Breach among Bay Area Dianic Wiccans?

Transgendered women are spiritually, mentally and emotionally (and sometimes physically) women. Ok, some of them look different than other women, in the same way that fat women, black women and old women look different than other women, but that's not a reason to exclude them from a group of women.

If there is no ritual nudity, it should never be an issue. I can understand that seeing an actual ding-dong swinging around at a women's ritual might be distracting to a lot of women, but I don't know of any pre-op transgendered women who feel comfortable naked anyhow, so that shouldn't be an issue for anyone.

Honestly, I never liked some of the things dianics tend to say about gender. I went through a phase where I as a man-hating feminist and I came out of that phase with a greater understanding of gender equality... BOTH genders, not just equality for women... "equality" for ONE gender is not equal at all. I don't get the sense that most Dianics are about equality. Some are about real equality (and I've even met some wonderful male Dianics) and it's those Dianics that I support.

I respect the work Z has done, but when it's all wrapped up in a package of hate and drama, I can't support it.

-Scarlet

As you've said, Z has something of a... reputation. Mind you, a lot of the BNPs (Big Name Pagans) have comparable reputations, where they've got a particular issue that they're VERY strident about, but others don't consider quite as big a deal.

Being a non-Dianic, East Coast guy... I can't say as this really has much of an effect on me. I get what they're saying, and agree with it - but it's their religion, and I'm not exactly welcome in it (for the most part), so I don't really get to have any say. I like that they're expanding their scope to occasionally have mixed-gender events, as I agree with their statement that patriarchy can have negative effects on both/all genders - but, again, Bay Area and NY are pretty much different worlds.

I can't say that I'm tremendously surprised...the Pagan community is filled with strong personalities with diverging ideas, and occasionally things simply don't work out. I'm glad that the statement in the blog is at least polite about it; IMO it's always best when these sort of splits can occur without too much rancor.

Thanks for the link, though, I hadn't heard anything about it, and I like to keep at least some level of an ear to the ground.

Our Goddess group is totally non-feminist and open to all... we feel that exclusionary groups give our religion a very bad public image, and clearly they are not practicing in a healthy and correct way.

We have an article on our website about Feminism and the Goddess. Here's a link (see chapter 14).

http://www.cybele2.com/

Please read the article... it is our response to Z Budapest and others like her.

Something like this was bound to happen. There was just too much of a schism, and both sides had valid arguments really. You could see for a while now they were just at an impass, and there really is little compromise for things like this.

I think you found a hot piece of gossip and couldn't wait to share it.

People disagree all the time. The subject can be just about anything.