“No cis men.” “Everyone but cis men allowed.” “Women and trans only.” If you’ve gone to queer dances, play parties, or readings you’ve likely seen these stipulations or something similar and might have thought, “Oh, good!” And, for quite some time I also was happy to avoid a population that so often attacks and dehumanizes trans women like me. I assumed that not having cis men in a space would create safety, and encourage my fellow non-cis men to accept trans women and form a community around our shared non-cis-man-ness. But this definitely never happened, and instead I noticed many unfortunate results of this identity-policing stand on party entry. Very little of it made me feel safe.
I started thinking about this some time ago when I was invited to a queer kink event. This event had their rules posted to their online invite, and “everyone but cis men,” was right next to rules of consent and about allowed photography. My stomach lurched when I read this rule, and despite not being as a cis man in the least, I began to wonder why this was so. The more I thought about why I was feeling odd about it, the more I realized the myriad of issues with this assumed gender presentation and assignment clause was bringing up for me. I decided not to attend this event, and spent the weeks since thinking through some of the rather unfortunate consequences this type of limitation can create.
For starters, and this should be obvious, not everyone that appears to a party door person as a cis man is a cis man. Many of my fellow trans women are often erased and hurt by the assumption that — perhaps because of the choices they’ve made about their body, their inability to use HRT, or their lack of access to surgery due to gatekeeping or finances — they are actually men. The rule to not allow cis men often means we trans women are required to pass a cis lady gaze test, presenting our gender in a way that is “woman” enough for the door folks. The idea that anyone besides ourselves can judge our gender is a painful falsehood. And if we dare to be butch or choose not to take hormones, we are likely to be barred or policed in a very uncomfortable manner from events that purport to be safer spaces for women like us.
It’s also clear that nearly everyone who is a trans woman was once seen as a cis man, and many of us were only able to figure out our gender, or learn how to transition, by being able to access spaces that showed us we could be trans; we could be women. Turning away someone who might be desperate to be allowed to be with other women, other queers, or other femmes due to their current presentation or identity falsely presumes that gender and sexuality are static, and not a spectrum or movement.
The rule of “no cis men” also places an odd onus on any trans men who are theoretically allowed into these spaces to either appear visibly trans, or find some other secret-handshake of “I’m a trans guy” in order to access these spaces. This too can be alienating or scary, as dealing with gender police at the door to a supposedly fun event isn’t good for anyone’s evening. Not to mention that a trans man shouldn’t be concerned with whether or not he appears cis in order to remain part of a community that pays lip service to trans men. What may be an act of safety or comfort in the cis or heterosexual world can then prove to be a limiting factor, and create a strange dichotomy between having trans community, accessing work, and experiencing daily safety.
A trans guy friend of mine recently related a story of being policed at a space for queer and/or trans folks. At the door he was IDed, and because his license read “male” and reflected his chosen name, the door person hassled him, then eventually security removed him — because, “obviously, you’re not a trans guy.” His protests of “I’m trans. Why would I make that up?” were to no avail, and his friends followed him to a bar nearby that didn’t presume to know or care about his body or identity. In this case, as in many others, there is really no comfortable way for him to prove his identity or history, nor should there be reason to. If we find ourselves in a place where only a blood test, our medical history, or genitals is the key to access a space, then we’ve created a space that favors the normatively attractive or cis among us.
Queerness itself isn’t always visible in the same ways from person to person, and can’t be dependably seen by any of us. What does queer look like? Is it a dress code? Is it a body? Is it a combination of personal feelings, and actions? Who has the right to say whether or not someone else is queer? Any rule that sets a person or persons up to judge another’s suitability to attend an event based on their perception is rife for abuse. Ultimately, these rules and exclusions don’t actually guarantee queerness, but instead allow for only acceptable types of relationships and people that may even self-identify as straight, but are still allowed in due to a presumption of queer bodies or identities. The supposition that you can know if anyone is queer or not also ends up targeting trans women and those folks who are femme, or otherwise present such that they “look straight,” protecting a narrow range of what is considered queerness.
Additionally, if the rules are meant to remove “those having penises” from these spaces, then the copious strap-ons and trans guys in a room are proof that this is also an ineffective policy. The idea that certain genitalia are more at fault for patriarchy or violence is a dangerous one that perpetuates more cissexism than safety. It also harms trans women, regardless of how we ideate or use our bodies, and it creates an exclusion that we may feel targeted by even if the sign says “trans women are welcome.” The idea that “penises” should be excluded also hearkens back to gross second-wave feminist ideas that all violence is male violence. While violence may be statistically higher in “men,” it isn’t necessarily limited to cis men, and may implicate masculinity more than assigned gender. The belief that queer relationship violence, or lesbian- or woman-perpetuated violence, doesn’t exist or is incredibly rare is the kind of gaslighting that can keep a partner or girlfriend of an abuser from seeking help or escaping a dangerous or abusive relationship. We can only truly limit abuse in spaces by watching for abusive behavior and having zero tolerance for it, without an eye towards how the person enacting it may appear or present to others.
I’ve also heard from many queer women or non-binary folks who were unable to bring their queer partner who appeared to the organizers as a “cis man” into a given space. This was often true despite the fact that their partner is a femme person, trans woman, or otherwise doesn’t identify as a cis man. Not only does this make these folks feel less interested in attending, it also unfairly punishes them for choosing partners that don’t adhere to whatever narrow belief of what “woman” or “trans” means might be held by the organizers. We shouldn’t punish each other for choices of partners, or police each other based on what we think queerness or transness must look like. This is likely to bar some great people from our spaces, while keeping a value of sameness and conservatism in appearance, attitude, and expression at the forefront of our groups.
