group host / statement of purpose

[iverglas]

61. as the person who posted this in the thread where I was attacked

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11372559

justiceischeap
37. Don't come into the LGBT forum with your issues about this thread

Whether you agree with pageants or not, this is a milestone for the LGBT community. Let us have our friggin' milestone without ruining it for William769 (again!).

If you want to fight about this thread, go over to the Lounge or in the Help forum.

and then refused to clarify, in response to a query there and my PM (when I could not post), that you were NOT talking about me and others who had posted similarly in that thread:

justiceischeap
42. I meant to reply to those coming into the LGBT forum and cause trouble over this thread

so, no, not <to> the OP. I thought I made that clear in my post that some folks were causing trouble in William769s thread on the issue.

-- "some folks were causing trouble in William769s thread on the issue" is NOT how you would have described the LGBT group members you claimed to be talking about in this, sorry, incoherent PM to me:

justiceischeap
Re: how dare you?

You weren't the only one's that were bringing issues into the thread (and you didn't even bring the fight to the LGBT forum). Did I call you out personally? No, I didn't. So how do you deduce that I was referring to you? I was referring to (X and Y -- one a long-standing LBGT group member and one simply attracted by another opportunity to trash me, from what I can tell) who came over from GD causing trouble. So I don't owe you, or anyone else, an apology for anything for not wanting that OP to blow up...again.

The LGBT forum isn't a place to hash out problems from another forum--which is why I suggested you take your fight elsewhere (per the rules, you should have alerted on the call-out and taken that over to the Help forum where you and (X) could have fought it out under the watchful eye of the Admins and they could have maybe done something about the call-out). Instead, you call me out over email for a perceived slight and make a comment about it in the Feminists forum because you ASSUMED my post was aimed at you.

The LGBTQ community puts up with enough shit elsewhere on DU without it spilling into our little neck of the woods.

You know full well that NO ONE interpreted your post as referring to those people. You said NOTHING to them in public. And referring to the attack on me as a "perceived slight"? There seems to have been agreement on how to trivialize the attack. Others here don't perceive it as a "perceived slight".

(And no, I could not alert on the call-out, as that had already been done and failed.)


So as I was saying -- I'm not really at all concerned about what you, as the person who wrote those posts and that message, have to say.


First, I still smart a little over the 2nd-wave feminists initially pushing lesbians out of their cause because we were too controversial or claiming our rights weren't their rights--I hold a bit of grudge, what can I say?

Were any of them me? Do you have one single shred of basis for lumping me in with these alleged persons -- or anyone else in this group or at this site? If not: so what?

I've encountered modern-day feminists who feel the same way; that somehow my lesbianism makes me less of a woman and therefore, I can't be a feminist.

I don't know, that just sounds dumb to me. Certainly, as a lesbian, you won't share some of the "personal is political" issues of straight women. Certainly, I hope you don't disparage women who do have those issues. I'd want to know a whole lot more about this allegation.

You see, coming here and making blanket statements about a group you label a particular way, to make a point with the women *here*, just doesn't quite work.

Back to the topic of my allegiance to the queer community; I can still be fired from my job just for being gay. ...

Well, not anywhere in Canada you can't. Not fired, not denied housing, not denied marriage, not denied spousal benefits under private insurance plans, not denied adoption, not denied immigration sponsorship or inheritance or next-of-kin or pension rights or family leave, all whether married or not -- not treated differently in any other way in the public or private sectors based on this irrelevant distinction. And that's how it should be, and that's what my political party has fought for, and that's what I've always maintained. Cripes, one of my very first posts ever at DU (which makes it over a decade ago) was to challenge a view I couldn't believe I was seeing at a progressive website: that landlords have property rights that should enable them to refuse to rent housing to whomever they like; I think that case involved an unmarried heterosexual couple, but obviously I challenged the idea that such discrimination could be practised on any irrelevant personal characteristic, which sexual orientation is in that situation. Couldn't believe my eyes.

I know you don't live up here in socialist Utopia. At DU, I support people seeking changes like that, and like universal healthcare, for instance. I know you still don't have rights. If feminists don't support that struggle, well, I wouldn't call them feminists. I don't know that they can be expected to take it on directly though, is the thing. Like women being the driving force behind abolition in the US, and so many other social and political causes -- and always leaving their own (or being told to leave their own) aside: there are women's issues that are equally important, just different. And that do affect you as a lesbian woman.

I'm referred to more often as a dyke than a bitch.

Here at DU? I doubt that. I think you're protected from that here, no? But women haven't been protected from being called bitches ... and you don't object? Not sure what you're saying. Would other feminists here not object to lesbians being called dykes??

Until the gay part of me gets the same rights as the woman part of me, then my allegiance to the gay community stands.

It does not compute. Or at least it does not address the issues at hand here.

Certainly it is understandable that you would focus on the violations you experience of the most basic rights. But how does that call for denigrating women who focus on issues of greater concern to them? Say, male intimate partner violence against women. Maybe you don't want to devote your scarce time and energy to that; no problem for me. Neither do I, as it happens. Choices have to be made. But I admire advocates in that field, just as I do advocates in the cause of your own that you cite.

That isn't a question of allegiance. It isn't an either/or in terms of analysis or mutual support or mutual respect. It's just a question of choice, given scarce resources. There's no conflict between public/private sector equality for GLBT people and protecting women from male partner violence, or working for workplace equality for women, for example, ideologically or philosophically. Has someone suggested to you that there is?

For example, as a lesbian woman, not only could I get underpaid for being a woman but at some places I may not even get a job or get fired for being a lesbian (as I stated above). Because of that, I'm going to view the world differently and form different opinions on things and it's going to make my feminism different.

But again, what are these differences? You undoubtedly view the world as even more hostile than some other women do. (As a victim of a life-threatening sexual assault, I view it as pretty damned hostile, I can tell you!) But why project those problems onto other feminists, which is what we see happening? A fuck you, we have our own problems and yours can go to hell attitude. I've said before: feminists are not the oppressors. Why the hostility to us?

What is the actual conflict between the two sets of issues here?

I agree with La Lioness Priyanka that it may be better to have a diverse group of hosts only because diversity in thought (as is there diversity in feminism) is a good thing and it brings different perspectives to discussion.

I'm going to have to stick to my position that I will need to see a nominee who has NOT engaged in dismissive or abusive behaviour toward feminists at this website in order to agree to the nomination, myself.

Neither you nor Priyanka meets that criterion, in my personal books.

Anyone who wants to contend that I or any other nominee also fails in that regard is of course welcome to present the reasons - in the form of things like actual quotations, not allegations.