Forever probably
In gender outlaw and other LGBTQIA Facebook groups and internet forums, someone will occasionally ask “What songs really reached out to you and made you feel recognized and understood?”
I need to remember to nominate Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill" the next time someone asks.
It may not have a giant billboard sign on it proclaiming it to be relevant to gender inversion and being genderqueer, but that’s where my head went when I first heard it, and how I interpret any time I’ve heard it since. “If only I could”, Kate sings, “I’d make a deal with God and I’d get him to swap our places”. Many of my trans friends, who have often plaintively wished that the transgender women who didn’t want their penises could donate them to the transgender men who did, and receive a uterus and fallopian tubes and vagina in exchange, should be able to relate.
But that’s not quite how Kate came to wish for the exchange of positions, to be sure. Her angle of approach has more to do with a concern specific to sexuality of the non-same-sex variety: “It doesn’t hurt me; do you want to feel how it feels? Do you want to know that it doesn’t hurt me?” Not every listener seems to immediately think that the “it” she speaks of is sex, but that’s totally where my head went. She’s conversing with a male lover who is concerned about how this is for her. Because he doesn’t know, never having been female.
My feminist women friends are ready to hoot in derision. “Men don’t spend much time worrying about whether any sex practice hurts women. They think that’s what we’re there for. And that whatever gets done to us must be hot for us if they find it hot, whether it’s the joy of gagging on a dick or being raped and choked or just the everyday joy of being objectified and catcalled to by strangers, men never try to put themselves in our position and imagine what it must be like to be us. Or if they do, they have pathetically impaired imaginations!”
But not everyone who is male of body is a man, and not all sexuality involving a male person and a female person is heterosexuality. Because heterosexuality is an institution, one that is defined by and depends on seeing the sexual partner as Other, as utterly alien, one whose feelings and thoughts can’t be approached by imagining what it would be like, because, well, because It’s Different For Them. Because They’re Different. And reciprocally, for people whose interactions and attractions are not defined around that alienating difference, there is likely to be that fervent wish to understand, to know what it’s like.
“Let’s exchange the experience”, Kate says. That’s intimacy. It’s empathy.
Our current social politics often teaches us that empathy isn’t real, that it’s illusory. “Don’t speak for them. You aren’t them and you don’t know what it’s like”. It is entirely valid to say “You should not speak for people when they can speak for themselves, especially if they’ve been kept voiceless by their marginalization”. I agree with that. But some go on to say “Don’t think that you know what it’s like. You don’t. You can’t. It is arrogant of you to think that you do. You aren’t them”. It’s not a nuanced position, as stated; and if it discourages people from thinking it possible to know what it’s like, it can turn away their inclination to try. To imagine, to wonder, to watch from the outside and attempt to conjure up an awareness of what it must be like from the inside.
We can’t even identify as part of a group without empathy. Transgender feminist author Julia Serano acknowledges the legitimacy of the statement that some have made to her: “How do you know you are ‘a woman’? How do you know that who you are is the person that women are? You’ve never been one, you’ve only been yourself!” Serano agrees that she’s never been anyone but herself, but, well, that’s true for the person directing the question. How does a cisgender woman know she’s a woman in the sense of having an identity in common with other women? She’s never been any of those other women either, how does she know what it’s like to be any of them, and to claim a commonality of identity? Only by observation from the outside. Which is how Serano knows the same thing. It’s how I know I’m a femme; it’s how I knew I was one of the girls (despite being male) when I was in grade school. It’s empathy. The power to look across the divide and bridge the gaps and recognize and relate.
“We both matter, don’t we?”, Kate Bush asks.
Yeah, we do.
I think we need to avoid the naive view that if you feel a certain way about a situation - or imagine you would - then that’s how everyone would or should feel. And God knows we all need to do more listening to what other people say they think and feel rather than sitting in our own heads (or media bubbles) coming up with theories about them. Does telling people to listen discourage empathy and trying to put yourself in another person’s place? I hope not.
