Five axioms about gender and bodies
I want to riff off Cara’s post here, random and unfinished thoughts about female anatomy. My first thought is, like GallingGalla’s, that they are indeed unfinished. I don’t want to give Cara a hard time about it, since she’s careful to point out “these are just a few of my experiences, and so there’s obviously no way they’re universal or complete, and they don’t even begin to address experiences outside of my white, straight, cis perspective.” So, my problem is not with Cara (who posts regularly on trans issues and is in my opinion one cis (that is, not trans) feminist who tries very hard to get it), but rather with the language that we (yes, all of us) largely use to discuss bodies and gender.
Because like almost every discussion about bodies, there’s cis-normative assumptions through-out Cara’s piece and the comment thread. The problem is, the further a trans woman’s body gets away from cis, the more invisible it becomes in these conversations (and the same for trans men with cis male bodies).
So, I’m going to sketch out a few axioms, Eve Sedgwick style.
1. Respecting trans identities means rethinking your assumptions about bodies and gender and what they mean.
Fairly self-explanatory, yes?
2. Genitals do not of themselves determine gender
A penis is not inherently male, a vagina is not inherently female. If she has one, a trans women’s penis is female. Similarly, if he has one, a trans man’s vagina is male. Therefore, “female genitals” do not automatically exclude a penis, and automatically include a vagina. An analogy would be the changing fortunes of the word “marriage”–where “marriage” once implicitly and only referred to heterosexual relationships (as it continue to in many parts of the world), with the introduction of gay marriage in some areas this is no longer strictly the case. So it is with “male genitals” and “female genitals”–an overwhelming majority does indeed have one kind, but this does not apriori exclude the alternate configurations of some trans people.
“Male” and “female” are broader, fuzzy concepts that include all kinds of things – including genitals, body shape, skin depth, facial hair and body hair, hair softness, fat distribution, voice pitch, chromosomes, the social experience of being treated as your sex, and so on. Many of these are presumed rather than known–is there a genital check for day-to-day life? How many people do you know who’ve had a karotype to check to make sure they are indeed XX or XY? It is ridiculous to suggest that genitals are necessarily only and solely determinative of gender, when many trans people share so many of these as to go un-noticed in their day-to-day lives. Clearly, “male” and “female” precede any given genital/body configuration and therefore must include the totality of body expressions in those groups
But this is not merely a linguistic concern about what “male” and “female” mean. The equations penis = male, vagina = female are codified into law, determining a whole host of things from access to shelters to housing in prison. This is the cause of much oppression of trans people, because cissexist meanings have material social effects. For instance, if a trans woman has a penis in Australia (and indeed most parts of the world) she will be housed in a men’s prison, the wrong prison–and put at a high risk of rape and assault.
To summarise: the idea that genitals mean only “male” or “female” (depending) is a social and linguistic convention based on the number of people possessing them (trans people with mismatched presentations and genitals are after all a tiny minority). It is not however something inherent in flesh itself, and to insist entirely upon those meanings as solely determinative of sex is to expose trans people to violence and discrimination.
3. The meanings of “female” “male” and “genderqueer” are not reducible to bodies, but are not un-related, and we cannot know in advance how they intersect.
The meanings that trans people make from our bodies can be related to our bodies, but nevertheless stand apart from them. I know cis people often feel this way, and but this is not necessarily so. A person may feel that their genitals, breast or hormone status etc determine their sex, but they may not. In other words, identifications exist outside of genital status, desire for surgery etc, and they should be respected right now. Neither are the meanings reducible to appearance, passability-as-cis or hormone status, though they may be experienced that way.
4. Desiring a trans person is not inherently different from desiring a cis person, though it might be
What I mean by that is, the whole foundation of the “trans panic” defence is that having sex with a woman with a penis makes the cis male killer gay (and therefore it is only natural that the man kill the trans woman in question). No, it makes them straight (or bisexual if they also fancy men). And trans men are not kinder, softer men. If you conceptualise desired genders as binary (gay/straight/bisexual), desiring someone genderqueer identified may (or may not) problematise your orientation.
5. Trans ways of having sex may correspond with their cissexual counterparts, but they may not.
There’s a lot shame about trans people and what we do with our genitals. Classically, the diagnosis for gender dysphoria meant that if you masturbated or had sex before genital surgery, you were not trans. The theory goes, that trans people must be so cut off from our genitals that we can’t bear to use them unless after surgery. So besides, the originating gender dissonance, people had to manage their responses to gatekeepers that were always on the lookout for “signs” of an originary cissexuality.
Needless to say, this is bullshit. Some people might, and some people might not, but if we haven’t had surgery, the ways we have sex still do not ungender us—eg when a trans men is penetrated, he is not magically a woman.
Ok, so like Cara’s post, it’s still kinda work in progress which I might modify, if you have thoughts or I bollocks anything up.
ETA: Cheers to the radical “feminists” linking this post, selectively (mis)quoting and willfully misinterpreting my post as some kind of postmodernist free-for-all about genitals, divorced from institutional and social context. Your intellectual dishonesty and rubbish reading comprehension are, as always, appreciated.
2. Genitals do not of themselves determine gender
while i totally agree with your heading, i have some problems with the following terminology. i mean, maybe it’s because i’m a scientist, but a penis is a male reproductive organ. it’s like, if you imagine plants, saying anthers are female reproductive organs. or saying that rain isn’t weather. it’s linguistical and logical fallacy, which really won’t stick.
on the other hand, just because an individual *has* a male reprodcutive organ, it doesn’t make them a man, and vice versa. that’s where i agree with the heading. after all, some plants have both just female reproductive organs, but we don’t refer to them as women.
the problem is that people fixate on the genitals way too much, as you say, and extrapoloate from their existence to describe an entire individual. i mean, i’ve got a ganglion on one of my knuckles; it does not make my entire body and personality a joint swelling. it’s that kind of logic.
Alma Cork
12 May 09 at 12:28 am
(p.s. wow. re-reading that comment makes me worry that maybe i’m not so awake…. my english seems awful? i might try and make the point a bit better when i’ve cleared the cobwebs out of my skull)
Alma Cork
12 May 09 at 12:30 am
Well, I stand by my comment, though perhaps as a literary theorist I’m more comfortable with the apparent paradox. The language of “male” and “female” is not neutral and descriptive, it is also prescriptive and begins right from the start with cissexist assumptions.
What I mean is:
I am a woman, therefore *every* part of me is female. My penis doesn’t get exempted from that.
Otherwise you begin with a process of splitting the body into “male” and “female” parts that negates trans identifications. Because any remainder in a cissexist world posits us as liars.
Besides, how would that work? Oh, my estrogen level’s closer to average cis levels, so uh.. my skin’s two-thirds female?
queenemily
12 May 09 at 12:42 am
What I’m getting at is, it’s not a question of biology (what concrete phenomena exist), it’s a question of what that phenomena *means*. And meaning is *always* debateable.
queenemily
12 May 09 at 1:30 am
thanks for ungendering me, alma, really appreciate it (rolls eyes). you may think of your penis (if you have one) that way and that’s fine for you, but every part of my body is female, including my unusually large clit that happens to look like what most people call a penis.
your “science” is stepping all over my reality.
GallingGalla
12 May 09 at 1:46 am
More comments on “2. Genitals do not of themselves determine gender”:
I would argue that you are correct in that. However, I also admit that a penis is a male reproductive organ.
This is probably about the point where the words “gender” and “sex” differ.
I would probably say that a penis is male-sexed. If it is a woman’s penis then it is most certainly a female penis, as the owner is female-gendered, so it too is female-gendered. However, just because the woman has a male-sexed organ, they can still be female-sexed.
Like a person can be dressed in all red, and wear a blue hat. That is definitely a red person, despite their blue hat. And you can argue that the blue hat itself is in a sense red, as it is worn by a red person. But it is not red in the same way as the rest of the clothes are red.
It’s all very confusing and requires waaaaaay too much thought.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to say here. I think I’m just trying to say that we shouldn’t be trying to gender parts of a body, but should consider the body as a whole.
I agree with what you’ve got for (2).
Lucy
12 May 09 at 1:57 am
Also, if I made sense at all in that (which I seriously seriously doubt), then it’s the first time this month I’ve done so! Surely this is a sign of an impending apocalypse!
Lucy
12 May 09 at 1:59 am
This is good.
sqrrel
12 May 09 at 2:34 am
Alma and Lucy,
I’ll try to come back to this when I’m more awake, but I’m taking Em’s side here, and her reasons are pretty plainly stated. I’m not interested in the idea that we can take a trans body and chop it up into male and female parts, and would rather the person’s identification define their sex and gender than override that identification with scientific objectification.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 2:50 am
@lisa
That’s kinda the conclusion I came to at the end of my ramble.
Lucy
12 May 09 at 2:53 am
Well, I am not fully awake.
I do have thoughts about how science is used to support oppressive systems (not that science is inherently bad or good or any of that, but it’s a tool), and one way is, for example, how all infants must be identified as male or female at birth without exception.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 2:55 am
“maybe it’s because i’m a scientist, but a penis is a male reproductive organ”
Oh, please. *No* scientific classification is final – they change as our understanding advances. (Look at the taxonomy of seaweed, for chrissake.)
A penis isn’t a “male” reproductive organ – it’s a reproductive organ that delivers gametes to a different gamete in a particular way, and an external organ of urination. To say it’s a “male” organ is simply to fall back on lazy shorthand. If there’s one virtue in science, it’s precision. Let’s not use OMG SKIENCE as a reason to ungender people.
jack
12 May 09 at 3:13 am
Lucy, I think you kinda see where I was coming from. Thanks.
Galla. Sorry. Didn’t mean to ungender you. In fact, I’m using the language without any implications of gender. In addition, it doesn’t impact on your sex either, because as Em illustrates, sex is actually pretty complicated when you really start picking it apart. Scientifically speaking.
Lisa, I agree that I would rather a persons idfentification determine their sex & gender. However, I’m also aware that there are many more things that determine overall sex than your gonadal configuration. I can see why refering to your willy as a male reproductive organ can be problematic for some women, but in terms of sketcing out acadmic discourse to adequatly describe what is happening….. I’m sorry. I don’t buy it. Hell, if you’re intrested in developing a language and you can’t sell what you have to another trans-woman then, maybe, we need to keep on discussing that language.
Finally, Em, ‘I am a woman, therefore *every* part of me is female. My penis doesn’t get exempted from that‘. I think that maybe it is more important to examine the possibility that it is perfectly possible and reasonable to be a woman *irrespective* of whether or not every part of your body is female. That, to me, is far more radical than calling a cock a clit.
Alma Cork
12 May 09 at 3:22 am
as an aside, the above is not to say that i deny anybody elses lived realities, you know. i’m not trying to say that Em, for instance, should view her body in any way other than what works for her. however, i am saying that i’ve got different ideas as to how things work and, it appears, i’m still invested in sussing out where those ideas meet.
so :)
Alma Cork
12 May 09 at 3:25 am
@Alma:
Sloppy, and bad scientific, thinking there. A penis is no inherently and of itself a male organ. It is just a reproductive organ. It may be part of what *we* class in a binary gender system an individual that is *normally* a male.
But it is necessary to question form a scientific point of view whether that interpretation of gender is correct.
In truth *we* know it is not. I am female and I have a penis. So, in this individual case it makes the penis a *female* reproductive organ.
Alice Chapman
12 May 09 at 3:30 am
@OP: Indeed.
I don’t think there’s any meaningful way to speak of biological sexes with words such as “male” or “female” unless one wants to bring in the whole cissexist crapheap – those words are so laden with cis meanings that calling penis a “male” reproductive organ effectively brings in the “man” bits, too – it still relies on a more-or-less exclusive dichotomy of two sexes. The whole mainstream sex-language is tainted with the ciscentric view that penis equals male equals man and vagina/vulva equals female equals woman. Some women just happen to have penises, or large clits, or whatever other female organs they have – no big deal unless one insists on having hir particular meanings stamped upon trans bodies without consent (which is not forthcoming from me, anyway).
Carto
12 May 09 at 3:35 am
@Alma:
“I think that maybe it is more important to examine the possibility that it is perfectly possible and reasonable to be a woman *irrespective* of whether or not every part of your body is female”
I’m not saying I necessarily agree with the possibility of not every part of me being female (not disagreeing either. too tired to think). I do however agree with what you say here though.
Lucy
12 May 09 at 4:08 am
I’m not interested in ciscentric views of how bodies are gendered, and I don’t care if those views are expressed by cis people or trans people. You’re referring to science that barely acknowledges that trans people legitimately exist. If you can’t sell that to another trans woman, then maybe we need to use a different model.
That’s more aggressive than I really meant – I’m not trying to tell you to shut up, just that I think telling each other how trans we are isn’t helping. :)
More below.
What does radical have to do with anything? I’m sick of cis people radicalizing trans lives and bodies and then berating us because we don’t actually live up to those radicalized standards. Does the same argument coming from a trans woman make it more palatable? Not to me.
Also, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t non-consensually refer to other trans women’s genitalia as “cocks” or “willies.”
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 5:05 am
Okay, I’m writing this before I’ve had some sleep:
Em’s post is about granting subjectivity to trans people about our own lives. The standard model – in science, in psychiatry, in feminist theory, in queer theory, you name it grants objectivity to cisgender and cissexual voices and definitions of sex and gender, and denies any subjectivity to trans voices and definitions of sex and gender.
That is to say, transness purely exists as an objectified trait. That subjective viewpoints that are not trans are granted objectivity over subjective viewpoints that are trans.
Emily’s saying – and I agree with this – that we require the agency and right to define ourselves, our lives, and our bodies. We have to be able to assert the validity of our experiences and lives. If we speak up, we’re constantly being smacked down by cis authorities for not being radical enough, for being too radical, for violating gender boundaries, for reinforcing gender boundaries, for being delusional, for being sick, for having paraphilias, for all kinds of reasons.
I do not think it’s useful to define trans women as having male parts – that in itself reasserts that trans women are male, and thus men. Find cis people who do not use “male” in reference to human beings interchangeably with men, and you will find cis people who already listen to trans people. If a trans woman defines herself as having male parts, that’s not the same thing, and doesn’t carry the same weight as cis – and even other trans – people telling her that she’s really got male parts. For one thing, a woman who defines herself doesn’t have to put up with someone else’s subtext.
Now, I’m not saying that you should identify with your body in the same way I identify with mine, Emily identifies with hers or GG identifies with hers. If you prefer to view your body as male, that’s fine. I know trans people who define themselves as male women and female men, and I’m not interested in policing other people’s self-definitions.
What I am saying is that we have to be able to define ourselves, regardless of what cis people, scientifically, theoretically, socially, insist must be true.
Another element Emily is referring to is how cis society writes meanings upon bodies – and writes those meanings in such ways as to grant validity to cis people and deny validity to trans people. One of those ways is by explicitly defining penises as male and vaginas as female. This actually ties back into cis subjectivity being treated as objectivity vs. trans subjectivity. It lays the groundwork for defining people by our anatomy rather than by our identities.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 5:28 am
I don’t really know what to say about this. On the one hand, I can consider what I have between my legs as a big clit ; on the other hand, I never had to realize that this part of my body did exist even if nobody was talking about it. And while I define as female, I can understand that there is a specifical need to talk about some “body parts” shared by a group of people, whether they define as male, female, or not. Maybe calling this group “female” is wrong, but I don’t know what term would be right.
I don’t know if that helps, but in french we have two words for male/female: “mâle/femelle”, which usually correspond to the reproductory system and is mostly used for animals, and “masculin/féminin” which is used for humans and, for me, (unfortunately, not for the state or most cis people :o ) is more social and self-defined. Maybe this is a case where having two different terms could help :o
Elly
12 May 09 at 5:29 am
Okay peeps. First off, apologies for coming across as an asshat.
I’m going to go away and think about this some more, because there is something that makes me feel uneasy, somthing I perceive as clumsy, within this discussion, but I think I need to get a better handle on what that is before continuing talking about it. I mean, it might just be my problem, maybe a missreading or a lack of understanding or a jumping to conclusions, and nothing to do with anybody or anything else.
