“Part one of this series explains why I’ve written and I’m posting this series of essays.”This is simply not true.  You did not give full disclosure until prompted to by someone else in the comments section of the first post.  Starting your second post off with a lie does not make this series of posts look any less sleazy.  I’m sorry you’ve taken this path and I wish you would stop and retract.  I’d like to think all of this is beneath you.

Um…. this is kind of… sadReally? We want to go here?  

I don’t see anything wrong with how Autumn has gone about this.What are you complaining about? Autumn mentioned in her first post that she was writing because Ashley Love is defaming members of the transgender community. In this post, she elaborates on it, including Ashley’s personal attacks on herself. She’s disclosed the personal attacks specifically in this post, so what’s the problem?

I know that ifany GLBs tried to claim that you’re not really one of them because you came out later in life they would find themselves being chased by the proverbial torches and pitchforks.

Thanks!Thanks for mentioning my dear friend and colleague Joelle Ryan, Autumn!
I was honored by knowing her for the six years she was here at BGSU. Her activism is as sharp as a knife, and can be just as cutting.
She’s made alot of points against the establishment, and was the target of a vile attempt to discredit her activism by Alice Dreger at the 2008 National Women’s Studies Association annual meeting.
As the link Autumn made, Joelle is the first transwoman to receive a Point Foundation scholarship!

What is your point…Ashley Love is purported to have promoted this statement:
There is nothing wrong with transvestism, just don’t try to pass it off as being transsexual.
Autumn, above, you say the following:
These promotions of statements of Margaux Ayn Schaffer were accompanied with Love selecting the “Like” button for these comments, meaning that she liked the comments herself. With the promotion and the “liking” of the Schaffer comments, it seems pretty clear that Love agrees with the essay points of Evangelina Carters regarding “transvestites” and late transitioning transsexual people.
I wonder if you, Autumn, take issue with Meghan Stabler (which I assume is the same Meghan Stabler who is with HRC) and plan on doing a series of essays on her as well…after all, she “liked” the statement as well.  Do you thing Meghan Stabler dangerous to the transgender community too?  For that matter, so do I.  I know many that would agree with not only that statement but many of the others you box quote above as well…I certainly don’t go with misgendering anyone…I don’t do it nor do I allow others to do it on my blog (though some have tried)…as a courtesy.  I must admit though, because I might address someone in a female or male syntax doesn’t mean I think they actually are.  
But…  
Autumn, by implication, you obviously take issue with the statement made by Ms. Schaffer.  Do you think transvestism should be passed off as transsexualism?  If not, what is your point?  Do you not agree that there are transvestites in the world, some of whom even claim to be transsexual…or are you calling for that word’s deletion from the dictionaries entirely…in the interest of transgender politics?

The point is…Ashley Love is using terminology that GLAAD — the largest anti-defamation organization in LGBT community — has identified as defamatory language. Love uses the term without acknowledging that the term is understood to be as defamatory as tra**y, links to writers using the term in a derogatory manner, and has of late started using the term in a derogatory manner herself. She has used transgenderist, which is a version of a 24/7 crossdresser, to describe me, which according to the GLAAD Media Reference Guide, would be misgendering me.
You’re trying to make a sideways point, EnoughNonSense, apparently trying to make it sound as if I stated crossdressers and transsexual people are the same thing. That’s not what I said. What I said was that her use of the term “transvestite” to make that point is using a term identified by the largest LGBT anti-defamation organization as derogatory to make her statement about crossdressers and transsexual people not being the same thing.
And the main problem with Ashley Love doing that is she’s using derogatory terminology while self-identifying as an anti-defamation activist for “transsexual and transgender” community. That’s the part that raises this up to the level of hypocrisy.
You’re reading what I’m saying, twisting what I said to create a fabricated reinterpretation of what I said and what I meant, and then operate from the position that I actually stated and meant what you reinterpreted me as saying. EnoughNonSense, you have a habit of doing this — You’ve done this on your blogsite as well as here. If you’re going to argue against what I’m saying, at least have the courtesy of arguing against what I’ve actually stated, and not misread, misstate, and or reinterpret what I’ve said, and then argue against what I never actually stated.

This series is unwarranted attack against a good womanAnd who specifically wrote the GLAAD standards?  That is an important point, because it appears no one was consulted and they appeared out of thin air without input from anyone.  You seem to point to them as some kind of biblical injunction and use them as a club against people often enough too.
Ashley has every right to define herself.  And it is beyond the pale to suggest that the mere existence of definitions of words that do not meet your approval is evidence of “phobia”.  The words exist, they describe a particular activity, and the activity itself quite plainly exists.  To appeal to people’s feelings against bigotry to erase a word is not social justice.  It is called using people for your own ends.
Ashley is merely pointing out that real differences exist.  That is not “transphobia”.  In fact, anything that removes the cover that the transsexual condition gives to non-transsexual people within the transgender world has long been silenced by cries of bigotry, when that simply is not the case.  
If Ashley and other women assert their identity, it is not for the GLBT to shout them down and silence them.  All they are saying is that transsexual is not the same as crossdresser, and that some non-transsexual people are using the GLBT to further their own ends at everyone else’s expense under the guise of the transgender rubric.
Surely the LGBT does not want to claim that transsexual is synonymous with, or related to, drag queen or non-transsexual crossdressers (of any motivation)?  Surely a supposedly anti-Gay Inc blog like Pam’s does not want to shout down women of color who express a contrary opinion to Gay Inc. doctrine?
And, surely, Autumn does not want to impose an identity on others when she herself so strongly objects to having one imposed on her.

