Ok. It’s too late for this (but then it probably always was), because there are a lot of people just hell-bent on spotting a TERF in the bushes and not changing their view no matter what; the well is thoroughly poisoned and is going to stay that way. The poisoner oolon, who went to Pharyngula to work up the troops against me yesterday, is one such; that dude wants scalps, period.
But there are, I’m told, people who are just plain hurt and upset, especially trans people, and I don’t want to hurt people. Therefore I’ll try to clarify what I meant by refusing to answer yes or no.
(It’s like Bill Clinton and “is” – that was treated as a joke, but there actually is more than one meaning to “is.” Rumsfeld and his unknown unknowns were also treated as a joke, but he too was quite right – it’s only a pity he didn’t take the unknown unknowns a lot more seriously.)
There’s a difference, for instance, between an ontological is and a political is.
The more I think about the ontology of gender, the less I think I understand it. It’s slippery. That makes it impossible to answer yes/no questions about it.
But politically? Do you mean, will I take trans people’s word for it? Will I use their right names and pronouns? Of course I will. Do I want to make them jump through hoops to prove something to me? Of course not.
Do I get that trans people are severely marginalized, and have to jump through kinds of hoops I have no idea of? Hell yes.
I have thoughts and questions about gender, broadly speaking; gender as it affects all of us, and women in particular. I don’t think those thoughts are transphobic.
Jenora Feuer’s new guest post on the subject is illuminating, I think. Read it in tandem with this.
I can relate. After doing much reading on the subject, I still find no way to talk about the subject with much certainty at all.
And then there’s also this one academic video that gives a nice (but long) overview of different thinking on the subject. For some reason that video made me lose interest in “ultimately” figuring it out, but I’d have to re-watch it to remember why…
Actually it looks like only part of the video I posted gives an overview. Just the first 10 minutes or something.
Hi Ophelia,
In November 2013, you did me the honor of publishing a comment of mine (anonymously at the time).
Guest post by Anonymous: How timely
The comment/article itself was directed toward some transphobic words spoken by DJ Grothe, which had struck me quite personally because it was at the same time we were transitioning to adopt my son’s boy-gender-identity (he’d been assigned female at birth).
I bring it up now because of an exchange in the comments. In the midst of several support comments, a commenter named “Angie Manzano” charged in to (in her words) “speak out against the junk science promoted by transgender theories of sex and gender”. She went on to argue in support of her pet theory:
1) Biologically speaking, there is really only one male/female distinction: XY=male, XX=female
and
2) “Gender” was a purely cultural/artificial construct: children born with penises were cultured to adopt “boy” gender identities and behaviors and children born with vaginas were cultured to adopt “girl” gender identities and behaviors.
In science, no theory can be “proven”, but any theory can be falsified by as much as a single data point. As such, my counterpoint was simple: her theory was falsified in that it utterly failed to account for the experience of my son (and thousands of other cases like his), and thus useless as a model. In fact, it was actively harmful, as its false conclusions cause many caregivers to refuse to allow transgender children to adopt their preferred gender identity when it didn’t match that assigned at birth.
My exchange with Angie quickly began showing all the hallmarks of debating cranks of any stripe. She even used the common crank “argument-by-link” tactic, i.e. “All of your objections are refuted in this article XYZ, and if you don’t agree it means you didn’t read the article”.
Her elusiveness became increasingly palpable; the conversation was going nowhere because she continued to avoid addressing real-world observations that directly undercut the worldview she was espousing. I finally got fed up and used a comment to shine a big bright spotlight on her dodges.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2013/11/guest-post-by-anonymous-how-timely/comment-page-1/#comment-824719
That comment left Angie with no choice but to confront the evidence that falsified her theory. Rather than do so, she promptly disengaged (surprise, surprise).
The reason I bring up this exchange is a key phrase in my final comment, which I’m reproducing here (with the key phrase highlighted):
Yes, the response was a bit caustic (bear in mind it was directed at someone who’d entered into the conversation in a hostile and condescending manner to promote a bogus and potentially-harmful theory of gender). Nevertheless, in my opinion, “Yes or no” in that context was clearly successful in it’s purpose. It forced Angie to either address an inconsistency in her theory or inelegantly disengage. As this was a comment on your blog, I’m curious to know if you felt I was out of line.
A follow-up thought. In terms of how directly harmful a “no” (or “well, yes, but not *really*”) response might be, it may not seem that the “Yes or no” questions I asked Angie of the same caliber of “Are trans-women women?”. You may feel the latter question is more ontological/philosophical; that how you answer (or whether you answer) is strictly confined to your ideology. You may claim that it’s not only your intention to not be hurtful but, in fact, a misunderstanding of your position that’s causing others to be hurt by your refusal to answer. However, I have seen the hurt directly. I’ve seen my son’s anguish when his friends have informed him that “Even though we call you a boy name, you’re not *really* a boy”. That’s not a line of thinking 5-year-olds develop in a vacuum: it’s an echo of sentiments gleaned from trusted adults who either respond negatively to, or shy away from giving a solid “yes”, to “Are transgender boys really boys?”.
In the present article, you wrote:
But you didn’t clarify (at least, your views are still unclear to me). Here’s how you worded your clarification (note emphasis):
You’ve used an ambiguous “it” (read back – there’s no subject that “it” clearly refers to) in a way strips away any clarification you might have intended. It’s completely unclear as to what your “Of course I will” is actually answering. Should I read that as “Will I take kevinkirkpatrick’s son’s word for it, that he really is a boy?” Or should I read it as “Should I take kevinkirkpatrick’s son’s word for it, that he really thinks he is a boy?” Or even, “Should I take kevinkirkpatrick’s son’s word for it, that he really wants to go by a boy name?”
If the former (which I personally hope is the case), then that’s great… but I’d have to point out that you just answered the question “Are transwomen really women” (and did so with a solid “Yes”). If you meant one of the latter, watered-down versions, then there’s nothing to clarify. Intention isn’t magic: refusing to affirm, unambiguously and unconditionally, someones gender identity (to the same extent you’d affirm anyones gender identity*) is hurtful, full stop.
*This point I’d like to clarify by looking at another point in your article:
That sounds like special-pleading. Do you agree with the statement, “If elected, Hilary Clinton would be the first woman president of the United States.”?
One parting comment: I’d like to explicitly address a certain shit-stirring-cadre. Specifically addressing the claim, “if Ophelia answers ‘Yes’ now, it won’t make a difference; they’ll just start in with ‘Why did it take so long?'”. Speaking for myself here: bullshit. Our society does nothing to prepare us to think of gender in a manner that is non-harmful to transgender people. My initial gut reaction to my son’s non-gender-conforming behavior was queasy dread (“uh-oh, I think somethings really not right with my daughter”). I’ve witnessed otherwise wonderful people saying the most hurtful of things upon their initial “real” encounter with the reality of transgender people. But I’ve seen many of those same people (even after a few double-down episodes!) ultimately take a step back, learn, understand, and completely reverse course. And without fail, I’ve happily embraced their change of heart and had no compunctions about leaving any past hurt firmly in the past (of course, it’s wholly up to the transgender individuals they’ve hurt as to whether those relationships can truly recover; those in my son’s life have been fortunate that my son is strongly inclined to forgive and forget).
