Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[Red Cat]

If we don't have definitions it's not possible to have a conversation.

Of course we can say that general use means the definition may have changed over time. Does a looser definition mean it loses its original meaning? Does it add to our understanding? Does it detract? All questions for a discussion I would've thought, especially on a thread that's all about boundaries, categories, how fixed are these, how flexible can a category be and still be a category etc.

 

[bimble]

That's true Red Cat . It's good to check in with each other and see whether we understand more or less the same thing by the words we use. I guess with these categories (of what used to be called sexual deviance) things do change quite fast.

 

[andysays]

My understanding is different, and doesn't include dependance / compulsion. I don't want to 'overshare' but have been peripherally involved on and off in a sort of self-named 'fetish scene' for a while (though less recently) and its definitely not always about 'I need this'/ can't do sex without it. Maybe you'd say these aren't real fetishists then but I just don't see what the point is of such strict definitions.

Your understanding and that of others may be different, but I notice than none of you have actually cited any evidence in support of your claims. Words do actually have generally agreed and, in some cases, strictly defined meanings and it's not really on for you to argue humpty-dumpty-like that you understand a word to mean something different and therefore it does mean something different

There's a funny and ironic parallel here between this and those who think they can change the centuries old meaning of the terms "man" and especially "woman" and demand that everyone must accept their new definition or be condemned as "transphobic".

Just as there is no necessary negative (moral or otherwise) judgement involved in declaring something a fetish as distinct from a preference, there is no necessary negative (moral or otherwise) judgement involved in not accepting someone's claim that because they feel like a woman, everyone must accept that they are a woman.

Neither imply, or even support, discriminating against those people in any way, and it's both dishonest and counter-productive to insist that they automatically do.

(this post is not aimed specifically at bimble, rather it's inspired by her last post which it's a response to)

 

[bimble]

Your understanding and that of others may be different, but I notice than none of you have actually cited any evidence in support of your claims.

What sort of evidence would you like?
My evidence is me & people like me that i've known for years who would for sure say they have a fetish, but definitely wouldn't say they need that thing to be happening in order to have a sexual experience.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The 'evidence in support' of the claim is the methodology of the paper in question, which itself was adapted from Blanchard's Cross-Gender Fetishism Scale. And adapting that, the researchers landed upon this methodology (as previously partly quoted by bimble):

Transvestic fetishism during a given stage of life was coded as 0 (no sexual arousal from any type of feminine dressing either in public or in private) or 1 (sexual arousal from one or more types of feminine dressing either in public or in private). Measurements of the patterns of transvestic fetishism across the life course were constructed from the life course specific assessments. Participants who reported that any of these four types of feminine dressing was “sexually arousing” in private or in public, during any stage of their life, were coded with lifetime transvestic fetishism (0=no; 1=yes). Additional dimensions of transvestic fetishism were coded by determining whether sexual arousal was associated with feminine dressing during particular phases of the life course. Following Moffitt (1993), life-course specified transvestic fetishism was assessed as lifecourse persistent (scored if transvestic fetishism was indicated during both adolescence and post-adolescence); adolescent limited (scored if transvestic fetishism was indicated during adolescence only); or adult onset (scored if transvestic fetishism was indicated after adolescence only).

It is very clear to me that what you would call 'preference', these authors call 'fetish'. I haven't checked the original Blanchard methodology, but they were purposely trying to follow it in order to test his claims, so unless they got this badly wrong, Blanchard was also using the term in this way.

I agree that it's important to define terms in this kind of discussion. These authors did so.

 

[Red Cat]

We were talking more broadly as you know.

 

[bimble]

It is very clear to me that what you would call 'preference', these authors call 'fetish'.

Exactly. Nothing more than ‘did it turn you on yes /no’ in their criterion.

 

[andysays]

What sort of evidence would you like?
My evidence is me & people like me that i've known for years who would for sure say they have a fetish, but definitely wouldn't say they need that thing to be happening in order to have a sexual experience.

I'm going out now, but I will attempt to return to this later, with (hypothetical) examples

 

[Red Cat]

That's true Red Cat . It's good to check in with each other and see whether we understand more or less the same thing by the words we use. I guess with these categories (of what used to be called sexual deviance) things do change quite fast.

Who called this sexual deviance? Here again is this category with no reference to who's category it is.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

We were talking more broadly as you know.

