> My concern is that in the case of women-only spaces where trans women are welcome, many trans women will join, responding to their need to belong, which you express and which I feel myself. And that given enough trans women joining, a few of them will eventually display those behavioural traits you can expect from people who grew up like men and that are the traits the community seems to want to keep out.
I am cis-gendered female and exhibit a lot of conversational traits typically identified as male-patterned. Does that mean I shouldn't be allowed?
Personally I love the idea of allowing trans-women into a woman focused community. Your perspective is going to be unique (and likely uniquely insightful.) You also experience the same discrimination as cis-gendered women if you aren't explicitly identifying as transgendered and may have the same needs for support and understanding related to that discrimination.
>> I am cis-gendered female and exhibit a lot of conversational traits typically
identified as male-patterned. Does that mean I shouldn't be allowed?
I concede I haven't considered women with atypical behaviours so I'll be
honest and say I don't know how to answer your question. My guess is that
cis women being a bit confrontational (if I intepret that right) is going to
be much less disruptive, or divisive, than trans women doing the same.
>> Personally I love the idea of allowing trans-women into a woman focused
community. Your perspective is going to be unique (and likely uniquely
insightful.) You also experience the same discrimination as cis-gendered women
if you aren't explicitly identifying as transgendered and may have the same
needs for support and understanding related to that discrimination.
Thank you for your empowering words, I appreciate them. I hope you're right
and that the trans women who join Leap will contribute positively to it.
Personally, I'm not out to my coworkers so yes, I'd benefit from a community
like Leap, absolutely. But that can't be just about me (or others like me). If
you look at complaints cis women have against trans women, it's all about us
thinking only of ourselves and our need to be perceived as women, taking the
place of cis women in employment, enjoying resources and structures meant to
help cis women etc. The majority of the people who say those things typically
turn out to be vicious trolls who don't really care so much about cis women
as about hurting trans women. But I have to consider the possibility that in
their hatred they have managed to latch on to a nugget of truth: that just by
being perceived as any other woman, I end up taking the place of one. And that
just shocks me to my core. I transitioned to find myself, not to usurp someone
else's place in the world.
So I've decided to be very careful to avoid doing that, if at all possible.
And one part of that is staying well away from spaces meant "for women", even
if they're explicitly trans-friendly.
And I do think that other trans women should also be just as careful.
Expressing your identity can't be done at the cost of others' lives. Well,
unless you're Vlad the Impaler.
I can't edit my post. I wanted to add that it's not just the internet postings of vicious, transphobic trolls that have made me think. It's things like the controversy around Fallon Fox; or, the story of a trans woman who received an award for women entrepreneurs thanks to the success of a company she set up while living as a man. Stories that show that sometimes, trans women can really run roughshod over the interests of cis women, in our road to self-actualisation.
Stories that show that sometimes, trans women can really run roughshod over the interests of cis women, in our road to self-actualisation.
This is an issue I have been uncomfortably aware for a while. I have never before seen anyone comment on it.
Let me suggest that your awareness of it makes you someone I would prefer to have around in a women's group.
I say this as someone who has been burned on this very issue, repeatedly so. But I would prefer to seek a path forward for both cishet women and trans women, one that victimizes neither. That path won't be found without people like you.
If Leap is something you feel would benefit you, I hope you will reconsider your position and join it. If it doesn't work out to your satisfaction for any reason, you can always stop participating.
I am cis-gendered female and exhibit a lot of conversational traits typically identified as male-patterned. Does that mean I shouldn't be allowed?
Personally I love the idea of allowing trans-women into a woman focused community. Your perspective is going to be unique (and likely uniquely insightful.) You also experience the same discrimination as cis-gendered women if you aren't explicitly identifying as transgendered and may have the same needs for support and understanding related to that discrimination.