Gloria Steinem-Trans Ally?

Last September I wrote a post calling out feminist icon Gloria Steinem for her transphobic attitudes that were expressed in her writings of the seventies and early 80's.  

It was a period when I was a teenager and college student wrestling with my own gender issues and as a Houstonian, I had a ringside seat for the 1977 National Women's Conference that took place at the old Sam Houston Coliseum downtown. 

I was also a student in junior high school when Renee Richards' gender transition was blowing up as a major news story.

Translation, I grew up in the same time period that Steinem wrote those transphobic words along with the other trans-exclusionary radical feminist transphobes like Janice Raymond, Germaine Greer, Sheila Jeffreys, Robin Morgan and the late Mary Daly.

Declaring in 1977 that transsexuals "surgically mutilate their own bodies" in order to conform to a gender role that is inexorably tied to physical body parts and concludes that "feminists are right to feel uncomfortable about the need for and uses of transsexualism.", then just six years later giving a shout out to Trans Public Enemy Number One Janice Raymond in a subsequent book in which Steinem repeated the mutilation line on page 227 of Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions led me to call it as I saw it in the first place.

The power of the pen and written word can and historically has been a catalyst for change.  It also cuts both ways.  The written word can either inspire people to fight for their human rights or enable negativity and hate as it did when the pen was wielded by the Raymond, Greer, Jeffreys and Daly transphobic cabal. 

And I was disappointed that you could include Gloria Steinem in those ranks.

In other words, transsexuals are paying an extreme tribute to the power of sex roles. In order to set their real human personalities free, they surgically mutilate their own bodies...
Gloria Steinem- Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, 1983

But I was surprised to see the words Steinem penned in an October 2 Advocate op-ed 

So now I want to be unequivocal in my words: I believe that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned. Their health care decisions should be theirs and theirs alone to make. And what I wrote decades ago does not reflect what we know today as we move away from only the binary boxes of “masculine” or “feminine” and begin to live along the full human continuum of identity and expression.

I’m grateful for this opportunity to say that I’m sorry and sad if any words floating out there from the past seem to suggest anything other than support, past and present. As feminists know, power over our own minds and bodies comes first.

Steinem saying 'I'm sorry' is more than the other surviving feminist transphobes have done (or will ever do) and it's a start.  In fact Sheila Jeffreys is doubling down on her transphobic hate right now by releasing another waste of trees book attacking us.   

But the trans persons who really deserve the apology are Renee Richards and all my trans elders who in the 70's and 80's were viciously forced out of lesbian and feminist spaces by people gleefully citing the poisoned words of Raymond and company and the ones you wrote co-signing them.  

Your words during that time period had far more power and credibility because of your media coverage and status as a major feminist leader. 

Because you referred to SRS surgeries multiple times as 'mutilation', it gave credibility to the 1980 paper that Raymond wrote to Congress that led to SRS being eliminated from Medicare and Medicaid coverage and the insurance company medical exclusions on trans related health care. 

It co-signed the anti-trans attitudes in feminist circles that have led to the suffering and deaths of far too many trans people.  It led to trans people being cut out of desperately needed LGBT human rights legislation in the 80s, 90's and early 2k's.in many cases by lesbian identified feminists embedded in or leading Gay, Inc organizations 

If you are a trans ally, and we're only learning this because you broke your silence about your previous anti-trans remarks on October 2, 2013, prove it.  Convince me and other trans skeptics to take the question mark off of trans ally as it pertains to you and replace it with an exclamation point. 

Lobby with the trans community in Washington DC for a trans inclusive ENDA.  Call out the trans exclusionary radical feminists and help us get the Southern Poverty Law Center to declare them as a hate group.  Declare there is no room in feminism for anti-trans hatred and bigotry.  As a Smith alum you can help us ensure that your alma mater puts admissions policies in place that allow qualified trans feminine students to enroll there. 

Ms. Steinem. we've seen your apologetic words you wrote in the Advocate op-ed.  It's your verifiable deeds from this point forward which will help the trans community determine whether they are sincere or you were selling us woof tickets and engaging in revisionist history.  

Another Apology To Cathy

TransGriot Note: I was asked by Anthony Casebeer to post this apology he penned on the blog.

