize to me afterwards because their friends acted crazy.

I keep looking at the body language and expressions of the three females in the left of this pix.

The woman looking away apologized to me afterward. She said “I disagree with everything you say, but they way they acted was wrong.”

I thanked her.

We should be able to disagree without violence.

THIS… this is EXACTLY how it is suppose to work!! The violence is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE! Being accosted at a FUCKING DYKE MARCH is insanity. Tens of thousands upon thousands of female dykes can seem to gather EVERY FUCKING YEAR, all over this COUNTRY… w/out incident of violence. We all don’t agree, we all don’t even have to like each other, we all just want one fucking afternoon were we gather, march and make ourselves visible.

Diversity doesn’t mean… as long as we are all the fucking same!!!!!!

Yep. I just wanted to march with dykes. But the crazy trans activists need all dykes to accept them as female, or face violent repercussions.

I was afraid they were going to physically attack me. One of the accosters (a cis female queer) actually said she needed to stop because she wanted to punch me.

This is why we need female-only space.

I am the person in the picture. If what I said was taken as an apology for the way that my friends acted, that wasn’t the message I was trying to get across. What I was trying to say was that I wish that the arguments hadn’t centered on personal attacks that were not related to the question at hand, and that’s because I don’t think that’s effective. There was screaming and violent body language from both sides and while I understand that we’re extremely angry about the violence that Cathy Brennan has and continues to enact against trans women, I don’t think that shouting back and forth that the other person is an “asshole” or a “prick” is a good use of time, nor productive.

I am not a trans woman. I am a bisexual cis woman who is fortunate enough to have amazing friends who are trans women, most of whom are dykes. I date trans women. I call trans women when I am feeling sad. We listen to music together and go out to dinner together and talk about cats together. We stay up all night talking about who we are and who we’ve been and where we’re going. And unfortunately another common thread in all these relationships is hearing about violent sexual assault that’s happened to my friends. It makes me really sad that Cathy Brennan looks at these same people and sees women who are trying to force themselves onto others. This could not be farther from the truth. And it makes me angry that she continues to perpetuate violence against trans women by outing them on the internet by linking their birth info with their current name, address, jobs, and more.

Cathy, you are exposing these women to the threat of assault and death. We talked about how cis women (which I believe you referred to as “females”) are killed every day. Trans women experience the same violence against women and are being massacred. On April 3, Coko Williams had her throat slashed and was shot in Detroit. On April 16, Paige Clay was shot to death on the West Side of Chicago. On April 29, Brandy Martell was shot to death sitting in her car in Oakland. These are murders that occurred in April of this year alone. In sheer numbers, the amount of cis women who die eclipse trans women because the total number of cis women is so much greater. This is not an argument as to who gets to claim their victims of violence against women. I truly do not understand why you refuse to recognize that trans women experience violence against women. We are all endangered by misogyny and we should be working together against that.

Additionally, we did not get to discuss this, but I attended No More Apologies in Toronto and was happy to see the discussion of the cotton ceiling. I had a conversation with a friend of yours in which she told me that she read the description of the cotton ceiling and felt threatened by the language that was used. I am another cis woman who read the same description and did not feel threatened at all. Both of our reactions and feelings are valid. But that does not mean both of our readings are valid.

Avory Faucette wrote an eloquent rebuttal which I would only be aping were I to try to respond. I am linking to it here. Zie says:

This spectre of rape that cis lesbian “radfems” habitually raise, centered around the supposed inherent threat of the phallus, minimizes the appalling rates of physical and sexual violence committed against trans women, particularly trans women of color and sex workers. It also twists the picture of systemic violence to make it look like trans women are a huge, systemic threat to cis lesbians when in fact trans women as a group face incredible systemic barriers in almost every aspect of life.

Certainly there are individual cases of interpersonal violence that one could bring up involving a perpetrator of any description. But, although I may not be 100% comfortable with the mental image of panty-ripping, I find it ludicrous to suggest that trans women, in pointing out their exclusion from lesbian sexual communities and the relationship between common lack of cis lesbian desire for trans women and the structural problem of cissexism/transmisogyny, are threatening rape of cis lesbians or perpetuating rape culture.

On a final note, most of the trans women I know are dykes. They are women who are attracted to other women. They are lesbians. And ironically, they are being attacked for being lesbians by other lesbians, even at the Dyke March, under the guise of “protecting lesbians”. Attacking other lesbians is not protecting dyke space. Refusing to accept that there are plenty of trans women who are lesbians won’t change reality. You told me that there is no way that “all lesbians” (cis lesbians) will ever accept trans women as fellow lesbians and women. I don’t care about what every single lesbian thinks. What I care about is the systematic, hateful way in which you have been willfully endangering people, and will do whatever I can to put an end to this onslaught.

