#riki anne wilchins

[the-blue-fairie]

Riki Wilchins on The Crying Game (1992)

[iphigeniacomplex]

[Transcript:

Twenty-One Things You Don’t Say to a Transsexual by Riki Anne Wilchins

[...]

Don’t # 4: “I consider you as much a woman as ANY of my friends.” What a treat for them, especially your male friends.

[...]

Don’t # 6: “When did you decide to become a woman?” Well, when did you decide to become a woman? Oh . . . I see; with you it is normal. Um-hmmmmm.

Don’t # 7: “Can you have an orgasm?” Yes, but only when I’m asked this question.

Don’t # 8: “Can you have an orgasm?”

Don’t # 9: “Can you have an orgasm?”

Don’t # 10: “Can you have an orgasm?”

[...]

Don’t # 14: “This is women-only space.” This is usually said to me by a rather red-faced lesbian, who probably believes she is confronting the live penis-monster (moi) as it approaches her very doorstep. But then, these things are so difficult today; perhaps she is really a straight woman complaining bitterly about a lack of men. The only correct response I can ever think of is, “Well I certainly feel better knowing that.”

Don’t # 15: “How did you know you’re a woman?” Well, how did you know you were a woman? Ah-humm: breasts and vagina. Well, I can introduce you to some very handsome, bearded, muscular young men of my acquaintance who began life with the very same equipment, so that’s not particularly compelling evidence, is it? . . . I see, inside you just know . . . Call me sometime, we’ll have lunch.

[...]

Don’t # 19: “You look just like a REAL woman.” How splendid, especially when you recall I’m composed almost entirely of compressed soy byproducts. And you look just like a real transsexual. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was an insult.

Don’t # 20: “Isn’t it AMAZING you’re the ONLY transsexual I know.” Yes, and isn’t it amazing, when you came out to your mother, you were the only homosexual she knew. Ho-hum. The fact that I am the only transsexual you know only emphasizes that: a.) you probably know a few hundred of us, but you don’t know you know us, and we won’t tell you that you do; b.) there are tens of thousands of us, and more all the time; c.) we are secretly plotting to take over the planet Earth, and infiltrating your prevailing nontranssexual culture is just our first step; d.) while we are waiting to take over your planet, we are amusing ourselves at your expense by seeing just how much we can fuck with your heads.

]

Twenty-One Things You Don’t Say to a Transsexual by Riki Anne Wilchins.

The fact that I am the only transsexual you know only emphasizes that…we are secretly plotting to take over the planet Earth, and infiltrating your prevailing nontranssexual culture is just our first step

In TransSisters: The Journal of Transsexual Feminism, issue 3, volume 1. 1994.

[transastronautistic]

When people stumble over their pronouns, stammer, blush, or apologize in embarrassment, I often think of Riki Anne Wilchins' description of her friend Holly Boswell: "Holly is a delicate Southern belle of long acquaintance ....S/he has tender features, long, wavy blonde hair, a soft Carolina accent, a delicate feminine bosom, and no interest in surgery. Holly lives as an open transgendered mother of two in Asheville, North Carolina. Her comforting advice to confused citizens struggling with whether to use Sir or Madam is, 'Don't give it a second thought. You don't have a pronoun yet for me.’” ... ...[T]o answer the homophobes becomes easy, those folks who want to dehumanize, erase, make invisible the lives of butch dykes and nellie fags. We shrug. We laugh. We tell them: your definitions of woman and man suck. We tell them: your binary stinks. We say: here we are in all our glory — male, female, intersex, trans, butch, nellie, studly, femme, king, androgynous, queen, some of us carving out new ways of being women, others of us new ways of being men, and still others new ways of being something else entirely. You don't have pronouns yet for us.

