Not hate, rational disagreement.

This is another throwback from August 2010, brought to you by special request.

________________________________

Look, you don’t have to believe me, but I do not hate transsexuals. I am not afraid of them. It’s not a fucking phobia. I believe firmly that transsexuals have the right to pursue life on their own terms and to be free from harassment, violence, and other forms of social terrorism. In fact, if we were IRL and someone started talking shit about all trans people, I’d put the liberal smack-down on their ass. I’d be all: the oppressive gender binary is whack and sex roles are for tools, fools, get yo’ mind right! Or something like that. But seriously, I’m not trying to be malicious and I do not like hate-speech on my blog.

When I criticize trans politics and ideologies, it’s not motivated by hate. It’s motivated by rational disagreement with the ideas, in no particular order:

1. that there is NO difference between bio males and trans men or between bio females and trans women
2. that anyone can transcend their gendered social conditioning, or ERASE internalization of their past conditioning
3. that g/jender identity has a biological basis or is an otherwise essential trait of humanity
4. that it is politically and socially unproblematic for individual people to voluntarily pass as members of lower social class (male to female, white to black, able-bodied as physically disabled)
5. that individual solutions (sex reassignment surgery) can materially impact structural inequalities (coercive forces of gender normalization)

Thinking trans people are freaks or immoral or don’t deserve human rights etc. is NOT the same as believing that trans survival techniques (and the I-dentity movement) fall short of political and/or social progress.

Joelle Ruby Ryan DEMANDS OUR SILENCE!

JRR is NOT JOKING, y’all! Not above and not below. But neither are we.

Attention: YOUR PUBLIC CONTENT IS FAIR GAME FOR ALL COMMENTARY AND CRITIQUE. Any academic worth half her salary knows this.

JUST THE FACTS.

From Gender Trender earlier this morning:

…………………………..

Here is a copy of the University of New Hampshire’s Dr. Ryan’s false DMCA claim [sic]:

Email Address: Joelle.Ryan@unh.edu
Location of copyrighted work (where your original material is located):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ7eeRCdX9k
First Name: Dr. Joelle Ruby
Last Name: Ryan
Company Name: Univesity of New Hampshire (UNH)
Address Line 1: 73 Main Street
Address Line 2: 203 Huddleston Hall
City: Durham
State/Region/Province: NH
Zip/Postal Code: 03820
Country: USA
Telephone Number: 603-862-0272
Copyright holder you represent (if other than yourself): Self and UNH
Please describe the copyrighted work so that it may be easily identified: The film itself is embedded without my or the university’s permission, along with a copyrighted still from the film, and both are placed on a vicious hate blog which has a long history of defamation, hate-mongering, bigotry and threats against members of the transgender and transsexual community. I would never give permission for my film or stills from said film to be used on a hate site. Please remove the blog entry immediately.
Location (URL) of the unauthorized material on a WordPress.com site (NOT simply the primary URL of the site – example.wordpress.com; you must provide the full and exact permalink of the post, page, or image where the content appears, one per line) :http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/transilience-hilar/
If the infringement described above is represented by a third-party link to a downloadable file (e.g. http://rapidshare.com/files/…), please provide the URL of the file (one per line):
I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.: Yes
I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.: Yes
Signed on this date of (today’s date, MM/DD/YYYY): 03/09/2013
Signature (your digital signature is legally binding): Dr. Joelle Ruby Ryan

–

You will immediately note a few things.

1. Joelle Ruby Ryan identifies himself as a designated representative of the University of New Hampshire who is acting on authority of that institution.
2. Ryan claims that using the “embed” function on YouTube videos is a form of copyright infringement. That is simply false. Not only false, but absurd. When University of New Hampshire Health (or anyone else) posts an embeddable public video: anyone, anywhere can embed that video on any site for any reason. You can read about that in an article titled “Court Rules That Embedding A Video Isn’t Copyright Violation” here:http://www.geekosystem.com/embedding-video-copyright-infringement/
3. Dr. Ryan also claims that a still image from a public video, used for purposes of critique and discussion of that public media, is a form of copyright infringement. Again, an absurd claim that runs in opposition to all known First Amendment law. You can read about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

You can also read YouTube’s standard terms of service which state:

http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms

Section 6 (C)

6. Your Content and Conduct

“You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service.”

