End Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Conference

Please help us spread this information.

2007 Joining Hands and Hearts
Lend a Helping Hand and a Loving Heart . . .

AND Let’s End Domestic Violence and Child Victimization
Conference

September 4-6, 2007
Marriott Baton Rouge, LA

Partner Scholarships are Available
Scholarships include lodging, conference registration, and
admission to all conference events.

CONFERENCE SPONSORS
LA Commission on Law Enforcement
LA Governor’s Office on Women’s Policy
LA DSS Office of Community Services
LA Children’s Trust Fund
LA District Attorneys Association
LA Foundation Against Sexual Assault
Baton Rouge Printing
Audio Visual Group
US DOJ Office on Violence Against Women Rural Domestic
Violence Funding Program
National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative

Angela Clark
Associate Executive Director
Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence
225.752.1296
Fax: 225.751.8927
website: www.lcadv.org
Louisiana State Domestic Violence Hotline Number
888.411.1333

The links below are to Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence 2007 Joining Hands and Hearts Conference. See info below. The files attached to the links are large so they may take a few minutes to open. Please help us spread this information.

 

Feminist Hullaballoo, Reuniting the Wild Sisters, Santa Fe, NM – Part A

Feminist Hullaballoo, Reuniting the Wild Sisters, Santa Fe, NM – Part A

The sharing of the Feminist Hallaballoo is not so much an account of events, although that will appear in some posts, but more that I will speak to what I was experiencing, what I felt, saw and the following excitements, thoughts, convictions, acknowledgments and all of that which goes into the basic category of what an experience this event was for me.

A special thank you goes out to Stillwater and Lucky for their hospitality, conversation and the grand opportunity to feel and get to know the women behind what is often this flat world, bland world of the Internet. Oh and what grand women you are. A special thank you to Heart for allowing me to see her, look at her face, her profile, know her and to get a wonderful glimpse of her essence. By now she has listened to one of my favorite songs, one which has my phrase, ‘oh no you didn’t’, “Freak of Nature” by Anastacia, “I’m a freak…” (dancing commences at an individual’s discretion)

Some of what I came away with, from this Hullaballoo, is a definite sense that an event such as the first, herstorical Feminist Hullaballoo in Santa Fe, NM was not so much as overdue, but that womyn are getting more than fed up and I am not sure that fed up is the correct phrase either. I will say, for those less informed, that the word Womyn, for those new to our language, womyn, wimmin, womon and all alternative spellings of the word woman/women belong to and mean female born only. Those words have no association with any person born male regardless of the amusing efforts of some males to place modifiers in front of ‘womyn’ or attempt to claim that word for those born male. You cannot have those words. So stop. We said, ‘no’. Make your own words for yourself, you cannot have ours.

The women (always said in the traditional and world accepted definition of the word ‘women’ meaning adult, genetic, biological females.) who attended this event ranged in ages and backgrounds. We are the women who have been in the trenches all across the world, many for decades. We have had many years to not only *do*, be activists, creators of change, but also time to reflect and analyze. Now, with experience behind us, we are more than capable and ready to accept the challenges brought forth in this 21st century.

There was a T-shirt at the Hullaballoo that read, “Older Women are Your Future” and I believe this. Older women blaze the paths for the younger women and offer many things, some of which is wisdom. There is much more to be discussed revolving around generational aspects of the women’s movement and that topic deserves its own thread.

I believe that any male, whether he is pro-feminist or just wishfully fantasizing that he is not a male, any male wanting to deny that he is and will always be of the people of man, any male who would think he belonged in a group such as the Feminist Hullaballoo, the Wild Sisters has to be thick or just stuck on stoopid. You can support from all angles, assist as you may, but when you read the word womyn, female, take note and understand that that event asks that you not show up or otherwise inject your body into female born only space.

I will add that any person born male who steps a foot onto Land that is for womyn only, steps into female only space uninvited is showing us what we have known forever and that is that males, regardless of presentation or identity, hate women and willingly disrespect those of us born female.