Honestly, I don’t think there’s a place on FTB (at least, not in my reading list) for someone who denies that transgender women are as “authentically women” as people who identify as women and were assigned female at birth. I think such an attitude is implicitly hurtful and directly contravenes FTB’s pro-social-justice undercurrent that makes it such a compelling/enlightening/inspiring collection of authors to read. That said, I’d have no compunctions about remaining an avid fan and reader of yours, should you make clear that you never did (or even once did but no longer do) deny the authenticity of transgender people’s gender identity.
The wording of the question being put to you, Ms. Benson, strikes me as an example of political “gotcha!” On the one hand, there is that vital part of the narrative, “gender is a social construction.” But in this instance, the questioner demands that you adopt the rule, “gender is ONLY what a person identifies as.” When you try to point out the unfairness, indeed the falsity, of that assumption, well, that is simply proof of your guilt.
Certain commenters on that Pharyngula thread have stated that any reply to the question being put to you that begins with “Yes, but” is an admission that you are, and always shall be, a TERF, never to be forgotten, never to be forgiven. (There have also been odious false equivalencies regarding rape and women’s control of their bodies.) So, then, how about an answer that begins, “Yes, and”? To wit:
A person may well have a self-identify of a particular gender, as they perceive it, and this ought to be fully respected. Simultaneously, they may be subject to what I guess I would call an “outside social gaze” construction of their gender that is incongruous with the former. Hell, isn’t that at the very core of trans*?!? (Incidentally, of course, that secondary gender construction may or may not confer certain advantages/privilege to the receiver.)
If I may, here is an example. A person I greatly admire, Hotcha Hinton, though assigned male gender at birth, identified as a woman, lived as a woman, and yes, she was a woman. She also could adopt an outer presentation of gender that others would perceive as male. Sadly, she felt obliged to do so near the end of her life.
Some of the recent writings by feminists on the issue of trans* are, in my opinion, despicable. I’m thinking specifically of the article written in the New York Times by Elinor Burkett. When she was interviewed on WNYC by Brian Lehrer, she went so far as refuse to use Caitlyn Jenner’s, or Chelsea Manning’s, proper pronoun. She strikes me as a sine qua non of gender essentialist, a person whose political evolution stopped around 1970. There is something important to be addressed there, though, which is the sexist nature of American society, its privileging one “outside social gaze” construction of gender over another, and the experiences of those who have lived with that gender oppression all their lives. That question has to be reckoned with in these ongoing discussions, if certain people will allow those discussions even to take place.
(Oh, I should add: I don’t consider myself an especially well-educated person in these areas, so remain open to all correction.)
I can’t write a long comment (I’m on holidays, writing from my mobile) , so just this:
1. Wherever you go, you will have readers deeply interested in what you’ve got to say. I count myself among them.
2. Your distinction between the ontological and the political is perfectly valid and I can’t grasp why people (as it seems) find it problematic.
3. I sincerely hope that you will stay here, on FTB. It would be a great loss otherwise.
Sorry, there is a lot more to say but a mobile is a horribly awkward device. All the best.
kevinkirkpatrick, thank you very much for your post, that was wonderful. FWIW, I would unambiguously answer “Yes!” to the first of your three questions, and I wish the best for your son as he goes through a journey that so many others feel it their duty to make as difficult as possible. He strikes me as quite lucky to have you as a parent.
May I ask, have you seen the recent Frontline documentary, “Growing Up Trans”? Personally, I found it a little too positive, and a little too binary. But I have no stake in these matters, except as a person who seeks to be an ally. Oh, and as a person who wants to see these friends and acquaintances survive and thrive.
… were that sentiment only more common place!
I do think you’re misguided in your assessment of this being a “gotcha” question. What you may be lacking is firsthand experience of the anguish it can cause when someone
1) Is immersed in a culture which has a clear linguistic meaning to “boy/girl”; where people don’t even hesitate to make statements like, “look at the two boys playing in the park”, “that girl just fell off her trike”, or “I’m going to ask that woman for directions.”.
2) Identifies as a “boy”
3) Is informed that they aren’t really a boy (even if it’s just because “gender is hard” and “what does ‘boy’ even mean, really?” and blah, blah, blah)
4) Sees same people in #3 seamlessly continue to use “boy” & “girl” exactly as established in #1
Quite plainly, denying the authenticity of a person’s identified gender is disrespectful and, most times, hurtful. This is not a fuzzy/confusing/!gotcha! statement. It *is* straight-up bigotry to use the preferred gender pronouns for girls who were assigned-female-at-birth; but to refuse to do so for girls who were not. It does not stop being bigotry in light of cherry-picked anecdotes and rationalizations (has there ever been a form of bigotry which hasn’t been accompanied by an endless litany of rationalizations?).
Hi, Ophelia…
I’m sorry This bullshit is happening to you.
I have preferred your blog over Pharyngula for a long while now, and am truly sickened by what has happened.
I know this may not be what you want, and I don’t want you to be accused of fomenting anything, you may think I’m making a mistake here, but I have to say I am finally done with Pharyngula. This is the last straw in what has been a process.
I’ll still be reading your blog, but excuse me if I tend to avoid commenting on these thread… they’re to upsetting. (Still having random login problems)
Just wanted you to know that you have long been my favorite blogger on FTB and I can’t believe this bullshit is happening.
Thank you Ophelia, sincerely thank you for this clarification. I can sympathize with feeling that it’s difficult to understand and therefore not so simple to answer.
Also I am really sorry for my reaction earlier, being hurt and upset is no excuse.
Thank you, CuriousOnLooker. I’m sorry I hurt and upset you.
kevinkirkpatrick @ 3
Yes.
What an idyllic world you live in! In the world I live in, cis people are frequently mis-gendered. It’s a regular occurrence at airline checkpoints, for example, where regulations insist that screeners be the same gender as the person being patted down, to call for the wrong screener — or worse to ask the person, “I’m sorry, but what sex are you?” They are trained for this very problem, and they’re supposed to do something subtle like ask to see your ID again in order to figure out what sex you are without actually asking you (which, by the way, creates all sorts of problems for trans people who have not change the names on their IDs yet).
The insensitivity and worse that trans people are subjected to all the time is a different beast from what I described above, but you make it sound like cis people are always correctly gendered without question.
From Ophelia’s comment above it is clear that she will refer to people as whatever gender they specify. Your quibbling reveals a desire to demand something deeper. You insist on knowing whether Ophelia is merely offering to accommodate one’s gender identification, or whether she has a deep inner conviction that the person “really truly is” that gender.
I’m turning into a broken record on this point, but that is a test of orthodoxy. Interestingly, I read a manual from the Spanish Inquisition (in English translation) and it specifically instructs inquisitors to distinguish whether an affirmation (such as the Trinity) reflects the real true belief of the subject, or whether they are merely agreeing that the Trinity is the teaching of the church, or that it is the belief of the inquisitor.
Policing peoples inner mental states is really really hard work. Also, it’s impossible.
I get misgendered now and then. Not often, but now and then. Usually just a quick (embarrassed) shift from Sir to Ma’am. I’ve had times when it was definitely hostile though, and I’m not even really butch.
Just stop with the fucking Inquisition references. You know who also sounded like the broken record? The Inquisition! The problem with the Inquisition wasn’t that they tried to elicit their victims’ true beliefs or even that they were dogmatic, it’s that they fucking tortured and killed people who they thought didn’t truly accept their dogma. No one is threatening to harm, torture, or kill Ophelia, so her critics similarities with horrible historical groups that also asked questions is completely irrelevant. Her critics may be wrong, unfair, misguided, dishonest, or mean-spirited, but they’re not the fucking inquisition, or witch hunters, or McCarthyites, or a lynch mob, or Nazis, or whatever other horrible bullshit faulty comparison you can come up with.
