“The Cotton Ceiling”

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OK … So this is going to be more of a rant than an article because I’m speaking about something I know very little about.

In the process of doing research for another article I came across the term “The Cotton Ceiling,” which at first I was a bit surprised I hadn’t head before since it was being talked about like this was some big push in the trans-activist community and I thought I was pretty well informed about that. So, catching a hint that something was going on I should probably educate myself about, I did an internet search on the term and what I found was pretty troubling so I thought I’d post my reactions to it here. I’m basically just going to outline a process I went through today exploring the “cotton ceiling” um … theory? I’ll give my first reaction and then also more educated reactions I had once I discovered the context of the term and it’s criticisms … so if you’ve heard the term you might find this interesting and if you haven’t, maybe it will be a good heads-up about some pretty vitriolic fights going down on the internet now and few months ago. There was a flurry of activity about 6-8 months ago but I doubt this issue is dead.

For those of you who haven’t heard the term before, it apparently refers to the difficulty transsexuals (and particularly trans women) have finding sexual partners (particularly women partners) who are not repulsed by their unique anatomy (aka: many lesbians dislike penises!).

While this is a valid concern and one which I have seen at least indirectly, I was immediately put on the defensive by the fact that this issue was being discussed,mostly by cis women, as if it were one of the primary goals of trans activism and as if the push for the rights, respect, and dignity of trans activism was largely or primarily about whether or not we were accepted sexually as lesbians. My first reaction to learning this was something along the lines of “This is dramatically misrepresenting our priorities.” I mean, I can understand that getting rejected really sucks; and though it’s never happened to me personally I can imagine that it doesn’t feel great to be rejected by someone because they “only like women” when you ARE a woman and you just happen to have uniquely shaped genitals. That’s a real issue and I don’t want to minimize it. On the other hand, I grew up under a constant fear of hate-related violence, and many people I knew or was connected to (through clubs, school, community, etc) were the victims of both fatal and non-fatal violent hate crimes. I stayed in the closet to nearly everybody, including my own family until a few years ago, out of fear of violence.

I have now come out at work and present as female in public (which, by the way, has been just about the most freeing experience of my life and is completely worth it!) but that’s only been within the last few weeks now. I only had the confidence to do this because I now live in a far safer and more accepting city, have a stable job with strong oversight against discrimination, I have coworkers and management whom I personally trust, and because I’ve been building up to and preparing for this for years. I KNEW that this was what I wanted for years before finding the courage and situation to actually take the plunge, and that is because I was afraid of being killed. That’s far more than any person should have to go through just to be able to tell people their name and gender; but sadly it’s the norm for trans people even i more accepting parts of the world. Even after coming out, there’s a whole host of issues related to the difficulties and gate-keeping around actual medical transition, which we are doing a bit of, but which is proving difficult in part because we’re not on a “traditional” path, what with my headmate still being a man and our goal being a body we can BOTH be comfortable in.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I were to make a list of hardships transsexuals have to endure and things that I would like the activist community (myself included) to focus and work on, “we get rejected by lesbians a lot” is not very high on that list; and I don’t think it is for most people who speak up to try to promote equality for trans people, either. Even now, I’m STILL more worried about whether flirting will get me attacked than whether or not it will get me rejected. Also, the panty reference isn’t really appreciated, the last thing I need is more people focusing on the differences between what’s in my panties and what’s in a cis woman’s. It’s not that this issue isn’t important or worth talking about; but the fact that these other issues were being minimized by a group of cis women who preferred to talk about our sexual and romantic difficulties and ignore so many of these other realities was quite frankly insulting.

