Excluded selected as one of the best books of the decade!

I have had a bunch of book-related news of late, some of which I've alluded to or mentioned elsewhere on social media over the last several months. But I figured that it would be helpful to pen a few posts to share all this news in a more comprehensive manner. So here is the first of four posts – the biggest news of all will land next Tuesday...

As you know, the 2010s recently came to an end. And I was excited to see that my 2013 book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive made two different "best of the decade" lists!

The queer women's website Autostraddle included the book in their article: 80 of the Best Queer, Lesbian and Bisexual Books of the Decade (you'll find it in the non-fiction section of the list). Here is what they said about it:

upcoming college speaking events and other performances!

So a few bits of new news! 

First, if you haven't seen it, earlier this week I published a new essay: Thoughts about transphobia, TERFs, and TUMFs. It addresses the different underlying motives/sentiments/beliefs that often drive transphobia, and how we might take these into account as trans activists. It's on Medium - the more "applause" it gets (the clapping hands icon at bottom of the article), the more likely it will appear on other people's Medium feeds. If you really like it, you can give it many claps! So clap away!!!

Second, I just updated my events webpage to include some upcoming college speaking appearances. More may arise, but the ones currently listed are in Ohio, Maine, and Philly, so check it out if you live in those necks of the woods! And as always, if you are interested and able to bring me out to your college campus, please check out my booking page.

One of the other shows listed on my events page is happening this Monday (Feb. 5th): Yarn comedy storytelling! I will be reading a few humorous excerpts from my forthcoming novel. Other featured performers include Heather Gold, Aundré the Wonderwoman, and Bridget Schwartz. The show is at Homestead (4029 Piedmont Ave, Oakland, CA), doors at 7pm, show at 7:30pm. Reduced-price advanced tickets are only $12 and can be purchased here. 

Finally, I didn't put this on my events page yet because it's not 100% confirmed, but it's looking like I will be part of a "Quirky Queer Tuesday" music show at the El Rio in San Francisco sometime in March - those details will be listed as soon as I have them, so stay tuned! In the meantime, if you're not familiar with my music, you should check out my current solo music project *soft vowel sounds* and my old (now sadly disbanded) noise-pop band Bitesize.

Hope to see you at some of these shows! Otherwise, you can follow me here or on other social media platforms, and as always, please consider supporting my work on Patreon!

Lies about Transgender People and the Vagina Monologues

This is one in a series of essays exposing falsehoods forwarded by feminists who are suspicious of or antagonistic toward transgender people. This series includes Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments and my forthcoming essay Transgender People and “Biological Sex” Myths. If you appreciate this work, please consider supporting me on Patreon.

These days, almost every anti-transgender hit-piece written from a feminist perspective will mention an incident that occurred in 2015, in which Mount Holyoke College canceled a scheduled performance of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues for not being inclusive of transgender people. By citing this instance out of context, these writers attempt to assert or imply that:

1) all trans people must want to censor The Vagina Monologues.
2) more sinisterly, trans people are trying to stop women from talking about their vaginas.
3) this is yet another example of why feminism and trans activism are inherently incompatible.

However, this framing purposefully ignores two crucial factors.

trans women are women! plus free book chapters & a NY Times interview

Yesterday I sent out my latest email update - you can read it via the link and/or sign up for my email list here. Here are some of the highlights:

I was interviewed in the New York Times as part of their Pride 2017 coverage - the article is called Julia Serano, Transfeminist Thinker, Talks Trans-Misogyny. You can read it via that link; if it's behind a paywall, here is a PDF version.

I wrote a new Medium essay called Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments. If you like the piece, please click the "heart" icon at the bottom of the article - that way more people on Medium will see it!

I recently made three chapters from my latest book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism freely available for download - all of them challenge psychological theories and diagnoses that needlessly pathologize transgender people (which is why I wanted to make them readily accessible). Find out how to download them (btw, the linked post also includes excerpts from my novel-in-progress).