I mean, otherwise I’m on board with Em’s post. So.
Alma Cork
12 May 09 at 6:13 am
Ok.
I think it’s interesting that out of the five ideas I put forth, it’s the one that specifically about genitals we’re discussing. Which is kinda indicative about how what makes us anxious, I think.
I mean, when it comes down to it, bathroom panic? Is a fear of a woman with a penis. Trans panic? Is about fear of a woman with a penis. Mandatory sterilisation of trans guys here? Man with a vagina.
So we really do need to grapple with these ideas I think, for ourselves as a community. *How* do we defuse the fear of what’s in our pants not meeting cis expectations?
queenemily
12 May 09 at 6:26 am
@ queenemily:
“Mandatory sterilisation of trans guys here? Man with a vagina.”
But sterilisation doesn’t remove the vagina, so surely that’s not actually about genitals?
jack
12 May 09 at 6:54 am
Note:
Sex and gender are conflated in the axioms, which in and of itself leads to a disconnect between the concepts being discussed.
They are actually really good, just need to be a little tweaked for clarity.
For trans lives, this isn’t so much a big deal — in the practical and day to day realities, our sex and gender and gender identity (3 different things) are all readily combined and intermixed and not all that easy to disentangle.
But to convey it clearly to the cis world, without falling on transprivilege (which, in this case, we have over them, pardon the evil laugh coming from me as I say that), one must use the distinctions.
They are not cut and dried distinctions either — that’s one of the inherent flaws that I see being addressed in the writing, and the *escape* is to remember that biology is deeply linked in the practical, subjective world to gender and gender identity (hence the female penis = woman element).
TO do so, one must rise out of the older, less aware understanding of what sex is (even in science it is not male and female only) and into a greater realization that sex is determined by a preponderance of physiological aspects, not any one thing.
So a penis is neither male nor female, in and of itself — it is merely a part of the whole, and does not alone make a determination of male or female, and *certainly* does not make a determination of man or woman, since man and woman are not physiological aspects of sex, but rather of gender and/or gender identity.
Unless you want to ignore the basis of science as we know it today, which is one of the flaws of much o the historical movement, predicated heavily on things like resistance to any degree of biological determinism (GID being such).
At some point soon, I will sit down and revisit this, and postulate somewhat more clear commentary with better explanatin — probably on my blog, which ya’ll are welcome to transpose here for discussion wheneer I get it out.
DC is nice — off to walk the Capitol Mall and take pics today….
dyssonance
12 May 09 at 7:01 am
@jack Well no, but it’s still an anxiety about what genitals do and mean. ie the Attorney General said quite plainly that “men do not bear babies.”
queenemily
12 May 09 at 7:03 am
I think biological determinism is pretty damned flawed, because the “biological” is arbitrary and as goalposts go, easily shifted.
Think of how many terms for trans and cis people exist that reinforce the notion that cis people are natural, biological, and real, and that trans people are unnatural, artificial, and false. I mean, being trans doesn’t mean we stop being biological, and the notion that you can draw a line at genitalia or chromosomes and say “these strictly define who you are” is obviously false (even if it generally leads to a good guess).
I’m also deeply suspicious of any notion of science as representing objective reality, considering how it’s used to impose false realities in terms of not just sex and gender, but also race, neurotypicality and neurodiversity, and the like. I am not saying that science is false or that it cannot be right, but I am saying that frequently, scientific claims are colored by human biases. It’s impossible to avoid this, especially when you get into something that is, bluntly, as muddy as defining male and female, because science is a human creation.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 7:07 am
Also, I thought the basis of science today was the scientific method: Develop a hypothesis, test it. If your tests confirm your hypothesis, you have a theory. If your tests contradict your hypothesis, you start over.
I don’t believe anything in Em’s post denies the scientific method – what it questions are conclusions that may have been drawn from the scientific method. For example, that everyone born with a penis is male (and thus a boy) and everyone born with a vagina is female (and thus a girl).
I would rather question – and deconstruct – those definitions of male and female (and even the assumption that everyone must either be male or female), and work toward a model that actually acknowledges and respects human diversity, and does not throw “But science says THIS!” in our faces. Science doesn’t say anything. Humans do.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 7:18 am
And this:
But to convey it clearly to the cis world, without falling on transprivilege (which, in this case, we have over them, pardon the evil laugh coming from me as I say that), one must use the distinctions.
I don’t believe privileged people are entitled to understand everything (or believe they understand everything).
That is to say, to describe ourselves, we need to be able to use our words. Those words may be comprehensible to cis people, or they may not, but there’s no reason we should be required to make them accessible to cis people.
Also, the concepts are pretty simple – the lack of comprehension comes from a lack of belief in the validity of trans perspectives, and not from overly complex language. That’s where the problem lies. Look at the complaints that ‘cis’ is too academic, for example.
By this I don’t necessarily mean the experience of being trans is anything that is directly accessible to cis people, or ever will be. I mean that understanding that we’re telling the truth about ourselves – or rather, the lack of willingness to understand that.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 7:41 am
At least one of those biases of contemporary science is the tendency to consider differences between means as evidence of fundamental qualitative difference while treating range and variance as “error.”
CBrachyrhynchos
12 May 09 at 7:45 am
Wow. Queenemily, I needed this a lot this morning. Thank you for writing it.
That first principle makes a lot of sense to me – I think it’s good to formalize the desirability of changing perspectives.
It’s the second one that comes with little hearts and flowers and the engraved words “For You!” on it, at least for me. That’s rolling around and around and around in my head like a lil’ notional Katamari, and making me feel glad. Wow.
The fourth and fifth ones also go a long way toward settling an emotional muddle that’s been haunting me lately about past relationships.
I just…wow. Thanks.
Cericonversion
12 May 09 at 8:02 am
Lisa: I don’t believe privileged people are entitled to understand everything (or believe they understand everything). This makes sense to me, a lot. I was chatting on the weekend with a friend who’s got an advancing case of fibromyalgia, and we spent a long time on the limits of regular vocabulary for kinds of pain, and the distinctions we just can’t really draw clearly for someone who isn’t familiar with the different ones. It’s not that healthy people are stupid or anything, it’s just that some descriptions won’t make sense until you have the referents.
Starting from that, it makes immediate sense to me that there are things that, say, I won’t get about other kinds of experience, and that it’d be silly of me to expect that everything in other people’s lives can be put in terms I’ll get. And likewise for anyone else.
Cericonversion
12 May 09 at 8:09 am
Yes to the whole OP.
“trans men are not kinder, softer men.” Can I have this on a t-shirt? (& anyone who thinks this needs to spend some time on LJftm–or post there.)
And def. going to agree with Lisa on this “but science is objectiv3 & rite!!!” point; because, no, it isn’t.
I’m male, my bits are male; it doesn’t matter that some ignorant cis* people might mistake them for female, they are still male.
(and no, I don’t care about being moar radical when it comes to my gender & my sex; radical is for my politics & my actions).
Drakyn
12 May 09 at 8:34 am
One thing that confuses me in all this (and I’m apparently a ‘cis’ – I would never normally refer to myself as such, but I do like a bit of Latin) is the way that ‘male’ and ‘female’ take on their own meaning that is more about the perception of the individual concerned; not quite Humpty Dumpty but along the same lines. In which case, why use those terms or get hung up on them?
The dictionary says (roughly) that ‘male’ is the sex that begets young, and ‘female’ the sex that bears young; and when you strip the science (hormones, chromosomes, whatever) out of the equation that seems a reasonable definition (or as Lisa puts it, a good guess) applicable to living organisms.
It follows that there must be something ‘scientific’ that defines whether we ‘feel’, or identify with, male or female, even if science is as yet unable to put a finger on it. I don’t think it matters what that something is, but clearly it’s there for some.
Personally I don’t feel particularly male – I just feel like a person. I don’t especially feel a need to be identified as ANYTHING; gay, straight, male, female, liberal, conservative, white, black… to put it bluntly, who cares?
From my perspective (which I confess is one of pure ignorance on this subject matter) it is those who sit outside of ‘societal norms’ who feel the greatest compulsion to self-define. But in this case I thought that’s what the terms trans male/trans female were there for.
In conclusion this article and the responses (interesting, civilised and enlightening though it all is) seem to contain quite a few quasi-philosophical statements that could perhaps be branded ‘trans-normative assumptions’ – which is understandable but does little to bridge the gap. I mean, linguistics are my thing and I love to debate the meaning of words, but such debates have a tendency in the end to go around in circles somewhat.
Sorry to be long-winded; partly it’s my style, and partly it’s because this thread is so engaging… I only hope I haven’t derailed it.
Delius
12 May 09 at 8:51 am
CBrachyrhynchos: If you notice At least one of those biases of contemporary science is the tendency to consider differences between means as evidence of fundamental qualitative difference while treating range and variance as “error.” gone missing, it is because I have whisked it off to have a torrid affair with. I love your phrasing very, very much.
(Sorry for the flurry of separate posts. I’m waking up kind of hard and lumpily.)
Do folks here know Richard Feynmann’s piece on cargo cult science? It’s an old fave of mine, but reading it again just now, I’m struck by how much “real” science has these same failings – “all our past work requires labeling an organism as male or female, so we must continue to use those criteria”, for instance, is an offering put out for the gods of biology.
Cericonversion
12 May 09 at 8:59 am
TO do so, one must rise out of the older, less aware understanding of what sex is (even in science it is not male and female only) and into a greater realization that sex is determined by a preponderance of physiological aspects, not any one thing.
No. The sex of a body is determined by the owner of that body, just like gender. One person makes this determination, and they make it however they see fit. A given person might take into account many aspects when determining their sex, but ultimately how a body is sexed and in what ways and why is something that lies within one person, “preponderance of physiological aspects” be damned.
Emily seems to recognize this when she writes “The meanings of “female” “male” and “genderqueer” are not reducible to bodies, but are not un-related, and we cannot know in advance how they intersect.”
sqrrel
12 May 09 at 9:34 am
I think the fourth and fifth axioms are particularly important so that trans people perceive ourselves as sexually desirable and healthy. Because the cis view is corrosive to trans people. Someone desires us? Must be a chaser! We have and enjoy sex? Then we aren’t really trans! It took me a long time to get past those barriers (and I can’t say I’m clear of them yet), delaying my transition by many years and damaging my own feelings of self-worth. It’s only by claiming my trans sexuality (pun intended) that I’ve come to a place where I can be as sexual a person as I am.
Lucy
12 May 09 at 9:56 am
Some people might, and some people might not, but if we haven’t had surgery, the ways we have sex still do not ungender us—eg when a trans men is penetrated, he is not magically a woman.
Hrm, something I’ve been thinking about lately is the way in which sexual orientation is developed in a pretty cissexist way, mostly due to a revival of complaints when omni/pan/bisexual people say things like, “I’m attracted to people, not genitals.” A big issue is the way in which penetrating with a penis is considered to be definitive for heterosexual masculinity, while being penetrated categorically defines one as not-man, and therefore a woman or feminine man.
CBrachyrhynchos
12 May 09 at 1:41 pm
Just about everyone cares, honestly. I take claims like this with a grain of salt because, well… Cis people aren’t in a position where they’re constantly told their sex and gender is a lie. Straight people aren’t in a position where they’re constantly told their orientation is false and perverted. White people aren’t in a position where they’re constantly told that their skin color is their most important trait (and thus defines them in multiple extremely negative ways). If you’re privileged, these definitions may seem fairly trivial, or even that those of us who use these definitions must somehow “be bringing it upon themselves,” but that’s total bullshit.
I would have much rather just transitioned and lived my life, and not felt the need to write this blog, or defend my own self-determination – that it be accepted as natural and normal as it really is, but it’s not. And if you’re looking in from the outside, you can’t just generalize your own experiences of not being oppressed in particular ways with my own (or other people’s – I’m white, but I’m also a lesbian trans woman) experiences of being oppressed, and ask why we care so much about the ways in which we are oppressed.
It’s not a compulsion to self-define, and it’s not really stronger than anyone else – it’s just more visible because of the perception that we sit outside the so-called “societal norms.” A cis woman who is assigned female at birth, who is accepted as a woman on a daily basis does not need to assert her womanhood because there aren’t really very many people who will arbitrarily declare that she’s not really a woman and that her femaleness is artificial and manufactured. It’s pretty privileged to sit back and assume that all the pressure comes from trans people to define ourselves, as if there’s no pressure originating from cis society for us to define ourselves in ways that cis people in general would prefer. Or as if there’s no pressure from cis people to define us against our will.
We’re not debating the meaning of words. We’re using words to discuss the meaning of trans lives.
I also have no idea what “trans-normative” means. Socially speaking, “trans” isn’t and currently cannot be considered normative (even though being trans is normal).
I also think we’ve gone a bit beyond circles.
(I also think “quasi-philosophical” is something of an oxymoron)
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 4:24 pm
Ceri,
But yeah, it’s the idea that the way “male” and “female” are used has been good enough so far – even though they’re not good enough, they erase trans and intersex people fairly thoroughly. Where intersex people are acknowledged, they’re defined as outliers, abnormal, defective, and so on. Trans people are considered failures and undesirable outcomes.
Or what Em said to me recently, the science used to describe trans people is just about as sophisticated and useful as phrenology.
Also, I’m uncomfortable with the term “cargo cult” because it carries colonialist and racist connotations. I mean, I don’t think invoking those images of “ignorant tribes” venerating airplanes really helps illustrate Feynman’s point – but that’s aimed at Feynman. The rest is full of good points.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 4:45 pm
Delius:
I’d say instead it’s those on the margins (or regarded as beyond the pale) who most need to self-define, because what the dominant culture hands us is always some variation of “you’re defective”, “you’re sick”, or both. We are all headed for some variation on prison, plantation, or asylum, if we don’t defend ourselves. And definition is part of that.
Cericonversion
12 May 09 at 4:49 pm
It means we’re daring to construct the conversation without taking his gender identity as the normative, default, matter-of-fact issue that it so obviously is.
Ceridwen
12 May 09 at 4:56 pm
@Cericonversion: a big yes on the cargo cult science; we see it time after time in anthropology, where every culture they see is reduced to having two genders (and they’ll go so far as to say that even if there is more), because the practice of science is dominated by white patriarchal viewpoints, therefore the data is made to fit in with societies that hold those viewpoints (which is just bad science).
As far as sex, it’s our own social bias that keeps us seeing it as male and female with exceptions that need to be forced into a “true” sex, rather than a grouping of traits we put varying degrees of social importance on, that often but far from always cluster together at either side of an inverted bell curve. Anyone who argues for a rigid scientific sex clearly isn’t up on the current science, and trying to say there is a definitive “male” and “female” sex is cargo cult science like you pointed out.
If sex is a rigid biological binary and gender is what is socially constructed, then it’s gender all the way down, and ultimately, there is no sex.
anarchafemme
12 May 09 at 5:04 pm
I also want to reiterate that this conversation isn’t really meant to be accessible to cis people, so if you’re cis and find it confusing because you can’t apply your worldview to it and make it come out as expected, that’s okay, because the conversation isn’t really about you or about matters that impact your life. Please keep that in mind before commenting.
The OP, on the other hand, strikes me as quite accessible – these are pretty easy principles to understand.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 5:07 pm
Of course, Lisa Harney is right about “cargo cult” and I apologize for echoing it. We need a better term to recognize how people who do or appeal to science will base things on their own deeply held, unsubstantiated beliefs rather than the actual data and a meaningful interpretation of that.
anarchafemme
12 May 09 at 5:07 pm
Anarchafemme,
I think I’ve said elsewhere that sex is socially constructed (violently) to reinforce the strict binary. “Exceptions” are brought into line with force.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 5:09 pm
Lisa: Thanks for the correction on “cargo cult science”. Thinking about alternatives…the folklore of science? Trade superstition? Something of the sort.
Cericonversion
12 May 09 at 5:12 pm
@Lisa Harney: you definitely have said it before, I just thought it was worth repeating, especially since there are commenters here who are trying to naturalize sex.
anarchafemme
12 May 09 at 5:18 pm
True that.
I was trying to add to your point there.
