Luther Blissett wrote:
Are autogynophiles really that large of a percentage of the trans community? That hasn't been my observation from afar but I could be wrong.
Yes, according to the sources on demographics that I've read. They are certainly the most vociferous on social media. The scholarship on autogynophilia has been buried due to their activism. Feminist Alice Dreger covered the backlash against researcher J. Michael Baily in response to his 2003 book,
The Man Who Would be Queen in various publications including her most recent book,
Galileo's Finger. She in turn has been vilified.
dissatisfied with the option of merely criticizing the book, a small number of transgender activists worked to try to ruin Bailey professionally and personally. Largely under the leadership of three prominent transwomen—Lynn Conway (a world-renowned computer scientist at the University of Michigan), Andrea James (a Hollywood-based trans-consumer advocate and an entrepreneurial consultant on trans issues), and Deirdre McCloskey (a Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago)—they organized charges of scientific misconduct against Bailey, including charges that he lacked informed consent from research subjects, that he failed to obtain Institutional Review Board (IRB) permission for human subjects research, and that he had sexual relations with a transsexual research subject. They successfully pushed for a top-level investigation of these charges at Northwestern University and for numerous press reports about Bailey’s alleged misdeeds. They successfully arranged a protest against the book’s nomination for a Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF) award and tried to get Bailey’s colleagues (including his closest departmental colleagues) to turn against him or at least distance themselves from him. They devoted elaborate Websites to criticizing and mocking him and his book and anyone with any positive relationship with him. One activist in particular, namely Andrea James, also used the Web to publicly harass Bailey’s children, his ex-wife, his girlfriend, and his friends.
Second wave and radical feminists who attempt to critique aspects of trans politics are subjected to death and rape threats. Lesbian feminist Cathy Brennan is the most visible critic. It doesn't help that some of her language is provocative, she openly labels some pre-op trans women as men, but as an attorney, she's one of the few who is tracking the impact of trans activism on policies that affect women's safety. Refusing to shrink into the shadows, she's had to take steps to protect herself and her family from the constant threat of violence.
Dreger again:
So very intense have been feelings around the Bailey controversy that several people were frightened to speak to me when I sent them inquiries about it a good 3 years after the book’s publication. A few people who heard I was interested in writing a history of the controversy even tried to talk me out of it.
It's important to note, all of the above writers and researchers fully support anti-discrimination efforts and compassionate treatment for trans people. So why are the major targets for trans outrage scientists and feminists, as opposed to conservatives and men who are the source of the direct discrimination and violence they suffer?
Researcher Anne A. Lawrence proposed that the force of these threats and attacks on critical allies is rooted in narcissistic rage:
MtF transsexuals are probably at increased risk for the development of narcissistic disorders—significant disorders in the sense of self—as a consequence of the inevitable difficulties they face in having their cross-gender feelings and identities affirmed by others, both before and after
gender transition. As a result, many autogynephilic transsexuals are likely to be particularly vulnerable to feelings of shame and
may be predisposed to exhibit narcissistic rage in response to perceived insult or injury...
....
Luther Blissett wrote:I would have to disagree. Culture is certainly progressing at a rapid pace in the information age, and in some ways, society is drifting off in a much different direction than the state and corporate power. There are certainly no "good old days" when comes to interpersonal relations; that comes the next minute, and then the next minute after that. Globally we are all drifting together, moving into larger cities, and at least in the west, violent crime is precipitously dropping. We are more accepting of others and each new generation believes less and less in fairy tales like borders.
A cowboy who is fundamentally an anti-pc human being is a dinosaur. What are their core beliefs, anyway?
Yes, I agree with you here. There were no golden days, and efforts at renaming are critical to many social just movements. As a young feminist, I was among those who used the word womyn in attempt to claim a unique identifier for myself that was not in relation to another, wo-men. That effort was not successful in proliferating to the broader culture. Now we have the trans community adding another prefix so that what I am required to call myself is qualified in relation to yet another group, "ciswoman". The feminist project is not finished, women have yet to define for ourselves what being a woman is, and now the pressure of another oppressed group is reifying patriarchal definitions and forcing a new nomenclature upon us. With midwifery services replacing the words woman and female in their literature with "people who birth", it could be argued we are being disappeared. Where is the boundary between one group's need to self define as opposed to another? We should at least be able to discuss this without being called bigots or subjected to death threats.
