Four women involved with various Lower Mainland women's organizations came together last month to talked about feminist political organizing, and the recent recommendations for inclusion of "gender identity" as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the BC Human Rights Code.  Should BC proceed with such an amendment to the Code, it would be the first province in Canada to provide explicit protection for transgendered peoples. There has been little discussion on the huge impact such legislation could have on the existing structures of women's organizations, or how it could cancel out existing protections that currently allow us to organize women-only centres and groups.

The four women have chosen to use pseudonyms for fear of reprisals and violence. Collectively they represent women in terms of race, sexual orientation, disabilities, and other marginalizations.  The opinions here are those of the women, not of Kinesis.

Clara:  It's scary how uncritically the Vancouver Sun reported the BC Human Rights Commission's recommendations for changes to the Human Rights Code.  The new protected area is vague and simplistic and does not look at why we have women-only spaces to begin with.

There is a lack of recognition of the realities of how male-to-female transgendered peoples (M-to-Fs) have been socialized as males.  There is so much denial about this.  In a recent issue of Xtra West, Kate Bornstein (a M-to-F transsexual activist) actually acknowledges she lived as a man.  I felt so grateful for that scrap of acknowledgment.  My hope is that some M-to-F will say, "Maybe it is okay to acknowledge my privilege".

Jeanne d'Arc:  There is not enough information or honesty on how being a woman and being transgendered (TG) are different experiences.  A dangerous thing is that women's concerns and our very real fears are being dismissed as hysterical, paranoid.  All the terminology that has ever been used against women to say we are crazy is being thrown at us again.

Clara: I've heard women who think transgendered peoples should be welcomed into women's organizations say, "Well, you just deal with the behaviour.  So what if they are socialized differently?"  By the time that behaviour happens, a significant amount of crap has already been heaped on the women in the organization.

Penn: What if women say, as someone once did, "Why don't we just deal with the behaviour of men?  We don't need women-only spaces."

Clara: Women have, in large part, been afraid to talk about these issues for fear they'll be called "transphobic" or "discriminatory".  That silences us.  The only voice being heard in Vancouver on this issue has been the pro-transsexual, pro-transgendered, pro-"inclusion" one.   I've heard stories of physical and emotional violence against women, stories of threats and intimidations...

Penn: ...and the lawsuits against women-only organizations for not letting M-to-Fs in.

Clara: I want to talk about what it means when a women-only support group for issues of sexual abuse or coming out as a lesbian is forced to deal with someone who has lived with male privilege, power and all the safety in the world a male feels in relation to a woman.  We are not talking about just individual or group rights for transsexuals (TS).  This is also about the effect on other people, namely women.  On that basis, it may look like we are being "discriminatory"...

"When you throw a lawsuit at sombody knowing it can wipe out the resources they have, it tells me there is no sense of connection with the people in that group."  Clara

d'Arc: Women who have experienced their entire lives as women or females - as an oppressed group - are now being told there is a hierarchy of oppressions and we are actually on top.  The argument that women are oppressing some group of people only works if you completely take out of a larger social context of patriarchy.

Virginia Woo: We have to think about why women fought to secure women-only space. Then, the question becomes "Has anything really changed that makes those safe spaces for women unnecessary?"  The answer is that it is more crucial then ever, given the incredible backlash against women and lesbians, that these spaces be safeguarded and valued.  There is an idea out there that we are in a "post-feminist" phase; we are beyond needing women-only spaces.

Penn: That impression is very deliberately being put out there.  In fact, we are actually losing in terms of how every one of our grassroots organizations has been cut back or negatively affected in recent times.

Clara: Queer theory also works against us because it attempts to "deconstruct" the understanding of "woman", "man", "lesbian", "gay", et cetera.  They are deconstructing terms we still need in order to define what is happening, deconstructing what it means to mobilize politically.  So what students are being taught is working against what feminists are trying to build.

d'Arc: To me, deconstructing is nothing less than destroying.  My question is, in this "post-modernist" movement of which queer theory is a large part, what exactly is being created?  Queer theory never built a women's centre.  Queer theory, as I understand it, never built anything.