There is much more to be said about the perpetuation of the allowable queerness in spaces being a tool of white supremacy as well, but that criticism deserves its own article, and for now I will just say that it’s no wonder so many queer spaces are very, very white, and leave it at that. We should know better, and learn how to stop hurting those we claim to protect.
In order to move forward in our organizing and access to our events, we first must honestly look at what and who we are interested in having in our space. What are the behaviors we want to encourage or discourage? Are we trying to create a space for people who are often marginalized to feel safer exploring their sexuality, or meeting others they might be interested in dating or befriending? How does any rule around identity limit or aid these goals? Are we actually punching up when we try to make these spaces, or are we creating new ways of attacking some of the same people often targeted by the patriarchal or heterosexual mainstream we declaim?
These are hard questions, but without asking them we risk reifying the same awful identity politics and policing of the past 40+ years of queer society, which have not gotten us to a better place for the most marginalized. The answers to these questions will likely reveal a lot about the prejudices we hold, some against our outwardly spoken politics, and the fears we have about certain bodies, identities, or persons in or around our spaces. The assumptions and fears that we have are often based less on reality, and more on bogeymen we’ve created through years of oppressive dialogue and writing.
In my exploration of this issue, I’ve found that the reasons for the rules like the one discussed above are usually explained as a way to create a safer space, and block abusers or creepers from these spaces. But by hinging this on perceived cis men, these rules pretend that individuals who aren’t cis men can never be abusers, that only they can perpetuate patriarchal abuse. This is disastrously untrue. I would suggest instead that if the actual goal is to limit abuse and trouble, those behaviors should be targeted instead, and people removed for words or actions which make other people feel unsafe.
Much better than attempting to judge who other people are is to simply stipulate that attendees identify as queer, or a woman, or femme (depending on your goal), and assume they know better than you who they are. We must remove ourselves as the judge of someone else’s gender, presentation, or sexuality and accept that they will seek out and go to spaces which match who they are. And, frankly, even if a small number of attendees are lying about their identity, these few folks will be held to the same standards of behavior as the rest of the attendees, and may ultimately learn more about how to move differently in the world. If we create spaces like this, open and accountable spaces where everyone is held to the same code of conduct, consent, or speech — which ought to hinge on what they do, and not who they appear to be — then we will actually be creating the kinds of safe spaces we want and deserve.
If only there were an easier way to just go ahead and specify “everyone but creeps and jerkwads”.
This way seems designed to put creeps and jerkwads in power.
Tbh this article is super hard for me to read, after seeing this kind of thinking hurt people I care for, in places they had been told to not expect it. 😐
Thanks for writing this; you’re shining a light on an important issue.
I’m the leader of a polyamorous women’s group (mostly just meaning I pay the Meetup subscription fee), and we’ve struggled with finding the line between the usefulness of woman-only spaces and the inherent issues that arise when trying to limit a group by gender. (Because whenever you start trying to define gender you start to realize how undefinable it is.)
Currently, our official language is, “We are open to all women – cis, trans, or genderqueer.” It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest we have for now, and it seems to work well enough. As I identify less and less as a woman, I wonder about the appropriateness of my heading up the group, but we have not crossed that bridge just yet.
My church has a Young Women’s Prayer Group, and the language they’ve settled on is “all self-identified women welcome.” It seems to be working out ok so far.
I usually tell groups that ask to use “trans, genderqueer, and cis women welcome” – explicit welcome is a nice thing. “self-identified” sometimes smacks too much of “ok, honey, whatever you think you are”… which is likely not what is meant by including that.
I’ll pass that along to the group leaders, thanks. I know the initial thought process was to try to be as concise as possible, while still making the inclusivity clear, but yeah, it would be good to avoid unfortunate implications. Thanks!
This is a little delayed, but I try to avoid wording like “identifies as” or “preferred pronouns” because it can imply doubt. I am agender, my pronouns are they/them vs I identify as agender and my preferred pronouns are they/them. The latter feels…negotiable? Like it’s optional.
I know an online women’s group which has, after some discussion, settled on the following.
* Trans and cis women welcome.
* Non-binary people welcome if they feel that a women’s group is an appropriate place for them to be. Some do, some don’t. The decision is up to the applicant/member rather than the group.
* If a member of the group comes out as a trans man, they get to decide how they go about this, but what seems to happen is that they leave since a women’s group is no longer an appropriate place for them to be. There’s no rush or pressure, though.
In order to join the group, the rule has always been that two existing members of the group have to vouch that you are living as a woman. A cis friend of mine fell foul of this, she had the two vouches but apparently the group didn’t believe she was a woman. I think this was a few years ago, before I joined, and hopefully the policies are better now, since they have been extended to “living as a woman or non-binary person who’s comfortable in a women’s space”. I’m still a bit uneasy about that, though.
Thanks for this article!
I graduated from a women’s college, and my alma mater and its siblings have been struggling lately with how to phrase admittance rules without excluding trans folks. I wonder what Toasties think about these “rules” when it’s not just for a party or event, but something more official and long term like a college?
Mine settled on, paraphrased, “we accept anyone who identifies as a woman upon admittance (to be verified only by writing a letter that you identify that way) and then we don’t care about how your gender changes when you get here”, which I think is about as good as they could get, and I am ECSTATIC that it finally includes transwomen, but it still leaves room for plenty of awkwardness and gender policing on campus. Others have gone the “anyone but cis men” route.
It’s especially hard when you have a college that is centering women. When folks transition to genders that are not “woman” or in other ways decide to center “man” or “other than woman” it can be a big mismatch with a college like yours. I don’t know what the answer is, except to continually encourage the centering of PoC, and/or queer, and trans women. The goal should be to amplify and empower the voices of the marginalized.
