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Special thanks to feminists...!
I was tagged by my favourite blogger, Shakespeare’s Sister, to share Five Things Feminism Has Done for Me, with the hope being (according to Shakes) that feminist bloggers in America run with it as they have in Canada in response to the Canadian federal government's funding cuts to Status of Women Canada.
I’m delighted and honoured to be a part of this effort from the other side of the Atlantic! Sorry I’ve lagged in responding: it’s NOT due to lack of interest, but because one of my favourite friends from CA has been visiting while I’m preparing to return to CA for the first time in nearly three years on vacation, and consequently I haven’t had time for blogging lately. (Shhhh, don’t tell anyone: I’m trying to sneak this in now at work…)
1) First and foremost, feminism offered me the framework upon which to define myself, a necessary first step to clawing my way out of the darkness and confusion that resulted from growing up transgendered in a backward, red-necked American community in the 1950’s. The book that opened my eyes was The Women’s Room, by Marilyn French, still relevant and inspiring to young feminists after all these years. I read it in my late 20’s and the protagonist’s experiences, while different in specific detail, mirrored my own in emotional truth. The light bulb went off and suddenly I understood, at least partially, why I was depressed, frustrated, angry and, as I was isolated from feminists at the time, very lonely.
2) The oppression I experienced as a working-class girl and woman then provided the lens through which I viewed and analysed all subsequent oppressions, including against queers and trannies. I’ll never forget how harmful the ubiquitous set of restrictions, controls, expectations and general invisibility were as I was growing up. Even now, though I am perceived as a man, my fundamental identification and political passion (not to mention, romantic passion) remains primarily with women.
3) Some of the most transcendent emotional experiences, the greatest highs, I’ve ever had were in feminist gatherings or demonstrations before I put it together that I wasn’t a dyke, but rather an ftm. The first was at a Northern California Women’s Music Festival, it must have been around 1983. I know Women’s music festivals have a history of exclusion of trannies and others and problems with lack of sensitivity around race, class, disability and other issues. But I was blissfully ignorant at the one and only festival I attended, and what I felt was pure ecstasy to be OUT in a spectacular rural setting, listening to the icons of woman’s music in the company of hundreds of proud, feminist women. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite that euphoric again.
Add to that my first “Take Back the Night March,” around 1983 or 84 in San Francisco. My first Pride Parade. My first few times at a dyke bar. As proud as I am to be FTM and all the highs I’ve experienced with my FTM brothers, and there have been many, because we are such a tiny minority there is simply no equivalent to the experience of being a feminist woman in the company of the feminist masses.
4) My mom was born in the United States in 1918, before women had the right to vote. As a child, the only women professionals I ever saw were nurses and school teachers. I never saw women bus drivers, police officers, scientists, medical doctors, corporate executives, mayors, senators, or congresswomen. Likewise, electricians, plumbers, carpenters and members of other trades. Women are still far too underrepresented in almost all high-paying, high-profile professional fields and in politics, but compared to the era when I was a child, progress has been immense. All due to the sacrifice, struggle, commitment and courage of feminists.
5) The first time I got pregnant, by accident in 1975, abortion had just been legalised in my country of residence at the time, France. Contraception had been legal for only eight years. A woman’s ability to control reproduction is critical to her ability to determine and control her future. Likewise, the liberalization of marriage and divorce laws. These rights are far from perfect and far from universally available, and are under siege in places where they do exist. Without freedom to choose whom to marry and the ability to control when and with whom one has children, women become baby-making serfs. Progress to date on this issues has been thanks to feminists. And I, for one, remain eternally grateful.
