A 36-year-old man who wrote a Master’s thesis on “girlcock” and BDSM has launched a paid “trans youth” mentorship program to connect adolescents with older, “experienced” transgender adults.
On February 12, CBC reported that Cat Haines was starting the program, called Into the Streets, specifically to connect “transfeminine” male youth with “transfeminine” male adults. Haines told CBC that “within Regina, there’s still a big lack of visibility of transgender communities, especially trans women and girls,” and that the program would change “the constrained view of how trans women should look or act.”
Haines is a trans rights activist who lives in Regina, Saskatchewan and received a Master’s Degree in Women and Gender Studies from the University of Regina in 2021. His thesis was titled “Transmisogyny and the Abjection of Girlcock.”
On his personal website, Haines describes the thesis as a look at “how trans women are cast as dangerous and disgusting intruders in (cissexist) feminist and lesbian spaces, theory, and media.”
“I will argue throughout this thesis that through the metaphor of girlcock, trans women are said to be too loud, too angry, and too ‘male’ to be safely allowed into feminist and lesbian spaces.” Haines writes in the introduction. “This notion of too-much extends to our bodies as well, with the potential of our girlcocks being too-much-flesh for many cissexist lesbian and feminist spaces.”
An entire chapter of the thesis is also devoted to a lengthy discussion of the pornographic film The Training of Poe (2017). Haines argues that the film’s portrayal of a “BDSM Dominant/submissive” relationship is an example of media that “sublimes” a trans woman’s body and sexuality.
“There are shots that allow for the fullness of Poe’s sexuality to exist, such as shots of her girlcock dripping with precum,” Haines praises.
Throughout the chapter, he proposes a framework of “BDSM and wilful submission” to “help us understand the process of material re-embodiment,” and expresses his own personal belief that there is “tremendous power in exploring and enacting Dominant/submissive style relationships.”
Haines also discusses the film’s frequent reference to the “submissive” as a “slave” and writes “to invoke the term slave within the context of BDSM is to invoke a history of violence, subjugation, and forced labour (which may be desirable elements within the scene).”
He finds the term “slave” problematic for its connections to American slavery, but he does not find “violence, subjugation, and forced labour” to be problematic within a BDSM Dominant/submissive relationship.
The supervisory and examining committee found the thesis “acceptable in form and content” and concluded that the candidate “demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material.”
Haines describes himself as both an academic and an artist with a focus on the intersection of his identities as a “dyke and a trans woman.”
In 2020, he wrote a short zine called The Lesbian Body as an update to a 1973 work by the same name and a challenge to the idea that “the lesbian body is limited to the cisgender dyadic female body.”
Using graphic and often gory language in the style of the original text, Haines expresses his frustration at being denied by “transmisogynistic lesbians” and describes a male body as a “lesbian” body.
“The women loose your dogs on m/e when I approach,” he writes, “Everything is denied m/e, even the right of asylum.”
In the next panel, he continues: “I begin to sing as you sink your teeth into the flesh of m/y cock m/y most beautiful one, m/y most feared one.”
In 2022, Haines released a second zine titled Trans Feminist Self Help Zine: Volume 0, inspired by the Feminist Self Help Movement which began in the 1970s. In the preface, Haines explains that the purpose of the zine is to trouble the term “women’s health” by invoking a “Trans Feminist Self Help Movement.”
He goes on to discuss his residency at Ender Gallery, an exhibition space inside the game Minecraft, where he had a digital art installation that he described as “a monumental reconstruction of my surgically reconstructed genitals.” Haines then details the outcomes of his surgery while speculating on his surgeon’s possible sexual motives for how it turned out:
“I always expected to be given a vulva look book, but instead my genitals were reconstructed towards a platonic ideal—a cisgender man’s fantasy of what a vulva and vagina should look like. Deep, tight, and tidy. Did my surgeon imagine how it would feel for his own cock to penetrate my soon-to-be vagina when he told me to get naked and somewhat flippantly informed me that I had more than enough material for a successful surgery? Did he wonder whether my cunt would be deep and large enough to fit not just any (and every) cock but specifically his own?”
Haines also makes short films about being a “lesbian,” including The Lovers (2021), which “attempts to unpack [trans-for-trans] butch and femme aesthetics and love.”
In the film, Haines and another trans-identified male, “Jaye,” discuss what makes their relationship a “butch/femme relationship.” Haines, who refers to himself as the “femme,” is shown in a women’s bathing suit.
Originally from Saskatchewan, Haines began identifying as transgender in his late 20s while living in the San Francisco Bay Area. After moving back to Saskatchewan, he started taking part in transgender activism and became co-chair of Trans Sask, a a non-profit research network for “trans-identified, genderqueer, intersex and gender non-conforming individuals.” Trans Sask has received funding from Women and Gender Equality Canada, a government department.
Haines also became the program co-ordinator with UR Pride Centre at the University of Regina, where he advocated for legislation that would allow “gay-straight alliances” and student confidentiality in schools.
Leaving parents in the dark about their children’s activities at school has become a theme for Haines.
In June of 2022, the Western Standard reported that he was a “special transgender guest speaker” for grades 5 to 8 students at a school in the Regina Public School system. The principal confirmed that the school would not be sending out consent forms for the talk.
Today, Haines continues his efforts to connect with young people and have them follow in his footsteps through his Into the Streets mentorship program, telling the Regina Leader-Post: “My hope is that it will jumpstart a new generation of activists who are keen and eager to do the work.”
He also expressed his wish that the program be a “coming-into-themselves” for the girls participating, the “girls” he is referring to are male children.
Applications to be a mentor for Into the Streets are open until the end of February. The plan is for the youth and their mentors to participate in one-on-one and group activities, as well as a series of projects during Trans Pride 2023 in June. Mentors will receive a $200 sponsorship for their pride project and a $1,000 stipend for taking part in the program.
Into the Streets is being supported both administratively and financially by UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity and Ivy + Dean Consulting, a “100% queer owned consulting firm” in Regina.
Reduxx is your source of pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding news and commentary. We’re 100% independent! Support our mission by joining our Patreon, or consider making a one-time donation.