You’re making a false assumption.You’re making the assumption that I’m writing about Ashley Love because she has personally attacked me. That is just not the case.
I’m a grown woman. I have people personally attack me frequently, and I’ve developed a pretty thick skin regarding personal insult. I have a personal mission and vision statement that I follow, and it includes a quote I’ve quoted often on antigay sentiment from Bayard Rustin, as well as Roz Kaveney’s Six Axioms Of Transgender Activism.
On the religious right, Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality and Brian Fischer of the American Family Association have personally attacked me with much of the same language that Ashley Love is using; my transgender identity was recently attacked by one of the speakers at the Family Research Council’s DADT press conference. I expect to be treated badly by people on the religious right.
From those who identify as true transsexuals/women of operative history/women of transsexual history, as well as those who identify with Harry Benjamin Syndrome, do a Google search of my name with Evangelina Carters, Just Jennifer, and AriaBlue. They’ve attacked me personally with similar language to what Ashley Love has used, but I didn’t front page responses to them. I expect to be treated badly by people who identify as true transsexuals/women of operative history/women of transsexual history, as well as those who identify with Harry Benjamin Syndrome.
I’ve been attacked by multiple authors at TS-SI too, but only responded to one of them. The response wasn’t based on their personally attacking me, but that TS-SI identifies itself as a reputable journalism outlet, but they don’t adhere to industry wide journalism standards regarding transgender people. That’s what I addressed in my PHB commentary on TS-SI — They can’t reasonably identify themselves as a reputable news outlet if they’re not adhering to industry wide journalism standards.
In my mind, this isn’t about Ashley Love vs. Autumn Sandeen. As I said above, I’m a grown woman, and I’m used to ad hominem attacks on me, especially when  couched in  antitransgender language. I wouldn’t even care what Love says about me, even when couched in antitransgender language, if she didn’t identify herself as an anti-defamation activist for what she calls “transsexual and transgender” community. In my mind, this is about transgender vs. antitransgender defamation by a trans anti-defamation activist, and not about her and me. Love can’t reasonably identify herself as an anti-defamation activist for what she calls “transsexual and transgender” community if she engages in antitransgender defamation.
There’s a big difference between the motivation you’re assigning to me and my actual motivation.
Tomorrow’s essay deals with Love’s attacks on community icon Kate Bornstein — including how she intentionally misgendered Bornstein with quotation marks around the pronoun she used for Bornstein. That has nothing to do with me personally — well other than I personally identify as transsexual and transgender.

IrritationsAutumn I seldom comment on PHB. But in this case I would like to offer you my perspective. I hope you will not be offended for I have no ill will towards you.
To be blunt you sometimes charge off in directions that seem to me just plain weird. I sense that you feel offended by Ashley and want to slap her. In my humble opinion this is a battle you will lose. Face reality. All these terms such as transgenderist, transvestite, cross dresser and even the hated Tr..nie word are ill defined. I’m a bitch, you’re a bitch and so are a lot of other people. Big deal. There are far more important battles to be fought.
My suggestion is refocus. Now that DADT repeal is at least passed and signed what can you do that contributes to your future or the rights of all gender variant people? Surgery? Enda? Where are you going and what is the challenge? It would thrill me if you chose something positive either for yourself of for the rights of the “dis-enfranchised”. Ashley is not a problem for you or anyone else unless you make it so. Ammunition is precious, don’t waste it.

So which standard from GLAAD……That I mentioned above do you not agree with, Aria? Do you disagree that transvestite is a derogatory term when a large number of transgender identified people do believe that transvestite is a derogatory term? Do you disagree with the idea that the term crossdresser should NOT be used to describe someone who has transitioned to live full-time as the other sex? Or who intends to transition in the future? Do you disagree with the idea that using community terminology to misgender someone is unacceptable behavior?
I’m not sure which GLAAD Media Reference Guide standard you’re saying isn’t acceptable. However, I know what terms and grammar that LGBT community generally finds derogatory and defamatory because the GLAAD Media Reference Guide has outlined standards; I don’t know what terms and grammar Love considers derogatory and defamatory because she hasn’t released a media reference guide with outlined standards.
But if Love were to write a media reference guide and state what MAGNET believes should be “transsexual and transgender” community standards are, she would need the input of transgender people if she still were to self-identify as a “transsexual and transgender” anti-defamation activist. I’m positive a large number of transgender identified people would tell Love that the term transvestite is a pejorative, and I’m positive a large number of transgender identified people would tell her that transgenderist shouldn’t be used as an identifying term for a self-identified transsexual.
GLAAD, in a previous version of their Media Reference Guide, used to say that media folk shouldn’t use the term transsexual because it’s outdated — they said always use the term transgender. Well, GLAAD no longer says that because they received community input that told them otherwise — they now advocate asking gender variant people how they self-identify. GLAAD doesn’t now tell you the right way to self-identify — just as I’m not telling you, Love, or anyone else the right way to self-identify yourselves.
You get to self-identify yourself. You can identify as transgender, as transsexual, as both transgender and transsexual, or as neither transgender nor transsexual. You can even pick a different term entirely to use to self-identify with, even if that term for yourself is tra**y.
I’m so definitely not advocating that if you or anyone else identifies as transsexual, you have to also self-identify as transgender.
However, if you do identify yourself as transsexual and not as transgender, but then claim to be an anti-defamation activist on behalf of “transsexual and transgender” community members, then you better not use terms that the largest LGBT anti-defamation organization identifies as derogatory and/or defamatory to define transgender people if you don’t have a published standard of your own.
The problem isn’t that Ashley Love self-identifies as transsexual and not transgender, it’s instead that she self-identifies as an anti-defamation activist for “transsexual and transgender” community members while then using derogatory and defamatory antitransgender language.