I am able to make these book chapters and the Debunking “Trans Women Are Not Women” Arguments piece freely available thanks to my Patreon supporters. If you support me there (for as little as $1 per month) you'll have access to behind-the-scenes updates & polls, and unpublished writings & recordings. If you pledge at higher levels, you may be eligible for rewards such as free e-books, signed copies of any of my previous books, and/or choosing the topic of a future blogpost. So if you appreciate my work, please consider supporting me there!

Michelle Goldberg's relentless anti-trans bias

People are asking me to respond to the latest Michelle Goldberg article, wherein she paints transgender activism as this horrible activist movement that oppresses both feminists and its own transgender constituents.

I don't have the time or energy to fully respond to this particular piece at the moment. But I do want to remind/alert people that Goldberg has a strong & persistent anti-trans bias that has been articulated by me here, and has been chronicled by the Columbia Journalism Review, Bitch Magazine, Autostraddle, Bilerico, and New Statesman.

Critiquing the "Political Correctness Run Amok" Meme (yet again)

For those of you who may have missed it, last week I wrote another article critiquing the recent and increasing trend of anti-"political correctness" articles. [My previous critiques include That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (and it’s not because of “political correctness”) from August, plus Noah Berlatsky's interview with me on the subject back in February.]

Anyway, the new piece is called How to Write a “Political Correctness Run Amok” Article. It is both a critique of these articles' one-sidedness and the many important issues they typically ignore. It was also more specifically a response to a Katha Pollitt recent piece "Feminism Needs More Thinkers Who Aren’t Right 100 Percent of the Time" (her op-ed about the Germaine Greer/Cardiff University controversy), which I felt had similar shortcomings.

The original piece (link above) appeared on Medium -- the way that it works is that the more "hearts" it gets (icon at bottom), the more likely it will appear on other people's Medium feeds. So please "heart" it if you like it!

The piece was subsequently picked up by Salon - so you can read it there by clicking that link.

I also wrote a follow-up piece addressing many of the questions and concerns that some readers on Medium raised.

Finally, I encourage folks to check out Noah Berlatsky's article about how coverage of the Germaine Greer "no platform" debates typically failed to include any trans voices - both myself and Katherine Cross are interviewed in Noah's piece.

Enjoy!

"What Makes/Is a Woman" and the false "feminists vs transgender activists" binary

Last weekend, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Elinor Burkett called "What Makes a Woman?" If the title looks eerily familiar, it's probably because of Michelle Goldberg's "What Is a Woman?" article that appeared in The New Yorker last year. And they have more than their titles in common: They both perpetuate an absolutely *false* "feminists vs transgender activists" binary, and portray trans people (and especially trans women) as undermining feminism.

I've had many people ask me to write a response to it, but I've been too busy. Besides, I basically debunked each and every one of the assumptions Burkett makes in my book Whipping Girl. If you don't have time to read the book, here is a short piece I wrote for Ms. Magazine debunking the trans-activism-vs-feminism binary.

But lo and behold, today I will get to respond to Burkett's piece on HuffPost Live at 4pm EST! I am told that my interview will likely be in the 4:05-4:15 range - here is the link for the show if you want to watch: http://huff.lv/1Gkjp54.

I will try to post a permanent link for the segment after the show...

Postscript: The show can now be viewed here. My segment runs from about 6:50 thru 14:20.

[note: If you appreciate my work and want to see more of it, please check out my Patreon page]

Excluded excerpt of the day: Proud to be a trans woman

So my most recent book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive came out a year ago this month! To celebrate this fact, throughout this month I will post a series of excerpts and essays related to the book.

So today’s excerpt comes from the first full chapter in the book, called “On the Outside Looking In.” It is about my experience at Camp Trans in 2003, back during a time when most queer/trans spaces (including that space) tended to be dominated by trans male/masculine folks and cis queer women (this is still sometimes true today, albeit less so than it used to be). The excerpt is from the very end of the piece, and takes place at the end of an emotional and often tumultuous week (for me personally, at least), and immediately after a Camp Trans performance event in which I performed my spoken word piece Cocky.