I also came here to say, that I appreciate this attempt at clarification and reconciliation in this post and her subsequent comments. Though I rarely comment, I really enjoy your writing. We all screw up, and all we can do is make amends and try to do better in the future.
Garrett @ 14 – No, I don’t agree with that. The problem with the Inquisition decidedly was that it was demanding orthodoxy of belief, as well as the fact that it used torture. That really is part of what inquisition means.
abbeycadabra’s original obnoxious question was a belief question – “Do you believe” etc. Not really other people’s business what we believe.
clamboy @6,
Thanks for the response – we did cross-post, so my response to @4 didn’t take @6 into account. To that end, I apologize if my response came across as harsh or adversarial. For what it’s worth, I see no malice or hatefulness in anything you or Ophelia have written on this subject, nor in the words of most of those who are speaking up on her behalf. Funny – from my enjoyment of Ophelia’s writing for the last several years… I’d actually originally typed/previewed a response aimed at taking the “yes/no” crowd to task. But in reading it back, I kept replaying a scene in my head of my son playing soccer with two other girls, and over-hearing one of the girls loudly informing the other “Well, that’s his name, but he’s not *really* a boy.” And honestly, no, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that that girls parents had their own reasons for refusing to answer this “yes/no” question. And so, no, I can’t sit back and be cool with someone’s refusal to affirm others’ preferred gender identities; I’ve seen the real-world hurt that refusal can cause.
I did watch that documentary (well, the PBS documentary, I assume you mean the same one). For what it’s worth, my biggest take-away was how uncannily similar the experiences of the kids featured in it bore to my own son’s life. I’m not sure what aspect you felt was “too positive”. We’ve been fortunate that our son’s transition has been broadly (albeit “eventually” in some cases) accepted by friends and family… Not everyone is so fortunate. In that light, I’m not sure the documentary sufficiently covered the hardship that comes when one parent (or neither parent) is supportive of a transition. We’re coming up on 2 years since his transition; and honestly, his freedom to just be himself is so clearly a healthy and happy place that the alternative is simply unthinkable. We’re not talking Utopia here: he’s a 6-year-old boy, his room’s a mess, and he doesn’t practice piano as much as he’s supposed to :-). But I’d say our experience has been 100% positive the way we’ve seen layer after layer of sullenness and anger at “being placed into a girl mold” just melt away.
I do agree with the sentiment of “too binary”; I think our son’s experience has been made far easier in that his gender identity has been so unambiguous. There are many people who are gender fluid (have internal sense of gender that oscillates from boy to girl and back); or who have no sense of gender whatsoever (and are uncomfortable to be referred to as either girl or boy). Our society definitely does not do well with that. Hell, I struggle with it: it’s incredibly difficult to break free of our binary conceptions of gender, and to actually think of people in a totally gender-neutral manner (our language makes this especially difficult – adopting the convention of using they/them as singular pronouns is surprisingly challenging). I am hopeful that things are moving in the right direction; that breaking down the knee-jerk tendency to think of gender as mere extensions of genitals or XX/XY chromosomes will in turn break down the knee-jerk tendency to even have fixed gender boxes to begin with.
Ultimately, I’d love for society to advance to a place where the only thing we “gender” is reproductive capabilities (side note – definitely an area where trans social justice overlaps with feminism!). We’ve got so long to go that it seems a pipe-dream, but I think you take away gendered names, pronouns, gender-roles, gendered-fashions, etc., and you’d be making the world a better place for everyone. Case-in-point: it broke my heart a little when my son recently decided to stop wearing earrings. He loved them as a form of expressive “body art” (a long-standing passion of his – he was full-body inking himself up with Sharpee markers at the age of 2) and had been inspired to ask for earrings when he saw that his [male] music teacher wore them (hah, for a brief moment, my wife and I’d thought “finally! she okay with something girly!”). When he transitioned, he explicitly indicated that he wanted to keep wearing his earrings, even if it confused some people about whether he was a boy. But, perhaps because one too many times in summer camp this year he was asked why he was wearing them (“Aren’t earrings for girls?”), with no fanfare, he took them out one night about a month ago to never put them back in.
Anyway, always nice to here of other’s desire to be an ally. You say “But I have no stake in these matters”; I wouldn’t cut yourself so short. Even one voice of advocacy, in just a few sporadic water-cooler conversations, can do wonders for influencing the attitudes of others; maybe your stake will be a cousin’s daughter sticking up for her transgender friend because her parents had explained what you meant by “I’m really working hard to remember to call Bruce Jenner by her new name, Caitlyn”.
Garrett@14:
Nobody has compared the treatment of Ophelia with the Inquisition here. At least not on this post. The only reference is #12, and the mention was obviously made for a specific (and, imo, good) reason, because the parallel between the reference to the instruction in the manual and how people are treating Ophelia is a good one. People are actually commenting elsewhere that they think that even if Ophelia were to answer “No” to the question “are you a TERF”, that they suspect that secretly she harbors TERFy ideas.
Garrett, the aspect of the inquisition that I’m pointing to is nothing to do with torture or killing, but only the fact that some ads hole felt empowered to interrogate others in order to sit in judgement of their orthodoxy.
The takeaway here is not that anyone is getting the thumbscrews, but that some people need to lose the self importance. Nobody had to answer your questions, and nobody gives a fuck whether you think they’re orthodox or not.
I’m pointing directly at folks’ inflated egos, which is probably why they refuse to look where I’m pointing and instead keep staring at my finger.
As usual, I apologize for the many text to speech errors.
Or rather, speech to text.
I liked “ads hole”, A Masked Avenger. 🙂
Slow clap.
Ophelia @10, Thanks, that means a lot. See my reference to “soccer game” in comment @17 if it helps see where I’m coming from, and what’s influenced my sensitivity to the subject. I’m good though.
Speaking of, having just read @17 back to myself, a quick point of clarification. My statement, “We’ve got so long to go that it seems a pipe-dream, but I think you take away gendered names, pronouns, gender-roles, gendered-fashions, etc., and you’d be making the world a better place for everyone. ”
That could be taken as “I want everything to be bland shades of grey.” To be clear, I don’t want names, roles, and fashions themselves to go away – just to see them detached from associations with gender, and thus equally available to all (IMO, far from turning things “grey”, I think such removal of barriers would generate an explosion of space for self-expression that everyone could enjoy).
@18
Ok, so besides the person who did compare the treatment of Ophelia with the Inquisition on this post, no one else did. And the person that did, was correct in doing so. Gotcha.
What you’re describing does not sound at all like a key troubling aspect of the Inquisition (i.e., torture and murder or even rigid demands of orthodoxy). What you’re describing is people not believing someone else’s personal claim to a negative presumably based on other evidence in that person’s history. Non-Inquisitors do that all them time. Let me give you an example: lots of people claim to not be racist or misogynist, even though they have long records of saying and doing racist or misogynist things. Do you think that it is Inquisition-esque to not take these accused racists or misogynists at their word? If not, why not, and how is that different than the case here?
Sigh. Fine. Revel in the obvious offense that you feel, Garrett. I’m not going to engage you in it, however.
