Dear Cisters: What’s the big deal about calling them trans women?
Separate but equal? That always works.
Welcome to Dear Cisters, the column that’s more like Dear Abby than the Savage Lovecast. I’m your host Stephenie Magister, transgender writer/nerd/editor for award-winning and best-selling books.
This letter comes to us thanks to our voracious reading habits.
Which means I, of course, encountered a letter in the far reaches of the internet and had a lot to say.
I always do. That’s why so many people point me at their books.
As for the below letter? Dates, names, details, etc etc etc have been changed to protect the relevant parties.
CW: religious abuse, transphobia
DEAR CISTERS,
WHO I AM AND WHY I’M RIGHT
I really don’t care about any of this. It has nothing to do with me. It doesn’t affect me. It doesn’t affect anyone I know. Nevertheless, I want to give my opinion on whether transwomen are women.
I don’t say this because my opinion is right or wrong. I’m sharing what I know to be True. What I was told is True. What you are not allowed to disagree with if you want any hope of being treated with dignity.
What I want to say about this topic is a transperson cannot be or become a biologically gendered person. A transwoman will never be a Woman. A transman will never be a Man.
While I know the side that argues transwomen are women SHOULD understand that logic, the fact that they are still crying (and dying) about all of this shows they don’t understand what I’m saying.
So I am going to explain this to you over. And over. And over. Even if you show me that you understand the topic better than I do.
Why would I be so deliberately obtuse? Let me pause the Shawshank Redemption to explain why.
Because I have the Word of God on my side. That lets me know that no matter how much evidence, logic, or just genuine human experience of suffering and abuse I see my actions inflict on you and people like you, I will NEVER change my mind.
It is GOD who says you are diminishing and erasing the experiences that would validate cisgender AND trans people!!!
What would validate both of us is what would make ME feel validated. And that would be if you would please agree to call yourself what I want to call you. I want to call you a transwoman. Or a transman. Gosh, this makes me feel as angry as God getting ready to drown 99.9% of humanity.
WHO YOU ARE AND WHY YOU’RE WRONG
Now here’s the thing. I know many, many, many Women (that’s cisgender, if you’re trans) who were born without the reproductive organs so that they can have a period. Do you know how painful that is for them?
They fantasize about having menstrual cycles. For them, it feels like an essential part of womanhood. And it is! I grieve with them that they can’t experience it.
The same thing is true for so many of my fellow Women. They can’t have menstrual cycles. Never could. They can’t breastfeed. Something was missing beyond their control since before they were born.
One of my best friends was born something called “intersex,” but her parents fixed that for her and made sure she was a girl. Well, as much as they could. Can you imagine if they had made the wrong decision and tried to turn her into a boy? She might have needed the same kind of gender-affirming care a trans person is trying to say they deserve, too.
I heard sometimes doctors don’t even know the woman has had transgender-related medical care until looking deeper into their history. Honestly, it’s confusing to the point of wondering why we even consider there to be a difference.
But you will never convince me to see the cis and trans person as the same.
My point is that trans women are trying to take away gender-affirming care from REAL Women. Trans women, often for shockingly similar or even the exact same causes as cis women, aren’t able to menstruate. They aren’t able to get pregnant.
You put them side-by-side with a cisgender woman, you’d never know the difference. You’d probably grieve for both of them, right?
But God lets us know to only grieve for the one that we all know is a real Woman.
If you’re going to argue for gender identity, you must allow for the space of that identity to be valid without equating it to something that confuses me and people like me.
I’m not arguing for the erasing or hatred towards transpeople. To my allies, always be clear about your intentions. If you want to have a HATEFUL IMPACT without being held accountable, you need to constantly remind everyone (including yourself!) that you have no hate in your heart. Only those with hate in their heart will be held accountable for the hateful impact of their actions.
Yes, trans people will be very convincing when pointing out the hateful impact of your positions and actions regarding people with transgender experiences. I can’t deny that. People with transgender experiences are experiencing real harm and abuse from my actions. Some are even dying!
But I didn’t INTEND for them to die. I INTEND to fulfill the Word of God. And thus that is all for which I will take responsibility.
If I am to live out the gospel of Yeshua, then I am to love all people. I am to see them with understanding and compassion.
But there will be times — many times — when the commands of Elohim require me to violate what I believe to manifest love to all people.
There will be times — many times — when the commands of my Savior reinforce that for me to claim that salvation, I must be willing to hurt whoever the Bible tells me deserves to be hurt.
Whenever I am in doubt, a return to almost any random scripture reminds me that my violence toward trans people is in service to a Higher Purpose.
Sincerely, Sad Is This Terf
ANSWER
DEAR SADISTER,
I’m sorry to hear you feel that way about women with transgender experiences, but you’re entitled to your own way of seeing things.
I have no right to try to change how you see women. I accept your faulty perception in particular of women who have had what you identify as transgender experiences.
My hope is that by you putting your bigoted positions like this out into the world, the feedback you receive will help you acknowledge and take responsibility for the harmful and abusive impact posts like yours have toward women.
This includes women who have had transgender experiences as well as women who have not.
You do not need hate in your heart for your actions to have a hateful impact.
What you are doing hurts and abuses women.
That hurts. Please stop.
I am not begging you for these boundaries. Boundaries, after all, are not what we hope our abusers will one day give to us. They are what we give to ourselves.
None of us can ever hope to change people like you. But we can work to empower each other so that we don’t need to.
Sincerely, Stephenie
THE END
Hi, it’s Stephenie!
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