So yes, that basically summed up my first reaction to this idea; but I didn’t want to just turn up my nose in uneducated disgust without at least figuring out where this term came from, who’s promoting the idea, and in what context. Again, this isn’t something I’m an expert on by any means, this is something I learned about a matter of hours ago. I also wanted to say, that initial reaction wasn’t very mature. Somebody somewhere was trying to talk about an issue that seemed important to them, and I had basically responded “that’s not important enough for me to take notice” which was not an appropriate reaction; that’s never appropriate. I like to think that I usually respond to new ideas more open-mindedly than I did in this case, but something about this idea, and the way it was being discussed started pushing my subconscious buttons. The fact that this was largely a discussion by cis women as though they thought this was the be-all and end-all of trans activism certainly didn’t help.

BUT WAIT! It gets worse! I was very quickly able to find dozens of criticisms of “The Cotton Ceiling” idea. Solidarity, right? I mean I just made my initial incredulity with the idea pretty clear. Nope, no such luck – these criticisms almost universally consisted of pretty standard vitriolic radfem anti-trans hate which, if you haven’t been exposed to it yet (count yourself lucky!) usually comes down along the lines of “Anyone with a penis is really a rape machine and if they want to be called a woman it is probably because they want to rape us. Also, trans women are co-opting our issues and are all really men who are trying to sneak into women-exclusive spaces and particularly lesbian spaces.” So yeah, criticism wasn’t along the lines of “don’t we have better things to do?” and more along the lines of “OMG Rapey rape men are after us! Don’t fall for the fact that they are hiding in dresses! Saying that people shouldn’t discriminate is exactly like trying to coerce us into sex we don’t want!”

Really guys? I can’t say I’m surprised (as any of you who’ve read my “Letter to the Feminist Community” could probably guess) but damn there were some good examples of “feminist” refusal to accept transsexualism as anything more than cross-dressing. One of these “feminists” that I read while randomly clicking through links even stated that all trans-activists were actually men’s rights activists masquerading under the guise of a new name; so many problems with that one I’m not even gonna touch it.

Alright, I thought, so there are a bunch of radfem lesbians who think I’m wearing a dress to get into their pants because I’m really a creepy perv man or something. Whatever, that sucks but it’s nothing new; but I was a bit concerned that all I was finding was these criticisms, and not examples of anyone actually talking about or complaining about this “cotton ceiling” thing that apparently came out of nowhere one day some months ago. Well, it’s not made up, I did find people actually talking about this but it’s much more minimal and has gotten less attention and search engine hits than the “Trans women want to rape me!” reactions. The things I did find were actually mostly reactions to the reactions and were mostly pretty good, and focused on categorical portrayal of trans women as not-women within the queer community. Which hey, save for a poorly chosen name, seems like something I can totally stand behind.

It seems this term came up during a Planned Parenthood conference workshop that was specifically focused on sex and sexual pleasure and overcoming some of our barriers about talking about it. (LINK: http://pleasureandpossibilities.com/programming/workshop-descriptions/) Other workshops included one on “dirty dancing” and one on sexual fantasies. So you know what? That actually sounds like exactly the appropriate kind of place to bring up a discussion about trans people’s unique difficulties with lesbian sexual relationships, and really maybe even to use a provocative panty reference to draw attention. That this is being portrayed as some big part of the “transsexual agenda” that all trans women are just super concerned with getting into cis lesbians pants is just blatant anti-trans hate peddling. You know what my “agenda” is? I want trans people to be able to go out in public without being attacked. I want people who are different, whether it’s through being trans or multiple or gay or anything else, to be able to tell the people they know who they are, form meaningful relationships, talk about their loves and interests, even flirt and find love without the constant fear of being fired, evicted, denied medical treatment, attacked, raped, or even killed. THAT’S my agenda. But it’s not the entirety of my being or anyone else’s and it should be perfectly acceptable for a trans woman (or anyone else!) to discuss their sex lives in the appropriate setting. It’s absolutely disgusting to see this issue blown out of proportion into another smear campaign to paint trans women as rapists with absolutely no grounding in reality.

WHALE RAGE! (inside joke ;p)

Anyway, yes. Anger. Disgust. There you go. THAT’S what’s going on and now if anyone asks you your position on the all-important “cotton ceiling theory” you’ll know what the hell they’re talking about.