For more resources on this issue, check out the following.

The Trans Women’s Anti-Violence Project is a Tumblr-based project:

The Trans Women’s Anti-Violence Project is a trans feminist project addressing issues of systematic, institutional and interpersonal violence and oppression experienced by trans women (those who were coercively assigned male at birth and identify or are identified as women/female) across multiple identities (e.g., race, class, dis/ability, citizen-status, nationality, sexuality, age, HIV status, and form, status, or age of transition, etc.)

Red Durkin is working on Catharsis: Trans Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence. The call for submissions is open until July 31:

Catharsis: Trans Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence is seeking written submissions from trans women who are willing to share their experiences of sexual violence and assault. The goal is to create a book-length collection of personal essays and stories from trans women about their individual experiences. Through compiling these stories, we hope to counteract the tendency of broader feminist dialog to deal with the subject of violence against trans women as hypothetical, ethereal, and comparatively minimal. We also hope that such a compilation would reinforce the place of trans women among all women and help to bring support and healing to our often overlooked communities.

And finally, the Facebook group Transmisogyny is a Women’s Issue was organized by me and other non-trans identified women.

t’s time to stand up for and with our trans sisters! Let’s join together to talk about what we can do to support trans women and eradicate trans-misogyny, particularly from within queer and women’s spaces! We envision this group as a corollary to the work trans women are doing, and as a place where we can also discuss events and situations as people who are potentially less emotionally involved from these topics by virtue of not being trans women.

P.S. Trans women are totally welcome to join and are NOT expected to be responsible for educating others.

Cosign with tastyanagram.

lovely, bubbly, deep goethite.

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:03:00 -0400

lovely, bubbly, deep goethite.

Josephine King

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:52:52 -0400

Josephine King

AfroLez®femcentric Perspectives: Aishah Shahidah Simmons, NO! The Rape Documentary, and Healing in Denver, Colorado

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:32:08 -0400

AfroLez®femcentric Perspectives: Aishah Shahidah Simmons, NO! The Rape Documentary, and Healing in Denver, Colorado:

afrolez:

Three days of events focusing on both eradicating gender-based violence and healing from gender-based violence, featuring Aishah Shahidah Simmons and her cultural work in Denver Colorado from June 7, 2012 - June 9, 2012.

On Thursday, June 7, 2012, ‘XicanIndie Thursday’ presents:

A…

untidywhore: pussy-envy: just a quick break down of what cis...

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:26:19 -0400

untidywhore:

pussy-envy:

just a quick break down of what cis means - if anything is incorrect hit me up

<3 yer info graphics always.

SurvivorWorld

Why Tumblr Is Perfect For The Trans Community

The Spirit Was...: On Untorelli's "new" book

thespiritwas: “We (Lesbian Feminist Liberation) found out there...

"You see it is important to understand how damaged people don’t always know how to say yes, or to..."

"Anyone can attend yoga, kabbalah classes, church, lectures by the Dalai Lama, yada, yada, yada - but..."

"Gentrification is a replacement process. So it is where diversity is replaced by homogeneity, and..."

Sarah Schulman, author of The Gentrification of the Mind. From the interview “An American WitnessPart 1: Gentrification, Trauma, & Sex” from 12th Street

while the gif isn’t as funny as the real thing, i can and...

you are drawing many lines and i am reading closely, between.

“The Greek word for danger was peria, which translates into ‘an experience’. What if we had the...

Photo

yes to all of this. in total solidarity. thespiritwas: Sylvia...

the only thing that matters.

thegreyblogofshadows: It’s hard to see it but the moons are...

"Feminism should, by default, include trans women. I’d go so far as to say that, as trans women are..."

reblogging so the transcript is present. and i am sending so...

Ida Hammer attempts to talk to Cathy Brennan after the NYC Dyke March 2012

tastyanagram: bugbrennan: dyksfunctional: bugbrennan: dyksfun...

lovely, bubbly, deep goethite.

Josephine King

AfroLez®femcentric Perspectives: Aishah Shahidah Simmons, NO! The Rape Documentary, and Healing in Denver, Colorado

untidywhore: pussy-envy: just a quick break down of what cis...

Sarah Schulman, author of The Gentrification of the Mind. From the interview “An American Witness
Part 1: Gentrification, Trauma, & Sex” from 12th Street