My identity as a woman doesn’t rest on feeling like one in some indefinable way (at least not consciously), or on being like other women. Rather the reverse; at times in my life I’ve had boys and men tell me “I thought girls/women don’t do/like/act like that”, and my answer has always been that obviously they were wrong because I am a counterexample. I’m not sure those two attitudes are philosophically compatible. But granted some people indeed appear to think and act more similarly to average members of the other sex than to their own… and assuming the premise that identity depends on this similarity… doesn’t this power of observation go both ways? If I observe an individual transwomen and to me she appears to think and act more like a man, or vice versa for a transman, what then?
In the context of identifying as the opposite sex/gender, I think the statement in bold is hard to refute. You say it’s not nuanced but that’s okay. Not everything needs nuance.
How can a male know what feeling like a woman feels like? It would be like me, an American, claiming to know what it feels like to be Korean and then calling myself that. While I might have a lot in common with Koreans due to me immersing myself in the culture, learning the language, and even living there, the person that is me—body and soul—was born and raised in America. I look nothing like the average Korean, strangers don’t code me as Korean, my American accent shows in speech regardless of what language I’m using, and my American socialization informs my perspective on pretty much everything.
So what, exactly, makes me Korean? I think it’s a fair question. Why is it better to call myself Korean than call myself an American who feels a strong kinship with Korean culture? Why is society obligated to affirm my self-concept?
I don’t understand why male people who claim to understand patriarchy and feminism can’t see the sinister optics of males opting into womanhood, dictating what being a woman really means (over the voices of women themselves), and then making it socially impermissible for women to use the word for themselves when discussing their biology. This looks like old school patriarchy to me except much worse. At least there was some paternalistic benevolence in the old school version.
There is zero empathy in this.
But that’s the thing, @AHunter3 (I appreciate your thoughtful post, btw). Most women will likely tell you that they don’t have a “woman identity”, not any more than they have a “left handed identity” or a “nearsighted identity”. They have a reality–a female body–that has propelled them into a shared experience with others who also have that female body. Namely through socialization. We wear skirts and dresses not because these are inherently “womanly” but because this is what folks with our body type are socialized to wear and few people are brave enough to deviate from a social norm. Many of us befriend women preferentially not because there’s an intrinsic cosmic bond, but because it is natural to connect more with people who has commonalities with you, who aren’t likely to complicate things with sexual feelings. Of course lots of us don’t feel that connection. Women like this have existed for ages. But only till recently has that registered a peep out of anyone.
I have a coworker friend that is a gay man. He isn’t especially flamboyant and it isn’t 100% obvious that he’s gay. But once you get to know him, you see he’s “not like other men”. And playfully, I will call him “one of the girls”, which he loves (I actually call him a sista because he can do the stereotypical angry black girl thing better than I can). We don’t have a lot of shared gender experiences, though. He is full of emphathy and sympathy (which I lack), so I can totally tell him that I’m experiencing a personal summer without him groaning or laughing at me. But I don’t really see him as s a woman just because he’s got some feminine ways. Maybe I’m just superficial, but the beard and mustache and masculine (albeit dapper) attire keep me from really seeing him as a sister, even though socially I might say he’s one because I know he likes it.
To be honest, I’ve never been a huge defender of my gender class. I’ve been pretty “meh” about my womanhood. I can play the strong feminist on the internet when we’re talking about toxic masculinity or the evil of Incel culture. But I don’t have a strong “I am woman, hear me roar!” mentality. So intellectually I can get transgenderism.
