Well said Ms.Adichie.

A great conversation between a Radical Feminist and Trans Person; with commentary.

secondwaverevival's avatarRevive the Second Wave

Neither does anyone else, to be honest. I am so tired of males telling me to shut up and listen to trans males. I’m tired of them acting like women don’t have things so bad and that horrible things that females face is nothing like their gender feels, and shrugging when the harm that trans ideology is doing to women because a “few men slipping through the cracks” and assaulting women is a small price to pay to make sure that the transgender males are taken care of first.

I don’t know why this popped up in my medium feed, I don’t even read political articles on there, but it did. I decided to respond to this one based on the title. It looked like this conversation was going to be productive for at least one of us, at first. (I’m not including the original article, but it was some…

View original post 3 more words

Woo! Let’s check out all the privilege “cis” women have.

Oh.

Women do not willingly identify with any of the above conditions. This is precisely why the term “cis” resides in the realm of fatuous, patriarchally-approved bullshit. If women (adult human females) actually had the choice to identify their way out of their oppression we wouldn’t have any women left on the planet. It’s almost like there is some sort of material reality that women’s oppression is largely based on.

JB is on the case:

{spoiler alert:biological sex.}

This is the closing duet from L’Incoronazione di Poppea.  Depending on how the how the rest of the choral season goes, I may be singing this piece for my summer recital.  Pur Ti Miro, is a beautiful duet.  A little background on the opera from which it came from, and of course the libretto.

ACT 3

“Drusilla muses on the life of happiness before her, when Arnalta arrives with a lictor. Arnalta accuses Drusilla of being Poppea’s assailant, and she is arrested. As Nerone enters, Arnalta denounces Drusilla, who protests her innocence. Threatened with torture unless she names her accomplices, Drusilla decides to protect Ottone by confessing her own guilt. Nerone commands her to suffer a painful death, at which point Ottone rushes in and reveals the truth: that he had acted alone, at the command of the Empress Ottavia, and that Drusilla was innocent of complicity. Nerone is impressed by Drusilla’s fortitude, and in an act of clemency spares Ottone’s life, ordering him banished. Drusilla chooses exile with him. Nerone now feels entitled to act against Ottavia and she is exiled, too. This leaves the way open for him to marry Poppea, who is overjoyed: “No delay, no obstacle can come between us now.”[n 10]

Ottavia bids a quiet farewell to Rome, while in the throne room of the palace the coronation ceremony for Poppea is prepared. The Consuls and Tribunes enter, and after a brief eulogy place the crown on Poppea’s head. Watching over the proceedings is the god of Love with his mother, Venere and a divine chorus. Nerone and Poppea sing a rapturous love duet (“I gaze at you, I possess you”[n 11]) as the opera ends.”

Pur ti miro, pur ti godo, I gaze at you, possess you,
pur ti stringo, pur t’annodo. press you to me, clasp you.
Piú non peno, piú non moro,
No more pain, no deathly grief,
o mia vita, o mio tesoro. oh my life, my treasure.
Io son tua, I am yours,
Tuo son io, Yours am I,
Speme mia, dillo, di. My dearest, say you love me too.
Tu sei pur l’idol mio. You are the idol of my heart.
Sì, mio ben, sì, mio cor, mia vita, sì
Oh yes, my love, my heart, my life, oh yes.

 

“L’incoronazione di Poppea is frequently described as a story in which virtue is punished and greed rewarded, running counter to the normal conventions of literary morality. The musicologist Tim Carter calls the opera’s characters and their actions “famously problematic”, and its messages “at best ambiguous and at worst perverted”, while Rosand refers to an “extraordinary glorification of lust and ambition”.The critic Edward B. Savage asserts that despite the lack of a moral compass in virtually all the main characters, Busenello’s plot is itself essentially moral, and that “this morality is sustained by the phenomenon of dramatic irony”. From their knowledge of Roman history, audiences in Venice would have recognised that the apparent triumph of love over virtue, celebrated by Nerone and Poppea in the closing duet, was in reality hollow, and that not long after this event Nerone kicked the pregnant Poppea to death. They would have known, too, that Nerone himself committed suicide a few years later, and that others—Ottavia, Lucano, Ottone—also met untimely deaths.