We know this. We know this of your class, the class of man.

We sense when you are among us and we are not ignorant of who you are and what you are. Just because we do not show you the only language that you seem to understand, aggression, does not mean that we do not see you; know who you are and what you are.

Here is a message, some information for males who think that they may claim entry to women’s land or female only space today, the males that think that you are fooling us with your identities and the males who think that we cannot see you. Hear this. We are saying, “No.”, “Stop”. We see you.

The days are over when we explained everything we thought we had to explain. We thought answering your questions would help you understand what being born female means in this man’s world, we thought that answering your questions would help you to respect us. You didn’t listen, you never intended to listen and we mis-spent energy. You never wanted to listen nor will you ever understand. You are male and you will never ‘get it’, ever, when it comes to what being female means, what it is to be born into this world second class, experience girlhood, womanhood. The days are done when you get the false impression, just because we are a peaceful people that you can walk onto our land, our space, walk over us.

Those days are done. Gone.

You may be wearing rose colored glasses, being held up by young people who have little sense of self, cannot recognize your behaviors, cannot see the larger picture, know of your ultimate intentions, you may think that you have ‘won’ and that you can claim a ‘victory’, but just know that it is over. Done. Men ‘win’ in wars, males celebrate ‘victories’ over women. You tell us what you are by your exclamations.

Just know all of these things and give serious thought to any disrespect of women’s land or space that may be contemplated. You will be foolish to ignore what the people of women have been asking of you. What we have been asking for is respect and honor, as equal human beings. You know all of this and yet you have intentions of violating female only space.

If you cannot show respect we will show you resistance. You will not like what you see. It will be not like anything you may imagine. We are capable and strong and we will show you what it is to be female and what happens when we ask to be honored and those born male violate us, ignore the intentions of the space we have built, disrespect, dishonor females and our rights to gather, as human beings.

I want to add, as a beginning, that Stillwater and I came across this idea, a concept of having a logo, one which is placed, after careful consideration, on blogs for example, a logo that denotes a ‘A Safe Space for Women’. This logo would say that “this space is safe, a space where we females/women/womyn can talk about what is important to us, we are safe here to express what we are thinking and feeling and that this space will not allow any person born male nor their agents to take over our conversation, bully, bash women or otherwise disrupt our words, thoughts or expressions.” A companion list of approved blogs or sites would be clickable through the logo.

I know that is a mouthful. I will have a post that will ask women to lend ideas for a logo that we will use as our signal of safe space. So, start thinking about creating a logo, slogan and a mission statement. This will be created by us and if I or anyone else has a question regarding whether any input is from a woman, a female, we will go the grassroots approach. Grassroots is where it is at. That is where we will be. Safe.

Uppity

 

Uppity Is Back…but

But, while away a person close to me, my partner’s Grandmother became ill. Her illness can be sordid, if told by some, the way she was found. She fell to old age, and was found/discovered in a state that was not becoming of her. The immediate ambulance ride said or did nothing to change this course she had mapped out for her exit.

She is 94 and has chosen this time of the year to cross over.

I always called her my ‘Planet Granny’, as she was my one granny, my one matriarch who is still on this planet. I adopted her first, then she me. I know that my blood matriarchies, all of whom have already crossed over, approved of Planet Grams, as my Planet Granny. She, my Planet Granny was a woman, an elder who I would speak with. She has/had no background in feminism, but guess what, she spoke clear to what it is to be born female and to be married/owned by a male and to have all of that affect your life.

My partner and I are, (the ‘us’ when I speak of us is my partner and myself), are busy at the moment, after a gut wrenching decision to remove artificial life support from her Grandmother, my Planet Granny. My time, her time, our time (us time) is slightly, well, actually entirely diverted to this special time in Gram’s life.