No, I’m not…And, going on offense and slamming me and my blog is not called for, but expected…I get a lot of that, particularly from transgender advocates.
Anyway, what I did do is ask you some specific questions, none of which you answered…or even acknowledged.
Because GLADD, a gay and lesbian organization states what “should be” with regards to all under the umbrella in no way obligates anyone to follow their suggestions.  I didn’t vote on it for sure.  It’s just the GLB speaking for me again…whether I like it or not…and I don’t like it.
But, again, Meghan Stabler liked the comment; I’m sure a lot of people liked the comment.  

So Autumn…tell me, when did this become the new truth?

You get to self-identify yourself. You can identify as transgender, as transsexual, as both transgender and transsexual, or as neither transgender nor transsexual. You can even pick a different term entirely to use to self-identify with, even if that term for yourself is tra**y.

I though I was still transgendered by default;  Stuck in a world where everyone is a “tranny” whether they like it or not.
So I honestly ask you, when did this become the new paradigm?
Here’s a small suggestion…how about suspending the TOS for a day or so, so everyone can have an honest say about this, without fear of big sister looking over their shoulder?
Just a thought…  

I don’t make comments like the one above……without being able to document what I’m referring to. Where you’ve previously accomplished a “straw man” reinterpretion of my words was in your post entitled “Whether We Like it or Not. In a comment in that post’s comment thread, I stated precisely how you had reinterpreted what I stated in a PHB post, then argued in “straw man” fashion against what I never actually stated.
GLAAD doesn’t speak for you because you don’t identify as transgender. Period. Also, they don’t have the power or ability to speak for you because you’re not public with your identity. You are, in the brick-and-mortar world, invisible; you are, in the brick-and-mortar world, living in stealth. How could they speak for you?
Changing gears, I’ve met Megan Stabler. In fact, I saw her last at the Presidential signing of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal bill into law last month. I’ll be honest: I saw that “like” that you mentioned before you mentioned it, and I was pretty disturbed that Megan had “liked” that comment. She, like you and I, has her own opinions, and she gets to own her public likes and dislikes just like you and I do.

Ah, hell…You shoulda made it about the issue instead of the person, Autumn.  You could have talked about this entire thing and used multiple sources and let’s be blunt, there are a lot of places you can go.
The issue you want to talk about is large enough and it deserves the effort, but to tie it all around the neck of one person as you’ve done — even though that wasn’t your intention from what you say — makes it appear to be vindictive.

We suspended the TOS for a week about two years ago……and our regular blenders hated the lack of civility. My guess is that a second round of TOS free speaking is something you’ll not see here.
You get to talk about yourself though. You can say what your identity is; you can tell us why you identify as you do…unless you cast aspersions on others’ identities. If you want to say you don’t identify as transgender because you don’t see yourself as having anything in common with crossdressers, that’s a personal truth. State that you don’t idntify as transgender because you don’t see yourself as having anything in common with transvestites — well at that point you’ll have crossed a that line of unacceptable behavior because you’ve used a term the GLAAD Media Reference Guide states is a derogatory term. As we say in the TOS, the GLAAD Media Reference Guide is a reference on acceptable and unacceptable community language at PHB.
As you also might note, EnoughNonSense and I rarely agree on issues about anything, but we still engage in civil discussion here. We don’t call each other names; we don’t say hateful things about each other. We can disagree without being uncivil about our disagreements.

Tomorrow we talk about……Calpernia Addams and Kate Bornstein, and was said about their histories, and how Bornsteinwas misgendered via quotation marks about referencing pronouns.

I think you missed the point.I can see what you are trying to talk about.
I may have to email you to explain it at length, but if I get caught, my doc will order me into the hospital and take away my inet.
You’ve god good stuff here, just presenting it in a manner that’s going to bite you and everyone else.
(yeah, everyone’s a critic, but hey, its what I do, ya know?)

I don’t really have a metaphorical dog in this fight…… But it might have been better to have posted this all at once instead of in parts. As it is, you’re having to respond to the same comments in multiple threads.

