TFMI found her blog around the time of TOTWK and found it a great blog about anti-defamation. Then I think the whole fiasco about marriage equality not being a trans thing came up and I stopped following the blog after seeing how things were being ‘discussed’.
I can understand being fed up with GLB community pushing things that do not benefit the trans community and the ignoring important stuff like inclusive ENDA, but some of the stuff I just found uncomfortable  and unwelcome as a pre-op lesbian trans woman (even if a young one) with a pan GQ pre-op maybe non-op trans woman girlfriend.
That and while I often fit within ‘acceptable norms’ for some definitions of trans women within the trans community I do not wish to villify those that do not. The whole thing kind of makes me think of transphobic cis GLB people who want the T out of GLBT.

THANK YOU!I have crossed swords with her and her followers over the past year about this exact attitude that is the focus of your series. They are bound determined to kill our movement. I’m getting extremely tired of seeing them throwing molotov cocktails at activists who are doing the work.

In the interest of full disclosureI think it would have been appropriate to have noted that Ashley has been making some highly inappropriate, vicious, snipping, personal attacks at Autumn on Facebook for some time.  She was completely out of line in doing so, and I’ve been stunned when I’ve seen it.  Autumn is the innocent party in those attacks, and Ashley should not be surprised to see some form of retaliation occur at some point.  However, given the forum, I think recognition that this has been going on should have been made, if for no other reason than to avoid having a series of articles such as this be attacked as nothing more than tit-for-tat.  Assuming your criticisms prove valid, you wouldn’t want their impact to be dulled by assumptions of motivation.  Perhaps something that will be addressed as the series progresses.
While not especially interested to walk into the line of fire on this one, which I’m sure is going to get ugly, I will tell one small story about Ashley.  Character reveals itself in big and small ways.  Last year at NCTE’s lobby day event, Ashley organized a group of people to go out to dinner at a nice, downtown DC restaurant.  I was not among them, but I heard about it from people who were.  At the end of the meal, Ashley announces that she doesn’t have any money, and asked if others could pay her bill.  Those who ended up paying her bill were someplace between stunned, offended, and amused by the whole thing.  They were certainly of the impression that she was well aware she had no money before gathering people to go there, and just felt entitled to have people buy her dinner.  I do have to wonder what color is the sky in her world.

Our community is stronger as a wholethan as component parts.  It is important to understand the diverse needs of each component part, and work together as a whole to meet those needs.  But attacking any part of the community hurts us all.
Thanks for bringing this to light.

Those will be highlighted……in parts two and four.
As I’ll say in part two, I’m a adult woman whose used to being on the receiving end of ad hominem attacks from both those on the religious right and true transsexuals/women of operative history/women of transsexual histroy, as well as those who identify themselves as having Harry Benjamin Syndrome. The difficlty here though is Ashley Love has constantly couched her attacks in antitransgender derogatory and defamatory language while at the same time claiming to be an anti-defamation activist. Her commentary is against community in general, as well as trans advocates. It’s not just me she’s attacking either — she’s engaged in some horrid attacks against Kate Bornstein (highlighted in part three).
That’s just not acceptable behavior for a self-identified anti-defamation activist for “transsexual and trangender” community.

She seems to forgetWhile most crossdressers are not transsexuals most transexuals have been crossdressers.

An often forgotten reality“Crossdresser” is a word that describes a behavior, not a motivation.  People all too often want to assign a motivation to that behavior, but it is simply not valid to do so.  Crossdressing can be the result of many motivations, and of the crossdressers I’ve known, I don’t think I can put a finger on a single one of them who I felt were motivated by what most people want to describe them as: fetishist transvestites.  Now, I can’t say precisely in every case what motivated them, and perhaps for some it was fetishistic.  All I can say is that if these so called “transvestites” exist, I don’t believe I’ve ever met one among the hundred or so crossdressers I’ve known.  In most cases, I’ve been much more of the impression that they were inching their way toward transition, or felt that transition would be too disruptive or unachievable in their lives and used crossdressing to provide some level of comfort with their condition.
Thank you for the observation.

Hmmm….I’m interested in seeing how this series of posts plays out.

I know you will.And I sincerely care a lot what you think.
I believe you know I wouldn’t take this on if there weren’t documentation to back my assertions — I spoke to Pam behind the scenes a lot on this one, and showed her the material before we went forward with this post.
I don’t want this be, or even appear to be, a vendetta against someone who has attacked me personally. I’ve talked to a small number of other transgender activists who idependently used the word “dangerous” to describe Ashley’s commentary in the past year. Researching exactly what she’s been saying for the past twelve months leaves me in agreement with those transgender activists.
I take as much heat as you do, Monica, for identifying as transgender. And you get your heat from the same quarters I do. We’re both used to being called names, and we both have leathery skin — personal attacks bounce off. As I told azerica above, I’m a adult woman whose used to being on the receiving end of ad hominem attacks from both those on the religious right and true transsexuals/women of operative history/women of transsexual histroy, as well as those who identify themselves as having Harry Benjamin Syndrome. My difficlty with Ashley Love has been saying has been how she has repeatedly couched her attacks on some subgroups in transgender community, as well as against some transgender activists, in antitransgender derogatory and defamatory language. This while at the same time claiming to be an anti-defamation activist.
I don’t believe that’s acceptable behavior for a self-identified anti-defamation activist for “transsexual and trangender” community, and I believe it needs to be pointed out.

Anti-Defamation And The Sting Of Truth Of course, the communities of gender have to be especially vigilant about the derision of others of difereing opinons, backgrounds, life circumstances, birth and “life styles” – “calling the kettle black” as it were.
But and that is a big ‘but’, if any leakage of truth is felt by a common collection of sub communities shoved under a larger political “umbrella” created on paper, without the actual consent of affected people within them, that honest truth will sting.
As such, this is what is happening here, Autumn Sandeen and several denizens of the LGB(t) “toe the line club, are feeling that sting in real time. Of course everyone has an absolute right to blog, to write, to express their views, however much based in reality or however deluded.  After reading, nay… after analylzing what has been written in Ashley Love’s blogs and stated in other media from several other writers about the near erasure of fair representation of transsexual and intersex people, there are very sharp shreds of truth just screaming to be heard, understood and considered. The forced appropriation and political absorbtion of the diverse, collective voices of transsexual, transgender, intersex, gender variant individuals by a masculine driven side of the gender collective, suspiciously supported by a “subtly” misogynist, affluent white gay male clique is beginning to be pretty hard to overlook – as we are told to do.
One example, is when we are told to just contribute hard earned cash to drag show events (such as the traveling tripe of a “show” known as: “Shirly Q. Liquor”)that are really designed to invalidate, trivialize the female identities of transsexual(and transgender women); We are then told to just laugh it off when a larger society picks up the cues that trans womyn, their lives, attempt to live genuine lives according to their inherent internal sex/gender and plights are not to be taken seriously. We are then beaten down like redheaded ignorant stepchildren, when there are complaints about the afforementioned, are put forth.
Kitty Empowered x20

OK, So what now?Are we going to attack Ashley or are we going to discuss the issues?
Let me first disclose where I’m coming from.  I am a stealthed binary normative woman.  I consider myself a woman what has been cured of transsexuality.  A woman with history I guess.
I completed transition 26 years ago and have been completely stealth the entire time.  I do see that there is a difference between those that complete SRS and those who don’t.  I don’t believe that one is higher or lower in any kind of Transgender hierarchy.  I just believe that there is a real difference.  You can call that cognitive dissonance if you like, but that’s where I come from.
Also, I must disclose that Ashley Love is a friend of mine.  I met her a couple of months ago, and I do believe that she is voicing things from her heart and from her truth.  Even though I don’t believe that attacks on Autumn are necessary, I do agree with her point of view on the CD/TG and TS/IS differences.
The methods that Autumn uses to display her activism is courageous but sometimes self serving. Autumn’s arrest for supporting the repeal of DADT, while brave, was not needed or helpful in the advancement of TG/TS issues.  DADT had nothing to do with our needs.  Although we do support our LGB brothers and sister.  Autumn’s presence only added to the confusion that DADT had anything to do with TG/TS’s mission.
I know that Ashley posted things about Autumn that are not flattering, but so have many, many other bloggers, and yes most of them have the same slant about Autumn and the issues as Ashley.  Are we going to post a series of articles about them too?  If so, then this is personal for Autumn, and not about the health of any movement.
I know PHB has a large and devoted following, and I like to think of myself as one of those (even if this is my first post).  I would like to see PHB be a forum for discussing the issues, not a bickering gossip site.  I think “The Magazine Project” proved that is not the way to go.  Both sides will only dig deeper foxholes and never pull their heads out.
OK, so what now?

