Linda/Les and Annie: The First Female to Male Transsexual Love Story, 1989. Directed by Annie Sprinkle. This was the first F2M sex film ever made. It screened in over 100 film festivals (source nsfw)
i feel like the smart sexy transsexuals and transgenders are starting to voice and form our opinions much more articulately and loudly. and be very aware of the issues we need to focus on and how devision harms us all and everything intersects. and how useless discourse and useless discussions of validation can just go in circles. and how love and compassion and understanding for other trans people is at the core of EVERYTHING. and how we do need to educate cis people and encourage allyship, but we also need to show people we will not lie down and let people walk all over us. there’s still obviously a lot of devision and discourse and silliness online that is detached from reality but that’s the internet I guess yknow. and i feel like that’s starting to become less central if that makes sense. maybe it’s just because im getting older and lots of my trans friends and peers are too. and we are all very tapped into the real world, and real communities, and our history and what is harmful vs helpful. and aware of the nuances of gender and so knowledgeable about transphobia. idk it’s cool 🤷
As a rape survivor, I understand the need for safe space together – free from sexist harassment and potential violence. But fear of gender variance also can’t be allowed to deceptively cloak itself as a women’s safety issue. I can’t think of a better example than my own, and my butch friends’, first-hand experiences in public women’s toilets. Of course women need to feel safe in a public restroom; that’s a serious issue. So when a man walks in, women immediately examine the situation to see if the man looks flustered and embarrassed, or if he seems threatening; they draw on the skills they learned as young girls in this society to read body language for safety or danger.
Now, what happens when butches walk into the women’s bathroom? Women nudge each other with elbows, or roll their eyes, and say mockingly, “Do you know which bathroom you’re in?” Thats not how women behave when they really believe there’s a man in the bathroom. This scenario is not about women’s safety – its an example of gender-phobia.
And ask yourself, if you were in the women’s bathroom, and there were two teenage drag queens putting on lipstick in front of the mirror, would you be in danger? If you called security or the cops, or forced those drag queens to use the men’s room, would they be safe?
If the segregation of bathrooms is really about more than just genitals, then maybe the signs ought to read “Men” and “Sexually and Gender Oppressed,” because we all need a safe place to go to the bathroom. Or even better, let’s fight for clean individual bathrooms with signs on the doors that read “Restroom.”
And defending the inclusion of transsexual sisters in women’s space does not threaten the safety of any woman. The AIDS movement, for example, battled against the right-wing characterization of gay men as a “high-risk group.” We won an understanding that there is no high-risk group – there are high-risk behaviors. Therefore, creating safety in women’s space means we have to define unsafe behavior – like racist behavior by white women towards women of color, or dangerous insensitivity to disabilities.
Transsexual sisters are not a Trojan horse trying to infiltrate women’s space. There have always been transsexual women helping to build the women’s movement – they are part of virtually every large gathering of women. They want to be welcomed into women’s space for the same reason every woman does – to feel safe.
Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Marsha P. Johnson and Beyond
Billy Lane, winner of the Seattle Mr. Leather contest in 1998 and first trans man to compete in the International Mr. Leather contest (photographed by James Loewen)
