Language, Language Wars, Media

My Response to Love’s “Transsexual” Rally

April 21, 2012
Cristan
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.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger... Tags:

Comments

  5. Pingback: My Response to Love’s Transsexual Rally | The Transadvocate

  6. I was at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles this weekend as a journalist for LGBT Weekly covering the red carpet. I photographed much of the event and have a few video interviews I need to process for YouTube for use on Pam’s House Blend this week.

    The pre-party for the GLAAD Media Awards began at 3:30 PM, the stars began walking the red carpet began at 4:30 PM, and the dinner/ceremony/fundraiser proper began at 6:00 PM.

    I also was inside for the dinner and awards ceremony. I was there when Chaz Bono — a trans man — was presented the prestigious Stephen F Kolzak award by his Mom Cher and his Step-Mom Mary Bono. (Video of him winning the award is on Perez Hilton’s website here). The Stephen F. Kolzak Award is presented to an openly LGBT media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equality — that a trans-identified person won the award this year is a very big deal.

    I was assigned to table 115. At 05:58 PM on the 20th,I received a text from a friend of mine who also was attending the GLAAD Awards. She said Ashley was at her table — table 104. Later my friend told me Ashley was there because someone who didn’t know about her alleged history of “crashing” and disrupting LGBT events had given her their spare ticket — the spare ticket originally being for the wife of a lesbian attendee that couldn’t attend the event due to illness.

    I was approached by two senior members of GLAAD’s staff at different points in the evening and told that Ashley was at the ceremony. Both times I was approached by staff, I was informed that security had been notified. Given my past public history with Ashley, I believe they were afraid that there may be trouble between Ashley and I — I certainly was not looking to be a part of any drama at the GLAAD event, and would go out of my way not to be involved in any disruption of the event. Hey, I love GLAAD and the work that they do — it’s an organization I even financially support.

    On seeing Ashley at table 104, I briefly exchanged peasantries with Ashley at the GLAAD event, as well as at Alexis Rivera’s memorial service a couple of weeks ago that we both attended. There were no sparks…no drama…at least between the two of us.

    Given Ashley’s alleged history of disrupting LGBT events — she’s allegedly rushed stages and taken microphones to deliver her transsexual-related messaging at other LGBT fundraisers — I was told by four people in the know at the event that she was being watched extremely closely. (I’m personally aware of two east coast LGBT fundraisers from which she was escorted out of in 2010.) However, other than just her presence apparently causing heightened tension for much staff & security at the GLAAD Media Awards, Ashley didn’t disrupt GLAAD’s event.

    This all said, Ashley being inside and seated at a table at the GLAAD Media Awards Ceremony at 6:00 PM — an hour-and-a-half before the protest was scheduled to end — indicates to me that the protest had light participation. And, as a journalist I can’t make much sense of Ashley Love going to the dinner and awards ceremony — with a ticket donated to her on the evening of the event — after scheduling a protest to begin when the red carpet walk was scheduled to begin. Well, unless she was planning to disrupt the awards ceremony.

    But since Ashley didn’t disrupt the ceremony, I’m at a loss to explain her presence at the GLAAD Media Awards ceremony in light of her planned protest — a scheduled protest I just learned about this morning upon reading your blog entry.

    No wonder the GLAAD staffers at the event were concerned about her presence — if I were a GLAAD staffer I would have been concerned too knowing she’d scheduled a protest earlier that evening, knowing that both Ashley and I were there and have had a sometimes contentious history, and knowing of her alleged past history of disrupting events. It no doubt appeared to GLAAD staff that Ashley’s presence was a metaphorical powder keg waiting to be lit — thankfully for all of us at the event there was no metophorical explosion.

    1. Okay… let me get this right… Not only is Love a victim of GLAAD and thus a freedom fighter, she’s also a supporter of GLAAD who participates in their events?!? I’m at a loss… I’ve no idea what to make of her inconsistent behavior.

      Let me guess: at some point in the near future, we’ll see a pic with only Love holding a sign with a caption noting that she’s a freedom fighter and then later on we’ll see pictures of her and celebs which won’t mention the fact that they were taken at the an event she publicly disavowed.

      Again, this is why the TS Separatist movement – as it has been over the past 5 years – is dead. Love’s debunked narrative and bizarre behavior is all that’s left of what seemed to be (at one time) a fairly ferocious movement.

