The Bringer of Tea

As a trans woman who has 1. been raped and 2. been given a bad time by a particular sort of feminist, I can tell you precisely why the two things, though different in terms of possible consequences, feel quite like each other in terms of how they impacted on my emotions. It is because both involved a fundamental refusal to treat me as a human being with agency and desires of my own; it is because both experiences were part of a social ethos which tells me that everything I am, feel and do, is utterly worthless and contemptible. It is because feminists who abuse and exclude other women, including trans women, in the name of their particular perspective on what women might be and are, need to think about whose interests they are serving.

Oh, and they also need to acknowledge that when they quote Janice Raymond, or use her ideas, they are complicit in her accusation that lesbian feminist trans women 'rape all women' by existing. Imagine how that feels when you have actually been raped yourself in the real world; imagine how that feels when you know - or used to know, because this isn't universal the way it was back in the late 70s when I was raped, that you can't go to a rape crisis centre because you aren't welcome there because you're trans and so have to cope with the aftermath of rape by yourself.

And hey! wny anonymous? Show some guts and express your opinions openly, why dontcha? We don't bite.