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[av_textblock size=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” font_color=” color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-kxnql59g’ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=’rgb(255, 255, 255)’] [\/av_textblock]<\/p>\n [av_hr class=’invisible’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ position=’center’ shadow=’no-shadow’ height=’20’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ custom_border_color=” custom_icon_color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-c6g2gd’ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”]<\/p>\n [av_textblock size=’10’ av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” font_color=” color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-kxp2bbbv’ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”] [av_hr class=’invisible’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ position=’center’ shadow=’no-shadow’ height=’50’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ custom_border_color=” custom_icon_color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=” sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”]<\/p>\n [av_video src=’https:\/\/youtu.be\/XmHHGzQpgwg’ mobile_image=” attachment=” attachment_size=” format=’16-9′ width=’16’ height=’9′ conditional_play=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-kxnribo1′ sc_version=’1.0′]<\/p>\n [\/av_one_full][av_hr class=’invisible’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ position=’center’ shadow=’no-shadow’ height=’50’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ custom_border_color=” custom_icon_color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-kxnrkmsb’ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”]<\/p>\n [av_one_fourth first min_height=” vertical_alignment=’av-align-top’ space=” row_boxshadow=” row_boxshadow_color=” row_boxshadow_width=’10’ custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ mobile_breaking=” border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ padding=’0px’ column_boxshadow=” column_boxshadow_color=” column_boxshadow_width=’10’ background=’bg_color’ background_color=” background_gradient_color1=” background_gradient_color2=” background_gradient_direction=’vertical’ src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ highlight=” highlight_size=” animation=” link=” linktarget=” link_hover=” title_attr=” alt_attr=” mobile_display=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” aria_label=” av_uid=’av-b7yn3h’ sc_version=’1.0′] [av_three_fourth min_height=” vertical_alignment=’av-align-top’ space=” row_boxshadow=” row_boxshadow_color=” row_boxshadow_width=’10’ custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ mobile_breaking=” border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ padding=’0px’ column_boxshadow=” column_boxshadow_color=” column_boxshadow_width=’10’ background=’bg_color’ background_color=” background_gradient_color1=” background_gradient_color2=” background_gradient_direction=’vertical’ src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ highlight=” highlight_size=” animation=” link=” linktarget=” link_hover=” title_attr=” alt_attr=” mobile_display=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” aria_label=” av_uid=’av-8lwsnx’ sc_version=’1.0′]<\/p>\n [av_textblock size=’14’ av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” font_color=” color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-kxp29r7a’ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”] [av_hr class=’invisible’ icon_select=’yes’ icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ position=’center’ shadow=’no-shadow’ height=’20’ custom_border=’av-border-thin’ custom_width=’50px’ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ custom_border_color=” custom_icon_color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=” sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”]<\/p>\n [av_textblock size=’14’ av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” font_color=” color=” id=” custom_class=” template_class=” av_uid=’av-kxnrgfrm’ sc_version=’1.0′ admin_preview_bg=”]<\/p>\n \u201cTrans\u201d as a Misrepresentation of the Subject\u2019s Acquired, Matrixially Feminine Super-Abundance of Compassionate Hospitality for Their Unknown Other<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018I believe that to avoid dealing with any aspect that touches on the female body and bodily experience, to avoid the conceptual potentiality that can be abstracted from the female body and bodily experience, and has consequences with regard to it and its history [\u2026] amounts to an unconditional surrender to the dominant, seemingly neutral, symbolic filter that censures both women and men and molds them to its phallic frame.\u2019<\/p>\n Bracha Ettinger 2006a, 178.9-179.0<\/p>\n In the non-binary domain of the Matrixial feminine it becomes impossible for the subject not<\/i> to involuntarily and spontaneously recognize the \u201cunknown other\u201d as more important than \u201cthe self\u201d. We are all endowed with this propensity: It makes us human. We experience it first in late pre-birth when as the unknown becoming infans<\/em> we are in besidedness with our unknown becoming m\/Other<\/em> and are susceptible to the transmissive affects and effects of her active womb\u2019s feminine generativity as we are forming from her entrails.<\/p>\n It is her sub-subconscious compassionate hospitality towards me, as her unknown becoming infans, and in late pre-birth my sub-subconsciousness of this compassionate hospitality, which I carry involuntarily and unpredictably, into my own encounters with the unknown other<\/em> in my post-birth life thereafter.<\/p>\n In my view it is therefore not acceptable to designate so called Trans people as somehow \u201cborn into the wrong body\u201d. Instead they can be fully affirmed as subjects most profoundly open to the compassionate hospitality of their unknown becoming m\/Other \u2013 such that they have the strange capacity, post-birth, to creatively express their acquired super-abundance of Matrixial-feminine susceptibility to the \u201cunknown other\u201d<\/em> as more important than \u201cthe self\u201d<\/em>, <\/i>in a variety of unpredictable and patriarchally transgressive ways.<\/p>\n At present however, certain so-called Trans subjects, who could be understood correctly as empathic adepts, are socially and culturally coerced \u2013 as a result of their exposure to the phallocentric constraints of Patriarchy \u2013 into an attempt to reductively become<\/em> their \u201cunknown other\u201d in a more or less restrictive physical manner. They accomplish this by conforming, in one way or another, to the binary gender-oppositional norms currently prescribed under patriarchy. And in so doing, they are led to deny the material reality of their own-sexed body.