…………………………..

There is no copyright violation.

So here, again, is the video. Enjoy!

Privilege Blinders REPOST

Originally published DECEMBER 6, 2010 (edited slightly to remove tangential content).

by Undercover Punk

____________________

I am going to talk briefly about what I call the “Privilege Blinders” method of discrediting other people’s arguments and opinions. It’s closely related to Oppression Olympics, where social I-dentities are vigilantly tracked for the purpose of evaluating the speaker’s perceived “qualifications” (by virtue of personal experience or I-dentity) to discuss particular topics. Both Oppression Olympics and Privilege Blinders fail to analyze the substance/content/meaning of the speaker’s words. Instead, legitimacy is determined by the speaker’s apparent location on the social hierarchy. These techniques are conversation stoppers. Which makes them very dangerous.

And yes, Privilege Blinders work just like beer goggles. When intoxicated with privilege, one cannot understand why she is sooooo Very Wrong about [insert contested socio-political issue here]. I am using the term BLINDERS in the cognitive sense; it (allegedly) prevents one from comprehending something important about social dynamics.

BEER GOGGLES!!

Privilege Blinders is a persuasion technique often encountered in political discussions. It can be leveraged to discredit anyone who is positioned “above” you on any social hierarchy when you don’t like what they’re saying. Instead of identifying logical or reality-based inconsistencies in their assumptions, reasoning, or conclusion(s); you can simply accuse them of wearing Privilege Blinders and, viola!, you have  effectively discredited the other party’s entire argument. Because Privilege Blinders render the privileged person “blind” to a critical something (we’re usually not told exactly what–red flag!). This something is entirely obvious and/or self-evident from another, presumably “lower,” perspective on the social hierarchy. If not for Privilege Blinders, the other party would clearly agree with your Truth and submit to your righteousness. Further, alleging Privilege Blinders insinuates that the wearer is both insensitive and arrogant for not realizing that her assertions are flawed (because they are dependent on her specific hierarchical positioning).

You may notice that the Privilege Blinders defense is often used against women, who are more vulnerable (as a class) to accusations of emotional insensitivity than men are. Guilt tripping. Check out the second paragraph of Marilyn Frye’s Oppression essay. 

Privilege Blinders is, indeed, a favored technique of post-modern genderists. Their ideologies are completely unsustainable, but instead of confronting actual problems, they will greedily pounce on the opportunity to attack their detractors’ (personal characteristics). Trans sympathizers have a tendency to use the Privilege Blinders defense at every possible opportunity. They habitually instruct others to edumacate themselves on Trans 101 because cis-privilege is getting in the way. The suggestion is that if we simply took off those Privilege Blinders, we’d either suddenly comprehend their “logic” OR we’d just stop being so callously insensitive and start acting like Stereotypical Women™ who appropriately, femininely, STFU whenever someone’s precious feeeeelings are hurt! Either way, it’s a WIN!

See how that works? Yeah, it’s pretty effective. Unless you know what you’re dealing with. And I’m tired of it.

Stick to the issues, be specific, or go home. Thank you.

____________________

Feminists using misogynist insults toward other women

I have a problem with leveraging misogynist insults at other women. Yeah, I do. And I am especially disturbed when these insults come from the mouths (or fingers) of women who actually consider themselves feminists or who believe that they are engaged in feminist discourse, analysis, and/or commentary while doing so. That’s funny, amIright? Tragically ironic is more like it. So I want to quickly address:

…the rising problem of ‘radical feminists’ using misogynist methods to refer to feminists with whom they disagree. Especially that they think it’s ok to publicly declare that some women are ‘male-identified’ (because *they* identify them with males) and then, basically, punish them on the grounds of that characterisation, by calling them ‘dick-pleasers’ or something similar. ~liberationislife

