Feminist Consensus and Trans-Activism

 

How to form a successful organization and how not to

by Cathryn Platine

 

Feminist Consensus, I first learned the term long after I had been putting it into practice, something close to the ideal had been my standard way of conducting business meetings for many years.  Consensus meetings are in many ways the opposite of the Robert's Rules of Order type meetings that most folks are familiar with.  It's more time consuming, less rigid and affords the opportunity for all opinions to be heard and considered.  In order for a consensus to be reached, everyone must agree to the outcome, not just a majority.  Other than Feminist groups, about the only place one runs across it in daily life is jury deliberation.  Its weakness is that one or two determined individuals can derail the wishes of everyone else.  When this happens in a jury, the results are a "hung" jury, something judges do not care for.  For this reason, many trans-activist groups who use consensus modify it allowing the group to override a single objection, but not until after the dissenter has every chance to present his or her views.  A consensus group has a facilitator rather than a leader.  A facilitator guides the discussion to keep it focused on the topic being decided on rather than impose a decision after the voices are heard or imposing a premature vote.  In face to face meetings the facilitator keeps track of the order of speakers, determined usually by the order of raising of hands to indicate a desire to be heard.  This is called the stack.  It can also been done by a simple around the table chance to speak or passing a speaking stick or feather enough times to cover the issue. In an email group, a stack is difficult, but not impossible to do.

To accomplish consensus building within a typical email group, the moderator (facilitator) should initially put forth however many different topic threads needed.  If there is more than one moderator, they can split the topics among themselves.  Members now post opinions related to that topic under that subject line.  In order for this to work, the moderator must insist that posts within the individual threads be strictly on topic.  If a member persists in straying from the topic header, they should be put on moderation until they start doing so, the off topic posts relabeled and sent to the group in general.  Don't silence them unless they are being deliberately disruptive.  Any member can start a topic at any time and general comments to the list should always be welcome.  In this way an email list can actually accomplish a wider range of consensus building in a shorter period of time.  Since not everyone has the time to constantly monitor a list, enough time for all to be heard and a consensus found has to be allowed.  A week for most topics should be enough, the moderator checking at the end of that period to see if everyone who chimed in now agrees.  Moderators must be on guard, however, that consensus already made not be needlessly brought up again and again and ruthless in killing those posts that attempt to do so.  All this can be done within a single email list.

So why is this method replaced so often by these groups with a top down board or a fearless leader?  To understand this, you must first understand the roots of group dynamics among males and among females.

Girls talk.  Some say they talk and talk and talk.  Among friends I've been called the original "chatty Cathy".  It's the nature of the relationships between girls and later women to talk out emotions, decisions, fears, hopes, dreams, games and relationships.  It is literally the glue that bonds women in friendships and groups.  Consensus comes naturally to most women, themselves dis-empowered in so many ways in a patriarchal society.  Empathy for others, either the root of maternal instinct or its source, gives the idea of letting other women have the chance to present their opinions natural expression.  Men and boys, on the other hand, learn to organize themselves in hierarchies.  Rather than talk, disagreements often worked out by physical means, then the pecking order established, they go on, friends now that their relative positions are understood.  While men and boys might listen to the opinions of others, the Alpha male then rules on the result, his will now imposed by position.  With my female mind, I never understood the reason or value of these conflicts between males when I was young.  Since I was a loner most of my early life, I avoided situations that placed me in a pecking order as much as possible and the idea of befriending someone who just tried to beat the crap out of me was out of the question.  They were someone to avoid, not befriend in my mind.  Thus my male friends were usually other outsiders to the pecking order.

"There she goes again with the male and female behaviours" I can almost hear some readers exclaim, but you cannot escape the roots of your social conditioning without first understanding you were conditioned.  Its no accident that female to male transsexuals are much more comfortable with consensus then male to female transsexuals and transgenders are, it's in the social conditioning, not the gender identity.    So what happens to derail consensus groups among MtFs?  Several things contribute to the misunderstandings.  Many MtFs were often used to being near the bottom of the pecking order growing up and thus are more comfortable being handed a decision rather than expressing an opinion.  Many MtFs were in the military, the very epitome of male hierarchical organization.  There is a tendency to view a passionately presented point of view as an attempt to impose an Alpha male fiat accompli rather than a starting point for building a consensus discussion.  The facilitator position is too often unfilled by whoever is moderating the group and finally, some members may attempt a verbal version of the physical solution of boys by either fighting any expressed opinion of someone they view as a leader with personal insults or a verbal bullying in the form of declaration that they are right and then proceeding as if the matter was thus settled.

