[Peace-discuss] Nina Paley's panel, "material reality", controlling the debate .... was Re: [Peace] Panel at UFL today at 3

[Stuart Levy]

As to the non-repressive context, I agree.    As I've said elsewhere, I
don't support banning Nina Paley or her work.   I would like to see
Seder Masochism shown, including in C-U, and I want to see it.    I also
think she has legitimate complaints about tactics used by some trans
activists.   And I've seen those tactics used against my own sister, as
a writer, where I don't think even criticism was remotely deserved, let
alone the attempts to get her academic dept. to fire her or her
publisher to un-publish her latest book.   (Fortunately both stood firm
behind her.)

I *do* think that Nina is using her powerful position to say some
reactionary things, aimed at dehumanizing people.   Those arguments
should be powerfully criticized, and I'm here to criticize them.

What I'm hearing from Carl, David, Robert, seems to conflate the
repressive tactics with the substance of the argument over gender
presentation.

I think it's important to separate those.

During the Vietnam War, there were anti-war activists who felt strongly
enough about stopping the war that they did things like setting bombs on
campuses.

Probably most of us on this list wouldn't approve of that tactic.  I do
not.   But I'm sure it was convenient for the pro-war authorities.  
They could and did say, Look at that anti-war movement.   They are
irresponsible, and dangerous, and pro-communist, and the men are
long-haired, and they all need a bath.     Let me tell you how terrible
communism is and how righteous our war effort is.

What I'm saying is, the anti-Vietnam-war activists had important points
to make, and they expressed them in lots of ways other than throwing
bombs.   Don't only listen to the pro-war advocates in deciding what you
think - about variations on the theme of gender, in this case.

I'll respond separately on questions of gender.

On 3/29/19 9:41 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss wrote:
> I would only add, referring to an issue that indeed relates to issues
> of war and peace, that Chelsea Manning is of course an example of a
> transgender woman that I support, and her case raises difficult issues
> regarding women's spaces in prisons, and rightful medical treatment in
> relation to sex transition. Nevertheless, this and other issues should
> be discussed in a non-repressive context.
>
> On Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 3:05 AM Robert Naiman
> <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>>
> wrote:
>
>
>     I agree with David and Carl. There's something cultish about the
>     insistence that all progressive people have to toe the Party Line
>     of a particular group of "trans-gender advocates" on these questions. 
>
>     I think that people who support free speech should try to put a
>     stop to the depredations of this cult in Champaign-Urbana. 
>
>     On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 8:41 PM C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss
>     <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>     <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>
>         Eminent sense.
>
>
>         > On Mar 28, 2019, at 11:28 AM, David Green
>         <davidgreen50 at gmail.com <mailto:davidgreen50 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>         >
>         > Frankly, it mystifies me as to how trans-gender advocates
>         claim that sex and/or gender are not binary (on the one hand),
>         and then proceed to continue to invoke the binaries of
>         man/woman, male/female, masculine/feminine in legal, social,
>         political, and medical claims that simply accept and
>         re-assert/re-define those binaries. Why bother to go to the
>         trouble of becoming a "woman" or "man" when, as a binary,
>         these categories are claimed not to exist except as identities
>         to be freely applied to oneself, to be changed, to be
>         rejected, or to be reverted to if the choice doesn't happen to
>         be satisfactory in one way or another. It seems to me that
>         interrogating masculine/feminine gender characteristics within
>         the context of patriarchy and sexism could be done much more
>         effectively by acknowledging their biological foundations but
>         rejecting biological determinism in favor of cultural
>         evolution. It seems that trans advocates undermine this
>         project when they argue that the solution for those who feel
>         like the other sex to simply to become the other sex in what
>         turns out to be rather gender stereotypical behavioral ways
>         ("effeminate", "tough"), not to mention biological (hormonal,
>         surgical) ways.
>
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>
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