      *sigh*

      1. I really can’t explain her behavior at all — it literally makes no sense to me.

        I’m not in any way trying to denigrate Ashley here, by the way. I’ve no desire to enter into any drama with her, and if all we had here to discuss was her behavior on the inside of the event, then I wouldn’t have publicly commented on it. By itself, her inside the event behavior wasn’t noteworthy. Only in the context of the protest she organized and participated in earlier that evening does her inside behavior at the GLAAD event, and GLAAD’s seemingly high concern about her being there, make that seemly behavior on the inside of the event noteworthy.

        Personally, I’m just trying to match what I saw of her behavior inside of the event with what I now know were her actions on the outside. And, it just doesn’t add up, Cristan. As much as I try to make sense of the totality of Ashley’s behavior that evening, I just can’t align her inside the event behavior and the outside the event behavior.

        I can only wonder what the people she protested on the outside of the event with would think of her attending the very same event she was protesting, eating a dinner for which a strong supporter of GLAAD had paid several hundred dollars. As someone who was on the invited to be participation inside of GLAAD’s event, and someone who has experience being a direct action protester myself, I’m mystified as to why Ashley would even want to come inside to be a well-behaved spectator of the awards ceremony for the organization she’d just finished protesting just minutes earlier.

        “Shocked” is just not a strong enough word to describe what I’m thinking and feeling — again, I can’t make any sense whatsoever of her behavior on Saturday night.

        1. Oh, now she’s claiming that she went in with fliers and handed them out at the event. She claims to have talked with several GLAAD people who thought that her assertions were quite logical and agreed that change needed to happen. In short, Love is the freedom fighter who has been inside the belly of the beast emerged victorious in the face of insurmountable odds.

          Did you – or anyone else, for that matter – actually see any of the fliers she supposedly distributed inside the event? Did anyone see her distributing fliers?

        2. I didn’t see the MAGNET direct action, but that’s not suprising — my friend & I had parked with the hotel’s valet due to lack of available parking in the area, and my personal focus was getting to the red carpet quickly. Oh, and we arrived at the event before 3:30 PM.

          However, I talked to a source at GLAAD about the MAGNET action, and that person said the action really didn’t rise to the level of a protest. Basically, I was informed MAGNET was pamphleting — if the action had risen to the level of a rally or protest, security would have been closely monitoring the action. That source at GLAAD I spoke to never actually saw one of the pamphlets, but that source did hear from security that pamphlets were distributed.

          And just as that someone at GLAAD I contacted never saw a copy of the distributed pamphlets, neither my friend or I saw a copy of the distributed pamphlets.

          Frankly, I would’ve liked to see a copy of the pamphlet. Opposition material distributed at an event I’m attending and/or covering is just the kind of stuff that I — most especially when I’m in journalist mode — want to see.

  7. Well tell me…..could you understand if I protested outside a Democrat fund raiser against some of their stances and positions that I disagreed with and then had no problem entering the building to listen to speakers and applaud them on other things they actually accomplished? How simple is that?

    Would you then engage in petty character assassination because you think I have to support all or nothing about the democrats? If you did I would laugh at your simplicity.

    1. For me, it was from ticket Ashley solicited from a guest right before the event and then received from that guest, and what was the agenda of the person who paid for the multi-hundred dollar ticket. The woman who bought the ticket is someone who didn’t know about Ashley’s anti-GLAAD pamphleteering of the event earlier that afternoon.

      In other words, after Ashley organized and participated in anti-GLAAD pamphleteering of the GLAAD Media Awards, she didn’t just walk into the event and listen to the speakers — she couldn’t have. That she went to the GLAAD event’s after party and participated in more than just listening to speakers there too, is also noteworthy.

      Again, for me this is not to derail Ashley for her point of view in organizing anti-GLAAD pamphleting of the event, nor is for Ashley soliciting a ticket from an event attendee when the ticket was bought and paid for by a strong supporter of GLAAD, or Ashley’s attending and participating in the GLAAD after party. This is instead about being confused by the totality of Ashley’s behavior — confused by the mixed messaging that Ashley’s behavior of that afternoon and evening sends to people in trans community; confused by the mixed messaging that Ashley’s behavior of that afternoon and evening sends to the population of transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming people. If Ashley’s behavior is the standard we use to determine what she, as an activist, actually stands for, I can’t for the life of me figure out what Ashley actually does stand for.

      1. You can’t figure it out? Well let me make it simple for you. Ashley doesn’t believe in the fruit basket or umbrella approach to sex/gender issues. Ashley does believe GLAAD has done some good things in standing up to those in society who oppress others.

        I really do not know much more than those 2 things about Ashley nor do I care to. Ashley is perfectly capable of speaking for Ashley. But I would consider it a favor if you ceased with the character assassinations.