-Z

NOTE: This article was edited on 12/31/2012

7 Comments

So, “don’t you have more important things to worry about” isn’t really a terribly useful response to a given concern; it’s even listed on Derailing for Ableists as a common derailing attempt. Yes, access to health care and shelter and food are (or at least should be) key priorities of the trans community. Followed by safety. I mean, it’s pretty easy to propose a model for how we should prioritize things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Of course, if we follow Maslow, we should be talking about the issue of dealing with sexuality as a trans person *before* we get into things like being misgendered, or being mocked in media portrayals. But, I suspect, you wouldn’t have the same strong reaction to a discussion about how we should use proper pronouns when talking about trans people (correct me if I am wrong, of course).

So, yes, there are more important issues. There are nearly *always* more important issues, though. And if you go down that rabbit hole with intersectionality in mind, you end up in a special case of the Oppression Olympics. And often, the more fundamental an issue is, the less useful individual actions or discussion-based activism become. We can’t effect an outright change of public policy by having an open discussion, but we *can* change cultural trends like how people think about trans bodies, or how people think about trans people with regard to pronouns. We can change those things one person at a time. I’ve succeeded at this! And even if you can’t change the minds of the people you’re arguing with directly, the lovely thing about the Internet is that your discussion hangs around. You have an audience, and you are debating to convince them often more than you are debating to convince the staunchly opposed.

And… it *is* an important issue. ‘Sexual intimacy’ is listed pretty low down on that chart, and Maslow isn’t wrong. Most people need that, and a lot of trans women have trouble finding it. And I think there is a direct causal chain between this and the fact that a lot of trans women end up in abusive relationships. Because when you are repeatedly made to feel like you can’t be desirable, then any romantic/sexual attention at all can start to feel like the best you’ll ever get. The best you’re worth. And it makes you prone to *cling* to that, even in the face of very clear signs of abuse. Even when you know better, and you’ve read all of the literature about abuse patterns and warning signs but still, at least she tells you you’re pretty sometimes.

I don’t like my penis any more than my Hypothetical Lesbian Sexual Partner. But I’m stuck with it (for now), and I’ve still managed to find ways to be sexually satisfied, and to satisfy partners (both male and female). Anyone who says the mere presence of a penis is a deal-breaker for them is either being lazy or just isn’t very creative.

Now, I will certainly agree that there are exceptions to this. If, for instance, a trans woman were adamant about her need to have penetrative intercourse with her partner using her penis, well, I would certainly say that someone who isn’t into being penetrated by a penis is probably a poor fit, sexually. But categorically denying someone’s desirability based on the presence or absence of some piece of anatomy seems, well, biologically essentialist.

Certainly people are entitled to have sexual preferences (be they hard-wired or socialized) about gender and appearance; I definitely want to avoid policing people’s sexuality. But it occurs to me that most people can make determinations about attraction without seeing someone naked, and if a bit of anatomy is going to change how you feel about someone, there might be something there worth questioning.

Oh, and I agree wholeheartedly that “the cotton ceiling” is a wretched name for this discussion.

You are, of course, completely right that “don’t we have better things to worry about” isn’t particularly useful. Like I said, this was more or less my thought process and hopefully it’s clear that my opinions changed after my initial reaction had faded, but I felt it was relevant to post both for the following reason:

I wasn’t seeing this argument posited by trans women about personal experiences, I was seeing this issue being debated by cis women as if it was the foundation of trans activism more generally. I’m not exaggerating when I say that many people were actually using this as ammo for a “this proves that all trans women really are is men trying to get into lesbians pants” article. For that reason, I felt it was important to point out that no, this is pretty far from the “primary” or “main” trans activist push. My feeling was less “why are we talking about this?” and more “why are you talking about this like you think it’s the first thing on my mind just because I’m trans?”