Ceri,
I don’t have a good suggestion for an alternative atm.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 5:29 pm
@Lisa Harney: don’t worry, you did.
@Cericonversion: I sort of want to just talk about irrational societal bias in science, but I don’t think that’s intense enough to get the point across.
anarchafemme
12 May 09 at 5:32 pm
I know I’m having a noob moment, but I need to say again how freakin’ happy these thoughts are making me right now. Having scattered ideas drawn together in good exposition does this for me every so often. It just feels like a huge fresh light on what has been purely a murky mess, and I’m romping through a lot of unhappy memories and worries, seeing how I can re-think them.
Cericonversion
12 May 09 at 5:35 pm
ok, i was out all day and just getting back to this thread.
oh ffs, alma, i’m not talking about my clit for the purpose of being radical. i’m talking about my clit b/c THIS IS MY REALITY. if you use the c**k word again in reference to my genitals, i will fucking rip you a new one, got that?
i suggest you go google about the spotted hyena, or read Joan Roughgarden’s writing, as you will find out that both male and female hyenas have penisis. kind of blows your “male organ” crap out of the water.
also google the clitoris and penis, you will find that the (assigned female by cis) clitoris is, internally, very similar to a penis – has large amounts of erectile tissue, has a glans – it’s even called that, glans of the clitoris – and the clitoral hood is equivalent to the foreskin of a penis. and both derive from exactly the same structures in the fetus, as do the scrotum / labia. kind of blows your “male organ” crap out of the water.
again, anybody – cis or trans – who calls my clit anything other than that is ungendering me. you can call your genitals what you want and i will respect that. now please respect my choices.
Delius – oh you poor poor little cis boy who just can’t figure us out, you’re just so distressed that you need to come onto a thread addressing issues that trans folk face to tell us how to define ourselves.
GallingGalla
12 May 09 at 5:41 pm
@Delius
“Personally I don’t feel particularly male – I just feel like a person. I don’t especially feel a need to be identified as ANYTHING; gay, straight, male, female, liberal, conservative, white, black… to put it bluntly, who cares?
From my perspective (which I confess is one of pure ignorance on this subject matter) it is those who sit outside of ’societal norms’ who feel the greatest compulsion to self-define. But in this case I thought that’s what the terms trans male/trans female were there for.”
I’m trying really hard not to blow my top at this, but my “compulsion” to self define as female has nothing to do with being outside of “societal norms,” whatever that means. I almost get the feeling that you are saying that my identity (and that of trans people generally) isn’t legit.
Amanda in the South Bay
12 May 09 at 6:46 pm
Delius, as my friend Drea has said, “Nobody gives a shit that you don’t believe in gender.“
Drakyn
12 May 09 at 6:55 pm
“Because the cis view is corrosive to trans people. Someone desires us? Must be a chaser! We have and enjoy sex? Then we aren’t really trans! It took me a long time to get past those barriers (and I can’t say I’m clear of them yet)…”
Yes, that is exactly right (unfortunately).
It is sometimes so hard to keep from falling into the “my boyfriend must be a chaser, who else could want me?” mindset.
Moreover, when I was first coming out of denial I somehow managed to get it into my head that Real Trans Men(TM), like Really Real Men(TM), do not bottom. -_-
Drakyn
12 May 09 at 7:06 pm
I did like this comment from the thread at Drea’s:
belledame222
12 May 09 at 8:25 pm
I have thought Axiom 2 has made a lot of sense for quite some time. Calling a penis a male organ is really just a hasty generalization that has ignored the existence (and validity) and trans women. Many people assumed that all the people who possess penises are male.
Viewing the penis as a male organ additionally commits the fallacy of division. Many people have generalized that only males have penises and from this have divided that anything on a male body must be male; the penis must be a male organ containing…maleness (whatever that is).
I hope I will be forgiven for this, but the difficulty I am having with Axiom 2 is that it is hard for me to reconcile my desire to transition with the view that my body already was female. I am worried that it positions my desire to have bottom surgery as irrational or as a sign of internalized transphobia. How do I reconcile my belief that my body is female prior to a surgery with my desire to have a surgery?
I hope that made sense.
sarah
12 May 09 at 9:08 pm
All too many cis ppl are total chaser scumbags because they are steeped in cissexism.
This is why I refuse to fuck them. Sorry, but I prefer to keep idocy and objectification out of my bedroom, tyvm.
I have had a few successfully maintain the illusion of seeing me as fully human for weeks before the inevitable proof that they are cissexist scum.
But this is a cis failing, and one of the hardest tasks any trans person can face is not internalizing their objectification.
Because cis move about freely in a world that rewards cissupremacy, they must earn and maintain my trust.
Their failure to recognize us for the sexy, empowered ppl that we are is a burden I place on them.
If this is internalized cissexism ok my part in the view of the OP, so be it.
voz
12 May 09 at 9:12 pm
Well, I think trans-related body discomfort is pretty well established, and that it’s been demonstrated over and over again that HRT and surgery is generally a positive step and a marked improvement of quality of life for trans people.
I have seen people advance transphobic arguments that trans people shouldn’t want medical transition if we assert that we’re already women (or men) before we start – except, of course, they’re erasing the fact that being trans is more complex than that.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 9:14 pm
Voz, Em’s pointing out that attraction to trans people isn’t inherently different from attraction to cis people is because of the revisions to paraphilias in the DSM-V, which pathologizes anyone who shows any kind of attraction to any person who does not fit into idealized gendered/able-bodied “norms.”
And a lot of cis people who explicitly make attraction to trans people out to be something freakish.
That is to say, the OP’s not about protecting chasers, but about protecting trans people.
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 9:20 pm
@Lisa
Huh?
voz
12 May 09 at 9:31 pm
I think I misunderstood what you were saying? It looked like you were criticizing point 4?
Lisa Harney
12 May 09 at 9:32 pm
Sarah, the assumption that those of us who need to transition can just think ourselves out of that need is itself cissexist; because there is nothing wrong with medical transition. (So the idea that we should not transition if we need to is itself internalized cissexism–and the need to transition is not).
Have you read this post? Because it addresses the idea that not medically transitioning is better than medically transitioning.
But yeah, I’ve also had to deal with some of that bit of internalized crap; luckily it isn’t/wasn’t in too deeply so it just twinges a bit every now & then…(not having access to medical transition doesn’t help though) -_-
Drakyn
12 May 09 at 9:34 pm
More like expressing distress that point 4 is criticizing me. Remember, desiring the company of trans women is deviant,etc by cis standards, and desiring trans women e xclusively, well, that is chaser material.
I know this much: point 4 does not account for my experience or my desires, because I do not see an equivalence in desire for cis versus trans women. I do feel point 4 is demonizing me for not equating desire for ciswomen with desire for trans women.
voz
12 May 09 at 9:52 pm
I’m not demonising your experiences, Voz. There’s a clause at the end – “although it might be [different].”
What I was getting at was what Lisa’s talking about, most particularly, people who think that trans men and women are somehow not a part of the broader group of men and women. It was largely addressed to cis people, but it can apply to trans people too. A lot of us play “transer than thou” (HBS anyone?) and it’s not really hard to imagine someone considering *their* identification sacrosanct and their partner’s not.
But I think we’re not hugely disagreeing here:
“desiring the company of trans women is deviant,etc by cis standards, and desiring trans women exclusively, well, that is chaser material.”
that’s my point, no?
queenemily
12 May 09 at 11:09 pm
@belledame222, regarding my ron jeremy wisecrack: awwh, thanks.
@voz: while i could take issue, i have decided that instead i will wait to discuss this with you until after cis and trans people have achieved complete and total equality in every sense of the word. at that point, we will have a discussion about that. hopefully we’ll actually get to *have* that discussion someday…
algormortis
13 May 09 at 2:24 am
It might be helpful to understand that I do whati do as idiot control- I simply want to keep abusive cissupremacist ppl out of my bedroom, since I cannot keep them out of my life.
My experiences with cis partners have been an utter horror show. I have been burned out of my home twice by cis homosexuals, I can’t how many times cis homosexuals have beaten me so badly I wound up in the ER. On top of that, I have had cis lesbians freak out when they busted my fucking head open being “playful” and were oh so suprised when I collapsed bleeding profusely. That didn’t stop this loser from demanding emotional reassurance from me as I lay bleeding, because, in my lil Universe, that’s how cis women think.
And there are ppl here telling me I am wrong for not cheerily invoting this shit onto my home and bedroom when disallowing cis ppl as sex partners is such an effective way of keeping the haters, firebugs, and violence out of my life.
I don’t hold with this. I don’t hold with this at all. And if that makes me a bigot, or anything else under your lil theory here, so be it.
In fairness, it’s the power differential and the cis propensity for anti trans violence is my primary complaint. In a world where cis and trans women have equal power, then I could sign onto Axiom 4.
But not now. And at the end of the day, it’s not your skull being split, or your home being torched, is it now?
In this world the difference between trans and cis women as sex partners means a fighting chance at a relationship, or trying not to puke from shock as I suture my own wounds at 3am with surplus store 2-0 Prolene and no anaesthetic because that’s all I fucking got.
So, enjoy your theory, really, I’m happy it works for you. No shit.
But I think it’s just a lil unfair to come after me for wanting to reduce cis violence onto life by whatever means works, even if you do not agree.
voz
13 May 09 at 6:58 am
Is axiom 4 coming across as a statement that it’s necessary for trans people to want relationships with cis people?
I read it as being aimed at cis people who attempt to characterize cis attraction to trans people as abnormal, or fundamentally different from attraction to cis people. I didn’t think she was aiming it at trans people who have to deal with cis privilege and violence.
I’m not trying to minimize your reaction, but neither Em nor myself is okay with violence against trans women, nor would either of us advocate that any trans woman put herself into an unsafe situation. I’m sorry for anything I said that came across as otherwise.
Lisa Harney
13 May 09 at 7:10 am
I’m sorry that my comments seem to have been misinterpreted by some as being hostile; they were not meant in that manner in the slightest. As for why I should be criticised for wanting to further my understanding of the issues, I thought the whole point of the thread was that ‘people like me’ don’t understand – yet in aiming for a further level of understanding I appear to have offended. If anyone gets the feeling here that I am being dismissive then either they are reading between the lines or I have not been successful in getting across the point that, though aspects of the gender debate are beyond my ken, I do not sit in judgement of anyone on the basis of any attribute they hold as an accident of birth (whether size, shape, colour, sexuality or ‘sex’). Clearly some of you see me as an invader on your patch here, but I was just making an attempt at the kind of engagement that must surely be desirable.
Lisa, thanks for your constructive responses; I do comprehend that this thread isn’t intended to be accessible to me, but nonetheless it has widened my perspectives. ‘Trans-normative’ was an abortive attempt to invert the thought processes you had designated ‘Cis-normative’ – on reflection that one didn’t really work…
Delius
13 May 09 at 7:13 am
@Voz Yes, what Lisa said. No way am I ok with violence against any other trans woman.
I’m not saying you *should* be with a cis person, or that you don’t have good reasons for not doing so. Obviously, you have to do what you need to keep yourself safe.
Just that those cis people who are with trans people should treat us as though our genders are as legitimate as any cis person’s.
queen emily
13 May 09 at 8:04 am
Well, axiom 4 states pretty goddamn plainly that desiring a trans woman is equivalent to desiring a cis woman.
My claim is that it isn’t because of the power differential. Your lil conjecture fails badly on that point.
Remove cissupremacy, and my concern vanishes like smoke. But in a cissupremacist world, there is no way in Hell the two groups are interchangeable. Yeah yeah, the whole damn piece was written for cis ppl too stupid to see us as the desireable women we are, and not fetish objects, so of course it failed to acccount for a trans to trans perspective, because educating the cis ppl is it’s main goal.
Anyway, I think it’s algormortis’ turn to take a swing at me , so step up to the plate, dearie, and take your best shot. It’s not like I haven’t been shat on before for eschewing cis wpmen.
voz
13 May 09 at 8:33 am
Delius, that was not an apology. That was blaming trans ppl for not interpreting your sorry cis verbage and giving u what u wanted.
Wake the fuck up and realize that trans ppl do not exist for your personal aggrandizement.
voz
13 May 09 at 9:20 am
Delius, you are not transcendent of our “gender debate.” Also, you need to understand that you came here as a tourist when, for us, these discussions can be very important to our everyday lives. I have visited this blog daily for the past year because it helps me feel sane and connected.
You wrote: “From my perspective (which I confess is one of pure ignorance on this subject matter) it is those who sit outside of ’societal norms’ who feel the greatest compulsion to self-define. But in this case I thought that’s what the terms trans male/trans female were there for.”
You write that you are ignorant of the subject matter and then are surprised when people think you have messed up? Newsflash: we are more knowledgeable in this area than you, and if you are ignorant as you profess you are then perhaps it is likely that we are not merely misinterpreting what you said.
Also, do you know why “those who sit outside ‘societal norms’” feel the largest “compulsion” to self-define? Because the people inside those norms do not have to self-defined – they are already the default, and no work is necessary on their part. We, on the other hand, often have to fight for our recognition as human and worthy of visibility and grief. Guess what happens if you take the position that you don’t have to be identified as anything, or that you don’t have to care? Nothing bad happens to you. You can do that without repercussion. If I do that, however, I risk being abused by cis society. I risk not having a voice against a world that does not want me to exist.
“In conclusion this article and the responses (interesting, civilised and enlightening though it all is) seem to contain quite a few quasi-philosophical statements that could perhaps be branded ‘trans-normative assumptions’ – which is understandable but does little to bridge the gap.”
Quasi-philosophical statements? Ahahaha. As opposed to your “In conclusion” that rests on nothing? I can’t really see anywhere in your statement that you supported the notion that this post was “quasi-philosophical.” Your entire post consisted of stating your opinions about gender, not about establishing this post as quasi-philosophical. How quasi-philosophical.
Also, we are here to be “trans-normative.” I am here to talk about trans lives and experiences outside of a cis perspective. I am NOT here to bridge your stupid gap – you can bridge the gap on your own time and there are plenty of trans 101 resources you could look at. This is clearly not about you or for you (God forbid something isn’t, right?).
@Lisa and Drakyn – Thank you for your responses to my earlier post. I definitely do think transitioning has improved the quality of my life. I like Drakyn’s idea that transitioning can be intrinsically good – I think I’ve had to justify transitioning so much in my life that I looked beyond that. Viewing transition as something that has to be justified and proved as valuable does seem to have a lot of cissexist elements behind it.
Actually, I wonder if a lot of cissexist BS stems from transition having to be an extrinsic rather than an intrinsic good. Cissexist people often state that transition has to fulfill some sort of goal, perhaps resulting in a more gender-normative life (per the SO”C”) or in being radical and subversive (per much of radical feminism). I think transitioning, for me, was ultimately an intrinsic good-in-itself and I should not have had to justify it to a cis society.
Sorry that this post is so obnoxiously long.
sarah
13 May 09 at 10:46 am
I do not base my identity as a womon on my gender. I could not even discover my gender, which is usually butch, until I had started transition.
I have integrated my gender into my identity as a womon, but, if I were a man, I imagine I would have integrated a similar gender into that identity.
I base my identity as a womon on my feelings about my body – my sense that some parts belong, and other parts do not belong – and sometimes the rhetoric about respecting our bodies ends up erasing some of our identities.
Marja
13 May 09 at 6:10 pm
Sarah,
Yeah, it’s a point of unmarked privilege that cis people can assume that not transitioning is not a matter of agency, but simply the natural way to be. Only trans people make a choice, and that choice is out of the ordinary, and thus requires extraordinary justification. This is reflected socially, medically, and politically.
At the same time, I would argue that every cis person actively chooses not to transition. When they learn of the option, they realize it’s not for them and choose not to pursue it. To them, it may seem a no-brainer. At the same time, trans people choosing to transition should also be a no-brainer. It is not seen as such a simple decision because the decision to transition is marked as such an extreme and terrible thing.
Lisa Harney
13 May 09 at 7:05 pm
Lisa: At the same time, I would argue that every cis person actively chooses not to transition. Yes. Easy and comfortable decisions to continue as one is are still decisions.
