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ambitious_wenchFrom the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
feminist community (with thanks to Yonmei)
http://www.livejournal.com/community/feminist/703080.html lectriccowgirl (electriccowgirl) wrote in feminist,
@ 2003-12-26 22:17:00
I am a female-born lesbian. I treasure the experiences of my male-born, transgendered lesbian friend. I'm of the mind that it takes a great deal of courage to go through the indignities and pain of gender reassignment from a privileged class to an oppressed one. I think that excluding transgendered lesbians is cutting our nose off to spite our face.
feminist community (with thanks to Yonmei)http://www.livejournal.com/community/feminist/703080.html lectriccowgirl (electriccowgirl) wrote in feminist,
@ 2003-12-26 22:17:00
Lesfest
an event called lesfest was recently cancelled in australia, due to controvery surrounding the fact that only female born lesbians could attend.
the rule was made to prevent men attending as "male born lesbians", and creating a stir however, the rules also prevented genuine transgendered women who identified as lesbians from attending.
what is your point of view on this??
i think that it seems a valid issue to prevent sexist and homophobic guys from trying to ruin a womens only event, however, how does one draw the line?
any ideas/thoughts?
I am a female-born lesbian. I treasure the experiences of my male-born, transgendered lesbian friend. I'm of the mind that it takes a great deal of courage to go through the indignities and pain of gender reassignment from a privileged class to an oppressed one. I think that excluding transgendered lesbians is cutting our nose off to spite our face.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-26 07:21 am (UTC)no surprise that this lesfest controversy happened in australia. as a child, i remembered naval-based australian familes setting up whites-only swimming pools in MY hometown. up till the 70s the australians still had strict immigration laws targeting asians from coming into their country. it was only a sagging economy that made them relax those rules. so with no one else left to exclude these days, i guess the last luxury is the transgendered person.
me. life is too short. i'll start swimming anywhere my body drops. i may drop in and have a look if permitted, but i won't stay. there's got to be more to life than being accepted.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-26 07:41 am (UTC)Your sister had the right of it. Too often we become "the enemy"--the oppressed become the oppressors. It happened with "The Pilgrims" (sic), it happened with the Russians, it happened with the Israelis.
Yes, our Ozian siblings are notoriously racist. However, this isn't unique to them. Transgendered lesbians have been excluded from women's festivals here in the US. The Michagan Womyn's Music Festival has a woman-born-woman only policy.
And you are more than welcome in my swimming pool any day, as long as you don't pee in it, V.
If I *had* a swimming pool, that is.
Edie
no subject
Date: 2003-12-26 05:25 pm (UTC)Certainly the swimming pool incident is unbelievable and I can tell you that no where in Australia have I ever heard of such a thing - ever. I grew up in the 60s and the 70s in Sydney and never did I even hear a racist comment! There are some areas and some people who are racist, but I hardly feel that we are any worse that in the US or the UK or anywhere else. I do not agree that the anti-asian immigration policy was changed for those reasons - it was changed because as a people, we had matured and become more accepting of diversity. And rightly so.
The majority of Australians are fair minded people who admire courage and believe in giving someone a go. It's about time that people from other nations relinguished these outmoded beliefs and accept us for who we are - do we judge you by the KKK? Never have I seen racism like that I saw in the South of the US anywhere else in the world.
Edie, as far as the transgender issue goes, I support their inclusion.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-28 04:28 pm (UTC)Ahem.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-28 04:43 pm (UTC)Not *you* of course, little brother.
*grin*
I really shouldn't use hyperbole to make a point, should I? My apologies.
Edie
no subject
Date: 2003-12-29 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-28 04:26 pm (UTC)Actually, the question of whether women's groups (of whatever variety) should count transsexuals as 'female', or admit them to 'women-only spaces' comes up in many countries. A male-to-female transsexual in Vancouver was excluded from rape crisis counselling training because she had not been born female (Google on "Kimberly Nixon"); the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival has long had an "only women born women" policy. There's nothing uniquely Australian about this particular sort of exclusion.
it was only a sagging economy that made them relax those rules.
Hardly. The end of the White Australia policy really came around 1973, following the election of the left-wing Whitlam government the previous year. Whitlam was very big on "social justice" issues - although, to give credit where it's due, the conservative government of Harold Holt had started to dismantle those policies back in 1966, before Holt disappeared. See this for more.
In fact, the usual pattern in Australia (and indeed the rest of the world) is that racism is exacerbated when the economic climate is poor. The worse things are, the more eagerly people seize on a scapegoat; "Immigrants are taking your jobs!" is all too popular a gambit among politicians trying to sell a quick-fix in times of economic crisis. (Pauline Hanson being one of the most glaring examples.)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-26 08:36 am (UTC)Also, um, your URL-link is messed up - you've got the name of the person who posted it jammed on to the end of the URL.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-26 09:05 am (UTC)Edie
no subject
Date: 2003-12-26 09:09 am (UTC)Ah. Okay. Well, my pleasure.