I think you’re factually wrong. The history of transgender folks is complicated by different cultural understandings of sex and gender, but it’s pretty uncontroversial that from nearly the beginning of recorded history (and, controversially, before), there have been folks assigned male at birth who have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to live as women.
The idea that being trans or gender fluid is a “best of both worlds” situation as far as society is concerned makes me really REALLY want to live in your timeline. Is it true that in your timeline trans women don’t suffer staggeringly high levels of assault, sexual and otherwise? Do they suffer levels lower than cis women? Cis men?
Any dude who decides he can put on a dress and suddenly eat cake while having it is in for a rude awakening.
LHOD
I think you’re factually wrong. The history of transgender folks is complicated by different cultural understandings of sex and gender, but it’s pretty uncontroversial that from nearly the beginning of recorded history (and, controversially, before), there have been folks assigned male at birth who have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to live as women.
In a lot of these cultures, these are gay men that have been kicked out of the man club and forced to live in as 3rd class of people. There is much more to this that what we’ve been talking about in this thread.
I know diverse views have been expressed in this thread, but having genders for every kind of “being” doesn’t seem to be in alignment with “anyone who says they are a woman is a woman” rhetoric. If someone can say they are X and everyone is obligated to believe them, then no, we don’t have the flexibility you are saying we have.
If someone who says they are a woman every other fourth week of the month wants to be in a woman’s-only space and the women who are women all the time that make up that group say “No”, we will have some folks saying to those women, “Y’all need to come up with a different gender category for yourselves and stop beaugarding the woman label like selfish little meanos.” While other folks folks will say “How dare you exclude that poor woman from your club! Of course she’s a woman! She says she is!”
If the number of people who flip genders is only 0.001% of the human population, why shouldn’t they be the ones to carve out their own gender identity, have their own clubs, and leave the existing gender categories alone?
I don’t want to subdivide “womanhood”. I want those who feel excluded from “womanhood” to either create their own category or understand that they might not be perceived as a “woman” by everyone and not be butthurt about it. Regardless, I want to be able to say “I don’t see you as a member of my gender class” without it being some major fucking thing. I promise I won’t use it for the vast majority of transgender folks. But I still reserve the right to say this when I feel it is appropriate.
LHOD, can you please answer my question please? I will repost it.
I If a gender fluid person who vacillates in and out of womanhood is as much as a woman as I am then, then “woman” is a completely meaningless term. *Why shouldn’t women be raging mad about this absurdity?
In case anyone thinks this would never happen:
I’ll answer it: the women I know and love in my life aren’t mad about that, because they don’t think it’s true. The meaning you put behind womanhood reminds me of the reason a lot of straight folks put around marriage, that marriage was made important by the people excluded from it. It’s a bullshit approach for protecting marriage, and it’s a bullshit approach to protecting gender.
ISTM that this is one of the reasons we have the term “cis” – ciswomen face some things that transwomen don’t (and vice versa). Society has discriminated against ciswomen in a way that has not affected all transwomen. I don’t think there’s a conflict with supporting trans rights and trans people and advocating for ciswomen.
I just want to say this, and I might take a break from this thread for a little bit.
Female oppression doesn’t go away whether we have 58 very precise categories or two amphorous categories. Every single woman could adopt a non-“woman” gender identity and there will still be misogyny in this society. As we move forward in this brave new world of gender theory, we can’t afford to lose sight of this fact. People can say “fuck biology” as much as they want, but we will still have young girls who hate their bodies because their large breasts and butts make them targets by the men around them. Biological females will still have their health concerns belittled and dismissed by medical professionals. These concerns will still continue to be glossed over by medical research. As long as we can preserve our ability to track these phenomena and talk about them in a meaningful way, then I don’t care about how many boxes you carve out. But the moment I start hearing anything that glosses over the biological realities that make women a marginalized and stigmatized group, my inner JK Rowling will come out.
I agree with all of this. I think (think!) a major difference is that I believe the struggle for trans rights advances the struggle for gender equality and against female oppression. The struggle for trans men to have their health needs recognized is linked to the struggle for cis women to have their health needs recognized.
I don’t think there’s any instance in which advocates for trans recognition and trans rights have furthered the marginalization and stigmatization of women, much less furthered the belittlement and dismissal of health needs.
**iiandyiii
ISTM that this is one of the reasons we have the term “cis” – ciswomen face some things that transwomen don’t (and vice versa). Society has discriminated against ciswomen in a way that has not affected all transwomen. I don’t think there’s a conflict with supporting trans rights and trans people and advocating for ciswomen.