It’s always sad whensomeone who demonstrates potential like Ashley’s stoops to this level. Her comments against people she claims to want to protect against defamation are extremely troubling. I’m looking forward to the rest of this series.

United We Stand…Divided We Fall…
I have made enemies as a direct result of calling out the powerful cis white ‘Gay Inc’ elite in public by supporting my friends and the underclass completely excluded from the upper class ‘pride’ parties and elitist “ch…aridee fundraisers” in 5 star hotels.
It is positive to have an open healthy dialogue and to reflect upon the who/what/where/when/how of collective gender rights movements too, not just accepting an oppressive “ruling class/working class/underclass” divide between those who can afford to schmooze with the elite and those who are left for dead on the streets, their lives undocumented worthless voiceless and apparently a source of shame to the elite during cocktail time.
Oppression is ever present, sometimes it warps and twists people into attacking their own in pursuit of fame/power/glory which they may feel is denied to them as a result of being oppressed.
I would say directly to Ashley Love to thoroughly research and substantiate any public claims about blaming “transvestic fetishists” or “crossdresser perverts” or “drag queens” solely for the sad state of affairs trans* communities and gender rights movments have found themselves in, comparing the gains made by “Gay Inc” over the last fifty years or so – a lifetime of activism and liberation has resulted in some equality for some privileged people, but the ‘blame game’ will not achieve any legal rights or protections for the most vulnerable people in the trans* intersex gender-variant communities, that is sadly another red herring from the school of divide/conquer/rule thinking.
At it’s worst, this type of negative ‘lobbying’ only serves to justify violence, murder, pathologisation, medicalisation, discrimination, hatred and bigotry towards certain trans* gender communities, reading as it does like the “real noble deserving womyn” trampling over the dying bodies of the “fake degenerate diseased sex worker nobody transvestites” in pursuit of THEIR own freedoms, rights and liberation in an act of pure selfishness – I would even use the word “genocidal” to describe the ugliest outpourings of deliberate misgendering, slandering and unnecessary personal attacks between subgroups and apparently ‘competing’ activists as though there is 1 gold medal for the ‘winner’ and certain death for the ‘loser’.
Re:”Shirly Q. Liquor” – it is inaccurate and defamatory to portray them as a spokesmodel for the “bad trans” people who for any number of reasons do not fit the APA/DSM/current legal definition of ‘transsexual’ or ‘Harry Benjamin Syndrome’ which is also the subtext of this and other debates – who is or is not part of an undefined diverse community, who is or is not a responsible role model/representative/lobbyist, who is or is not recognised by the establishments from Gay Inc to the state to the mainstream media.
Big questions.
We all need to have this debate in public and move forwards from all kinds of stuck points and old grievances – attacking the elders in our communities (Kate Bornstein, Autumn Sandeen, Pauline Park, Del La Grace Volcano, Mx Justin Vivian Bond and many others) and selling out for personal gain is not a very productive way to go about it IMHO.

I’m interestedLike Monica Roberts and Autumn, I have also been a target of the attacks from other trans people, as those in the extensive label list Autumn gave us.  However, I don’t recall Ashley saying anything about me specifically, and in the last year, my visibility level in the community has dropped considerably because of having a partner who I adore and stay home with.
I see the basis of this series and I think that is what we need to take away from this.  No one should be saying that they advocate for the rights of a certain group of people from one side of their mouth and talk trash about the same people from the other side of their mouth.  It doesn’t matter who they are and which community they come from.  It hurts more when we see one of our sisters or brothers do it.
So, I am interesting to see how this plays out.  We need to heal each other and not hurt each other.  It’s a lesson I have been learning for over a decade, and I’m not done.  At least I’m more aware of it, now.

It’s not so cut-and-dried…As either Ashley or Autumn are making it. When it comes to Crossdressers/transvestites, there’s a very VERY fine line between those who as Autumn says should be under the “Umbrella”, and those who as Amber says wedged themselves into it wrongly.
I pay very scrutinous attention to how those identifying as CD/TV talk, act and describe themselves, because if you know what to look and listen for, you can, about 97% of the time, determine which of them are still-closeted trand women dressing to find themselves, and which are fetishist men doing it for a kinky thrill, but also which are in the much smaller niche category of men who simply like the clothes better than the gender traditional ones.
I go out of my way to discern this distinction because I freely admit I do NOT think fetishists are transgender just because they crossdress nor do the fetishists belong or deserve to be under the Umbrella. Allow me to elaborate on this.
When you crossdress because of a sexual fetish, but remain at heart a man, who is perfectly happy being a man and dresses not to actually feel like they ARE a woman but just to look the part to feed their fetish, the bottom line is, you ARE still a man. Crossing gender lines alone does NOT transgender make.
And yes, to each their own, whatever makes them happy, but they can stay the fuck OUT of the transgender umbrella because their wedging themselves in is a detriment to the rest of us fighting for basic equality and simple acceptance of self. Especially since the bulk of CD/TV’s I know, including a LOT of snarky drag queens, all of us are just gay men in denial trying to be women so we can be “allowed” to fuck men.
(This is of course doubly insulting to those of us who identify as lesbians).
Go find an issue of Transformations magazine for an example. It claims to be an adult magazine catering to Transgender people, but the average issue contains little to no actual transgender content. The centrefold is usually visibly a pre-op MTF in appearance, but the bulk of the models are men in dresses who happily identify as such, the editor is a 60-some-odd year old drag queen with a notorious bias against actual trans women, and the “News” page generally consists mostly of stories involving accidental penis removal.
But you can’t just lump all identified CD/TV’s together either, because there are a good chunk who really aren’t. Some CD/TV’s only think they are that because for whatever reasons, either familial or societal, they believe there’s something wrong with them, that they cannot really be women, and they dress to find a shred of comfort in their repression of self. Many of those eventually find the strength to defy societal convention, dress full time, and declare who they truly are. Some of them never do and stay trapped in their quasi-closeted misery. But THESE CD/TV’s ARE trans, and they deserve protection and guidance to help them accept who and what they are and move towards a life of finding more comfort within themselves.
The third category I mentioned don’t matter because men who crossdress not out of fetish nor buried identity but because they simply just like the clothes better are rarer than the other two and generally don’t care or try to be wedged in.
The difference in behaviors between the first two groups is very distinct however, and while there are always variations on general behavior and each individual person is of course different, there are in fact some very distinct behavioral differences at the root of it that I have found 97% of the time successfully let me determine which side of the coin they fall on.
For this we’ll call them Side A and Side B, A being CD/TV’s and B being non-op/closeted Trans women.
Side A tends to be very group oriented. They find others of their persuasion, form groups, have parties. They rarely if ever go out in public for simple boring day to day stuff dressed up, because there’s no fun in it. There are of course exceptions, such as those who believe themselves to make very attractive women and get a thrill from making strangers ogle them, but most keep their dressing either private or limited to groups or lovers.
Side A also tends to behave not like average actual women when dressed, but as slutty caricatures. They exaggerate their feminine behaviors to points most of us would gag watching sheerly from how cheesy the act is. And they tend to favor stereotypically Hollywood notions of what makes sexy womens fashion.
Side B in general tend to be shyer, more reserved. They often WILL go out in public fully dressed for boring day to day stuff, though rarely in their own neighborhood for fear of being recognized. They too tend to act like slight caricatures of women, but to the other extreme, and not near as exaggerated.
They tend to focus on behaving demurely, like the Hollywoodish ideal of what a “respectable lady” acts like. They also dress completely different, tending to favour a more conservative approach to dressing specifically so as to NOT stand out. And as dressing for them is about temporary peace of mind and not sex, they tend to go out of their way to not think or talk about sex at all while dressed and can become very visibly uncomfortable if the topic is brought up even mildly.
As I said, there are of course exceptions on both sides, and people who defy the mold so to speak, but in my near 40 years in my experience, the bulk of those on these two sides generally fall into the behavioral cues I’ve described here.
And while I know I’ll get flak for saying so, I was taught to speak my mind, so I’ll say it anyway.
I do everything in my power when meeting a side B to help them explore their identity and their feelings to find a way to make peace with it, and become who they were meant to be, whether that means living full-time non-op or going full transition, but as long as they find peace simply being a woman, I do my best to help them find out exactly what, for them, being a woman means.
But I do not want Side A wedging themselves under the “Umbrella” just because they cross gender lines when acting out their kink. They aren’t trans in any way that, in my opinion, needs protecting or really for that matter even comes close to counting as gender variant in ANY way except how they dress. Their inclusion harms us. These fetishist men, acting out their bad slutty stereotypes even porn stars would quirk a brow at, making the whole trans thing solely about the sexuality and acting like the rest of us are really just like them and in denial, THOSE are the men that Fundie Wingnuts will point to and use as examples to vilify, pervert and dehumanize our lives to prevent us from achieving equality, protection under the law and getting simple basic respectful recognition of self. They have every right to exist and be kinky men in dresses but they need to stay away from co-opting our struggles to legitimize a harmless fetish at the expense of our hard-fought baby-steps towards acceptance.
And yes, once I’m sure someone I meet is firmly on Side A I will bluntly tell them so, as politely and civily but firmly as I can. Many of them actually listened, having previously never realized we weren’t just like them but denying it. I’ve convinced a good chunk of Side A people that we ARE in fact genuine in our identities and NOT just in “denial of fetishry etc”.
Which brings us back to Autumn versus Amber.
They’re both right, and they’re both wrong, and they need to meet in the middle. Amber needs to stop lumping all CD’s together as ONLY CD/TV, while Autumn needs to recognize that Side A doesn’t deserve or need to be included under the umbrella, and Side B needs compassionate help to evolve away from just being quasi CD and into finding peace with who they are.
Amber is hurting deeply closeted sisters already struggling in a place of self where they don’t fully understand their feelings by lumping them in blindly with fetishist men. Autumn is misguided in er attempt to make our community inclusive by trying to defend the inclusion of men who don’t even in the slightest want to actually BE women, and only wedge themselves into the community to legitimize their fetish, which doesn’t need any legitimacy because it’s an otherwise harmless fetish when kept in private where most fetishes should be.
But when Side A IS included, it harms the rest of us, from non-op to post-op to intersex, being identified by the general public with male fetishists hurts us all.
I will continue to help every Side B I meet, and continue to teach Side A’s the difference between a fetish and an identity. And unless first attacked I’ll always do so politely.
There sadly very much ARE distinct lines. Amber and Autumn both need to realize that the category they’re arguing about are not just on one side of that line or the other. They spread across it like every other group, each one different, and nothing is cut and dry about it.

