re: #136 JordanRules

Sorry, but it is the same language and the same terms I get hit with as a trans woman. You get the TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) crowd like Dworkin and McKinnon making common cause with far right wing nuts like Maggie Gallagher etc when they claim I am “colonizing” or “invading” female spaces and “appropriating” a female body.

BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray released a hotly-debated article in March entitled, “Be trans, be proud—but don’t call yourself a ‘real woman.’”

A little more research on the topic revealed that this idea of “real women” can be traced back almost 40 years, to the heart of the second-wave feminist movement. In 1979, radical feminist Janice Raymond, incensed over discovering that a trans woman had “invaded” a female space, wrote a book called The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, in which she argues that transsexualism reinforces the patriarchal ideals of traditional gender roles, and that transsexuals “rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.”

That is where this leads: ethnic balkanization and repudiation of multi cultural liberal society. This is exactly where Bannon, Gorka, Dreher, Steve Miller are going and this sort of thing both gives them a target but also gives them intellectual cover for claims that liberal democracy is a failure.

At the end of the day, I am going to eat the cuisine I want to eat, wear the clothing I wish to wear, listen to whatever music strikes my fancy and be a trans woman, and I am not going to be apologetic about those things. If I am going to be accused of appropriation, I will tell that person I intend no offense, I am enjoying something that seems interesting and I would like to share something of my Scottish culture in return if they want.

I am not going to stop enjoying it however, and I am not “appropriating” anything by being trans or eating different cuisine or buying a pretty dress. I can listen to the people you say I need to listen to. I simply do not agree on this point.