<\/p>\n Yet what if those subjects, of either sex, who are currently designated as Trans, were culturally understood, (and understood themselves) as subjects born with a Matrixial-Feminine superabundance of compassionate hospitality for the unknown other? <\/em><\/p>\n And what if such empathically gifted subjects were enabled to express their patriarchally non-conformist and profoundly compassionate Matrixial subjectivities freely? Then the sexual identity of the body into which they were born would no longer have to be of central concern to them or anyone else:<\/p>\n \u2018The matrixial Eros is linked to sexuality in ways that weaken the importance of gendered \u201cobject choice\u201d. The centrality of gendered \u201cobject choice\u201d \u2013the question of male or female partner\u2013 moves to the margins when Eros intends the other as subject and does its work of borderlinking on the level of partial subjectivity beyond identity.\u2019<\/p>\n (Ettinger, 2006b, 115).<\/p>\n As things stand, it seems to me that whenever subjects termed Trans are obstructed from entering the Matrixial domain and hence are prevented from expressing their abundant Matrixial gifts, they are liable to respond to this patriarchal denial-of-access with hysteria and revolt.<\/p>\n Bracha Ettinger\u2019s view of hysteria in women is that: \u2018In the phallic framework, hysteria, disguise, masquerade, parody and revolt are subjectivising responses on the part of women to men\u2019s definition of female sexuality.\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>(Ettinger, 2006, 183.4)<\/p>\n I now consider that such \u2018hysteria [\u2026] and revolt\u2019 may also be apparent in those subjects characterized in phallocentric discourse as Trans. However, if recognized as empathic adepts, such people might be understood differently and treated<\/em> (in every sense) appropriately.<\/p>\n Instead, in a manifestation of their existential suffering, those identifying as Trans may be found to engage in [surgically legitimized] self-harm: Or varieties of health professionals may, under the guise of legitimate \u201ctreatment\u201d, engage in suppressive counseling and offer hormonal & psychoactive pharmaceuticals to so-called Trans subjects, who should rather be re-spected [looked back at] (Ettinger, 2009,7-8) as Matrixially-Feminine compassionate hospitality adepts.<\/p>\n Re-spect: \u2018This is unarmed re-seeing which is not gazing and not even looking. Re-spect comes, simply, from respicere \u2013 to look back at, but, here, where the subject is in touch with the other\u2019s vulnerability by self-fragilisation, the subject will not perform a public shaming.<\/p>\n (Ettinger, 2009, 7).<\/p>\n But this is not to deny that such people, even if they [are] identified as compassionate hospitality adepts, may continue to suffer from the prescriptive attitudes towards \u201cthe unknown other\u201d, which are embedded in patriarchal society. Indeed, they would in all likelihood attract that very phallocentric dehumanization and denial of agency, of which women (as \u201cother\u201d par excellence) are all too aware.<\/p>\n At the same time, to my mind, the binary ideological conflict that sees so-called Terfs pitted against so-called Trans, is a form of hysteria: A hysteria I consider to be a manifestation of the patriarchal obstruction and suppression of the Matrixial gifts of those on all sides of an issue in which, on the part of \u201cthe one\u201d, there might otherwise<\/em> be realized a superabundance of compassionate hospitality for their \u201cunknown other\/s\u201d.<\/p>\n It is tragic and unsupportable that any empathic adept should be coercively restricted to conformity with the particular gender stereotypes patriarchally imposed on the women and men of this, or any other, culture. But if so-called Trans people are enabled to realize the creative energies and human potential of having a superabundance of compassionate hospitality towards their \u201cunknown other\/s\u201d, and so are free to actualize their Matrixial-Feminine gifts, I think there will then be irresistible theoretical and practical grounds for an alliance of interests and actions between them and gender critical feminists: May I live to see it.<\/p>\n
\nBy:\u00a0JANET CHARMAN
<\/strong>you lower the drawbridge
and cross over as a refugee
from patriarchy
laden with hormone blockers you come
carrying endowments of silicone
bearing scalpels
yes and your desperation
to access all areas
\u2013that too we know
living in the castle\u2019s shadow
as we do
how can we accommodate you?
in your distaste for the Menses in flood
where will you be?
your pitch invulnerable to abortion \u2013 imperatively
you may say: we made the baby float
but to me that reads as the royal we
when truth be told the roiling is all in her: the m\/Other
your breasts aren\u2019t in suckle
you don\u2019t gestate: your vagina is socially constructed
for him: to penetrate
y\/our internalized lack
redacts the organ of exclusive Eros: a clitoris
you don\u2019t proceed to hot flash tempests
Friend
in those moments when you aren\u2019t at home here
ask yourself if you\u2019ve kept a spare key
what would it take?
for you to unlock the keep
and help
<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n
\n\u00a9 Janet Charman
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\nJanet Charman\u2019s latest poetry collection \u2018The Pistils\u2019 is forthcoming from Otago University Press in March 2022.<\/em><\/strong>
\n[\/av_textblock]<\/p>\n* A Note on the Text<\/h6>\n
It is an incontrovertible fact that every person who has ever lived on this planet was born of woman.\u00a0 <\/span>However, in the Matrixial domain, as theorized by Bracha Ettinger, although \u201cwoman\u201d is acknowledged as an exclusive sex category, the attributes of Matrixial femininity, which women [pro]creatively generate, are available to us all \u2013 whatever our sex, or gender identification (Ettinger, 2006a, 182.3).<\/p>\n
In acknowledging the Matrixial Eros of a subject\u2019s spontaneous, very likely patriarchally transgressive, involuntary range of expressions of compassionate hospitality towards the unknown other,<\/em> society might learn a good deal about full empathy.<\/p>\n
The subject [mis]diagnosed and objectified as so-called Trans, may undergo repeated surgical traumas from sex-related amputations and reconstructions. As a result of such interventions, their Matrixial gifts may go unrecognized and they may experience known and unknown long-term, perhaps irreversible, physical and mental side effects.<\/p>\n
Works Cited<\/h5>\n