Cericonversion
13 May 09 at 7:32 pm
Anyway, I think it’s algormortis’ turn to take a swing at me , so step up to the plate, dearie, and take your best shot. It’s not like I haven’t been shat on before for eschewing cis wpmen.
…read the disclaimer a little more carefully; there’s one little significant prerequisite.
trust me, when i’m swinging, one tends to know. if anything, i was rather significantly advocating *not* swinging.
algormortis
14 May 09 at 8:19 am
I did not (yet) read all the comments on this, but I’m sorry for all who do not agree, but I’m going to second Alma.
Biologically, a penis is what we have classified as a male organ, at least an organ that is normally part of a person classified as male and in most cases also gendered as a male.
Having a body with a penis however, does not exclude the person from being a woman.
Biologically, what we define as a woman is a person with a vagina and as such women don’t have penisses, and in the case where we have a discrepancy in this, we use the adjective ‘transsexual’.
Again, this doesn’t exclude the person from being a woman.
Just to clarify my personal stance. If I would fall in love with a woman, I am in love with the woman; not what is between her legs. I actually can’t care less, though only what she thinks it should be.
As for a woman, while having sex using a body part a woman generally doesn’t have; well, it’s just an organic dildo.
And as women, again, “don’t have penisses”, I would say that, and obviously the practical issues, is the reason to have it corrected. If it is the need to have a vagina to be a woman, I would say the person definitely needs a few more checkups; you either are a woman, or seriously have to start questioning your motives.
Again; a woman can have a penis, that’s why we use the adjective transsexual woman, even though she’s still a woman.
Angela
14 May 09 at 4:05 pm
-voz
I would say that within the trans* “community” there is a disparity in finding trans* bodies desirable. We are still conditioned to view cis* partners as the goal. So axiom #4 still applies (generally) even in a trans*/trans* context.
This topic is really exploring some issues I have been banging around in my head for a little while. Particularly #2. Even as a “no-op” gal, I find viewing my bits-n-pieces as “female” to be problematic. I agree in theory… but … yanno…
rioTgirl
14 May 09 at 4:12 pm
How is it problematic?
Consider that a woman who hasn’t had surgery is seen as inferior, tainted, illegitimate. I mean, like Salma Hayek claims in Dogma, “There is only one thing that makes a woman, and that is between her legs.”
It’s more and more difficult for me to separate male and man and female and woman from each other as concepts – not because I think being assigned male automatically makes one a man or being assigned female automatically makes one a woman, but because that distinction is never honored or acknowledged, and because knowledge of one’s assigned sex is used to enforce gender.
It’s problematic to question this system? To question a system supported with violence and coercion?
Lisa Harney
14 May 09 at 5:00 pm
Angela, you can believe what you like, but don’t tell women how they have to label their body.
You (and Alma) both missed the point that the intention is to shift the sex classification away from genitalia – that genitalia should not be used to determine sex. And that science is not objective, but driven by humans, who themselves have agendas. Of course biology defines “penis” as male, because biology (and science) generally doesn’t acknowledge trans people much at all, or at best as aberrations and disorders.
The continued enforcement of classification of trans women as male and trans men as female is itself a source of large amounts of discrimination and oppression directed at trans people.
And we use the adjective “transsexual” to describe some women because they were assigned the wrong sex at birth, not because trans women are “really” male.
Lisa Harney
14 May 09 at 5:08 pm
Biologically, I want to know why no one ever really talks about how hormones affect one’s body and only focus on the genitals as the determining factor.
Also, biologically, I want to know what people who can’t take hormones for medical reasons are supposed to do, exactly.
Lisa Harney
14 May 09 at 5:13 pm
Despite what was said earlier, I think it pretty clearly is more radical to define a trans woman’s body as female and a trans man’s body as male.
After all, being a woman with a penis isn’t radical, it’s used against trans women in general. ” On the other hand, saying “You know, my body is all female” is getting huge resistance here – it’s problematic, it’s biologically wrong. It contradicts cissexist society way too damned much and causes too much trouble.
Lisa Harney
14 May 09 at 5:23 pm
“A penis isn’t a “male” reproductive organ – it’s a reproductive organ that delivers gametes to a different gamete in a particular way, and an external organ of urination. To say it’s a “male” organ is simply to fall back on lazy shorthand. If there’s one virtue in science, it’s precision. Let’s not use OMG SKIENCE as a reason to ungender people.” jack
Thank you so much for this. I read Alma Cork’s comment and was trying to think about it when I read that and it made it so clear.
harriet
14 May 09 at 11:54 pm
@Lisa. You definitely did not read my comment properly, as I do absolutely not define woman or man to be tied to the genitalia, as is the usual way within society and how we do get our sex marked on our birth certificates.
As I wrote, having a openis does not exclude the person from being a woman. As I clearly, well, at least tried to, stated; I think the gender is determined by the brain in how a person does identify him/herself together with the rest of the personality.
On pure technical and biological grounds however, I can not see a penis as a female organ due to that it is attached to a person who is a female/woman.
It simply is a body part that has been defined as normally attached to a male and as such does not belongs attached to a woman. That’s why we use the adjective transsexual/trans.
Again, no matter the adjective, the person is a woman or a man, irrespective of the inconsistency of the genitalia.
Angela
15 May 09 at 1:30 am
Angela,
I have a different understanding of the label “trans”. To me it implies that the person experience of gender does not match that assigned to them by society. It’s true that society basis its assignment on genitalia, but it’s not the genitalia that make you trans – it’s the experience of society misgendering you. I don’t mean the odd person mistaking your gender, I mean systematically.
I am cis so I might be very much mistaken. Any feedback much appreciated.
harriet
15 May 09 at 1:41 am
@Lisa. A cis gendered person will never ever get to the choice to not transition, as there simply is no discrepancy between the gender the person has and what is determined as the sex of the person based on the genitalia. As a normal cis person most likely never will have any gender confusion, I guess we can conclude it to be a no-brainer.
Someone who does experience the gender confusion while having a gender identification that is not in line with what the genitalia have been determined to be, I think think indeed it set for the choice to decide if you can live with the fact, or that it is to a level where correction is required. The choice is then to transition, or not.
The problem in this is that most people in society absolutely can not imagine being a different gender than what the genitalia suggest and as such often classify it as the person being delusional, which obviously results in non-acceptance and worse. The problem is that as a society, this is what mostly is tought and even indoctrinated in quite a few cases.
I would think that this negative attitude of society will be a huge factor when someone is given the choice to live with the discrepancy, or transition.
Obviously society should learn that transsexuality should just be seen as a form of intersexuality, though not easily can be visually determined.
As such, it should simply be accepted as fact of life that just can happen and where currently the only means of alignment is to adapt the genitals to the gender.
Society should just learn there is nothing wrong in that. That if it is not something that happened to you, you just have to be glad it didn’t.
I have non whatsoever problem with that, but I do realise I’m also part of a minority in our society in that.
In addition to what I wrote earlier, I have to say that I think that the adjective transsexual is indeed transitional as it sub classifies a person from the time the person determines the gender and genitalia are not aligned until the person completes the proces of correcting this discrepancy.
I’m fully aware that the history never goes away, even though some would like it to vanish.
But, if we take a transitioned woman, she simply is similar to a cis woman who has had a full hysterectomy and removal of the ovaria.
And to just side step to chomosomes; when tested, these two women might also be similar.
So why, as a society, do we put so much emphasis on the difference of a woman with a cis background compared to a woman with a transsexual background.
For now I would only say that it is based on the general inability of the larger public in understanding of the phenomena we call transsexuality.
Angela
15 May 09 at 2:28 am
Angela,
“A cis gendered person will never ever get to the choice to not transition, as there simply is no discrepancy between the gender the person has and what is determined as the sex of the person based on the genitalia.”
So if someone, say, is happy with their job, they don’t have a choice to apply for new ones? Lack of an issue does not mean lack of a choice.
Your obsession over genitalia is frankly disturbing and erasing. Whilst many trans people experience discomfort over the state of their groins, more common still is hormonal requirements, and even more common still is discomfort over how we are gendered.
“Obviously society should learn that transsexuality should just be seen as a form of intersexuality, though not easily can be visually determined.”
There are similarities, yes, shared causes, and some minor supporting evidence. But please, DO NOT CO-OPT CAUSES. There are differences also, and wanton co-opting has built a rift between the communities already where none has to be. See also all the major bad points to the “TS = intersex” idea that have been discussed to death elsewhere.
“That if it is not something that happened to you, you just have to be glad it didn’t.”
So in the ideal world, trans people are to be pitied? To be something to be thankful one is not?
Squigglefish
15 May 09 at 6:01 pm
@Angela: Just because a choice doesn’t get considered by someone, it doesn’t mean that by not doing something, they didn’t make a choice.
We all probably make millions of choices each day without thinking about them, as often the possibility doesn’t enter our mind. Sometimes it’s because while we could take an action, it doesn’t line up with our needs or wants, so, we don’t even entertain the thought — I didn’t go to the co-op down the street today, because I don’t currently need groceries. I didn’t even consider making a trip there because I have plenty of food right now.
However, sometimes privilege makes choices — especially the big choices — invisible. Anyone should have the right to modify their own body in anyway they see fit, because bodily autonomy is a part of basic autonomy, or to present themselves in any gendered way they see fit. Because a cis person is fine with the presence of the primary and secondary sexual characteristics of their body (as society has constructed them), and the gendered way that society dictates they present themselves, the fact that they are constantly choosing to not alter them does not generally enter their minds.
The fact that doesn’t look like they are making a choice is their privilege.
As far as trans being a part of intersex issues? One, there’s very little evidence, and two, with our current system, I advocate preventing any further evidence from being gathered, as it will only be used as a further tool to medicalize and control trans people.
One, there is the fact that it will be used to invisibilize genderqueer people, and reify the idea that everyone is really “male” or “female”. People will either really be the sex and gender they were coercively assigned at birth, or the “other” sex and gender. This will make it even more difficult for genderqueer people to get social and legal recognition of their identities and access the medical technologies they want.
Two, even assuming a perfect test that somehow manages to diagnose TEH TRANZ 100% of the time in all transsexual people, it will likely even further enforce the idea that trans people have to make their bodies appear as much like cis people as possible, as it will entrench the idea that the trans is a medical condition with a standard treatment. Even “diagnosed” trans people who for whatever reason do not desire the full course of “treatment” will have an harder time diagnosing the medical technologies they do want.
Plus, the test will have flaws, and people who want access to medical technology will be denied it. It will be used as an excuse to police gender expression – assigned male at birth and want legal/social acknowledgement as a woman? You better have your official diagnosis.
Furthermore, just as I support people who are queer by choice, I support anyone who is trans by choice — because just like sex acts with any other consenting adult, altering one’s body and self-identifying however one wants is, once again, a fundamental right.
Plus, look at how well intersex people have been treated as a result of being viewed as having a legitimate medical condition. Forced genital mutilation, and tons of treatment without consent at all, nevermind informed consent.
In addition to be appropriative, attempting to get the trans lumped in as an intersex condition is ultimately harmful to trans people.
anarchafemme
15 May 09 at 6:59 pm
Angela,
Cis people choose not to transition as soon as they’re aware of the option.
It’s not that you have two states: Neutral and trans. That’s ridiculous. Ask any cis person if they want to transition, and odds are you’ll get “of course not.” How is this not a choice?
Anyway, I didn’t misunderstand you, please distinguish between statements about society and statements about you.
Also, this?
You should have stopped right there, because this?
Is offensive. There’s nothing wrong with being trans, and trans people should not be positioned as objects of pity. This is no better than so-called experts telling us who we really are and how we’re allowed to label ourselves.
Lisa Harney
15 May 09 at 7:43 pm
I only have little time at the moment, so I’ll read the replies better later today.
My point is that if you are not served the question, i.e. do not have any gender confusion, you never will be thinking about it, otherwise than when you become friends with a TS person, or when you might start thinking about it after seeing a program about it..
Angela
16 May 09 at 12:04 am
I find that much of this discourse denies my experiences and erases my identity.
Personally, I hate gender. I wish we could take gender and smash it to smithereens. Unless, of course, we consider butch a gender.
I am transitioning because – not to mince words – I have something which is part of my body and has never been part of me, and I lack something which has always been part of me and has never been part of my body. And that would be true regardless of what culture or what gender roles I live with.
All these attempts to reduce transsexualism to gender roles and other gender nonsense have hurt me. As long as I believed transsexualism was about gender, and knew that my condition was not about gender, I concluded that my condition had nothing to do with transsexualism.
Marja
16 May 09 at 12:15 am
@Marja: You might find S. Bear Bergman’s Butch is a Noun really affirming to read.
I think for a lot of people who transition, it is about the body, and that is totally valid; it was for me.
anarchafemme
16 May 09 at 12:24 am
Anarchafemme: I think for a lot of people who transition, it is about the body, and that is totally valid; it was for me. This is my situation. I am entirely willing to believe that everything I’m looking to shed and everything I want to acquire can mean male things, or female things, or have no particular gender meanings at all, to different people. I’m not just willing to believe that, I embrace it. It is a happifying thought to me.
And it seems to me entirely compatible with the reality that to me some parts of my body have become infused (by personal history and judgments) with male meanings and that they are unwelcome to me. My experience doesn’t compel anyone else to change their decisions about themselves, nor do their insights (utterly fascinating as they are, in some cases) compel me to change mine. Some might yet end up influencing me to change my mind – there’s stuff in this thread that I never thought about before and must ponder before I dare to say either yea or nay. But the notion of malleable, individually determined judgments flowing outward doesn’t make feel that I have to do something just because it’s working or not for anyone else.
It’s also true that race and class push me up the ladder substantially, and I’m trying not to forget that. I’ve been handed defenses and bolsters to a certain level of confidence in my judgment that others weren’t handed, and it matters. How much in this specific case, I dunno.