so it is just another hatchet job“but I didn’t do a front page (hatchet job) on (insert a couple of people Autumn disagrees with)”
But you didn’t mention me.  Why? because you did do a similar hatchet job on me on the front page of this blog.  One that named my full name even though I was using a nickname here.  One that included a copyright protected picture of me.  One that all but gave my address like some anti-abortion website on doctors providing a legal  and much needed medical service.  One that branded me a racist from your own fantasies. You did this in the full knowledge I have had credible death threats and out and out terrorist tactics against every aspect of my life (in the real world) by those holding your positions.  Someone just got their entire account of Pam’s nuked for doing less to another blogger here than you did to me.  And there were real life negative consquences for your action to me by the way, ones that have caused me direct harm.
And GLAAD as an authority?  I was writing to GLAAD starting nine years ago about the use of transgender to refer to women who have an acknowledged medical condition, undergo the treatment for that condition and resume their lives corrected.  I even put up a petition stating the same objections that gathered over 175 signatures.  Not once in those nine years has GLAAD responded or even acknowledged this to me or anyone else I am in contact with.  Not once.  Had GLAAD’s position been that the proper term for a woman born with transsexuality, a medical condition recognized as such, and had the treatment for that condition is “woman” then there would be zero controversy.  But that is not their position.  They chose to defame the womanhood of such women by insisting they be called transgender.  There is not a nickels worth of difference from that position and Janice Raymond in my mind.  GLAAD not only lacks any credible authority to speak to women of transsexed/intersexed history, they do so in direct opposition to the expressed wishes of such women.  That is the textbook definition of defamation btw.
The APA now acknowledges that a woman born transsexed who corrects that medical condition is cured…….in other words a woman, period.  GLAAD stands in direct opposition to that medical authority.  GLAAD needs to stick to gays and lesbians as their mission was originally.  Ashley is trying to set up an actual anti-defamation group founded and run by those actually being defamed……….and you attack her for it.  One has to ask why.
And a reminder Autumn. “transgender” is an identity, a political motivated one.  ”transsexuality” is a medical condition, one does not identify as a medical condition unless they wish to appear a fool.  If you have cancer you are not a “cancer”.  If you have an ulcer you are not identified as being an ulcer american.

“You get to self identify…”While new to the transgender community, my understanding is thet transgender has for the most part been a self identification, as people cannot come to a consensus on who is transgender. The gay male or lesbian that has non-traditional gender presentatiton is not transgender unless he or she decides to be transgender. A recent example is Chaz Bono, first a lesbian, now a transsexual (transgender) by his own self identification.
Non-traditional gender expression and non-traditional gender identity are the best terms I can come up with for those that do not live a standard binary gender. I do not have a term for intersex other than intersex, and would love someone to give me other terms that are appropriate.
Deanna
Non-traditional gender expressor or gender bender transgender person.

Nonversation(noun) : conversation that seems meaningless or without logic
I’ll lay odds that in the following ‘essays’ Autumn will expound on these issues:
1. Autumn you feel Ashley is misrepresentation of the trans community. Autumn you feel affronted by Ashley’s upstart outspokenness, her propensity to energetically confront directly those who have differing views. I think you are bothered by Ashley’s willingness to ‘unfriend’ and be dismissive to those who in her opinion are disrespectful or not in the ‘movable middle’. (Autumn I have not always agreed with Ashely and at times I found her one mindedness infuriating but why pick her apart? You have burned that bridge to be sure)
I think the crux of this family feud is Ashley’ objections to cisgender gay drag queens egregious sexualization of gender which I feel is both assimilatory, and irreparably damaging to trans peoples self image.
2. Autumn you compared your recent unselfish activism that entailed presenting herself arrest for the common good for gay rights with Ashley’s seeming inconsequential battle of semantics.
I believe you are upset about the trans community’s rejection of the word “tranny” which gay people maintain we should we ‘reclaim’ in a derogatory context.
3. Autumn you are miffed by Ashely’s protest of TO#WK making her point that by her doing so Ashley agenda is exclusionary.
4. Autumn you feel threatened by Ashley’s rise to prominence and have presented a forum for others to voice their opinions. (vulture bone picking)
A totally unworthy post by a mighty advocate and friend.
Now my question. Why didn’t you include me in this diatribe Autumn? Maybe you don’t consider me as worthy prey since my blog is small time and well, I do live in cow town after all.
Or maybe becuse we are friends?
But I started the ‘tranny’ objection and by golly I’M the one who first objected to Lunatics movie.  

Autumn hon?Don’t waste your breath. This person just wants an excuse to chastise you, ignore them. They clearly don’t get the point of the series. I’ve seen nothing in it that qualifies as a personal attack, and I know all too well just as you do what a real personal attack is. Don’t waste your energy on those hell bent on finding something to criticize you for.

Ashley Love’s Reliance on GLAAD’s Anlaysis of TOTWK Makes it RelevantEven if you personally disagree with the GLAAD standards, I don’t see how anyone could seriously view them as irrelevant to the issue of the irony inherent in relying on GLAAD’s POV regarding “tr**ny” being derogatory, and then using other words that GLAAD defines as derogatory while professing to be an anti-defamation activist.
See, for example, this article:
http://transformingmedia.blogs…
Whatever your feelings on the issues, the people involved, and the way in which this issue is being discussed, it’s obvious that Autumn has a point.
Moreover, Ms. Love and others with similar habits do sometimes (more often for some) come across as concerned only about defamation of the transsexual community.  Plus, they often appear willing to deny and disrespect other peoples’ self identifications of their own genders (a fundamental natural right in my view), while claiming that their own such self identifications are inviolable.  Not only that, but many frequently simultaneously rely on their own medical diagnoses as higher authority, while refusing to give credence to the same medical diagnoses of other people who transition later in life, and/or embrace any non-transexual folks as allies under the transgender (i.e., birth gender binary non-conforming)category.
While it is a bit painful to watch the exposure of this hypocrisy, it is there to be exposed, and there is a legitimate need for a public conversation on this topic.

I wonder, Glinda…if the shoe was on the other foot, would you be as vocal?

Moreover, Ms. Love and others with similar habits do sometimes (more often for some) come across as concerned only about defamation of the transsexual community.