Sexualized insults are expressions of misogyny. Referring to a woman’s sexual behavior, her sexuality, or her appearance as a way to discredit her political efforts or speech is the lowest kind of insult I can imagine. It has no place in the mind of any self-I-dentified feminist. First, it blames women for their relations to males as if there were no such thing as structural and compulsory heteronormativity. It also seems to ignore the unfortunate reality that power and material resources are concentrated in the hands of males who must be appealed to under certain circumstances (remember, isolationism justified by delusions of revolutionary combustion is not an effective political strategy for improving the lives of women as a class here and now). Next, these insults characterize relations to males as an unconditional source of personal corruption (as if women are not capable of maintaining their integrity in the presence of males). Finally, this trend frames women’s value and feminist credibility as dependent on our relations to males (or lack thereof).

What kind of lazy hypocrisy is this? I know we’re living under The Patriarchy where cognitive dissonance and reversals are a way of life, but come on already, this is a no-brainer! A woman’s political value is in her ideas, not in her personal relations to males or male-controlled institutions. These kinds of insults are obviously unacceptable in ‘feminist’ discourse.

I wish to specifically include use of the malicious term handmaiden in my complaint. A handmaiden is a female servant. She is specifically female. And she is in service to male authority. Even dikipedia knows that ‘handmaiden’ is a sexualized insult:

A man might use a handmaiden as a concubine to bear his child if his wife was infertile. For example, the biblical Rachel, the childless wife of Jacob, gave her handmaid Bilhah to her husband to produce children. Jacob’s first wife Leah later did the same.^[2] The Virgin Mary referred to herself as “the handmaid of the Lord” in acceptance of becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit.^[3]

Unless y’all think you’re reclaiming ‘handmaiden’ like some ‘feminists’ want to reclaim ‘slut,’ it is completely inappropriate in feminist discourse. Please stop.

I will be moderating comments like the tyrant that I am. My blog, my speech.

For further discussion of female-female dynamics, see Rainsinger’s recent review of Phyllis Chesler’s book, Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, here.

Feminism and biology

Reblogged from some of this must be true:

I have been part of a discussion elsewhere on the role of biology in causing men's violence, and more broadly on biological essentialism in general. I have noticed that some radical feminist bloggers seem to be expressing a more or less grudging acceptance of the role of biology in determining men's behaviour, especially when it comes to why they are so incredibly violent.

Read more… 2,414 more words

"Let’s do a thought experiment and imagine, for a moment, that reliable scientific evidence for, say, the biological origin of male violence emerges. Let’s assume that this evidence is completely incontrovertible and undeniably true. What will feminists do in response? Well, firstly, they might give up. I don’t think this is likely, though it would certainly be very disheartening to women (such as myself) who have based their entire philosophy on the assumption that social construction is all. Secondly, they might turn to science for a solution. This option is so ludicrous to me that I had never even considered it before yesterday, but I suppose we might as well have a bit of fun with it. So, even supposing that the technology exists to “correct” whatever biological thing it is that causes male violence,[4] how would it be implemented? How would feminists get control of the technology and convince everyone else to let them do it? Who would decide how to use it, and who to use it on? etc. etc. The very idea is farcical.[5] In fact I think what would probably happen is that feminists, after the initial disappointment, would go back to doing what they were doing before the announcement: i.e., working to reduce the social and cultural factors that work to enforce women’s subordination (which, unlike biological factors, UNDENIABLY EXIST). Because even if there are biological factors involved, reducing social and cultural factors will make a real difference to women’s lives. This is what we can change, and what feminists have been changing for years, with some degree of success.[6] So in other words, caring about the science at all would have been a bit of a waste of time and energy."

She Goes Before Us

Reblogged from A Woman's Country:

• 

“But some survive. Many of us have lived to tell our stories, to create Lesbian texts, to read Lesbian texts, even to write commentaries and criticisms of Lesbian texts. All of these activities must be pluralized, multiplied, complicated, and pluralized again, because there is no single, narrow, one-sentence definition of "The Lesbian." The sexologists may have been the ones to name us, but we can, and do, create ourselves.