ARGHI have NO idea why I started typing Amber instead of Ashley, but as I’ve noticed my fuck-up, please just assume I mean Ashley when I’ve typed Amber by mistake.

VULGARITY AT ITS VERY WORSTThis site regularly stoops low — but this low is truly unprecedented. Like the GayKK-ers with which she aligns herself, Pam — via her proxy Autumn — cannot help but welcome an opportunity to slap down any voice-of-color this “community” somehow manages to produce.
A multi-part series about Ashley Love and her “problematic” views in cyberspace.  Are you f-ing kidding.  Your counterparts such as Andy Towle and David Mixner spew the most vile and hateful bigoted, racist bile day in and day out and all you do is regurgitate and repost it.
Yet a Black woman has something to say — well, then this site wants to take her down.
Shame on you, Pam Spaulding.  Shame!!!!

Um…..Hello? Earth to man obviously ingesting narcotics? Pam IS a woman of colour you twit!
This piece has ZERO to do with race or color, it’s about who fits under the “Umbrella”.
Worthless troll is worthless.
Also, I’ve never seen a crosspost from Towleroad because most of us here on the blend think the guy running it is a complete trans-hating twonk.
Pam’s never come CLOSE to stooping as low as you just did by publicly being such a complete idiot.

uhm, yes — i can discern pigmentationI am well aware that pam is “of color”.
which makes her take-down even more vile.
Nothing is sadder than folks preying on their own!

Thank You!Thank you, Autumn and Pam. I met Ashley Love at an anti-Prop8 march in Hollywood a week after the election.  A journalist wanted to interview us 3 trannies on why we were participating in the march when Ashley went into a homophobic rant.  My friend and I fled and wanted nothing to do with her.
I AM A TRANNY (transsexual) and stand with all of my transgendered brothers and sisters.
xo

Wait what?I didn’t see anything about her race. I saw an explanation of her words and why they’re problematic in light of her visible position, but where was her race mentioned? Would her views be any better if she were white?

Why split hairs?I suppose if you really want you can say there’s a difference between CD and TG, or TS and IS.  You can also say there’s a difference between the young transitioner and the older one.  You can say there’s a difference between MtF and FtM.  You can say there’s a difference between the educated TG and uneducated.  There’s a difference between the rich and the poor.  There’s a difference between the believing and agnostic.  There’s a difference between the white and non-white.  There’s a difference between the urban and the rural.  There’s a difference between the eastern and the western.  There’s a difference between the stealth and the out.  There’s a difference between the passing and not passing.  There’s a difference between the politically active and non-active.  The list can go on and on.
Let’s for a moment consider Lynn Conway’s number of 1/2500 adult genetic males have had SRS.  If there are 150 million males in America, of which about 3/4 are adults, you get about 45,000 post-op MtF transsexuals in this country.  Let’s assume most people who live full time don’t get surgery, and for the sake of discussion, use a number of 100K for MtF.  Now, let’s double that to account for FtM.  200K full time trans people in America.  Do you realize that we only need to draw 18 lines through that population to be down to the level of the individual?  Throw in part time TG, and you only need 19 lines.  I just gave you 13 of them in the last paragraph, which gets you down to groups of about 49 people each.  See if you can come up with 6 more.  It’s fun!
We’re so small in number that once you go drawing lines through us, it doesn’t take long before we’re just a bunch of individuals.  And you know what?  That’s what we are.  A bunch of unique individuals each trying to find our own happiness in this life, who happen to share one common quality that holds us together: we all have to deal with a culture that does not want to accept us as equals.  Drawing divisions within us does not help to deal with that situation.  It only drags us down.  Once that situation is thoroughly dealt with, we can all go off to live our own lives.

GQSpecifically, Ashley Love has referred to Kate Bornstein as “male” and deliberately misgendered hir using male pronouns such as “he”, “him”, “his”, for example.
Kate Bornstein self-defines as Genderqueer and uses gender neutral pronouns such as “ze”, “hir”, “mx”, “they”, “v” – this info is publicly available to anyone who has access to the internet and has basic grasp of the English language.
This is also in the context of Ashley Love/MAGNET campaign AGAINST the deliberate defamation and misgendering of transsexual women/trans women/women with trans history – so in this case, it was still considered “acceptable” to publicly dehumanise, degrade, mock, misgender and otherwise destroy the well-documented identity of a genderqueer-identified transsexual person who also happens to be a critically acclaimed high profile author/writer/journalist/educator/advocate/activist for wider LGBTQetc communities
As for banding subgroups of minority groups, telling people who they are and therefore whether or not you think they possess a defined characteristic for legal rights/protections from discrimination apparently based on what you think is going on between their legs is ideologically the polar opposite of self-definition, self-identification, self-perception as victim of hate crime proposed extensively by Kate Bornstein, J.Jack Halberstam, Leslie Feinberg, Judith Butler, Calpernia Addams, Norrie Mae-Welby, Pat Califia, Eddie Izzard, Lynn Breedlove, Annie Danger, Sylvia Rivera, Diane Torr, Bird La Bird…
Gender rights should not be cut and dried or for sale in exchange for celebrity/fame/bling/golden handshakes with politicians…

And you get to self-identify as a tranny.Tra**y isn’t a term I choose to identify myself with as I’ve been called tra**y as an epithet — in a way specifially meant to dehumanize me. I have no personal desire to reclaim the term.
But on the other hand, folk identify as queer too, and that’s a term that was a frequently hurled antigay epithet in the 1960′s thru the 1990′s, and many outside community still use it as an epithet today. People are still reclaiming the word queer — who am I to tell anyone what terms are appropriate to self-identify with, and which one’s aren’t appropriate?
Well, I choose to stand with you too, and I stand by your self identification as a tranny. You are my community sister.
And so is Ashley; Ashley is my community sister too. Even when she engages in derogatory language against people who fall under the transgender umbrella, she is still someone I will call my community sister.