Cericonversion
16 May 09 at 12:50 am
hi there.
i’ve been thinking about this a whole bunch. there is a lot that i’m not going to respond too, partly because i’ve discovered that i’ve found the discussion pretty triggering myself. however, there are just a couple of things….
i agree with dyssonance in that sex and gender have been conflated here. em did it in her post, and then i misread her, further confusing the issue. male/female = sex, woman/man = gender.
furthermore, when i talk about sex i don’t talk about individuals. so, galla, if you thought i meant your bits specifically you’re wrong. i also try and get down to a working language that is transposable to the majority of other species that sexually reproduce. and, sure, roughgarden is corrent that there are a glut of alternative mating strategies out there, but generally sexual reproduction involves the fusing of two gametes, one male and one female. so, if you’re talking about a system that delivers spermatazoa then i would use the conventional ‘shorthand’ and call that male, and i’d probably assume it was a penis, unless it was an anther or belonged to a fungus or something (do fungi have cocks? or do they just look like them sometimes?), because it’s easier than saying ‘system that delivers spermatazoa’.
however, to the purpose of this argument that’s by the by, because this debate is about identification, and as i think we all agree, how you identify is personal.
i totally agree that there is a problem in society where people hear penis and instantly think ‘man’, though. on the other hand, i also think this is more effectively challenged by remembering that an individual is more than the sum of their genitals, and that gender is not dictated them. furthermore, as em began questioning and lisa later pointed out, a persons sex isn’t *wholly* determined by their genitals either, because of other factors in play (hormones, genetic, secondary charactistics, sexually dimorphous regions of the brain, although i remain to be convinced how much of an effect they have). the axioms in the OP, launching as they do straight into a discussion of genitals, only serve to continue the prevalent viewpoint that they are, actually, that important.
i’m not totally sure whether i agree with, was it elly?, who said that maybe we need a different language system where gender can be more fully codified into how we speak, like it is in lots of european languages. i think the language is already there, it’s just not used very well and/or misunderstood. maybe we should drop our preoccupation with male and female, cis and trans alike, and concentrate on what makes us good men, women, whatever, because gender really can’t be argued with. and, even better, the qualities that make me a good woman have nothing to do with my gender. it *is* personal. and genitals are only important between yourself, those you choose to share them with, and your doctor when they get infected.
yet, in a sense, they *are* important, because it’s this argument that contributes to trans-panic and gets people killed. genitals are pretty powerful things within society, after all. ancient history is all about the fertility symbol of the phallus, and we also can’t forget sheela-na-gig scaring off the devil with her cunt. not that any of this negates transpeople, but there has got to be a space for trans people that doesn’t cast us as pitiable, diseased, or hateful decievers. at the moment we seem to be stuck with either being reviled, seen as mildly amusing items of exotica, or only able to get by through desperatly normailsing ourselves to the point where we’re willing to tie ourselves up in knots of language simply to prove that we’re nice, normal people, JUST LIKE YOU.
this is maybe where i dissect the line of this whole discussion: i honestly believe that bodies should not come with prescriptive labels, or probably, speaking more succiently, values. however, i do also believe that for the purposes of certain arguments and lanuguage, mostly medical and scientific, that we need clinical descriptions that are as objective and universal as we can possibly make them. furthermore, these descriptions haven’t just been made up by the man without any thought for the potential of subjectvity. they’ve been filtered through thousands upon thousands of people from increasingly varied and broad backgrounds over hundreds of years. sure, they’re not perfect, but they’re not complete fiction either and shouldn’t be disregarded as such (the person who breezily brushed off statistics by saying that teh skience’s don’t take variance seriously…. i’m looking at you. have you ever spoken to somebody who has worked closely with ANOVA and variance? because you are now and she thinks you’re talking crap. issues of variance, and accounting for them, gave me a fucking seven year headache, and having it implied that i, or my collegues, have no grasp of the matter is insulting).
on the other hand, when it comes to trans people and psychiatry / psychology, then i fully agree that the gloves are off. partly because i think, slightly tongue in cheek, that it’s easier to define ‘woman’ or ‘man’ than it is to find a universal, or even broad, model that defines transness, because each of those quests are actually rather similar……
what this means for discussions of our bodies….. i can tell you how i relate to my body, but i couldn’t offer anything beyond that. i think trans discussions are more difficult than cis-discussions, because we’ve all got slightly different configurations, or we may have started transitioning at different times in our lives. i think it’s easier, generally, for cis-people to find common ground in these kinds of discussions than it is for trans-people, mostly because they are more liable to have things in common and also because discussions about their bodies don’t seem so loaded, when they have a safe space for those discussions, from the word go. probably because the general lanuguage is built up around the general occurance, which’ll be cis, which in turn is considered normative.
however, speaking personally, i don’t consider myself normative, and i’ll be damned if i adopt language or identification that attempts to normalise me just so i or anybody else could feel better about themselves. i had a cock, it was a boy-bit. i didn’t like it. i also have XY genes, which are sorta blokey, and if you dig my skeleton up in a couple of centuries you’ll probably have me down as a MAN (good reason to get cremated, i think). furthermore, my biology was pretty much wholly male for over two and a half decades. i was a bit of a crap boy/man though, but i comfort myself by thinking that this was through lack of trying. when i go to the hospital i also have to point out that i’ve got a male sized urethra if they threaten to catheterise me, because i think the female sized one would frikkin’ hurt. however, i’m still a woman and whoever says otherwise will get looked quizically, at best, or downright laughed at, at worst (i will not ‘tear them a new one’, because advocating violence is uncool, and the term reminds me of surgery way too much and, as such, is insensitive and triggering. cheers for that). and the problem with the world as i see it isn’t that difference, but the fact that i don’t feel i can be safely honest about that difference as and when i choose. which, going out on a limb, is probably where i intersect with the rest of the debate, right?
this is where things get murky in my thinking, but that’s largly because i try not to think about it too hard nowadays. i spent the better part of my twenties thinking about sex and gender and where i fit into it as a transwoman and, well, i only managed to get over it when i was disspassionate about my sex, boiling it down to feeling yucky with my cock and happy with my HRT induced secondary sexual female characteristics, and i stopped feeling like i had to prove my gender all the time (now i only feel like i have to prove it some of the time). so, i think i’ll stop……
.
.
.
except for wanting to say it’s VULVA people. the vagina is only one part of the whole deal. i still find myself doing it, you know, but i think ladygardens are normally only called vaginas because of teh patriachy deciding that the hole is the only bit they need be intrested in.
oooh! also! just out of intrest……. how does everybody else define ‘female’ and/or ‘male’ in here? i mean, what does it actually mean to you?
also, also, rather than continually theorise about the difference between trans & cis, and why there shouldn’t be any (but not always), why don’t we start swopping stories about our bodies? i mean, i’ve had an up and down relationship with my boobs i could tell you about. maybe you can relate.
and, in closing, the female spotted hyena doesn’t have a penis. in fact, the hyena’s clitoris is enlarged until it becomes phallus-like. it can engorge, admittedly, although it’s not a penis because it’s also got a vaginal tract running through it and the poor bitches have to give birth through them. apparantly it normally rips the first time and often kills them. sounds great, doesn’t it? a far better example would have been barnacles, who have both willys and foofs and, often, beat each other up with their willys in order to gain territory. i think that sounds great, but i have penis envy…… this amuses me and will probably tell you a lot.
Alma Cork
16 May 09 at 4:40 am
this paragraph,
i’m not totally sure whether i agree with, was it elly?, who said that maybe we need a different language system where gender can be more fully codified into how we speak, like it is in lots of european languages. i think the language is already there, it’s just not used very well and/or misunderstood. maybe we should drop our preoccupation with male and female, cis and trans alike, and concentrate on what makes us good men, women, whatever, because gender really can’t be argued with. and, even better, the qualities that make me a good woman have nothing to do with my gender. it *is* personal. and genitals are only important between yourself, those you choose to share them with, and your doctor when they get infected.
is really fluffy. i think i’m trying to say that we need a society where the onus is on being good people, where people realise that somebody elses gender is not up for argument, and that aside from medical and other scientific / academic intrests, discussions of sex are not that important. or, maybe, they are important insofar as they influence a persons gender, which is personal, and not up for debate.
Alma Cork
16 May 09 at 4:49 am
and i also haven’t touched on where sexuality fits in….. whew. this is complicated isn’t it?
Alma Cork
16 May 09 at 4:55 am
so, galla, if you thought i meant your bits specifically you’re wrong.
no, of course, you did not refer to me by name. of course you weren’t talking specifically to or about me. because that’s how generalization works. what you did was state that a penis is a male organ, period, cos that’s what biology tells you, and biology is of course totally objective (just ignore the fact that biology is dominated by white het cis men…)
and in doing so, you are erasing my experience, my identity, and my conception of my body parts. and then trying to excuse it with a good ol’ “oh no silly, i didn’t mean you”. of course you didn’t mean me. cos in your mindset, i don’t exist, so how could you mean me?
GallingGalla
16 May 09 at 8:54 am
Hmm. So, a penis is absolutely inherently male is it? O rly?
Oh fucking shit! What’s that I can hear from upstairs!?
Oh fuck, there’s a bloke in me knicker drawer! Shit! Shit, how’d that happen? Fuck, what’s going on?
Ah, ah, hang on, it’s just me rampant rabbit.
But oh no! It’s … it’s… INHERENTLY MALE! It’s a MALE ORGAN! In sparkly pink plastic!! The worst type of male organ! Oh dear, I’d better chuck it out right now! Quick, in the bin with this male! Get it out me house now! This is a wymyn only space didn’t y’know?
(Now, anyone seen my flute?)
FFS.
Ruth Moss
16 May 09 at 12:57 pm
I guess I should have been more clear in my first post. The part that is “problematic” as far as axiom #2 is purely personal. That is, I accept and value that every part of a trans* woman’s (or man’s) body is a female’s (or male’s) body part.
The “problematic” part was coming to terms with that as applied to by own body. It didn’t help early on having a therapist and a boyfriend who were equally pushing me to “get rid of” and “keep intact” the “guy parts”.
Having a therapist say “Ultimately, you will have a need to remove all physical remnants of your male self” was pretty damaging. Having a boyfriend who bought into the whole “Best of both worlds” crap and fetishized “blend of man and woman” that my body (to him) represented made that worse.
So, yeah, problematic – in the sense of it being a personal problem I have to struggle to apply to my own body image.
rioTgirl
16 May 09 at 1:15 pm
Ah, yeah, that makes sense.
I’m so used to people talking about trans people’s relationship to our own bodies as problematic because it reflects on cis people in some way, that I’m kinda jumpy about that phrasing. Sorry.
I dated that guy a few times! He gets around, I guess. :(
Lisa Harney
16 May 09 at 3:30 pm
So Heart linked to this as proof that “transgender ideology” works against women’s liberation, as if trans women aren’t women.
Of course, Emily’s post does no such thing. What Heart’s threatened by is challenging essentialist notions of what makes a man, a male, a woman, a female, or any other category you care to describe. Heart facilitates the ideology and system that says that the only way for cis white women to be truly liberated, they must be able to oppress others – in this case, trans people. That the very possibility of accepting that trans people are exactly who we say we are will enslave her to the patriarchy. In other words, it ain’t worth being equal to cis white men if you don’t get to be the oppressor too.
Lisa Harney
17 May 09 at 1:11 am
Harriet,
With all it’s flaws and though we should be a lot more flexible with this, society still uses a glance between the legs of a new born baby to stick on a label that sets expectations and influences how the kid is treated.
I’m also definitely not an expert, but just speaking my mind on the subject after I have been thinking about it a lot over the last year since having some new TS friends after me having been out, well as far as you can be out as one half of a lesbian couple, of the LGBT community.
From before I have more (ex) TS friends and have been active in the LGBT community with being a congress member of a lesbian and gay association and at a time running a T&T group for a year after the guy who did quickly wanted out as his new BF didn’t like it. His previous partner had transitioned.
In my idea a person enters the state of being trans (I will use/keep the short) after establishing the gender is not aligned with the sex as determined by that glance on the genitalia after birth, and runs untill all possible corrections made.
So, I think you’re right in that it is not the genitalia that “make you trans”; it’s the discrepancy with the mind/brain sex.
Obviously, that will result in a lot of hurtful situations while interacting with society, as a woman will be classified, and be approached, based on the specific masculine features the body will have developed, and a man would be in stead seen as a woman and treated/approached.
This all is secondary features, with quite a few being corrected with HRT, but by far not all and some might even be very unlucky when the old secondary gender features were too prominent or those who do not react much on HRT or can not have HRT due to whatever reason.
I think being misgendered is not an exclusivity to the T-community, but happens to a lot of natal women, either by choice or just because they are just unlucky and might benefit from FFS more than quite a few T-girls.
I have known many lesbians that would not have passed my filter as prospective mate and remember womens evenings at a local Lesbian and Gay centre where I just wondered if I had picked the wrong evening….
But, my ideas might adapt over time, though after I sort of tried to pick up on what seems to be new ideas and classification, a lot did not pass my BS filter. I’m pretty sure some of my ideas will give me wrath of some people, but then it’s my ideas and only serve as input to a discussion.
I have non whatsoever problem with the whole T-thing at all. I have been in love with a non-op girl long time ago where I didn’t stand a chance, but we all have that at times. I would have no second thoughts in starting a relationship with a T-girl if I ever would find myself single and available again.
Angela
17 May 09 at 1:15 am
Angela, we as trans people don’t need to be told on when and how we become trans. Trans people are trans – we don’t become trans. That’s a ciscentric myth that reinforces the notion that trans people are cis until we come out. It erases the possibility of having distinctively trans lives from childhood onward, whether you know at a young age, or you spend years coming to the realization. I did not become trans when I learned what the word meant, nor did I become trans when I first saw a psychiatrist. Nor did I become trans the first time I put on a dress. Nor did I become trans when the psychiatrist agreed with me and gave me the diagnosis. I’ve been trans my entire life.
Your reference to cis women getting misgendered is minimizing and insulting. Of course cis women get misgendered occasionally. So do cis men. But, cis men and cis women are not misgendered as part of a system of oppression that is devoted to characterizing their genders as falsehoods, and stigmatizing them as “freaks.” It’s not the same thing, and don’t even try to introduce it as if it is.
I really, honestly, don’t care what cis people say about their so-called “BS filters” and trans stuff because to many cis people, even calling myself a woman doesn’t pass their “BS filter.” To them, I was assigned male at birth, therefore I am a male and always will be a man, and nothing I do can change that in their eyes. I’m not interested in cis people explaining to trans people what makes us trans and how we’re defined as trans and what our bodies must really be. I don’t want to hear about the truthiness of trans claims about our lives and bodies, because that’s the kind of oppression that transphobia is made of.
Don’t speak for trans people.
I realize you’re not approaching this from a hostile place, so take this as criticism and not an attack.
Lisa Harney
17 May 09 at 1:26 am
Angela,
You didn’t read my comment very carefully, did you?
“I don’t mean the odd person mistaking your gender, I mean systematically.”
I suppose that a cis woman or man could be misgendered systematically in a social context, but I mean in every aspect of your life. If your passport/driving license has *always* had the right gender on it, then you’re not being officially and systematically misgendered.
harriet
17 May 09 at 2:14 am
By passport I guess really I mean birth certificate, now I think about it.
harriet
17 May 09 at 2:15 am
I think it’s worth noting that Heart didn’t bother with commentary, simply a title “The Logical Outworking of Transgender Ideology and Why It Works Against Women’s Liberation” and a quote to the controversial bit about penis not inherently being male and vagina not inherently being female.
Because my thesis was apparently self-evidently harmful to (other) women. And the whole point is, the “common sense” that Heart’s relying on is the same sense that transphobic institutions and individuals rely on.
So, I want to clarify this.
Though “biologically male” is a phrase that scientifically encompasses a host of factors, legally and socially it *usually* comes down to one thing – genitals. Yes, Alma, I’m in danger of reifying this (though I’d like to point out that I made five points, and no-one’s very interested in the other four), but it needs to be addressed. Silence does not help us on this.
Broadly, if you have a penis, you’re “male,” and you’re killable. If you have a penis and you’re male, you don’t get the right docs, which puts you at risk for violence and rape. In law, it’s explicitly framed that way – that in the case of differing factors, genitals determine sex and rights.
This is a systemised meaning, and it flows seamlessly from one to another. Penis = male = man, vagina = female = woman. We *need* to stop the chain of meaning, legally, institutionally, personally. “Biologically male” ALWAYS appears in discourses about trans women (vice versa for trans men) and it needs to be de-fused. For the vast majority of people, having a penis means being “really a man” – the most basic of transphobic ideas.
And it doesn’t go by stubbornly hanging onto the idea that because objects are inherently sexed and/or gendered. That’s a dominant cis interpretation, and it doesn’t challenge very much at all.
I fail to understand how *any* of us can look at the broad picture and now see how the equation penis = male, vagina = female ACTIVELY HARMS US. It’s not about being subversive, it’s about trying to jam the particular array of medical, psychiatric and legal discourses that make trans people at risk.
This is not tremendously difficult, though some of y’all sure appear to want it to be.
queenemily
17 May 09 at 2:55 am
At the risk of sounding pandering, it’s “re not reducible to bodies, but are not un-related, and we cannot know in advance how they intersect” that actually meant most to me. I’ve spent a long time pushing and being pushed by a medical system where diagnosis is king and it’s vital to the system to have a label to pin on everybody, and then treatment is often haphazard or outright non-existent. Give them three data points, they tell you everything about you that they think matters, and that’s it.
To see that concept, as applied to gender and sex, challenged so very directly and fundamentally is a strong encouragement to me right now. I like the rest, but that’s the big one for me.
cericonversion
17 May 09 at 3:12 am
@Lisa.
It might indeed be the general view in society, but as I wrote I certainly do not see a trans woman who did not have SRS as inferior or tainted. Obviously, I am with you in that I don’t agree with the statement taken from ‘Dogma’.
I’m also opposed to the practive of enforcing gender based on the sex of a person as determined at birth, as is practiced by Zucker a.o.; I think that basically is child abuse and torture.
Quote: “You should have stopped right there, because this?
That if it is not something that happened to you, you just have to be glad it didn’t.
Is offensive. There’s nothing wrong with being trans, and trans people should not be positioned as objects of pity. This is no better than so-called experts telling us who we really are and how we’re allowed to label ourselves.” Unquote
Why do you see my remark as offensive?