I also attended a school that has adopted this policy recently (maybe the same school?!) and something I struggle with is how do we hold our brethren who have decided to transition to not-women along with very much centering woman-experience. There was something really powerful about spending four years in an environment where woman was default. At the same time, I want to be really careful about using rhetoric to shove not-woman students back into the gender that they were assigned at birth, while also feeling REALLY strongly that women’s colleges should be centering women. I am tremendously proud of my school, as I believe the new policies do a lot of important work in terms of continuing to center woman-experience.
My alma mater, also a women’s college, recently adopted the same policy. I think it’s probably the best way to approach it, and I’m glad they finally have an official policy in place, but I have no doubt that there are ways in which it will fall down.
Ugh. Yes.
My personal thought is that anyone who hasn’t had male privilege their entire life (so– not cis men) can benefit from an AWC, and the community can benefit from their regular presence.
There are some obvious challenges in making this a policy. And I think there are some other highly defensible positions, especially when we get into nuance.
And, frankly, there are plenty of implementation challenges I think are okay in terms of —- well, that’s just the cost of doing business. Like, yes, at some point, a cis dude is going to apply and get into an AWC by saying he’s genderqueer (or something else) (even though he’s not), and maybe he gets in, and maybe he attends, and BOYHOWDY is he going to be wildly unpopular and he is likely to transfer out because he will have zero friends. So you beef up your expectations of students beforehand to make sure that anyone of any gender identity, real or assumed, will get kicked out if they do something truly shady. But the institutional fear of this shouldn’t prevent actual young trans girls from applying.
What I am truly concerned with is making sure AWCs hold up to legal challenges, and that the way they update their policies doesn’t end up with courts requiring that cis men, identifying as cis men the entire time, end up gaining admission. This part of things is a largely unknowable mess. There really truly are ways that non-cis-women could be included that could create serious legal headaches. I don’t think that means we shouldn’t make significant progress on this stuff, only that if AWCs are doing this in a thoughtful and responsible manner, they should be moving slower than the social-justicey part of me wants them to. (just… they should still be moving.)
in retrospect, I meant to include this point more specifically somewhere in there—
When it comes to a college that gets federal funding in the US (and that includes student loans), they have to be careful about their admission policies. While a festival or open mic night or facebook group can hope for reasonable success with “look, this is a space/event centered on this sort of people, we’re not going to ask what’s in your pants, we’re going to trust who shows up”, it gets more complicated for colleges ( mostly because of title ix).
AWCs are struggling with “who do we serve” and “how do we craft an admission policy that encourages and allows the people we serve and not other people” while ALSO dealing with “is this legal” and “if we screw this up, do we also mess things up for other AWCs”. None of it’s easy, it’s just also necessary.
What’s an AWC? (I’m assuming you’re not talking about the Aviation Weather Center or the American Wood Council).
I would guess it’s an all-women’s college?
There was an article in the press recently about children coming out as trans at single-sex schools (I’m in the UK, so I’m talking about under-18s). In some cases, they were coming out as trans with only 8 months left of school to go, in the middle of doing their A-levels and applying to university, and the schools had agreed there was no point making them leave at that time. It would be harder if someone came out when they were, say, only a year into a seven-year school, and changing school may well be appropriate at that point.
“Trans women, cis women, and non-binary folks who feel comfortable in a women’s space” seems to be a good rule. If someone comes out as a trans man at a women’s college, then it would probably make sense for them to leave if it’s early on and stay if they’re close to the end. The “anyone but cis men” rule is bad enough already, but applying it to women’s spaces is saying that you don’t think trans men are really men.
“We can only truly limit abuse in spaces by watching for abusive behavior and having zero tolerance for it, without an eye towards how the person enacting it may appear or present to others.”
THIS. I totally get the context of how and why identity politics came to be, but the tragic result is that we define ‘safe space’ by identity instead of behaviour, which enables people deemed ‘safe’ to do shitty things and then claim that they aren’t even capable of abuse etc because only white cis straight men do that.
Exactly this. Can I quote you?
For sure!
Thank you so much for writing this. This kind of exclusion has always seemed dangerous and hateful to me, and reminiscent of the anti-bisexual sentiment I got from “real” gay people in college. I liked your point about gender involving movement- sexuality does that, too, but we don’t talk about it much.
This is a really great piece, thank you so much for writing it.
Not that I am a terribly social person by any standard, but I am always incredibly uncomfortable with events that are “women and trans people” only. Because, at least in my experience, like you allude to, they are almost always meaning “cis women and AFAB trans people.” As a trans man, I don’t think I should be in spaces that feel like they are primarily meant for women (cis and trans), but it’s really fucked that I know I would probably be far more welcome or be more comfortable in that space than trans women. It’s one of things I hated most when I lived in New York.
Your point about being a trans man in spaces primarily meant for women is something I’ve been thinking about recently. I’m part of a sports group for women, where most if not all the participants are queer, and recently a few trans men have been coming to some events. They’ve been completely welcomed. I really doubt a cis man would be received in the same way, though I certainly hope a trans woman would (to my knowledge, there are none in the group, probably further evidence of the problem your comment is highlighting).
To be clear, I also have no problem with the trans guys being part of the group; mostly I am just surprised they want to be!
I obviously can’t speak for these men, but for me, prior to transitioning, my friend group and my community was predominantly queer women and AFAB genderqueer/non-binary people, and once you transition there’s no, like, authority on high that bequeaths you a group of male friends or teaches you how to find friends/community with them, so being in queer women’s spaces and hanging out with queer women was what came most comfortably. And I know this is the case with a lot of trans men who are in my life.
There’s also, in some communities and social circles (especially in large cities) some weird social capital that comes with being a trans man in the queer community, because, like, patriarchy.
My special friend, who is nonbinary, basically has said that it’s been the queer women in their life who were most supportive of their transition. Certainly, that’s not the experience of all nonbinary people, but they have said they struggled to figure out their gender and also honor the community of a queer women which supported them. Like, they aren’t a woman, but that community of women is their community and that’s a weird place to be in, I think.
