On Recent Events: How “Transphobia” is Used As A Tool (of the (internalized) Patriarchy) To Silence (Radical) Lesbians (and Feminists)

“She’s A Transphobe!” –On How the Undefined and Unfounded charge of “Transphobia” is Another Tool Used To Silence Lesbians and Feminists

I’ve recently returned from one of my last meetings of my local Lesbian Group. This group has been around for over a decade and has the mission of uniting, informing, education, and providing social, cultural, and political space and visibility for Lesbian women. It has from the start, had it’s ups and downs. But now, for me, it is on it’s last down turn. It is no longer healthy or safe for me to stay involved with a group that I have been working with for almost six years. Why you ask? Because of The Gendercator, because of Michigan, because of Bitch, and because I use the words Lesbian, Feminist, Female, and Patriarchy, Misogyny, and Womyn’s Space often. All of these things have combined and led some in my community to stick the label of “transphobe” on me and to see all things that I do or say as “transphobic.” Why?

Recent events have taken the national spotlight that provide examples of how the current mainstream “LGBTQAI,…” and “Third Wave Feminist” communities, among others have thrown the charge of  “transphobia” at womyn, resulting in the banning and silencing of a Dyke (Bitch) from a Dyke March in Boston that bills itself as “all inclusive and welcoming” and the censorship of a 15 minute short film (The Gendercator) from  an LGBT film festival in San Francisco,  and threatened protests and banning  all over the country, even in my neck of the woods.

The charge of “transphobia” is used to silence those who ask questions, and to halt productive and potentially healing discussion around issues of tension between Lesbians and Transpeople, between Radical Lesbian Feminists and third wave feminists. I had no idea I was such a notorious “transphobe” until a woman screeched it at me for almost two hours at this Lesbian Group meeting, or, until I and a group of other womyn attempted to bring The Gendercator to our city. I asked this woman, a bisexual who is currently on the board of planners for the Lesbian Group what makes me transphobic, to point out examples of where I, by my actions or words, have prevented any transperson from their rights to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, any example of when I singlehandedly discriminated against anyone. She then told me to “stop playing the victim” when no valid answer could come to her. I might have told her that in this community, because I have spoken up for Michigan, because I have expressed my concerns when a young womon at a “Young Womynz Empowerment Conference” mentioned that she felt close to nature when she got her period and was immediately attacked by an older  woman in the group and told that she can not  say that, because that is using her “gender privilege,” and because I use the terms Female, and talk about Female bodies, that I have been banned from places, I have been silenced, and I have been turned into the villain, for simply asking a few questions. I’m not trying to play the victim on this, I’m simply pointing out that it is not transpeople who have suffered because of my use of words, my attendance of Michigan, my belief in the power of womyn’s bodies, but it has been me, and other Lesbian Feminist womyn, who have been silenced, censored, and banned. Since that conference, other womyn have been banned, told not to come back, and reprimanded when they spoke up for Female bodies and the rights to gather as Females. One womon told me that at this past conference a young girl expressed the desire to get breast cancer so that she would lose her breasts and be able to become a ‘man.’ This womon asked her why this is and informed her that this might be offensive and upsetting to womyn who have lost a friend or loved one to breast cancer, or who are suffering from the disease themselves. This womon was then told she was being “transphobic” by the conference organizers.

The recent controversy around Catherine Crouch’s film, The Gendercator, and the banning of Bitch from the Boston Dyke March are two prominent examples of a phenomenon that is taking place all over the country, and not just in August as a small group of people attempt to silence and take away the rights of Females to gather in private in the woods of Michigan. The word “transphobia” does not have any meaning to me because this far, no one who has thrown it out – to me, to Bitch, to MWMF, to Catherine, has been able to articulate what they mean by it, and why and how we, as Lesbians, have any power over transpeople. But, instead of having dialogue, instead of getting somewhere in this struggle, those who call another womyn or Lesbian “transphobic” to her face or behind her back, intend to silence and stop any discussion that might bring up questions or issues that those who are anti-MWMF, anti-Female Space, anti-Lesbian Feminism have yet to fully think about for themselves. It is time to move beyond this issue and for those in the mainstream of our “LGBT” and “Feminist” groups to realize that silencing and excluding other womyn and Lesbians for their points of view is a mark of their internalized oppression and misogyny, is narrow-minded, and is ultimately harming womyn and the causes of any form of Feminism.