Bailey Quartered (part 2)

[bcholmes]

This is part of a longer e-mail I sent to the trans list on which I'm having my argument. I'm posting it here 'cause I just kinda feel like it.

Having said all that, I will recount an anecdote...

When I first started reading about the autogynephilia debate, I wrote a page on my web site that criticized Anne Lawrence's page on the topic. I then sent her an e-mail saying, basically, "I really respect and admire all you've done for the trans community, but I really disagree with you on the topic of autogynephilia, and here's a link to my response to your words." We exchanged a couple of brief e-mails on the topic and it seemed to me that she was pretty angry with what I had to say on the topic. I was also frustrated that she didn't seem to be getting some of the points that I thought were significant.

Shortly after that, I was at an IFGE conference in Chicago, and Miqqi Gilbert introduced me to her. Miqqi said, "do you know Anne Lawrence?" and I said, "No. Well, I mean, I know who she is, but we've never met." Miqqi said to Anne, "This is BC Holmes" Probably she didn't recognize my name. But it seemed for a moment like maybe she did. There was an awkward silence in which neither of us said anything. Then we were both sitting in on a couple of sessions, essentially sitting right beside one another.

It was an interesting experience. I recognized that it was easier for me to be more critical of what she was saying when I didn't have to look her in the eye. And ever since then, I've pondered writing a follow-up to my original critical web page -- I've wondered, how would I approach this material if I was trying to make something positive out of it.

I haven't gotten around to doing that yet (my involvement in the trans community has gone in a very different direction for the last several years). Part of me wishes I had chosen softer words to criticize Anne Lawrence.

My former boss used to say "When someone is lost in the woods, it doesn't help to tell them where they should be. You have to go to where they are." Maybe if I had gotten closer to where Anne Lawrence was, maybe I would have found that she wasn't as lost as I believed she was. Who knows?

For my part, I feel like I grow as a person when I can recognize stuff that I wish I had done differently. Sometimes I watch certain conversations going on in the trans community, and I wince at the name-calling and the personal attacks. We seem to behave like this a lot. I often wish that the trans community would grow up a lot.

Comments

pan-community issue.

[northbard.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I watch certain conversations going on in the trans community, and I wince at the name-calling and the personal attacks. We seem to behave like this a lot. I often wish that the trans community would grow up a lot.

I can't speak muchabout such issues in the trans community, not being a part of it, but I think you may be narrowing them out for comment that could well be applied to most online communities. i've seen this (and been guilty of it as well), all over the board (and boards), and I'd say that, unless the issue is so bad that regular violence is occurring, the trans community is no less mature than, say, the pagan, goth, fannish or kink communities...

Not, I grant, that this is much in the way of comfort...*sigh*

[vioxel.livejournal.com]

I am only obliquely connected to the Trans community, so I recognize that I'm not really qualified to have an opinion. I sympathize when it comes to intra-community sniping and discord, though. That seems to happen in vegan discussion groups a lot, too (I'm a member of several).

I know what you mean when you say you want those around you to grow up. :-)

[lovelyangel.livejournal.com]

I suppose that after years of participating and watching, I've concluded that "trans community" is an oxymoron. Although in "real" communities members can disagree with one another, members of a community have some common goals and are supportive of one another. The trans community seems badly balkanized -- lacking a single direction, filled with inward-directed anger and disrespect -- with members divided by labels, classes, and dogma. We act like a community as much as the set of all people who have red hair... or who are left-handed. Well... maybe not that arbitrary. I suppose I've gone past the stage of disappointed and into the realm of the jaded. (That's not to say that I don't continue to work with trans organizations or projects.)

But, yes, we need to grow up. I'd like to think that I've been in situations where I've modeled appropriate and mature behavior, but it's hard to say if that had any impact. I'd leave meetings and forums shaking my head a lot.

[skylark-10.livejournal.com]

i don't think anyone need feel ashamed for being anything less than full-voiced in their criticism of a person who claims unique authority to pathologize an entire class of people. the arguments regarding autogynephilia are not an academic exercise... they directly and profoundly affect how transsexuals are understood not only by others but within our own tribe. witness how "AGP" has become the local equivalent of "nigger", an epithet leveled at anyone who doesn't fit the criteria of any given trannie's sense of "realness".

i don't care what her credentials are, what "good" she's done, or how "nice" (or seductive) a person she may be face to face... she has earned her shunning.