Hmmm. Not seeing much advocacy for ciswomen right now. Are you seeing any? Cuz I just see denial and deflection.
Denial that making female athletes play against males unfairly disadvantages them.
Denial that female inmates are at increased risk of sexual violence by allowing male inmates to be housed with them.
Data is provided but it’s ignored. The rationale for this lack of concern is that “trans women are women”.
So I have good reason to doubt there will be sufficient advocacy for Issues
affecting cis women. It’s not happening now.
Left_Hand_of_Dorkness
I’ll answer it: the women I know and love in my life aren’t mad about that, because they don’t think it’s true. The meaning you put behind womanhood reminds me of the reason a lot of straight folks put around marriage, that marriage was made important by the people excluded from it. It’s a bullshit approach for protecting marriage, and it’s a bullshit approach to protecting gender.
The meaning I put behind womanhood is the dictionary’s meaning. It’s the meaning that I’ve been raised under and it’s the meaning that matches my understanding of how sexually reproducing organisms are subdivided.
If we call a hen a hen because of her reproductive system, then we should be able to call a woman a woman based on hers.
Why liken me to someone prejudiced, when prejudice has crap all to do with my belief? Why judge me at all, when it’s the name of my group identity at stake?
@DPRK, this is part of the point I am trying to make:
And the other half, is that not only does dividing people into 58 gender categories not make the discrimination go away, it also makes it harder to talk about who is affected and why, and it makes it harder for those people to organise to try to fight against these problems, because they are now divided between 58 gender groups along with other people who are rarely or never affected.
I think this is one of those things that people can grok in an intellectual sense, but they can’t get themselves worked up about it because they know it is highly unlikely that humanity will ever subdivide into 58 genders.
DemonTree
And the other half, is that not only does dividing people into 58 gender categories not make the discrimination go away, it also makes it harder to talk about who is affected and why, and it makes it harder for those people to organise to try to fight against these problems, because they are now divided between 58 gender groups along with other people who are rarely or never affected.
Not only am I worried about this, but I’m also worried that the door is now open for men to claim a stake in issues exclusive to females.
The existence of pregnant transmen allows people to claim that men can get pregnant. Ok, whatever, I will keep my rolley eyes hidden and not complain aloud about that characterization.
But only a hair’s breadth away from that statement is the idea that abortion rights is a men and women’s issue. This puts us in a fiercely political space that requires non mealy-mouthed terms to navigate, and it’s going to be a mess for us if we can’t put this struggle in the context of oppression as a sex class. The only “men” that require abortion access are women who identify as men. The existence of gender identity should not obscure that or give cis men an excuse to portray themselves as an affected party. But you wanna bet that will eventually happen?
Not nearly enough. And not nearly enough advocacy for trans people either. Women are still treated like shit in our society, and so are trans people. Cis women still face all kinds of awful crap, some of which overlaps with trans women (and trans men, for that matter) and some of which does not.
But I don’t think there’s a conflict here - not between the rights and advocacy of trans people and the rights and advocacy of cis women. I think trans women are women, but they’re not cis women. I think it’s entirely reasonable and appropriate that some places be safe spaces for cis women. I think it’s reasonable to be concerned about cis women in athletics. I don’t think these positions infringe upon the rights of trans people. I do think publicly insisting that trans women aren’t women would be obnoxious at best and harmful gaslighting at worst, and thus should be avoided.
If you’re going to base your classification of sex solely on gender identity, then you know you’ll have to acknowledge that whatever caricature of masculinity I come up with is just as much a women as anyone else, if they have a woman’s gender identity.
When it was ‘a woman’s brain in a man’s body’, I could understand it. Now that it’s a woman’s gender identity in an otherwise male brain in an otherwise male body, I find it harder to swallow.
Earlier we agreed that defining gender based solely on gender identity is a philosophical decision. I’m trying to explain why I don’t think it’s a good definition. It’s because it ignores both of the factors that we use to define what ‘man’ and ‘woman’ mean, and that most affect our lives and other people’s perception of and treatment of us: biological sex and gender expression.
Two or three amorphous categories does seem a lot more likely.
If you were in charge of the trans rights campaign, then maybe there wouldn’t be a conflict. Unfortunately you are not, and the campaigners do want to remove safe spaces for cis women, and to allow trans women to compete in cis women’s sports.
You’re describing some advocates and activists, but not nearly all of them. You’re not even describing the most prominent (former) Doper trans activist (Una), if my memory of her positions is accurate. Most of the objections to JKR’s writings about trans people that I’ve read are objections to her insulting and gaslighting language, her reliance on inaccurate facts for her positions, and similar. Not that she’s concerned about safe spaces for cis women or athletics.