Oh, right: THIS is why.

(in answer to the rhetorical question posted here, sort of)

Meanwhile, not very far away:

exhibit #2

I love Twisty, I really do. Nobody can rip apart the patriarchy like Twisty when she decides to give it a bigger rectal reaming then Goatse’s best efforts after a five-gallon enema. So I offer a humble apology for not letting her get away with upholding that which she claims to despise. Unless I am mistaken, she likes transgendered folk for the same reason that most feminists seem to like them — they prove gender is fluid. Unfortunately, feminists stop right at the edge of their brain, believing that there is no more to think through. Those kind of mental stop signs do not apply to me, though, because I’m evil. And so we arrive thusly at our next introductory paragraph.

When transgendered folks get through the final stage of transitioning and reach “the end”, all that gender fluidity goes right out the window and solidifies into the crusty crud on the bottom of my boots. They have merely succeeded in upholding the gender binary — the very same binary which has held women down for the last 10,000 years...

Yes, friends, it actually gets dumber and more offensive from there. And that's -without- the comments, which quel surprise has Lucky "tell the truth and shame the devil, human partheogenesis is a FACT and men will soon be extinct, no I do not have springs coming out my head, why do you ask?" Uncle making a cameo or six; and Satsuma, she of the clear-eyed lesbian gaze, solemnly informing us that

I believe they still have male voyeuristic minds, and they seem to fixate (or get their fix) on bringing up sex topics in these groups. The creeped out young lesbians then have to deal with the mental rapists coming right into their space, and this is of course allowed in LGBT places (read lesbian feminism not allowed, or lesbian only as some how excluding the poor transitioned MTFs).

The truth is, I rarely see MTFs being actually able to be like real woman I know. They are something else — a human being that is something beyond the life experiences of women.

All it ends up doing is giving that male porno mind access to women’s spaces.

You see? It IS all connected. Men are men and women are women; men have filthy exploitive minds and women do not; anyone who says otherwise OR is trying to cross from one to the other is either brainwashed or trying to fool you or both. Class Woman must remain pure. QED.

...Why even bother going through all this AGAIN, you ask? Other than sheer morbid fascination at the spectacle of it all, because in -some- ways, when you get to -this- level of WTF, it's like making fun of Time Cube Guy. And yet...

Well, for one thing, this whole "she likes transgendered folk" thing did sort of leap out at me, because it's not entirely unlike, well, sentiments I've been hearing all week over what you -might- think are entirely unrelated spectacles, i.e. the Racism? What Racism? ...oh, shit, right, okay, THAT racism, finally, uh, well, erm, maybe? ongoing saga, and/or Ew Icky Scary Mean Sex Worker Cooties No Um I Mean It's Just Totally Unfair, That's All, among others.

To wit:--oh well, look here, here's a perfect example, actually, right from that same thread wherein the brilliance wrt trans folk shines, in the comments:

I personally love it. I feel this is what “all feminists secretly think but are afraid to say our loud”.

...and there it is, kids. Of -course- you feel this; and you feel this because, well, it must be true; and it must be true because you feel this.

Oh, you can't possibly MEAN what you're saying. You're not really interested in -this-, are you? You're just putting it on. You're acting out of -guilt.- You're not one of THEM. You're one of US. You're just trying to be trendy, aren't you? Cool. More Radical Than Thou. Looking for "cookies" from, uhhhh, whoever's giving them out this week. Anything and everything but YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY MEAN WHAT YOU'RE ACTUALLY SAYING. And, further, you can't possibly LIKE -those people-, not -really.- They aren't actually -people-...no, sorry! I mean THEY are in fact -really people-, which is a -really- radical idea and I still can't quite get my head entirely 'round it but I'm -really- trying; it helps if I maintain that THEY are just like me (only not quite as Advanced).

As opposed to, garsh, I don't know, I like -some- of "these people" as PEOPLE, and therefore, by listening to them and getting to know them, I give a fuck when they say "ouch, this hurts," even if it doesn't seem to directly affect me (at first). Because

a) actually, as it turns out, most of the time if I look a step or a half-step ahead, why yes in fact I AM quite possibly next for the chop, say hello Pastor Niemuller,

b) besides, HELLO, how on earth do you expect people to be interested in YOUR righteous cause if you never return the fucking favor? Because you're Universal and they're a sideline and they should just wait patiently for you to get your rightful piece of the pie and THEN they might get a crumb? Because you think you're the only game in town? Wrong on both counts, and it's high time you got a clue.

c) those are my FRIENDS and LOVED ones you're talking about, you fucking zits. And/or at minimum, people I respect and like and want to hear what they have to say for -themselves-. PEOPLE.

Is it really that hard to understand? Really? Really.

But BESIDES that.

Just, for those tuning in from AmandaEtcGate, you should know, if you didn't already, that in fact there have been other reasons for feminist (or at minimum, sub-denominations thereof) and/or the feminist blogosphere expatriate-hood, and other women, leaving in frustration and anger, or at least feeling profoundly alienated from what should be and/or used to be for some, y'know, The Feminist Movement; all this shit would be the reason(s). Loosely, transphobia and the so-called "sex wars," the latter including, but not limited to, the ubiquitous "pornstitution" business (i.e. you're either fer it or agin it, according to some people anyway), Kink Is Bad, femme-bashing, heteronormativity up the wazoo, and just good ol' fashioned sex panic and/or "stone the sluts." Mostly, though, well, personally? Once more, with feeling: I Blame The Assholes.

That may not be all that helpful here, though, of itself.