How much longer are we supposed to sit on the sidelines waiting for someone to do “the right thing”?  How many more times do we have to ask to not be included?
Given my druthers, I choose Ashley.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thatif Ms. Love acknowledged solely being an anti-defamation activist for transsexuals. But, the fact is, is that she is claiming to be an anti-defamation activist for transgender individuals as well, and by misgendering them and referring to them with derogatory slurs she is doing a hideously awful job, and is hurting the cause that she is claiming to be for. This hypocrisy is what’s being pointed out.  

But if you have canceryou might identify as a cancer patient, or a cancer survivor, as many in fact do. Just because the cancer (or transsexuality) is behind you doesn’t mean it can’t have been a significant part of your life that you’d like to acknowledge, though of course that’s an individual choice.

trotting out the GLAAD media clubI wonder, from the perspective of the average man and women on the street, how many of them even know what GLAAD is or that their stupid media reference guide even exists?
Nobody outside the GLBT circle could give a rats tail what some GLBT aligned mouthpiece says is the proper terminology to apply to a particular flavor of gay. To Joe and Jane public its all just a homosexual attempt at damage control in the media.
Who exactly gets to vote on these terms that GLAAD has “identified” as derogatory or defamatory? Is this even a real job?  Is there someone, or a board of someone’s somewhere actually getting paid an hourly salary to research and “identify” terminology or is this more like a, “well ..that sounds bad to me, so lets add it to the list and see if anyone salutes it” sort of thing?
Seems to me you make it up as you go along, and you trot it out whenever you can to beat someone over the head with it like it were a gay bible.

You don’t self-identify as an anti-defamation activist, Leigh.Ashley Love does self-identify herself as an anti-defamation actiivist. She identifies herself as an anti-defamation activist for the community which she calls the “transsexual and transgender” community.
The GLAAD Media Reference Guide is the “Bible” of what is and isn’t defamatory in LGBT community. Whether it’s referenced or used by broader society is irrelevant to what I’m discussing in this series of essays — it is relevant for anti-defamation activist who identifies one of her constituencies as transgender community members.
You’re arguing that the GLAAD Media Reference Guide is irrelevant to broader society. I’m arguing that a Love’s self-identification makes the GLAAD Media Reference Guide relevant to what she says about transgender identified people. Apples and oranges.

Why The scare quotesPart of the problem with this perpetual war between transsexuals and especially post-SRS women is that we don’t like feeling erased by the transgender as collective noun.
Using transsexual and transgender without scare quotes as well as TG/TS and writing about communities in the plural would go a long way in ending these battles which have gone on for more than a decade.
I’m old enough to have picket the LA Gay Community Services Center in the mid 1970s when the battle was between gay men and lesbians who felt erased by gay as the collective noun.
Now gay and lesbian are recognized as different communities in the LGBT/TQ alphabet soup.

The point here isn’t the cause…but the effect.  One person’s meat is another person’s poison.

Fair answer !  and a straight one for a change!

Why should transvestite be a Derogatory term?Seriously it seems transvestite is a derogatory term only because Virginia Prince, herself a transphobic misogynist who hated transsexual to female people and gays decreed it so.
If you use the same measure of:  Well it has been pathologized.  If that is the standard, then we would have to stop using transsexual and transgender as well.
Virginia Prince coined  Cross Dresser and that one had rigidly homophobic connotations.  Perhaps Cross Dresser should be the term treated as anathema rather than transvestite which fits trippingly in with other trans-prefixed words.
Autumn I wrote two pieces this week regarding this on-going war between post-transsexual women as well as transsexual women and the transgender as umbrella folks.
I specifically mention you and others and advocated both civility and ending the trashing of you and other leaders who do identify as part of the transgender as umbrella faction.
But ending this perpetual war has to be a two way accord.
Many of us do not buy into the whole Virginia Prince/IFGE theoretical ideology and it hurts the ability to form effective political coalitions to constantly have it force upon us.

The adopted term ..by many transgenders is to now use “trans”  .. so a further blurring and erasure of any possible descriptive differences is occuring as we speak.
Sneaky buggers … they never miss a trick  

I’m not followingcan you elaborate on what you mean?

I’m meaning to quote the exact phrase Love uses to define people she works on behalf of……and I sure as heck don’t want to use quotation marks as scare quotes for that particuar phrase.
I don’t think the idea of transsexual and transgender is scary as a phrase — or concept — at all. I disagree with calling community transsexual and transgender community because transsexual is a term with medical legacy — a point Love has been frequently making about transsexual and intersex being medical conditions — and transgender is a non-medical term used to identify a sociopolitical community of gender variant people.
There is overlap between found in those who identify as transgender and those who have been diagnosed as transsexual (via the horrid GID diagnosis), so transsexual and transgender community doesn’t seem (in my mind anyway) to be an accurate way of defining politically active, gender-variant-from-societal-sex-and-gender-norms people who are part of the movement for civil rights and equality. But that’s me.
What I’ve been trying to do is use the exact phrase Love is using to describe the community as she sees it, in the exact, quoted language she’s using. It’s not to be scary, but to be clear this is how she is defining the community(ies) she’s claiming to work on behalf of.
My appologies if the quotes are coming off as scare quotes. I definitely don’t mean for the quotation marks I’m using about the phrase to communicate what scare quotes do communicate, but I can see a good bit of veracity in saying that the quotation marks, as I’m using these, come off as scare quotes.
I’m going to have to work at making sure that when I use the quotation marks about that phrase, it’s clear that I’m quoting Love directly on how she defines the community(ies) she states she is working for, and I’m pointing that out specifically to state that her definition of community that she states she’s working on behalf of includes transgender identified people.

