As a queer trans woman who is also a Witch, I have mixed feelings about this thing, “Pagan Coming Out Day.” Religious persecution is a thing, absolutely, and visibility for minority religions is important. But I am very much unsure as to whether the Pagan community should have adopted the “coming out of the closet” metaphor from the LGBT community, or whether it was a simple case of appropriation.

It’s an easy metaphor to use - one of the earliest books I bought in my religious self-exploration was entitled “Coming Out of the Broom Closet.” But I’m not sure it’s accurate, and I think that it may block real interfaith work with other non-Christian religions (or more accurately, religious movements, since Paganism is not a single religion).

Despite my misgivings, however:

I am queer.

I am a trans woman.

And I am a Pagan.

Blessed be!

Fallon Fox

The NCAA after examining the issues of trans women competing, determined that a trans woman after one year on estrogen has no physical advantage over another woman of comparable height and build. Out of an “abundance of caution” (read: to mollify prejudice), they ruled that after two years of estrogen, a trans woman could compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics. Fallon Fox has been on estrogen for six years. Her advantages are technique-related, not to any “unfair” advantage due to being trans.

Trans men competing in athletics is actually a considerably more problematic issue, since testosterone is a performance-enhancer by nature.

“But you weren’t BORN female!” Bullshit.

The “all important birth categorization” meme is designed to be oppressive. The use of it in feminist spaces is not laudable; it’s damaging to feminism to assert that one’s capabilities are pre-determined at birth and can’t be changed. The fact that feminists often do this where trans women are involved does not strengthen but weaken our hand in dealing with patriarchy; it surrenders the concept of self-definition and self-empowerment as hollow and meaningless without a fight.

Ok, I am kind of disgusted.

According to some people that I do trust, “Trans-Romantic,” other than perhaps being more ethically produced, is conventional hetero porn, and worse, one of the actors it uses (Christian X) is a guy who’s been known in the past to have raped trans women actors that he’s worked with.

I regret having signal-boosted and argued for this.

One of the most fundamental Patriarchal gender norms is the idea that someone who was born with a vagina MUST act and identify as a woman and someone who was born with a penis MUST act and identify as a man. Tell me again how radfems DON’T reinforce the Patriarchy by enacting oppression against trans women?

Backfiring on Cockroach and Haterford

We all may recall that Cockroach and Haterford wrote a report to the UN last year demanding that legal and social recognition of trans women be defined as something that gives their privileged lawyer selves the vapors, I mean violates their fundamental human rights.

As with most attempts to justify oppression by pretending that other people’s basic human rights hurt you… it backfired. As you can see at the link above, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture just issued a report defining “gender-normalizing” practices in health care practiced on transgender and intersex people to be torture and called for the immediate end to “reparative”/conversion therapy practiced on trans people and the practice of forced sterilization as a condition for gender recognition.

Trans Women Couple Seeking Housing in Minneapolis/St. Paul

lavenderpanda:

tybaar:

Hey folks!

Okay so I usually don’t do this kind of thing but we’re starting to get down to the deadline and I need all the help I can get.

Me and girlfriend Amber have had our housing situation change quite suddenly and we need to move to a new place for February!

We’re seeking a room to rent in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area that’s LGBT friendly (and preferably 420 friendly as well).   We’re a quiet, tidy, easy-going transgender couple - both employed full time and own our own vehicles.   We’re looking for a safe, welcoming environment.

Please send me or Amber an ask if you have any questions/concerns.  Even if you’re in the area and you can only ask around your friends, your help is greatly appreciated!

Reblogging this since the place we were looking at fell through…

Source: tybaar

Any time you look at something and say “this might appear transphobic on the surface but…” just stop. Because surface impressions actually ARE important - they might not be the most important thing, but a lot of people don’t bother to go below surface impressions, especially when those surface impressions confirm biases they already possess.