It is. I definitely feel that. It has taken me a long while to get comfortable and make new friends outside of the communities that I developed my queer and trans identity in.
I’m glad you’re developing new friendships. That being said, this queer woman, for one, is happy to welcome you into her community any day.
Yeah it definitely depends on social situation. I did not have a support network much less a big group of cool queer cis female friends early in my transition (I guess that’s a thing), but I did know a lot of really nice people mostly who were queer cis men, trans women, and just regular old decent straight people (amazing!) and it actually kind of bothers me when people assume that FAABtrans = benefitting from worship/support of network of queer cis women, like, some of us do just live in the straight world and do our best and have like 3 friends! “Butch looking” is not a, uh, axis of privilege despite what some bubbles of women’s college conclude.
Well, an obvious problem with “women and trans people” is that it strongly implies that trans women are not women and trans men are not men. No wonder you’re uncomfortable with it. A women’s space that accepts trans men but not trans women is heavily transmisogynistic, as the Michigan Womyn’s Festival was notorious for being. Thankfully, it is no longer running.
Thank you for writing this — this is a highly persuasive and educational essay. I agree there absolutely should not be policing at the door.
I wonder if there’s a way to create events (like in my town, recurring dance parties) that are described as “for women, trans, genderqueer people,” or otherwise encouraging them to attend, but not explicitly prohibiting any group of people.
I’ve only gone once so far to the aforementioned party, and I did find it liberating, especially because the last time I went to a so-called LGBT nightclub to dance, I had real, real issues with single men standing and watching on the edges of the dance floor. And later hitting on me. I’m already a self-conscious dancer, I can’t stand the idea of strange men getting anything out of watching me at their leisure.
Maybe that’s the answer–wording it as “for” or “by and for” or something, rather than “not for,” and then (importantly) not policing people for their presentation. I think in a lot of cases (definitely not always, but a lot) just naming the people you want to encourage to come to your even is going to help draw them, and maybe even deter some people you don’t want (e.g., cis anyones who are going to be assholes about hanging out with queer people).
Surely that’s still “anyone but cis men”, though?
Straight cis people going to LGBT clubs for various reasons has been a problem for decades, and I don’t think there’s an easy solution to it. I’d rather have cis women feeling a bit uneasy because there are men staring at them than trans people being gender-checked and excluded, if it comes to that. Do you at least have a choice of clubs, so that some are less prone to this problem?
I actually don’t think saying “this event is for women, trans, and genderqueer people” is the same as saying “anyone but cis men.” It’s true that one may form the latter conclusion from the former, but the difference is you’re not actually prohibiting any group of people (and that message has to be backed up by the organizers, should anyone ask, or even with a website disclaimer) — and you’re not door-checking attendees.
I don’t see another way to even have an event intended for these groups if you’re not willing to say who you want to be there — to invite them.
I think location does matter. I’m not a big club-goer, so that night out I described was my one and only visit to that venue. It was downtown, in an area with a lot of different kinds of clubs, so it made sense that straight people could just wander in (despite the rainbow lights).
The other place I went to, which is marketed as “anyone but cis men” (note: I haven’t actually seen those words in official descriptions, it’s a word-of-mouth thing), is located in a different part of town, on the second floor of a building. It’s not so easy to stumble into, unless you’d already heard about it.
My favorite on so far has been “all those who identify as women and those whos identity includes woman” (including political identification) which seems to have worked well for the group using it so far.
“We can only truly limit abuse in spaces by watching for abusive behavior and having zero tolerance for it, without an eye towards how the person enacting it may appear or present to others.”
THIS. Applies to so, so many things, even beyond access to queer/safe spaces! Thank you for writing this.
That ID-at-the-door thing is really messed up and fucked up.
About 10 years ago I lived in DC and the lesbian bar, Phase One, had a policy that men had to be accompanied by a woman to be allowed in. That bar is, I think, 50 years old so that policy was held over from a more gender essentialist time. I don’t know if the policy still exists.
It’s a problematic policy, no doubt. I do like the idea, though, that men are allowed in. They just have to be vouched for by a woman. It’s kind of a “no unaccompanied minors” sort of policy. Like, people with cis male privilege may occupy this space, but if they step out of line, you better get your friend. Kind of a white people invited to the bbq thing.
That’s a common policy for a lot of swinger groups too, though in that context it’s a bit ickier. It has more of a vibe that women are a valuable commodity, so if you’re going to participate you’d better contribute “something” of value (i.e. a female companion to “share”).
But the upshot is that those policies also prevent the events from becoming overwhelmed with creepy single men? So it’s not all bad I guess?
It has more of a vibe that women are a valuable commodity, so if you’re going to participate you’d better contribute “something” of value (i.e. a female companion to “share”).
Oh, ick. The whole point of this article is that there is no way to police space without screwing up, so I guess this shouldn’t surprise me. But reading that sentence just made me shudder at my desk.
Yep. Barf.
One distinction that occurs to me is that you can have a policy of “many men can be accompanied by one woman,” or a policy of “no more than one man per accompanying woman,” and the latter is distinctly more icky.
But, yes, my impression of the swinger-group policies is that they’re based on the expectation that otherwise they will get lots of hopeful single men (creepy or not) and things will be Unbalanced.
The thing is though, that it works. I am so conflicted by it, but it’s so much more pleasant at the sex club I go to now, which has those swingers rules (except for special events, like queer parties) than it was at a previous one that had no door rules. It was meant to be Q/T inclusive, but we stopped going because it became full of guys trying to touch you without asking all night. (My favourite was “I’m just voyeuring” while he was masturbating less than an inch from my nose. You can watch all you want, but I need room for my writhing without bumping into your dick.) The people who ran it didn’t want that, obviously, and they were happy to remove non-consent touchers, but, like, you had to stop your scene, find a bouncer, try to find and recognize the guy to point him out to the bouncer, then try to get back into it. you couldn’t have a fun night doing that two or three times.