I take exception to the term “gender variant”As far as I’m concerned “gender variant” is an even worse slur than “tranny”, which at least has claim to long time usage.
Gender variant is so IFGE and so pathologizing.
Many of us like transsexual because of its lack of connection with Virginia Prince and her anti-transsexual bias which we see continued on the part of the transgender community.
As for it being medicalizing.  transsexualism is about changing sex via sex reassignment surgery, a medical procedure.  That’s why many post-SRS women struggle for a way of saying they once were but no longer feel they are transsexual.

I agree.Exposing bigotry is important, especially the bigotry within our community. That’s just what Autumn is doing.
Kudos, Autumn!

Or maybe..they’re just shortening a mouthful to something more manageable? I know that you obviously feel slighted, but do you really think that everyone who uses “trans” as an abbreviation of ts or tg are “sneaky buggers” out to erase your identity?

Non-peopleNonesuch trans-ier than thou…
It’s fairly obvious that there isn’t going to be any consensus about terminology or language or definitions.
But with regards to liberation philosophy and movements, the ‘equality for some but not for all’ meme reeks of elitism, separatism, shame and internalised oppression.
It’s also strangely ironic to see so much hot-air about “Gay Inc” and their modus operandi of claiming gender rights issues and trans people as primarily “gay” for their own agenda, deliberately holding back the progression of trans advocacy.
The logical conclusion from what I can gather about the Harry Benjamin Syndrome ideology and the “true transsexual” disciples is that similarly by othering, degrading, defaming and otherwise cutting the ‘flow’ of some precious equality reserved for the “righteous HBS chosen few” from subgroups, a sinister class divide or caste system is created.
I’ve observed enough over-privileged individuals who could have helped out their siblings over the years without putting themselves in a state of non-personhood, such as wealthy passing trans women with public funding to support ‘trans community’ – yet ideologically they consistently chose to not help or support say trans-identified homeless sex workers who had no hormones/surgery/education/privilege, preferring to run exclusionary socialite tea parties for the right kinds of TS people to schmooze with politicians etc.
I don’t support any kind of casual genocide upon the most vulnerable members of a minority group for the perceived gains of assimilation or equality based on very narrow definitions of gender, lived experiences or representation without consultation.
Big “R” is indeed Pam’s House Blend article or website of it’s own waiting to happen as apparently anyone can claim to know what’s best for the genders, genitals and rights of an infinitely diverse range of people with no accurate research of our needs.

ISGDWhat about ISGD? Intersex Sex and Gender Diversity. It even has Diversity right there in the term.

ISGD?How about ISGD then? Recognition of Diversity right there in the acronym!

What about the Anti Bi-Gender bias though?Sure Virginia was bigoted. Definately. I heard she herself transitioned late in life which if so would be just another case of someone’s hypocracy caused by failure to overcome internalised issues.
But a lot of the anti-transgender discussion involves clear bias and bigotry and hatred towards Bi-Gender people. Every Crossdresser is not Virginia Prince. Nor every Genderqueer, nor every Transsexual with a Bi-Gender identity like my friend norrie mAy welbe and other Bi-Gender Transsexual friends of mine. Certainly my Non-ranssexual Intersex friends with Bi-Gender Identities are not Virginia Prince either. They are not all Virginia Prince. They do not all have anti-transsexual bias.
How is the anti-Bi-Gender bias and bigotry put forward by many any different than the anti-transsexual bigotry of Virginia Prince?

Cause it’s been more often used as a slur (in the USA)It’s not got the same problem in the U.K. but in the U.S.A. it’s been more often used as a slur and associated with fetish and considered a mental illness.
Is there problems with Intersexphobia Transsexual/Transitionphobia and Homophobia in parts of the crossdresser community? Most certainly just as gay transsexual and intersex communities often have bigotry against bi-gender identity transgender. I’ve soken against these problems and been banned from a fee forums for doing so. You might find interesting my early post at the spectrum cafe on the role cisgender wives of crossdressers and their partners concerns about them play in the homophobia and transitionphobia in parts of the crossdressing community!
The big point about terms should be each persons human right to self-Identification and to that being respected.

You can ask (demand!) for yourself but not drag away others against their wishes!You have a right to self identify as not transgender and i totally respect that!
But other Transsexuals do identify as Transgender and you cannot take that away from them without invalidating your own right to self identification!
And you don’t get to define Bi-Gender people.
You don’t get to erase thousands of years of history and culture and indigenous traditions.
You don’t get to erase the connection of cross-sexed neurology amongst gays and Lesbians.
You don’t get to erase the modern history connections of those who fought side by side or were oppressed side by side.
You don’t get to call people fetishists who are not, or make false claims that they have no related biological casuation when the comparative biological studies to tell if they are or not have not been done yet!
But you do get to tell others how you self-identify. I respect that and everyone else should too. And you will need to respect my self-identification, that of my opposite-anatomied partner and everyone else on earths too.

What about Bi-Gender people?You mention cisgender people sexualising Gender.. but what about Bi-Gender people and their human right to sexual self-expression?
Because Ashley sure has said a lot about various groups of Bi-Gender people. Including her repeated manipulation of comments in our discussion on facebook by deletions and her missgendering of both myself and my opposite-sex Bi-Gender partner.