@19 The whole problem with the Inquisition was that they would use thumbscrews or worse if you failed to answer their questions to their satisfaction! If they were just insistent religious jerks who wouldn’t let you join their club unless you answered a bunch of dogmatic questions, then they wouldn’t have been a problem. Bloggers and commenters across FTB and the entire internet are constantly asking other people questions and expecting or at least hoping for answers. And the people being asked are free to tell those asking the questions to fuck off. And the people asking the questions are free to interpret that response how they will based on the evidence at hand. That’s how blogs and social media have always worked.
Ok, I’ve made my point, and I honestly don’t want to derail this thread, so I’ll be off. I appreciate the post, comments, and clarification, Ophelia.
Garrett:
What? The Inquisition* was specifically set up to root out heresy.
The reference was to the inquisitorial mindset, not to the Spanish Inquisition itself.
—
* And much of the time it didn’t need to resort to torture.
Wow, kevinpatrick, you sound like a radical feminist.
I followed the link in the OP to Oolon’s well poisoning, and ended up with a new respect for PZ.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/07/02/the-mended-drum-2/comment-page-1/#comment-962800
He speaks truly.
Silentbob@31:
Yes, exactly. And his explanation is 100% accurate.
sambarge @ 30
Thanks (I think)! Two comments:
1) To be clear, hopeful nothing I’ve written comes across as the “TE” brand of “RF”!
2) I have no qualms with the label, inasmuch as it reflects my wholehearted support for those feminist views of RadFems that align with my own. However, it is my understanding that some in the Radical Feminism movement make claims that I would not stand by (i.e. “All ‘PIV’ (penis-in-vagina) sex is rape”).
One of my many fears I have regarding my being trans is that others will use female pronouns and my new name out of respect or social obligation, but secretly harbor doubts that I really am the gender I say I am, or they will think I’m just doing this because I’m delusional, or that I’ll never really be a woman no matter what pronouns I go by. I know it doesn’t matter much from a practical standpoint, but it would hurt me so much if someone close to me expressed that sentiment. I deal with so many paranoid intrusive doubts about my gender, it would gut me if I learned someone else didn’t believe me.
Oftentimes I don’t feel my gender particularly strongly, but dysphoria doesn’t lie. I have to think back to those times when I was in agony, crying myself to sleep every night, to remind myself that I truly am a girl, even if I don’t particularly “feel” like a girl (whatever that’s supposes to mean). I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that others take my reports of my internal experience seriously.
Hi Kevinkirkpatrick–I don’t know if this will make your son feel any better, particularly as he’s unfortunately stuck in the vanguard of a major social change, but he could very well have been called ‘not really a boy’ for any number of reasons. I’ve heard boys and men, with apparent sincerity, called ‘not really a boy/man’ for having long hair, being good cooks, being neat, not being interested in sports…or not finding women sexually attractive. I’ve never had any issues with being considered female, though am one of those people for whom gender isn’t a salient part of my identity (though even after decades of being aware of sexism I’m still constantly discovering how being socially categorised as female has affected my life in profound ways I never acknowledged) and outside very specific circumstances don’t make any effort to disguise this fact, people have said, with apparent sincerity, to my face that it is impossible for me to be female because I ride a motorcycle, work in a ‘masculine’ field, or–get this–‘write like a man.’ Not kidding. So while hearing this is much more hurtful to your son, people honestly questioning your gender identity (for the weirdest of reasons) happens to anyone who isn’t an exact fit to the questioner’s gender norms.
I just read over my comment and realised (given the sensitivity of the issue) that I should clarify two words/phrases I used. First, when I say ‘could have been’ I don’t mean the specific incident you described–I’m not questioning that the girls were mocking your son for being trans. By ‘could have been’ I mean in general–someone could decide for some reason known only to them that it’s impossible for your son to be a boy because x, without actually identifying, or caring, that he’s trans.
And by ‘honestly’ I meant ‘not in a joking way’–some people think it’s amusing to say, e.g. ‘wow you’re such a good cook, you can’t really be a man’ but what I’m talking about here is situations I’ve experienced or witnessed where someone (‘caringly’ or belligerently) attempts to explain to someone else that they really, truly, are not the gender they’re presenting, because x reason.
This is an absolutely baffling statement. I’ve been watching the Atheist Experience for a very long time now, and a constant refrain you hear from Matt, Tracie, et. al. is asking callers “What do you believe and why do you believe it?” This would be the first time I’d ever been exposed to the idea that it was somehow dishonest or inappropriate to ask someone else what they believed and why.
Now I don’t even know how to follow up on this, because it seems to me that asking you why you believe it’s inappropriate to ask you what you believe is itself inappropriate. Could you elaborate on this?
Not really. They say that where a woman lacks the ability to say no, there can be no real consent. Bear in mind that they were talking at a time in North America when it wasn’t legally possible to charge a man for raping his wife as consent was implied by marriage vows. The context of that discussion was different than today. While there may be some RadFems who take it to the next level (all hetero sex is rape) that is not a widely held belief.
However, the elimination of gender constructions is a RadFem tenet. That’s why hearing Caitlyn Jenner say that she is happy that she came out as a woman because now she can wear high heels and nail polish in public just makes RadFem eyes roll; leading to accusations of the TE part of TERF.*
I think increasingly though, you have people like me (& maybe Ophelia, if I’ve interpreted her post correctly) who embrace the full expression of individual identity but are just uncomfortable with this hyper-gendered culture where every girl is a princess and every boy is a superhero. Obviously the pubic dialogue on the experiences of transgender people is only really beginning but it’s being portrayed by the media as still a binary choice. Girl or boy, princess or superhero; whether we’re cis or trans we only have those categories in which to place ourselves. I think that’s unfair to everyone. It’s easy to interpret me rolling my eyes at Jenner with me rejecting the trans experience.
And while I acknowledge that “we’re just talking/asking” is a common de-rail by people who don’t want social change, yelling down discussion on what gender means doesn’t help anyone. We need to examine our culture’s approach to gender, not because it will stop people from transitioning but because it will make the world safer and more welcoming for any and all expressions of gender.
*In some cases. In some cases, they actually are transphobic. The link to the FB page that started this brouhaha has thoughtful discussion and hateful discussion.
‘…will I take trans people’s word for it?’
That should be fine, unless you choose the ‘wrong’ trans people. Trans people, like intersexed, homosexual, or culturally non gender-conforming people actually exist. Which presents an insurmountable problem for essentialist types, whether Xtian fundies or cartoon pseudo-feminists.
‘Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science ‘ by Alice Dreger is a recent book which outlines the hysterical smearing and policing that can follow relatively mild ‘transgressions’ from recently invented orthodoxies around gender.
Terms like ‘witch hunt’ and ‘pitchforks and torches’ would not be out of place. If they hadn’t been coopted lately.
Sorry you’ve had to put up with this sort of bullshit, Ophelia.
I’ve been wondering whether the people trying to make you recite their favourite shibboleth* realise how easily their own rhetoric can be turned to exclusive and reactionary purposes? Consider these:
Are African-Americans Americans, yes or no? Yes? Well then, there’s no need to give any special thought or concern to the needs of African-Americans when providing rights or services – after all, they’re just Americans.
Are woman human beings, yes or no? Yes? Well then, there’s no need for anyone to give any special thought or concern to the needs of women when providing rights or services – they’re just people. ( I think this is the Hoff Sommers school of “equality feminism” which ate Richard Dawkins ).