We will have a celebration of Gram’s 94 years on this Earth. Grams will pick the time. Her time. Grams is unable to say anything as most of her body, mind, brain has gone by the wayside, I am confident that when she is ready, as she sees who is waiting for her, she will say “See you there!” and I know that I will.
—end—

My time at the Hullaballoo was changed by knowing that Grams was beginning her crossing. I was there, in Santa Fe, away from her and her granddaughter through circumstances that we thought were of another causing. I was not home, near Grams, not knowing of the script in Gram’s life.

So, as it was done I was at a most life affirming conference of Radical Feminism, I felt again what it is to be born female and along the way, Grams was having a conference with her granddaughter. On passing…On crossing, On knowing…On all things that a Grandmother wishes to say to her granddaughter, all those things and more.

All the while, as I basked, learned, felt rejuvenated, Grams was talking, unable to move a muscle, but she said volumes, to her grand daughter. The same grand daughter that holds vigil, wanting to be there, to help her cross over, but knowing that the deal is done and that it is just the details that have to be ironed out and then Grams will know, from what some will say is this ‘unresponsive state’, that indeed, this chapter is closed. You don’t have to make a sound in order to have a person hear you.

Some say it will be hours, some say days. I say, it will be on her time, her script. So, stop guessing. I say, “See you there!”

I will drop in, probably over on Heart’s Blog, http://womensspace.wordpress.com/, when I am able to and leave a comment or two about the Hullaballoo. I took many photos and we have to sort them out and find the best way to punctuate her writing with some visuals.

Speaking of visuals, while I was away, I slept with someone; another person got a rear end view of me. Drama fuels the idle mind.

I had a hellova Hullaballoo, met Mary Daly which was a highlight. She signed three of her books for me. She also decided that a brand new book of hers that I slid under her writing hand needed some adjusting. SO, she folded the front cover of one book in half and made sure to run a heavy crease down the front. She must have intuited that I am a careful book keeper, making sure I don’t soil or otherwise damage a book. I laughed when I watched her make the fold, run a thumb down the crease and then make it final with a pound of her fist.

I will write more about the Hullaballoo in the upcoming weeks, sharing my thoughts and the energy.

Uppity

 

Uppity is Hullaballo Bound

I like vacations so much that I am taking a longer time off. This Thursday I head for the Feminist Hullaballo, http://www.feministhullaballoo.com/ ,in Santa Fe to hear Mary Daly, Sonia Johnson, Cherrie Moraga, Alix Dobkin, Afia Walking Tree, and other amazing womyn.

Film at 11.

 

Gone Fishing

Uppity is on vacation for the remainder of May. Gone fishing.

It’s my one time of the year to spend on the lake, reading, writing, chasing raccoons from camp and otherwise just being a slug. It’s just me, my partner, some worms, a boat, books, two cats and a dog.

All comments have been turned off. I have zero Internet access while at the lake.

Later,

UppityTheExtraordinaryAngler

 

Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, MWMF, 2007

Below is information regarding the 2007 Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. For those not familiar with MWMF, this festival has been happening for over 30 years and is a celebration of being born female. The Festival is for those born female only. Visit the website to get more info on cost, the performer lineup, workshops and other information regarding such topics as childcare, tips for firs timers , food (all food and concerts are included with your admission ticket) and much more.

We’re happy to announce the 2007 Performance roster for the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival! Mark your calendars, get the time off from work and borrow that camping gear - a week in the woods with a few thousand womyn is calling to you. Festival Dates: August 7-12, 2007 www.michfest.com Visit our myspace page for Festival updates and ongoing information. www.myspace.com/michfest

 

You are A Rapist If…

It is time to refresh what a rapist is. We often just get the glossed over version, defined by males and their court system, a system designed to ‘teach women a lesson’ by making reporting and prosecuting rapists a very difficult task.

If we had available a legal system that dealt with women and rape in a manner that reflected justice then more rapes would be reported and more rapists would be held accountable.