Many MtFs remember in their core that they were the subject of bullying so often in their childhood and so view a passionate discussion opinions or facts as a fight, but without the passionate discussion a consensus is impossible.  A good facilitator can work around this, but when it's needed all too often they are silent.  This is how email lists, which should be an ideal way of running a consensus group due to the removal of any possible physical reaction, fail miserably at it.  The last obstacle to a successful consensus group is that the process, by its very nature, is a tad messy and time consuming so the members must already be committed to the idea that arriving at a consensus is a good and worthy goal in order to make it work.  This means patience while opposing viewpoints gradually find common ground.  Patience is frequently not a MtF strong suit who often want a decision and they want it now, conditioned this way by a lifetime of experience.

Let's face it, among transgenders and transsexuals there seem to be no shortage of would be Alpha (fe)males.  They emphatically pronounce themselves leader, proceed as if by expressing their position it's now decided and are then followed by droves of others who were conditioned not to question the position or opinions of the Alpha in their early childhood, sports experience or military service.  Several would be trans-leaders come to mind instantly in this light, I won't name them, but if you are following my "Cathy's Adventures in Genderland" series you can figure out who some are fairly quickly.*   They really aren't all that hard to spot and the way to deal with them is to continue the discussion and ignore their claims that the topic is closed.  When they figure out that they have to participate, not dictate, they'll either leave or settle down.  The facilitator has to be very firm with their attempts to close discussion however, if they are to be part of the group.  If she is not, a "leader" is now born who will proceed to either run the group by fiat or appoint a like-minded board to do the same thing and a consensus driven group becomes yet another hierarchical one, much of the membership now unheard or disgruntled.  Sometimes the new board driven group will retain consensus finding method within the board and thus still claim to be consensus driven when in fact, it is not.

There is yet another common problem in forming organizations, it's in the very, often haphazard, manner in which they come about.  An organization is often formed by a group of visionaries with a clear goal in mind.   Since they are of one mind, they bypass or put off writing a mission statement or bylaws.  They have reached some consensus just in forming.  Someone then gets the bright idea that numbers = power and recruits as many as possible to join, the new members, having not been in that particular fight to that point, then proceed to endlessly debate the very consensus the organization was founded on, making a mission statement of the original goals impossible and thus undermining the consensus.  Many of these members are "cyber-members", meaning when the group does get together to hammer out policy and arrive at a new consensus face to face, these folks are no where to be seen or heard.  Afterwards, they resume endless debate on issues already decided by those who did the face to face or initial organizing.  The original founders/firebrands/visionaries who then insist the organization stay on it's target are now seen as hardliner assholes, unyielding and disruptive to the now totally watered down or totally missing mission of the group. This makes for a group ripe for a self appointed "leader" to now step forward in the name of order and impose will instead of guiding direction on the others.  Seeing how messy and aimless everything now is, much of the membership agrees just to get anything accomplished.

The lesson from this is simple, once a group establishes a consensus, new members should be quickly apprised of those decisions and if they cannot live with them, they shouldn't join the organization.  It sounds simple and yet I've watched group after group formed with good intentions and clear goals derailed by the influx of new members who cannot or will not accept what the group is about or has already decided.  Consensus doesn't mean every decision has to be reviewed and renewed every time someone new joins, that's just plain madness.  If something has been decided and there isn't a darn good reason to review that decision, discussion on that topic should be closed immediately with the reason given by the facilitator if she's doing her job.  Consensus is a way of building, not undermining, group decisions.  Also, numbers aren't always a good thing if you wish to accomplish anything, what should count is if folks are willing to roll up their sleeves and do the work.

So there you have it, a blueprint for an activist or other type of group that can work and can then accomplish goals without imposing a top down board and how to avoid that top down board from happening.  Organizational requirements of tax laws and/or incorporation laws can easily be met by the facilitator taking the "Chair" position and several long time members being the official "board" for paperwork purposes only.  The last thing to remember is something else rather simple.  Those who say something cannot be done should not interfere with those who are actually doing it.
 

* One of them held up the feminist consensus ideal for groups organized under her while retaining the right of imposing of individual will over all!  Another, whose story will be told in part six of my series, highjacked an entire national organization in this manner.  One of them ran the organization that the new one was to replace having gotten her leadership in exactly the same manner.

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