This whole part of the discussion was kicked off by this paper's definition. The definition used in the opening posts by bimble and by me, including the one that andysays slagged off, followed this paper's broad definition because that is what we were discussing. I said as much pages ago.

I happen to agree that the broad approach with a sliding scale is a more sensible description of something as nuanced and complex as sexual arousal than a massively narrow definition in which the absence of the fetish object must prevent climax. But either way, it's really important to get a handle on what Blanchard et al mean by the term and how they classify fetish in their scale because otherwise you're not going to understand their work.

 

[bimble]

Here's a sciencey-looking study that found over 62% of random german men told the researchers they had 'paraphilic' arousal patterns, with only 1.7% saying this had caused them some distress. What this proves I have no idea really, but their conclusion was that the best thing in future would be to concentrate only on people who reported that their sexual interests caused them or other people distress. How Unusual are the Contents of Paraphilias? Paraphilia‐Associated Sexual Arousal Patterns in a Community‐Based Sample of Men

 

[campanula]

Jesus fucking wept!

My teenage 'awakening' - a mishmash of 'The Sensual Woman by 'J', various skinhead novels and a lurid Aleister Crowley paperback (which imprinted 'The Great Whore of babylon' on my teenage psyche), looking up 'intercourse, coition' and such in the dictionary and the obligatory 'Nervous' and 'Spin the Bottle' games in empty garages.

My 6 year old granddaughter refused to wear her Puffa coat because it 'made her look fat' - felt profoundly depressed and alarmed at the world she will have to negotiate her way around.

 

[smokedout]

What the fuck does 'credible' mean, have you ever looked at these sites I have mentioned to actually disprove what I am saying, do you want peer reviewed articles as evidence maybe?

No, just a link to a trans organisation, or trans-activist demanding that lesbians sleep with transwomen and claiming if they don't it makes them transphobic, or an example of this actually happening in the real world. I know tumblr can be grim, I know there are nasty exploitative people out there, some of them trans, I know there have been trans criminals.

But specifically I'd like to see an example of this alleged demand, that lesbians accept transwomen with penises as sexual partners or they are transphobic, made in some kind of reasonable or credible way. Because probably half a dozen times on this thread people have claimed this is what transpeople are demanding - that this is part of political 'tran ideology'. So i'd like to see someone demanding it. Because I don't think it's true beyond a few random kids that are no more representative of transgender people or trans-activism than Isis are representative of Islam, people who bomb abortion clinic are representative of Christians or Jeffrey Dahmer was representative of gay men.

 

[bimble]

But specifically I'd like to see an example of this alleged demand, that lesbians accept transwomen with penises as sexual partners or they are transphobic, made in some kind of reasonable or credible way.

This seems to meet your criteria? Its logical after all, the argument that, otherwise, people are being reduced to their genitals not their identities.
The Cotton Ceiling Is Real and It’s Time for All Queer and Trans People to Fight Back
or
The Struggle To Find Trans Love In San Francisco

 

[Shechemite]

This seems to meet your criteria? Its logical after all, the argument that, otherwise, people are being reduced to their genitals not their identities.
The Cotton Ceiling Is Real and It’s Time for All Queer and Trans People to Fight Back
or
The Struggle To Find Trans Love In San Francisco

Yes. And links similar to these were posted previously on this thread, as smokedout has been reminded of.

 

[andysays]

What sort of evidence would you like?
My evidence is me & people like me that i've known for years who would for sure say they have a fetish, but definitely wouldn't say they need that thing to be happening in order to have a sexual experience.

Actually, I'm not going to provide examples ATM, this post simply suggests to me that you and your friends are unaware of the real meaning of the word fetish, or perhaps are using it in this incorrect way because it makes you feel in some way transgressive or edgy.

If it's simply something you enjoy rather than something you have an actual fixation on, then (unless you can provide some kind of even vaguely authoritative definition of fetish which supports you and your friends' usage) then it isn't a fetish.

 

[bimble]

That’s fine andysays , just means that you also disagree with the definition that started this whole diversion, as used by those ‘diagnosing’ autogynephilia as a fetish.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I find the focus on genitalia weird tbh. The wikipedia definition of fetish quoted, which I think is ludicrous, attempts to pathologise sexual arousal caused by everything other than the genitals! I find that quite mad in a society where our genitals are almost never on display, and we tend to be turned on by pretty much anything but most of the time. There are few things less sexy than a nudist colony.

