LGBT News Lesbians are being excluded from the Vancouver Dyke March in the name of ‘inclusivity’

I have a question... I may have gotten lost in the middle just a tad and found my way back at the end with all the jargon. I apologize. For it is really my own ignorance in not keeping up with all that is going on in the world.

I truly loathe bullying of any kind. I also tend to irritate when reading words like inclusive. But, I have a question... Just a small one. If I may... Maybe I am misunderstanding something, I apologize in advance if I am.

For anonymity purposes I'll refer to my friend as Sam. Sam I knew long before he came out as a gay trans male. Maybe I am different than most. For me the person before he came out is a completely different person, a female that I knew once upon a time.

Sam is a male that is my friend and happens to be gay. I don't disregard the fact he is trans but I've met so many people that can't see past that tiny, insignificant detail. That detail is not all that makes Sam, well Sam. Same as the fact he identifies as gay or even myself. I am more than just a gay male. To me those are after thoughts, added details that make up the individual.

So, my question is... Is Sam a gay male? Same as those who happen to be trans and identify as lesbian? Maybe It's a rather silly sentiment and question. But, I'm trying to grasp this. Because for me, that's just how I feel. Maybe I'm alone in that regard. I'm not sure... But, I don't see Sam that way.

Same as it would be if I met someone who happened to be trans and identified as lesbian. To me they would still be female. So, continuing with my question... Are they not female?

 

I didn't mean to sound as if I agreed or condoned their behavior in any way. Trans people have come a very long way. But, so have lesbians and gay men alike. What I mean to say is...

As stated earlier I loathe bullies. Maybe that isn't the right way to say it or even to describe it. But, to me... That's how it came off. I can't seem to grasp this for some reason. Because, in a round about way that is what they did. Bullied and shamed you and your group. For what? To what end?

All that the lgbt community has faced and gone through, yet amongst our own community situations like that happen? Why? If we can't stand together than what makes it any different for my father to stand against me and give me three exorcisms to cleanse me of the gay demon plaguing my soul?

Awful comparison... But, none the less. If I would justify their behavior than I am no better. I would then have to justify my fathers actions. So, no... I can't say I completely agree or even understand. But, either way I can't condone the way they approached your group in a difference in opinion.

 

I'm kind of confused. When it said ' lesbians must include males' did it mean MtF trans women or people who identify as male. At dyke March anyone who identifies as lesbian should be allowed as long as they are female including trans women. Leave everyone to there own beliefs and I don't think it's fair to bully anyone. I do,think a male to female trans person who likes women is a lesbian, but from what I'm getting it seems to say that they dont see trans women as women and therefore can't be lesbians? I don't think they should have been kicked out of dyke March I think everyone is entitled to their own beliefs you don't have to agree with them. I think it's wrong that someone had a sign for no hate yet people were hating them. You think everone could leave their prejudice behind for that day but they couldn't seem to do that. It's funny that in trying to make dyke March inclusive they made it exclusive for anyone that doesn't agree as to what a lesbian is. That's what I got from that I'm not sure if that's what it's trying to say.

 

Personally, I think the last thing we need right now is division. The more we divide ourselves, the easier it will be for the right to step on our necks.

This is a problem for all lesbians, all women. Not just "some women", or "those women". Not just "Stacy over there". All women. Gay, bi, cis, trans, if we focus on fighting each other instead of the real culprits we're only making it easier to erase ourselves. It's not our time to try and gatekeep who can and can't stand up for us... it's time to stand up and fight back. Not as factions, but as women.

TLDR... this is no time to start a civil war, and if we do, we're pretty much doing half the work for the alt-right anyways. I think we need to focus in these hectic years and fight our oppressors rather than each other.

 

This makes no sense at all.

 

nannyception

 

While bullying and violence is never okay, what was to be expected? Your group went to an INCLUSIVE event/March pretty much stating trans people are mentally ill/delusional and not valid and anyone dating them is bi (so policing everyone's sexuality and identity while complaining you are being policed).

No lesbian (or anyone for that matter) should be forced to date or have sex with anyone they don't want to have sex with or date BUT you can't ask not to be policed and restricted in how you express your sexuality while policing and restricting others.

You can't not want people to invalidate your sexuality and identity while invalidating the identity and sexuality of people who don't think like you .

