A Bi-Transgender Fight

You know you've made it in San Francisco as a marginalized group when you start getting in fights with other marginalized groups -- so a local bisexual advocacy/social group is under fire for their policies excluding certain transgender persons.

Namely, the Chasing Amy Social Club (which you may remember from Gay Pride this year, complaining about the lack of bi visibility at the Pride Parade) has gotten called out by local literary doyenne and transgender activist Charlie Anders for refusing to allow her in the group, even though Anders is legally considered female and was an editor of the now-defunct bi zine Anything That Moves. Anders has been blogging about the topic for about a month now.

In response, Chasing Amy says it's true that they exclude transgender MTFs who have not had sex-change surgery (saying that there is a large amount of nudity or semi-nudity at their events), but that they exclude all types of people from membership, including:

women who smoke indoors, vegans offended by the presence of animal products, those with cat allergies, red wine drinkers, folks partaking of drugs during events, women under the age of 18, women seeking a singles hookup environment or sex club, and a variety of other things.

Chasing Amy's founder, Amy Larson, is upset that Anders has been blogging about this, and told the Bay Area Reporter that "I learned about what I considered two-faced behavior. I realized meeting with her was something I no longer felt inclined to do," and says that she is now thinking about retreating from public life as a result of all the recent negative attention she's gotten. Meanwhile, Larson other Chasing Amy members are now focusing on challenging a no-bisexuals policy at an over-40 lesbians group called "Ain't Dead Yet Kick-Azz Events (ADYKE)."