Are trans women women, yes or no? Yes? Well then, there’s no need for anyone to give any special thought or concern to the needs of trans women when providing rights or services – they’re just women. And thus the supposedly anti-TERF mantra becomes trans-exclusive.
We could play this game indefinitely. Here’s a good one- is Barack Obama African? Hard to yes-or-no that one without landing among some unsavoury company.
I was glad to see PZ’s robust comments in your defence – though they should not have been needed.
*Judges 12 vv 4-6 ( https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+12 )
PZ Myers recommends the “charity principle” for blog commenters, and I think it’s a great idea. As I understand it, the charity principle means giving new posters, or known posters on new topics, the benefit of the doubt. It tells us to try to read them neutrally, even generously. Don’t immediately assume or suspect the worst and demand they disprove it, on your terms. Gender issues (however defined) have hurt a lot of people, very deeply, for a long time. So it’s understandable that people can be on hair triggers, but that’s not likely to help us understand each other, and the issues at hand, better. Even discussing issues with a raving bigot can help you clarify your own ideas, and rebut the bigotry more effectively (I use that as an extreme example. I absolutely have not seen bigotry here, from anyone, not even close).
That’s one of the reasons I think we need challenging spaces as well as safe spaces. One of the reasons I love Butterflies & Wheels is that I think Ophelia does a great job of maintaining a reasonably challenging space that doesn’t devolve into a troll’s playground.
@sawells
Except that none of your follow-ups actually follow from the simple “yes” answer. The fact that a person belongs in group X doesn’t mean that they can’t also belong to group Y, which may not be the case for all members of group X. The fact that two people belong to the same group does not guarantee that there are no other factors to be considered.
That’s because the term “African” is ambiguous. There simply isn’t a single question being asked here. If there was, I think you’d find that it would be a simple one. E.g.
“Is Barack Obama a citizen of an African country?” No.
“Was Barack Obama born on the African continent?” No.
“Does Barack Obama have African citizens in his immediate ancestry?” Yes.
One could argue that the question posed to Ophelia was ambiguous, but I frankly think that’s silly. Yes, gender can be complicated, as Ophelia points out in the OP. However I would also think it was plainly clear that the question was being asked from the political angle, which, as demonstrated by Ophelia, makes it very easy to answer.
And for the record, thanks for giving this clarification, Ophelia. I hope this means that we can at least put that point to rest.
You’re not actually doing anything new. You wouldn’t be sitting there pretending to philosophize about complicated concepts if those same trans women stated that they were men. You’re not actually crossing the “respectful” threshold by using the right set of pronouns. You’re no different from the “love the sinner, hate the sin” religious zealots who fought against gay rights. You’re no different than the “but it’s about CULTURE” confederate flag assholes.
Let me make myself very clear: your “questions” as you put it are not new. They are not groundbreaking. They have not gone unexplored waiting for the great Ophelia Benson to come along and think through them. You’re parroting old prejudices and old excuses. You’re just being a bigot. You’re as deluded as any other bigot.
Bless your heart, Heather.
@Ophelia Benson
I wish to apologize for my role in enabling the argument over at The Mended Drum. I need to develop the habit of encouraging people to take disagreements to the places where they are relevant, can be worked through in order to solve a conflict and do not risk the effects of rumor-mongering.
And who claimed any of those things, Heather?
Do you think questions are not worth asking unless they’re new and groundbreaking?
Faced with not-new and not-groundbreaking questions, do you ignore them? Settle for the received wisdom of whichever side holds the most emotional appeal for you?
And you’re just making assertions without evidence. Your feeble attempt to disparage Ophelia’s intellectual honesty does not support your contention that she’s a bigot.
Congratulations. You’ve added exactly nothing to the conversation. All you’ve done is indulge your own self-righteousness.
Ophelia, do you believe in dysphoria? Do you believe dysphoria is the result of a mismatch between internal gender and outward presentation? Do you think that someone whose internal gender doesn’t match what they were assigned at birth is really that gender they claim to feel internally and not their birth gender or no gender at all? If someone close to me answered no to any of those questions, I would stop talking to them for the sake of my own sanity.
@47: based on what Ophelia’s written extensively on this topic so far, I suspect that (a) here answers would be: yes, of course, to the first question. Yes, of course, to the second question. In the third question, the term “is really” is problematic because it’s unclear what it means to “really be” a certain gender: but, as Ophelia says in the OP, “… will I take trans people’s word for it? Will I use their right names and pronouns? Of course I will.”
At the meta level, I don’t think Ophelia is interested in being marched through anybody’s yes-or-no checklist, as you may have noticed.
@48: I don’t think it’s problematic for me to assert that I really am a real woman and expect to be believed. Only I have access to my own internal experience of gender. How arrogant would you have to be to believe you know better than me?
This isn’t about dogma or orthodoxy. If someone tells you they’re depressed, you believe them. If someone tells you they’re gay, you believe them. So when someone tells you they are a woman despite being AMAB, what possible cause for disbelief is there? You simply can’t know what’s going on in someone else’s head, so you have to take their word for it. I find it seriously hurtful that people would think I’m somehow lying or delusional or whatever.
@49:
That all makes sense. The question is, though, why are you saying this? I think everyone here gets that, and sympathizes. Ophelia has explicitly agreed “yes” with the kinds of questions that you’re asking. How many more times must she agree before she’s to be believed? Nobody here has said that transgender people are lying, or delusional. What debate and/or conflict that there is, has to do with people (both transgender and cisgender) attempting to bully Ophelia into passing their ideological purity tests, and being who she is, she won’t put up with that. That has nothing to do with her sympathy for the things you face, which she has explicitly stated. I would do exactly the same, if someone bullied me the way that she’s been treated lately. Other people have said the same thing (read through the now closed Mended Drum thread for some examples, if you like).
@49: Of course I believe that you are a woman to the exact same extent that I believe that I’m a man. This is not problematic. We were both AMAB. you are gender-dysphoric and I am not, you are a woman, I am a man, we should both be treated as the genders we identify as. I’m not your enemy.
OB has been trying to look at questions of gender ontology which affect _everybody’s_ gender identification, it’s not something aimed at transgender people. Consider my claim to be a man. It wouldn’t occur to me to claim otherwise. But on what is my claim grounded? It can’t be the possession of particular genitalia or secondary sexual characteristics, since as your own case demonstrates there are people born with the same traits who don’t identify as male; nor the secretion of certain hormones, same reason; nor the possession of a certain physique, since the gender distributions of traits like muscularity or bone structure overlap so broadly; nor can it be my lack of “female” genitalia or secondary characteristics, as the existence of trans men shows that people can have those traits and be male; nor the possession of certain personality traits, since those two have broad and overlapping gender distributions, and indeed the assignment of personality traits by gender varies across time and society; nor is it my sexuality, obviously, since sexuality is not gender. Nor can it be that I am treated socially as male, since in your own case, if society treats you as male you don’t become male, you feel that society is misgendering you. It seems that my maleness is nothing more than (i) being AMAB and (ii) not being dysphoric about that. And that doesn’t help me to understand gender identification as reported by others, both cis and trans, who seem to identify with gender in some other way that I don’t really get.