Margaux and AshleyI NEVER post on these forums, and can’t believe I am doing it now. But I must.
Briefly about me: I have chosen to focus my activism in the healthcare field, and I have found that I can be more effective by working in the larger LGBT group. In my work with the AMA and GLMA I focus on educating providers and the public about transgender health issues.  
In Part Two of this open ended “series,” Autumn quotes Ashley quoting Margaux Ayn Schaffer.  (We learned of this while on our way to the Phoenix vigil for Gabrielle Giffords.)  Autumn’s lack of any comment about Margaux makes me suspect she is not aware of who this person is.
Margaux has been my closest friend for over seventeen years now, but her activism in the transgender community goes back farther than that, well over twenty years.  In the late 1980s Margaux was the first transgender person selected for the Atlanta Mayor’s LGBT Task Force.  She was the first person to notice the pattern of homicides involving persons who were crossdressed, which raised the awareness of the police department regarding anti-transgender violence.
In the early 1990s Margaux worked with Dallas Denny and AEGIS as Deputy Director.  The two of them wrote op-ed material for The Advocate and published the magazine Chrysalis Quarterly.  Around the same time Margaux was on the planning committee for the first Southern Comfort Conference, and she lobbied successfully for program options for a transgender program track (as opposed to only CD and transsexual programs).
Before Andrea James and I spoke out challenging Anne Lawrence’s 1998 autogynephilia essay, Margaux (in 1997 at an event called “New Woman Conference”) was the first person to stand up to Anne, and the experience was quite traumatic, psychologically speaking.  That experience kept her away from community activism for several years.
For the last six years Margaux has produced our Phoenix Transgender Day of Remembrance at the State Capitol.  This is a year long effort, with booths at Phoenix Pride and Rainbows Festival raising awareness for DOR.  She gets no personal gain from this; in fact it’s quite a drain of finances and time.  But we all know how important it is to call attention to these crime victims, most of whom had not completed transition.
Margaux and I are also personal friends with Calpernia Addams and Kate Bornstein, a fact that may surprise you.
I say all that, Autumn, to say this: Margaux is not the person your essay implies her to be.  She is, however, a friend and mentor to Ashley Love.  We know that Ashley has great potential to represent our community in the mainstream media.  She is young and can benefit from guidance.  Margaux has been very helpful for Ashley, but they don’t share identical points of view on every subject.
It’s unfortunate that Margaux’s comments to Ashley, written as a wall to wall FB dialogue, have been taken out of context, and in my opinion too much emphasis is placed on exact terminology.  Heck, I’m not aware myself of the GLAAD handbook.  Perhaps I should be.  Who knew “transgenderism” was such a derogatory term?  Apparently, not me, nor Margaux nor Ashley.  So it’s PC to use “crossdresser” now instead of that-other-word?  Point noted.  But by cutting and pasting, these essays paint Margaux as a divisive reactionary, which she is surely not.
I don’t know Evangelina Carters, but the quotations you supply from her are not compatible with Margaux’s position (or mine).
We would all do well to back away from personal attacks, whether it’s Ashley versus you or you versus Ashley.  I would like to see you both have tremendous success, and tearing one another down is no way to achieve this.
Becky Allison, MD
President, GLMA

Give me language then.You and I have commonalities; you and I have differnces. Give me the language that identifies the commonalities between us regarding sex and gender that wouldn’t offend you.
Part of the problem here though is that I don’t define transsexual the same way you define transsexual; part of the problem is that we have a common term that we define differently.

I give up trying to explain my motivations.If you believe that I believe that is about Love vs. Sandeen and/or Sandeen vs. Love, you are not reading what I’ve stated about my motivations, or you don’t believe the motivations that I’ve spelled out are my true motivations.
Doctor Allison, if I haven’t convinced you to this point about what my motivations are for writing these essays, I’m not going to convince you by restating it. So, I’m not going to restate my motivations — but I know that my motivations don’t include personal animosity towards Love.
You should know that I too want Love to succeed as an activist. I just want her to stop defaming transgender community and people — while claiming to be an activist for transgender people — in the process. We need more young voices, and more African-American voices speaking for trans identified people, and she still has the potential to be a great community activist. I don’t want her destroyed at all; instead I want her to have a come-to-Jesus moment on how to better speak as an ally of transgender people, transsexual people, and those who identify as both transgender and transsexual.

You have stated your motivationsAnd I see your last paragraph here, which sounds very positive.  I do believe that you could have presented your concerns in a manner more likely to achieve this positive outcome.