From your comment though, it seems I communicated that poorly — I decided to provide my full stream-of-consciousness instead of polished and refined ideas here so that’s part of the reason. I think you are completely right and I think your points are complimentary to mine — I hope you can accept this as an explanation and an apology for a combination of poor communication of my feelings and perhaps a less-than-mature initial reaction; rather than as an excuse.

Thanks for contributing these very valid points! I’ll considering editing this piece to avoid that blunder -_-

-Z

Hi Anna,

The more I thought about the point you brought up about derailing, the more I think you’re completely right– I fucked this one up.

This was really more a stream-of-consciousness rant than a clear communication of ideas, but as I reflect on the fact that it is publicly viewable and viewed by many people I don’t even know, that sort of free-flow format isn’t really appropriate. I have a responsibility to self-censor and I neglected that responsibility here.

So I just wanted to let you know I’ve edited the article. It still covers the same basic ideas, but I’ve tried to put my initial reaction into better context; I chose to include it because I suppose that many people may have felt the same way and I felt that outlining my thought-process could be a productive exercise in this case. I also feel that it’s important to communicate to any non-trans readers that this really isn’t the be-all and end-all and that, at least for me, it never weighed very heavily on my mind so it certainly isn’t a universal trans experience. I felt that was important to say, given all of the accusations flying around of trans people being men trying to get sexual access to lesbians. I see now that I over-reacted in an inappropriate way when I allowed my defensiveness and anger to overshadow my respect for the issues other people are trying to have a serious discussion about. I’ve tried to tone it back to more appropriate levels.

I’m in no way trying to cover-up my mistake, but since you’ve pointed it out to me I’m taking the opportunity to try to prevent it from propagating. I’ll leave this comment chain up so that people can see your contribution!

Thanks for calling me on my shit! Hopefully it’s made this a better article and it’s definitely made me reflect on my own first-reactions.

-Z

The problem is that men often talk over women. Trans women have been socialised to as men *IE: you have not survived girlhood* and are not generally aware of how to conduct themselves in a female only space. Therefore, many feminists have been taking steps to remove trans women from their spaces because they feel that the manner in which trans women conduct themselves is harmful to the feminist conversation that women are having and need to have without derailment.

Also, many lesbians are coerced for years to be with men. we are often treated as if something is inherently wrong with us because we don’t want cock. That’s brash because it’s how we are often presented with the distaste of our sexuality by men. we exist to titillate in a fantasy world but men often aren’t prepared for the realisation that we actually don’t want them in our beds, often to the point of violence or coercion. So the idea that we need to accept a trans woman into our beds is inherently distasteful to us.

I’m sorry that you have trouble finding partners. But it’s probably best to accept it as it is and move on. There are other factors at play and a lot of us resent the idea (and it’s probably triggering for a lot of us, myself included) of having to change ourselves because someone else said we had to. I went through hell, personally speaking, to be at a point where I felt safe enough to come out and I still have no relationship with my parents because of it. There is more but it isn’t something I want to share. Suffice to say, I just couldn’t open myself up to the idea of someone who is male bodied, regardless of how female presenting they may be.

I’m going on because it’s been hitting around tumblr lately too. It feels like there can’t be a feminist conversation anymore without people from the trans community barging in and taking control of our issues. That is wrong. That is conducting yourselves like you are male socialised and you need to learn how to let other people talk around you. I’m not saying that your issues aren’t important, but maybe a feminist space just isn’t the place where you should be discussing them. Create a trans space. Learn how to treat a woman as a woman and enter when you are more socially ready to comprehend our needs in contrast to the manner in which men treat us. (which is often very poorly)

This isn’t something that many trans people like to hear, but they really need to. Feminists are often maligned and are therefore wary of newcomers to their community. Like it or not, as a trans woman, you are a newcomer, regardless of how you have felt all of your life. It is our right to be guarded just as it’s your responsibility to learn the darker side of what your new sisters have gone through growing up in a female body.

Well, I’m certainly not in a position to try to invalidate your feelings about trans women “taking over” feminist conversations … though some examples would be nice since this runs very counter to my own experiences.