- Eli Clare in Exile & Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation (1999)

[trans-axolotl]

ID: [A 1997 flyer made by Riki Anne Wilchins that reads: Jocelyn Elders supports Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM). Hermaphrodite; someone whose genitals are not clearly male or female. US Hospitals genitally cut 8 intersexed kids every day just so their genitals will look "normal." Most will lose genital sensation. Many are cut so they won't "become lesbians." Jocelyn Elders supports this practice! Did you know: The vast majority of children diagnosed as intersexed by American doctors and genitally cut are otherwise unremarkable infants who simply have clitorises more than 3/8” long. Many are genitally cut in the mistaken belief that otherwise they may grow up to be masculinized, lesbian women or have difficulty functioning as “normal, heterosexual adults” later in life. Did you know: According to noted Brown University medical researcher Dr. Anne Fausto­ Sterling, 2,000 intersex infants are genitally cut for cosmetic reasons in US hospitals annually: that’s 8 infants from 3 weeks to 3 years old cut every working day. Yet the American Academy of Pediatricians’ own statement on IGM says these infants are genitally cut to minimize “emotional, cognitive, and body image” problems and not for any medical reason. Did you know: Jocelyn Elders on intersexed infants and “correcting” queer genitals: "…just take out everything and make a good vaginal pouch and the child can function very well as a female." "I always told my students, 'I can make a good female, but it's very hard to make a male.'" Ever hear of informed consent? Dr. Elders refuses to even meet with the intersexed community or IGM survivors. Intersex kids need counseling, not cutting! Hey Dr. Elders: Get Your Scalpels Off our Bodies! We're not quiet. We're not well behaved. And we're not going away. Hermaphrodites with attitude.]

Although it can be very upsetting to see the way that interphobia and medical abuse existed in incredibly similar ways 30 years ago, this protest flyer and associated newsletter showcase the incredible history of intersex and trans solidarity between Transexual Menace and Hermaphrodites with attitude. This newsletter includes multiple updates on trans and intersex news, including protests, discrimination, and media representation.

"Herm-Protest Jocelyn Elders at Lesbian Event.

Washington, DC: 20 Sep 97. The activist groups Hermaphrodites with Attitude (HWA) and Transexual Menace today protested Dr. Jocelyn Elders' keynote address to a Mautner Lesbians With Cancer Project fundraiser, held in the Washington Hilton. Dr. Elders, a former US Surgeon General, is an outspoken advocate of Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM), a cosmetic surgery performed on the genitals of intersexed infants so they will look like "normal" males and females.

Eight demonstrators carried banners saying "Dr. Elders: Keep Your Scalpels OFF Our Bodies" and "Intersex Kids Need Counseling NOT Cutting", and distributed IGM leaflets to attendees as they arrived for the $100-a-plate dinner. Several attendees expressed shock and dismay upon learning of Dr. Elders' position, noting that she is generally considered a supporter of lesbian and feminist causes, and enlightened on most matters of adolescent sexuality. However, the flier noted that on "correcting" queer genitals, Dr. Elders has written: "…just take out everything and make a good vaginal pouch and the child can function very well as a female," and "I always told my students, I can make a good female, but it's very hard to make a male."

"We're not protesting the Mautner Project," explained HWA founder, Cheryl Chase, "we're calling attention to Dr. Elders' support of IGM and her continued refusal to meet with us on an issue that affects our lives. One reason IGM is performed is the fear that girls born with clitorises considered ‘too large’ will grow up to be masculine or lesbian. We want to bring awareness to the Lesbian and Gay community that IGM is a queer issue."

Although intersexuality was once considered rare, according to noted Brown University medical researcher Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, about 8 intersex children are genitally cut in US hospitals every working day for cosmetic reasons. Stated Chase, "We will continue to seek a meeting with Dr. Elders, and anticipate that once she takes IGM seriously, she will support out position."

Following the demonstration, HWA and the Menace donated a $100 to the Mautner Project in the name of intersexed infants."

-In Your Face No. 5, Spring 1998.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi Sex Witch! This is a book rec question, really. Do you have any recommendations you would give people who want to start reading about gender theory? I know I want to learn so much more about queer gender identity and about its cultural impact and growth in different places but I dont really know where to start because it's such a big topic to cover.

