Penises, Privilege, & Purity: a new essay about LGBTQ+ intra-community debates

So my latest Medium essay just dropped! 

It's entitled Penises, Privilege, and Feminist & LGBTQ+ Purity Politics. It's a longer read, but worth it, as it explains many intra-community debates. This includes lesbian stereotypes about bisexual women (such as the myth that we are "perpetually heterosexual privileged"), how those relate to "gender critical"/TERF stereotypes of trans women, plus recent debates between trans male/masculine and trans female/feminine communities. Basically, I show how all these sentiments stem from sexual stigma and our culture's bizarre patriarchal and heteronormative beliefs about sex and penises.

I think this is the best thing I've written since... well, since my latest book Sexed Up, I suppose. In fact, it's the first piece I've written that really builds upon some of the ideas that I introduce and flesh out in the book, including the Predator/Prey mindset and how sexual stigma shapes many popular stereotypes about queer people.

Here is the no paywall link, so you can readily share it with others: https://juliaserano.medium.com/penises-privilege-and-feminist-lgbtq-purity-politics-bafd1f25fe3e?sk=5098f46767404745b65d298b79aa8066

If you're on Twitter, here's a whole thread about it.

And if you like it, please give it lots of "claps" (up to 50, I think) so that other Medium users will see it.

This essay was made possible by my Patreon supporters. If you appreciate that I make writings like this available for free online, please consider supporting me there.

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.

spread the word: Girl Talk 2013 less than a week away!

Be sure to buy tickets soon for Girl Talk's big 5th anniversary show, which takes place next Thursday, June 27th, in San Francisco!

As some of you know, Girl Talk is a (primarily) spoken word show that fosters dialogue about the many relationships (partners, lovers, friends, & allies) shared by queer trans women, queer cis women, and genderqueer folks (full description below). It is co-curated by myself, Gina de Vries and Elena Rose. This year's cast includes the three of us, plus Dominika Bednarska, DavEnd, Dr. Carol Queen, Jos Truitt, and Tara Hardy!

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:

Bisexuality and Binaries Revisited

[note added 8-1-13: The following piece will be included in my next book, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, which comes out in October, 2013!]

In October, 2010, my essay, “Bisexuality does not reinforce the gender binary,” first appeared on the internet. The main reason why I wrote the piece was to illustrate how the reinforcing trope (i.e., the notion that certain genders, sexualities or identities “reinforce” the gender binary, or heteronormativity, or the patriarchy, or the hegemonic-gender-system-of-your-choice) is selectively doled out in queer and feminist communities in order to police their borders. Since queer communities are dominated by non-feminine, cisgender, and exclusively gay and lesbian folks, these individuals are almost never accused of “reinforcing the gender binary.” In contrast, more marginalized identities (e.g., bisexual, transgender, femme) are routinely subjected to the reinforcing trope. While my “reinforcing” essay received many positive responses, it also garnered some harsh criticism, particularly from within certain segments of transgender and gender variant communities. All of the critiques that I heard or read pretty much ignored my primary point—namely, the underlying forms of sexism that determine who gets accused of “reinforcing” shit and who does not—and instead focused solely on the rote assertion that the word “bisexual” (and, by association, anyone who identifies as bisexual) really does “reinforce the gender binary.”

announcing Girl Talk 2012: a Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue

Hey folks, so over the weekend the official Girl Talk 2012: a Trans & Cis Woman Dialogue details were announced! Here is the official Facebook invite and here is the official QCC website. All the details also appear below.

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.