PantheaControversy Part the Final: What Should Have Happened In The First Place

According to PantheaCon, beginning in 2013 and continuing thereafter, all events designated for one gender must be open to all people self-identifying as part of that gender. All women’s events must be open to all women, whether AFAB or AMAB, and all men’s events must be open to all men, whether AMAB or AFAB.

Of course, at PCon 2012, all men’s events were ALREADY open to all men, regardless of birth sex assignment.

Trans space and sacredness

I don’t know how to deal with “trans only” spaces, and I am trans. To me, “trans only” spaces feel hurtful - they feel like being exiled to a leper colony. I need space to unpack my transness and let my transness be sacred - but I need that sacredness - need - to be firmly within the context of my womanhood. The first grows off the second - I cannot be trans without being a woman.

You know something?

It fucking pisses me off that cis men are showing more interest in trans women’s issues than cis women are. It really fucking pisses me off, on two levels:

First, it pisses me off because you, guys? This is not your fucking fight. Quit white-knighting for us. Yes, it’s great that men in the Pagan community are fighting what is clearly a giant fucking injustice. On the other hand, IT IS REALLY NOT YOUR FUCKING FIGHT. You AREN’T trans women, you DON’T know what this feels like, and you’re giving the women who want to keep us out more fucking ammunition. Guess what? We DON’T want to destroy women’s space - we want to be part of it, and when you start “innocently” saying that maybe [name of big Pagan conference] shouldn’t have ANY separated spaces at all, you are using us as a stalking horse to destroy women’s space. AND THAT IS NOT FUCKING OK BY THIS WOMAN. Knock it off, back off, let us fight our own fucking battles.

Second, it pisses me off because WE SHOULD NOT EVEN BE HAVING THIS FIGHT. Let’s play “what is more likely” here - is it more likely that trans women go through transition, which is a grueling, years-long process that exposes the transitioning woman to extreme physical and emotional stress, discriminatory termination of employment, poverty, survival crime and potential death every time one tries to begin a new long-term romantic relationship in order to resolve a fundamental conflict at the core which threatens to destroy us, or is it more likely that trans women are a male-created stalking horse to destroy women? Really? Given that I just told men off for attempting the latter in the above paragraph, BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS REALLY NOT FUCKING OK, do you really think that trans women WANT to have that sitting on our heads? FUCK NO. Because not only are we NOT MEN, we also specifically transition to not be men, because fundamentally trying to be men kills us. The more oppressive shit that women’s spaces pull, the easier we make it for the real enemy - you know, Frothymix and his buddies - to kill us all.

Trans women’s issues are women’s issues. Not men’s issues. Guys, kindly back off. Other women, stop being assholes.

Thanks.