The term "queer" has blossomed to encompass not just gay men and lesbians, but also bisexuals and TG's as allies.  Being an ally is different from actually being a particular group. You can work together to support one another but you don't have to then collapse into one another.  You can work with difference and create your own spaces.  It's like being good neighbours.  You have agreement on where your line is, but you both share that fence.  Queer theory destroys and collapses valid differences.  How is that truly challenging social structures and injustice?

Penn: When you get rid of the labels, which queer theory does, it does not get rid of the oppression.  Our differences are expressed through labels.

d'Arc: Naming is a powerful thing.  I have always said to people who identify as queer, "Fine.  You feel you united with all these groups.  But when somebody strikes you, what ground are you fighting back from, and what for?

Instead of being allies, it has become a serious competition about being the biggest, baddest, most transgressive without addressing daily needs, like those of women who are survivors of abuse.  I have never seen queer theory address any of those realities.  It simply says, "I am free to be anything I want to be."  Yeah, I wake up every morning and think that too.  But I recognize my reality and how hard I have to work towards creating that reality.

Penn: Queer theory not only doesn't recognize people's realities, but it challenges women-only spaces with: "Why do you need them?"  They say, "Why are you creating this gender divide?"  In their eyes, we are responsible for creating the problem.  We know we are trying to work toward women's equality, and in doing so, we need to organize women-only spaces.

Woo: The issue of transgendered "inclusion" in women-only spaces is part of a bigger challenge facing women's organizations - the backlash against the women's movement and feminism.  It pisses me off we have to put so much energy into dealing with the TG issue.  We are forced to because we could lose our organizations.  The TG issue has become a big threat to a number of women's organizations that have had to expend resources, energy, and time addressing it.

Women's organizations have had fights internally, collectives have been broken up to the point where it's more difficult to work as women to build a different and better world, to break down the injustices and the oppressions.  I am here because I believe in feminism.  It is one of the few political movements left that can make something good happen.

Penn: If it weren’t for the strength of the women's movement and what women's groups have to offer, nobody would be knocking on our doors.  We are only just beginning to be funded for the work we've been doing for centuries on very minimal resources.  The strength of the women's movement is what attracts the attacks of the false memory syndrome lobby...

Woo: ...the fathers' rights groups...

Penn: ...and the TG movement.

d'Arc: I find the use of lawsuits very interesting, in the way the trans movement is utilizing the State to get what it perceives as its right.  The trans movement - and I'm speaking specifically about M-to-Fs - say they are challenging the State and what society considers to be norm, yet they are utilizing gender clinics and lawsuits to break down the very organizations they assume they want to be in.

Now to me, if you want to be part of an organization, you don't use a lawsuit. Collectivity or community building happens by having a real dialogue about one's own privilege. When you throw a lawsuit at somebody knowing it can wipe out the resources they have, it tells me there is no sense of connection with the people in that group. It tells me that you think because the door is closed to you, it should be closed to everyone else as well. Right there, that tells me there is a total lack of understanding of women's oppression.

I think people who identify as M-to-F need space to figure out what their issues are. I don't think existing women's organizations are the place for that. The TG/TS communities would probably find a lot more support from the feminist community if there was a move to create their own spaces and gouge out a piece of the pie from the State to provide basic services for really crucial issues. That is where the money is at, not with women's organizations, which are already stretched to the gills.

Clara: It is fine if women who are aligned with M-to-F transsexuals want to be in groups together. But women born women need our spaces as well. We cannot rely on the law or the Gender Clinic at the Vancouver General Hospital to fight for feminism. What do they care about broader issues around surgically changing a man and making him a "woman"? That's about male dominated systems controlling people's bodies. It's separate and distant from the political work we do.

d'arc: The cost of the surgery and issues of access are also interesting. To create a M-to-F is way more perfected than a female to male (F-to-M). It costs one third to create a M-to-F than to create a F-to-M. It makes you think about the worth of femaleness from a medical standpoint.

 young people refer to sex-realignment therapy as "trendy". We know there are some young women who are vulnerable because they feel feminism hasn't done for them what they think it should have. They blamed feminism instead of all the oppressive factors in the world feminism fights against. These young women are picking up on sex-realignment and saying, "Oh, scrap all the labels, I can be whoever I want." And then they start popping hormones.

d'arc: There's a very high risk of liver damage. You could be choosing deliberately to shorten your life. But that is not discussed out there as part of the debate. You can also get hormones illegally and there are books on how to inject yourself.

