I’m female, and a dyke. I hate, just absolutely hate the whole “womyn” thing.
In my observation, the women who use that term tend to be self-loathing, man-hating, narrowminded, tyrannical extremists. This is partly why I’ve turned down several opportunities to attend the MWMF, the other reason is their policy of not allowing MTF’s. That’s all I’m going to say because most of what I want to say belongs in the Pit.
You do realize you could use the same “logic” to wave aside racism or antisemitism or sexism as irrelevant because they are leftovers from centuries ago ? They are, but that doesn’t make them nonexistent. She was apparently trying to claim that we were making fun of something feminists haven’t done since the 80’s; well, she’s wrong.
Where has this article become empassioned? It was pretty light hearted for the most part.
I am not sure I understand the term “gender policing”. What does it mean?
I wear Birkenstocks, and moon-howling sounds like fun. But do I have to hug trees and make up stupid spellings for ordinary words if I howl at the moon and wear Birkenstocks?
:o (moon-howling smiley)
The term “man” representing the male of our species just doesn’t do justice to our extrordinarily large genitals and superior testosterone levels like the terms we have for the males of other species. In fact, a human male that is castrated is still called a man. Us human male breeders just don’t get any respect at all.
I think it would be much more appropriate if we human males were called stallions,steeds,bucks, bulls, boars, stags, cocks or rams.
Then we could call our womenfolk mares,does, cows, sows, hens or ewes.
To summarize, I think female humans have done very well to be denoted as women.
I believe it refers to attempts to make sure that each gender stays in it’s “appropriate” role, and that people act according to their “appropriate” gender.
Well, this MtF says, “thank you, dyke!”
What Eve said. Dykes rock. 
The Lesbian Avengers in particular have been great trans allies.
http://eminism.org/michigan/index.html
Yes, I think it was definitely phrased so as to be read that way.
The reason the MWMF gave for the policy is it was meant to be safe space for women including rape victims for whom the sight of a penis in the showers might be a “trigger.” That may be a legitimate concern. So, the trans activists countered, why exclude post-op trans women? The organizers didn’t have a good rebuttal to that, so they started de facto allowing post-op women in, on what sounds to me like a “don’t ask, don’t tell” basis.
The form of gender discrimination represented by MWMF is dying out. (There may be ugly new forms of gender discrimination afoot, though…) I think the attitude is pretty widely recognized in today’s queer community as a dinosaur, to continue the paleontological metaphors. So let dead horses and obsolete dinosaurs, like sleeping dogs, lie.
Well, it’s Carleton U., also called the “Last Chance U.”, so I’m not sure it would have any effect…
I’m kidding, of course. They used to be called that but not anymore; their reputation is much better than it used to be. Some of their programs are really highly regarded, architecture and design for example. This said, while the Womyn’s Centre is probably affiliated to the university, my guess would be that it operates independently, so the university might not be able to control the information they disseminate. They might not even be aware of it. This said, I’m sure they would like to know if some organization affiliated to them is propagating misinformation. I don’t intend to write this email, so if someone wants to do it, go ahead.
Go U. of O.!
Damn. You ruined the joke I was just going to post. To wit: How can you tell if a bookstore is owned by a feminist?
There is no “Humor” section.
[QUOTE=Johanna]
OK…so can’t they have a “penis-only” shower? This just seems like a copout to me.
I resemble that remark. 
It always seemed so overtly political. A lot like Amerika, as was pointed out earlier.
I smile when I read it, but give it no weight.
Cartooniverse, male.
Womble, that’s my humble opinion. Womble: Are you with me?
Hey, leave The Wombles out of this.
Three. One to screw in the lightbulb, one to complain about the violation of the socket, and one to secretly wish she was the socket.
The only person I’ve ever seen use “womyn” was Roberta Gregory (an alternative cartoonist; most of her work is available from Fantagraphics Books). I doubt she was making any big statement; she’s just an oridnary feminist who likes to have fun with words. She used “wimyn” at least once, too.
I can see how it could get annoying, but at least I know where it’s coming from. I’ve never encounted any publication where it’s used with any regularity, so I really don’t see a big problem here.
Personally, I think “womon” is the way to go. That way, if anyone’s concerned about you being strident, you can always say that you’re just using a Jamaican accent.
Miller - The answer I heard was “That’s not funny!” Can’t really say which is better.