To put it another way: at the moment society seems to impose two big boxes labelled M and F and insists everyone sit in one or the other. Some people seem to feel a very strong identification with their assigned box. Others, such as OB in the F box and myself in the M, seem to feel “Meh. OK” about our box assignment: it doesn’t bother us. [Yes, I realise that being allowed to not bother about it is also an aspect of cis privilege]. And others, such as yourself, feel so strongly dysphoric about your at-birth box assignment that it’s vital to your health and wellbeing that you change boxes, and I fully support your right to do so.
But there are questions which can and should be asked about the ontology of those boxes: they’re socially constructed, not timeless and immutable truths. Those boxes should not necessarily be the shape they are, and the walls should be squishier, and maybe there should be more than two boxes, and maybe we shouldn’t be making everyone sit in a box anyway.
It would be nice to be able to think and talk about those questions without being treated as TERF. We’ve seen cases in this very thread of OB being told that she cannot think or say some things about _her own_ gender identity without it being interpreted as an assault on trans people. I don’t think that is helpful to anyone. TERFs and other transphobes are trying to impose titanium-reinforced box walls and forbid anyone to change boxes; I think OB’s aim is exactly the opposite, which makes the raging against her very baffling.
Q. Are trans women “women”?
A. Define “women”.
Just to record my views
a. Even without this post , I am pretty sure , you are not transphobic or a TERF or etc etc – It seems to me, pretty obvious that you would be committed to equality and fairness to everyone.
b. Count me among those who wont answer is a trans woman/man a woman/man with a straight yes/no – Because I cant answer what is a man (or do i think feel/like one) ,in any sense other than the biological one , without asking a few questions back in return. That probably means I am a TERF (is a trans man a man?), homophobic (is a gay man a man?), racist(Is a black man a man?) , self loathing (Am I a man?), non patriotic(Is an Indian man a man?) person.
c. Irrespective of how I answer b) – I would never , intentionally , use a different pronoun, vote against or discriminate again trans (or any flavor) people. I might be wrong about b) – In which case , go ahead treat me as an ally who is wrong about one matter (and explain why , slowly) rather than treat me the same as say Mike Huckabee.
d. I do believe that some of the comments from this side are unhelpful(understandable , given what happened but not good) – This is not a lynching or a witch hunt or an inquisition. Looking at someones FB posts do not necessarily constitute harassment. There is a statement being made that you like posts from a transphobic group. However no one is actually providing links or asking clarifications – I have no idea about whether this statement is true – It seems to be an impression rather than statement of fact and it also assumes intent on your side. If I try and find out what was said/done – I doubt that constitutes stalking. It might feel like an inquisition because multiple people do it – but that’s the nature of the internet – Everyone wants to voice their opinion , in their words , even if many people have already said the same thing (just like me!)
kevinkirkpatrick, thank you for your reply at #17. Also for your first reply, and I curse myself for not being completely clear in my original post regarding respecting a person’s self-identity.
To quickly make clear why I said the Frontline documentary was “too positive”: yes, it is because the filmmakers did not fully show the all-too-common terrible experiences of young trans* people. Each story had an upbeat ending, and while I can understand that choice, it glossed over a large portion of reality.
In terms of being an ally, I have had the interesting experience of repeatedly correcting colleagues’ misgendering of a trans* person we’ve known for over a year and a half. This person made quite clear their gender pronoun preference, yet people who really do know better continue to make this mistake. I am not on the receiving end, of course, but I can at least imagine this “death by a thousand cuts” of unintentional micro-aggressions. Luckily, this person has a strong community around them, as well as what appears to be a very supportive family.
I usually only lurk here, but I have to say that I’ve greatly appreciated Ophelia’s writing on gender.
This is close to the only place on the web I’ve seen which discusses the difficulty of gender, and is skeptical about the binary, without devolving into accusations that trans women are just men who want to take over women’s spaces. For those of us for whom gender is more complicated that just identifying as male, female, or in between/none, it’s refreshing and badly needed. The number of comments I’ve seen on this blog, saying things along the lines of how they’ve always felt this way but no one else ever said/wrote it before, suggests to me that I’m not the only one.
And I’m completely on board with not wanting to answer certain questions with a simple yes/no until the parameters have been properly defined. For example post 47 by I’m incredibly stoned right now:
Dysphoria is a very broad concept. It’s possible to believe in the validity of some kinds of dysphoria but not others. Even if we narrow it down to gender dysphoria, it’s like asking if someone believes in homosexuality. I have never heard of a single person who didn’t believe in it, but I have heard of plenty of people who believed it was a disorder in need of a cure. In fact, gender dysphoria is the current phychiatric term for what used to be called gender identity disorder, and I’ve seen trans people object to it being defined as a medical condition that way
So the short answer for me would be ‘yes’, but it would be an incredibly meaningless answer for gauging any opinion about transgender rights.
Which of these is supposed to be non-transphobic? Answering no suggests you don’t believe trans people when they talk about what they go through, but answering yes suggests that trans women who haven’t had surgery/hormonal treatment and/or don’t wear sufficient makeup or the right clothing are presenting as male. I’ve been told that since trans women are women, it means that however they look, whatever they do, and however they present themselves, it is what women look like/do/present as, so I’m at a loss where the phrase ‘outward presentation’ fits in.
Also, different cultures have different definitions of gender. The Bugis society accepts 5 genders, 4 of which have specific genitalia as a prerequisite, but I’ve seen the Bugis people held up as models of tolerance and inclusivity by LGBTQ+ rights activists. So my yes/no question to you is: Are the Bugis people transphobic for engaging in third-gendering?
Again you’re implying a very specific definition of certain words and phrases and treating it as universal. If people don’t think like you do or share your cultural framework, the best you can hope for is mindless compliance, not a true understanding of their perspective. If you asked something concrete like, “Should you refer to people with the pronouns they’ve told you they prefer?”, “Should people be allowed to use the bathrooms and join the organisations of the gender they identify as?”, “Is gender reassignment surgery a valid medical treatment for some people?”, “Is it wrong to forbid or criticise someone for wearing/not wearing skirts, makeup, or jewelry simply because they have certain chromosomes/genitals?”, etc. my answers would all be yes, and nothing Ophelia has said suggests hers would be any different.
But your question implies that there are only two genders, and only one axis on which to judge them, which I simply don’t accept as a universal.
Re freja at 55, I wholeheartedly agree. I’ve enjoyed this blog in part for the interest in considering gender issues in that way, and I recently started trying to keep up with the comments and maybe even participate a little because of the really great discussions I found here. It is upsetting to see good discussions on topics of great interest to me devolve into “is she or is she not a TERF”. Thanks, freja and a whole bunch of other people, Ophelia in particular, for having these thoughtful discussions. My apologies again for having bungled things early on.
When people say that gender is strictly a social construct, it is really hurtful to people like me who feel very strongly that their gender is not at all a social construct, but rather an integral part of their very being. I understand that society constructs gender roles which are pretty much arbitrary, and that every culture does it differently, but don’t tell me that underneath all the superficial bullshit there isn’t some core kernel of authentic gender, because that flies right in the face of my lived experience. Maybe for you there isn’t anything there, but that doesn’t give you permission to doubt the validity of my gender. It really isn’t about socially imposed boxes, it’s about who I am at the deepest, most fundamental level. My brain is simply wired to be a woman. I really wish it wasn’t the case, because it causes me so much distress, but it’s the truth. Why won’t you believe the lived experiences of trans women? Why do you have to doubt us so much?
briefly sober @ 57 – whom are you talking to? Me? Are you responding to the post?