Penn: I am worried about how this issue pits women against each other. I've seen women's organizations doing the same work, caring about the same women, concerned about the same issues for the last 20 years not talking to each other around this issue. Once upon a time, women faced censure for "excluding" men by creating women-only space. When women of colour or Aboriginal women or lesbian caucuses first came about and right up to the early 90s, the concept of getting together on their own in spaces separate from white or straight women was considered "exclusionary". Now we are considered "exclusionary" for wanting women-only spaces all over again.

Clara: How "transphobia" is different from racism or homophobia comes through when we look at the issue of how F-to-Ms can be absorbed into the male-gendered world without too many problems because most spaces are male-dominated. The M-to-F makes the transition into a position of less privilege, but brings with him the comfort of having had that privilege and power. And the denial about why women are resisting is typically male. It proves to me they can get surgically altered and become "women". But it shows they have been socialized as men to demand the space from us instead of creating space for themselves.

Now some women might say, "We know women born women who are aggressive, yet they've been socialized as women." Woo: That's why we have to take it away from being about individuals and look at it in the larger societal context.

Penn: Only the behaviour is about individuals. What we are addressing is not about men being good or bad but about male power, the patriarchy and how it works to oppress women.

Clara: It's about walking down the street feeling safe at night. It's about being sexually abused as a five-year old girl.

Penn: It's about our institutions saying that that five-year old girl should go back to her daddy who sexually abused her because really, he is a good father, a good provider. It's about women resisting the state doing that to us, to her.

Woo: Women's organizations were formed out of a history and a context, which hasn't really changed a lot. It shouldn't get down to good or bad individuals. We have to look at why it is necessary to keep women's organizations alive and thriving.

Women's organizations are about fighting for social change. This notion of inclusion and what that means to women's organizations isn't just, "Here's a little space for you." It structurally changes what we do when we allow transgendered people into our organizations. It isn't about, "Well is one walks in the door we just won't throw him out." It's about how, if a women's organization adopts a policy that says we will accept TGS or any person identifying as a woman into our space, it will change the services we provide, how we do our hiring, what that means in terms of TGS participating in the decision making of the organization.

d'arc: What freaks me out in terms of the socialization of TGS is the short amount of time it takes for the State to give a M-to-F or a F-to-M the stamp of approval. I don't question the possibility of gender dysphoria. However, I suspect you have to play a certain game in order to stay alive. You learn to play so you are not targeted. I don't think it is possible to unlearn all that, especially in a society where being male has great rewards. And if you can enter women-only space, it means there is no more re-socialization work to be done, you've "arrived".

The Vancouver General Hospital will support sex realignment surgery if you can "cross-live" successfully for two years. Medical Services Plan and the gender clinics in Montreal and Toronto also suggest two-year frameworks. Woman-oppression starts the day a woman is born, but a transsexual can cross-live as a "woman" for two  years and that is supposedly enough to undo a lifetime of what you had to learn to survive.

Clara: Most M-to-Fs want to be called "women," not TGs or TSS. The potential BC Human Rights amendment forces that division so that, to go back to queer theory, trying to break down this oppositional male/female gender model is about having people fit into one or the other gender. Why can't there be a third option, instead of having to choose to adapt and force oneself into being either male or female?

"Women's organizations should not be asked to be gender clinics."  Jeanne d'Arc

d'arc: It's about forcing that narrow reality on an entire group of people. What I've faced from M-to-Fs is having to conform to a certain reality, irrespectively of what my experience has been. But what I hear from them is "No, you don't have the right to claim your own herstory. I, with two years of cross-living experience, have the right to dictate to you what a woman is." This is when I realized this has nothing to do with other women or connecting with women. It has everything to do with "You have to plug into my reality...and if you don't, I'll stick Big Brother on you."

