There is a certain irony here in that I’m a ciswoman who’d consider donating my unused uterus and ovaries if doing so wasn’t too hazardous and, oh yes, if I wasn’t in menopause (so much for the ovaries). Even so, no one ever seems to question if I’m a “real woman”, or my femininity, even though I haven’t biologically reproduced and don’t have an intention of doing so.
Which just goes to show the argument “they can’t get pregnant therefore they aren’t real women” is a bit bogus. Again.
Just FTR, I was not advancing that argument (that transwomen do not want uteruses) as my own, and I never thought it likely to be true. It was simply evidence for the proposition that “towering feminist icons have reservations about this, casting doubt on the claim that only a tiny fringe of feminism feels this way”.
He’s here for a debate, not dialectic.
It’s not surprising that some old second-wave feminist “icons” are backpedalling now, like Steinem. Just because they were popular doesn’t mean they were smart, or correct. Second-wave feminism had its moment and evolved to third-wave feminism, which does (generally) embrace transgender women and lesbians.
Even the much-lauded Harry Benjamin was wrong on some issues, and was thought to be wrong by other transgender medical workers at the time. For instance, he gushed over how Christine Jorgensen’s pubic hair pattern was “strong evidence” she was intersex - she thought this was funny, as she had electrolysis to get the female-shaped pattern. And Benjamin did not believe any real transwoman could ever be a lesbian, nor any real transman gay - he felt they were either crossdressers or autogynephiliacs (although he did not coin nor use the term) or ultra-butch feminist women, and he denied them hormones and other treatment.
The way Society treats transgender people is only in the Renaissance period right now, relatively speaking. Even just ten years ago if I’d come out I would have faced a much harsher and crueler world than I have now. More advances and awareness have occurred in the last 5 years than the prior 100. And in the last year than the last 5. It’s terribly exciting to see that when I take a group of t-girls to a straight club, now we’re treated like any other customers. When I go out for a power lunch with a friend who doesn’t pass, we’re treated as politely as any other ladies in the place. Clothing stores don’t bat an eye when I go shopping with friends who don’t pass - they want our money, not to castigate us. Sure abuse happens daily, hourly, and I receive reports of it every day from my sources. But it’s getting so much better, so much faster!
Folks who oppose transgender full inclusion and mainstreaming are going to, within 10 years, end up no differently than those who still firmly believe that “them thar’ darkies otta stay outta our town and stop takin’ our jobs an’ our white women!”
What an awful analogy. It might be apt if there were people going to surgeons to change their race; but if people were doing that I think most liberal people would find that discomfiting and have an issue with it and then they would really want to avoid that analogy.
And I reject your premise that Gloria Steinem is backtracking.
Do you have relevant citations to her comments in the '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, and today that demonstrate a consistent pattern of expression that has not changed?
What Slacker is either not understanding or disingenuosly for the point of playing the “debate game” acting as if he does not get the more recent Steinem quote in which she turns her old quote on its end - stated originally as sarcasm: “Must we change the foot?” - i.e. the point then being that in those days, not understanding the difference between gender identity and both gender roles and sexual attraction, her argument was that changing a body to so that the gender roles or sexual attraction one wanted or experienced was, in her mind, absurd. Now she still asks the question but answers that for some the answer actually is “yes.”
What else Slacker is, is acting as if he does not get is that the claim that was made was his:
When asked to provide a link to that research he offered up a letter signed by a few dozen people and then a few quotes decades old and places the burden on others to demonstrate that there is not some decent numbers and to prove that only some fringe elements currently take that position.
If he’s playing the “debate game” that is what we call losing. You make a claim, in this case that there is recent “research” that shows a “decent number” of individuals of group X believe Y, then you upon request either provide the citation for that research or you admit that you made the shit up.
His claim is still unsupported even if a few prominent old school femnists icons did still endorse that position. That (which he has NOT shown) would still only provide evidence of a couple of people and no evidence that they speak for any current “decent number,” let alone be the “research” he claimed existed.
Are there polls of current femnists and lesbians that show a decent number of them are hostile to the transgendered or not? Please acknowledge that the numbers of those who are femnists and/or lesbian in America is quite large so “a decent number” of them is also not a tiny amount.
Upthread, she specifically responded in the negative in 2012 when asked if she had modified her position. And anyone who takes “okay, if you want to change the foot, fine” as a reversal of her position…well, not sure what I can do for you. It seems quite clear to me that as of 2012 she still believed that transsexuals were letting gender stereotypes and oppressive social norms push them to take what she sees as extreme measures rather than just learning to be comfortable in their own skin.
Then I am genuinely puzzled by your objection to this “becom[ing] a reading room.”
Huh. One involves my reading posts, writing responses, interacting, the thrill of verbal combat. The other is just reading. Not sure what you find puzzling about that.