huh?Miss Kimberley, a trans woman of colour based in London, was attacked by Ashley Love and various trash-blogs written by white trans women/women with trans history and summarily ridiculed as a “female impersonator”, misgendered as “he”, “genderqueer”, “drag performer”, “bad tranny”, so again this public debate appears to be about certain kinds of privileged transsexual people promoting radfem harry benjamin syndrome ideology to the detriment of anyone who is gender non-conforming – “bad trans” and “gay inc” apparently includes any trans* person who has not had genital surgery for any reason, or not taking hormones, or not conforming or buying into rigid binary gender system, so FTM transsexual people who self-define as genderqueer are “very bad” in this frankly disturbing narrow fundamentalist POV.
Gosh, if you can’t afford healthcare as po-op (poverty-op) non-op transsexual person, you are also THE ENEMY WITHIN… ugh

David…I would hope you would read what I write in the three other essays in this series, and tell me then if you still believe I’m going after Ashley because of her race.
Believe me; I’m quite aware that being accused of racism was a likely result of posting this series of articles.  You probably won’t believe me when I tell you race had nothing to do with this, but it really didn’t.
Hopefully that will become clear in the next three essays in this series, but if it doesn’t become clear to you ant others, I’m prepared to take that hit from my peers of color in LGBT community. I know my commentaries aren’t coming from a position of racism.
I wish Love was the kind of trans activist I could embrace; trans community needs a hell of a lot more visible young trans activists, as well as a hell of a lot more visible trans activists of color. Ashley Love is both young and African-American, and has had a lot more attention from mainstream media than most African-American trans people could dream of having.
I’m incredibly saddened that Love has been using her public voice to deride and defame people who identify as transgender, and that derision of transgender identified people that she’s been engaging in is the only reason I’m writing this series.

I was trying to put holes in David’s logic.

soznewbie, hit wrong reply button, agree with Autumn below ->

which Umbrella?I thought it was a TG Umbrella. you’re trash talking as if it’s TS only? honestly. there isn’t enough love in the world.

Funny thatI argue with Kate a LOT over whether or not “Tranny” is okay to say in any context, but however Kate identifies, she’s post-GRS, so that just makes Ashley look even stupider.
Besides, sadly enough it’s STILL generally acceptable to publicly bash trans folk.

Please stop talking out of your assAnd actually read my comment. It’s nothing remotely CLOSE to trash-talking. If you disagree with me that’s fine. Don’t make yourself look more the imbecile in the process by replying with a cheap troll comment instead of an intelligent rebuttal.

Further proofThat you need a check-up from the neck up dear boy. No one is taking Ashley down because she’s a POC, certainly not Pam. If you honestly believe otherwise you’re a complete idiot. Ashley is being addressed SOLELY because of her public and blatant trans-on-trans discrimination. Race is never mentioned nor is it even a factor here, the article is SOLELY about self-inclusive defamation.
Please go back to the bridge you live under now.

If you think he’s a trolll……then follow the internet axiom: Don’t feed the trolls. It’ll save you a lot of grief.

Fair enough.I’ve done that plenty of times myself.

Hatchet jobs This smacks of hatchet work worthy of Dr Brown in the days gone by.. On both sides.. Shame on both of you IMHO.
I can understand how Ashley feels and how the writers in the electronic media seem to think just because its under the T umbrella it makes everything the same and equall. It’s not and in the past 8 or so years it seems it getting more and more hateful the yelling at anyone who disagrees .. (remind you of anything from the election ? IE Tea Party goons, who using agressive attacks and shouting to beat down anyone who disagrees)
So maybe we have a new T party of aggressive angry at loss of WMP they demand everyone accept them even if they dont even try.. Just up one day and say TODAY I AM WOMAN now bow down and do as i say.. it’s annoying as hell to people who have worked very hard to assimilate into society to have such things cast a poor light over who and what they are about.. Does that mean people dont have the right to live what ever congruency they feel is right for their mind and body no.. but stop yelling at those who needed to go further in the gender transition.  

I read your commentI felt tl;dr would have become appropriate around the ‘even porn stars would quirk a brow at’ part, however, I reached the end. you seemed to be equating transgender with transsexual, or claiming the ‘umbrella’ for transsexuals only. honestly, that’s fine with me if you are, you can claim whatever you want for whoever you want, I have no desire to rebut you, this is, after all, the internet on a friday evening – I just wanted clarification. hence my question.  

Frakkin T WordI’ve kept up with most of the discourse arising from Kate’s use of the word “Tranny” in specific contexts.
I was de-friended by Ashley Love on Facebook after a heated debate around these unresolved issues, she isn’t stupid and has lots of potential but I question trashing the reputation of intelligent people who have contributed to trans* gender communities throughout their lives and saved lives of young trans people as Kate has done; purely for self-promotion and springboarding a career out of some manufactured ‘controversy’.
To repeat, the status of someone’s genitals and whether or not they choose to have genital surgery is separate to gender role and gender identity – in the UK trans people are legally recognised in their preferred gender after living in role full-time for at least 2 years with no legal requirement to have genital surgery, although there is no legal recognition or right to be “unspecified” or “intersex” or “trans” or “gendervariant” unlike Hijras in India for example, or “Other” in certain countries.

Hatchet Face OR Trans Face?I forget, I think the tired meme goes summat like “I hate when Gay Inc and Genderqueer Inc and Drag Queen Inc do ‘Trans Face’ when I’m a real woman”??
Please enlighten us with your definitions of who is allowed to self-identify as female, or as woman?
Don’t hold back, I’ve faced-off with radical separatist feminists, Michigan Womyn/Wimmin-Born-Womyn-Only Music Festival supporters and every type of documented bigot before.
If there was enough love in the world, surely everyone would be free to express their gender, be themselves fully in public, have healthcare/treatment tailored to their needs and live full lives without harming anyone – but it’s so much easier to blame a minority within a minority group for all the oppression and sexism and hatred in the world, and thinking for yourself is far too difficult.
I blame the parenting and the false idols for all my personal problems.

You haven’t seen the other three essays.If you feel I actually have done a hatchet job on Ashley after reading the three other essays, then please let me know that.
But, it’s hard to fairly say I’m engaging in a hatchet job if you don’t know what whe has said, and what I’m saying in response to what she’s said.
In my mind, this is not about Ashley Love verses Autumn Sandeen, although some will no doubt cast this in that way. In my mind, this is about transgender verses antitransgender defamation.
I’m have not engaged in name-calling against Ashley Love, nor will I will not engage in name-calling in this series of essays. You will; however, be able to see that Love has engaged in name-calling of drag performers, genderqueer people, crossdressers, Kate Bornstein, and me — all of which will be meticulously documented with either links and/or screeshots.
I have opinions about Ashley Love’s work as an anti-defamation activist for “transsexual and transgender” community, as she defines community, and that will be clean and clear based strictly on what I’ve documented about what she’s written in internet ink. Again, in my mind, this is about transgender verses antitransgender defamation, and not about her verses me, or me verses her.

Breathe in, breathe out……and count to ten. =)
You’re allowed to be angry here in your responses, Mx Stampax, but dispassionately arguing your points will probably go further with other blenders than points made in an angry voice — I know that all too well from personal experience.
But if you’re going to be angry when you respond to someone, please continue that restraint you’ve so wonderfully shown of staying away from ad hominem attacks. You’re of course not close to “there” with ad hominem attacks to this point, but we all know that sometimes it’s hard not to take arguements to the individual when we feel angry.
Lawd knows I’ve gone all insulty on people in fits of anger myself, but before we (not just you and me, Mx Stampax, but all here in this comment thread) consider “going there” with ad hominem attacks, let’s all do the breathe in, breathe out thing, and then count to ten before hitting the post button. =)

Make my point for me Mx Mx stampax .
I believe you are making my point.. go on yell at me for speaking a view point.. go on yell hon make you feel better ? Have your protest and claim your male/female level you like you win you YELLED THE LOUDEST … thanks for making the point i was trying to make … wana box me for the title ? wrestle me at the michigan womens thingy ?  ok i give you win lol sheesh ..
Autum do you gain anything from attacking someone who is attacking you ?? other than to what ? Stir the embers of fires left let to die.. I realize sometimes one can get angry and feel the need to respond and to say its not a personal thing well i dont buy it.  Why havent you gone after Ashley Love before ? Why wait till your name is pulled thru it if it was truly about the issues dividing the subsections of T. Why wait ?  An to make it a 3 part event ..
Life is so much more than transitional issues.. I know this sounds condescending but oh well .. But I remember those first 5 or so years of transition and it was turmoil emotionally and physically. I said many things i regret I heard many things i hated. Faced Discrimination in employment housing etc.. I know the pains of loss of family even if temporary can make one very bitter and angry at the world. But if one can just bite their tongue for a few moments, the anger passes and the reason returns.. I hope so for both of you … Cause like the red green show .. were all init together..  