Gender related or not, thank you so much for everything you do!

god okay that's a huge ask and I don't want to just throw a bunch of super dense unapproachable text at you where you're just getting into it (Judith Butler is so good to read but they are WORK) so here's a long list of some authors you can pick and choose from

Sara Ahmed

Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele's illustrated nonfiction Gender and Sexuality

Kate Bornstein

Ivan Coyote

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Angela Davis's book Women, Race & Class

Shon Faye

Leslie Feinberg

Cordelia Fine

Jules Gill-Peterson's book History of the Transgender Child (fairly dense read I will not lie)

Ruby Hamad's book White Tears/Brown Scars

Kit Heyam's book Before We Were Trans (haven't personally read this yet but I'm excited to)

Patricia Hill Collins

Mariame Kaba ("Makenzie she writes about prison abolition not gender" THE OPPRESSION ARE INTERLOCKING)

Mikki Kendall's book Hood Feminism

Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider is a great place to start)

Aileen Moreton-Robinson's book Talkin’ Up to the White Woman

Molly Smith and Juno Mac's Revolting Prostitutes is a BRILLIANT feminist analysis of sex workers' rights by sex workers

Amia Srinivasan's book The Right to Sex is just shakingly brilliant

Sabrina Strings' book Fearing the Black Body is a FASCINATING explanation of the formation of contemporary gendered norms and fatphobia as part of the creation of race, cannot recommend it enough

Susan Stryker

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Kai Cheng Thom

Riki Anne Wilchins

Rafia Zakaria

this is obviously not a complete list please not one @ me, it's just! a place to start browsing!

[thecherubprince]

Hi!!! Can u explain to me what queergender is??? I've never heard the term b4 but I saw ur post and I'm curious on how u would explain it

for me, in my experience? i'd say that its my gender being felt in an inherently queer or non gender-normative way, while still being connected to the binary. that's how i feel i'd describe me being queer gendered.

historically, and most accurately, it just means when your gender is queer, that you are queer gendered. it can mean you're between man and woman, or you're neither, or both at the same time, or even outside of the gender binary.

quoted from the writer and queer activist, riki anne wilchins, who created the term genderqueer, in the spring 1995 newsletter of transexual menace;

“ It's about all of us who are genderqueer: diesel dykes and stone butches, leatherqueens and radical fairies, nelly fags, crossdressers, intersexed, transsexuals, transvestites, transgendered, transgressively gendered, and those of us whose gender expressions are so complex they haven’t even been named yet. ”

hope this helped ❤️

[gncrevan]

LOVE searching an author's name on tumblr in the hopes of finding people share PDFs of their writings, only to be barraged by one cryptoterf post after the other. love that for myself.

anyway, if anyone has a PDF of riki wilchins' "read my lips" or "genderqueer" that they wouldn't mind sending my way, i'd be delighted 🥰

[genderqueerpositivity]

(Image description: a photo of stars, white text over the image is a quote that reads "Oppression, painful as it is, is also a question posed by life to each of us: will your heart grow larger, so it holds the universal hurt, or will it grow smaller, so that, in the end, it can contain only your own?" Smaller white text below attributes the quote to Riki Anne Wilchins.)

[criticalinvert]

While I recognize how important it is to produce histories and sociologies of transpeople, I am wary of anything that might cement the category more firmly in place. I’d also like us to investigate the means by which categories like transgender are produced, maintained, and inflicted on people like me. It’s not so much that there have always been transgendered people; it’s that there have always been cultures which imposed regimes of gender. It is only within a system of gender oppression that transgender exists in the first place. It would be impossible to transgress gender rules without the prior imposition of those rules. Studying transgender (or for that matter, homosexuality) by itself risks essentializing the category and, at the same time, naturalizing the gender regimes that install it and the “normal” gender displays that go unregulated.

Wilchins, Riki Anne. (1997). Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender.

