LIFT IT, THROW IT OUT (We’ll buy a new one, darling; let our glory live on!)
March 09, 2014, 09:52 ilker
This article was written following/as a result of physical violence inflicted on a trans woman at the March 8, 2014 Feminist Night March.
LIFT IT, THROW IT OUT (We’ll buy a new one, darling; let our glory live on!)
This article was written following/as a result of physical violence inflicted on a trans woman at the March 8, 2014 Feminist Night March.
As every year, trans women active in the feminist struggle participated in this year’s Feminist Night March on March 8, International Women’s Day.
Trans women exist in schools, at work, in parliament and in every political space, even in apolitical spaces (if there are any)! In this context, it is inevitable that trans women, especially those fighting for rights, belong, according to their own choices, to feminist, leftist, anarchist, liberal, right-wing and other organizations. No ideological view, political structure or everyday space is the monopoly of heterosexism. (Unfortunately, not even heterosexism itself.)
Trans solidarity, the solidarity of a marginalized identity, today stands first and foremost/most often alongside and intertwined with the feminist movement as a natural consequence of its own dynamics.
For the reasons and consequences I have outlined above, trans women have participated, participate and will participate in March 8 feminist marches. (And of course in many other political spaces too.) Just as they participated this year.
So What Happened?
1) Before the Transphobic Violence:
Feminists (whether trans or not) did not want men in the march, did not want them marching at the very front, and wanted to march as women with purple flags specifically for the feminist struggle. Another group of feminist women wanted to march with their men. They wanted to march with more than purple flags, ALSO with their own socialist-left representation.
Which group’s feminism is more legitimate, whether socialism prioritizes feminism, whether men should or should not be in the space… These are outside the scope of this article, independent of the transphobic violence that occurred there. (The fact that both groups include women, and that these women define themselves as feminists, makes it important, in my view, to discuss these issues separately, although they are outside this article. Because self-declaration is the basis.)
2) Transphobic Violence
As a result of the reasons mentioned above, an argument ending in violence occurred at tonight’s march between the flag-carrying socialist group who wanted to march as women and men together (and believe they are feminists as the inevitable “CONSEQUENCE” of being socialists) and the group who wanted to march only with women (and of course believe that women are the subjects of feminism and that socialism does not mean feminism).
The women-only group asked the mixed group to lower their flags. Among those voicing this demand in the women-only group WAS A TRANS WOMAN. One of the men in the mixed group delivered a FLYING KICK to this woman because she said, like the other women, “Lower your flags.” (Of course, there was also VERBAL violence inflicted on all the women by these same men.)
This year, a trans woman participating in the march was subjected to physical violence.
This year, a trans woman participating in the march was kicked by a man.
The man who delivered this kick was a member of a leftist organization supporting March 8, who himself supported/embraced March 8.
We know that the kick delivered to a trans woman on March 8, 2014 by a man belonging to a leftist organization was no coincidence.
In its INVISIBLE defense, particularly on social media, the leftist organization to which the person who delivered the kick belongs emphasizes that “THE PERSON KICKED” was not a woman but an “LGBT INDIVIDUAL.” As this makes clear, “TRANSPHOBIA” is among the dynamics of that kick. This differs from the “kicks” delivered to ALL WOMEN, without distinguishing trans from non-trans, by a fascist organization opposed to feminism and women’s solidarity.
The factors that made this kick possible, the fact that its first target was a trans woman, and the “invisible” defenses afterward make this kick transphobic. Every leftist organization must examine this kick within its own context. Everyone who calls themselves anti-transphobic must offer self-criticism for this kick, in the general context of violence against women and specifically of TRANSPHOBIC VIOLENCE. (Of course, both this transphobic kick and every form of violence against women there must also be exposed; the leftist organizations responsible must be specifically identified and singled out.)
THAT IS WHY THIS KICK IS TRANSPHOBIC. PERIOD!
Beyond All This…
Transsexual women and trans people won their places in March 8 spaces through serious political, academic, everyday, legal… struggles. Indeed, they won, are winning and will win all other spaces beyond March 8 through these struggles too. March 8 is among the most important. Until now, transsexual women and trans people have been excluded and marginalized in March 8 spaces in various ways.
We have reached today from the days when feminist women openly and categorically did not want transsexual women in women’s organizations through LGBTI STRUGGLE. In this process, even feminism has displayed seriously transphobic attitudes. Until very recently, there was a struggle against excluding trans women who had not undergone physical transition from feminist actions in Turkey.
We do not accept TRANS PEOPLE AND LBI PEOPLE being any society’s stress ball in any space. The anti-transphobia struggle, which is also a human rights struggle, needs to analyze carefully without emptying the concept of “transphobia” of its meaning. Only in this way can transphobia be made visible. Finally, let it be LIFTED AND THROWN OUT without delay.
Istanbul LGBTT Solidarity Association