        1. My appologies.

          I have self-imposed rules I adopted earlier this year against 1.) taking the opinions of people who don’t reveal full names seriously (unless they engage in cyberharassment or cyberstalking), and 2.) engaging with people who don’t reveal full names.

          I broke both of those rules when I responded to you earlier because I wanted to point out I didn’t have a dog in the fight on Ashley’s pamphleting, but her behavior later that evening seems relevant. By my own rules, I shouldn’t have because I don’t know who you really are; you appear to me not to be brave enough to state your opinions under the name you use in the brick-and-mortar world.

          In the brick-and-mortar world, I’ve chained myself to the White House Fence twice, and went to jail twice, to stand up for the values I believe in — all done under my legal name. Beyond engaging in direct action under my own legal name, under my own legal name I’ve participated in organizing a campaign against DJs in Sacramento who slurred trans youth, under my byline I reported on the Angie Zapata Hate Crime Trial from the courtroom; under my legal name I was one of the first two trans reporters to be credentialed by the Democratic National Convention for covering the 2008 Democratic Party Convention — and wrote under my own byline; and under my own byline I write a column for LGBT Weekly. In other words, my activism and my visibility aren’t limited to just expressing opinions and engaging in keyboard activism.

          Until you express your opinions under the full name you use in your brick-and-mortar world life, I’m not going to further bother engaging you.

          So, I won’t respond to your questions directly. To quote a saying we had on my last ship in the Navy:

          Who the hell are you that I should give a sh** what the f*** you say?

          So again, my apologies. I won’t forget that those rules of mine again should I again happen to read one of your comments in others’ blogs.

  8. Too funny. Fortunately I don’t feel the slightest need to live by your rules. Slap yourself for breaking them.

    Just as I won’t engage in character assassination of Ashley I won’t engage in it against you either even though the temptation is great.

    If you want to know I exist ask Toni (Dys). I do not post using my full name because I really have neither NPD nor the desire to have employers do simple web searches and turn up discussions that are none of their concern.

    Here’s my rule set. Rule 1 if I can connect in real life to someone through 6 or less degrees of separation then I don’t need to know their full name or other personal information. Rule 2 IQ does not impress me nor do advanced degrees because anyone can claim them. Rule 3, when someone tries to impress me it often translates to me as them having low self esteem. Rule 4 never live by another person’s rules unless they coincide with your own values and that includes these rules.

  9. Oh Deena, equivocation is above you.

    Are you asserting that Love just has a little disagreement with a few things GLAAD does or are you honestly acknowledging that Love has a FUNDAMENTAL disagreement with GLAAD, to the point of accusing them of actively trying to sabotage the lives of transsexuals? Because those two types of disagreements are very different.

    Pretending that Love simply has a disagreement does a disservice to Love’s message. Either GLAAD is ruining the lives of transsexuals, is therefore anti-transsexual (as Love asserts) and should be protested in the most strident tone (as Love does) or the offense, while noteworthy, is minor; GLAAD is a friend and we should party with them. There’s a truth to be known about Love’s truth claims.

    If you honestly believed that the Democratic party was out to literally ruin the lives of transsexuals, would YOU party with them? I think not. I think you’re moral outrage wouldn’t allow you to do something like that because it would cause some cognitive dissonance for you, would it not?

    Therein lies the confusion between Love’s assertions of fact and Love’s actions. Trying to pretend that Love’s assertion of sabotage, ruin and slander is a mere disagreement is dishonest equivocation, Deena.

    Tisk, tisk tisk…

  10. Why Cristan how disingenuous of you to fake not grasping the simultaneous existence of 2 mutually exclusive opposites. Look up conundrum. You might also call such a thing a catch 22. Simply defined “it can’t be but yet it is”.

    Ashley is a big girl and capable of speaking her own mind on these matters. But I doubt she will engage with you. I on the other hand am a ditz and enjoy the occasional joust. We are quite different in many ways but at least you are cordial.

    Autumn Sandeen on the other hand has proven through past actions to be a rather nasty piece of work. You just knew I had to mention Autumn. She wants my full name, address and other personal facts and I have full confidence that if she had them she would launch an attack.

    So let me repeat this for you. Women can hold more than one position on people and organizations even when those positions seem to conflict with each other. Men seem to have difficulty comprehending that. That’s old news. It has exasperated most men throughout the ages. Go figure.

    1. To be clear, you’re saying that you’re happy to support the events of organizations you truly believe want to destroy you and people like you because the word conundrum.

Leave a Reply