Whose rights are right?

This is a somewhat rambling post.

In the flap over whether pre-op transsexuals get to use women's facilities for changing, there is a clash of rights, it seems. Certainly, women born women can and should expect to have their privacy and be free from men in the intimate atmosphere of a changing facility. At the same time, a pre-op ts woman should be free from being forced into the company of men in order to use the same facility. However, the reality is that most facilities have only two changing areas: one for women and one for men. Where does the pre-op ts woman go to change?

Some of course argue that the pre-op ts woman should be allowed into the women's facility. Yet there is a strong sense of impropriety from the women born women against this; they see a person with a penis in their facility, they feel unsafe. Never mind that they are in much less danger from this penis than they are from the one attached to their boyfriend outside. It is a matter of fear, uncertainty and doubt and causes much complaint from the women born women in the facility when a pre-op ts woman is allowed in.

So, what to do? Does the pre-0p ts woman forgo the use of changing facilities altogether? I know I have done so, instead opting for showing up ready to work out and leaving without showering in the facility, instead going home to shower. This was convenient for me as the facility was located within a few blocks of my home. Later, I joined a women-only club that did not have any changing or showering facilities ("Curves") that was also within 4-5 blocks of my apartment so did not have any sort of issues with revealing what I had between my legs. (By this time, I had had my SRS operation so it wouldn't have been a big deal anyway, but still, the situation applies.)

This also gets into the issue of m2f transgendered people invading women-only spaces where the women-born-women want to exclude those women who were brought up as men. The classic example, of course, is the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, but there are other spaces where this is true. As a ts woman, I do not have the experience of being brought up as a girl and then a woman, so I do not have a shared experience with women-born-women that might be necessary to form a bond with them at such events. I might, in fact, reek of manhood in such events, although I never fully embraced that as I was growing up, either. The subtleties of male priviledge certainly shaped me growing up and in the work force, but being well aware of them and railing against the feeling of maleness and all it's trappings also shaped me growing up and in my adult life. Still, it doesn't make me capable of understanding all that goes into being a woman-born-woman, and that's a special class all to it's own. So, I think it makes sense to leave such a space open for them to share in their uniqueness and specialness. I think we, as ts women, need to create our own space to celebrate our uniqueness and specialness, which is just as valid as theirs, but separate, and whole.

Recently, there was news of a ts woman who lost her fight against a rape center that was exclusively for and of women-born-women. She fought for the right to work there as a rape crisis counselor. Here, again, I can see the point of the center; there is something special about being a woman-born-woman, and what that insight can bring to another woman in a rape situation perhaps. There are other rape crisis counseling opportunities that are open to ts women; this center wasn't the only one. What I find interesting, however, is that the ts woman was confronted about her past after enrolling; apparently, she was not "passing" -- she was coming across as not female. I think if her demeanor was incongruent, she would not really make a very good rape crisis counselor anyway. Perhaps this affair might be a wake-up call to her to examine her behavior rather than merely calling out "unfair to transsexuals."

It's not that I think everyone has to pass perfectly. I don't -- I think some people read me as a former man, but I do think that even when they read me, they see me as a woman now, and I'm gracious enough to accept that they give me the benefit of the doubt. I think it's a matter of being accepting of people's errors in perception and not smacking them down if they make a mistake, but being gracious about it, and ultimately, connecting with their humanity. I smile when I say "I'm not a boy/man" and it comes out nicely.

But would I have the wherewithall to counsel a woman about rape? I'm not sure I would. I walk about without fear -- a legacy of my male past, I am sure. Yet I am a potential victim as any other woman would be. I may be larger than the average woman, but I'm not necessarily stronger. I don't know any self-defensive moves; I've never taken any martial arts classes. But it may be the way I walk without fear that permits me to move in the world without being a potential victim as well; i.e. I'm not a target because I don't look like a target. This is something to discuss with my cisgendered women friends, I think.

The need for women-born-women to have a place where they can congregate and celebrate their femaleness, separate from men and women-born-men I think is an ok thing. I don't think they need include ts women as a matter of course. There are many things ts women can do to celebrate and validate their womanhood/femaleness as well. There are places where women-born-women do include ts women into their ranks.

I'm still learning about the feminist argument against transsexuals, which I'll attempt to discuss in another post. At this juncture, all I can see is that it is based on some misconceptions about brain development and the experiences of m2f ts's growing up as men.