Read more… 525 more words

LESBIAN matters. "That it is a Lesbian story is of great import. It details so much about the teller and her perspective. That she was a girl and is a woman. That she knows what it means to be an odd girl out to one degree or another. That she has hoped and yearned for – and hopefully known – the love of a woman. That she herself has loved a woman and knows what it means to love a woman as a woman. It tells you that there is a high degree of probability that the Lesbian storyteller is a survivor and a fighter. And she has lived to tell, earned the right to tell. Storytelling may be the very thing that has saved her."

Email to Matt Mullenweg about the Silencing of Lesbian and Feminist Activists

Reblogged from Dusk Is Falling:

My email to Matt Mullenweg, owner of Automattic and Developer of Wordpress:

Dear Matt,

I assume you are aware that popular blogger Gallus Mag of GenderTrender (http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/) has been locked out of her blog and no longer has access to her account after a concerted campaign by transgender activists and their supporters. This is deeply concerning to me. The tensions between transgender issues, feminist politics and lesbian concerns are fraught and seemingly increasing rather than decreasing.

Read more… 223 more words

TRANS CRITICISM WILL NOT BE SILENCED.

Women are not like men.

Women are not like men. Even when women do terrible things, they don’t do them like men do them. Because women can’t. It isn’t possible. Women’s behavior may remind us of men’s behavior, but it is never the same as men’s behavior. Because we live under a system of pervasive institutionalized male supremacy.

To believe that certain women are just as bad as men is to have misunderstood the entire basis of feminism as a form of class-based political analysis and critique. Feminism is concerned with how females, as a class, are oppressed by males, as a class, on the basis of sex. From a feminist perspective, then, the power dynamics between males and females are qualitatively, significantly different than the power dynamics between females. Between females, the cross-sex hierarchy of sexualized politics simply does not exist. Yet between males and females, the politics of sex is always present. It is present regardless of financial status, race, culture, and/or sexuality. So even when women mimic the behavior of men under patriarchy, women are not like men and cannot achieve the same results.

What I’m arguing here, by analogy, is a fairly straightforward application of the fallacy of reverse racism principle: just as it isn’t possible for people of color to oppress white people (or their fellow people of color) in the way that white people can oppress people of color; it is not possible for women to oppress men (or other women) in the way that men oppress women. Women simply do not have the necessary sex-based social capital to do so. Women can not be like men in that way.

“Rape is a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.”

—	Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, 1975

When a woman rapes, she does not have the power to rape like a man does. She does not have a penis with which to penetrate her victim. She cannot impregnate her victim. She does not wield the sexualized power that the penis represents in terms of male violence and global domination. She does not have the hegemony of male supremacy with which to intimidate her victim and to protect herself. She may have some protection, she may have some power, she may be shielded in other ways– even in ways that reflect her social location as a woman– but she does not have the institutional advantages that simply being male under patriarchy affords male sexual predators (see link).

When a woman uses her position within the family to control or abuse her family members, she does not abuse them like men do. Her power is always predicated on, even continuously dependent upon, her relation to a higher ranking male. Female roles within heterosexual family structures are always, by design, limited by sexual politics. Even in very large families, women’s range of influence is ultimately constrained by the patriarchal mandate on domestic privacy that demands separation between public and private social affairs. This zone of privacy acts as a built-in check on the power that females may exercise. Male authority, by contrast, relies heavily on non-familial social affirmation in the form of public associations with other men. Men routinely grant the benefit of the doubt to other men in the wider community. Men grant each other unearned authority and control over women strictly because of their shared maleness. As a result, men’s roles as the natural guardians and arbiters of all family-based (i.e., heterosexual) relations are both created and reinforced by this continuous feedback loop.

Women can be horribly destructive. Women can destroy other women. Individual women may accumulate certain kinds of social power on the basis of economic class, race, culture, or professional standing. Individual women can even destroy individual men. But women, as individuals, can only do so much damage.

