[Blog/Commentary] [USA] An example of Anxiety, Aversion, & Animus

[Stephanie Stevens]

Dyssonance, USA


May 9th, 2012 by Dyssonance

An example of Anxiety, Aversion, & Animus


I was going to write something particularly different today, but I
stumbled across something that sorta pushed me out of the mindset
needed.

Today’s example come’s courtesy of the same person from whom I have
gleaned so many examples of late — Cathy “bug” Brennan, who has
“stepped up her own activism” of late.

The example comes from her reason for such.

Cathy has demonstrated her aversion in the past (“ewww, gross” when
confronted with the idea of being attracted to a woman who is trans),
but she’s made it clear that despite her role as an occasional
columnist for a fairly important local Maryland LGBT publication she
is, in fact, transphobic, and she is so in a deep and abiding way that
she earnestly believes is made up by the fact that she continues to
assert that she feels that trans women are women.

Her latest series of attacks are predicated on the basis that trans
women might be women, but they aren’t female.

This is true if one accepts biology as the determinant condition, but
that, in turn, opens up a host of other issues given that now you have
to turn to biology to further that, and biology is still coming to
terms with the changes that the study of variable sex in humans has
led to. But, outside that, biology as a determinant factor is useless
for the purposes of the things she is most concerned about: who is
allowed into spaces where she goes, andwho she’s going to have sex
with.

I personally have no clue if she has a wife or partner. THen again,
it doesn’t matter for the purposes here. What she does have is a
blanket refusal to have sex with other women who happen to also be
trans.

This is an across the board blanket assertion, and she uses all the
standard “holy fuck, I could sleep with that!?!” tools of pretty much
any other person for whom this problem is severe.

In the experience of many trans people, this is typically men. Who do
it out of a strong and abiding link to the patriarchy, which she then
echoes. Personally, I’ll go one step further and state, bluntly, that
Cathy prefers the current hegemony of the Patriarchy, as without it
she would have no real value for herself. Her views are predicated on
it existing and being fought politically and socially, however she
herself uses the very same powers of the patriarchy to further her own
paranoid desire to never possibly find herself waking up after a heck
of a good night next to someone who may or may not have or have had a
penis at some time in their lives.

Which is exactly the same thing that cis men do when faced with the
same possibility (at least, according to the standard narrative of
said experience).

This blanket prohibition problem is what was referred to in the Essay
that triggered the “Cotton Ceiling” fight that she’s essetnially
holding onto for dear life since without it she has nothing more than
her same old same old pathetic efforts at striving for legitimacy in a
community that has for the most part turned its back on her and those
who share her peculiar, outdated brand of feminism.

She does enjoy it when articles such as this one are written about
her, and she enjoys even more being able to get on twitter and piss
off more trans people. One of her recent efforts actually uses the
dysphoria of a trans woman to attack trans women as ill, sick, and
yes, disgusting.

She is a troll, in the end, and she’s being fed by the excitement and
energy generated by posts and responses, but she is very careful about
who she picks on and whom she targets. She wants to get the young
ones, mostly, and the one’s that still have a raw edge to them,
because she knows that she can use their often anger fueled and
typically violence filled statements against them.

That she’s a fucking asswipe is granted, Her fuckwittery, however,
reaches a level that goes beyond simply dealing with Aversion and
Anxiety, but goes directly into full on Animus — it is her goal to
make it impossible for trans women to be lesbians with any kind of
partner who is not trans herself.

Indeed, she’s attempting to hijack the term pretendbian, which
historically has meant a bisexual or a young, college age woman who
dates lesbians temporarily (that there is even such a term for that is
rather sad and extremely troublesome in and of itself), and turn it
into somethign that means a “man” who “pretends to be a lesbian” in
order to have sex with women.

THe high degree of animus that is inherent in such an attempt directly
demonstrates her hostility towards trans women as does her ongoing
ethics violating series of attacks, and actually stands as evidence
should someone file a complaint for ethics charges with the State Bar
of Maryland. I do, in fact, charge that she has violated those ethics,
*even within her own interpretation of them*, and that she is banking
on people not filing charges because people don’t necessarily know how
to do so.

She is directly representing herself in these efforts, which is
admirable — most of the time trolls and related evil little shits like
this do everything they can to hide their identity, as is common with
most of her similarly situated and ideologically supportive ilk. But,
in turn, it gives her the ability to stand up for what she believes
in, even though this belief is actually something that she’s ding to
support the attacks against woemn and other lesbians (including
herself) by those outside the community.

