“My Words to Victor Frankenstein”, by Susan Stryker

The stigmatization fostered by this sort of pejorative labelling is not without consequence. Such words have the power to destroy transsexual lives. On January 5, 1993, a 22-year-old pre-operative transsexual woman from Seattle, Filisa Vistima, wrote in her journal, “I wish I was anatomically ‘normal’ so I could go swimming. . . . But no, I’m a mutant, Frankenstein’s monster.” Two months later Filisa Vistima committed suicide. What drove her to such despair was the exclusion she experienced in Seattle’s queer community, some members of which opposed Filisa’s participation because of her transsexuality — even though she identified as and lived as a bisexual woman. The Lesbian Resource Center where she served as a volunteer conducted a survey of its constituency to determine whether it should stop offering services to male-to-female transsexuals. Filisa did the data entry for tabulating the survey results; she didn’t have to imagine how people felt about her kind. The Seattle Bisexual Women’s Network announced that if it admitted transsexuals the SBWN would no longer be a women’s organization. “I’m sure,” one member said in reference to the inclusion of bisexual transsexual women, 4 6 the boys can take care of themselves.” Filisa Vistima was not a boy, and she found it impossible to take care of herself. Even in death she found no support from the community in which she claimed membership. “Why didn’t Filisa commit herself for psychiatric care?” asked a columnist in the Seattle Gay News. “Why didn’t Filisa demand her civil rights?” In this case, not only did the angry villagers hound their monster to the edge of town, they reproached her for being vulnerable to the torches. Did Filisa Vistima commit suicide, or did the queer community of Seattle kill her? (4)

[Actually, you can say "socialist" without getting caught by the filters. However, anything with four or more links automatically requires approval, because many spammers use lots of links. No need to apologize for anything, though; unless you're in a hurry to have your comment seen this very minute, there's nothing wrong with using a lot of links and then having the post wait a little while before it appears. --Amp]

Mr. DuBois would be considered a very promising student if he were white. (…) He seems to have, not only mental vigor, but a good constitution, which is more than can be said of some of our colored graduates. Like most of his race, when fortunate enough to get some intellectual training, he is a good speaker; but he is much more than this, he is a good thinker.

In the 1950s, Du Bois was under FBI surveillance for his socialist and communist ties. This prompts me to remind that a large part of the Marxist corpus is available on line, translated in many different languages. For many years, my position on women’s issues was pretty much limited to those few paragraphs near the end of a famous book:

On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.
(…)
The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.
He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.
For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.
Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.
Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.

Of course, the fact that, apparently, Marx himself was very “bourgeois” in his conjugal behaviour (cheating, etc.) is rather ironic (I used to blind myself about those things, until I was forced to look around me).
I have changed, and although I still identify as a sowshalist (avoiding the spasm filter here), I am no longer under the illusion that social change will automatically bring gender equality and justice for women. I now think that the feminist movement should be seen as essential and necessary by anyone caring about humanity all over the world.

That is definitly true. i don’t frequent the online stuff very much (and i should more, at least read and lurk for edification), but when I googled I found most of the top results were ones i recognized as ones my MTF friends and others have used… sorry, it was a lazy answer… but i personally don’t have a qualitative evaluation either on the online stuff :D

you know, i’ve actually found wikipedia pretty informative for the controversial stuff… especially if I read the discussion and history stuff. I can usually (not always) figure out where the real facts and info is and what the controversies might be. (and I like editing them when I find them off the mark :).

piny might have a better idea with the online stuff which is qualitatively better.

She’s been trying to get the word out for awhile. So, if you can post about it on your blog or if you know places where she can make the annoucement, let her know.

Thanks!

Hell, dowry murders were on 60 Minutes two or three years ago. Where have you guys been.

I don’t have television.

there are a LOT of online resources… just type ‘transgender’ in google and the first dozen or so will give you months of reading ;)

trey, Google is a fantastic search engine, but it doesn’t make any qualitative evaluation of the content. So, I am always weary to depend on a google search for a subejct that is surrounded by controversy, especailly if I am new to the subject, as I might recognize the biases.
However, since you make that suggestion, I will now start googling away - or rather, I will try to start looking for online material tomorrow.

A Sillynk: Mark Evanier’s game, There’s No Such Website.

But then, if the numbers are comparable to the occurrence of DV and murder in the US…that makes me shudder. I once felt that the situation of women in America, while imperfect, wasn’t worth making a big deal over, compared to the vast injustices faced by women in other parts of the world, and that our energies would be better spent righting those wrongs than on the few “minor” issues here. I’ve since come to see that things aren’t so rosy as I’d imagined, and feminism plays a much more vital role “at home” than I’d thought.

Thank you again for the info and links, Bean.

I’d seen an article a few years ago, I think. And the situation you describe–extortion over a period of months or years–is what I remember. Thanks for the links.

there are a LOT of online resources… just type ‘transgender’ in google and the first dozen or so will give you months of reading ;)