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But tolerance can only happen if we keep listening to the people who are listed as being EXcluded, who are tired of consistently asking to be INcluded. We've got to take the first steps to INclude those we EXclude, and let them help us to look at life differently.
-- Mary Poulton, aged 15 "We've come a long way" photographic exhibition for International Year of Tolerance (1995), Perth
Back in 1998, I attended the National Organisation of Women Students of Australia (NOWSA) conference in Penrith. I'm Australian, and a student at Newcastle University (doing a bachelor of visual arts degree), so it seemed reasonable for me to want to go. The only problem is that some of the other women who attended consider me not to be a woman, because I'm transgendered.
I'm not the first transgendered woman to attend a NOWSA conference. Jane(1) attended the 1995 conference, and there may be others. Both Jane and I gave pleneries: Jane's was Who's Welcome in Women's Space?? (Which describes the difficulty in accurately determining someone's sex or gender), and mine was Problems with Passing (about the nature of labels).
At the conference I read an article by Jessica Whyte , which appeared in two publications distributed there. I have read and heard sentiments like these before, and was not too worried about them (though I did write a reply) until December of that year. It was then that I came across an article on the net saying that first organising meeting for the 1999 conference had decided to exclude transgendered women like myself.
I was both hurt and angry at the apparent injustice of this. It seemed like no one had even listed to what I had said back in July! And worse yet, was that it was extremely difficult to get confirmation of this until the start of the next semester in March (as anyone I could contact was away). At one time I was hoping to attend the 1999 NOWSA conference myself, but health and financial problems have made this an impossibility for me.
So this pamphlet (and the website version of it) is the next best thing. The paper version will be distributed at the conference. My understanding is that the issue of exclusion will now be voted on in the business session, at the end of the conference. It is my hope, that this website, and the booklet, will provide an opportunity for attendees to review arguments counter to those being put forth by some feminist factions.
Since the 1998 conference, transgendered women have been excluded from a "Reclaim the Night" march in Western Australia and from at least one lesbian support group in New South Wales. And the opinions expressed by Ms Whyte and others of excluding us have been used to justify these actions. In other words, this issue is already having ramifications elsewhere. Isn't it about time the other side of the story was heard? I'm not demanding that we gain access to NOWSA, just that our viewpoints are heard. Isn't that fair enough?
I was not able to include all the contributions I received for this in the paper version, however further documents can be found at here.
Finally, the title of this site derives from a character in Greek Myth. One day when walking on Mount Cyllene, Tiresias (whose name means "interpreter of signs") saw two serpents coupling. On striking one of them, he was transformed into a woman. He, now she, lived as a woman for seven years until by the same method was changed back to a man. Some say that he changed back and forth like this six times, and ended her life a crone. The subtitle: "a gift horse, a Trojan horse, or a horse of another colour?" is meant to be play on words. As Tiresias comes from Greek Myth, so does the Trojan Horse, and some feminists accuse transgendered women of being just that. You wouldn't know that I'm pagan would you? *grin*
All women are not the same. This is the good news.
It makes life more interesting. Get used to it.
(Joan Smith: Different for Girls, p92)