Love can build a bridgeAs “Drag Queen” icon Cher once sang lulz…
Back to basics and Genderqueer 101 for everyone’s benefit…
I use “Mx” as gender neutral title, as opposed to “Mr” or “Miss”, and I prefer gender neutral pronouns as I have never self-identified as male or female, my gender identity is very much non-binary gendervariant and I have the same struggles with discrimination in public services (nobody else has disclosed their genital status so assuming that isn’t relevant to this public debate).
I am doubtful any real consensus will ever be reached about terminologies and inclusion within trans* intersex gendervariant communities, but it should be feasible to conduct research, facilitated debates, respectful discourses and civilised meetings where diversity is valued and some common ground formed, without resorting to desperate namecalling.
I look forward to the rest of the dialogue facilitated by Autumn and PHB team, as previously on Facebook and other forums these discourses have been variously shutdown or erased or deleted or manipulated for trash-bloggie ‘journalism’.
“I want to be the gurl with the most cake / I fake it so real I am beyond fake”
kiss kiss oxox

If you would think I would attack someone because they have attacked me……then you don’t know who I am, or what motivates me.
Besides those on the religious right, I’m often attacked by true transsexuals, women of operative history, women of transsexual history, and women who identify with the term Harry Benjamin Syndrome. Their attacks are ad hominem attacks for the most part. I don’t respond with front page diaries at their attacks anymore because I have thick skin, and they don’t impact broader transgender community activism.
I’m not responding to Ashley Love’s attacks on me, but to her attacks on transgender community members with antitransgender, derogatory language. Yes, I bring up her attacks on me in parts two and four, but they’re brought up to show show he’s using antitransgender language to attack me.
The problem isn’t even that she’s using antitransgender, derogatory language to attack transgender community subgroups and members, but that’s she’s using that language, it’s that she’s doing this as a high-profile, self-identified “transsexual and transgender” community anti-defamation activist.
Please read the three other essays in this series. If you still believe I’m engaging in a tit-for-tat attack on Ashley Love, please let me know. I’ll take the hit if that’s what you believe at the end of this series of essays.
That said, I know what’s motivating me to finally comment, and it’s not Ashley’s personal insults of me. Insted, my motivation is found in Roz Kavaney’s Six Axioms Of Transgender Activism.

Establishment VS Anti-EstablishmentJust needed to echo previous elements of discourses where class divides and owning privilege were stumbling blocks also.
Ironically, as Roz Kaveney and Kate Bornstein have written about from their own lived experiences, the cisgendered white gay men’s movement has historically co-opted lesbian/bisexual/trans/gendervariant/intersex activism to further their own single issue cause.
Often the same echoes of separatism, single issue fundamentalism and co-opting the time/energy/resources/activism of many minority groups for the benefit of pro-establishment non-profits with narrow agendas (HRC) and political careers for ruling classes built on the hard work of unfunded working class/underclass volunteers can add to the disconnect between say those who have privilege/legal rights/recognition – and those who are untouchables in a taboo caste system, such as sex workers, unemployed, street homeless, living with HIV/AIDS, welfare dependent, physically/mentally ill or disabled.
This isn’t about one person either, it’s about an unelected non-democratic elite claiming to “speak for” and “represent” and “lobby on behalf of all transsexual transgender people”, without any formal election or consultation or consensus about the decisions they are making or the compromises they are making on everyone’s bhealf, ie, policing language and actively defaming/disassociating from drag/gendervariant/crossdresser/transvestite/genderqueer/non-binary communities, in favour of some (hypothetical) politically correct version of how everyone should be in order to be “accepted” by the establishment based on their terms, not based on the real pressing needs of diverse communities.
Black or white is easier for the establishment than shades of grey, ‘male’ or ‘female’ is better for the mainstream as ‘other’ is unknown, anti-establishment and ‘dangerous’ to those who benefit from policing binary gender roles, ie, cisgendered white male patriarchy.

behalf*not bhealf, a Nordic Elf-type Woodland Creature with distinctive mating calls

Damnit, a typo…I wrote:

I’m not responding to Ashley Love’s attacks on me, but to her attacks on transgender community members with antitransgender, derogatory language. Yes, I bring up her attacks on me in parts two and four, but they’re brought up to show show he’s using antitransgender language to attack me.

That was an accidental typo. I very much meant she, and missed the ‘s’ key apparently.
My applogies to Ashley Love and all other transgender people here. This was an honest typo, but I should have checked my work closer. There’s just no good excuse for the misgendering — even accidental misgendering in this context.
I will doublecheck my postings more closely in the future. Again, my apologies.

We are at our best when we are oneWhile it may not be a perfect parallel, I remember efforts to drop the T from ENDA on the theory that without T wedging into LGB, then it would be easier to pass.  That effort was wrongheaded, we are weaker when seperated, and that effort failed.
The way I see it, no letter or subdivision of a letter in the LGBTQIA is wedged in.  Those who hate and oppress rarely make such distinctions, other than like-majority and not-like-majority.  If any letter in that acronym has important distinctions and issues that need to be further broken down and explored, that’s fine, but my instinct is that we shouldn’t exclude anyone from the list, or vilify any subgroup as the cause of our problems.  The cause of our problems are those who do the oppressing.
And sure a strategic discussion about good PR is a fine conversation for advocates to have, but we can’t blame people for living their lives.

I feel the same way

I have more in common with a non-trans woman than I do with a cross dresser or drag queen.

As do I.
So what?
I have this real difficulty with seeing how my human rights are any more important than that of gays, or drag queens, or Patagonians for that matter just because I have nothing in common with them.
It’s not even a matter of “E Pluribus Unum” or “United we stand, divided we fall”. It goes deeper than that. Being able to look in the mirror and not seeing a hypocrite, out for “her group” and no-one else.
Sometimes it’s not real easy – such as when Lesbian Separatists wish that I would literally die, and don’t mind telling me so to my face. Or rights for trans and intersexed people, rights gays have enjoyed for a decade, get traded away for same-sex marriage as happened in New Hampshire.
Well guess what? When trans people got the right to marry in some states back in the 50′s, some were very careful to emphasise that they weren’t anything like those sick, sad creatures, Homosexuals.
Yes, well I’m not either, but that’s irrelevant. So what? My mere existence makes many people uncomfortable. Even some trans people aren’t exactly comfy with a rare intersex condition like mine.
Ms Love does make a good case for the harm various segments of GLB have done to others, usually unwittingly, sometimes quite deliberately. So? Let’s not do the same, huh? We don’t have any excuse to, we know what it’s like to be on the receiving end. If a campaign to grant others rights makes it more difficult for us sometimes – as it has done – what about when the shoe is on the other foot? ENDA, remember?
We need to retain the moral high ground, to say that equality means exactly that. It doesn’t mean “rights for me, not others.” Or others, non-GLBT will ask what’s in it for them to help us, and we’ll have no answer.

I sadly thinkthat none of us will live to see the day those are valid choices on an ID card. Le sigh.

Proof you weren’t paying attentionSince as always I talked about Non-Ops with as much respect as those who get ops. My point was MEN who identify AS MEN are not trans. I NEVER said once or even so much as HINTED that only transsexuals apply, just that men with a fetish but no gender identity incongruance do NOT.
Now do please go away?

Except in AustraliaWhere it’s already happened.
My ACT drivers license doesn’t have a field for either gender or sex. And a very few people have got “sex unspecified” on their birth certificate, and “X” on their passport, as allowed by the ICAO.
We’ve still got a long way to go. But it’s not impossible.