It has nothing to do with being pittied.
It’s just a remark based on facts/reality; someone who doesn’t experience the discrepancy between gender/brain sex and their genitalia just should be glad, as I think it does bring up quite a few things that do not make life easier.
Just only think it does not bring up having to spend 14,500 US$ plus travel and other cost for having SRS (Suporn), and then the cost while staying in the US would be even more; I heard of 16,500 for McGinn, 19,000 with Bowers and 25,000 and more with Meltzer.
Or 10,500 GBP as it was in Brighton, GBR, though in the UK if you are lucky in the PCT Post Code lottery you can be lucky and have it done on the MHS.
Again; it’s nothing to do with pity, as obviously it also has ‘advantages’ in that you have experiences in life a natal woman will never have, this just due to the expectation society will have for you based on the label put on you at birth and the differences in how society treats men and women and in general in the difference women and men are raised and thought. Yes, this is just a fact on how our society works, whether we like it or not.
And how you label yourself, I really don’t care. It’s only handy if we talk on the same level and use the same definitions/understandings.
Just using fancy namings, or calling a penis a female organ just due that the object is attached to a woman, is not going to help in that.
Again, I agree in that society should be a lot more relaxed with sexe based on genitals and gender.
Just as that society should be relaxed when it comes to sexuality.
I’ve even seen remarks from the T-groups that a trans-lesbo would not be a real trans…. must have been a janice Raymond supporter who came up with that idea.. Such a ridiculous idea, I think.
Angela
17 May 09 at 3:30 am
Emily,
Thank you for your most recent comment, that more than anything really puts into perspective the importance of not classifying organs in such a manner.
I will admit, as much as I knew the statement was true, it does take some time to get used to – but I realised this was more due to another bit of internalised transphobia.
Your latest comment is vital, since it points out an irony – although there isn’t a pants police in day-to-day life, that assignment at birth does seriously affect access to resources and the rights and expectations placed upon people.
The more I think about it, the more I actually have to laugh at anyone who believes it is ‘feminist’ to be essentialist over genitalia – for as you point out, everyone is affected by this assignment for better or worse – it is very much an arbitrary division of rights.
Squigglefish
17 May 09 at 4:14 am
Angela,
So what you are saying is that although it is not to do with being pitied, the facts are that we should be? lol, please…
The costs involved with transition are artificially inflated – because society paints transitioning in a poor light, demand is kept artificially low, and gatekeepers know they can exploit trans people.
and oddly, you try and then support what you said – that cis people should be ‘glad’ they are not trans by pointing out that trans people get to experience things that cis people do not. Surely cis people should hence not be glad, but be miffed?
I don’t think you had really thought through that original statement you made.
I recommend you read queenemily’s comment and those by lisa again – you seem to have missed the point that it is important to not require that all penises be male and all vulvas female, as this association directly causes deaths of trans people, and indeed also causes difficulties to cis people also in terms of the rights they are granted.
Oh, and “I’m also definitely not an expert, but…” was seriously uncool. You were trying to play the status game in a discussion about theory, and if anything, it was shocking to see that someone who holds up some essentialist and transphobic views could hold any positions of responsibility. It’s an appeal to false authority, and quite frankly I tend to find it belittles most people who try and use it – when one’s gang is really better than another’s gang, you don’t feel the need to try and boast about it, and if your arguments are truly valid, there is no need to appeal to such things.
Squigglefish
17 May 09 at 4:25 am
The reason all those things are necessary, Angela, is because cis society constructs transsexuality as elective and probably perverted, which is why it’s not covered by most insurance in the US, and add that on top of the lack of nationalized health care in the US, and you have trans people forced to pay for our own trans-related treatments out of pocket.
This isn’t a problem with being trans, this is a problem that society imposes on trans people. I certainly don’t need to be educated about what it’s like to be trans or what it’s like to be oppressed as a trans person – I know all these things, they’re part of my life.
Emily answered why labeled trans women as female and trans men as male is necessary.
Lisa Harney
17 May 09 at 4:37 am
For now I only would like to put the question in how we basically are on the same side, but that I somehow feel slated for being the enemy…..
Just as if we all talk/write a different language and we use Babblefish to do the translations…
The only thing where my opinion differs is in that I do not agree in is definitions and naming objects in any way different from the biological and medical classification.
Tomomorrow I’ll see that I take the time to read the comments and reply on those.
Angela
17 May 09 at 5:09 pm
@Angela: I think you’re conflating constructs created through biology and medicine with facts; the labels aren’t value neutral, nor are they dictated by facts, they have are based on a system of value judgements that also serve to enforce a view of the world that doesn’t actually reflect reality (the idea of binary sex in the first place serves the culture in power, and goes against what actually occurs). By accepting a priori that biological classifications are correct, one cannot challenge the constructs created by an oppressive system.
So it’s a good bit different than just using a different language, as language means things. And it kind of prevents you from being on the same side as us (you may have similar positions on many issues), as, at least for me, both the rigid sex binary and rigid gender binary are inherently oppressive and need to go. You’re arguing that trans people need to be allowed to “move over” to the “other side” of binaries. I’m arguing that those binaries are unnatural, and that part of tearing down those binaries is allowing trans people full autonomy over their bodies, and the right to define themselves (including their bodies) as they see fit.
We both clearly want better treatment of trans people*, but, I would be really wary of being in coalition with someone who uses the language you do, as I wonder if you’re going to be against genderqueer people, or, when I work in solidarity with intersex people, you’ll be working against their goals.
*based on experiences with people who use similar language to you, your language indicates that I can be only sure that that is “for some trans people”.
When issues of oppression come up, language is inherently loaded, and the language we use is informed by and informs are views. At this point, I don’t want to waste my time on movements that don’t work at creating solidarity – and views that genitals are inherently sexed lead to racist and classist ideas on who is real, erasure of genderqueer people, and can be used to support the mutilation of intersex infants and children. If, when we talk about sex and gender, we can’t use language that allows the possibility of all struggles by people oppressed by sex and gender, we run the risk of some of us stepping on others to push ourselves up.
anarchafemme
17 May 09 at 5:37 pm
Angela,
I did not slate you as the enemy. I think you’re trying to be an ally, but I also think you’re saying a lot of privileged stuff here that’s hurtful and harmful to trans people and I’m taking time trying to point out how that’s the case.
I’m not questioning whether you, for example, are willing to date trans women and don’t even worry about surgical status, but the way you talk about that willingness bothers me, and leaves me feeling othered anyway. And the way you’re telling trans people how and when we get to be trans bothers me because it’s directly contradictory to my own experiences as a trans woman.
Or to put it another way: If I thought you just hated trans people and were the enemy, I wouldn’t bother to talk to you at all. But at the same time, it feels to me like you’re speaking for trans people rather than talking about trans people, in that you’re privileging your voice and definitions of our lives over our own.
Lisa Harney
17 May 09 at 7:22 pm
angela i’ll be blunt (and to be clear i am speaking for myself only).
you *are* my enemy.
because language like this:
Just using fancy namings, or calling a penis a female organ just due that the object is attached to a woman, is not going to help in that.
is not about differing interpretations of objective fact. it’s not like you and i are looking at a subatomic particle and you see its movement and i see its position.
no, what this is about is you asserting your cis privilege to predetermine the gender of this or that body part based on biological essentialism.
and in so doing, you are denying me my right to my reality, my right to self-definition, in favor of your pet cissexist theory. and that is a step down the road to othering me, seeing me as less worthy, and giving society a pass to continue to oppress me, deny me work, deny my safety.
you are erasing me, and every trans and genderqueer person on this thread. and that erasure means our deaths.
GallingGalla
18 May 09 at 6:22 am
I have some thoughts about #4 that I have been trying to muddle through. On my way through transition, I made a stop as a “gay man”. I was always open, always out, always confronting heterosexism and closeted gay peeps.
Now, in transition I’m “dating” men who feel the need to announce their heterosexuality as they are trying to court me. Alternately, these guys are having a sexual identity crisis based on their attraction to a trans* body.
On one hand – I’m a woman. Liking me is the same as liking a cis woman. On the other I have real trouble coddling these guys through their hetero angst. IF liking gals like me makes one not exactly straight… is that really so bad? Does not affirming the hetero-ness of my partner work against my own best interests as a trans* woman?
Ultimately, the root of violence against trans* women is rooted in both homophobia which in turn is rooted in misogyny. It’s really a damned if you do… bind. Have no truck with homophobic “fears”, or placate those fears and assure the guys they are the heteorest of the heteros. At least that’s how it plays out for me.
rioTgirl
18 May 09 at 8:43 am
For now I only read the most recent comments and will reply on these three.
@GallingGalla.
I’m living in a society that has flaws, and in quite some cases is outright anti LGBT, which uses medical and biological terms that have been defined at some point in time, quite often after lenthly discussions and discussions that even still go on, but though we might not agree, we have to live with and can only have an influence on be ‘joining the party’.
Trying to crash the party is not going to help in anyway, as they are with a much larger majority than we as LGBT community in which the LGB is sort of estimated as some 5-15% of the population, but where tha T might be less than 1%.
Again, you might like that, or not. But, without dealing and interacting with the whole of society, we are not going to have anything changed at all!
Yes, my thoughts are mostly related to full transsexuality leading up to full transition, but I do not exclude anything in between as I think, and what I might not have clearly stated, that gender is not binary, but has a sliding scale with variations on the binary genders, but whee, dus to existing medical and biological defiitions, we work with those extremes as base of referencwe.
Same for the sex of a person, as we have quite enough examples that this also is not binary, but that it has variations on the defined extremes.
Yes, sorry, but I am back on those extremes as reference.
I’m curious to your self definition.
So, how am I erasing you?
As I think I should have been clear enough, I am fully opposed to oppression; I’m appalled when it comes to equality for ALL.
Protection for all in our society is still a long way to go.
Though no law can protec t you, nor me, from encountering violence for who or what we are, it is without any doubt that quite a few laws protecting LGBT and all minorities have to be created or updated.
Like in the US the ENDA; it should be clear there is no space for ‘calculated losses!’…
Then a final point I want to make is that you should not make assumpions you can not prove.
In non of my messages I have claimed either cis, nor trans status/background!
I’m also not going to, as I think it does not make any difference at all. Obviously I am the sum of my experiences in life, together with things I’ve learned, so all that together is part in my opinion and how I express myself.
Besides that, whatever my background/history, you have created an image of me as your enemy which obviously is based on your experiences in life and possibly bias due to negative experiences you had.
@Lisa H.
With “privileged stuff”, do you mean a cis gendered stance?
When I have finished this reply, I will take time to properly read all previous replies and give my reaction on these.
As for my “willingness” to date a T-girl/woman; for me genitals are no part in whether I want to date someone or not. I’ll quote what I wrote somewhere else as my view on this.
:
Hm labels.. Partly I don’t like them, but on the opther hand I guess I quite easily deal with them as I am part of a society that for a large part doesn’t know how to deal with people if there is no label attached or if labels are broken, surpassed.
Though technically I should use the label bi, I chose to use lesbian just for sheer ease as I estimate myself on the 90% or more.
I’m clearly attracted to the feminine side of the spectrum, it is the combination of presentation together with the personality and as genitalia are normally not what we show off, genitalia simply don’t play any role for me in romantic attraction. When it comes to physical intimacy, that’s just a technicality.
As for my own presentation, I consider myself on the feminine side of the spectrum, even though I’m technical and do jobs that are considered male/masculine without any 2nd thoughts, have interests that are generally considered male/masculine and even might display a quite masculine side of my personality at times.
So, I guess I’m definitely someone to defy or surpass labels..
So, why does my ideas in this bother you?
My views on when someone is trans and when not or no longer are indeed mine and probably only partially shared with the medical professionals.
How does that contradict your experiences?
Obiously, as we are interacting on the subject, your ideas might influence mine, and vice versa.
As for speaking; I only speak for myself, though my thoughts and ideas are about.
And again that “privigeging” I’m curious to what you see me being privileged or using privileged ideas.
@Anarchafemme.
I’m indeed trying to work with the constructs as as created based on biology and medicine and with the idea that this is basically done by people who have no real experience with some factas of life, but where they did have an influence on the definitions that are currently seen as correct.
Though the system and definitions obviously have flaws and should be subject to updates/corrections and change of ideas, I do not see it as oppressive.
Again, I also have no problem at all to work with binary definitions and the variations on those.
The problem in this is that statistically, the binaries have a higher count than the variations.
Based on what I have seen in numbers, the binary sex is the natural norm, even though there are many different variations on these binaries; these variations do not invalidate the binary definitions.
I have the idea that gender is a lot less binary than biological sex.
It’s all on a scale between the binaries, but where it is most likely true that the majority of people are near the end on either side of that scale.
I don’t see it as that I’m advocating “allowing to move over”, but indeed the autonomy to decide for yourself.
After all, gender is not something we can use a test in the lab to determine where someone is on the scale between the binaries. Only the person involved can.
As for experience with genderqueer people, I do indeed not have much, but for me it is somewhere in the spectrum again between the binaries.
For myself I have been androgynous for quite a few years, but I consider full acceptance of myself as a lipstick lesbo in the late 80s as the full coming out as who and what I am.
As for intersexed children, it is my unchangable idea that nobody has the right to decide on ‘corrections’, but only the child when he/she is old enough to decide if, when and how.
Again, I’m trying to work with definitions and terms as used in biology and medicine, but also with society as a whole.
This as it is my beliefs that you can only make changes from inside and that going full ahead is not going to get you anywhere, but having a real headache.
Angela
18 May 09 at 9:22 am
Angela,
To paraphrase your reply to GallingGalla, “trans people shouldn’t be uppity! Maybe if we just knew our place better and didn’t speak out, everyone would treat us nicer!”
I can’t understand how you can say you are not erasing anyone by insisting penis = male and vulva = female. This is a denial of people’s own experiences with these body parts, and an attempt to undermine people’s identities over irreverent details. This insistence also makes ridiculous your claim that you want an end to all oppression – apparently genitals get a special exemption from that in your book.
“In non of my messages I have claimed either cis, nor trans status/background!
I’m also not going to, as I think it does not make any difference at all.”
In an ideal world, it wouldn’t make any difference – but we don’t live in an ideal world. Trans people have been subjected to their lives being made worthless in comparison to the theories of cis people for a very long time, and as such there is a massive difference to this discussion depending upon which side you are coming to this from. If you are cis, then you speak from theory not personal experience, and so continue the oppression you claim to oppose.
Your privilege is plain to see – you insist that arbitrary divisions based upon genitalia are valid, that surgery is required of anyone transitioning else their motives are in question, that being cis or trans does not matter in this discussion, that trans people are to be pitied… I could go on.
“Based on what I have seen in numbers, the binary sex is the natural norm, even though there are many different variations on these binaries; these variations do not invalidate the binary definitions.”
The major binaries are not invalidated, but the concept of a binary system clearly is. Not just in terms of the more visible outliers, but also those internal outliers and even just the natural variation in sexes that make a mockery of the idea of a perfect binary.
Curiously, your belief when it comes to intersex people differs from trans people – whilst trans people should just stick to the binary, damnit, intersex people should be allowed to remain with birth genitals until they get to pick, including to not alter them?
Squigglefish
18 May 09 at 10:59 am
Angela,
I have tried to stay out of this, because I’m cis and have a long long way to go before I can claim to be an effective ally, but I ask you, please listen to these people! If you can’t see what you are doing wrong, you really really need to sit down and think carefully. Read these comments carefully, go back and read the brilliant posts on this blog which have taught me so much. I think the posts about priviledge would be an excellent place to start.
Open your mind a bit, examine your priviledge. It’ll take time and effort, but it is so worth it.
harriet
18 May 09 at 11:21 am
Angela, just to poke at one point: Again, you might like that, or not. But, without dealing and interacting with the whole of society, we are not going to have anything changed at all!
In the world I live in, gays and lesbians didn’t accept the DSM classification of homosexuality as a mental illness, and pressed on both scientific and social fronts. And though the battle is far from won, the front line has moved waaaay toward where it should be. This couldn’t have happened if our activist predecessors had said, well, of course, we can’t challenge any fundamentals or we won’t get anywhere. Sometimes one just does have to set to on the foundations.