A couple days ago, I said some things on Monica Roberts’ Facebook wall that were less than elegant, about an activist named Cathy Brennan.  To review, Cathy’s written a paper for submission to the UN that I vehemently don’t agree with or approve of, and has supported passage of laws I felt were contra to the civil rights movement in the past, both distant and recent; she also attempted contact with me privately via Facebook in a way I didn’t like (by naming a former employer and referring to me as a misogynist).  Those words have now been published on blogs far and wide, most I’ve never heard of, and now have been published in my local newspaper, so I will not repeat them here.

 

I didn’t mean those words in any way to be a threat to Ms. Brennan, or anyone else.  They were said in sarcastic jest, and never should have been said. Anyone who knows me knows that I would never use a bat on anything but a ball, an axe on anything but a tree stump, or a car for anything but a road trip.  I’ve never laid a hand on anyone in anger, don’t wish to do so, and never will.  I shouldn’t have written those words on Facebook, and should have not said them at all.  Thus, I publicly state that Ms. Brennan’s name will never be mentioned by me again in public,  and is in no danger whatsoever from me - and never was.  I’m sorry she ever might have been made to feel she would have been in any danger, and wish her well on her path of life, which I will avoid crossing.  As stated previously, I’m not the kind of person to hurt anyone, and never will be.  

 

I also want to apologize to a couple other people.   Monica Roberts, who I’ve known for a dozen years now, and who is also not the kind of person to physically harm anyone or harbor any desire to swing a bat at anything but a ball, or use garden implements of any kind improperly at any time, was put in a difficult situation by my intemperate language, one she didn’t deserve to be in.   I also want to publicly apologize to the great people of Louisville Fairness and C-FAIR; I don’t want to see an intemperate outburst that never should have been made public in the first place,  hinder or inhibit any chances they have to effect needed change in our city and state, and will resign if they wish.  And, lastly, and most importantly, I apologize to my family and friends, who know I’m not capable of hurting anyone, but who shouldn’t have to read about this sort of thing.

 

I forgot a major rule of using Facebook: what you post to a friend’s wall is not limited to your friend, alone; it goes to their circle of friends, too – and in this case, persons I don’t care to ever know decided to repost that exchange to blogs I’ve never heard of, and after this period, will never read again if I can help it.  In this day and age, incredibly, a few intemperate words one says without thinking on Facebook can get published in one’s local paper,  as if it was real news, unlike a realtime conversation with a friend – and anyone who hasn’t said something intemperate to a friend in realtime, is probably lying.  So, I’ve asked Monica to post this to her blog, in the knowledge that the same people will see it, certainly Ms. Brennan, and possibly repost it, although I hold little hope of that.   

 

Those who turned this into a cause célèbre, after all, won’t think that publishing the apology and retraction is quite as newsworthy as the original story,  after all.  Prove me wrong,

Sorry, Kortney

The TransGriot does spend time engaging folks on Twitter and FB when she's not writing.

But this one is to apologize for a Twitter exchange that added gasoline to a  negative experience.that someone was going through.  

Kortney in in this state to do a presentation, and whatever good feeling he had going into that event were spoiled by a drawn gun confrontation with the po-po's in which all they saw was a Black suspect.

He stated on his Twitter feed he was roughed up and had a gun placed four inches from his face in addition to having the po-po's make derogatory comments. .  


So of course, what do you do when you gone through some crap like that?  You rant about it..     

You can guess wher this is headed can't you?  

I innocently sign onto Twitter immediately after seeing this tweet from him.  

F**k Texas. After my presentation I'm flying the f***k outta here.

I've been more than a little critical lately about the anti-Texas sentiment in the liberal-progressive side of the web, and saw this tweet as just another example of it.  

Well, instead of me asking the question what the hell happened to provoke that reaction, I post two tweets in rapid succession in reaction to that tweet.

there are a lot of activists from the Lone Star State who get tired of you GLBT coastal residents trashing our home state

We're busting our asses trying to roll back the red tide of ignorance that has enveloped our state

Okay...he's already royally pissed, and as I find out a few tweets later why he's mad,  I feel like crap.

It is no fun being in a Black suspect situation, especially when guns were drawn, and he's coming from an area of the country where an innocent brother is dead because of an overzealous BART cop

So yeah, he had every right to his feelings at the time, and had I known what was up, damned sure wouldn't have posted that.at that moment.  



Kortney,  I'm taking the time to say on these electronic pages I'm sorry if I added any pain to what you were experiencing at that moment.   It made me seem insensitive at that time and I should have asked why you were upset and gone from there.

Hope you'll forgive me for it.