And after releasing all of this pent-up tension and frustration, I had one of those rare moments of clarity. It happened just after my performance, when one of my new friends, Lauren, came over to give me a hug. She said, “Your piece made me proud to be a trans woman.” And her words were so moving because I had never heard them spoken before. “Proud to be a trans woman.” And as I looked around the camp at all of the female-assigned queer women and folks on the FTM spectrum, I realized that in some ways I am very different from them—not because of my biology or socialization, but because of the direction of my transition and the perspective it has given me.

I am a transsexual in a dyke community where most women have not had to fight for their right to be recognized as female—it is merely something they’ve taken for granted. And I am a woman in a segment of the trans community dominated by folks on the FTM spectrum who have never experienced the special social stigma that is reserved for feminine transgender expression and for those who transition to female. My experiences as a trans woman have given me a valid and unique understanding of what it means to be both female and feminine—a perspective that many women here at Michigan seem unable or unwilling to comprehend.

At Camp Trans, I learned to be proud that I am a trans woman. And when I describe myself with the word “trans,” it does not necessarily signify that I transgress the gender binary, but that I straddle two identities—transsexual and woman—that others insist are in opposition to each other. And I will continue to work for trans woman–inclusion at Michigan, because this is my dyke community too. And I know that it will not be easy, and plenty of people will try to make me feel like an alien in my own community. But I will take on their prejudices with my own unique perspective because sometimes you see things more clearly when you’ve been made to feel like you are on the outside looking in.

(note: this chapter was originally written to be a spoken word piece, and video excerpts of my performance of it in 2005 (which includes the above passage) can be found here) 

More excerpts to come! And you can find out more about the book (including reviews, interviews, and more excerpts) at my Excluded webpage.

[note: If you appreciate my work and want to see more of it, please check out my Patreon page]

Final thoughts on that Michelle Goldberg article, faux journalism, and recognizing bias

So last week I briefly responded to a Michelle Goldberg article that had just appeared in The New Yorker magazine called “What Is a Woman? The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism.” It was a piece that I was interviewed for, and felt misrepresented by. It was also a piece that many people (including myself) felt had a strong anti-transgender bias (see critical reviews from Bitch Magazine, Autostraddle, Bilerico, The Slantist, New Statesman, and Columbia Journalism Review).

Three days ago, my formal response to Goldberg’s article was published as an op-ed on The Advocate. It is entitled “An Open Letter to The New Yorker.” Rather than merely listing all my grievances with Goldberg’s piece (many of which have been addressed in the critical reviews listed above, and a few more will be described in this post), I talk more generally about what it was like for me (behind the scenes, if you will) to be a long-time activist within a marginalized community, and to have a mainstream journalist swoop in and cover really complicated issues, only to oversimplify and misrepresent them in a manner that mainstream audiences will find “titillating” and misperceive as “balanced.”

Two new articles about trans women in queer women's communities

So in the last two days, two articles have come out about how trans women are often excluded from, or made to feel unwelcome within, lesbian and queer women's communities.

The dyke-oriented magazine/website Velvetpark just published my piece "How to Be an Ally to Trans Women." It is an excerpt from my new book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, which officially comes out October 1st, but may appear in stores as early as mid-September, so keep an eye out for it!

The other article appears in the Huffington Post, and is called "Are Queer Women Leaving Trans Women Behind?" Several trans women are interviewed in it, including myself.

Some much needed attention for an issue that is often overlooked or ignored... -j.

julia update August 2013 - new email list & NEW BOOK!

So lots of new stuff to report:

First, I have a brand new email list! If you sign up for it, you will receive monthly(ish) updates about all my upcoming performances and speaking events, newly released books, articles, music, and other projects. No spam, I promise.

To sign up, just click here!

Second, the big news: My NEW BOOK, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, will be coming out this October!

Here is a short blurb for the book:

While feminist and queer/LGBTQIA+ movements are designed to challenge sexism, they often simultaneously police gender and sexuality—sometimes just as fiercely as the straight-male-centric mainstream does. Here, acclaimed feminist and queer activist Julia Serano chronicles this problem of exclusion within these movements. She advocates for a more holistic approach to fighting sexism that avoids these pitfalls, and offers new ways of thinking about gender, sexuality, and sexism that foster inclusivity rather than exclusivity.