My commentsFirst, for those new to PHB, I’m a 51-year-old transwoman who’s been in the trenches for nigh on 15 years, mainly in the Toledo, Ohio area.
Because I’m openly trans in a largely conservative area, jobs for me have been few, far between, and part-time with low pay and no benefits. I haven’t worked in four years due to my age, my spotty work record, and my ability to stand up for myself and not take any bullshit from bigots.
I don’t have access to a clinic that can assist me, nor do I have vast sums from speaking engagements, sugar daddies, or working the streets to be able to afford one estrogen pill, let alone the surgery I need to make me whole.
I’m one of those on the utter bottom of the economic scale, and as such, beneath the contempt of those who think they’re better than me because they had all the breaks or worked under male privilege until they could afford surgery.
I eagerly accept the mantle of liberal radical, because if it weren’t for the liberal radicals in our society, a lot of our social net wouldn’t be here. And it’s up to the radicals like me to keep it there from the radicals from the right, who want to dismantle it.
I’m also an amateur historian. I’ve been compiling and reading vast amounts of historical documents on the trans movement, and it’s connections to the lesbian and gay liberation movement.
IMNSHO, to the American society at large, we’re all one group — lesbians, gays, bisexuals and us. They can’t fathom the difference. This includes the diversity in the trans community as well.
All this bitching and sniping as to who’s transgender and who isn’t, and who can call themselves transsexual and not, and the interscene warfare between our lesbian and gay colleagues is doing the work of our opponents for them! As stated earlier by Mx Stampax: “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”.
We need to stand united against these forces who do not care whether this gay man drives a Porsche and wears a $500 suit to his law office, or the lesbian who owns a coffee shop or bookstore, or the transwoman who busts her ass slaving away to try and afford hormones, or the drag queen sashaying in a nightclub, or the lucky one who lives stealth, and especially the sex worker. All they want is for all of us to either go to someplace far away from their perfect lives and their perfect faith, or to die shut away in some institution or homeless shelter, or murdered in the street, the killer allowed to get away or receive a light sentence; you get the drift, I hope.
I consider anyone (including those who work outside a “traditional” gendered job — a male nurse or a female ironworker) to BE transgendered! If that person crosses a gender line, no matter how small, that one of these self-righteous bigots holds so precious, they’re targeted.
As to the bullshit that cross-dressers aren’t part of the community, I’d like to remind you elitist bastards (which includes FtMs who think like Ashley) that they face discrimination too! it’s why those laws are written as “gender/gender identity/gender expression”!
For example; back in 2000, Winn-Dixie fired Peter Oiler because while off-duty as a truck driver, he liked to relax dressed in female clothing. The trans community in the area rallied around Peter, and one actually died after being deliberately struck by a car during a protest!
So to all of those elitists out there, don’t think that just because you have some sort of privilege (real or imagined), don’t think you’re immune from bigotry and hate by society at large!
Some good ol’ boy out looking for a good time ain’t going to give a fuck what kind of car you drive, or what job you have, or how much you make a year — all he knows is that his preacher called you a pervert and that society needs to be protected from people like you!
The same thing goes for the more “civilized” bigot — only instead of the axe handle or a knife or a gun, their weapons are the courts and the legislature; using both to deny you the civil rights granted to you by the Constitution. They also don’t care how rich or poor you are, how well you can or cannot pass, what kind of job you have. All they care about is putting ALL of us in a deep dark hole so they don’t have to see us — whether that hole is a grave, or the black hole of poverty and marginalization.

Is this worth it?Autumn, love you, sis and am proud of your work on DADT, but this is potentially explosive and certainly divisive. Is is worth it in the end?

Say what?Common Virgina Prince concept.
For heterosexual CDs and drag Queens it is cross dressing
For Transsexuals it is not, unless you mean the forced cross dressing that tried to indoctrinate us into our assigned at birth sex.
For many transsexuals it isn’t about gender it is about comfort within our bodies.

Unequivocally yes.Even if I lose credibility in the process here — as some no doubt will cast this as “Autumn Sandeen vs. Ashley Love” instead of “transgender vs. antitransgender defamation” — the problem here is that Ashley Love is becoming dangerous to community members and community civil rights by setting up hierarchies and using derogatory language against those she disagrees with — all while her profile is rising within and without transgender community.
Sometimes the harder thing to do is the right thing to do. I believe this now.
Please read the series of essays. If you still believe that what I’ve written in unnecessarily explosive and divisive, please let me know. I’ll take the criticism.

I was paying attention.I would class Non-ops as TS (people who’s gender identity doesn’t match their birth assigned sex), but who who chosen, for whatever reason, not to transition. that you think they’re also fine under your Umbrella is kind, but, sorry, yours remains a TS umbrella. anyways – thanks for answering.
(I’m based on GLAAD http://www.glaad.org/reference… which I thought does explicitly include CD in TG  ).

great comment

I’m unfamiliar with the Love-Sandeen online feud……but it doesn’t surprise me as my first thought upon reading the first few sentences of this post is that it was — regardless of the facts — a personal attack.
Love may be Satan herself, but, frankly, it’s sleazy to launch a lengthy multi-part online attack on someone in a highly public forum while keeping your motivation — if not your intent — hidden until “parts two and four”, when, presumably, we’re all supposed to hate her enough to overlook it.  As you must know, if you had led this post with the fact that you feel she has repeatedly personally insulted you, you’d have run the risk of looking like a crank with a chip on her shoulder.  What you look like by not revealing this fact at all, however, is much worse.
You’ve done good work. This hit piece isn’t one of them.  If you want to carry out an Internet fued with someone, go right ahead, but don’t disguise it as journalism.  Perhaps there really is a story here, but you are not the one to tell it and certainly not like this.

Well, now…Autumn, don’t screw this up.
You know that one misstep and its not credibility you’ll lose, but you’ll create the division that you yourself have advocated against.
Ashley’s transphobic remarks of late — and her transphobic basis for going after TOTWK — are one thing, but if you screw this up, you’ll just give her cause to support Aria even more, and that kind of batshit crazy we can do with less of, not more.
Besides, you know if you screw it up I’ll have to say something.  And I was just told by the doc to de-stress.  Then I find this here, and learn of Gabby Giffords being shot this morning.
One less ENDA supporter, one less trans ally who truly gave a shit.
Don’t make more of them, please.

I may as well weigh in with a commentI came into contact with Ashley Love when she was spearheading the opposition to the TOTWK movie.  I was supportive of the protest.
I have seen some of her separatist comments, and in particular those directed against Autumn.  
I am not a fan of separatism, whether it’s lesbian feminists who think of trans women as delusional men, gay assimilationists who think of trans people as colonizing “their” human rights struggle, or trans separatists who seek rights for post-op TS folks only, and mischaracterize the rest of the trans community as a means to enhance the actual differences.
I support marriage equality – it is every bit as important to trans people as it is to LGBs.  I am familiar with the caselaw, starting with Corbett, and I know that trans people with a legal licensed marriage in one state might find their marriage not portable, and those with a perfectly legal licensed marriage in some states might find their marriage declared null and void by a court after the death of their spouse.
Te trans separatists who oppose marriage equality are usually straight-identified, and who think that the reasonable accommodation that leads them to be recognized as members of the sex with which they identify is the only thing that needs to be done for their marriages to be valid.  
They don’t realize that trans people, regardless of op status, do not ever belong to the sex they were assigned at birth, and regardless of what we do in terms of transition, do not fully belong to the other sex either without a “reasonable accommodation” – technically speaking we always are an “other” with brains that develop along one binary blueprint (at least in part), and genital tracts that developed ontologically along the other binary blueprint.
In a binary society, many of us identify in accordance with the binary, with the opposite sex of that assigned to us at birth.  We will do whatever we can to bring the brain and body into harmony.  Some of us who feel the need can’t get all the way to where we belong.
Others, and particularly some young trans folk, are emerging as being fine with not being assigned to either binary sex.  Personally, I think we still live in a society in which only two sexes are recognized, and anyone who falls into the tiny bit of “otherness” of diversity in our natures are still pushed into trying to fit in one way or the other.
While I myself a one for whom a binary identity as a woman is how I feel about myself despite my “birth defect,” there are others who don’t feel a need for the correction of the defect, and yet do not identify with the sex assignment that matches their genital tract development.
Once I started seeing Ashley Love’s separatist leanings taking over her rhetoric, she lost a great deal of credibility with me.
There are a great many ideas that one finds in a separatist context that make a great deal of sense, even when one strips out the separatist claptrap.
One perfect example is Harry Benjamin Syndrome.  The science that shows that there are genetic predispositions and ontological developments that lead to a kind of intersex situation in which the brain develops along one blueprint and the genital tract at a different point in embryonic development follows the other blueprint, makes perfect sense.  Some intersex activists consider this POV to be “colonization” but that kind of attitude is just more separatism.  It’s always interesting to see how some people seek to control the bright lines between different kinds of developmental or identity situation.
Another, from the lesbian feminist separatists, is their whole concept of the Patriarchy – except, once we strip out the separatism from the concept, we get a picture of a society in which men and women are all oppressors, and all oppressed, by institutionalized sex and gender stereotypes.  It’s true that women get the short end of the stick much of the time, but men are also oppressed in many ways.  But many people, perhaps more men thatn women, are blissfully unaware of these institutionalized stereotypes – but if we blame the “Patriarchy” alone, we end up remaining blinded to the bigger picture.
Perhaps some who become transsexual separatists (the “opposite” of those equally obnoxious disciples of the late Virginia Prince who see WBT post-ops as delusional men), nearly all of whom are WBTs, do so because they entertain doubts about themselves – some are so wrapped up in the idea that it is their surgery that “makes” them women, that they forget that they had to be women in order to feel the need for the surgery in the first place.  It’s almost like the Wizard of Oz – even without surgery, we are who we are – the surgery does not change our brains, it only changes our bodies.  Perhaps all we need is our equivalent of a testimonial, a pocket watch or a medal so that we can recognize the truth within us.
So, while there is often value in some of the ideas of separatists of all kinds, I always find myself having to discount those aspects of their rhetoric that is aimed at denigrating others because of their (sometimes grossly-exaggerated) differences.
It’s a lot like the difference between fundamentalists and liberals in the religious sphere – fundamentalists will start crusades and jihads based on differences, while liberals will work toward cooperation and ecumenism on the basis of finding commonalities.
Meanwhile, while our own separatists attack us from within, they only help the religious fundamentalists who hate us all.
There is no value in Ashley Love’s attacks on Autumn Sandeen – so the only thing to do is let everyone know that they should just ignore this kinfd of rhetoric as being unhelpfully separatist.

