Feminism
Sometimes I think the most marked aspect of being transgendered is one of isolation and alienation. Living in Barnsley without a working car sometimes reinforces that. At the end of public transport network, some things just seem out of reach. After all, why go to an event if you can't get back home?
But other times, why go to an event or a function if all you get (or expect) is being hassled and ignored, or being excluded? Do you not go to a party because one person there doesn't like you? Because two don't - because some people think you shouldn't be there? I bet that most readers will have an experience like that in your past. You got pressured and forced out not for what you did, but for who or what you were. Worse yet is when you've been given a label beforehand, and all the label does is get in the way of people getting to know you.
At other times people like me get excluded by others who are absolutely convinced that they're doing the "right thing". Am I talking about religious groups? No. Take NOWSA for instance. This is the annual feminist conference for Australian Women Students. I went to the last one(1) and found it a rewarding experience.
Throughout the conference I was nervous though, because I was worried about being confronted by another woman who by mistake might have thought that I was a man. It wasn't that I doubted my identity, nor that I had just as much right to be there than the other women. Rather, I felt a bit like a Negro student entering a previously segregated school, in the American South, waiting for someone to say "get out of here nigger!" But it didn't happen. In fact on the whole I was made to feel just as welcome at the conference as the other women were.
I was glad of this. I went to NOWSA because I genuinely believed that I had something of worth to give, and stood a good opportunity to be able to learn from and contribute to the community of women present. I was not mistaken, and had hoped to attend this year's conference as well. But I (and other transgendered women like me) might have problems with this. Some feminists reject people like as not being women, but deluded men - dupes of the patriarchy - who intrude on their space. A group like this got together and initially banned people such as myself from attending NOWSA 1999.
The position changed slightly when it was found that this decision was not binding as it had not been ratified at a NOWSA business session. But, so far as I know this remains a contentious issue, and there is to be a vote at the end of this year's conference on the matter. Already though there have been consequences because of this: transgendered women were prevented from marching in the last "Reclaim the Night" march in Perth; and recently a local lesbian support group took a vote and decided to exclude transgendered members(2). What's next -- will I be excluded from my campus Woman's Room, which I've supported and needed? I've needed women's space too, for exactly the same reasons as other women do.
The Lesbian Space Project in Sydney had the same problem. Some lesbians didn't want other lesbians who were transgendered entering the space. Now this is an awkward situation, and one that got resolved last year after a change in the constitution. The thing was, it wasn't the "Lesbian Separatist Space Project" - it was general, for all women who were lesbian. And NOWSA, I believe, is the same, meant for all women who are interested in feminist issues, not just for some who happen to pass the arbitrary door criteria.
How does one respond to such a problem though? Its not as if people like myself is trying to impose our voices on others. Rather, we merely wish to add ours to the others in the group, to be included in the ongoing discourse, to be counted as part of a caring and supportive community. Isn't that what woman's space and support groups are supposed to be about?
I'm not going to go into a lengthy "proof" that transgendered women are "real" women - that would miss the point(3). Allowing (or at least not opposing) transgendered women access to women's only space is not about allowing the patriarchy to invade and dominate that space. It is not that we're saying that we are exactly the same as non-transgendered women, but that our similarities outweigh the differences.
In my own personal life I attempt to give others the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Would it be too much to apply this in our case, or at least consider things on a case-by-case basis? Isn't time that transgendered women were allowed to sit somewhere other than only at the back of the bus?
Work
Just because you're transgendered is no reason that you should lose your rights to a fair go, in general and as regards employment and housing in particular. You shouldn't be fired, abused, attacked or discounted for your transgendered status. But protection from discrimination shouldn't rely on one's operative status either. People don't wait to ask if you've had an operation before discriminating against you.
I've had personal experience of being discriminated against. In my case the basis of that discrimination was my transgendered status. I originally transitioned in the gazetted public service job that had occupied for seven years. On the whole the rest of the staff were quite good, and treated me as just another woman in the office. But there was one issue that was the thin edge of the wedge, that undermined my faith in my employer and fellow employees -- toilet access.
This would be funny if it weren't tragic. My ex-employers were of the legal opinion that before reassignment surgery I was to be considered male, and therefore should use either the men's, or the disabled toilets (which were four floors away from where I worked). After surgery I would be considered female and there would be no problem in using the women's toilets.
Initially I went along with this, as I did not want to appear to be a trouble maker in the office. But as the months went by, I realized the inequity of the situation. There was no way that I was going to use the men's toilets, so the disabled toilet was the only option. These weren't cleaned for nearly a month. Then, when I had an illness (but still went to work) I realized just how far away four floors was. There was no way that I could wait for a lift if I was desperate to go (and on hormones, I went more often).
I petitioned my employer for a change in this. The other women on the floor were asked, and two objected to my using the women's toilets. I was persistent however, but the result was that I was threatened with legal action if I failed to follow the above directives. I came to realism that instead of being supported at work, I was barely being tolerated. The plain fact was that I had no rights in the matter.