 

[smokedout]

This seems to meet your criteria? Its logical after all, the argument that, otherwise, people are being reduced to their genitals not their identities.
The Cotton Ceiling Is Real and It’s Time for All Queer and Trans People to Fight Back
or
The Struggle To Find Trans Love In San Francisco

Well the first wasn't written by someone trans, the second fair enough although the argument is somewhat more nuanced than usually presented and is talking specifically about queer rather than traditionally lesbian spaces.

So we've got one blogpost and a few tweets/tumblr posts. MadeInBedlam I couldn't find the links without scrolling through the thread.

How many million transwomen are being smeared on the basis of what is clearly a fringe viewpoint even within queer communities?

 

[bimble]

smokedout Do you agree that its logical though, what they're saying? However well or badly its expressed, the idea is that: If you agree that trans women are women then surely it follows that it is transphobic to rule them out - as a group - as sexual partners saying you only like biological women?

 

[smokedout]

It strikes me that this is another example by the way of how transwomen are effectively censored by the relentless attempts to smear them as sexually predatory men. Just as they can't discuss sex or sexuality without their entire identity being reduced to a sexual fetish they can't discuss the difficulties they face finding partners, and wondering whether transphobia has a role in that. That is not the same as demanding people sleep with them or insisting they are transphobes, it's a perfectly normal thing for lonely and marginalised people to talk about. Disabled people for example, have had this kind of discussion quite openly in radical circles for a long time - but no-one ever accuses them of being part of rape culture if they suggest societal prejudice or unease with disabled people's bodies may be one reason they find it difficult to find sexual partners.

 

[andysays]

I find the focus on genitalia weird tbh. The wikipedia definition of fetish quoted, which I think is ludicrous, attempts to pathologise sexual arousal caused by everything other than the genitals! I find that quite mad in a society where our genitals are almost never on display, and we tend to be turned on by pretty much anything but most of the time. There are few things less sexy than a nudist colony.

Are you really this obtuse and unable to understand simply language, or are you deliberately misrepresenting the quote I posted, which (unless you'd like to actually demonstrate otherwise) provides, with citations, the actual meaning of the term rather than the various nonsenses paraded here by you and others?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Are you really this obtuse and unable to understand simply language, or are you deliberately misrepresenting the quote I posted, which (unless you'd like to actually demonstrate otherwise) provides, with citations, the actual meaning of the term rather than the various nonsenses paraded here by you and others?

Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part.

Your definition, provided by you. Now we can debate the word 'fixation' - I see a sliding scale here, as do others; you clearly see something different.

I'd go further and question why a genital body part causing arousal ought to be particularly privileged in this way. I don't think we develop our sexual desire in that way, that there is some kind of default 'natural' setting that gets us excited specifically by genitalia, with all other erotic stimuli somehow part of a separate system. In other words, someone who is 'fixated' on penises or vaginas is not displaying any essentially different kind of behaviour from someone who is fixated on other things.

Do you acknowledge that you were mistaken earlier and didn't realise that we were following the definition given by the paper under discussion at the time?

 

[smokedout]

smokedout Do you agree that its logical though, what they're saying? However well or badly its expressed, the idea is that: If you agree that trans women are women then surely it follows that it is transphobic to rule them out - as a group - as sexual partners saying you only like biological women?

I don't think it is transphobia as such on an individual basis, it is about preferences, revulsions and all the other complex and personal things that make up our sexual desires. I don't think anyone on an individual basis should ever be attacked for that, and I haven't seen that happening. But I don't really think it's entirely an unfair thing to question whether transphobia has played a role in forming our sexual selves, just as misogyny and homophobia may have also played a role. I don't think someone who discusses that should immediately be shut down and accused of rape culture. It's only because of the presumption of transwomen as sexually predatory men that this happens to transpeople and not other marginalised groups discussing similiar things in my opinion.

 

[mojo pixy]

There's a tone to this debate that reminds me of the kind of (old-school?) homophobia that thinks I don't like gays, they all want to molest me!

 

[co-op]

It strikes me that this is another example by the way of how transwomen are effectively censored by the relentless attempts to smear them as sexually predatory men.