But I just don’t see gender identity in general as a respectable political movement. I see it as a movement being propelled by lots of young people who are super into “identity” because they are still stuck in the high school mindset of cliques. Teenagers don’t have a strong sense of self, so they latch onto preconstructed identities to help ground them. Ideally they should outgrow this once they move into adulthood, but adulthood is eluding a lot of 20-somethings (and even 30-somethings) right now. And social media is validating anything and everything, which prevents the kind of second-guessing that would otherwise happen. Perhaps this is why I was 100% down for trans folks when we were talking about older folks who had spent many years seriously thinking about gender. If you make it to your mid-20s or 30s and the identity crisis is still going on strong, then yeah, that’s a signal that something is wrong and you need to do something real different. But it’s hard for me to not think a 16-year-old really knows what the fuck they’re saying when they identify as nonbinary trans. If the rest of us treated this identity with the same gravitas as we treat any other teenagery identity, that would be one thing. But I see folks elevating to a Very Big Deal. We’re turning a teenagery identity into a serious political construct. I fear that by giving it so much gravitas, we’re making harder for young folks to mature out of it once they realize it was just a phase.
Identity used to be something you were born into. Someone taught you that you were X, so that’s how you identified. I think this is how gender works for most people. We’re X because we’ve been told we’re X. And we don’t assume that means we have to always act in X way, even if our parents or grandparents might have encouraged that mindset. Now the message seems to be that you’re X if you act like X. According to the gender identity crowd, I’m nonbinary because I act in X and Y ways. But I refuse to go along with this because I feel like it is a harmful way of defining gender–one that creates the illusion that we are free, but only promotes the “isms” people claim to be liberating themselves from. Instead of people just defining themselves, I feel like they also implicitly defining me. I’m just having a hard time with this.
That’s a really good question and I wonder about it myself. Some of those reactions, when I see them occur firsthand, leave me feeling that the person with the perceptions can’t get past “I see your body as male so of course your’e actually a guy”… but trans women themselves have occasionally (in moments of political incorrectness) said of some other trans woman that she’s embarrassingly unlike women and not a good advertisement for the brand, so to speak. As a person whose identity in these regards is rooted entirely in the abstract zone of personality and behavioral stuff and things like priorities and values, I will confess to holding some of those attitudes myself towards a few trans women who seem 90%+ obsessed with being perceived and thought of as physically female and whose observable behavioral patterns seem like a better fit among the boy-people… not that I think all males behave “this way” and all female folks act “that way”, it’s more like the two populations have some mild-to-moderate tendencies but with more variation among individuals than the two populations vary from each other.
My identity as a femme doesn’t depend on all women agreeing that I’m more like women in general than I’m like men in general. What’s more important is that women accept that my self-perception has always been that I am—that I’m one of those male folks who grew up thinking of myself that way and shaping my aspirations and self-evaluations accordingly.
And you’re spot-on right about listening. Really listening, and continuing to do so, and not thinking of it as a finished project that we’re done with!
nods Presumably you don’t think that gay male people are intrinsically different humans than non-gay males, in the same way that you don’t see female people as having an intrinsically different identity from male people; and yet there are patterns, and I also presume that you don’t assume all of the patterns are behaviors learned from identifying as gay and emulating other gay people etc. You also recognize the overlap between those patterns and the patterns exhibited by female folks that leads you to say he’s one of the girls, although it’s not like there are no difference setting him aside from actual women.
I’ve lately become fond of explaining my situation as being like a femme gay male. Because in our culture we understand that identity, he’s still male but also femme. But that identity has essentially only existed for gay guys. That’s actually full circle to the language I used when I first came out in 1980: “heterosexual sissy”. Like the femme gay guys but I simply happen to have a different sexual orientation than they do.
I joke around with him by saying he’s one of the girls because he doesn’t react to women’s bodies the same way that just about every man I know reacts. I can laugh with him about late-night vaginal mesh commercials with him without worrying about him running away screaming (which is exactly what our mutual “bro” friend does). Vaginal mesh commercials are a form of entertainment that I’ve only been able to enjoy with other women.
But in my mind, me calling him a “girl” is like when white people joke around with me that I’m so white cuz I can’t dance, I don’t go “cobra” on people when I’m mad, and I don’t smoke marijuana. All of these things ping “not black”. But just because people may perceive me as “not like other black people” doesn’t make me not black. And it doesn’t motivate me to identify myself as not black.