We don’t teach children what the definition of rape is. More rapes would be reported if the definition of rape was better known. It serves males when girls and women do not know what rape is, when they are not taught to recognize rape except in the male defined violations.

As it stands today, the justice system is seemingly irritated that one of their brothers was so dumb as to get caught raping, so they push him through the legal system, sometimes being able to help the guy out with a technicality and a dismissal, a slap on the wrist and sometimes convincing the female that reporting rape and pursuing justice is a rough road to hoe, convincing her to just drop it, not report it, just ‘deal with it’.

The male version of what rape is lacks depth and serves only males.

Below is a list of what rape is and who is a rapist.

 

From Den of the Biting Beaver:

Some things to remember…

1. You are a rapist if you get a girl drunk and have sex with her.

2. You are a rapist if you find a drunk girl and have sex with her.

3. You are a rapist if you get yourself drunk and have sex with her. Your drunkeness is no excuse.

4. If you are BOTH drunk you may still be a rapist.

5. If she’s alternating between puking her guts out and passing out in the bed then you’re a rapist.

6. If she’s sleeping and you have sex with her you’re a rapist.

7. If she’s unconscious and you have sex with her then you’re a rapist.

8. If she’s taking sleeping pills and doesn’t wake up when you have sex with her then you’re a rapist.

9. If she is incapacitated in any way and unable to say ‘Yes’ then you’re a rapist.

10. If you drug her then you’re a rapist.

11. If you find a drugged girl and have sex with her then you’re a rapist.

12. If you don’t bother to ask her permission and she says neither ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ then you could be a rapist.

13. You are a rapist if you ‘nag’ her for sex. Because you manage to ply an eventual ‘yes’ from a weary victim doesn’t mean it’s not rape. You are a rapist.

14. You are a rapist if you try to circumvent her “No” by talking her into it. She’s not playing hard to get, and, even if she IS it’s not YOUR responsibility to ‘get’ her. You’re still a rapist.

15. You are a rapist if you manipulate her into sex when she doesn’t otherwise want it. If you say, “If you loved me you’d do X” then you’re a rapist. If you say, “All the other kids are doing it!” then you’re a rapist.

16. If you threaten her, or act in a way that SHE thinks you’re threatening her then you’re a rapist. If you puff up and get loud and frustrated while trying to ‘talk’ her into sex then you’re a rapist.

17. You are a rapist if you don’t immediately get your hands off of her when she says ‘no’. You are a rapist if you take your hands off of her and then put them back ON her after 10 minutes and she eventually ‘gives in’ to this tactic.

18. You are a rapist if you won’t let her sleep peacefully without waking her every 15 minutes asking her for sex. Sleep depravation is a form of torture and YOU are a rapist.

19. If you’re necking with her and you’re naked and you’ve already gone down on her and she says ‘No’ to sex with you and you have sex with her anyway then you’re a rapist.

20. If you’re engaged in intercourse and she says ‘No’ at ANY point and you don’t immediately stop then you’re a rapist.

21. If she said “Yes” to sex with a condom and that condom breaks and you proceed anyway then you’re a rapist.

22. If she picked you up at a bar looking for sex and then decides that she doesn’t WANT sex and you continue then you’re a rapist.

23. If she changes her mind at ANY point for ANY reason and you don’t immediately back off or you try to talk her into it and get sex anyway then you’re a rapist.

24. If you don’t hit her and she says ‘No’ you’re still a rapist.

25. If you don’t have a knife or a gun or a garrote and she says ‘No’ then you’re still a rapist.

26. If you’re a friend of hers you can still be a rapist.

27. If you had sex with her the night before but she doesn’t want morning sex and you pressure her for it anyway then you’re a rapist.

28. If you’re her husband you can still be a rapist.

29. If it’s your wedding night and she doesn’t WANT to have sex with you and you force or coerce her anyway then you’re a rapist.

