So what's the big deal about it? Pull up a comfortable chair and grab some snacks because Moni's gonna give you some of the backstory on Cathy Brennan, our community's longtime trans oppressor.
She claims in her online scribblings she's an ally, but her deeds don't match her words.
Brennan is a self identified lesbian feminist, an attorney licensed to practice in New York and Maryland and a partner at Hudson Cook LLP. She was a liaison to the American Bar Association's Commisssion on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in 2008-09, and a self identified member of the National LGBT Bar Association. But seguing back to the point about respect that she leveled at Marti in her tweet.
Why should the trans community have respect for a group of racist white radical feminists who have attacked our humanity and femininity for four decades with deleterious effects on our lives?
That cry for respect is Romneyesque hollow coming from someone who proudly co-wrote with Elizabeth Hungerford a transphobic paper to the UN Entity For Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
That paper's submission was timed so the trans community didn't hear about it until after the August 1 submission deadline and couldn't submit our own paper to rebut and eviscerate the Raymondesque lies, transphobic bigotry and typical radfem falsehoods contained in the Brennan-Hungerford one.
But the Transophere still rose up, rebutted and eviscerated it anyway, which is why she and her full of vanillacentric privilege co-conspirator in trans oppression did the UN stealth submission to begin with because they knew it wouldn't withstand the scrutiny nor avoid the stench of intolerance..
She also published the pre-transition names of trans feminine activists who have called out her vile behavior, used her access to the legal system as an attorney to frack with the legal gender change of another trans critic and recently outed to his high school a 17 year transman who called her out online and bragged about it in radfem circles until the backlash hit her azz.
And naw, before you ask, she hasn't apologized for it.
Oh yeah, did I forget to mention she was on the opposing side when Baltimore County, MD was debating passing trans human rights coverage? But she is the first along with her fellow radfems to cry 'white women's tears' when the trans community and our allies call her out on her malicious pattern of behavior.
And don't even try Dana LaRocca to bring up the 'Cathy helped organize the Crissy Lee Polis rally' talking point. One broken clock moment doesn't outweigh her decades of damaging work.
In a comment on the Transadvocate FB page, the ABA responded:I know you didn't think that in your vanillacentric privileged world that transpeople (and especially this non-white transperson) were going to simply submit to having their human rights fracked with without a fight?
"The Business Law Section does not support or condone discrimination nor derogatory comments of any type. We actively work to increase diversity in the legal profession and to promote an inclusive atmosphere for all of our members and for those who attend our meetings. Catherine Brennan is not currently an ABA Business Law Section Liaison to the ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. She served one year in that position in 2008-09.
Sincerely,
Linda"
Did you think you and your friends could continue to frack with this community with impunity and suffer no consequences as you did so?
My question is where are the feminist (and transfeminist) voices calling out this reprehensible behavior? And you wonder why feminism has such a negative connotation in the trans community and with women of color in general?
Trans community, you cannot ignore in the vain hope she will go away someone who has the access to policy making tables that Brennan has and the willingness to use it against us. It's a dangerous combination when you have a trans bigot willing and unrepentantly able to not only express anti-trans attitudes, but is actively working to inject them into policies that will have deleterious effects upon the entire trans community not only here in the United States but around the world. Ignoring Brennan gave her and her racist radfem buddies the impression they could continue to do this oppressive crap to us in the first place.
New decade, new rules. You don't ignore bigots that have access to power, you confront them head on and it's about damned time the trans community recognized that
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Amen and Amen...
ReplyDeleteWell put. Thank you.
ReplyDelete