Friday, January 18, 2013

Transwomen Are Fighting A Two-Front 'War On Women''

Much attention has been focused on the 'War on Women', the anti-woman political policies the conservative movement and Republican politicians have been pushing for years and implementing once they gain political control of state legislatures.

And yes, being that we are now estrogen based lifeforms, they affect trans women as well..

Girls like us have been fighting a two front war. Since the 1970's we've had to deal with the War on Transwomen whose reprehensible foot soldiers are radical feminists in addition to the one aimed at us because we get the same negative crap that is aimed at anyone inhabiting Planet Earth in a feminine body.

And if you're a non-white transwoman, you've got even more complications in this two front War on Women in terms of dealing with 'unwoman' shade and racism in addition to the transphobic bigotry and near genocidal levels of violence aimed at us.  We also have to cope with our community's internal struggle against the unholy trinity of shame, fear and guilt and fight against erasure from the predominately vanillacentric trans historical and societal narrative.  

The hatred of transwomen has been stirred up by the 40 years of radfem hate speech and the new kids on the hate transwomen block in the Catholic Church and the conservafool movement.  It's also seized on by newspaper and gossip blogs seeking to increase their hit counts.  We also have television, cable networks, and tabloid talk shows using our images during sweeps week..  

We transwomen are tired of watching our backs and having to worry about being fragged by people too arrogant and hate-filled to see that we are their allies in this struggle against patriarchy.   They are far too  eager to flex their white female privilege and oppress somebody.

Trans women are just as concerned about Planned Parenthood clinics being under attack because some of our people get health care either there or through the public heath system.

Trans women, like every person walking planet Earth in a feminine body face sexual assault and violence.  Girls like us are concerned about women's health issues because we too have to deal with the reality that we can get breast cancer in addition to the trans medical issues that aren't even covered right now by many insurance plans.  We also have concerns about how the 2014 Obamacare implementation is going to affect girls like us. 

We are concerned about education, marriage and a wide range of policy issues beyond just the trans human rights specific ones.  We trans women currently have zero elected officials in Congress and state legislatures.  Nationally we have one state judge in California and one municipal judge in Houston.   The last trans woman elected to a state legislature was for one term in 1992.  Electing more women to political office cis and trans is a major goal.. .

Transwomen are beyond sick and tired of having our femininity and humanity attacked by people who are alleged to be our allies in the human rights struggle.  Trans rights are an international human rights issue, and anyone who thinks that we shouldn't have the same rights they do is making their own human rights less secure.   Despite that, we will continue to do our intersectional best to be loyal standup allies for and on women's issues because frankly, they're our issues too. 

So how do we win the War on Transwomen?  By being out, proud and visible.  By standing up for our humanity and femininity and defending it tooth and nail    By fighting for our trans human rights.  By forcefully debunking lies and disinformation about us as we simultaneously get positive stories about our trans lives in the media.   We also need to create a world in which anti-trans bigotry and discrimination cannot stand. 

We didn't start the War on Transwomen. It is one that we reluctantly have to fight and must decisively win.

1 comment:

Daiyu Hurst said...

I will be adding "vanillacentric" to my vocab!