There are feminists who try to do this (none on this thread I think) but it's also possible to think that the demand that "transwomen are women" without any qualification or discussion of what that means is not transphobic, and not because you believe that transwomen (all/many) are predatory men in drag. The 'lesbians who don't want to have sex with a transwoman with a penis are transphobic' line is obviously daft to any sensible person but it kind of follows logically from the idea that you cannot question the "no, ifs, no buts, transwomen are women" line. If the latter is true then why is the former false? You seem to me to be dealing with that by retreating into individualism - 'individual lesbians just aren't into penises and that's cool'.

The mantra 'transwomen are women' does make banning the Vagina Monologues as transphobic logical, it also means women objecting to shared showers at an all-women camp in the US that can be used by transwomen with penises who are sharing with teenagers are transphobic (a real incident). Maybe that's right but I think women without penises are entitled to discuss it and reach a conclusion for themselves without being told to shut the fuck up for transphobia.

You've said on this thread that the 'woman born in a man's body' line is not important or only really held by a minority of transpeople or something similar. In itself this is a highly contentious claim and believe me you will be shot at very hard indeed for stating it in public; many people have it as act of faith that not accepting it is evidence that you are profoundly transphobic. To me this is real revolution eating itself stuff. Why can't transpeople argue for their rights as transpeople? Surely all sexual liberals/radicals/ whatever would support that?

 

[spanglechick]

I think the phenomenon identified in those articles must be pretty heartbreaking for trans women. Not much was said about trans men looking for men to date, and I'd imagine there's rejection of trans men by gay men too.

It's telling how well-accepted trans men are into lesbian communities in many cases, and perhaps points to what we were saying about why trans men have historically felt less need to officially transition, because of the acceptance of 'masculine' behaviours in non trans women. But it points to a general feeling that genitalia maketh the man, or woman, when it comes to sexuality. And I'm surprised by that.

I noodled earlier from my position of cishet privilege, about whether I'd want a lover who turned out not to have a penis. For that, the jury is still out. But as a straight woman I can see myself overwhelmingly more likely to have a sexual relationship with a trans man than with any kind of woman. While I have experimented, I am ultimately straight, and would find a trans woman undesirable for the same reasons as a cis woman.

But it seems like lots of other people feel the opposite. And that must be utterly heartbreaking for those transpeople who are also lesbian or gay.

I wouldn't say that makes cis lesbians transphobic, but I can understand the despair that drives people to hyperbole. That said, rape threats? Fuck that.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Surely all sexual liberals/radicals/ whatever would support that?

Almost all socialist, feminist and other radicals already support trans rights. The only conflict within the left on trans rights is between a transphobic faction of the radfem minority of the feminist movement and everybody else. It’s because these issues are largely settled on the left - at least to the degree that everybody agrees that going out of your way to shit on a deeply oppressed minority is unacceptable - that the TERFs have ended up seeking out alliances with social conservatives, from David Davis to the Murdoch press.

There is no significant battle within the left, no “revolution eating itself”. The TERFs are not a significant social force and hold no sway on the wider left. The significant battle is between supporters of trans rights and social conservatives. That some TERFs find these alignments uncomfortable isn’t particularly significant and isn’t something the wider left has any reason to concern itself with.

 

[bimble]

Why can't transpeople argue for their rights as transpeople? Surely all sexual liberals/radicals/ whatever would support that?

What do you think that would look like ?(genuine question).

 

[co-op]

Almost all socialist, feminist and other radicals already support trans rights. The only conflict within the left on trans rights is between a transphobic faction of the radfem minority of the feminist movement and everybody else. It’s because these issues are largely settled on the left - at least to the degree that everybody agrees that going out of your way to shit on a deeply oppressed minority is unacceptable - that the TERFs have ended up seeking out alliances with social conservatives, from David Davis to the Murdoch press.

There is no significant battle within the left, no “revolution eating itself”. The TERFs are not a significant social force and hold no sway on the wider left. The significant battle is between supporters of trans rights and social conservatives. That some TERFs find these alignments uncomfortable isn’t particularly significant and isn’t something the wider left has any reason to concern itself with.

And "supporting trans rights" means accepting without qualification that 'transwomen are women' regardless of biology, regardless of socialisation? Just in some mysterious essence of womanhood that they have always been part of (or has always been part of them) that cannot be defined and is beyond debate.

And women born as women have no right to question this or any of the logical consequences - eg that lesbians who don't want sex with a transwomen with a penis are transphobic?

And anyone who does so is a (disregardable) terf? In your terms on this thread, middle-aged, fearful and timorous. Silly old women.