I ask because I nowhere said that gender is strictly a social construct. I didn’t tell you that underneath all the superficial bullshit there isn’t some core kernel of authentic gender. I didn’t say there isn’t anything there. I didn’t doubt the validity of your gender. I didn’t say anything about socially imposed boxes. I didn’t say anything about doubting the lived experiences of trans women. I didn’t say I doubted you so much.
So you believe that I, a trans woman, am a woman? When I say that I, a trans woman, am a woman, I mean that my internal gender is set to woman, female, feminine, whatever you want to call it, and it sounds like you agree with me. If that’s the case, why do you hesitate to say that trans women are women? It sounds like your answer to that question is an unambiguous yes!
briefly sober, I believe you are a person posting on this blog.
There you go.
That’s what I said in the post.
I return from a wonderful weekend* to see this. I’m so sorry you’ve had to put up with this, Ophelia, and saddened that insisting on the importance of basic feminist issues that affect us all – like what does it mean to “be” “a woman”?** – can be construed (with some willful malice and intellectual dishonesty) as evidence of hostility toward trans women.
PZ, before closing the “Mended Drum” thread:
Better late than never, or too little too late? I hope it initiates the end of the harmful dynamic that’s developed, but I don’t expect that something built (and, in truth, long condoned and fed by PZ and some other bloggers) over this many years will come apart that easily.*** It would be wonderful if all of us on the social justice side of things could have these conversations in a good-faith, productive, sympathetic, and solidaristic spirit. I’m about evenly divided between optimism and pessimism….
* Two days at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts! Hokusai, Tropical Mythologies, ceramics, Fitz Henry Lane,…! King Lear on the Common under the stars…for free!
** Apropos of, well, everything, I just (finally) read Carol Tavris’ The Mismeasure of Woman. Highly recommended.
*** My intent isn’t to set off a discussion of Pharyngula or that dynamic here, which would be totally unhelpful.
Please read this again, and try to understand what Ophelia’s trying to get at regarding these categories and their social use.
That sounds like a fabulous weekend. Especially Lear.
The only downside was having to choose between that and the original plan: Bettye LaVette, also free, at Copley Square. A happy glut of options.
I’m only commenting to say that I finally had time to catch up with the Mended Drum thread, and Jesus Buddha Zeus Odin…
Best summation I saw was from Nerd of Redhead (note:
I get being frustrated about people not being perfect allies. I don’t get deciding that someone who (maybe) is not fully your ally is your enemy, and therefore must be hounded into submission. This has been going on for quite some time, it’s not just a product of the limitations of the internet.
If this were about OB being an ally, clearly some people would have given up long ago. I mean, she’s just so evil. /snark
Adding to fill in the note: Nerd’s comment is truncated due to follow-up being highly topical to the thread at hand, hence why I added the link.
@59:
And I say that I’m a woman, and I’m not sure mine is. Why is that less valid than your identity? If we define woman, female, and feminine solely in relation to internal identification, I’m not sure I’m a woman, at least not if by ‘internal’ you mean inborn and unaffected by social expectations. And I’m OK with that, but I still need something to be, or at to least call myself and relate to the world as.
Sometimes there’s a difference between the way two groups see things, such as certain white Southerners seeing themselves as heirs to a proud heritage, and most black people seeing the Confederate States of America primarily as a slave state, or how certain white feminists see themselves as belonging to a universal category of women who have all been oppressed the same way for the same reason, while a lot of black feminists/womanists see white women as part of the oppressor class. In these cases, there’s a conflict, because it’s not possible for both to be true.
However, when I identify strongly with my nationality, while most Americans I meet identify strongly with their ethnicity, I don’t think it’s fair to say that my identity is wrong, because nationality is universally less important than skin color. I readily accept that for many people it is, but coming from a smaller country where more traditions are tied directly to the land and the sense that we’re a common people, that’s just not how it works for me. I don’t think that makes me racist, as long as I don’t try to force my experience and sense of identity on others (e.g. “Why do black Americans set themselves apart like that? You’re all Americans, right?” would be incredibly insensitive).
In the same way, there’s no inherent conflict between different people experiencing and categorizing gender differently, as long as everybody accepts everyone else’s gender identity, and don’t try to act as gatekeepers and enforcers of gender. But when some people (like many trans rights activists I’ve heard) act and talk as if there’s a spectrum (and only one) with two sides, encompassing all of femaleness, womanhood, and femininity one side, and maleness, manhood, and masculinity one another, and that we’re all born with an inborn sense of which side of the spectrum we belong to (male, female, or neither), that clashes with my (and I suspect others’) way of experiencing gender.
I think it’s perfectly consistent, like Ophelia does, to agree with trans people personally and politically (they feel like, should be treated like, and are for all intents and purposes the gender they identify as), while also not personally relate to this way of feeling and perceiving gender. And as I said earlier, this is just about the only blog I’ve seen where this issue is explored without calling into question the right of trans people (particularly trans women) to define their own gender identity.
It’s really distressing that people are still banging the “Ophelia is bad and must atone by saying the words we insist on” drum, instead of actually paying attention to anything that’s been said here.
Please let me know what people think of the following view, or how it makes them feel:
Trans women are women because they say they are women and because we should be constructing gender such that to claim a gender is to have that gender.
@70:
About the same way as the “race is a social construct” and “born this way” narratives. Positive sounding and inoffensive, useful shorthands, almost always a great attitude to base your opinions on, and likely to lead to a constructive and reasonable conclusion, but not really capturing all there is to the subject and personally irrelevant when it comes to my own situation.
sawells expertly and succinctly identifies one of the core problems we’re grappling with here in comment #51.
An analogy that I hope might help people understand exactly how someone can really, truly feel like a given gender and it can still be true that gender is not essential to people:
Electromagnetic radiation of a particular energy and wavelength exists. It exists irrespective of whether I do, and irrespective of whether I can perceive it. The particular electromagnetic radiation I’m describing has a wavelength of 510 nm. (Aside: I’ve already projected a social construct onto reality here: nanometers are a model we developed to help us understand and describe reality. While that particular distance and the particular EM radiation that has that wavelength exists whether we do or not, “nanometer”, “wavelength”, “radiation”, etc. are models we’ve created. They are social constructs. Back to this radiation.) When I see this radiation, I call it “green”. Why do I call it green? I call it green because I can perceive it at all in the first place (I am not blind), I can differentiate it from other wavelengths of light (I am not colorblind), and I grew up in a society that groups EM radiation of that wavelength with a range that we call “green”. In other societies, that wavelength is grouped with a set of others that form a range that is the equivalent of “blue” in English. In a hypothetical society of people where red-green colorblindness is universal among the population, there would be some other kind of categorization entirely.
What trans gender-essentialists are doing is looking at that light and insisting that it is REALLY green, because they can see it, and it’s obviously green, and they know that to be true; anyone who says otherwise is a bigot. The problem is that our understanding of “green” as a concept is entirely predicated on some cultural factors specific to us. They are certainly describing something that really exists – the EM radiation is real no matter what we think – but the meaning and the categorization are not essential to the existence of light of a certain wavelength. There may well be some essential* factor that leads some people to strongly identify as a particular gender within a given social context, but the meaning of that factor, the category with which it is associated, and our own understandings of it are all still predicated on social systems particular to that context. Ontologically speaking, to use Ophelia’s categorization from the OP, essentialist models of gender are simply wrong (in the same way that essentialist models of color are simply wrong – cross-cultural and transhistorical studies refute the essentialist models for both gender and color, since if it can be different, it is necessarily not essential), and nobody “really is” any gender in an essential (ontological) sense, irrespective of what any given person may feel, becasue those feelings and the interpretation of them are the result of social influences. None of us grew up in a social void. Gender has very real social meanings and implications, and I am all for people identifying and being identified however they wish. Exactly becasue of that, I will no more abide oppressive norms advocated by trans activists than I will abide those advocated by TERFs or the Religious Right or anyone else.