Penn: One issue people talk about is violence against TGs and TSs. TGs do get raped--sometimes because they are mistaken for women; sometimes because they are TGs or TSs. But the experience of rape is not the same. Historically, women have always lived closer to the potential of rape and often experience it at very young ages. Again, it speaks to the difference in experience that comes with being a woman.

But why do you think that until now women's organizations have been silent on the issue of TGs in women's organization?

d'arc: People are afraid to go on record. Why are we all anonymous here in this article? You are afraid to go on record because if the legislation goes through you can get seriously ostracized. The right to debates and to know all sides of the argument has been taken away from us. There are no forums with all sides of the argument for people to get informed.

We also haven't talked about the issue of behaviour in terms of our organizations becoming volunteer spots for M-to-Fs trying to transition to "womanhood". It becomes a trial-and-error experiment in trying to figure it out "Am I a woman? Can I pass as a woman?"

You can end up wreaking complete havoc in a women's organization as you attempt to unlearn male privilege. An organization that exists to assist women in crisis ends up dealing with something antithetically opposed to its mandate, and distracting, disruptive and destructive to a healing space. This behaviour stems from the woman hating and disrespect men are taught. It's not the same as internalized sexism, no matter how badly a M-to-F may want to argue this.

Clara: The onus falls on the women in the women's organization to spend time and resources in trying to re-socialize M-to-Fs...

d'arc: ....and having to call them on their shit, which includes envy of women born women. Women's organizations should not be asked to be gender clinics. Women are there to share with one another based on lifelong experiences and collective understanding. There seems to be a real refusal to acknowledge that M-to-F transsexuality is a completely different issue. It is sad there is little sharing with each other except on a political level to attack us and state their claims.

Penn: It's easy for everyone to be a champion of TG people and say, "Yeah, we are going to serve them." But what do we have to offer? Who understands that particular experience TGs have been through? It has been argued that maybe women's organizations should start offering services specifically for TG people.

Woo: Why do women's organizations have to take that on? With limited resources, women's organizations are still trying to meet the needs of lesbians, women of colour, Aboriginal women, women with disabilities.

Penn: Does the BC Human Rights legislation to protect TGs intend to put some money behind it? Are they actually going to offer some services to TGs or are they to be off-loaded onto community and women's agencies?

d'arc: Each community has to think really hard about this issue because it's easy for everyone for just "fall in line" without seriously recognizing the implications for women [and women's organizations] on a day-to-day basis. No one wants to talk about transitioning and all the things that occur when people are going through change. Nobody's talking about the fact that what they call "transsexual adolescence" is about serious shifts in personality that come from taking hormones.

What does it mean to deal with people who are on serious medication and trying to transition? How does socialization in male aggression and hormones interplay? Does it mean getting labeled "transphobic" if you are not willing to deal with someone going through transition?

I'd like to know whether the BC Human Rights Commission is ready to open their door for a bunch of claims, for example, from some individual who decides "I can say,  I'm female in a man's body'." Is the Commission ready for the backlog they are going to have with that kind of stuff?

Clara: My hope is that women will consider what agency we have, the power we now have, and the power we potentially stand to lose if the proposed recommendations become law.

d'arc: Oddly enough, I look at this as women learning to respect and honour our won difference and claim it without getting into feeling we are discriminating. It is guilt that is stopping women from speaking up and saying, "Look, I'm not transphobic. I'm different. Good luck organizing your own stuff. I will help you create what you need for your own resources, but don't destroy my resources." I think M-to-Fs are unwilling to admit the kind of silencing and the disruption to service in women's centres they've created.

Woo: That's why the women's movement has to take the transgendered issue seriously. It isn't something to which we can say "Let's wait and see" or " it won't happen here," or it's just a BC issue." A lot of women's organizations are being challenged, targeted and sued, legislation or no legislation.

There was more than a decade-long struggle towards just getting some acknowledgement of the need for women's equality--even on paper. It's interesting to note that the TG issue has the support of the State pushing it. Where the hell was the State in protecting the rights of women?  Where is it now?