It can be slightly annoying now trying to match up our numbers when we go to the new place so that every dude arrives with a woman, but my domestic partner relationship is with another woman, so we can get two of our male friends (the kind with benefits, obviously) in. It’s not usually a problem.
I still disagree with door policing in general, for all the good reasons stated here, and it sucks that our pervy posse who goes out to these nights can probably never bring an NB friend. I stay away from gender policed social (and political) events but I’m just admitting that I’m ok attending such sex events. And I don’t know what the answer is, other than brightly lit rooms with a bouncer in every corner, which isn’t that sexy (unless that’s your thing…)
Yep. Without some kind of door-policing or going strictly invite-only I don’t see how to keep out the mis-behavers who ruin it for everyone. Every non-gender-restricted, women-attended, kink event I’ve been to is full of literal pervy wankers of the cis-straight-male variety.
The gay boys don’t have this problem at their events, go figure.
I’ve only gone to queer events of this ilk, but they just say “identify as queer” and weren’t strictly invite-only, but were more hush-hush – you had to join a group on fetlife, and then they would send you the details.
I’ve had some really bad experiences with drunk straight girls refusing to respect my personal space when at events (not specifically kink related play events) The worst, creepiest ones are usually straight cis males, but it’s worth pointing out that anyone can behave like an insensitive thirsty loser.
I think invitations would appeal to me most, but it would be difficult to meet new people.
Phase One closed again recently, but I don’t think that it still had the policy. Other DC Toasties may know for sure, though.
Sounds like the policy was being Phased out. (http://www.badum-tish.com/)
This is sad, because any queer space closing is sad, but also because I LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED at the name “Phase One” the first time I heard it. So many hilariously named gay bars, but this MIGHT be the most entertaining? (Maybe not. “Plan B” in Madison, WI is pretty amazing..)
I know of a local intersectional group that does something like this. I’m a bi disabled woman, so I qualify, and there’s also a good focus on POC, and I think QTIPOC-only nights (I’m whitre). A friend of mine was giving a reading on a general night, and we wanted to go along to support her. I need my (cis white male) partner to push my wheelchair, contacted them to ask about this, and they were fine. In the end, I was too ill to go, but they said they were OK with him going on his own, and it meant our friend had someone there to support her. Her reading was about a difficult subject and she appreciated having a friend there. My partner said it was a great night, and he felt a little odd going along since it wasn’t really his space, but they had explicitly given him permission and were happy to have him there. That seems to be a good approach.
Thank you for writing this! I’ve been thinking about this issue a LOT – as it relates to the queer scene in Austin, specifically (though I know it’s not the only city with this problem), so I wonder if we even have some of the same events in mind. This is really thoughtful and I can’t wait to share it with my queer pals!
I’m, by all but the loosest definitions, a straight, cis guy- but I was raised by lesbian separatists (mum was heavily involved in the womyn’s spirituality movement and ran in Z. Budapest’s crowd). For most of my life, the queer community was my only community. My childhood mentor, a bear of a gay man, was my only masculine influence outside of grandparents and school. Technically, my mum tried to raise me as gender neutral, but given the environment I mostly presented in feminine ways.
At school during the 90s, I was known as ‘the girl in the boys locker room’ (I remember once, on the first day of class, the gym teacher needing to call the office to make sure I was a boy). When, in elementary school, I was asked “which girl do you want to marry?” I responded with “I’d rather be one than marry one.” I thought that was the safe answer- after all, marriage was a patriarchal institution used to enslave women socially and economically.
I was afraid to use public bathrooms for most of my childhood. Whether it was the teacher threatening to take me to the principal for using the boy’s bathroom (the only reason she didn’t is that ten or so other boys had just stared at me as I nervously used a urinal to prove I was in the right room, and they vouched for me), or hiding in a stall at as a belligerent man yelled at me for being a pervert, or, well… if you’re familiar with the trans community, you know the type of stories.
But for all of this, I was AMAB, and I identify as masculine. For most folks, this puts me squarely in the cis camp. So even in groups led by folks that recognize my background, at least 1/4 to 1/2 of the trans community present at any given time will see me as a face of the oppressor.
These policies, and the culture that supports them, mean that I am often explicitly- and almost always implicitly- banned from the only communities I had as a child, and from the only people who have the language and experiences to really understand what I’ve gone through.
Ram Lama, I don’t know if you realize it, but your argument sounds like #notallcisstraightmen. You’re not trans, or queer, but you HAVE SUFFERED and you’re NOT LIKE THE BAD ONES, so you should be welcome in queer and trans spaces?
I mean, it’s 100% legit to say that we just shouldn’t have exclusionary spaces, but that doesn’t sound like what you are saying.
I’m saying I’m an example of the unintended consequences of the policies and culture- that, even though my experiences and values have huge overlaps, I’m seen as an outsider. Instead of being seen as someone who needs support because I experienced the same traumas, I’m seen as a threat. That’s an understandably frustrating position to be in.
The author described several unintended consequences of gender policing. I know that my experiences are something most folks wouldn’t think of, so it seemed appropriate to share them.
While Ram Lama identified himself as masculine, it really sounded like he was describing himself as AMAB but gender non-conforming, and someone who could benefit from access to such spaces. You, or any event organizer, have the right to door police what type of bodies and identities you choose to allow in the spaces you control, but the unintended consequences of doing so can be counterproductive.