Well, two not very nice people sing a beautiful duet about love and then have untimely deaths.  So, definitely operatic material then.

    So many conversations start like this:
“If you think trans people are all rapists or degenerates, celebrate when trans people lose rights and get attacked, and deny the sexuality of people who accept trans people, you’re an oppressor and a bigot and nobody should take you seriously.”

radicurious answered:

I disagree with transgender ideology, yes, but that doesn’t mean that I hate transgender people or that I want them to be attacked, murdered at high rates, discriminated against and harassed on the street. I want all transgender people to be safe from violence and discrimination, so I definitely wouldn’t celebrate any kind of violence or discrimination towards them. Let’s take a much discussed example – the bathroom issue: I don’t think all transgender people are rapists or “degenerates” – I know that the vast, vast majority of transgender people are decent people just wanting to be accepted and allowed to express themselves and live their lives as they please. That being said, transgender women have the same crime rates as “cis” men – also when it comes to violent crime. This means that they, statistically, are just as likely to assault or rape a women as a “cisgender” male would be, and thus placing them in the same bathrooms, changing rooms and shelters as biological women would compromise the safety of the biological women using said restrooms, shelters and changing rooms. There’s no doubt in my mind that the vast majority of trans women simply want to pee without experiencing the risks and the dysphoria that going to the mens room might involve, but allowing a group which is statistically as violent and as sexually aggressive as “cis” men into women’s restrooms and changing rooms is a recipe for disaster. Just look at some the numerous cases of biological males claiming to be/dressing as women attacking and harassing biological women in women’s changing rooms and bathrooms. My worry about letting transgender women use the women’s bathrooms doesn’t come from irrational hatred of transgender women – it comes from statistics and recorded cases which prove that allowing transgender women in women’s bathrooms would pose a threat to biological women’s safety. 

 

I share ‘Radcurious”s assessment of the situation.  And it comes down to this, which is a of a higher priority – the feelings of men or the physical safety of women? And if it is ‘transphobic’ to prioritize the safety of females, so be it, because it is the right call in this situation.  Women are under constant male threat and surveillance in our society and should have spaces where the panopticon of male dominance cannot reach.

That being said, I am also in full favour of having 3 washrooms available in public spaces, and that space should be taken from existing male facilities when new ones cannot be constructed to accommodate the variable gender constituency of our populations.

[Source]

I’m wondering when (if) the US will join the rest of the industrialized world in offering Universal Health Care for the American people. It seems like such a basic need, even a human right, depending on who you ask.  Not having the stress and anxiety over having to constantly navigate a hurly-burly bureaucratic maze just to access healthcare would improve the lives of so many people in the US.

Why isn’t this a slam-dunk.

Because the wrong people would benefit from a single payer, universal healthcare system.  And we certainly cannot have that.

 

“Already federal, state and local governments pay for about half of this gigantic sum through Medicare, Medicaid, the Pentagon, VA, and insuring their public employees. But the system is complexly corrupted by the greed, oft-documented waste, and over-selling of the immensely-profitable, bureaucratic insurance and drug industry.

To those self-described conservatives out there, consider that major conservative philosophers such as Friedrich Hayek, a leader of the Austrian School of Economics, so revered by Ron Paul, supported “a comprehensive system of social insurance” to protect the people from “the common hazards of life,” including illness. He wanted a publically funded system for everyone, not just Medicare and Medicaid patients, with a private delivery of medical/health services. That is what HR 676 would establish (ask your member of Congress for a copy or find the full text here. (Conservatives may wish to read for greater elaboration of this conservative basis, my book, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.)

Maybe some of this conservative tradition is beginning to seep into the minds of the corporatist editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal. Seeing the writing on the wall, so to speak, a recent editorial, before the Ryan/Trump crash, concluded with these remarkable words:

“The Healthcare Market is at a crossroads. Either it heads in a more market-based direction step by step or it moves toward single payer step by step. If Republicans blow this chance and default to Democrats, they might as well endorse single-payer because that is where the politics will end up.”

Hooray!”

 

Hooray indeed Mr.Nader.  Let us hope that the failure to pass Trumpcare is the crack in policy needed to advance the single payer agenda.

[Source:Counterpunch]

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