My Response to Love’s Transsexual Rally

Ashley “I’m Colonized” Love

So, Ashley Love supposedly held a rally outside of a GLAAD meeting. She writes:

Though GLAAD does some good work, primarily for gays and those who support transgender socio-politics, we hold this education rally to inform attendees that the medical condition transsexualism is actually not about third gender politics or homosexuality. Our legitimate birth challenge stems from being born with chromosomal and/or anatomy diversity, and is treated by affirming doctors who aide us is ensuring our body is aligned with our mind.

Simply asserting that transsexualism doesn’t deal with issues of gender or sexuality doesn’t make it so and considering all the evidence to the contrary, it makes this assertion absurd! A simple PubMed search on “transsexual gender roles” and “transsexual sexuality” returns hundreds of studies that can speak to transsexualism as it intersects with non-binary, non-heteronormative expressions of gender and sexuality. In what non-solipsistic universe can Love seriously claim that American transsexuals do not challenge gender and sexual stereotypes? Yes, I get that Love likes to PRETEND that being a transsexual doesn’t entail a social transition which breaks practically every gender stereotype known to American culture, but it kinda does.

GLAAD has concocted and is militantly pushing an opinion based framework that unravels public understanding, promotes transsexual-phobia and even impedes and erodes our legislative advancements and medical rights.

Militantly? Did Love actually say MILITANTLY?

Militantly… as in, “engaged in warfare or combat”? To even suggest that GLAAD is being aggressive is sheer hyperbole. Posting online press releases and using the word transgender in a manner consistent with the English language is NOT “militant” in any conceivable manner.

We ask involved parties to take a deeper look at GLAAD’s social engineering that seeks to erase transsexualism from classrooms…

What the… WHAT?!? Social engineering to erase transsexualism from CLASSROOMS?!?

… and public discourse in favor of their gay and gender deconstructionism only politics, and examine the science, data and literature that supports our transsexual medical condition’s accurate narrative.  Be aware of the unrest and resistance in the transsexual community against this blatant revisionism and co-opting of our lives by non-transsexual entities that has lasted almost twenty years.

Right… Because this…

From GLAAD’s Media Guide

… Is what constitutes “blatant revisionism and co-opting of our lives by non-transsexual entities” in Love’s mind. Yes, isn’t it just AWFUL?!? GLAAD has the audacity to assert that “… some transsexual people still prefer to use the term to describe themselves… It is best to ask which term the individual prefers.”  Oh, yah… total militancy.

As to her puerile implication that transsexuals are being co-opted by the supposed 20 year old term, “transgender”… Love knows that this isn’t true. Here’s the proof that she’s aware that this claim is false. Furthermore, here’s the real history of the way in which transsexualism relates to “transgender.”

This colonialism of transsexualism by gay and transgender ideology groups is irresponsible, psychologically abusive, sexist, and detrimental to the mental and physical health of people born with transsexualism.

Colonialism?

This coming from the person who wants to make every transsexual believe that their real history is not their history?

Colonialism, you say?

This coming from the person who wants to pull YOU into HER victim delusion and presumes to speak for all transsexuals?

COLONIALISM?!?

How about we talk about how people like Love colonize the transsexual identity in an effort to eviscerate our historical narrative and replace it with her own verbal gesticulations. Let’s talk about the kick-ass transsexuals who busted their ass putting on the first TRANSGENDER conference in 1974. Let’s talk about the amazing transsexuals who understood that the path to freedom wasn’t found in separatism. Let’s talk about this or this or this.

No; none of that was real, meaningful or relevant in the world Love wants YOU to live in. Ashley Love wants YOU to turn YOUR back on all of that proud history. Love wants to blight out the radical voices of transsexuals like Carol Riddell who, in a 1972 speech said that transsexuals and transvestites should join “with other sexually persecuted minorities, particularly homosexuals, in confrontation with the police, the legal profession, the psychiatrists, the capitalist nuclear family, the capitalist gender roles… ”  She doesn’t want you to not know that iconic transsexual leaders like Christine Jorgensen publicly identified herself as being transgender.

On page X of the 1996 book Transgender Warriors, Leslie Feinberg wrote, “Today the word transgender has at least two colloquial meanings. It has been used as an umbrella term to include everyone who challenges the boundaries of sex and gender. It is also used to draw a distinction between those who reassign the sex they were labeled at birth, and those of us whose gender expression is considered inappropriate for our sex.” Ashley wants to lie to you so that you’ll believe that the definition of the term transgender was somehow different in the 1970s or better yet, that the term didn’t exist because it’s supposedly only 20 years old.  Ashley Love is willing to sacrifice our proud history on the alter of her own ego. If there’s any colonialism going on, Love is most certainly not on the receiving end of it.

Colonialism? I say totalitarianism for it is Love who’s asserting that our historical narrative isn’t real. Our past as transsexuals didn’t happen and it is Love who will tell you what to think about our past without even once – NOT ONCE – supporting ANY of her assertions with any objective evidence. She demands obeisance in the form of YOUR unquestioning assimilation into her fraudulent victim narrative.

We’ve had enough.

Yes, well… I’ve had enough of Love’s malformed arguments and her unadulterated hubris. I’m tired of her active erasure of transsexual history. I’m tired of her LYING to the public and most of all, I’m tired of her using transsexuals to prop up her own private fantasy world wherein she exists as some sort of victimized freedom fighter.

cross-posted from Ehipassiko

Cristan Williams is a trans historian and pioneer in addressing the practical needs of underserved communities. She started the first trans homeless shelter in Texas and co-founded the first federally funded housing-first homeless program, pioneered affordable health care for trans people in the Houston area, won the right for trans people to change their gender on Texas ID prior to surgery, started numerous trans social service programs and founded the Transgender Center as well as the Transgender Archives. She has published short stories, academic chapters and papers, and numerous articles for both print and digital magazines. She received numerous awards for her advocacy and has presented at universities throughout the nation, served on several governmental committees and CBO boards, is the Editor of the TransAdvocate, and is a founding board member of the Transgender Foundation of America and the Bee Busy Wellness Center.