| 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 for your statements about womanhood, I feel that is an extremely limited way of looking at things. While a trans woman may not have had the experiences of girlhood, she also often didn't have the experiences of typical boyhood, and she often does experience many of the same patriarchal systems when living as a trans woman, often amplified by the fact of her trans identity. This assertion that every woman must have x, y and z experience in order to be a real woman seems to blatantly ignore the variation in lived experiences of women, in addition to ignoring the experiences of womanhood from trans women. There is no reason why we cannot reconcile both of these experiences in a fight against patriarchal and misogynistic norms. Similarly, the validity of trans identity doesn't erase the concept of sexism. If anything, it provides an important case study on it. Similar to twin studies, we are able to examine the perspectives of individuals and how their lived experience differ when living as a man vs a woman. If anything, this amplifies the validity of criticisms of sexism. In no way does it lessen it. And since I'm already typing, I will speak briefly about the feeling of safety that the woman spoke about in the video you posted. She mentioned a scenario in which a woman at a woman's shelter felt unsafe by the presence of a masculine trans woman. First of all, I do believe that this feeling is valid. I believe that a shelter designed around providing people safety should be willing to take reasonable steps to ensure that feeling of safety. This applies for situations regarding both cis and trans individuals. Second, I believe this to be a fear of masculinity, not whatever biological state that individual existed in. Were it a masculine trans man, I don't believe anything would have been different. Do you think she would have been comforted by the knowledge that this person once had a vagina? Do you think she even asked whether the individual was a masculine woman, a masculine trans man or a masculine trans woman? What means did she have of assessing the sex of this individual? Even so, it shouldn't be hard to imagine a situation in which a woman feels unsafe by the presence of a trans man. What then? If we are to codify sex based rights in law, a masculine trans man would be granted access to sexed spaces, no matter how uncomfortable that makes both parties feel. So what is the solution to this conundrum? How do we reconcile this issue in a way which upholds the feminist perspectives on gender? My belief is allowing people to make that decision for themselves is generally the best for everyone. There will be times when issues come up and as a society, we need to come up with a means to address this, but holding on to sex does nothing to actually address these issues in many cases, while directly putting trans people in danger, and harming their emotional well being. |
In response to the first paragraph I've bolded above, I have made no attempt to hide my opinions about gender identity on this thread. I have plainly stated from my first entry here that I think gender identity is bullshit flat out. The only way to change my mind about that is to demonstrate exactly how being female (or male for that matter) is just a feeling. It needs to be explained concretely, convincingly, exactly what it means to "feel female". That is the task I set before you.
In answer to the second paragraph I've bolded above, I would point out that I have no objection to transmen accessing women-only spaces like shelters for battered women or playing on women's sports teams (provided they don't use drugs like testerone that would tend to give them a physical advantage). Transmen do, in fact, sometimes do these things and I have no objection to it because they are biologically female.
I'm not trying to put anyone in unnecessary danger here and I'm not afraid of trans people. I'm just a realist. To the extent that we collectively agree to render the term "woman" a meaningless one that anyone can claim, more and more men will claim it, and I don't mean with sincerity of heart but rather for predatory purposes and other social advantages over women.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 23 June 2020