Please clarify 

Then what it’s worth is…Personally I don’t quite see how Ashley has any credibility left except amongst gender fascist HBS homophobes.
If you really think it’s worth it, then sure, expose away.
But if you think this is worth it, then I look forward to the minimum 10 part piece you’re going to write on the total disgrace to the T and LGBT of lack of representation of women of colour. I presume you’ll also note your own and others’ efforts to rectify the situation and the individuals and organized bodies who are particularly obstructive.
Because worth is relative and if you think it worth while to spend this amount of time on an egocentric pimple, it’s worth a great deal more to deal with the running sore that’s adjacent.

If you still feel that way……after the four essays, please let me know. I’ll take the critism.

Well, now…“I’m often attacked by true transsexuals, women of operative history, women of transsexual history, and women who identify with the term Harry Benjamin Syndrome”.
The terms that you use were, and are, all efforts of those groups to differentiate transsexualism from the other subgroups that are included under the transgender umbrella.  Many, many do not appreciate what we consider as the colonization of transsexualism by the transgender and their included subgroups.
I can easily say that the attacks you indicate you have sustained pale in comparison to the onslaught those of us who feel as Ashley Love does have endured over the years on the blogs and in debate.
“…the problem here is that Ashley Love is becoming dangerous to community members and community civil rights by setting up hierarchies and using derogatory language against those she disagrees with — all while her profile is rising within and without transgender community.”
Is Ashley Love dangerous to community members and community civil rights or is she simply more of a threat to the dogmatic claptrap that is constantly fed to a sizable portion of the transgender by activists who not only fail to represent our position, but even to acknowledge it?  I think the latter.
Many of us have said for years that one day a high profile transsexual was going to come along who would not mind publicly standing up to and refuting the current transgender activists and, for once, represent those of us who do not agree with the rank and file transgender and our inclusion in its “subgroup”.  Ashley Love is fast setting herself to be that person.  She is absolutely right when she says that the transgender subgroups, including but not limited to, in her words, “…crossdressing men and transvestites…” have “…coopted the transsexual movement”…so has the GLB.  It’s only a matter of time before she will be followed by more and more people who feel the same way as Ms. Love does…before they are the activists being interviewed on the talk shows and of whose stories are being told in the documentaries, instead of a self identified transgender trying to sell society on the concepts of pregnant men, “women” with penises, and other equally absurd notions.  It’s simply a matter of time…    
People such as Ms. Love are now said to be “dangerous” to the civil rights of the transgender “community” by you and, apparently, other transgender.  Did it ever occur to you and your cohorts – even once – that those of us who have the same position as Ms. Love feel the transgender subgroups are a danger to the civil rights of the transsexual “community?”
Well, has it?
 

Who’s zoomin’ who?I could summarize this piece in a few sentences and with a couple of links to Love’s material. But you intend a “series of essays”? In what alternate new media universe does this warrant multi-part, multi-day coverage? But, hey, this sure sounds like a great way to get lots of attention and lots of comments over the coming week. Look at me! Look at me!

We Stand?While you’re listing “Elders”, how about remembering the rest of us who worked in our cities and areas 30 and 40 years ago? Such as Sylvia Rivera, Jude Patton, Carol Katz, Rose Johnson, and a large plethora of others? The Black and White who worked with Martin Luther King Jr, Robert Kennedy, who worked in the Peace Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Disabilities Community Movement? We have been forgotten by Gay Inc, erased from the reality of our efforts. We were and are Transsexual and Intersex, not part of some umbrella title. And we all worked for EVERYONE’S Rights. Not just ours. When Gay Inc acknowledges this, then a lot of healing can happen to mend the rift between our groups.

Brilliant post!I don’t know what else to say.

I agree, Joann!As I said in my essay above; we’re doing the opposition’s work for them!
It’s time we put away our petty labels and who fits into what category, and whio deserves rights and who doesn’t based on our ability to afford surgery, ad nauseum.
All of us have been targeted by the religious reicht/American Taliban/teabagger faction in American politics, and we’re going to have to stand together against these modern-day fascists, because all your money, your ability to pass, and your accolades aren’t worth a damn thing when your rights as a citizen are removed or ignored by a group who make the Nazis look like rank amateurs!

+1Joann this was a brilliant essay that gave me a bit of chills.
Thank you

Selfish

…instead of a self identified transgender trying to sell society on the concepts of pregnant men, “women” with penises, and other equally absurd notions.

You mean, people who are just trying to live their lives in way that best fulfills their needs? Who are you to judge another person’s medical choices and life circumstances?

ThanksThanks azerica for standing up for reason and sense and reality.
From my experience many and possibly most Crossdressers have a bi-gender gender identity. And indeed i have known Transsexuals who struggled to be ‘just a crossdresser’ for as long as they could manage.

So a Gay CD is a Drag Queen?And what about MtF CDs and Drag Kings?
And it may surprise you to learn that plenty of Bi-Gender Identity people have issues with comfort with their bodies too. Including people very close to me.
There may be more to the world of Crossdressers than you are cirrently aware of SuzyQ.

There’s a big differencebetween apt criticism of the erasure of and vilification of and mockery of Bi-Gender, Genderqueer, Transgender, Transsexual and especially Intersex and the derogatory comments about people with bi-gender identities and Crossdressers.
Ashley defriended me on facebook recently, after several days of selective deletions of my comments anytime i calmly said things she didn’t like, often related to my work with Intersex people on Intersex issues like Infant surgeries and people whose bodies and identities both don’t fit binary views of sex/gender. And that was just after she amde a comment that i felt misgendered me and my opposite-anatomy bi-gender partner.
And that’s despite my respecting her and everyone elses right to self-identify.
The scapegoating and villification of Bi-gender identity people is not justified. And for someone using the term Intersex a lot in our brief conversations she seemed to have little to say about issues facing Intersex Infants or Bi-Gender Identity Intersex people.

Name the differencesIf differences exist, then name them. Specify and describe them. And explain why they are important differences.
Make sure you define the differences between for example a self-identified crossdresser with XXY chromasomes. Or a Bi-Gender Identity person who was surgically corrected as an infant for being Intersex.
Make sure that you account for the Cross-sex neurology findings in the brains of Gays and Lesbians too. No good claiming Crossdressers are co-optin transsexuals if you co-opt the term and experience of Intersex for your own justification without recognising that Gays and Lesbians too show Intersex Neurology!
Make sure you have read this: http://aebrain.blogspot.com/20…
And make sure you make no false claims that it’s a fact that only Transsexuals are biological in causation while Crossdressers are all psychological because the comparative biological studies needed to know that is or is not the case havn’t been done yet, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to the contrary like signs of hereditary crossdressing like the case of Pip Wherrett (who transitioned late in life) and others and of course you must contend with the likelihood that just as Autism occurs in different strengths so too may Transsexuality and what else but non-transsexual transgender would such a mild case of transsexualism show as symptoms but Bi-Gender Gender Identity?
So we haven’t tested causation, so you can’t claim the differences are in causation. Experience? Surgery? Body Issues? Human Rights Abused?
Lets get into the details. Lets discuss the lives of bi-gender people like norrie mAy welbe. Lets talk about the experiences of the many different types of Intersex. Lets talk about real things faced by real friends of mine.
Because I am Bi-Gender. My partner who is opposite sex to me is Bi-Gender. I have Intersex friends and Transsexual friends who are Bi-Gender. I have Crossdresser friends who are Intersex. I have Drag Queen friends who are Intersex. I have binary-identified Transsexual friends. I have binary-identified Intersex friends. These are friends of mine and me and my partner you are talking about, every single one of which has thanked me for my activism work on their issues. So lets see you actually try and define exactly what these differences are. Without one shred of offense, bias, bigotry, othering, invalidation, disrespect, refusal to acknowledge their human right to self-identification or anything of that ilk.  