[audible-smiles]

-Riki Anne Wilchins, in the introduction to her 1997 book Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender, with my minor edits (1. added race as a category, due to my firm belief based on the rest of the author’s work that she did not intentionally omit it here, 2. swapped the phrases ‘differently-abled’, ‘fat-identified’, and ‘trans-identified’ for plainer, more modern-sounding terms. I am aware that the decision of which identities to list and which to imply is both somewhat arbitrary and highly political. Certain of them- (gay, female) felt so obvious that they hardly needed to be stated, while others were so nebulous (how many neurodivergent people relate to this experience, and how many of them also count themselves amongst the disabled?) as to be difficult to list. I also wanted to leave the text as close to the original as possible, since to this day it remains my single favorite introduction to a text ever written.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I was looking to see if any Transexual Menace chapters still had websites and wow the past really is another planet

First of all, I have a Transexual Menace shirt, which I bought in like 1997, from the SF chapter of the group, at a protest of some goddamn thing. Which I still wear.

My point being... if you feel the need to come at me with how offensive any of their language was: Don't.

Their entire purpose was to be as offensively trans as possible. To walk around wearing shirts that not only branded you as a ~transsexual MENACE~, in case you might accidentally pass as a nice safe respectable cis person for a moment. And just to underline the whole concept, they used the Rocky Horror font, so the word "TRANSEXUAL" is dripping blood.

It's a good shirt.

And yes, they spelled it with one "S". I don't remember why. I wouldn't bet that it was on purpose.

ANYWAY fucking look at this though

It's a documentary that you can, apparently, check out of the UC Berkeley library.

It even gives the acronym as LGBTQQIP2SAA, for goodness sake.

I just cannot stop thinking about how much every different type of exclusionist would purely shit burning hatred if they saw this.

oh my god, my friend's niece, who I think started her middle school GSA, just started going to Berkeley. I desperately need a VCR, a vat of popcorn, and a way to rip this to the YouTubes.

[Image description: a UC Berkeley library catalog listing for a 1996 documentary called "Transexual Menace."

I'm pretty sure the first sentence is punctuated wrong. It should say:

"A documentary countering the TV image of transexuals (or "trannies" as they call themselves) as hopeless self-deluded freaks. The director intercuts medical footage with little-known facts, e.g., "almost 50% of trannies are female to male, though they are much less visible." Most telling are interviews with the trannies themselves, along with the healthcare professionals who help them through the process that's grueling for some and surprisingly simple and immediately rewarding for others. A film by Rosa von Praunheim. Originally produced for television, 1996. 62 min."

In addition to LGBTQQI2SAA, which for the curious is probably lesbian gay bi trans queer questioning intersex two-spirit asexual aromantic, or asexual ally, it's also tagged in their system as "transexuality," "documentary," and "intersexuality and gender mutability." The call number is Video/C 9519.)

Also I'm dying to know if it was actually AIRED on television. And who is Rosa van Praunheim? This raised more questions than it answered, damnit!

ETA: Wikipedia is schooling me: "Rosa von Praunheim is a German film director, author, painter and the most famous gay rights activist in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In over 50 years, von Praunheim has made more than 150 films. His works influenced the development of LGBTQ rights movements worldwide."

Oh my GODDDD

"The figure of Tara O’Hara, a fearless transgender woman, is used to challenge these repressive social norms. After hooking up with a German hunk, Manfred Finger, Tara is violently rejected by the man for apparently concealing her transgender status.

"Yet in a scene of sexual enlightenment, Tara educates the man of her revisionist conception of womanhood, as an identity based on gender rather than sex. Tara and the man subsequently make love, and Praunheim succeeds in creating a space in which transgender women and sexual pluralism are celebrated without violence or rebuke."

[infiniteglitterfall]

Holy cow. I still have my old TS Menace shirt from the 90s somewhere! And their Bluesky links to the one for their intersex nonbinary cofounder Riki Anne Wilchins! Their co-founders are still around and are on Bluesky! This is incredible!

(There's also a link to their website on their Bluesky, and it talks more about their actions and how to become a Menace!)

hey just a reminder that the news is actively not reporting on the massive protests against the current administration happening across the country. If you're freaking out because "we're really just letting this happen?" No, we aren't, and you're not alone. Don't be complacent and don't give up.

[variousqueerthings]

Some Queer Reading Resources (non-comprehensive)

@youandthemountains and @hunkydorkling

Some Queer Reading Resources (non-comprehensive) that follow along a varied memoir, autobiographical, political fictional line – that is, all of these are stories, whether non-fictional or fictional. Most (possibly/probably all) are political in the sense that queer bodies are – as other marginalised bodies – forced to consider themselves as political, and often choose to revel in this politicalness by being deliberately openly radical in response.