Because actually, there -is- another connection here, and it is this: that IN fact, an awful lot of early Anglo-American feminism IS all tangled up with the Victorian (and yeah, Christian by default, a particular branch of Protestantism to be precise) idea of woman as moralizing agent, for better or for worse, depending on your perspective. The Temperance and then Prohibition movements, for instance. And yes, early on, Abolition.

Trouble is, though, even then, and echoing right on through today, there are -reasons- why "feminism" is considered a movement for "nice white ladies." And yeah, while obviously it's more complicated than this, there are, in fact, direct parallels between "oh of course we'd have -included- you if you'd only -behaved-, you rude, scary, vulgar ingrates! We know what's best for you and everyone!" genteel racism and "hold still while we SAVE you, dammit, you rude, scary, vulgar ingrates! We know what's best for you and everyone!" in other contexts.

The common denominator in all this, and something raggedly approaching a point, thank you, Patient Readers:

There IS, in fact, power in being the Nice White Lady. Has been for quite a while. Not as -much- as in being the Good White Guy, all other things being equal, no. But, power nonetheless. The missionary, the one who's pitted against the jungle, all full of bestial sexuality and savage aggression, which are of course dark and/or male; and, incidentally, might do okay for herself along the way.

And with power, of course, comes responsibility.

Starting with: you have to -admit- you have any power here; and way too many Nice White Lady Feminists, of both radical and liberal vintages, do not.

And/or, I suppose: okay, we -may- have -some- power, but it doesn't really -count-, the buck doesn't stop with us; and garsh, we certainly don't LIKE the feeling of power or anything: we're the good guys. Um, gals. Really, we're only doing this for your own good. No, really! Trust us!

All of which effectively boils down to, basically, we're not responsible.

I've talked about some of this before.

And...at the end of all this: still circling the airport, isn't it.

But getting closer, maybe.

Ech.

It's...all this is, I want to say, also, maybe the feminist iteration of a larger let's say struggle going on. You could call it Jihad vs. McWorld, I suppose. Less confusingly and more apropos: fundamentalism versus hyper-individualism in an advanced corporate context. In the feminist context, roughly, that would be:

On your more erm -radical- side, you gotcher regressive/reactionary cultfems (that's "cultural feminist"), with the increasingly insular and, dare I say, tinfoilesque purview, the romanticization of a time when Things Were Better For Wimmin And So Shall It Be Again, whether that Golden Age is some unspecified pre-hyrstorical Goddess-oriented Matriarchy, about fifteen minutes during the early 1970's, or both. And, by a complete coincidence no doubt, all too often sounds like the Garden of Eden stood on its head, with many of the original tropes that go along with it firmly intact.

Still, it -sounds- nice, with the whole back to nature, let's-purify-ourselves-and-then-the-world, deep sisterly bonds, gazing at each other with the Deep Clear Gaze Of Political Lesbian Goodness; even a, well? religious overtone to the whole thing, with or without the Goddessy bits. Until, well, you're excommunicated, and/or realize that you were never part of the Elect to begin with, for narrow is the way and strait is the gate to Wimmins' Country.

On your more -mainstream- side, you've got, well, umm, hate to say it, but what's already been dubbed as "Marcotteism," although frankly Hillaryism or even Thatcherism would work much better. This is the woman warrior, not so much the missionary; she's not really there to clutch her poor underprivileged (step)sisters to her bounteous nurturing (and certainly All Natural) bosom; she's there to kick ass and take names. She'll come home from the hunt carrying the golden fleece; and, once it's been thoroughly processed and sold for a nice profit, then everyone else who's been waiting around patiently can have a share, and it'll all work out splendidly, now hush. And, by a complete coincidence, "meet the New Boss, same as the Old Boss" is playing on the radio; it's a kickass cover by this grrreat band with a female lead singer, and she's making a mint, and why can't you be happy for her, dammit? She's being subversive! She's gonna rock the system! In the meantime, you can live vicariously through her, living her dream! What else matters?

AND, by a COMPLETE and total coincidence, it just so happens that, well, the overwhelming majority of voices on both sides of this--not all, but I think the word dominant is fair--are, um, ermmm, uh...well? White. There, pant, I said it. And--say-hey! so am I, by cracky!

So, all things considered, I can't imagine why so many WoC, (not even to mention queer women who don't really -fit-, women with disabilities, women who don't feel feminism addressed class inequalities sufficiently, women who just plain think the whole thing sucks, and say! what ABOUT the men? and so on and so on and...) are fleeing from both the word and the movement(s) like something that really, really should be fled from as fast as possible.

Which kind of smarts.

Because, I know I said feminism was just a word, and that's not even really the point anyway? I still mostly mean it;

on the other hand, well, this is just the most recently read in a long string of posts that's making me think: dude, if it's becoming THAT poisonous to THAT many people I'd -so- rather be on the side of than so many of the people waving it around like a gorram flag, that it's become a badge of automatic distrust...

*

eh, fuck it, just call me Myrtle.

The Great Work Continues, or some goddam thing.

and, uh...

*

I'm goin' to bed. Maybe it'll make more sense in the morning.

ETA: and just to sort of wrap things up in one noxious little bow, some kind of award for this one:

stormcloud said...

They hate me because I have a habit of pointing out their lies. Like "I am a woman of tint". I would say, well, yeah, if alabaster-white is classed as a 'tint'. FFS. Those highly-bronzed pictures that RenEv used to pretend were her? Complete fantasy.

There is a lot of projection going on. I could not expose anything about RenEv that hadn't been put on the internet by her very own, supposedly manicured, fingers.