Feminists who want to help women as a class must not become preoccupied with the failings of individual women; we must not spend our time condemning and making examples of women we perceive as handmaidens. When we spend our energy hunting down handmaidens and being self-righteously indignant about the awful behavior of handmaidens, we are distracted from our primary purpose as feminists. Because when all the Bad Women have finally been defanged and their wreckage cleared away, what are we left with? What have we accomplished as feminists? What have we accomplished for women? If institutionalized male supremacy rages on unfazed and we are still swimming upstream against the tide of inherently unequal sexualized politics, I don’t think we have accomplished much more than putting out one of a million tiny forest fires. We have not touched the inferno of patriarchy itself.

Feminism is a form of class-based political analysis. It asks questions about the big picture. It is concerned with how females, as a class, are oppressed by males, as a class. Feminists must stay focused on women as a class in order to help women as a class.

When a woman yells at you on the internet or undermines you in person, it’s not like sexual harassment from your male boss. It’s not like the verbal rage of your abusive father. It may trigger those memories, but it is not the same. She is not like a man. It is not sex-based oppression. If a woman has any power over you at all it is not because she is a woman, but in spite of her status as a woman. Feminists who want to help women as a class know that women can never treat other women like men treat women. Because women don’t have sex-based power over other women.

R*ape: analyzing damages

In light of current events surrounding male perspectives on RAPE, I would like to revisit the ideas below. REPUBLISHED FROM UNDERCOVER PUNK. Originally posted on October 2, 2011.

The Legitimate Children of Rape, August 29 2012, The New Yorker

Raped, pregnant and ordeal not over, August 23, 2012, CNN

See also, for legal nerds: http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/pdf/98-3/Prewitt.PDF

*******

There has been some talk recently about the FBI’s archaic definition of rape. The New York Times even covered the story this week. Let’s review.

The FBI provides guidance to states about criminal reporting. As in, what actually happened for the record on a national level. This guidance is published in the Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook (hereafter, the Handbook). The first version of the Handbook was issued in 1929, and the most recent version is dated 2004. Well, dontchyaknow some things never change! Including the definition of Forcible Rape:

Definition: The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.

Page 19.

Not-forcible rape does not exist in the Handbook. That’s right sisters, you better fight back or it was. not. rape. As you might expect, this forcibility requirement tops the list of feminist complaints about the FBI’s working definition of rape. But it’s only the beginning.

Another major complaint heard ’round the world is about the exclusion of victims from the definition of rape. By continuing to use the old-fashioned term “carnal knowledge” only females can be victims of “forcible rape.” And only males can perpetrate “forcible rape.” Because it literally. requires. penis. to. vagina. contact.

The Handbook further reads:

Agencies must not classify statutory rape, incest, or other sex offenses, i.e. forcible sodomy, sexual assault with an object, forcible fondling, etc. as Forcible Rape (2a or 2b).

Page 20, emphasis in original.

So you see, according to NATIONAL CRIME STATISTICS, non-PIV sexual violence is. not. rape. Even statutory rape is excluded from the definition of “forcible rape!” This makes a lot of people very, very upset. Understandably, so. Now, me? Yes. And no. Here’s the thing: I don’t believe that rape is rape is rape is the same as all other rape. I would argue in favor of different classifications of “rape” that take into account penetration, exploitation of power (see Chapter 6 of the Swedish Penal Code as example), and potential or incurred damages. But that is not what we have here.

Here, the FBI has created one very narrow, difficult to prove, definition of rape; then dumps everything else into a second category called “Sex Offenses.” A “sex offense” is simply a catch-all description for non-PIV sexual violence:

This classification includes all sex offenses except forcible rape, prostitution, and commercialized vice.

Page 142. As such, this framework of national reporting fails to classify many acts of unwanted sexual penetration as rape. It also fails to account for important differences between the various non-PIV crimes it shoves under the umbrella term “Sex Offenses.”

