Misogynistic, anti-lesbian T-party Derail, split out

semilargeintestine said:

The sentiment is nice, but that isn't the norm. Most lesbians--and women in general--will never view us a women. The biggest example of this is the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, which has had (apparently until recently) a rule that excludes trans women from attending. The reason for this is because we were born male, we will always have male energy and are not truly women.

Most lesbians want nothing to do with trans women who are pre-op, because we don't have the equipment they're looking for. They may support you or even be your friend, but they won't want a relationship, unfortunately. Consider yourself lucky to have found a woman who is intelligent and sees you for who you are.

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Seems to be a generational thing, actually. Lots of (younger) people on AfterEllen have dated trans women and/or will date trans women, most of the younger gay trans women I know haven't had huge problems with this, and all of them told me I was worrying too much. Didn't believe them until lately, though.

There used to be a lot of anti-trans hatred from a certain subset of the lesbian community, but they're mostly marginalized now, the MWMF is increasingly irrelevant, and a lot of the former haters have apologized and are now very pro-trans.

Obviously, not everyone will see us for who we are, but it's definitely doesn't seem like some terrifying thing to worry about like it used to be.

EDIT: And the important thing is that now, most gay women do see us as women, although many might see us as women with a birth defect that turns them off unless surgically corrected. Not wonderful, but way better than it used to be. Also, does kinda depend on region and the crowd you hang with.

Mara said:

Seems to be a generational thing, actually. Lots of (younger) people on AfterEllen have dated trans women and/or will date trans women, most of the younger gay trans women I know haven't had huge problems with this, and all of them told me I was worrying too much. Didn't believe them until lately, though.

There used to be a lot of anti-trans hatred from a certain subset of the lesbian community, but they're mostly marginalized now, the MWMF is increasingly irrelevant, and a lot of the former haters have apologized and are now very pro-trans.

Obviously, not everyone will see us for who we are, but it's definitely doesn't seem like some terrifying thing to worry about like it used to be.

EDIT: And the important thing is that now, most gay women do see us as women, although many might see us as women with a birth defect that turns them off unless surgically corrected. Not wonderful, but way better than it used to be. Also, does kinda depend on region and the crowd you hang with.

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I both love and hate when I can see myself defined as part of a group. Though what you have described is not the worst group to a part of , I'm sort of annoyed that Google analytics has figured me out, and now it's nothing but the gay-targeted Progressive auto insurance and Find Lesbians Like You on Zoosk ads for me.

friendlyhobo said:

I both love and hate when I can see myself defined as part of a group. Though what you have described is not the worst group to a part of , I'm sort of annoyed that Google analytics has figured me out, and now it's nothing but the gay-targeted Progressive auto insurance and Find Lesbians Like You on Zoosk ads for me.

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Hmm? Just used AfterEllen as an example cause I specifically asked around there once and looked at a bunch of trans threads.

I am part of that group, though.

semilargeintestine said:

Most lesbians--and women in general--will never view us a women. The biggest example of this is the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, which has had (apparently until recently) a rule that excludes trans women from attending.

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Be careful about the broad stereotypes, Semi. You can't speak for what "most [cis] lesbians"/[cis] women think any more than you'd want one of those groups speaking for what all trans women are like.

Michigan Womyn's Music Festival is one example of an exclusionary setting, but that's just one event, and the ruling was probably handed down by just a few admins, not necessarily the sentiment of the attendees as a whole. You can't take the temperature of the entire female population by the actions of a few, nor speak on behalf of lesbians. Without statistics or personal experience to speak from, it's kind of attacking a straw man.

EDIT: Never mind. I'm not going to get into the cisgender lesbians vs. transsexual lesbians debate here. I think some of the generalizations were a bit unnecessarily hostile, even if sometimes true in very specific cases, and don't think "most" is much better than "all" when accusing a group of bigotry.

EDIT2: Also, I'm really uncomfortable with this sort of unnecessary infighting, and think it diminishes us all.

EDIT3: I'm also going to be honest and say that those two above statements are me pulling my punches as much as possible. I try to be really understanding, and I know it's been modded now, but I feel I need to say this. I tried to just go to bed and let it go, but I can't.

I'm a woman. I'm gay. I happen to be transsexual. I'm sorry if someone else had bad experiences. But that does not excuse people making slurs against gay women, and I take that f***ing personally. Especially when those slurs also pretty much imply that I'm a naive sap who will never really be accepted as a real woman. That my friends are lying to me and laughing behind my back. That the community of which I'm part, which has always welcomed me, is really my enemy. That basically every difficult step I've taken in my life was a waste of time because I'll always be seen as a dirty "tranny" and a fake.

If a particular trans woman wants to internalize that kind of homophobia, transphobia, and mysogyny, fine. I feel sympathy, and would love to help or listen. But don't project that onto me or other trans women. Because some of us are quite capable of integrating just fine with other women, including other gay ladies, and get a little tired of some people trying to call us liars or try to bring us down when we finally have a good day after so much struggle and pain. When we want to make other trans people feel better about themselves, and know that they don't have to live in fear of always being alone.

I'm sure you're frustrated, and I'm trying to understand. But don't try to tell me that my friends are super-rare exceptions for being able to connect to me as a woman, because that's bullshit. And don't tell me I'm imagining it, because that's also bullshit. Other women connect to me for genuine reasons. I'm really sorry if you don't have that experience, but it doesn't mean you have a right to belittle mine.

I apologize if in ANY way my happy post was seen by anyone as a "haha, I'm accepted as a woman and you aren't" post. Because it absolutely was not. I just wanted to cheer people up and hopefully make other future transitioners less afraid. If I accidentally hit some trigger, I'm sorry.

EDIT4: But this is absolutely something that trans people need to keep out of our systems, because it's toxic and it makes transitioning a lot harder. And I shouldn't really even call out any specific person, because I had internalized some of this before too, and it comes from problems within the trans community in general. All communities have problems, this is one of ours, maybe our worst.

I guess this isn't the right time to ask if you wanna try a threesome with me and my bisexual girlfriend, Mac... :\

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