Mother Jones - Comments for "A Paleo-Feminist on Transgender Sexism Studies"

Bebe99, what the author was, in fact, doing was making a lame, flip joke about something that is actually an important issue for transmen. So if someone made a 'point' by using clitoridectomy in a hilarious way, you'd no doubt be totally cool with that? The Chicago study is really rather lame, since it doesn't take into account the extent to which MTF women are penalized for being trans (which is often way, way worse than a 32% reduction in income and includes loss of employment, health care, being ostracized by their communities and violence ). As with Ms. Dickerson's penis remark, the study's conclusion projects an important civil rights issue (that of basic trans rights) in trying to make a point on another (perhaps overlapping but still separate) issue, women's inequitable pay. I suspect that's why some folks weren't happy with it.

Good idea to try and calculate the number of years it would take to pay for all the surgery fot F2F transgendered people. but what about all the surgery for F2Ms, they are losing twice round, paying for the privilege of earning less money.

I don't know when it is coming up in the US, but here in the UK we are just approaching "Women Stop Being Paid Day" which is Oct 30th Since women here earn, on average 17% less than men, women effectively stop being paid on Oct 30 and work the rest of the year for free.

Susan Holmes quotes: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law

British Occultist Aleister Crowley??

Crowley claimed that the author of this text was an entity named Aiwass, his personal Holy Guardian Angel.

I doubt the athiests around here, who so love to make snide comments about George Bush's & Sarah Palin's "imaginary friend" are going to take your sources too seriously.
Then again, people have a tendency to apply their standards to others rather selectively, so they just might.

In an otherwise useful article, the comment -

"Sew on a penis, get what you're worth. Hmmm...Wonder how long it takes living a man's life to pay off all that surgery."

- is insulting and demeaning. It damages your credibility to object to some forms of ignorance and bigotry, and then engage in others.

Sexism probably is part of the reason for pay differences between trans men and trans women. Also, probably a big part is that many trans men "pass" better than many trans women who transition well into adulthood. So to some extent I think what's being penalized here is being visibly gender variant. (I say this as a visibly gender-variant trans woman who's had no economic impacts from transitioning.)

On the comments about "white guilt": the point isn't to feel guilty, it's to be aware. We don't notice the obstacles that *aren't* in our paths. We have privileges and advantages we don't have to ask for, and no one will say, "here, this is because you're white." So we should try to be aware of the obstacles that other people have to deal with, and do what we can to help remove them.

Could the ditching of resumes bearing names such as Tanisha and Jamal also be a case of class prejudice? I'd imagine Billy Bob and Lurleen might suffer a similar fate.

Sorry, forgot, the USA doesn't have a class system. My bad.

Must tread lightly.

The rights of all people are being trampled almost daily, in one basic form or another far more complex form.

Those of us that are unwilling participants are out numbered by the ignorant that are participating.

Too long in this country (and world, and through the bloody history of time) has privilege been reserved for rich white men. -Ism's in any form are extremely detrimental to the progress of humanity.

I don't even think race, gender, sexual orientation, transgendered rights, religion, or age should even be the main concern when discussing injustice. Injustice should be the main concern.

Yet we get so caught up in these narrow self interests that we cannot help but to come to the call of our "brothers and sisters" when in reality it creates further dissidence amidst a population of people that have very strong common denominators. We are all human, and we should fight all injustices whether they effect us personally or not.

No one has any clearer perspective of the life of their neighbor than what they see pull into the driveway at 5 o'clock, or 10, you get my point. The fact that any of us that pass judgment on any other person makes us as evil as what we are fighting against.

Ultimately we are fighting ourselves... We are creating just another class struggle and another rotten social condition. We are clucking about our lack of privilege while the privileged ravage the seed.

I have to chime in with my trans brothers and sisters here. While I appreciate that you are drawing attention to the article since it not only glaringly highlights gender-based discrimination in the workplace but also draws attention to one of the many difficulties that transpeople face in transition, your rhetoric is pretty glib. This was not a study done with fake applicants as the others cited in your story were - these are real people facing real challenges. Describing it as "delicious" is pretty irresponsible.

