| sundin13 said: Its tough for me to reconcile this idea that trans women must be feminine to be valid, with femininist critiques of gender. As the woman stated in the video, no one should be defined by stereotypes and nobody conforms perfectly to society's ideas about femininity and masculinity. The "gender critical" perspective seems to throw that away in its criticism of masculinity from trans women, while simultaneously criticizing feminine trans women as wearing a costume and being stereotypes. When I hear these two pointed criticisms, it largely sounds to me like an insistence that trans identity is never valid. This is the core transphobia that "gender critical" is based on. No matter how rosy your prose or how righteous your indignation, at the end of the day, if you look at what is being said, it is hard to ignore that. You seem to not even attempt to disguise these beliefs in this post. |
As I wrote in the OP, it is hard for me to have a clear position in these questions, which doesn't mean they aren't important. But one thing that seems clear to me is the following: it should be possible to accept that biological sex exists and is a defining feature for the majority of people (and actually most animals) there are two defined sexes. Only a minority actually are intersex people (less than 1%). But the sexual dimorphism (meaning specifically male and female attributes) is more fluid, and there are men with female features and vice versa, which doesn't change their biological sex. Aside from that there is a gender identity, that is way more fluid. This gender identity may or may not conform with the biological sex and it may fall outside of the categories of only the two biological sexes.
So in conclusion I think, it is possible to accept biological sexual identity and trans identity at the same time. And that shouldn't be a problem at all.
Naturally a problem arises in the establishment and perpetuation of safe spaces and rights, that are specific for some identities. And I think (correct me if I am wrong), that is what the discussion at the core really is about. Feminists fear that their hard won safe spaces and rights might be threatened, while trans activist want (rightfully so) claim also rights and safe spaces for themselfes. I personally think all the claims that accepting the identity of one group denies the other group their identity is actually not helpful, but instead the real problem of how the rights of each group conflict (or seemingly conflict) is something that should be solved instead.
Maybe I fail to see some part of the problem and maybe I am to naive.