Yup** Slacker**'s evidence that Steinem (one person) currently believes the same as she did decades ago and is “hostile” to the transgendered is this quote:
Anyone who wants to use that as evidence of current hostility of a decent number of today’s feminists and lesbians … well, not sure what I can do for you.
Seriously.
Do you believe what you are posting or are you just playing a game?
Nope, wrong part of the quote (but you knew that). More like:
Uh, you edited out the part of the quote that Steinem explicitly said was her point. But you knew that.
Simple question asked. How about an answer?
Are you serious or just playing debate?
If you are serious and you really read that complete quote as evidence of current hostility, let alone as evidence of research demonstrating your decent numbers who are hostile then I really have nothing more to say …
It’s either cognitive dissonance or fucking around. Either way, I’m not sure there’s a way to win in this medium.
Sometimes you just have to shake your head else you bang it too hard against the wall.
Some 20% of Americans* identify* as “feminists” and a vast majority, 82%, endorse the beliefs that are the core of feminism even if they do not call themselves such, i.e. “men and women should be social, political, and economic equals.”
6% identify as “strong feminists.” Some indeterminate small portion of that group identifies as radfem and of that group there is some vocal few who are trans-exclusionary - a number that by all accounts I can find has decreased substantially over the years with some of the sites that claim to be radfem promoting anti-trans positions actually being fronts for conservative groups.
I could understand Slacker getting taken in by some casually read article that gives the impression that there is some actual large number of feminists who are trans-exclusionary … there are some clearly. But damn, the way he’s digged in, defending something that was clearly an untrue statement (he has not read of any “research” about “decent numbers” who are hostile). Mind boggling.
I haven’t gone through this thread with a fine-toothed comb, but has anyone linked to Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues (at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)? It’s quite long but may be worth a read for those genuinely interested in the historical relationship between trans and feminism. The conclusion:
Some speculate that the hatred of some 2nd-wave feminists towards transpeople was purely based on a principle of radical and arbitrary female exclusionism. They felt that men were intruding or trying to force their way into their last private arena - the physical differences and social groupings among women - and for some this was the last straw. The root cause of this sort of problem is that someone who believes that transsexuals are interlopers really doesn’t believe in all the weight of nearly a century of medical evidence. Even I can recall when lesbians were castigated by some 2nd-wave feminists, who basically wanted an organization of “straight-womyn-born-straight-womyn who aren’t too butch.”
They can fall back on the socialization argument (“they weren’t socialized as women, therefore they aren’t”) but that could be applied to selective and rare cases of women raised alone or predominantly in groupings of men, or who come from other cultures where feminine and masculine norms don’t line up with suburban whitebread America. I’ve even read of a radical feminist who claimed that a woman who had 6 brothers was probably “not female enough” due that social pressure. They can fall back on the “you can’t bear children/don’t have periods” argument, but then there are XX women who fall into that category as well. And where do CAIS women fit in? Or intersex persons?
At its very heart, trans discrimination by 2nd-wave feminists appears more and more to have been a digging in of heels and a refusal to modify doctrine: “we can’t fully define who is feminine enough nor what a woman is, but we know 'em when we see 'em.” It’s reminiscent of early Civil Rights groups, some of whom excluded mixed-race persons because they had too much “white” in them, and more and more, exclusionary events like the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival are looking like “Whites Only” Country Clubs.
:smack: Okay, I guess I’m going to have to admit essentially to being a little bit weaselly, so as to defend myself against accusations of outright prevarication. I would have liked to think that you all would have noticed by now that I choose my words carefully. When I use a phrase like “decent number” it is precisely because I really don’t know what the percentage is, and suspect it could possibly be small, but want to put the best spin on the case I am arguing (yup, as I said upthread I treat this as intellectual sport–sue me). So since (from my perspective anyway), a “decent number” can be like eight people, but still sounds like it matters, I used that phrase. Can we move on now?
Also, you have misunderstood or misremembered what I said. The word “research” in my post was not intended to represent peer-reviewed journal articles, but my own online digging. If that was unclear, I apologise. I was not trying to misrepresent it as anything other than my own Google surfing.
I agree with that analogy but not the conclusion. I think it was entirely reasonable for those civil rights groups to look sceptically upon these very light-skinned, blue-eyed people who claimed to represent them.
Really? I have gotten the exact opposite impression from your posting.
For example:
The groups who excluded mixed race members were not excluding merely “light-skinned, blue-eyed people” and no one was being called upon or asked to “represent” anyone. That sort of broad brush declaration, devoid of actual facts and implying rather the opposite of the historical record, is pretty much the antithesis of choosing one’s words carefully–unless the words are chosen for an objective that is not appropriate to this forum.