Also, you should really clarify what you meant in your "sew on a penis" paragraph. As a fellow feminist, I really hope you are not in agreement with certain feminist segments out there that transmen are traitors to womankind.

Trans rights are way behind GLB rights in this country, and transpeople face serious obstacles, whether male or female, whether pre, post, or non-op. Please educate yourself on trans issues and speak more carefully next time. I recommend checking out the National Center for Transgender Equality and/or the Human Rights Campaign's transgender section.

Uh Alex--
I dont' think she was referring to YOU (transgendered) sewing on a penis--but women who want to get equal pay. Don't go looking for insults--or you'll find them.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law

while i appreciate the (somewhat left-handed) attention to transgender discrimination, the attitudes presented in your article leave me cool. your young co-worker is just that - Young. of course he has no idea of all the ways his race has affected his personal, academic and professional life. i don't believe that even the most radical and educated activsts among us could say that we knew all of those things at twenty-some years old, either.

...as for the rest of the piece... "delicious?" "living a man's life?" even your self-deprecating "hairy-legged humorless paleofeminist" description leaves one cold.

your first salvo, 'delicious,' diminishes the brutal experiences that transgendered people have, not onlt in the workplace, but in trying to find a job in the first place. i have a bachelor's degree, but with a c-cup and a driver's license with an 'm' on it in the gender field i came within a hair's breadth of ending up on the street before i finally was able to get hired as a bottom-level civil servant. 'delicious' indeed...

'living a man's life' - what about living HIS life? your statement implies a falsity in the actions of transmen (and, by proxy, transwomen like myself) as they attempt to simply live their lives.

your final jab against feminists doesn't even rate an analysis.

at this point i expect other readers to interject with "she was just kidding" and "get a sense of humor" sorts of things. i want those of you who feel that way to ask yourselves in all seriousness: is diminishing the experience of a heavily discriminated-against minority funny? is taking the language of the enemy and parroting it back at them in a misguided attempt at levity funny?

i don't think it's very funny at all.

Love is the law, love under will

susan holmes

I am fully aware that being a brown-turning-gray-haired white female, usually well-dressed in public, puts me on the positive side of racial profiling every time.

However, I also lost a job opportunity due to age discrimination. I was obviously the more qualified applicant, any way you looked at it. Filed an EEOC complaint. It didn't help that the younger man was also WAY prettier than I am. But I don't like getting discriminated against for these reasons.

I am in total sympathy with my brothers and sisters who are not young, white, and beautiful. Which is all it seems to take--for example, one of our vice presidential candidates, Caribou Barbie.

I understand your feeling guilty, but it really doesnt do anything. I dont feel guilty for being white. I dont feel proud either. Why should we feel anything for something we have no control over? Its just genetics. Society has turned the genetics in to an arbitrary power structure. All we can do is speak and act out against it as best we can.

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As a transsexual man, I'd just like to say I'm not wild about being characterized as having sown on a penis to find my true worth. I actually would rather not think my genitals determined my legitimacy, howsoever I can't control their interpretation. But you write me like I am a frankensteinian gender traitor. Please understand that's hurtful. Maybe if you engaged with why we do what we do, you would not say something so basely unfair and upsetting.

You could probably get a bit more support if you didn't write this piece from the attitude that "white folks" are stupid for not knowing your problem. Drop you defeatist victim attitude and stop trying to find someone (namely whitey) to blame for your problems. For heaven's sake, the likely next President of the US has the name Barack Obama - about as Tanisha-esque as a name gets. He still got somewhere. And if you truly think you are at a disadvantage because of your name - change it; it is quite easy to do so in this country. No, it isn't fair that you should have to - life if full of unfairness; quite whining and do something.

Really interesting. I've always felt that as a gay person I understood discrimination, but have been able to see [if not prevent] the advantages of being both white and male. It's distasteful to be given the advantage but I don't know what a person is supposed to do about it. Other than trying to spread my ideals of equality to others, I feel stuck with a fair amount of 'white guilt' that I also inhereted with the privileges.
By the way, how did they change the genders? I didn't follow links but can't figure that one out.