However, I do think I need to point out a few things:

1) Every conversation I’ve ever seen that involved trans women “butting in” to a feminist conversation was in a space that described itself as GLBT or GLBT friendly. Now, I certainly haven’t seen every discussion thread on the internet and I’m sure there are exceptions; but make sure you take a good hard look at this before pointing fingers. I’ve been accused of “butting in” to GLBT discussions by lesbians on more than one occasion. If you want a place where trans women aren’t allowed, don’t include the T. Actually more than that, maybe call out that we aren’t welcome, because assuming that we should stay quiet and not speak our minds without even being asked is frankly just not polite, whether or not you want to argue about whether or not it’s transphobic (which, by the way, it is). Now if this is a space that was specifically set aside for cis women or if someone is invalidating someone else’s experiences (Regardless of either of them being gay trans, etc) then that is rude on their part. Without having seen many examples of this, it’s difficult for me to speak to specifically, but that’s been my experience on the “feminist” corners of the internet.

2) Please don’t assume trans women are “socialized as men.” Again, I can’t speak for everybody and I’m sure there are exceptions, but my experience growing up was one of being in constant fear of both physical/sexual violence or administrative discrimination sabotaging my education or career (both of which trans women are exposed to at a much higher rate, statistically, than cis women.) I readily admit that there are differences between how most cis women are raised and how most trans women are raised, but that doesn’t make our experiences more similar to those of cis men.

3) Nobody here is asking anybody to sleep with anybody they don’t want to, and as far as I can tell, nobody in this whole “cotton ceiling” discussion ever has. However, trans women being systematically viewed as sexually untouchable in the supposedly “GLBT” community is still an issue worth discussion … actually, this was pretty much the entire point of this post. Right now, you are taking a post criticizing people using a discussion about sexual preferences made in a perfectly appropriate setting to dismiss and invalidate trans people …. and using it to dismiss and invalidate trans people. Take a second to reflect on the irony of that, because really, it’s pretty thick :\

4) You say I haven’t “survived girlhood.” Quite frankly, maybe not. Maybe I haven’t “survived” what you had to, specifically. But I promise you that every trans person you know has had to “survive” and continues having to “survive” something much worse in terms of discrimination, minimization, and being brought up to believe that we are worthless, disgusting, and shameful. Again, this is actually more or less what the whole “cotton ceiling” discussion was about in the first place.

Read these:
http://healthymultiplicity.com/Zyfron/articles/TS1Page.html
http://healthymultiplicity.com/Zyfron/articles/TS2Page.html

And if you still feel that trans women have no place discussing our sexuality or sexual difficulties because our privilege makes it impossible to appreciate the hardships cis women have to endure; well, let’s just say you probably aren’t going to find many like-minded people on this site!

-Z

Oh my god, so much rage about this issue! I could scarcely believe it when it came up! My girlfriend (who despite being bi, has a lot of misgivings about lgbt movements and feminist groups, as well as some issues with the whole trans thing) brought it to my attention as a way to explain what many women-who-have-sex-with-women were feeling about transgirls like myself. I was horrified by the article itself, which mainly said things like our bodies will always be male and we’re trying to force radfems into having sex with us, but I couldn’t get that problem across to her right away. I had to tell her “look at the comments”. (Protip for those few who don’t know: If you care about your blood pressure, never look at the comments on a mainstream or radfem publication on trans issues or news. It’s guaranteed to turn your head bright red in a matter of seconds.) It was only then that it became clear what this was all about: hate-mongering on transwomen who just wanted to be seen as something other than repulsive.

It’s remarkable how much oppressed groups can spend so much time and energy dividing each other to make themselves seem “more normal” than the rest of us. 🙁

I used to hang out in the comments section on Feministing.com, out as trans but not as multiple — it’s where a lot of my trans rage stories come from. Definitely seconding what you said about blood pressure ^_^
-Z

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“The Cotton Ceiling”