Yeah, I’ve always thought most of our “identity” differences were cultural, not innate.
Because it’s like Pepsi and Coke. When Pepsi set up the blind taste test campaign, they had a small share of the market compared to Coke. When they set up the test tastes, they created the illusion that Pepsi and Coke were neck and neck in sales. It was great for Pepsi’s market share. Same deal with the cis- prefix. By trying to force everyone to say cisman and ciswoman, as opposed to trans man and trans woman, it makes the trans population seem larger and more important than it actually is. They’re increasing their market share of public consciousness.
Huh. That’s so crazy it just might work.
That’s fair, appearances have a big effect on perception, even if we try to avoid that. Something as simple as a masculine or feminine name can greatly change reactions over the internet. But…
Rooting identity in personality and behaviour is problematic in it’s own way - like Monstro said, defining yourself in this way implicitly defines other people, too - but basing a classification which has real effects on other people and society on an undefinable and philosophically unknowable internal feeling strikes me as a pretty crazy thing to do. How have we reached a point where no disagreement is allowed - whether for adolescents who may just be confused and trying to work out their place in the world, or adults who had normal childhoods, spent their lives acting and speaking like a typical member of their sex and suddenly in middle age declare they are not. It’s practically a thought crime to express skepticism or be anything other than 100% affirming.
Yes, and it makes what are designated as “safe, supportive” spaces are often places where a single nomenclatural misstep results in a hostile pileon — the opposite of a place where it is safe to be open and honest.
An interesting article:
That is interesting. Thanks, @GreenWyvern.
I’m happy such articles are coming out in mainstream publications now. The only way this stupid TERF nonsense is going to go away is if gender critical viewpoints are allowed to openly compete in the marketplace of ideas.
From the article:
That’s because of the importance placed by gender-critical feminists, including me, on the body. Of course we don’t agree on everything, any more than LGBTQ activists do. But broadly speaking, our analysis is that women’s lives are shaped by their physical differences from males as well as the cultural meanings derived from these. The exploitation of women’s domestic and caring labour, for example, is linked to (though not justified by) our role in reproduction. Female anatomy makes us vulnerable in specific ways to sexual violence, such as pregnancy from rape. Our breasts are the most common site of cancers among women.
The line in bold immediately made me think of @monstro.
In this era of gender inclusivity, I can only pray breast cancer guidance isn’t played with. Unlike cervixes, everyone has breasts; women are simply distinguished by having ones that are developed. If I ever see the words “people with breasts…” I’m getting angry thinking about it. Women need to know they need to start their mammograms in their 40’s. Obfuscatory language is dangerous if it keeps this message from being heard and acted upon. Not that there is any excuse for doing this with cervical cancer guidance, but there is something about the prospect of this happening to breast cancer awareness that enrages and sickens me. Gonna blame @monstro for this emotional reaction.
Well, males do have breast tissue and can get breast cancer. That’s different than cervixes, which only females have. But it’s like only 1% of the breast cancer cases are in men, so it makes a lot of sense for the messaging to be women-centric. It’s no big deal if a man skips breast cancer screening since his risk is so low.
And so obviously, right after I posted that I googled and found this advice on breast cancer.
Mammogram guidelines vary. Most people with breasts should get screening mammograms every 1-2 years starting at age 40.
Yes you’re right. This is why it is extra important that sex be specifically accounted for in the guidance. Men have breasts and can get breast cancer but their risk is much lower than women’s. Screening guidelines apply to women because of this difference.
I think my experience with breast cancer has made me more sensitive too, @YWTF. I didn’t realize how sensitive I was until this thread. I don’t fault you for blaming your enragement all on me. 
I don’t know how anyone could dewomanize breast cancer awareness without causing harm. “People who have breasts and who are awash in estrogen or have been awash in estrogen at some time in their life, or have a family history of breast cancer, should get screened for breast cancer” might be technically correct. But if only 20% of people care enough to read that crazy-sounding sentence, then it isn’t effective communication and awareness isn’t going to occur.