But guess what? It gets better! Let me tell you what I think this is the most appalling part of the guidance offered in the Handbook:

The ability of the victim to give consent must be a professional determination by the law enforcement agency. The age of the victim, of course, plays a critical role in this determination. Individuals do not mature mentally at the same rate. Certainly, no 4-year old is capable of consenting, where victims aged 10 or 12 may need to be assessed within the specific circumstances.

Page 142, my emphasis.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is in the OFFICIAL FBI MANUAL OF CRIME REPORTING. And guess what? The exact. same. language. is also featured in the section on Forcible Rape (see page 19). So this pedophilic instruction is given by the government not once, but TWICE!

Ten and twelve-year-old children can NOT, as a matter of state law, consent to sexual contact with adults. I’m sorry people, but sometimes getting all BLACK & WHITE on certain egregious behaviors is appropriate. And this is one where I’m willing to risk Laying Down the Law like there are no legit exceptions. The FBI guidance about ten and twelve year old victims being “assessed within the specific circumstances” NEEDS TO GO. There should be a clear prohibition on sexual contact with a child aged sixteen (or younger) by any person two (or more) years older or younger in age than the child. None. End. Teenagers, find people your own age, or WAIT. Yes, that’s how I really feel. And I could probably get even more complicated about the wording, but I won’t. For now.

Articles about the FBI’s current working definition of rape also discuss the statistical increase in crimes that would inevitably occur if the FBI’s antique definition of “forcible rape” were updated. But really, what would the problem be? First of all, we’d know exactly why the increase has occurred. No need for alarm, people! But more importantly, we’d have a clearer picture of reality with a better understanding of all victims’ experiences. And this new accounting of reality just might result in increased resources and funding for the victims of these crimes. Finally, there is considerable difference in state definitions of rape. Most of them look nothing like the “forcible rape” definition used by the FBI. Comparing apples to statistical oranges inevitably produces misrepresentations. Uniform criminal reporting standards that more accurately captured a greater range of sexual crimes would encourage state adoption and therefore, consistency. Women would benefit from shared legal definitions of “rape” and “sexual assault” that better reflect our experiences by making more detailed analyses of the circumstances.

So let’s do that.

I believe that one of our tasks as feminists is to conceptualize new ways of describing women’s experiences. In this case, experiences of sexual violation. That’s why I think this is the most feminist-interesting part of the Handbook’s guidance. The factors mentioned below help inform our task because they legitimize concern for damages:

Sexual attacks on males are included in this classification [Sex Offenses]. However, depending on the nature of the crime and the extent of the injury, the offense could be classified as an assault. (See explanation of assaults on page 23 of this handbook.)

Page 142.

Let’s start with extent of the injury, which of course is about actual damages. A feminist analysis of rape and sexual assault would take into account all kinds of injuries and their severity/extent, including (but not limited to):

• emotional distress
• bodily injury
• disease transmission; symptoms and curability
• impregnation

I know it’s hard for some people to read impregnation as a form of injury but, particularly in the context of rape, framing unwanted impregnation as a unique kind of personal damage/injury should be understandable to most. Separate consideration should be made for each of the different kinds of injuries that a person sustains as a result of rape and/or sexual assault. Including pregnancy. Including pregnancy.

In addition to kind and extent, potential injury is also relevant to criminal severity. At least when it comes to aggravated assault, potential counts. The Handbook advises law enforcement agencies:

It is not necessary that injury result from an aggravated assault when a gun, knife, or other weapon that could cause serious personal injury is used.

Page 24.

Here, potential injury from a weapon becomes relevant to the aggravated classification of the crime. Aggravation could therefore provide support for the feminist claim that PIV and/or Male-on-Female penetration has a similar quality of increased “deadliness”– by way of impregnation and disease. Aggravation analysis increases the criminal severity of an act because of the potential damage created by the presence of something in particular: death or severe bodily harm in the case of assault with a weapon, and impregnation and/or disease transmission in the case of sexual assault with a penis (against a female body).

