recreationalcannibalism asked: Hey. Weasel-parts here. I saw your response to my little rant and I'd like to ask how I'm being offensive to trans*women? I don't personally know any and I am unsure if any currently attend my college. Being exclusive to trans*women was never my intent. I truly believe that trans*women have as much right to attend a women's college as any other woman. My post just had more to do with the brought-up issue of trans*men. How would you suggest I change my language to not exclude trans*women?
Are you dense?
The people you’re talking to… that you’re accusing of being transphobic… are mostly or entirely trans* women. Do you not get that? Do you not understand that you’re talking over, talking down to, and lecturing us on what it’s like to be trans* when we are trans*?
You know how you don’t do that? BY NOT DOING THAT. That’s all it takes.
Do I need to explain how it’s “offensive” to do this? Note, though: I didn’t use that word. “Offensive” is a useless, toothless word that elevates petty complaints to the level of oppression and sweeps up detailed accounts of oppression into a tidy, easy-to-apologize for fashion.
The problem with what you said isn’t that it’s “offensive”, the problem is that you took it upon yourself to tell a bunch of TRANS* PEOPLE about our lives and how we don’t know how hard trans* men have it.
The problem with your college’s policies isn’t that they’re “offensive”, the problem is they aren’t actually trans* inclusive, they’re transmisogynistic, they reinforce the tremendous amount of privilege trans* men have relative to trans* women, and they give everybody involved a warm glowing feeling about how wonderful and progressive you are while doing all of that.
Your college is not trans* inclusive if it only allows FAAB people in. The fact that some of these people are trans* men is incidental. For an institution to be woman only and trans* inclusive and not cissexist, it would have to recognize trans* women as women and trans* men as men… which means, yes, trans* women can attend and no, trans* men cannot. Treating trans* men as a special category of men is problematic in multiple ways, but doing it while simultaneously denying free access to trans* women is just… it not only reinforces cissexist thinking, it’s misogynistic, because it’s a policy that advances the interests of men while hurting women.
And before you say “How does it hurt me?” Even if it doesn’t hurt or oppress CIS WOMEN (hint: it actually does, whether you feel it personally or not), it still hurts trans* women to be excluded. The fact that you need that spelled out to you… that hurting trans* women IS hurting women because we are women… just shows how cissexist and transmisogynist your thinking is.