Speaking as a gay man here…I have read both women’s writings, and I agree that Ashley seems to fly off the handle. She has misrepresented Autumn’s viewpoint. For instance, Ashley seems to feel that Autumn is not a true transsexual, and so she accuses her of conflating her own type transgenderism with whatever Ahsley considers to be true transsexuality. When in fact I recall reading several times where Autumn has specifically addressed the different types of atypical gender phenomena that fall under the transgender “umbrella”. I have never gotten the sense that Autumn tries to conflate all of these phenomena, or wedge herself into an issue she doesn’t have a stake in.
Ashley also pays lip service to lesbians, gays and bisexuals being allies, but then continuously trashes gay people and seems to assume the worst about us. Reading her comments on facebook, I get the sense that she does not give LGB people the benefit of the doubt, and just assumes we all exclude the T when we think about and discuss civil rights. In a word, it sounds jaded. She is constantly railing against “Gay Inc.” – maybe she doesn’t realize that a lot of us gay, cisgender people have just as many problems with HRC and other mainstream LGB orgs.
Ashley also posts shots at Autumn that have no other intellectual content other than, essentially: “look at Autumn, she is such a freak”. It’s uncalled for. I don’t always agree with Autumn, but pretty much everything I have ever read by Autumn contains something of substance and is an invitation to discuss a topic.
That’s my perspective from the outside looking in. I didn’t read every comment posted here, so sorry if I repeated things others have already touched on.

And thr Bi-Gender Identity ones?Where do the Bi-Gender Identity Crossdressers (and Genderqueers, and Intersex people) fit? I have friends who count as each and I’m sure they’ll want to know. My own partner for one!
And your hypothetical Side A people, assuming their behaviour is not a result of Internalised Transphobia and partially unblocked self-denial and repression (considering in crossdresser communities such behaviour is usually associated with people early in their path to self-acceptance and is the same kind of behaviour one often finds in… Cis Het Teenagers coming to terms with themselves!), how is their sexuality not a legitimate sexuality that should be afforded all the rights of Homosexuals Bisexuals and Lesbians?
And what about the cross-sexed neurology findings in the brains of Gays and Lesbians?….  

And with any luck it’ll go further soonhttp://www.starobserver.com.au…
And Gina Wilson of OII’s points are particularly important. She, my partner, a Transsexual friend and I discussed the possibilities of this kind of thing at length over dinner after the NSW State Parliamentary Forum on Homophobic Bullying in Schools and i think she has some very good points about the need for such a category and the dangers of it if it’s non-optional or used to invalidate binary-gender TS and IS identities.
Of course that kind of fear is half the reason so much conflict exists between the binary-gender and bi-gender people but it’s a stupid conflict because reforms don’t need to be mutually exclusive. Both binary and non-binary can be respected recognised and acknowledged at the same time. And the best way to ensure that we don’t have a see-saw of each harming the past gains of the other is to work together for everyone’s rights at the same time.
It really is that simple.
And the TS/IS et al binary-identity people need to acknowledge the reality that non-Transsexual Bi-Gender Identity Intersex people exist. I met a very nice one at the Australian Human Rights Commission Roundtable meeting who spoke quite passionately on not identifying as only male or only female, as well as the issues they have had with health services because of the either/or system.

You’re right. Human/Civil Rights are for Everybody, no exceptionsAnd it is the same set of human rights that overlap between each of the sub groups. Not one group has a singular human rights issue.
Intersex Infants and Transsexual Kids both need maximum adult choices, so no forced surgery, no denied hormone-blockers.
Intersex, Transsexual, Bi-Gender, Crossdresser, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual kids all deserve to have their self identification respected and gender expression unchallenged throughout their childhood.
I could go on through the list for a very long time. As every issue from marriage to healthcare to ID documents covers 2+ of the groups involved.
And if we are all going to be fighting at the table for the same rights we may as well be fighting together with combined strength rather than against one another.
We can all have equal rights!

Co-opted?I’ve heard Cisgender Cissexual Women say that Transsexuals have co-opted Womanhood. I’ve heard Intersex people say that Transsexuals have co-opted Intersex. And I’ve heard it said Transgender co-opted Transsexuals.
I wonder.. how is your claim different to the other two?
Which of the myriad Indigenous Traditions, especially those of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of my own country and including the traditions of my own cousins birthright that draw no distinction between these groups was the first to begin this co-opting before either term was invented?
What about the non-transsexual Intersex people who have Bi-Gender Gender Identities? Who have they co-opted?

Thanks BattyI’ve learnt more about Transgender from you than I think anyone else.
I may not identify the way you do. I may not understand how anyone can be like you (though I’m working on that). But by letting me know that you, and those like you, exist, that’s helped.
Your humanity and intelligence convinced me long ago that human rights for “your kind” was an issue equally important as for “my kind”. I was a bit like Ms Love before that, I didn’t know any better. Thanks for educating me, with kindness and patience.

Let’s respect each other please.I’ll be honest with you all, I do not like the word tranny.
I do not like to be called tranny, it’s not who I am.
I am a woman, period.
That being said I do not consider it my job to tell other people what they would like to be called or how they relate to themselves and the world around them.
If someone relates as being a tranny, well, fine, that’s what they are. But they loose all claim to say they are like me, because I do not relate that way. I do not understand why someone would want to call themselves that, but it’s not my call.
You do not have to understand someone to show respect to them. That’s what is going so wrong in our country right now. Respect for each other is at an all time low. It’s OK to disagree, or to defend your position, but everybody needs to stop acting like a herd of jackasses.
If somebody calls me a man or a tranny then I am offended by that. And I am quick to correct them. You have to nip that stuff in the bud right away, or it just gets worse.
If I call somebody else something they consider offensive then I am in the wrong. Period. And I should apologize.
I think what needs to happen is this, stop telling other people what they are. Take care of your own life, help others if you can, and stop this caddy name calling bullshit.
Our community has enough problems. Let’s not help the opposition by trying to define each other. That’s what the opposition tries to do. That’s part of the oppression we face.
Let’s respect each other please.
And please do have a nice day.
 

The majority of English speakers…… have no idea that alternative pronouns even exist. Not quite “basic knowledge”. Other than that, I think you’re right.

Thankyou too ZoeWhen i started the only thing i understood about Intersex was the basic human rights philosophy and while that gave me a head start i learned tons from you which helped me understand a great deal more and be far more effective.
That and you reminded me of the basic humanity of those holding right-wing views as well as the reasoning and emotions behind conservative philosophy (which till that point i was too often simply dissmissing as irrational and nonsensical) and to be patient with those working from and through their discomforts. Something which helped me gain the self-reflection i needed to recognise and work through some personal internalised issues that had slid underneath my radar and which taught me things that have been invaluable lessons in working with others struggling with their own internal issues and/or traumas.
Not to mention the supremely useful resource that your posts of collected science have been.

AgreedOur commonalities, especially our common humanity, are not negated by recognising each others right to identify and define themselves however they do. That’s their human right. And i can’t validly claim my right to my identity if i’m disrespecting someone elses. Nor can they validly claim theirs if they are disrespecting mine.
All human rights are mutually dependent. So the only way to win is for us to respect all others equally.
Or as i said on Facebook in my status inspired by my conversations with Ashley:

Everyone has the human right of self-identification. Not to ignore or erase any commonalities shared with other people, or define the identities of others, or get to exclude others from or because of their identities, or get to be more valid than others or claim others are less valid. You only get to identify yourself and consequently must respect the self-identification of every other person.

We are all thinking feeling caring human beings. We bleed red. We feel sorrow and pain and happiness and love and triumph and fear. We are none of us perfectly flawless, none incapable of mistakes, none of us incapable of being wrong or ignorant, none of us are incapable of learning either, or growing, or healling. We are none of us monsters, clones, shapeless masses, diabolic conspirators intending to destroy the lives of others.
Let’s all recognise our common humanity, and reach out to each other with compassion.