My partner is a cis straight male who experienced homophobic bullying at school, since people thought he was gay. So he has experienced a certain amount of homophobia, but still gets cis straight privilege, and does not seek to invade LGBT spaces. He’s often welcomed as an ally and my partner, though, especially since I need him to push my wheelchair, and has been to LGBT picnics, Pride and so forth.
I can see how ram lama’s post sounds a little privileged-defensive…. but I also think he raises an important point:
what’s the long-view plan for safe spaces? are safe spaces for people with shared experiences of oppression or for people with certain identities? I identify as a cis woman, but sometimes I think it’s be more accurate to say I identify as a cis genderqueer person, since, at least within my family, I was not pushed much into gender roles. i have been comfy with my assigned gender, but my assigned gender was not super gendered. regardless of my gender *identity*, I do consider myself to have a lot of gender *privilege*.
It’s hard to explain, but I wonder where present and future children of queers and radicals will fit into all this. On one hand people like me and maybe Ram Lama have a lot of privilege from our gender neutral-ish upbringings. Since I have this privilege I don’t think I should be a priority in queer spaces. But I also wonder about the long-term of queer and queer-supportive communities.
What happens when there start being (more) cis genderqueer or cis gender neutral people?
I don’t have an answer but I’m interested in the question.
I agree that the question is important. As time progresses, I think people will start to see the same flaws in the trans/cis binary as they do in the gender binary: the hard edge serves a political and community need right now, but that same edge also causes a lot of chafing for people with liminal identities.
To append the note about gender neutrality as privilege, though: almost all of the women who were around me as a kid self-identified as radical feminists (it often went hand-in-hand with lesbian separatism in the 80s).
I had two childhoods: the idealistic gender neutral one, and the one that comes from being raised by people whose largest unifying factor is traumatic experiences associated with people that look like you.
Men were rapists. Men were violent. Men were the causes of all wars, social injustices, and economic inequalities. Men were the root of all evil. Any abusive behavior from women was because of the influence of men. I coped by veering to the femme side of behavior. As a teen, I looked towards genetic chimerism or syndromes like Klinefelter’s to explain to myself why I didn’t meet the descriptions.
So I got all of the abuse that comes from being openly trans femme in elementary and middle school during the early 90’s. I outright told the other kids I wanted to be a girl. I’d go to school in dresses. I ‘passed’ well enough that a nurse- while holding my medical charts- asked me if I’d begun menstruation yet.
Now that I’m in my thirties I look in the mirror and see a bearded man, and it means tackling all of that early programming head on. I’m not an exception. I’m not different. I’m another man.
My transition has been from femme to masculine. The femme identity was largely a result of trauma and unintentionally hostile gendered social expectations in my home environment, and the masculine identity comes with a stupefying amount of baggage.
Under the defensiveness is a lot of pain. I had an inexorably queer childhood and foundation. I can’t renounce my masculinity- that’d be taking a step backwards in my transition- and I can’t expect people who identify cis men as triggers to feel safe around me. All I can do is occasionally, in moments like this, say that I exist.
I’m sorry that you had to go through that. It sounds like a ton of toxic baggage to dump on a kid.
Figuring out who we are is difficult in the best of circumstances, I can’t imagine how hard it has been.
THANK YOU for writing this, this has been pissing me off FOREVER.
Yes, yes, yes. Another example of people claiming to be dismantling the patriarchy, but really just rearranging it to place themselves at the top.
I hesitate to even bring this up, but The Toast has an uncommonly good comments section, so here goes: my single most unpopular social justice opinion that I have is that I don’t believe in safe spaces.
This is not say that I don’t believe in them ideologically, the way I don’t believe in Donald Trump or objectivism. I mean I don’t believe they can exist in a literal sense, like the Loch ness Monster. Everyone should be safe from physical harm, and that’s why we have laws regarding violence and so on. But you cannot remove even the possibility of harm; how can it be predicted? If we could, would it be ethical to blame someone for something they haven’t done yet? Obviously a group can and should expel known abusers, but deciding a whole category of people count as potential abusers is a sketchy proposition at best. Like I don’t think ‘this demographic is garbage because {insert reasons here]’ has ever worked out in human history. Yes, even when referring to cis men. Because I really wonder where that leaves gay cis men. It’s like people believe that they’re oppressors now, narcs who skip along hand in hand with straight society. That isn’t true, to say the least.
And when you get into emotional rather than physical harm the proposition gets even stickier. How are competing needs – as will inevitably arise among any group of people larger than a single individual – supposed to be managed. I don’t know. I’ve just never seen anything labelling itself as a ‘safe ‘space’ not turn into an unsafe one pretty damn quick.
I don’t think this is an unpopular opinion! I think there’s a vast misunderstanding of what a “safe space” is. To me it’s always been an abstract ideal that you can glimpse through mindful, mutual effort, and an event or organization that wants to **attempt to foster a safe space** means “we agree to be mindful and TRY HARD” so that we MIGHT glimpse that ideal, how Nina Simone defined “freedom” as being “no fear.” People use it like another binary thing that can be turned on and off by will of one or two people in charge.
Safe spaces can be found most often in our intimate lives when we are at our best with loved ones. A glimpse of no fear in a public space though? I’ve seen it in the corner of my eye maybe a half dozen times in my whole life.
Maybe it has something to do with the idea that declaring a safe space makes it so. What makes an environment (classroom, group, etc.) safe? Is safe space a short hand for respectful communication or behaviour? Does it mean disagreement is not acceptable? It seems like the safe space idea gets a lot of baggage forced onto it by critics. I don’t know if the safe space idea is valuable and productive in some cases, but I think that any discussion about it gets counterproductive fast.
Except for the Toast, because it is a refuge.