30. If she’s had sex with you hundreds of times before but doesn’t want to on the 101st time then you’re a rapist.

31. If you penetrate her anally, orally or digitally against her will then YOU my friend, are ALSO a rapist.

32. Women do not owe you sex.

33. Buying her dinner does not entitle you to sex.

34. Paying her mortgage does not entitle you to sex.

35. Buying her clothing does not entitle you to sex.

36. Buying her lingerie does not entitle you to sex. It also doesn’t mean that she has any obligation to wear that lingerie around you.

37. Spending any amount of money on her does not, ever, entitle you to sex.

38. Seeing her legs or cleavage does not entitle you to sex.

39. If she ‘turns you on’ you’re not entitled to sex.

40. If she has fucked every man in a 10 square mile radius and she doesn’t want to fuck you and you have sex with her anyway, then you’re a rapist.

41. Her clothing is not a reason for you to rape her. Her LACK of clothing is no reason to rape her. If she’s wearing a thong and pasties you STILL have no right to rape her.

42. If she’s a prostitute and she says “No” then you’re a rapist.

43. If she’s a stripper and she says “No” then you’re a rapist. Likewise, if she’s a stripper and she’s been rubbing against your dick all night long and you follow her to her car and have sex with her against her will then you are ALSO a rapist.

44. If you watch a woman being raped without calling the authorities then you’re as bad as a rapist and you may also be a rapist yourself.

45. If you don’t fight rape then you accept rape.

46. If you don’t believe a woman when she says she was raped then you’re encouraging rape.

47. If you choose to remain friends with a man who raped a woman you are encouraging rape.

48. If you confess to the authorities that you raped a woman it does not exonerate you. You are not suddenly a model of good behavior.

49. If you ‘only’ raped one woman, you’re STILL a rapist.

50. You cannot tell who is a rapist by the way they look. Rapists are your friends, your brothers, your fathers and you won’t know it.

51. Do not get frustrated with a woman if she doesn’t trust you. SHE already knows that rapists don’t wear signs on their foreheads. Something you think is innocuous SHE may find terrifying.

 

Day To Blog For The Women Who Support Us

 

 

This blog and those listed at the bottom of this post, are participating in a day set aside to honor a woman (always meaning born female) in our lives.

This is one woman that I honor.

 

Wannetta

Wannetta is her name. Native American Indian. I never knew that name in all of the time she was alive. She hid that name, buried that name. She gave that name its first death. Her life had been hard and she wanted so much to just to move about in this world as the white girls moved. She chose the name Juanita, a variation of Wannetta, so that she could have a chance, in this white world. She set aside the name Wannetta, dead, buried.

She was a child of a German man who married into a breed that was not valued. His wife was American Indian. They produced a half-breed, a child that was not valued in society. This child was my Grandmother, cast out, with her mother, living on a back porch of a relative that had small pity on her. The kind relatives allowed her and her mother space on the back porch with only a wood floor and a screen to keep them from the elements. Exposed to the harsh winter of Illinois, they huddled together in the dark and dreamed.

I am sure they whispered words of hope, mother to daughter. I am sure they whispered dreams that floated through the air to warm a soul.

Wannetta was buried, twice.

She buried Wannetta when she changed her name to Juanita, a white sounding variation of her given Native name, to hide herself, to become one of them, a white person. She was a teen when she buried herself for the first time and simply began to use a new name, without permission from any government. She had no choice in her mind, she had to escape being less than a dog, and she had to be white in order to have a chance at a life.

Her Grandmother had taken her in when she was a teen, but would not take in her mother. So Juanita grew, alone, weighed down with a bible thrust upon her chest. Her German grandmother was there to cure her of being a heathen.

Sin was to sing. Sin was to dance. Sin was to laugh with abandon. Sin was to dare be a woman who was somebody in her own right.

