Gender politics index

I grew up thinking that the hatred I faced because of my gender expression was simply a by-product of my nature and that it must be my fault that I was a target for such outrage. I don’t want any young person to ever believe that’s true again … Today, a great deal of “gender theory” is abstracted from human experience. But if theory is not the crystallized resin of experience, it ceases to be a guide to action.
Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors

Campaigning

Babies and Bathwater … are we really asking for much?
Divided we Fall : working with GLB campaigners
It’s all their fault : if only transsexual people didn’t believe so strongly in justice…
Lifting the Veil : the first task of a campaigner is to expose the big secrets
Transsexual People and the Press : Why Britain’s Transsexual People want the Press Complaints Commission to take a reforming lead to end fifty years of defamation

Labels and labelling

Why do we label people? And why does it matter?

Woman Plus … or how to forget the label and concentrate on the quality of the cloth
What Colour Are Your Eyes? - and why should it matter? And if science finds an explanation for why trans people are different, acceptance won’t necessarily follow
Fourth Column Revolutionary
Beyond understanding? — isn’t it time we stopped accepting lack of understanding as an excuse for intolerance and discrimination?

The problem with transsexual women is not that we are trapped in the wrong bodies. The truth is, that is a fairly trivial affair corrected with doctors and sharp scalpels. The problem is that we are trapped in a society which alternates between hating and ignoring or tolerating and exploiting us and our experience, and more importantly, we are trapped in the wrong minds. We have, too many of us for too long, been trapped in too much self-hate. Rikki Ann Wilchins

Concepts

Re-thinking Sex and Gender? Is it a boy or is it a girl?: postgraduate student Sue Watling wants to move discussion of gender beyond the sterile confines of the nature v. nurture debate … and asks trans people to help her by sharing her experiences.
Who’s unnatural now?: the disqualification of a woman athlete for taking HRT raises much wider issues.
Different equals normal — thinking of trans people as different misses the point …
The Conceptualisation of Transsexualism in matrimonial proceedings the judges are getting it wrong.
Beyond appearances: gendered rationality and the transgendered. Men and women tend to think differently, and trans people need to be aware of the differences, even if they reject stereotyping.
When Sally met Harry: When Sally, a 35 year old trans woman, found herself in a sudden and unplanned relationship with a man she met by accident, she was reminded of the problems which others have with her mere existence – problems of theirs which influenced her own approach to relationships and sex. Sally and Harry are fictional people, but their stories are real – composed from a mosaic of real people’s lives and experiences. UK Trans Rights Campaigner Christine Burns explores the trials of dating and loving when your sex, and the consequent interpretation of your sexuality, is a regarded as a matter of opinion, rather than matter of fact.
The Second Transition: Christine Burns looks at the spiritual transition into maturity as a new woman or man.

Debate

The Press for Change Debate Compuserve’s UK Politics on-line forum discussed the campaign issues in 1995
Dear Angus : Christine Burns and law lecturer Dr Angus Campbell discuss legal and philosophical issues about the status of trans people (1996)

Us and them? Or all of us?

Safe for Some : feminism and transgender politics
Divided we Fall : working with GLB campaigners
Beyond understanding? — isn’t it time we stopped accepting lack of understanding as an excuse for intolerance and discrimination?
It’s not just our problem : Denying trans people their true legal status creates problems for everyone, transgendered or not

Women-only space

Why women-only space must include trans women - PFC briefing paper, May 1998
Nottingham Women’s Centre admits trans women
Safe for Some : feminism and transgender politics
Inclusion: trans women in NOWSA - Julie Peters speaks out against stereotyping in Australian womens space (July 1999)

Miscellany

The International Bill of Gender Rights
Louis Gooren speech to the 23rd Colloquy on European Law
Intimidation and Violence : the UK rage page
Lesson Plan - Gender Variance : teaching students about the diversity of human sex and gender