There’s also questions of “safe space for who?” My ex tends to point out that she has lots of emotional scars from self-identifying-as-Feminist (as in, this is held as a core identity) women emotionally abusing her for not conforming to their ideas of feminism, and so she feels deeply emotionally unsafe in women-only spaces in ways that she doesn’t in mixed-gender spaces.
Likewise, as a cis male, I tend to feel uncomfortable in male-only spaces that are about anything emotion-related, because I deeply do not identify with, and emotionally distrust, a lot of male enculturation that my male teenage peers subscribed to.
I totally agree with this. I would write more, but I have a migraine and my brain is not functioning, so I’ll just have to settle for agreeing.
I feel like I have super-missed the bus on the safe space thing. When I was in college in the early 2000s, “safe spaces” on our campus were places that had lockable doors and an adult with a phone staffing them. They were meant to be a place that anyone facing physical violence should try to get to. And they had queer symbols on the doorway, but they were made for anyone in danger.
But now apparently it’s something else? And it’s a bad thing?
Yeah, I’ve always been skeptical of the movement to label any group meeting place as a “safe space.” Seems like an impossible guarantee. And maybe it is, as Kelsey said, a matter of misunderstanding the term — but I’m pretty sure damn near everyone misunderstands it, then, to the point that I don’t know if it does any good.
Maybe we should rename them “safer spaces”, like “safer sex”, where you can’t be 100% safe due to risks of condom breakages etc., but you can have a damn good try, and you make it clear that you are doing so and that it is an important thing.
“Queerness itself isn’t always visible in the same ways from person to person, and can’t be dependably seen by any of us. What does queer look like? Is it a dress code? Is it a body? Is it a combination of personal feelings, and actions? ”
This. Thank you for writing this and all of this
Thank you so much for this. As a queer cis male, I understand 100% that these spaces aren’t for me. I hate the idea that I might be colonizing a space that wasn’t meant for me, and I try my best to be cognizant of those situations and deal with them (while understanding that my privilege may sometimes blind me to certain issues).
That said…I wish these types of spaces wouldn’t call themselves queer spaces, generally. I am queer. I’ve worked hard throughout my life to come to terms with my identity and what it means to me, and to be told that I’m not welcome in a space set out for queers makes me feel like my identity is a sham. Like I’m lying about it. I know it’s not about me and my feelings, and I have so much privilege in so many walks of life that to quibble about this is petty, but it still does hurt. I wish people would just call it a “women, trans, genderqueer” space or something else more specific that allows the organizers to create the type of space they want without denying people access to their own identities, rather than a “queer space” where the rules are no cis men. I’m proud of being queer, and I won’t let straight people take that away from me, and I really hope queer people won’t either.
All of that said, I rarely see this out in the world, so it’s ultimately a tiny issue, driven by my own insecurities. I just wanted to share. And thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this topic – I hadn’t thought about it in quite the same terms before.
Thank you for this post, Brook–like lots of other folks, I feel it’s really important.
No one’s mentioned the flap going on here in the UK recently regarding the Green Party’s women’s group inviting ‘non-men’. The rather toxic anti-trans mainstream feminist media has had a conniption. Personally, I don’t think the wording was the right move (I’d have gone with ‘cis women and gender-non-conforming people’, though that loses some of the punchiness), but as you note above, how the heck do we organize ourselves regarding gender-based disenfranchisement?
I always recommend “trans, genderqueer, and cis women” to indicate that all three of those are modifiers of “women”. If I saw “cis women and gender-non-conforming people” I wouldn’t show up. I’m not conforming to someone’s idea of gender, but neither are a lot of cis women. My identity is primarily as a punk dyke, but also as a trans woman, and if I don’t see “trans and cis women” I am unlikely to show up.
Good point–really something I should have thought of, apologies, I’ll keep that in mind in future (not that I end up organizing many events…).
That’s a good one, and nicely succinct. I was trying to think through whether someone who’s AMAB but NB leaning feminine would feel included, and my guess would be that hopefully they would, and they’d feel comfortable enough to ask if unsure. I don’t actually know anyone who’s that gender, although I do have a couple of friends who are AFAB, masculine-leaning NB, and have both chosen medical transitioning, so are more comfortable in men’s spaces than women’s.
Im sorry for the dissent, but I feel I should give a different perspective. To start, I am the epitome of what by appearence and description would be the enemy of everyone here; I am a straight white cis male who, hilariously enough, gets a neckbeard when he doesn’t shave for more then a few days. However, I am an ally, and try my best to help the LGBT community and continue social progress towards true equality. Though it doesnt apply as much to parties such as these, I find that having rules explicitly excluding my demographic is a huge reason why many straight white cis men still aren’t behind the LGBT movement. It is the feeling that “These people think all SWC males are bigotted bastards” that generally makes us the least likely to want to help. I personally see past this, but in more recent times it has been getting to me. Many of my friends are gay and/or trans and I have never had even a shread of negativity towards them about it, but lately I have felt that they seem to want nothing to do with me because I am not the same as them in those regards. I have nothing against parties targeted towards LGBT people, and in fact support them, but feel that the way many gatherings, groups, and social activities seem to segregate themselves does nothing but create a further divide that then has to be broken down once again if we truly want equality. If equality isn’t the main goal of the movement any more, so be it, but if that is really what the LGBT community wants, then it may be a good idea to start integrating EVERYONE who wants to be there, and make the rules more about how you act and not who you are. Just a thought, and yes, check my privilege, I know.
I’m guessing you didn’t read the article 😀
That’s kinda what it was talking about – looking at behaviors and not demographics.
There is still room for places that are “woman-centered” or ask that folks who attend are trans, genderqueer, or cis women, but the article is about how just blocking “cis men” is a bad plan that hurts trans women, trans men, and other folks.
This seems to be addressed towards the end so in a way I am just paraphrasing (if I am right) but it seems it isn’t necessarily wrong to have a space that is not *for* cis-men but rather the policing that is the issue. And this is true of queer spaces as well. If you identify as queer, or as anything other than a cis-man, this space is meant for you.