There are books that are purely academic and/or political texts (such as the recent “The Transgender Issue” by Shon Faye) that I haven’t included, since I felt like “story” was the keyword here. However, if anyone wants another list that’s more objective theory, culture, politics, history, I can do an equally non-comprehensive list on that.

The other part of its premise is the messiness of queer identity – how it intersects, argues, shifts, collides, co-inhabits, and contradicts. There are a lot of heavy themes, but – I think anyway – a lot of joy in community and discovery. Do look up trigger warnings if you need them.

Last of all, that non-comprehensive part. I am but an single person, with my limitations. If you have access to libraries or book shops with LGBTQ+ sections I recommend asking there if you want something specific. My main limitations are country-specific. A lot of these are based in the US or the UK (with a couple outside and/or with mixed ethnicities and/or locations within them).

Anyone can feel free to add if there’s something they feel passionate about in terms of the power of memoir and/or stories that connect to queer community/history/politics.

Books that have made me feel things:

Now You See Me: Lesbian Life Stories edited by Jane Traies

Amateur: A True Story Of What Makes A Man by Thomas Page McBee

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, And The Rest Of Us by Kate Bornstein

There Is No Word For It edited by Libro Bridgeman (note, it may be under their former name)

The Appendix: Transmasculine Joy in a Transphobic Culture by Liam Konemann

Zami: A New Spelling Of My Name by Audre Lorde

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Dykes To Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

To Survive On These Shores edited by Jess T Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre: https://www.tosurviveonthisshore.com/interviews

***

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Confessions Of The Fox by Jordy Rosenberg

Maurice by EM Forster

The Price Of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy 

Books I have yet to read:

Are You My Mother by Alison Bechdel

The Secret To Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation edited by Kate Bornstein

We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib

Unicorn: The Memoir Of A Muslim Drag Queen by Amrou Al-Kadhi

Man Alive by Thomas Page McBee

Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters

Trans/Love: Radical Sex Love And Relationships Beyond The Gender Binary edited by Morty Diamond

Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica edited by Tristan Taormino

Same-Sex Love in India Readings from Literature and History by Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai

Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender edited by Riki Wilchins and Julia Serano

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman

Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity by Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane

Let the Record Show A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 by Sarah Schulman

Burn The Binary: Selected Writing On The Politics Of Being Trans, Genderqueer, And Nonbinary edited by Riki Anne Wilchins

Becoming A Visible Man by Jamison Green

Drag King Dreams by Leslie Feinberg

I’m Afraid Of Men by Vivek Shraya

Eating Fire: My Life As A Lesbian Avenger by Kelly Cogswell

Exile And Pride: Disability, Queerness, And Liberation by Eli Clare

The Butch Monologues edited by Libro Bridgeman (note, it may be under their former name)

Disavowals / Aveux Non Avenus by Claude Cahun (if anyone knows of a translation of this from French to English I would be eternally at their service)

Free To Be Me: Refugee Stories From The Lesbian Immigration Support Group edited by Jane Traies

Under The Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono

[a-queer-seminarian]

I have begun speaking of gender as a name for that system that punishes bodies for how they look, who they love, or how they feel -- for the size or color or shape of their skin.

Riki Anne Wilchins

[nerdyqueerandjewish]

Reading Riki Anne Wilchin’s Read My Lips was such a goood turning point for me because she had this whole thing about how like you didn’t need to necessarily “identify with” the gender you are as a trans person, you just are doing you, and society is what creates these haphazard categories. Which was really freeing to not have to find a word that was a “perfect fit”

[genderqueerpositivity]

“It’s about all of us who are genderqueer: diesel dykes and stone butches, leatherqueens and radical fairies, nelly fags, crossdressers, intersexed, transsexuals, transvestites, transgendered, transgressively gendered, and those of us whose gender expressions are so complex they haven’t even been named yet.” - Riki Anne Wilchins