And that’s what we’re doing here. We know from our experience that the prevailing norms simply are wrong – wrong for us, and we (depending on cases) know or suspect, wrong for others, too. The fight to remove homosexuality as a mental illness wasn’t just about a label, but about who has the authority to label and the processes by which people formulate them. Same deal here. The natural world does not compel our particular taxonomy, and taxonomy does not compel prevailing moral judgments, or aesthetics.
Saying “It turns out that this is prejudice resting on a foundation that doesn’t support it” is engaging with the society. It’s just engaging on terms you’d prefer to avoid.
cericonversion
18 May 09 at 11:50 am
Since I’m fighting a sinus infection down and have time on my hands, another point:
Angela: Based on what I have seen in numbers, the binary sex is the natural norm, even though there are many different variations on these binaries; these variations do not invalidate the binary definitions.
Yes, yes in fact they do. Because the whole point of a binary is that there are no viable alternatives. But the reality is that trans, intersexed, genderqueer, and other people do exist, and any system that says “you’re just noise and errors” is wrong. We are, to swipe a Bible phrase, fearfully and wonderfully made, and even people who have never had occasion to think of themselves as anything but simply male or simply female are full of weirdness.
You’re committing perhaps the fundamental error of the modern world, being too impressed by numbers. Largely unconfusing experience as male or female is indeed most common, but it’s not a norm in the sense of being authoritative. The fact that a lot of people in the US are some flavor of white doesn’t mean that any person of color is doing it wrong; the fact that there are a lot of self-described Christians doesn’t mean that we should find something suspicious or strange in the existence of Buddhists. Be there ever so many people with brown eyes, my eyes remain blue, and my eyes aren’t defective in their color.
You’re reasoning from ignorance. One way to get a taste of the weirdness that is sex in the natural world is to read some good blogs. Check out biologist P.Z. Myers, who has a post up this very day on (among other things) developmental biology in the descendants of dinosaurs. Or check out Deep Sea News, which happens to be having a Sex Week with articles on strangeness in creatures of the deep. The prevailing norms about sex at the biological level are shaped by a culture we’ve moved out of, but the norms remain. Well, get some clues and de-norm a bit.
cericonversion
18 May 09 at 12:10 pm
Enh. Sorry for this stream of posts, but reading biology research reports reminded me that I wanted to write a little more about the context of judgments.
Classical physics was for a long time king of the sciences. In classical physics, discrete units with well-defined boundaries interact against a background of absolute time and space. You can precisely determine things’ mass and velocity, and from that perform fundamentally simple mathematical calculations to derive precise and correct information of other sorts. A thing is at rest, or it’s moving on trajectory X with velocity Y and that’s all there is to it.
Biology isn’t like that at all.
For starters, biology happens in fluids. This is something people overlook a lot. Our cells are filled and surrounded with fluids, and because of this, no interaction is ever clean and free of history. (If you’ve ever noticed that you have to empty the sink from time to time when doing dishes, you’ve just touched the merest conception of what interactions in a cell are like.)
In addition, everything’s going on at once. While this molecule is replicating, that one’s busily synthesizing something, and that one is doing something else again. It’s not like a factory assembly line, it’s more like downtown traffic in terms of simultaneous operations.
Furthermore, organism-level properties are set not by a single toggle, but by many. This gene activates that, and then this other one modifies that and turns on one of these three other features, depending on whether the next four genes have already activated stuff way over there…it is, again, not so much like looking at a blueprint as trying to listen to every conversation going on within a mile of you.
Early biologists didn’t know any of that. But we do. We understand that life is fundamentally complex, constantly averaging and differentiating, synergistic, revising, tangled. We keep developing. We keep finding the importance of features that nobody had understood before. The kind of view that Emily is presenting here isn’t just morally desirable, it’s truer to the facts of life.
cericonversion
18 May 09 at 12:41 pm
(Sigh. One more. I don’t mean to suggest that a newer version of scientific insight compels moral judgments, either. Each of us here is a real person in any event, and law and practice should be about what are good and desirable, not what conforms to a technical spec. It’s just that I find the insights from biology interesting and relevant. Now I really, really am done.)
cericonversion
18 May 09 at 1:16 pm
Well, didn’t get to the older replies again. Also still a lot of other things to do, which should go first after this reply.
Actually my GF was making quite a noise reading the comments. She did read my previous reply and what I commented on, but I’m sure she didn’t yet read all my comments.
According to her I might as well write Chinese or Russian, though she also made the comment that both might be too easy to read compared to English.
@squigglefish.
I did make non whatsoever remark that can be explained as “better know your place….” etc.
In the older replies I clearly stated male ORGAN, just to make clear that I am NOT refering to a male PERSON.
Basically, we all have our self image and our ideas about how our body should be in connection with that.
If a penis can be either a female or a male organ, why would anyone want to change it to align the body to their self image. WHAT then actually would be that self image and what body parts go with that self image?
If I take my self image, I’m a woman, at least far on that side of the spectrum between man and woman.
In my self image as such, a penis is not part of my body and as such I would have it corrected.
Indeed, in that I would be on the full transsexual side of the spectrum.
Indeed, we don’t live in an ideal world, which is a statement as I have brought forward.
Transsexuality and all gender variations have been, and still are disapproved of in many places in our world and are even denounced by some, also in our Western world like the US.
What I have written as my opinion and ideas in this matter will not have ANY different meaning, and as such the obvious rejection of quite a few here, if I would now say that I have a trans history. So no matter again if I have a trans or cis history, what I have written does “continue the oppression I claim to oppose”.
Obviously I have been given the cis label and I can not get to a different idea than that seeing my texts written in a different light when I would have the trans label, than as pure hypocrisy.
So, it obviously does not matter from which background I come.
I have no privilege in this.
I do not insist on arbitrary divisions, but concluded that historically our society does label people based on a glance between their legs after birth. That in case of an overwelming majority that label is found to be correct, even though we have the discrepancies that show us that the system is not perfect.
There is no place I have written that surgery is required and even less linked that with motives.
Again I have to absolutely deny that I think “that trans people are to be pittied”.
I have stated that the binary system are the references on both sides of the spectrum. This means that there can be many variations in between the binary limits of that spectrum. Again, the binary is the reference, but not perfect.
As you would read my thoughts well, you would see that I do not hold different views for trans or intersex people.
@Harriet.
I have been familiar with the T&T (old more confined name, now more broadly transgender) world from the early 80s. Also for a while I did run one of the local T&T groups.
However, I have sort of been disconnected from the whole LGBT world for some 8 years due to work abroad and as I’d sort of settled in with my GF.
So, partly I have a fully open mind, but on the other side I am more rigid and focussed on the basics and not really open to a lot of what I see as modernistic thoughts. However, all well build arguments do influence my ideas.
It is all worth the effort.
Just look at how much has been achieved in many of the European countries. Many countries have arrangements in their health care system covering transition and SRS. Some full without restrictions, some where implementing it doesn’t fully work out, like in GBR with some PCTs just deciding to make it more difficult or even refuse part of the process to be funded.
Look at the countries that have equal marriage, not limited by sex or gender, with NL the first from 2001.
Then on the other hand we have Civil Unions in GBR which is just a 2nd discriminatory system as it is not open to opposite sex couples.
@cericonversion.
Yes, the DSM was changed after lengthy interaction with health care professionals by interacting with them and changing their minds via discussion.
So, yes, that’s the world I live in. The world I deal with and the world I have to deal with if I want anything I don’t like changed to what I like more.
And the battle certainly isn’t won.
Just look at that for the DSM-V we see someone in there, being part of the discussions and of what will be the final conclusion, who I would suggest should just be locked away for child abuse.
But, based on his ‘expertise’ in the field is obviously allowed to torture children that did not adhere to the label stuck on them at birth.
Again. Changes you work to from within the system.
Going for a head on collision with the system will only have the system drag their feet more deeper in the sand and you have not achieved anything in making your ideas heared the situation get any better.
Don’t try to teach society that black isn’t black and white isn’t white, but tell them there is a spectrum in between and get them to accept that.
Don’t try to tell society that a penis is not a male organ, but also can be a female organ… Society will just label you as delusional; obviously a mental case.
And, what did you achieve? Well, again nothing.
Remember that most people in society can not break the link that a body with a penis attached is a man; work on society to get them to understand that this is not a universal law, but that there is a spectrum between man/male and woman/female and that though the person that has a penis attached to the body can simply be a woman/female. get them to understand that the binary gender idea might be the base, it is not rigid.
Angela
18 May 09 at 1:45 pm
Oh, yey! Now we have “full transsexual” Bullshit being pandered! ¬.¬
You don’t seem to get the idea that 1) not everyone can have their body ‘corrected’ and such people do not deserve to be forced to live in self-hate, and 2) genitals do not make the sex, and are not a binary thing. You are seriously obsessing over genitalia, it is quite disturbing actually.
As for you continuing to insist that being trans or cis does not matter, you have missed the point. I actually did not label you cis until you decided to protest being considered anything at all. You just don’t get the idea that it does matter – cis people cannot meaningfully discuss trans experience in anything but theory, and attempting to do so and to shout down the trans viewpoints is oppression, pure and simple.
You say that you don’t insist upon arbitrary decisions, yet point to how these have been made by history so must be right? lol
As for pitying trans people, come off it and read your original comment again. If you had screwed up with that, you would have apologised, not insisted you were right.
You go on about “working within the system” – this is what not being uppity means! You seem to suggest that trans people cannot want(need?) radical change, because it just won’t be accepted! We should pick our fights to the ones the establishment allows us to fight!
“Actually my GF was making quite a noise reading the comments…” is exactly the same sort of stupid pointless crap you tried to pull earlier, except this time it is not just false authority, but obviously biased authority at that. Although I do agree – your utter inability to actually read what you actually wrote and to understand reasoned argument could be explained by a language barrier that you have no desire to minimise.
In fact, with you now saying “Don’t try to tell society that a penis is not a male organ, but also can be a female organ… Society will just label you as delusional; obviously a mental case.”, I am actually going to say that you really shouldn’t be posting here, as you fail to follow that up with any qualifiers. You are hence apparently both discriminatory against trans people, and highly ablist against people on different places on the mental health spectrum.
Squigglefish
18 May 09 at 2:05 pm
Angela,
You really don’t think you have any priviledge over trans people? Really? Really? Think carefully now.
“Society will just label you as delusional; obviously a mental case”
Well we will just keep saying it until society comes round and realises that we’re right. Because we *know* we are right. And although it may be dangerous, we’re not going to stop saying these things, because to not say or do anything to change society would be even more dangerous.
The idea that you fight for the “achievable” things is very seductive, but there is no reason to limit what we ask for. As one of my lecturers said, the world is changed by unreasonable people. So let’s be “unreasonable” and ask that people look beyond their own narrow perceptions to the richness and complexity of human experienc.
harriet
18 May 09 at 2:20 pm
Just a reply in general, as I do have some other things to do. and yes, I’ll re-read my earlier and original reply. I know there are typos and I might even have screwed up with something as I did write a few replies in between doing some work.
One of the things I noticed is that I’m getting replies that basically give the same stance as I have, though obviously different wording.
The other thing noticed is that I’m being attacked on arguments that are fully opposite to what my stance and what I did write.
Obviously my stance that sis people are ‘lucky’ for not being trans is explained as that I pitty trans people. Well, I have no reason for that.
And as for me personal. If I would state to have a trans past, would even anyone believe me?
I guess that would clearly make my point in that it doesn’t make any difference.
Well, time to close this window and put the prints aside; tomorrow I’ll see again..
Angela
18 May 09 at 3:04 pm
Angela, who are you to dictate how other people talk or think about their bodies?
CBrachyrhynchos
18 May 09 at 3:10 pm
*sigh*
There really is no other way to explain your belief that cis people are ‘lucky’ to not be trans, especially as you tried to explain it in terms of trans hardship. It beggars belief that you can think otherwise.
I see you really love these appeals to false authority – so much so that this time, you actually invent an actually false one to appeal falsely to! That’s impressive! A quick skim through the thread shows no real replies of support to you, only some separate discussions of similar ground. For the most time, those that disagree have been trying to reason with you, but it is understandable how, as you have repeatedly failed to respond to reason, these replies have became more strained.
I would believe you if you said you had a trans history (although to me, “a trans past” sounds more akin to ex-gay than anything else), as I, and I believe most people here, believe in the general right to self-define.
And if so, it would make some difference – it would imply thoughts stemming more from internalised transphobia (hint: even I admitted that I had some still, it’s no biggie if this is the case if you simply acknowledge it and its effects).
The fact you mention you have prints is a little worrying, but I’ll forgive that as a cultural difference between those more at-home with monitors and scrolling, rather than simply being creepy.
Squigglefish
18 May 09 at 3:18 pm
Society will just label you as delusional; obviously a mental case.
My obvious response is “so?” How is this different from the dozen other ways in which psychologists have defined us as delusional because the way we consider our bodies don’t match some prescriptive biological or developmental ideals? They said clitoral orgasms were crazy. They say that homosexual sex is both less satisfying and more intense to the point of addiction. They’ve medicalized both desire outside of a relationship, and the lack of desire within a relationship. We’ve seen dissertations and peer-reviewed research expounding on the natural mandates for lifetime monogamy, serial monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, polygyny, and promiscuity in our species. Depending on the rhetorical flavor of the day, women either are hardwired for pair-bonding, or hardwired to turn on at the mere suggestion of sex. My own sexual orientation has been dismissed as an illusion, an artifact of the closet not confirmed by experiments involving pneumatic sleeves and dirty pictures.
And after all that cissexist and heterosexist wank which can be summed up as saying that a penis in the vagina is more natural, moral, healthy and biological than any other sex act, we are expected to consider their definition of crazy? Are queerfolk like me or transgendered people really supposed to care about a pseudo-scientific diagnosis that, in the last century, has been used to justify sterilization, mutilation, incarceration, cognitive-behavioral abuse, and a variety of experimental forms of extermination.
Which for the record, I am spiders-under-the-skin crazy. And I fucking hate it when people call others crazy over a disagreement.
CBrachyrhynchos
18 May 09 at 4:40 pm
[...] Thoughts on Gender and Bodies I just finished reading through Queenemily’s post, on Questioning Transphobia, titled “Five Axioms About Gender and Bodi… In it, five “axioms” are outlined that received a significant amount of attention and [...]
Quintuple Thoughts on Gender and Bodies « A Queer Performance
18 May 09 at 4:55 pm
Angela,
What I have written as my opinion and ideas in this matter will not have ANY different meaning, and as such the obvious rejection of quite a few here, if I would now say that I have a trans history. So no matter again if I have a trans or cis history, what I have written does “continue the oppression I claim to oppose”.
I disagree with nearly everything you’ve said so far (and I say nearly because I might have missed something). That wouldn’t change regardless of being cis or trans, because I disagree with the fundamental assumptions you’re espousing.
However, there’s something extremely problematic about cis people telling trans people how to identify, how to describe ourselves, how to think about gender that’s not present from another trans person. That something is cis privilege. It doesn’t mean that what you’re saying ceases to be problematic if you’re trans, but rather that you’re compounding that problematic nature by privileging your experiences and perspective as a cis person over the experiences and perspectives of trans people.
It’s also problematic because, as a cis person, you can’t speak from the perspective or experiences of a trans person.
So, please identify yourself – are you cis or trans? Don’t play the “You can’t tell over the internet” game, because that’s a privileged game. I’ve seen cis people play that game with trans people over and over again, and white people play that game with people of color over and over again. I have seen straight people play it with gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, and I have seen men play it with women. What you’re saying is something I have only seen privileged people do, so if you refuse to define, that’s a pretty clear message to me that you’re cis.
It’s also pretty obnoxious, when someone disagrees with you, to tell them they really agree with you even though what you’re saying is right there on the page and they’re not agreeing with it.
Also, “delusional”? Find a better way to make your point without ableist language. And please don’t threaten us with consequences that we live with on a daily basis.
