As a Pagan theologian I am familiar with the “Left Behind” series of the far Xian right about the “Rapture” and it’s aftermath. Regardless of the artifice of those stories I find the basic imagery hard to resist given what is happening currently regarding the trans civil rights movement.
For the past 15 or so years trans activism has not been about actual civil rights so much as it has been about the erasure of classic transsexuality often called HBS these days. This has been done by denying the medical model of transsexuality via “education” that transgendered identified individuals, something entirely different than those born with transsexual or intersexual conditions, do not “require” surgery or body modifications while at the same time attempting to coattail the understanding that had been achieved BECAUSE of the nature of transsexuality. Not suffering from the dysphoric imperative, these activists have been busy selling the idea that surgery is optional rather than the well established and highly successful treatment the medical profession recognizes for those born with classic transsexuality.
Had the modern trans-civil rights movement actually been about obtaining civil rights, they never would have taken this position, but you see, it isn’t about that, it’s about pushing a socialital wide agenda of total deconstruction of all gender in order bolster their own positions outside a gender binary accepted by almost everyone in the world. Failing that their fall back position is dragging everyone gender variant in any fashion into a third category in addition to the binary. Their feminist allies in this are among the “third wave” of feminism which consists mainly of young women in college experimenting with denial of gender. This is great fun in the safe confinement of an insular world but most of them quickly find out it doesn’t work once they are out in the wider world. They have produced no powerhouse feminist thinkers from within their ranks but rather use “third gender” apologists from trannyland as source material. By far the most fascinating thing is that among their ranks are almost no transgendered males. Since this group defines themselves as neither male or female, it is intellectually dishonest to call them Male to Female (MtF). Please note, this school does not define themselves by who or what they are but rather in the negative, who or what they are not. The latest of these “transwomen” wearing feminist clothing is the current darling of the TG crowd, Julia Serano. Julia makes many excellent points but fails on one major area, she approaches feminism as an outsider, a “transsexual” rather than a woman without reservation. In my own experience, this makes all the difference in the world.
When trans identified people approach women’s space as trans, they are confirming the accusations of the radical separatists, they are essentially trying to colonize or invade women’s space. This would seem to be a no brainer to me, but is a rather simple concept that immediately raises the back hairs of the transgendered crowd. It apparently is so threatening a concept that Pam Spaulding’s of Pam’s House Blend Blog trained tranny, Autumn Sandeen, branded it hate speech! Sandeen is someone who is actually trying to raise money to go to the Democratic Convention for the specific purpose of causing a bathroom incident! Holy crap Batman. If this isn’t a perfect example of someone who claims womanhood on the one hand and denies it on the other trying to invade women’s space, I have no idea what would. It would seem self evident to me that if you are not woman identified you do not belong in women’s space.
These trans-activists specialize in making enemies rather than building bridges. When they confined their activities to their own insular email lists and blogs it wasn’t so dangerous, but in the last year they have expanded their “influence” to major LGB blogs where their one note agendas are starting to lose those allies they had in that world due to the obsessions with their “right” to invade all women’s space with non-female bodies.
Naturally the wider world sees this for what it is, insanity. Many of the current crop of “trans-activists” are on disability for mental issues, which should actually come as no surprise. When I recently pointed out that dropping the “me me me” and replacing it with some “we” as in building common causes and offering a specific example, the immediate reaction was denial of the common cause! Truly these people are their own worst enemies but unfortunately they are also, in the process, making themselves the enemy of all women of transsexual history as well. It is they who have declared war on us, not vice versa.
Recent events across a wide spectrum of medicine and politics have had them crowing victory and despair, but lets take a closer look at what is about to happen. The AMA recently came out in favour of inclusion of medical treatment for transsexuality, referred to as transgenderism due to the confusion sown by these people on terminology. A reading of the position makes it clear that it was transsexualism being referred to, which only makes sense since those who do not bring their bodies into congruence with their neurology have little need of surgery beyond getting a set of tits installed. This wasn’t a signal of trans acceptance in their sense. The APA is in the process of revamping the DSM and appointed some of the most objectionable professionals possible to deal with the gender and sex categories. Realistically they are not going to be able to erase classic transsexuality as a condition but what they can and will do is define autogynophilia in the broadest possible sense so that the future gatekeeping to surgical treatment will become very very tight indeed. In 2012 the world itself might not end, but it certainly will for the transgenders…….they will find themselves medically defined as fetishists across the board and thus can kiss goodbye to any further progress in the civil rights arena.
Their two major nemeses, Barney Frank and the HRC are setting them up for a fall big time and the transactivists are playing right into their game as well. Just as the expected insane fury of the the Tgs towards the APA is being used to prove their mental instability to mental professionals,(how stupid can you get?) Frank and the HRC are positioning themselves to recognize and support civil rights for medical model transsexuals only. The constant anti-HRC and Frank screaming of the trans-activists on GLB blogs has reached the point of annoying the crap out of the formally supportive elements of those communities. Both Frank and the HRC are now being seen as the victims of these nasty trannys rather than the victimizers. Both Frank and the HRC took a major roll in the recent House hearings on trans civil rights…….and every single one testifying was a professional, well presented and mono-gendered individual. In other words, a classic transsexual history person. Barney even made a cute little joke in his opening statements going back to the old “trapped in the wrong body” meme.
Barney Frank and the HRC are not fools. They are well aware that even the far Christian Right can “get” classic transsexuality fairly easily. Pat Robertson even made a favourable comment years ago, the fundamentalists of radical Islam recognize it and even GW himself welcomed a woman of transsexual history who was his classmate to the White House in a very supportive manner. What is almost impossible to sell to the general public is the idea of women with penises. I predict that when ENDA is next introduced it will have “gender identity” and not “gender expression” as part of the language. This would accomplish several things at once. Gone would be the opposition based on crossdressing teachers and employees. Gone is the entire penises in the women’s showers argument. It would exclude all of those who have proven themselves a total thorn in the side of both the HRC and Barney Frank (revenge is sweet after all) It would totally rehabilitate the HRC in the eyes of the greater GLB world because now the most in need of protections and most sympathetic “trans” group would be covered, people born with classic transsexuality. Thanks to the redefining of transsexualism to be part of transgendered, no one will be able to scream the transgendered were tossed from the bus with any remaining credibility. This recognition of civil rights of classic transsexuals will assure that the DSM revision leaves room for medical model transsexuality as separate from the fetishists, a is a position widely already accepted at the top of the medical, psychological and psychiatric professions today.
And the TG activists did it to themselves. When the GLBs and the classic transsexuals are raptured to having full civil rights, the Tgs will be left behind for their sins.
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