Juanita, reborn, with dark hair bleached blond, a blossom of a young woman, snuck from the weight, slid off into the night with a girlfriend and went to places that were deemed to be the holdings of Satan himself. And she sang, she danced, she smiled, and she became a part of this world. Her light was bright.

Juanita married a man while she was young, and brought five children into the world. The man made a decision during the Depression that he could do better without the weight of a wife and five children. He left her and the children to fend for themselves.

Juanita, alone, made her way doing a man’s job in the factory while the males were at war. She made nothing for a wage, but that was something. The real pay was reserved for the men, for when they returned from war.

Juanita was one of the women that, when I was running full speed, at times reckless, wild, a child, who watched over me yet allowed me to just be. She stood ready with a Band-Aid, but never stopped my expressions of who I am. She knew I would get bruised, and she knew I would be okay.

She stood by me, and I by her. Above all, we had each other.

When she was making her exit from this world, my name is one she called. I was her legacy, different than the others, and all that she wanted. I remain standing, in her honor.

After her death, when her children were going through her home, pouring over her possessions, I was prompted, by an energy and force unseen, to go to her closet.

It is there that I huddled, crying, sitting quietly. I looked down at my feet and saw a book. It was just a book. My fingers moved without direction and I opened that book and found a piece of paper tucked inside. I know she guided me to this place.

It was her birth certificate, and it held her name, Wannetta, her Indian name. The one she buried long ago. Her first death was the death of her Indian name. She wanted her name to be known now, to finally give life to the core of who she is/was after her second death which was the physical death.

She guided me to that place, amid the bustle of those dividing jewelry, selecting her possessions, so that I would know, know more of her, even in passing, and that I would learn the story I told today.

I emerged from the closet, calm and knowing I had found the true treasure. I showed her children, my aunts and uncles, the paper I had found, and they were in shock, as not one knew that their mother’s name is Wannetta, her Indian name and heritage, her name give by her mother, with love. The name she buried, the name she hid in a white world, the name she wanted to wear proudly if it had been a different world, a name that brought her home, in her beauty, a name that pointed to her core and a name that now honors her.

She remains in spirit, holds me close, offers the band-aide, and watches, as I explore, and run free.

Wannetta, who runs free,

finally.

also in the strong, born female ring: (click a link to read their strong womon story)

Ballastexistenz

Fate is Chance.
Destiny is Choice.

insultadarity

Shut Up, Sit Down

sinister girl

Stanselen

Touchingly Naive

Travelling Punk

 

Women’s Space

 

“HPV” Push A Pill In Your Own Hole.

So Much Bullshit, So Little Time

 

Kansas is thinking about a measure that would make it MAN-duh -tory for females to get a vaccination against HPV, (human papillomavirus).

You have ad campaigns that make “HPV” sound so, well, a woman and girl’s concern, and that she needs a shot, a pill, a defense against this cervical cancer.

Now, tell me, why aren’t they going after the cocks of boys and men, aiming their needle at the source of the virus, a virus that comes from the tips of a cock, and is one cause of cervical cancer in females?

Noooo, go after females, load us up with another injection, and other untested chemicals in our bodies and test it out on females, waiting to see ten or twenty years down the road, if that long, before dangerous side-effects crop up in the girls and women, then say, “Ooops”

GO AFTER the COCKS with your pills and needles. GO AFTER the SOURCE of this virus that causes CANCER in females, that comes directly from your COCKS, DICKS, DONGS.

Run some ad campaigns telling 9 year old boys that their dick causes cancer, and that they should get the virus taken care of, so that when they use a female as a fuck hole, (and they are already learning from the big boy’s porn to use females are fuck toys), they are GIVING HER CANCER. Scare the shit out of them; make them, bound by your LAWS, to get their diseased cock cured. Tell all the males that they are going to be bound by LAW to get tested, every year, to make sure that we get rid of the cancer carrying disease that they spew from their cocks, so that they stop killing females with their cocks.