Her language, her habits, her posts — all of them are structured in
such a way as to create a hostile environment for trans women who are
lesbian, which she denies them being. If she denies them being
lesbian, how is she doing so? She does it on the grounds that lesbians
can only be female, and, therefore, these trans women are males
seeking to rape women.

Her discovery of how many trans people use Tumbler only makes this
even greater an opportunity to directly go after them individually.

Let’s get this out in the light: Cathy Brennan says that trans women
cannot be lesbians. Since they cannot be lesbians, they are not
welcome in lesbian spaces. This works the other way, as well — should
a lesbian be in a relationship with a trans women, she is not a
lesbian. Or, if she is, then it is because she has fallen under the
sway of patriarchy (which Cathy, herself, has done already) and is not
in control of her own faculties (and I’m willing to bet the
distinction there falls into the realm of does Cathy think she meets
the subjective requirements and appropriate purity test).

She doesn’t go after me because as far as she is concerned, I am a gay
male who is deluded and thinks he’s a woman. That mentality, however
she dresses it up in a half assed attempt at making it seem
respectable, is indicative of a basic, core value of transphobic
thoughts and deed.

Cathy Brennan is currently the Phelps of the group she is part of. A
groups which includes people who have called for the moral
extermination of Trans people (despite her claims that she isn’t trans
exterminationist, her actions and words say otherwise).

What she is doing is the equivalent of saying “I am not a racist
because I think black people are ok, but I support the SB1070 “paper’s
please” law”. Despite the fact that such a law is itself racist,
created by a racist group, for the purpose of creating a veneer of
respectability of racist ideals.

Her basis for all of this is summed up nicely in a post on her Tumblr blog:

The Cotton Ceiling broke this open for me, when formerly
sympathetic trans women (e.g., Dana Lane Taylor, Austen Crowder)
suggested that although the “cotton ceiling” language was
“problematic,” there is a “real issue” of lesbians not wanting to have
sex with trans women. HELLO?! It’s because you aren’t FEMALE. Anyway,
that is why I decided I needed to step up my own activism, because
replacing sex with “gender” has BAD CONSEQUENCES for females.

And a great deal of the hostility here comes from something that
literally terrifies many of the lesbian women of her particular sort:
the potential for Butch lesbians to transition into men.

To them, there is no greater crime, and they become incredibly nasty
about it (see Dirt, one of her peers). Indeed, she harbors ongoing
resentment about them consistently (which is demonstrative of animus):

No one gives a shit about trans men because trans men are FEMALE.
And lesbian activists don’t give a shit about trans men because it’s
not females who commit the vast majority of violence against females.
And yes, I wish they would STFU too!

Yet she, herself, will never STFU. The double standard is pretty obvious there.

She still has the mental disconnect, and tries to spin her opposition
to the idea that trans women who are women that love women might be
lesbians by saying the following:

LOL, no worries. I actually don’t care who people are attracted
to, or why (so long as it’s between consenting adults). I do care when
the GLBT Movement decides it’s a political obligation to fuck someone.

Also, “because” of all of this, she has abandoned her support (as if
there really was any in the first place) for gender identity &
expression inclusive language in law.

The quotes, above, are all from her Tumbler, and do not even get into
the stuff that I dove into detail on recently.

Brennan is a liar who will say whatever she can in order to cause
pain, hurt others, and prevent even the remote possibility that she
might possibly be “tricked” into sleeping with a trans woman (which, I
will note, she always describes as being pre operative).

Arguing with her, as a result, is a lot like arguing with one of the
guys who kills trans women — they rarely will say they will do such,
but they are quick to catch on violence and similar stuff, yet when it
happens, they immediately do cause violence to trans people.

Her being a woman doesn’t reduce that risk, though it may change the
form of that violence to emotional and verbal violence. Which it has.

She has demosntrated Aversion, anxiety, and animus — no question,
whatsoever that she is, in fact, transphobic, and should be treated as
such by those organizations who purport to support trans rights and
lives.

I can note that should the opportunity arise to demonstrate to her the
idiocy of her words and actions, I will indeed attend a “female only”
event that she attends, and, in so doing, allow her the opportunity to
attempt to remove me from there by legal means. Yeah, I am indeed
that kind of a nasty bitch.

Of course, there had better be some good reason for the event. Given
her intense dislike of anything that accepts trans people, and the
odds that a group that she would prefer to attend will discuss
anything of interest to me, the odds of such an opportunity to arise
are pretty fucking slim.

I don’t deal well with idiots talking about idiot stuff.


http://www.dyssonance.com/?p=11475