Secondly, masculine-appearing (which can be relative) lesbian women are going to be socially interpreted by people who haven’t worked through their sexist shit as Subjects, whereas feminine-appearing (which can also be relative) lesbian women are going to be socially interpreted by the same people as Objects. It’s the same reason that when a cis male friend of mine is walking in public with a cis female friend, even if they are just friends, men will engage with him but not her. I have also experienced this directly, as well as a noticeable decrease in the sexual harassment I was subjected to while accompanied by virtually any guy (even if he was like my bro — just a friend), because people who have work to do seem to interpret women accompanied by men as those men’s “territory”. I’m sure it’s really fundamentally the same principle at work for femme and butch couples being approached by men who will only acknowledge or engage with the butch between the two of them.

Now that I’ve been transitioning and becoming more ambiguous day-to-day, the quality of my experiences has become more and more inconsistent. I also protest in my underwear (I can still fill a D-cup bra), and find that I can directly address someone who has walked up to the group of us, and they’ll simply carry on as if no one was talking to them. The point I’m getting at here is that you’re only paying attention to the parts of trans experience that you want to hear. That’s not trans-inclusion.

Yes, I am just one person. No, I cannot reasonably expect to radically alter the sex/gender beliefs and perceptions of every person I encounter. But I’m sure as hell changing a lot more as an out trans and genderqueer than I ever successfully challenged as a femme cis woman. I might even be giving people such as yourself just that much more voice, whereas without people like me expressing the kinds of experiences we have, maybe you’d just be blatantly ignored like I still am when I’m interpreted as a cis femme.

Another example is a lesbian couple I know. One appears more masculine and the other more feminine. When they encounter men, the male will respond and communicate with the male-appearing person more than the feminine appearing person. This is a occurrence of how patriarchy operates; it ascribes legitimacy to those who appear masculine, and degrades those who appear feminine. In other words, masculine appearing people have more legitimacy in patriarchy.

So, I don’t think it will ever be enough to transition into stereotypical (sexist) categories of male and female, for it is the conception of gender itself that is propping up patriarchy. I think folks should fuck with gender, but not in a way that reconfirms “female” is trraditionally feminine. I want gender-fucking to promote androgyny. Gender should be abolished so these signifiers are not available to socially subordinate “women” and privileging “men.” Compared to radical feminism, your strategy is less systemic and less-likely to uproot patriarchy.

There are so many facets of privilege and oppression out there. It is hard to know where to start for me…”at the talk it was decided there would be an online poll”. First of all you have to be able to make the time to get to the talk, and secondly you have to have internet access to participate.

Organizing events is difficult for me (I do a lot of local food activism in Corvallis, Oregon)…I’m looking at this conversation to help make my events better and more inclusive. I haven’t gotten any backlash yet, but maybe that is because some people don’t feel like they have a voice.

But yeah, it’s too bad they organizers have decided to dig in their heels (yet again)… another year, and another lost opportunities to build solidarity with other communities, that’s for sure.