Julia Serano on Twitter:
1) You know the things transgender people do that seem "gender-reinforcing" to you? Well cisgender people do those things all the time too! pic.twitter.com/I9Vr2Dyo3u
— Julia Serano (@JuliaSerano) February 16, 2017
Marked groups (e.g. minorities) are put under microscope & viewed as suspicious whereas majorities (in this case cis people) remain unmarked
— Julia Serano (@JuliaSerano) February 16, 2017
3) We should now ask ourselves: "Hmmm, I wonder if other marked groups have ever been accused of reinforcing the gender system?"
— Julia Serano (@JuliaSerano) February 16, 2017
How about the common claim "#bisexuals reinforce the gender binary" – yet nobody accuses monosexuals of this! https://t.co/tWFQL31Akl
— Julia Serano (@JuliaSerano) February 16, 2017
To sum up: the "reinforcing" trope: 1) is inane, & 2) picks on minority/marginalized groups. Q.E.D. So please let's all stop using it…
— Julia Serano (@JuliaSerano) February 16, 2017
And how do TERFs respond to Serano’s well-researched if hastily argued thesis?
.@JuliaSerano the issue feminists have with the notion of 'gender identity' is that we understand gender to be socialized, not innate…
— Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) February 17, 2017
By bravely ploughing on through and completely ignoring what was said.
-Shiv
Johnny Vector says
Just, wow.
As John Gilmore very nearly said: The TERF interprets scholarship as damage and routes around it.
Pierce R. Butler says
* Naive clue-deficient cis-hetero man raises hand *
Could somebody please explain “femme-tomboy” to those of us out of that loop?
Siobhan says
@ Pierce R. Butler
That one is actually a bit outside of my usual vocabulary, too.
Femme usually means a person conscientiously taking up expression regarding clothing, make-up, mannerisms, etc. that are generally regarded as feminine. Tomboy is usually “a woman with tendencies considered culturally ‘masculine'”. My best guess is that Serano says she sometimes does a mix of both, or is perceived to do both at varying times. In this context she is poking holes in the TERF insistence that transition has to do with gender roles (see Meghan Murphy).
If Murphy et al. were correct, there would be no butch or tomboy trans women. Also if Murphy et al were correct, trans women wouldn’t experience the ludicrous catch-22s that paint us into a corner: We’re either “failing” for not performing masculinity adequately or “faking” because we’re not performing femininity adequately. I suppose it’s entirely possible for a trans woman to nonetheless defend this absurdity but transitioning itself is not the perpetrator of it, as the Murphy crowd argue, and women like Serano prove the Murphy et all argument moot.
Pierce R. Butler says
Siobhan @ # 3 – Thanks, I think: at least I now have one less excuse for my failure to comprehend.
lumipuna says
What, were these political asexuals?
Knabb says
I’d read femme-tomboy as referring to a femme aesthetic and a predilection towards activities that are coded masculine. As a fairly unambiguous example, this would be someone who tends towards wearing makeup, skirts, dresses, and distinctly feminine hair styles, who has a hobby list full of football and computer programming.