Totally – like, having spaces that center or encourage folks to come if they are part of certain demographics or groups is rad – and they get to decide whether or not they fall into those groups.
But definitely kick people out who are misbehaving, regardless of their identity. Bad behavior is bad behavior, butch, femme, cis, queer, or w/e.
I am a bi queer post transition trans man and I really struggle to see why “queer” spaces have evolved not to include queer cis men. It kind of baffles the mind. How exactly is a post transition straight trans man more queer than a cis non-straight trans man?
I must be missing something. Last I checked, the majority of people in queer spaces were cis gay men, due to a long history of excluding women, bisexuals, trans folks, and any combinations of those.
Oh, now I’m with you. I don’t think it’s all that many queer spaces that have evolved that way, and the ones which are mainly cis gay men are still the majority. I suppose it depends on whether you define queer as LGBT or LGB.
If only we were safe or felt safe around our trans kinfolk, cis women (gay/bi/str8) kinfolk, queer kinfolk, or cis gay male kinfolk. The reality is that there is pronounced relational aggression among LGBTQ and feminist kin to the point where finding safety requires a spiritual understanding within ourselves that transcends organizing space with one’s assumed kin. It takes time to truly find the people who care about us regardless of their identities. It takes time to care about ourselves, to find an ethic of self-care that makes you comfortable with being alone sometimes rather than entering spaces that contain unfamiliar people and scenarios that may lead to hurt regardless of the identities of the people. As a low-income black person, I find that even our LGBTQ relational spaces are still very much segregated along lines of race and income inequality and racism and classism lurk like unacknowledged viruses within many LGBTQ spaces, and I’m not talking about tokenism where a rare few voices of POC are accepted as worthy of attention within predominately white spaces.
Though I am a queer woman, I’ve often gotten a more negative impression than I could easily explain in such spaces (often larger scale play parties or kink spaces in my limited experience). This article helps me put my finger on a yucky possibility.
I think in some of the sexual “no cis men spaces” the goal is not actually safe space but less competition for sexual access to some conception of *women* (however defined). The idea implicit is that cis men would interrupt a possible environment of sexual freedom (ignoring all kinds of actualities).
Maybe I’m just having a bad grad school flashback to reading a lot of Rita Felski, but thanks for the thought provocation.
“if the actual goal is to limit abuse and trouble, those behaviors should be targeted instead, and people removed for words or actions which make other people feel unsafe.”
So….are the Nicoles available for bouncer services then?
Oh, now I'm with you. I don't think it's all that many queer spaces that have evolved that way, and the ones which are mainly cis gay men are still the majority. I suppose it depends on whether you define queer as LGBT or LGB.
That's a good one, and nicely succinct. I was trying to think through whether someone who's AMAB but NB leaning feminine would feel included, and my guess would be that hopefully they would, and they'd feel comfortable enough to ask if unsure. I don't actually know anyone who's that gender, although I do have a couple of friends who are AFAB, masculine-leaning NB, and have both chosen medical transitioning, so are more comfortable in men's spaces than women's.
Maybe we should rename them "safer spaces", like "safer sex", where you can't be 100% safe due to risks of condom breakages etc., but you can have a damn good try, and you make it clear that you are doing so and that it is an important thing.
I had a kneejerk pissed-off reaction to the whole premise of this; and I wanted to tell you that because by the time I finished reading I realized that this is a thing I should be thinking more about, in a more nuanced fashion. I sing in an all-trans choir, and we work really hard to emphasize that we welcome trans folks of all identities and presentations–but this reminds me to continue being mindful of that, to actually DO it as opposed to say it’s what we do, and to… I don’t know, to make sure we are actually doing what is best to keep our community safe without making anyone who could use that community feel unwelcome, you know?
I host queer play parties and we have a 'no asshats' policy. At the first sign of asshatery, you will be asked to leave and you will not be allowed back. It's been working for over three years! And that's literally what we call it.
I think this is an incredibly important conversation to have, and I find that the article brings up many, many important points to consider, but there are some issues I am still wrestling with.
I believe in the creation of safer spaces (aka As Safe As Possible Spaces) and I think that creating an exclusionary space can actually be very important. One example is when Portland’s chapter of Black Lives Matter reserves POC-only spaces because of how much space white people (like me, hi) unintentionally take up, and because of how POCs have been conditioned to give that to us. Even the most aware person (white of POC) would still have to actively be aware of fighting that privilege, as an ongoing struggle- which is a huge distraction, a huge burden, to ask a POC organizer to carry while they try to do their very-important jobs.
I’m cis and femme af. This often means that I get read as straight, especially/always by the cis guys (and I am not erasing trans persons here, these are actual hetero cis men) everywhere, including dance parties and Pride parades. And I find myself playing nice, trying to brush them off nicely, etc etc- until I remind myself that I don’t have to do this. Sure, I can know I don’t have to entertain them- but I have to remind myself to overcome all of that social conditioning first. And that’s actually a lot of labor to ask of a person, when they’re supposedly able to be openly queer in what is supposedly a safer, queer space.
This, also, is only my experience, one example of one way spaces feel “unsafer” when we stop reserving queer spaces. See: the death and bachelorette-party-appropriation of queer bars, for another.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t change the names of our events. I think we should. But I also think we need a way to communicate/create intentional safety for people going to these events.
My hope is that we do keep thinking about this, and keep discussing it. We need to find ways to create safety and inclusion that don’t require waiting for people to perpetrate abusive behaviors until social consensus finally steps in to protect the victims. I can think of many many many examples where this model has failed spectacularly- not only by failing to protect people before they’re victimized, but often failing to help them afterwards, as well.