And before you say homosexuality isn't a question of opinion and is based on sex and not gender by definition and by law. Lots of definitions and concepts are outdated and History has proven countless of time before that definitions and concepts evolve with time. You can't base your opinions and police people based on definitions and concepts that haven't been updated in decades/centuries and hold no more factual truth than a personal matter of opinion.

 

^That.

You are all not being bullied. Calm down.

Your group is attacking trans people. You believe they are lying, they don't exist and you create posters and messages about it all. The people in charge of the march are rightfully protecting trans people from your hateful group.

If you don't believe that trans women are women, then yeah thats fucked up.

I'm glad Vancouver has decided to protect our trans brothers and sisters

 

I want to begin my response by saying I have very few deeply thought about ideas about gender and gender identity. I'm significantly more inclined to agree with the trans movement than the OP and the women here. I'm still going to be critical of the response to them. It is not my place, nor the place of these women, to say that trans people are not members of teh gender with which they identify.

The response, then, is to actually engage with these women's arguments about gender and what it means to be lesbian with cogent, clear responses, not a demand that they automatically defer their thinking process to the trans activists with whom they disagree.

If their experience of what it means to be a woman and/or to be a lesbian is deeply rooted in biological sex, you can't just say that they're saying that in bad faith, pull up the drawbridge and say you never have to engage with them. A very large number of people do think like that. I, as a gay man, struggle to square the circle of agreeing that trans men are indeed men while knowing full well that my sexual attraction is exclusively aimed towards cisgender men.

It's true that in general, we've moved beyond the axiomatic assumption that womanhood (or maleness) is no more or less than biological sex. But an equally axiomatic, ill-defined and often circular definition about self-identification isn't enough to replace it. If being a man or a woman is merely identifying as such, it's incredibly hard to understand what the terms mean, let alone understand why we need sex reassignment and hormone therapy. There is clearly something more, something messier, than identity alone. We can't state that gender and sex are very separate but pursue policies and personal decisions (again, take the example of sex reassignment) that demonstrate they are integrally linked.

Your argument strikes me as a bit unfair. I think one of the problems of the transgender movement is that rather than proving that these women are wrong or have outdated ideas, the response is to shut them down, say they have no right to make comments about things that do impact them, and exclude them from a space that was historically theirs as well.

Even the idea that they have outdated beliefs is a bit nebulous - are they merely politically unfashionable, do they have negative consequences despite not being necessarily true or false, or are they demonstrably false? To be clear, I think they do have hurtful comments. But I also think gender-as-self-identification sits on shaky grounds because of the things which gender transition invovles and that these women, while being exlusionary and often engaging in outright bullying, are also not so wrong headed as to deserve no response at all.

 

@Aussie792 I don't think an inclusive March is the place to open up a debate about the legitimacy of Trans people and their identity, nor the place for lesbians or Gay male who date trans people to have to defend their sexuality and the fact that they aren't bi.

I do think the OP and people who think like her are entitled to their opinion and views regarding trans people as well as people who date them but I stand by my opinion that those opinions should be kept to themselves or at the very least not displayed at an inclusive march when it's clear that the intent to expose those ideas at such event is to offend and police others.

I am compassionate towards women who somehow feel pressure to date transwomen (though being part of countless lesbian groups I rarely feel there is that much pressure to and actually see many more trans women being fully aware that they aren't entitled to anyone's love or body...) but pretty much implying that transwomen are men in disguise and that everyone dating them is bi, is freaking rude and condescending.

Again, they don't deserve violence for their thought but nor do I think they deserve the time of the day, quite frankly.

If white folks came with similar boards about race at a black lives matter parade, would you find it okay and expect black people to be welcoming and taking the time to talk and discuss genetics and melanine with them? Or if anti-Semite showed up at a synagogue shouting anti-jews slogan would you expect them to welcome them with open arms and start politely discussing religion? Seriously ?

For me those girls have done exactly that, they have showed up at an inclusive event shouting and spreading hate and bigotry and policing others and then got shocked when they were told off and asked to leave. Violence isn't justifiable but if you are going to be rude, don't be surprised if people tell you off for it.

 

There is a lot to unpack here, but I think its clear that you have never spoken to a trans person about any of this. I highly invite you to do that if you can.
Sex affirming surgery is not done by all trans people. Its only done by those who 1) can afford it 2) feel the need to do it.