Autumn, it’s clear your vitriol and insincerity is only a smear campaignAutumn, your inflated sense of (ego) authority on trans issues and Bible thumping only shows that you are more radical then you say Ashley Love is. While I may identify as intersex, I understand why many transsexual women feel misunderstood when people like you and GLAAD lock them in a room with drag queens and transvestites and say its all 3 peas in a pod. Who are you to tell these transsexual women to march to your transgender and gay media hand book drum only? Since when did a gay group like GLAAD honestly care about transsexual people? Just this year GLAADS director shit on the Transgender Day Of Remembrance and spoke at a cocktail party for gay bullying, which angered the founder of TDOR and many activists. Yet you remained silent. Why? Because you are their tool, and cant speak up to them. Meanwhile, Love introduced Amanda Simpson on the same day. Are you jealous?  Many times I see transsexual people being defamed on TV and GLAAD  does not say a word. It was Ashley Love who had the loudest voice when Tribeca showed that horribly transphobic film last year, and that is what real anti-defamation is about.
Its laughable how you are such a hypocrite. Here you are accusing her of defaming transgenderism, yet you are obviously trying to defame her in this series of “essays” (which are really just malicious rants by a scorned blogger looking for attention and praise from anti-transsexual transgenders).
But really, you are posting other peoples quotes and articles that are not Loves, and then attacking her for them? Love did not write the TS-SI article, so thats very sneaky of you to bring that into it.
Also, I used to be a follower of Calpernia, yet she is no professor on transsexual issues. In fact, she did some pathetic reality show on Logo that had us all looking like a clown show. I hardly think she is the right person to use as an authority.
Personally, I think you are only attacking Love because she is outshining you in the mainstream LGBT and straight world, and this is just a way for you to leech off her profile and degrade her. But after seeing her videos on Youtube,  I can see that this  dynamic young lady will go far, even with nasty bombs thrown at her from you and other pretend journalists like you. In Loves blog she has the courage to expose the gay elite, so Im sure you are just the gay elites way of trying to make her voice irrelevant. But it is relevant. You are not the boss of transgender (or transsexual) people, you work for a gay and lesbian blog! I You are acting like a tea bagger, and its obvious your motives stem from ill will and abuse.

That makes it worseBecause Margaux made plenty of comments in discussion with me on facebook on Ashley Loves pages that were clearly not respectful of my and other peoples identities or experiences or my attempts to bust transphobic myths about bi-gender people that were being spread by various peoples comments.
In that conversation there was ablism (saying it’s not ablism does not make it not ablism), then their was the  allegation that i was deliberately trying to silence others voices by posting long posts. Everyone who knows me even moderately knows my posts get less concise and focussed when my symptoms are bad (something i have mentioned quite a bit in my blogging) and she’d already been informed of this yet made the conspiracy-theory type suggestion that this known symptom of my legally recognised and government pensioned disability which i’ve suffered more than half my life was somehow a deliberate tactic.
And of course Ashley was doing a mass of deletions with many of my calm respectful reasoned comments on that discussion dissapearing, deleted, shortly after being posted.
That Margaux has done so much important good in the past yet was so ablist and seemed to encourage rather than advise against Ashleys unethical tactics and bigoted comments like the missgendering of me and my opposite sex Bi-Gender partner and Ashleys censorious discussion manipulating deletions and Ashley’s blaming me for another persons leaving the discussion (who objected saying no-one was to blame for their leaving) shows how much someone who has done so many important good things is far from perfect or beyond criticism.
I hope that whatever has lead Margaux down this path soon stops because Bi-Gender people deserve equal respect, their identities deserve equal recognition, people with disabilities need to have those disabilities recognised rather than being held to the standards of people without those disabilities (let alone assumptions of deception and manipulation!!!) and plenty more. If anything Margaux seemed to me worse than Ashley in those conversations.
I bear no malice to either, and i certainly respect their right to their own self-identification. Missgendering my partner and myself? Censorship as a way to avoid difficult calm reasoned questions and ideas that can’t easily be countered? Ablism? Double Standards? Those are unhealthy and unethical acts to fall into the use of. I hope that you can help your friend regain her feet.
I’d certainly be happy to return to conversation with and try again at friendship with the both of them.

Dr BeckyAs someone who transitioned with you and Margaux long ago, I think you remember me and who I am.
Dr. Becky, I recall you as a graceful and magnanimous individual who is considerate of others, and I respect you a great deal.  However, as a young transitioner suffering under others’ critiical eyes and cruel judgements, I do not have such fond memories of Margaux and Ms. Denny.  There has long been a cliquish element in the T community that has despised those transitioners who do not pass well, and who have apparently thought it better that those persons should not transition, for the good of those who do.  They have also resented the crossdressers and other apparent deviants for the supposed crime of smearing their stignmas on the “real transexuals,” and cannot stand to be groouped together with such heinously undesirable persons in any way.  I recall that Margaux was in the process of turning over a new leaf shortly after you befriended her, and I hope that she succeeded.  But there is no doubt in my mind that she belonged firmly to the camp of the mean girls when I knew her.
However, I did not perceive Autumn’s quotation of Margaux’s statement using the word “transvestite” as trying to indicate bigotry on Margaux’s part.  As someone who recalls how we used to innocently converse about certain topics, my perception was that Margaux likely did not know that GLAAD has classified “transvestite” as a derogatory term.  However, by noting with aproval that comment, Ashley, who has held herself out as an anti-defamation activist relying at times on GLAAD’s viewpoints for support, has invoked the usage of that term.  
Thus, however innocent Margaux’s intent in using a term that held less apparent venom in our day, Ashley is held to a higher standard due to her professed mission.
Perhaps Autumn is painting everyone with the same brush who has ever used that term, however innocently, in which case I am also guilty.  I don’t think that is the case.  It’s just that there is a message to be gotten out, and words are only so expressive.  I hope that you have understood mine in the way that I have meant them.

I don’t know why your motives are so hard to seeI get it perfectly and am damn grateful you are posting this, Autumn. I just want the hypocrisy and discrimination from someone who should know better to stop. And if it doesn’t stop, then I don’t see how Ashley Love or anyone with a similar attitude can ever be taken seriously as a leader.

Transvestite is just a foreign word for cross dresser