Lisa Harney
18 May 09 at 7:41 pm
(a bit OT, but I figured this mught be a good point to bring up)
wrt “I have a trans history” vs. “I’m trans”
I think those two phrases belong to two different contexts: the first is rooted in the cis-centric view where transness in itself is something of a disease, an aberration, a problem. It also reflects that if you start on the road of sex-change speak, you end up having people who really have changed their sex, and are no longer trans (“disease model”), or with people who are somehow deluded as to their real sex (“insanity model”), or, you have to start seriously questioning sex and gender because gender-as-essential doesn’t work any more.
If you can change your sex, i.e. if you consider yourself fully female/woman/male/man (I can’t think of a way to become fully queer in a ciscentrist worldview, but I may be wrong), sex or gender definitely isn’t essential to who you are. Which kinda sucks from a ciscentric POV.
On the other hand, if transness and cisness are attributes of sexed bodies in this ciscentric culture, saying “I’m trans”, or “I’m cis” in this context is stating a fact concerning the way this culture and society sexes your body in relation to yourself, but it can also imply the context, that is, that trans and cis are contingent definitions, just like point #3 says.
My point being that if one chooses the cissexist view one runs into contradictions with the actual, living people one can see – the ciscentric theory of sex and gender can’t explain the realities of trans people (and it likely can’t explain a lot more besides) – but a theory that uses cis and trans as descriptive words is a LOT better at explaining why the world is the way it is, and can fit in, AFAICS, a whole lot of trans experience without eliminating cis experience from the picture.
(I hope I come across – I’m not a native speaker and I’m trying to say difficult stuff. Oh, and I’m trans.)
Carto
18 May 09 at 11:13 pm
Angela, I think you’ll find, that if you look at the history of queer liberation, that stuff wasn’t accomplished through polite conversations. The Compton Cafeteria and Stonewall Riots did far more to advance queer liberation than homophile organizations did in the decades before.
Clearly, they were not polite conversations, they were riots. The Compton Cafeteria in the Tenderloin was the only place that would let trans people and gay street hustlers in, until the manager got annoyed and called the police. Then, the community fought back against the police and the establishment. That got organizational infrastructure put into place to address the conditions of trans lives, liason with the police, and supply hormones when public health services wouldn’t.
And we all know what happened at Stonewall – how it touched off a mass of radical queer action on the streets, where queers demanded their rights by any means necessary – and it the action at Stonewall was primarily trans people, primarily TWOC.
No one in the establishment was going to have a polite conversation with the people who rioted. Upper middle class, white queers who could be closeted in their day-to-day lives tried for decades to stop police raids with their homophile organizations that had polite conversations (though, at some points, they had some pretty radical political views – the Mattachine Society was Marxist in the McCarthy era). They couldn’t even get the police to stop raiding gay bars.
Compton Cafeteria greatly changed the availability of services for trans people in San Francisco; Stonewall set off a movement that took place in the streets, and took place through direct action.
ACT-UP didn’t have polite conversations to get then President Reagan to even say the word AIDS. They didn’t have polite conversations to get funding for AIDS research, and later to get anti-HIV drugs actually out there. They had direct action, they were in the streets.
I’m going to quote Audre Lorde, with probably the most misinterpreted thing she ever said, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. Trying to have polite conversations with the people in power does a few things. It divides us; they are only ever going to be willing to have conversations with the most privileged members of the group in question; those are the only concerns that have a chance to be heard. Furthermore, it’s ceding them everything; they get to decide on the terms of conversation, you play by their rules, and they can pretend to listen and go on about their lives. You’re giving them every advantage, and doing things their way.
And as far as being delusional? I, like CBrachyrhynchos, have a psychiatric label that means no one has to listen to me ever, that nothing I say has to be taken as rational. Furthermore, they’re saying all trans people are delusional, anyway. So what do we have to fear? They’ll say we’re crazy? They already say that. They’ll see us as less than human? They already do. They’ll kill us, especially the most vulnerable members of our community, while grinding us all down? They already do. To quote Lorde again (and to expand a bit on her thoughts), “your pacifism will not protect you”. Police didn’t raid the bars, they and society don’t still arrest and kill trans people (especially TWOC) with impunity because we’ve been violent and fighting back. No matter how peaceful and polite we are, no matter how much we play by their rules they still do it. Our community didn’t riot because we had been fighting back and needed to make it bigger, we rioted because being passive and not resisting just let them take us out at their leisure.
We started making progress when we stopped playing by their rules, when we stopped thinking that playing by those rules – being polite, staying in line, not resisting, begging for recognition – would get us anywhere. We got somewhere when we showed that we could not be ignored, and that as long as we existed, we would struggle by any means we had at our disposal.
I refuse to limit ourselves to their language and their terms; I refuse to hear my community told that we can only have polite conversations, that we have to work in the system that oppresses us, that exists on our blood and the blood of other oppressed peoples. Returning to Lorde’s theme, we cannot separate ourselves into people who can and have gotten surgery, those who haven’t, those who can’t, and those who don’t want it; those who have binary identities and those who don’t; those who can be acceptable to people in power and those that can’t; those that can use tactics you find acceptable (polite conversations using the master’s labels and the master’s definitions) and those that can’t (those who talk loudly using our own labels and definitions; those who use various forms of direct action; those that force the master to hear them), because, like Lorde brilliantly said, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”, and defining ourselves with the master’s language, dividing ourselves into the master’s categories, and using the tactics the master approves of are using the master’s tools.
anarchafemme
19 May 09 at 12:04 am
seconding anarchafemme above.
angela, you are digging yourself into an ever deeper hole of cissupremacism and ableism. you seriously need to examine your own assuptions, listen to what genderqueer and trans ppl are telling you on this thread, and stop throwing false authority around.
or better yet, just go, ok? just get out of this thread.
GallingGalla
19 May 09 at 12:02 pm
thirding anarchafemme and clapping my hands with glee.
Angela – I think you are coming from a well-intentioned place, but the more you explain the worse it gets. It happens like that and eventually gets ugly as privileged people try to explain their positions from a point of privilege. It doesn’t fly (swim, walk, motor) and just gets frustrating for everyone involved.
As a woman with a Trans* PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE I will say some of your assumptions and wording is just… well…off. I can appreciate that you have/had trans* partners and have a level of understanding from that perspective. In this context, however, I don’t think that perspective is going to be particularly useful in discussions of how trans* folks relate to their own bodies.
rioTgirl
19 May 09 at 2:21 pm
GallingGalla,
Well, I have too much work I have to get done, so didn’t even read other comments.
And actually, I’m not in the mood for discussions like this, so I might well take your advice…
I’m sorry to see so much negativity towards sis people and everyone that doesn’t fully see things as you and some others do. And in that I’m obviously in the 2nd group.
Tomorrow a M2F information evening from the gender team here, Thursday is a holiday with us away all day and Friday will be fully into work again. Also taking about and planning for Thailand later this year takes enough time.
So, I’ll see.
angie1206 on gmail dot com
Angela
19 May 09 at 3:07 pm
I’m sorry to see so much negativity towards sis people and everyone that doesn’t fully see things as you and some others do. And in that I’m obviously in the 2nd group.
Yes, there’s negativity toward negative characterizations, descriptions, and appropriation of trans people’s lives and experiences.
There’s not a wide spectrum negativity toward cis people in general, and I think that trying to make arguments with you about attitudes toward all cis people is definitely a huge exaggeration.
The negativity toward you isn’t that you disagree. It’s the way you position yourself relative to that disagreement, and the way you privilege cis perspectives on how bodies are sexed over trans perspectives, and calling us “delusional” when we disagree with you. You’ve already been insulting, so it rings extremely hollow when you complain that we’re all being too darned mean to you.
Lisa Harney
19 May 09 at 8:01 pm
Angela: at this point?
*sparklebunnehs* *sparklebunnehs* *sparklebunnehs* *sparklebunnehs* *sparklebunnehs* *sparklebunnehs* *sparklebunnehs* *sparklebunnehs*
GallingGalla
19 May 09 at 9:01 pm
I’m sorry to see so much negativity towards sis people and everyone that doesn’t fully see things as you and some others do. And in that I’m obviously in the 2nd group.
Did you miss the part where we, as a group, have pretty much fucked up when it comes to trans people over and over again? Sometimes negativity toward oppressor groups is rather valid; hell, have you missed the systematic discrimination, devaluation of trans lives, rapes, and murders? Because I sure as hell haven’t. Anyways, i’d point you at a repeating list of our fuckups but somehow I’m sure you’d just insult what I’m saying and then derail like there’s no tomorrow. Good work furthering the ends of the oppressor, Angela. Did you get a special Bailey-Blanchard-Zucker Merit Badge for helping? Do you really think the favor you seek to curry with the oppressor will protect you? History shows that seems to rarely work…i’m sorry that you seem to believe it will.
It’s the job of my people to STOP FUCKING UP. Full stop. I no longer really care to debate the feelings of oppressor classes because if i wanted that, i’d read Feministing. (Hey, Miriam, any progress on discussing your fucked-up oppressive shit? Oooh, guess not, n/m.)
algormortis
19 May 09 at 10:40 pm
*raises hand* OOOooooOOOOooooo Pick me! Pick me! I got the answer! I got the answer!
Ok now we have all learned that a penis can only be a male organ because science says so, or something.
We also know that facial hair is a male characteristic, although I have seen cis women who have facial hair. So this means that these women have male chins, jaws, and upper lips.
Another thing we know is that a characteristic of women is that they have breasts. I think when a cis woman does not develop large breasts we must declare that she has a male chest.
I clearly stated male CHARACTERISTIC, just to make clear that I am NOT referring to a male PERSON.
The women who do not have facial hair and the woman who have breasts sized A cup or larger are in a much larger majority, sort of like the het people, they are with a much larger majority than the LGBT community in which the LGB is sort of estimated as some 5-15% of the population, but where tha T might be less than 1%. So like might makes right, or majority rules. So I think it would be really okay for us to unwoman any cis woman who has facial hair or a flat chest and make sure she knows that she has male body parts too as the icing on the cake. And you know, heaven forbid that this cis woman accept her male identified body parts, she must want electrolysis and breast implants or then she’s really not a real woman, regardless of the fact that she has the all important vulva! Because real women want to fit the exacting normative mold our culture insists upon for women.
Oh wait, now I’m kind of confuzzled, because in reality, many cis women with facial hair do shave or have electrolysis, and we are okay with that…but we are also okay with it if she says, “Fuck it. I’m going to just leave it be.” She’s still a woman either way! And and and the same goes for flat chested cis women, some do get implants, and we’re okay with that…but we are also okay if they leave their chests as is!!!! She is still a woman too!!!!
I guess I just don’t know diddly. I need someone to explain to me what the difference is with trans women and their variation from the norm? Why isn’t it okay for them to choose to transistion or choose not to transition or anything in between and no matter what…SHE IS STILL A WOMAN!!!!!!
Donna
19 May 09 at 11:13 pm
Beyond the snarkiness, come on, clearly a flat chested cis woman does not really have a male body part (chest) just because she varies from the norm. The same goes for facial hair, it’s still female facial hair. This is why the genitals, no matter the configuration, are female when they are on a woman.
You might consider when “science” decided to label the penis as a male organ, it was a cis scientist who only came across other cis people who did this? Perhaps if he was aware of trans women, he would have instead said, the penis is an organ that men generally have but that may be a variation in women also.
Donna
19 May 09 at 11:26 pm
Lisa on Heart: That the very possibility of accepting that trans people are exactly who we say we are will enslave her to the patriarchy.
Heart hedged her bets, though, and didn’t explain her title at all. (Also, comments off.) I was like, huh? Of course, that is my usual reaction to Heart these days.
I didn’t know what the hell she was on about. So thanks for the explanation.
DaisyDeadhead
19 May 09 at 11:40 pm
donna wins the nets!
GallingGalla
20 May 09 at 7:03 am
[...] “Five Axioms about Gender and Bodies” on Questioning Transphobia really got me thinking this week about the language I use on this blog [...]
Not Sure of This… « I’ll Follow the Sun
30 Jun 09 at 11:12 am
Its very possible that I’ve just internalized cis-centric garbage (as many trans folk can and often do) so if that seems to be the case, let me know.
I’ve always seen language as having a given use (describing, conceptualizing, communicating). Currently the definition of female and male are based on bodily structure (which probably is cissexist as hell, no doubt) but if we base it instead of self conceptualization, wouldn’t they just become synonymous with woman and man (and basically become redundant)
It seems to me that it would make more sense to just get rid of female and male entirely and just use woman and man (or even invoke a context based definition that accounts for both bodies and self conceptualization in different situations) instead of severing bodily terms from bodily description and making them redundant synonyms of woman/man.
Erm, another question too, if, for instance, a given individual’s sexual orientation was heavily bodily structure orientated, and the presence of a penis was unattractive to them, even on a woman, what would that be called under this naming system? Because it seems like sexuality is redefined here too, but not everyone fits the “attracted to woman/man conceptually” paradigm. Some people find certain bodies sexy.
recursiveparadox
18 Aug 09 at 8:17 am
A reaction that comes up after reading recursiveparadox.
Most in our Western society think we have gender equality, though I would say that to socially as well as legally not be the case.
If we would have, we should also have full marriage equality and basically the only need to know which body parts a person has would be medically, as there definitely is different care needed based on the ‘available’ parts.
Legally and socially there would be no need anymore to register a person based on a quick look between the legs of a new born baby and everyone could simply be happy as they feel they should be somewhere on the spectrum between masculine and feminine and we could just be attracted to and love the person we like without any stigma attached to it.
Angela
18 Aug 09 at 9:15 am
To be honest, even the whole marriage thing really screws over polyamorous people or even people who just don’t like the idea of marriage. For instance, why couldn’t I just make a list of the people I want to allow to see me in the hospital and they keep that on file? Why does it have to be spouse or blood family?
But that’s me getting off topic and all. I really think eliminating base categorization by “sex” (as sex is sort of a poor categorization system to begin with) entirely is a good idea. Redefining the words isn’t as helpful as cutting them out entirely, because we don’t live in a vacuum. You still have to contend with cultural context and cultural meaning. That’ll taint the efforts to redefine when the redefinition is as drastic as this one.
recursiveparadox
18 Aug 09 at 9:59 am
The whole hospital issue is terrible indeed and I agree with you that no matter what the bond is, you should be the one to decide who can visit you.
And no matter if there is a link, like marriage, between you and your partner, the partner should be going before family at all times.
If people consiously decide to go into a polyamorous marriage, I see no objections against that.
A declaration/contract between two (or more) people should be having the same rights as a marriage.
My GF and I are not married, even though we can in NL, but have a living together contract which defines each other as only legal partners, heirs and basically power of attorney, before any family would come into the picture.
I guess the US is a ‘little bit’ socially retarded compared to many other ‘civilised’ countries if we look at this sort of issues.
Angela
18 Aug 09 at 12:51 pm
Is there any law on the books that protects legal declarations like that? Because if I can use that to protect me and my partner (and any other partners we both fall in love with and draw into the group) then I would certainly like to do that.
Erm, also, using the word “retarded” like that is a little triggering for me. Could you please avoid it? Thank you.
recursiveparadox
18 Aug 09 at 1:18 pm
I assume you’re in the US, and though I have not enough knowledge of the US legal system, I would be inclined to think that something like this is not a possibility.
In the Netherlands it is a possible construction that has been around at least some 10-20 years.
Sorry about the word used, but I thought it the best fitting to describe a social overall attitude.
Mostly I try to avoid wording where I do have a feeling it might be interpreted differently than intended, but I did notice a different sensitivity when it comes to this between people in the US and our Dutch/English way of thinking.
I noticed I can be basically on totally the same side, but have a total row over wording and even have what I wrote being explained in a totally opposite way.
Angela
18 Aug 09 at 2:31 pm
That’s why I always ask that one not use that wording and provide some basic reason why, before I start arguing.
recursiveparadox
18 Aug 09 at 6:32 pm
[...] best way to express it so I’ma leave it how it is.) It’s like the whole concept that genitals do not necessarily determine gender. This is something that makes a lot of sense to me. I am a guy, and my junk is not female just [...]
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