The trans people who do decide to have surgery mainly do it for their own reasons, but hardly do they do it because they believe that the only way to be a certain gender is if you have the parts to match. Having certain surgeries helps with dealing with the reality of being trans for many people, it helps people "pass" which keeps them from being killed, and it allows them to do little things like get jobs.

You are also not taking into account genderqueer people who are trans and most don't feel like they need surgery.

There is also this small notion that there is an argument to be had about sex = gender when science itself is extremely clear that is not true. We have studies, evidence and many biologists showing that our understanding of gender = sex is flawed. This is not a matter of debate, its a matter of stubbornness.

Here is the thing.

Why do you think the organizers of the March made this decision?

The trans community has done an AMAZING job at educating us cis people. They have advocated on their behalf, they have changed minds, and many of us now understand their issues. None of that was an accident.

Their job is not to educate every single cis person. Their job was to educate the leadership of the March, which clearly they did. Now that the leadership of the March understands how violent and dangerous it is to have these group in the March, they have decided to protect trans people. It is not their fault that this group had decided to not grow and learn.

You are acting like these women are being barred from ever again having this discussion. Its not like there is now a law that these opinions can not be voiced and discussed. Simply, the only thing happening, is that the march organizers don't want people who think trans people don't exist in the march. And I and many others agree, thanks to the amazing job that the trans community has done at educating us.

 

But I also think the march, as much as it is inclusive and everyone should definitely be respected, this is also a time to celebrate yourself as well. I don't think being proud of being a woman should be ragged on because others weren't born biologically as women. I don't know if(and the group might have been intending to hurt trans, which is wrong), but I don't know if that was their intention initially. It might have just been meant as self-expression and celebrating themself as a lesbian and woman without meaning to offend anyone, and were just surprised by the new policies. Again, if their intention was to invalidate others, that is definitely wrong, I'm just saying that, without invalidating others, I don't see what's so wrong about celebrating yourself at events like this and shouldn't be attacked for just being a cis female lesbian. Especially when it's called the Dyke March. Not that we have any right to make stances on trans or anyone else either or use it as a platform for opinions. There needs to be a clearer line between ccelebrating yourself and invalidating/offending others. Sometimes people might unknowingly offend others when that is absolutely not their intention. I'm speaking for myself though, I would definitely be apologetic if I unknowingly offend people, but unfortunately there are cis lesbians out there who are horrible to trans, which I don't understand. While I don't and can't fully understand what it's like for a transgender person because I don't have their struggles, I do fully support them and am educating myself as much as possible.

Didn't mean to go on odd tangents, it just is beyond me the aggressiveness against trans people by cis lesbians.

 

This isn't why the OP and her group of friends were asked to leave and boo-ed by the crowd though as no doubt there was plenty of lesbians proudly celebrating their sexuality and identity at the Vancouver dyke march.

this:

is why the OP got the reaction she got. She went to the dyke march, an inclusive movement, saying trans folks are deluded and should only be considered by their actual sex and not by the gender they identify as, completely erasing their identity.
Worse, she went to the dyke march, policing other lesbians as if she get to declare who is or isn't a lesbian and worthy of the "lesbian status" and made it very clear that according to her lesbians who date trans women aren't lesbians and shouldn't call themselves lesbians and should only refer themselves as straight (bisexuality probably not being an existing phenomena for the OP). Her group was not only rude and showing bigotry towards trans people but also towards lesbians who saw their label and sexuality questionned and denied by the OP and her friends at an inclusive movement and in one of their supposed safe space.

The OP was always free to celebrate her sexuality along with all the other lesbians present at the march but unfortunately, she chose to make people uncomfortable and disturb the march and people's safe space by her bigotry and unwillingness to remove the offensive slogan when asked and then acted shocked when she realized people weren't took keen on her views.

 

Ohhh, yeah in that case, not cool. Ugh, I don't like when cis lesbians blatantly say "man" when they hear trans mtf. That's just as bad as the homophobes who say lesbianism can't be a thing and blah blah. I believe I'm still a lesbian even if I dated a trans mtf because she identifies as female, I would treat her as so, and the definition of lesbian is a woman being with other women basically exclusively.