I lasted in Perth until one night when I was walking home from a StarTrek club with a friend. On our way back to my flat someone in a 4-wheel drive cut us off at the corner, driving up on the pavement to do so. He shouted out "Transvestites, Transsexuals -- I'll kill you all!!" My friend was not disturbed and kept walking on. I was worried though, because I didn't want them to follow us home. The car drove off, and then came back for a second round. I realised then that my idea that I was safe where I lived was all an illusion. I moved within six months.
The long term effect of this also, was my leaving that workplace by means of a redundancy. I left my old life behind and started a new one. This has proved to be a good thing, but the fact remains that I was discriminated against on the basis of who I am. The State I currently live in has laws that protect me from such treatment -- one reason I'm living here and not there. There is some hope of change, but I'm not expecting it too much.
Travel
Just as you ought to be able to feel safe where you work and live, you ought to be able to feel safe travelling about. I've had the odd encounter on buses which have not been good.
The first time was travelling on a bus with school children. A school girl and boy were sitting behind me. A couple of friends of mine were on a seat just ahead of me, and I was having a good time reading a book.
The schoolboy behind me starts making comments like "ït's a man" and "they're implants I bet!"(3) Well, I was in a good mood and I wasn't going to put up with it. I turned around, stared him right in the face and said "No, they're not implants, they're homegrown." He squirmed and tried to dissappear into his seat, and there wasn't a word out of him for the rest of the trip. The other school kids laughed, but not at me, at him.
My most recent encounter was also with a schoolboy. Every weekday I go to university and I have to catch the 8:55am bus in Barnsley. What happened was that a school bus pulls in front of where my bus leaves. My bus comes in and some school kids get off and go on the school bus, and others get off the school bus and use my bus to go to a highschool on the way.
Now I used to wait on the corner near where the bus came, but... a few of the schoolboys took to calling me names and making rude gestures while I did this. At times I'd given back as good as I've got, but I also changed what I did. Instead waiting at that location, I then waited on the steps of the general store (on the other side of the corner) and then walk up to catch the bus. The way I saw it was this: they are stuck in the bus but I'm not, so why stay in a spot where I get abuse?
Then I lost my temper and responded angrily. It wasn't effective and I had lost the inititive. By responding in like manner I was playing the kid's game. He thought he was safe and protected from any come back on the bus, and able to abuse the priviledge. Then I had an idea.
I waited not at the general store (which was across the corner) but in my regular spot. I was nervous, and kept chanting to myself "Athena, Cybele, Hecate" (my pagan goddesses that I am closest to). Sure enough, the school bus arrived with this kid shouting abuse at me. This time however I took out the notebook and pen from by back pocket and got on the front of the bus.
I explained to the driver that a child at the back of the bus had been abusing me for the last two weeks and asked him his name. Before he could answer the kid himself gave it to me with a big grin on his face. Then I asked what town he'd been picked up from (which some of the otehr kids gave me) and the name of the school they were going to. The kids face dropped when he realised that I was going to report him to the school and contact his parents if need be.
I walked away with a big grin on my face (to him shouting out the window "You shit!" in a worried fashion). Nothing might come of this, but I had won that round. I mentioned what I had done to some of the kids who were still waiting for their own bus and they thought that he deserved it.
The thing was, he though that I had no authority over him. He is right, but I can now contact people who DO have authority over him, and that makes a difference. Nothing might come of this, but I felt good because I'd taken action.
Home
When I moved to Newcastle, I first lived in Carrington. For six months I was hounded by local (1) youths, with comments like are you a "man or a woman?" and "you're a bloke!" These don't sound like much, but it was the overall effect of them that wore me down, and there was always the implied threat of violence behind them.
Don't get me wrong -- I had no problem with them because they were Aboriginal, but I did because they kept on trying to bait and abuse me. Panels on my front door were kicked in on several occassions. At least, it came to a head when I got a lift home after buying a car (I hadn't picked it up yet). It was after sundown and out of the dark came a loud "Yeah it's a man for sure!!!"
This upset me, because as well as anything else, I could have been attacked on my own front doorstep! That night I cried myself to sleep, and woke at two in the morning. I went next door, crying, and talked to my next door neighbour Mary. She listened and then said that she'd talk to Mrs ______ in the morning. Mrs ______ was the grandmother of two of them and a matriarch of the "local mob"(2). This meant that she was a respected elder in an urban tribe, and what she said went. All the abuse stopped dead the next day. Still, I moved away from Carrington, and it was a good choice for me to make.
Footnotes
(1) I'm a Bachelor of Visual Arts student at Newcastle University, and a woman, so I figured the conference was appropriate.
(2) Yes, this might have happened anyway. But I happen to know that it had at least one transgendered member, who had been accepted by the group before someone else came in demanding their expulsion, based on the NOWSA attitude.
(3) The arguments put forth in supporting our exclusion are that we're not women because 1) we're not female, and 2) we were not socialised as women. This definition though, is designed to exclude rather than define. It assumes that one is only what one was raised to be. There must be a lot of gay, lesbian, and queer folk that are really hetero by this definition, because we were raised that way!