*Or perhaps a non-essential biological factor that we could modify – biology is mutable, thus, even if it’s a biological factor, it might not be essential.
freja @68:
If you think that white Southerners’ pride in their CSA, slave-holding heritage has the same moral weight as black people’s heritage of slavery at the hands of those same Southerners’ ancestors, I don’t think we have any common ground. The whites are prioritizing their own pride — and, whether they admit it or not, the comfort of the familiar but racist culture that persists to this day — over the past and present oppression of something like 10% of the population of their country.
.
I haven’t seen any evidence that Ophelia Benson is a TERF. The problem is that (a) being cis, she’s never had the personal pressing need to examine the cisnormative assumptions and structures that we all grow up with and (b) when people call her out for unthinkingly repeating cisnormative tropes or fails to see the transmisogyny of the people she quotes or links to, she gets defensive and insists on her right to have her cisnormative point of view. What she and her defenders fail to see is that the cisnormative viewpoints and tropes and ideas that she (and they) are defending are tools that cis society uses to rationalize the dehumanization, oppression, and murder of trans people.
.
People in this thread keep arguing about trans feminist theories. I’ve seen people in comments on this blog seriously arguing with all of their revered “rationality” that trans women are not women, as if this were an academic debate. What they don’t see is that what trans people are arguing for (and demanding recognition of) is their right to exist and to live unmolested. When trans women argue that they are really women, among other things, they are arguing for the right to go to the bathroom in safety, for their right to not be harrassed or fired or thrown out of their homes for trying to live as a gender that differs from the one they were assigned at birth.
.
tl;dr: for Ophelia & Co., this is about intellectual beliefs. For trans people, it’s about survival.
.
tl:dr^2: See this comic from “Assigned Male”
AMM @ 73
Can people stop with the ridiculous misreadings? Freja said “there’s a conflict, because it’s not possible for both to be true,” not that the two worldviews are morally equivalent. Seriously not cool.
Is that true? Is that what’s happening? Cis society is rationalizing the dehumanization, oppression, and murder of trans people?
Thank you for writing this
@75:
Is this a trick question?
To trans people, the obvious answer is “yes.” If you’re not aware of all the crap and threats that trans people put up with, I can only assume it’s due to cis privilege.
Granted, not everybody in society (cis or not) is on board with it. And not everyone who subscribes to the tropes wants that to happen. And there are people working to change things. But it’s still the reality for trans people, esp. trans women.
@74
If zie is not suggesting that there’s some kind of equivalence, then what was zie trying to get at by pairing them?
As for “not possible”, it’s entirely possible for both to be “true,” in the sense that the CSA and the racist society that followed was (relatively) good for whites, but not so much for blacks. The conflict is not one of truth, but of values. It’s not like white people in the South aren’t aware of the ways that the society they’re so proud of oppressed and oppresses blacks (though they prefer not to admit it to outsiders), it’s just that they don’t see why that should interfere with their enjoyment of their heritage.
AMM @ 77 – You misunderstood the question. Of course I know trans people are oppressed and dehumanized and murdered. That’s not what I was asking; I was asking if cis society rationalizes that. I’m probably misunderstanding what you mean by rationalize (or maybe by cis society).
Thanks qwints.
@77, AMM:
Putting 2 perceptions next to each other and saying there is a conflict between them because they can’t both be true is not saying they’re equivalent, it’s saying that they’re contradictory.
Actually, it’s very much a conflict about facts, usually “The South’s secession from the Union was about states rights which had nothing to do with slavery” vs. “The South’s secession from the Union was about slavery”, but also things like “Black people in the US were better off as slaves than they are today on welfare” vs. “Black people in the US are better off now than in the time of slavery”.
Many modern supporters of the Confederacy are completely clear that oppressing others is nothing to be proud of. But their national inferiority complex leads them to need something to be proud of, some way of seeing themselves a victims, rather than losers and villains.
So they create their own version of historic facts, where the Confederacy seceded because of some vague “state’s rights” which are never defined, where slavery was a relatively benign institution where slaves were well taken care of (and even often participated in voluntarily), where “They had slavery in Africa too” is somehow an excuse, where all slavery is the same so the specific nature of race-based institutionalized slavery becomes irrelevant, where slavery is somehow so far into the past that it shouldn’t be brought up again, but the defeat of the Confederacy is still recent enough that southerners have the right to commemorate it and still be angry about it, etc.
It’s about definitions of reality every bit as much as it is about ideology.
I’m cis, but I do want to be an ally and I have encountered people who are transphobic. Those people don’t think about gender; they just accept what their culture has told them about gender. THAT would seem to be way more dangerous than thinking about gender. I would hope that if one is thinking about gender, especially if they’re trying to think critically about it, that, even if they hold transphobic views today, they would change their view tomorrow.
I know for myself personally, when I found out that my fiance (now wife) was intersex, that really drove a change to my thinking. (I don’t know if I was necessarily transphobic before (OK, I probably was), but I certainly would not have been an ally or even wanting to be an ally.)
LeSchlumb #82
What is
?
(82) aaaaand speaking of shit stirrers…
AMM #73
Do you think the people firing, harrassing, beating, and murdering trans people are reading Butterflies and Wheels? Do you think they’re asking themselves, “What does “being a woman–or man–mean, really? Is it about the markers, or is it something deeper?”
I understand that trans people are oppressed, and are subject to massive amounts of misunderstanding, and outright scorn and dehumanization. I understand that fuels defensiveness.
But I am seriously disturbed by a tendency I’m seeing to try to shut down discussion and questions the moment they veer into territory that might be uncomfortable. Not to mention the compulsive need on the part of the pro-shutters down to distance themselves from Ophelia and affirm her Badness.
Not to mention that both Ophelia and pretty much anyone I’ve seen supporting her has been more than happy to stipulate to the rights of trans people and a commitment to a society that doesn’t tolerate trans people being beaten, fired or murdered. Better yet, a society where that kind of shit doesn’t happen to anybody.
What I personally am not prepared to do is to prevent a person who I believe to be exploring ideas in good faith from doing so, because them doing so makes me feel angry, uncomfortable or challenges a locally received orthodoxy. Why? Because it shuts down exactly the kind of discussions that eventually led to atheism, feminism and the push for equal rights for minorities of all types including trans people. Sure, there will be mis-steps along the way. Sure, some people will argue in bad faith and sure some people will be assholes by our frame of reference. That does not make the intellectual approach wrong and it doesn’t make it incompatible with emotion. compassion or empathy.
I removed the comment by “LeSchlumb.”
So, here’s what I’m curious about. If the question is ‘Are cis women women?’ does that evoke the same response, would it also lead to writing “The more I think about the ontology of gender, the less I think I understand it. It’s slippery. That makes it impossible to answer yes/no questions about it.”
Or, is it something that is practically tautological?