But even all politics of that aside, I take it people with that ancient mindset tend to be older people very set in their ways and not up to date on the latest findings. Although that isn't necessarily true because I know some older lesbians who are with the times and very supportive of trans and bi's and femme issues. So, I honestly don't know why some people aren't up with the times.

 

I don't want to push trans mtf out of women's space, just out of the female space. I want the recognition that growing up and living with female reproductive organs (internal and external) is an important identity that you are born with. That the female body and society's reaction to that body is important. That female is an identity. That female is discriminated and controlled differently from male or intersex. That females have issues unique to females. That most people with a female body identify as a female and a woman. I want the space to say that.

I want the recognition that males have grown up and lived with an extra privilege and that that has effected them. It has effected people's perspective on how space should be made for males in a primarily female group. It has helped change the perspective of what began as, and still is, a defiant pride in the female body in a marginalized group. In Western history/culture, the male body something prided over and the female is to be shamed.

So, recognize the pride of a marginalized group. Lesbian pride is freaking radical and awesome. Female pride is awesome. Woman pride is awesome. Trans ftm pride is awesome. Trans mtf pride is awesome. Denying other people's pride by superimposing your own pride over theirs when they had to fight for their pride? That's freaking old. Let the lesbians march in a lesbian parade, but don't let them reject the identities of most of the lesbians there and their issues (and maybe what bodies these lesbians are most often sexually attracted to). You shouldn't have to, but you do. It sucks, but don't call a (trans-)woman a man. We should be better than that.

Or just completely ignore me. Your call.

 

The problem is that this tends to become “female = woman”, and thus the women’s spaces are coerced into female spaces, to use the language you’ve chosen. That’s the process that cis women have been following as a way to exclude trans women from spaces that would offer protections that effect women, cis or trans (prisons, domestic abuse shelters, etc). Or as a means to exclude trans voices from feminism by narrowing the definition and scope of what sort of woman feminism is supposed to benefit, which isn’t great for women of color either.

I would agree that access to sanitary products is a cis women’s (and trans men’s) issue, primarily. That doesn’t mean that trans women don’t want to be allies, because at least in my case, I see it as analogous to the attempts to make it harder for me to get HRT, or even surgeries important to my well being.

The question I have to ask is this: do you think that the day to day of a transitioned trans woman is that different from your own? That they don’t get cat-called (if pretty), paid less, subjected to domestic violence and rape, talked over in the work place, expected to perform their sexuality for straight men, etc, etc, etc in the same ways? How much of this female identity is really part of the category of women in this case? How much of it is tied up in the reality that society assumes “feminine features = woman”, and that visible sexual characteristics are just a good short-hand for categorizing women in interactions?

I don’t think you’ll get trans folks suggesting male privilege isn’t real. But the argument here as applied is usually meant to suggest that trans women benefit from that privilege. I can tell you, I can only benefit so long as I can play along with the system that is attempting to crush me, which wants to crush me because I cannot simply play along. That’s the whole problem. Privilege itself is conditional, it is bestowed not by the person receiving it, but by those around them. My privilege only exists in the situations that the patriarchical system of values deems to be valid. Attempting to transition in western society is a great way to have that society rip up your male privilege card and throw it in the bin, set it on fire, and blow it up.

One of the reasons trans women are so focused on and shamed, while trans men are so ignored, is precisely because “the female is to be shamed” as you put it. Because transition is ultimately for at least people like me, about our bodies. Not about expression of clothing or behaviors. And we are punished for daring to accept the female.

If anyone goes into transition ignorant of privilege, oh, they are guaranteed to be educated right quick. Will they learn though? That’s up to them. It isn’t like there aren’t women or people of color that enable their oppressors through ignorance or stubbornness, so it’s a bit unfair to paint trans folks with the same brush.

At the end of the day, as a class, we have a lot more in common than we have different, and it’s a shame so much emphasis is being placed on those differences in order to distance yourself from us. And I’m honestly tired about being reminded of male this, and male that, with the implied meaning that those things define me inescapably, for two reasons. First, it is insulting to suggest you know my experience better than I do, much in the same way it would be insulting if I actually claimed to grok the entirety of the cis experience as a woman. Second, it is a rather depressing thought if society’s model of “female” was inescapable as well, since it suggests that liberation is impossible, as it is society’s model of “male” and “female” that is fundamentally broken in the first place.