Sisters4Sisters in Madison: Day 2

DAY 2

My slides from the Sisters4Sisters workshop in Madison can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1EUElyGIPzRl-KCiGnmTyb6SeeY6o47nrRmenxHkZZlM/edit?usp=sharing

My talk that goes along with these slides can be viewed here:

Other workshops and the Speaker’s Corner can be viewed here:

I was awoken by the sound of feminists in the next room enthusiastically making coffee, ready to spend a day rowling in person. Sunday, which happens to be Orthodox Easter, was a day packed with various workshops - too many for any one person to attend all. I especially enjoyed Miriam Ben Shalom’s defiant speech and the speech of another detransitioner named Elizabeth, who was kind enough to pick me up from the airport and check in throughout the weekend to make sure I was having a comfortable stay, before carting me back to MSN airport in the middle of the night.

Ute Heggen’s voice was missed, as she had pulled out of the conference in the wake of the “grass widow” debacle. I was also very well accommodated by the conference organizers, including Lierre Keith, Arla Hile and Lynn Meagher. Hearing about the work everyone has been doing made me question if I’ve brought anything of value to the movement, by comparison. It was a firehose of awesomeness, directly into my brain, every single woman who would make it out to such a conference.

What an honor to be among so many brilliant, dedicated, compassionate, and scrupulous women who have put in the actual work to bring women together and advance the cause. Meanwhile, I have spent a lot of time cracking jokes at my phone, safely esconsed in an undisclosed location. I am peripheral comic relief and all of these women who came out are among the backbone of the movement. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to be associated with you.

For my workshop, I gave an extended talk on the nature of the religious organizations that have formed and which are currently shaping policy, providing the following chart to help people conceptually organize the Church of Trans. I have named these branches based on doctrine. These different facets of the Church of Trans will try to give the impression that they have the one true perspective on gender and that their perspective was derived from the material world via science. This is false. Their belief in gender gremlins is a myth they invented to explain the unexplained.

Doctrinal split key:

1. How many gender identities are there (2 or more than 2)? Can they move around? At what age do they form?  Can they change? Does everyone have one?

2. What is the goal of any level of transition as a nonbinary person who does not believe in a medical need for cross-sex hormones?  Does my “identity” (personal icon/idol/fetish avatar) need to relate to my appearance?

3. Can we all just get along and respect each others’ incoherent identities?

   A. Trans Classic: This group is defined by the belief that there are two genders, that these relate to male and female as well as to man and woman, that trans is related to whether your maleness matches your womanhood, and that these genders form by age 3 and do NOT change, and that everyone has a gender.

   B. Our Lady of the Perpetual Hormone Replacement Therapy: This group is defined by the belief that there is a biological need to transition for some people.

   C. Church of the Maculate Conception: This group is defined by a belief that a desire to transition and sense of gender dysphoria are due to an occult disorder of sexual development (their ‘maculate [flawed] conception.’)

   D. Nondenominational church of trans attempts to regroup the sects under one big tent.

   E. United Church of the Internal Congruence: This sect believes in the transformative power of seeking internal-external congruence via any means necessary. This group believes in many genders that can move around, occupying different individuals at different times, that people can be without a gender, and gender is not fixed by age 3 but is something that merits exploration at whatever age you are when you discover gender ideology.  Their goal is to align their mental sense of gender identity (which changes) with their appearance, and by doing that also align society’s expectations with their behavior.

   F. Discipleship of the Disaffected: This group broadly views it as rude to make assumptions and feels very embarrassed by anyone else’s assumptions that they would want to do anything, including transition, or assume anything about their physical attributes or preferences.  They’re not necessarily seeking to change, just to be left alone.  People may end up here for non-sexual reasons such as hearing voices (resulting in a sense of or belief in being multiple people and preferring they/them for that reason) or for a social function such as communicating genitalia ambiguity to a potential partner, or who have anxiety for some other reason about others knowing their sex.

Not pictured on this chart is the fact that if one were to go up a level, one would hit a branch I’ve called the “TQ Continuum.” If one then branches out towards “queer,” one will encounter such systems as the Church of the Asexual Spectrum, which copies the concept of gender identities to create asexual identities as a way of reifying, destigmatizing, and glorifying obvious fetishes. An example of such an asexual identity is “eggosexual,” which I may be misspelling for the sake of mockery. Leggo my eggo! Eggosexual is their reboot of the concept of voyeurism. How a voyeur is asexual is beyond me, and reveals that their conception of ‘asexual’ has more to do with a person’s non-reciprocal sexual preoccupations, and minimally to do with any sort of lack of sexual impulse.

We concluded the day with a visit the pool, dinner, and general mischief. I am headed home tomorrow (4/25) and will be publishing this after that point. (Update: My flights home were uneventful!). I had a lovely time meeting everyone and felt very safe and supported throughout this entire conference. I strongly encourage other women who are reluctant to go to one of these events to consider going. Buy your tickets early as the TRAs will buy them to waste them. If the event is sold out, consider contacting the organizers to be vetted, as fake purchases often will leave some kind of “die terf” calling card identifying it as such. I am leaving far more politically nourished than I was when I arrived late Friday.

My last comment is that I wanted to apologize for my cultural appropriation of some kind of upper respiratory infection from the Wisconsin or Phoenix area. I have spent this past week reflecting on how wrong this was and seeing firsthand the consequences.