Aggravated assault also recognizes that not all weapons are created equally. The Handbook has sub-sections describing different kinds of weapons commonly used in the commission of assault (4a- firearm; 4b- knife or cutting instrument; 4c- other dangerous weapon; 4d- hands, fists, feet, aggravated injury). Unfortunately, the federal government does not recognize the danger of impregnation as a potential, or even actual, harm. And even more unfortunately, according the FBI, female victims of “forcible rape” -and victims of all “sexual offenses”- do not have an aggravated classification for reporting the sexual crimes committed against them.

Further, transmission of disease by non-sexual methods such as biting or spitting is specifically addressed in the Handbook’s discussion of aggravated assault (see page 24). Yet disease transmission is a conspicuously absent from guidance about Forcible Rape and Sexual Offenses (see page 19-20 and 142-143, respectively).

A feminist analysis of sexual violence and potential injury would review the nature of the crime and consider aggravating circumstances such as:

• a [structural] power differential/relationship between the parties, including age and threat of retaliation
• a physical size or ability differential
• the use of physical force or threat thereof
• use/threat of a weapon; kind of weapon (deadly or otherwise)
• PIV/reproductive violation
• exchange of bodily fluids (disease transmission)

The presence of any one of these factors justifies an increase in the severity of the crime being reported. Combined consideration for actual and potential damages should be built into our nationally recognized standards of reportable sex-crimes. Most of this is already being done for assaults. Why not sexual crimes too?

View this document on Scribd

Smith College to be confronted by a trans test case

Well, I’m back on the tumblr.

For a singular purpose.* To respond to this:

Which I did here. And I’m not done.

Let’s review the original intent for the creation of Smith College. In Sophia Smith’s own words, her will bequest was for:

the establishment and maintenance of an Institution for the higher education of young women, with the design to furnish for my own sex means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded now in our Colleges to young men.

(See: http://www.smith.edu/about_sophia.php).

Unfortunately, women are still in need of these safe harbors from male entitlement and classroom domination. Women remain significantly underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Despite what Larry Summers might think, it’s not because women are stupid. It’s because of “…environmental and social barriers – including stereotypes, gender bias and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities – that continue to block women’s participation…”

As a result, single sexed educational institutions continue to offer critically valuable and unique opportunities to young women:

At Smith, there are no stereotypes about what women should do, but there are unlimited expectations about what women can do. Smith is a great training ground for careers that might still be considered non-traditional for women.

(See: http://www.smith.edu/about_whyissmith.php).

One does not become a woman by complying with the antiquated sex-based stereotypes that Smith College was established for the express purpose of combatting. A male does not become a female by identifying with, nor by expressing, what is traditionally understood as “femininity.”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:

Traits stereotypically assigned to females – such as care-taking, emotionalism, and weakness – have served as sufficient [] justification for women’s exclusion from employment, participation in government, and many other critical social functions.  Archaic stereotypes are directly responsible for the denial of female credibility and intellectual authority, in addition to causing the historical marginalization of females, lower social status vis-à-vis males, and lack of power to engage equally with males. Even where law has evolved to formally prohibit sex-stereotyping; women continue to suffer from the lingering effects of sexist ideologies about female inferiority. So although we support every individual’s right to freely express their gender identity, it is absolutely critical that [we] not confuse “feminine expression” with [sex].

Gender essentialism is NOT OK. It is regressive and it is counter-productive to female equality. I will never accept that gender expression is what fundamentally constitutes being a “woman.”

Please reblog, please tweet, please help make some anti-gender-essentialism NOISE about this attack on Smith College.

*Yes, I’m a Smith College graduate. Class of 2000. Philosophy: a major I would not have had the confidence to undertake but for the supportive, woman-centered environment and the encouraging words of my female peers and professors. I would have been too intimidated by the arrogance of male intellectual authority in a co-ed environment. I was still scared to take all those upper level philosophy courses, but at least I knew that I wouldn’t have to endure endless mansplaining in the classroom from other students.