FAAB-mentality

[A revamped version of this essay now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism]

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now, as an explanation and reference for what I’ve been calling FAAB-mentality (described below). I originally wrote and performed this piece for the fourth annual installment of Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue in March 2012.

Post-note 3-8-13: I added a few clarifying notes at the end of the piece. 

Baby Talk

I read blogs. And an unfortunate consequence of reading blogs is that sometimes you stumble upon statements that make you upset. Lately, I’ve been dwelling over one single sentence from a blog post that I read a few months ago. The author was a femme-identified cis woman who described her identity this way:

Seeking quotes from queer women who partner with trans women and/or cis men

As a bisexual femme-identified trans woman, I have long been interested in (and concerned by) how the borders of queer women’s communities are policed - where certain people, actions and ways of being are seen as legitimately queer while others are not.

In my own community, I have found two different recurring complaints along these lines that I wish to chronicle for an essay I am working on:

Gendercator-centered dialogs

originally posted on LJ on 7-12-07
As most of you probably know, a film called The Gendercator was recently selected and then subsequently pulled from Frameline (an SF-based LGBT film festival). It was a supposed sci-fi short produced by a lesbian filmmaker that depicts physical transitions from one sex to the other (i.e., transsexual transitions) as being imposed on gender-variant people by a rigid patriarchal/heterosexist society, thus implying that transsexuals are the “dupes” of an oppressive gender system.

Anyway, because the film was pulled (due to outrage from the trans community over the fact that a film with such blatant anti-trans stereotypes was showing as part of the LGB-and-apparently-sometimes-T Pride festivities) there have since been accusations of “censorship” (despite the fact that a blatantly anti-gay/lesbian film never would have seen the light of day at Frameline). This has resulted in a growing movement of late to 1) show the film, and 2) follow it with a panel designed to discuss the issues raised by the film. In theory, this would (*hopefully*) lead to a respectful dialogue that would heal the community.

Having it Both Ways

originally posted on LJ on 6-22-07

I went to the 3rd annual TransForming Community event tonight – it is an event that is dedicated to exploring the friction at the intersection of contemporary trans and queer communities. I think my two favorite pieces of the evening were those by Prado Gomez and Storm Florez, both of whom (in different ways) addressed the issue of trans men needing to own the fact that they are men (rather than retreating into the excuse that they are not “really” men when it suits their interests). Prado’s piece discussed how some trans guys will wield masculine/male power and privilege at one moment, then the next argue they don’t actually have such power because they’re trans, or they weren’t socialized male, or that they aren’t capable of sexually violating someone else because they don’t have a penis. Perhaps I appreciated these pieces so much because they addressed a certain double standard that I see going on all the time in queer/trans/feminist communities, but which has not yet been clearly articulated.

blog-born-blog

in april 2007, when I began "blogging" this was my first post ever:

my blog identifies as a “Blog-Born-Blog”. This means that it is was born and socialized as a blog, unlike your blog. While your blog may identify as a blog, live as a blog, and may face the same anti-blog discrimination that my blog faces, my blog believes that your blog isn’t nearly as oppressed. After all, your blog may call itself a “blog”, but it never had a bloghood like mine had. You should know that this is a “blog-born-blog”-only webspace, which means that my blog doesn't want so-called pseudo-“blogs” like yours around. But rather than say this to your face, my blog will instead insist that this webpage was always meant to be a place for other “blog-born-blog”s to get together and reminisce about our bloghoods - a bloghood that your blog unfortunately was not unfortunate enough to have had. However, don’t you dare accuse my blog of being prejudice against your blog, because if you do, my blog will claim that “blog-born-blog” is a legitimate webpage-identity. That way, if your blog challenges the policy, my blog will accuse your blog of disrespecting its identity, and then it can retaliate by disrespecting your blog’s identity as a “blog”. Face it, it’s a lose-lose situation for your blog...