Stop trying to put the onus on females. We don’t have the cocks that create this cervical cancer. Yet, little girls and women are expected to “protect yourself’, as if loading females up with pills and MAN-made injections is the real solution and the only. I have heard NOTHING in the media about a national campaign to pull back the skin of any guy’s dick and getting rid of his disease that creates Cancer in girls and women.

Who the hell is fucking NINE YEAR OLD GIRL children anyway? Why are little baby girls a target for this virus ‘prevention’?

Go after the dicks, and stop making females carry the burden of your experimental pills and needles.

Be a man about it, Grab onto each other’s cocks and one by one, cure thyself. Start THERE. Start in Peckerville, where the real problem begins.

 

 

 

Do Not Call Me Cisgender. You Do Not Have My Permission To Name Me.

Do Not Call Me Cisgender. You Do Not Have My Permission To Name Me.

 

Start/General definitions:

Cisgender is a neologism meaning “not transgender,” that is, a gender identity or performance in a gender role that society considers to match or be appropriate for one’s sex. The prefix cis- means “on this side of” or “not across” (cf. cisatlantic, cisalpine).

The term has been given credit as being created by Carl Buijs, a transsexual man from the Netherlands, in 1995. Additional roots show the name being used on a transgender website prior to 1995.

The term transgender was coined in the 1970s by Virginia Prince, a cross-dresser, transvestite, femmiphile, transgenderist in the USA.

End/General definitions

 

Do not call me cisgender. You have no right or authority to name me without my consent.

Cisgender is a word used by persons who have decided to name me without my permission.

Cisgender is not a name or identity that females, women as a class, have chosen for ourselves.

It does not come from us, as its origins are from a trans perspective, a person said to be a man, created by trans persons and used to name females/women as a class. Women have not agreed to be named by others, as has been done to us through history, being named, identified and defined by others.

You do not get to name me without my permission.

Do not call me cisgender. That is offensive to me. I am offended that you consider that you have power over me, and can name me.

Cisgender is an epithet, abusive, contemptuous and expresses hostility towards me.

I name myself. The names and words I use include female, woman, her, she, wimmin, womon, womyn. You have permission to use those words when addressing or referring to me.

You do not have the permission to call me names you have created for me, against my will and demand that I own them as mine.

Do not call me cisgender. That is your word, not mine.

Do not call me cisgender. I see that word as derogatory, more so when used in slang as a ‘cissie’.

Consider what you are doing to me when you presume to name me, and why I resist. You are naming me and as though I am powerless to name myself. You consider me less than. It is by your own words that you determine that you have the power to name me, that you have the power to define me … create a name for me, and that I have no right to resist.

Do not call me cisgender. You are demeaning me with your word.

I get to name me. You do not get to name me. You are not allowed to re-classify me according to what language suits your needs.

Males have been naming and defining women for a millennium and more. When you demand the right and proceed to take authority to name and define me, without my permission, you embody and keep company with male’s and man’s traditions. You violate me.

Historically, regarding all other human/civil rights movements, the idea was, oppressed people named THEMSELVES. They didn’t re-name their oppressors. To do so would have either been laughable or dangerous, mostly dangerous. Imagine black people telling white people that from now on, white people are going to be called ‘(whatever)’.

The fact that you presume to re-name me shows that I am indeed not your oppressor. You presume to re-name women because in fact women are NOT your oppressor, and even you know as much.

I am not your oppressor, although blaming women for the actions of the patriarchy is a common occurrence.

Do not call me cisgender. I am not less than or owned by you as property for you to name as you see fit.

Through your privileged position over me, you presume to re-name me.

Do not call me cisgender. That is your word and you have no right to name me. I refuse your word. You are not permitted to re-name me to suit your needs.

You do not have authority or permission to name me cisgender, a ‘non-’, or a ‘not-’.

I am a full human, a female, a woman; I am refusing to be renamed.

I do not embrace cisgender, your name for me. I am what I name myself.

I name me female, woman and myself.