Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[Athos]

Or gender non-conforming? I would say, if it came up, that I personally am cis gendered but also gender non-conforming because i have not conformed with the social expectations of my gender.



To reprise what i said a couple of months ago, I do feel like cis is a good word to describe me, and i do feel that I have a gender identity that is separate from socially conditioned gender roles, and biological sex. That doesn’t mean that i think everyone else does: i imagine that the extent and nature of a person’s perception of gender is part of their psychological sense of self.

I consider myself very strongly cisgendered, while not conforming to a great many social gender roles and being critical of the very existance of those roles. Because of this, I have not issue reconciling the idea of some people experiencing gender identity with my feminism.

So what is my gender identity? I’m not sure I think of it in terms of qualities, so I can’t name any non-social-role female qualities. I just have a very passionate sense that regardless of my inability and unwillingness to fulfill my biological and social functions as a woman, that I am “team female’ - the idea of being a man horrifies and upsets me, not because of any biological or social reason i can identify, but because it would mean I wouldn’t be a woman.

And if i feel like that, it seems reasonable that someone else might have all the same feelings while having different chromosomes and genitals and social expectations.

Is it the sense of being 'team female' that makes you a woman?

 

[elbows]

I found an article about the likes of Yardley that seems like a good place to rest my mind for now.

edit - I was just trying to link to it but its embedded the whole thing so I will put it in spolier tags so it doesnt make my post so physically long.

Spoiler

 

[MochaSoul]

That one certainly didnt escape attention.


And in my case I brought it up to have a go at those who think the important thing is to accuse cis women in the article of betraying the feminist cause by appearing in something with Paris Lees.

It seems especially stupid to me because I read a whole bunch of shit that stemmed from this that managed to give me absolutely no insight about what anybody who appeared in that article actually said. I did just find an article that gives an idea what Stella Creasy said.

Top Facebooker Stella Creasy brands herself ‘the anti-Sheryl Sandberg’



That apparently matters not to some people, who think the priority is to accuse her of betrayal for appearing with someone they'd like to shout man at.

Appearing on Vogue is a bigger betrayal but I take your point. Stella Creasy became objectionable to me when she voted to bomb Syria. I hate "some women are worthier than other others" attitudes

 

[8ball]

Is it the sense of being 'team female' that makes you a woman?

I’d think you can be on multiple teams at once.

 

[pengaleng]

I am team weed

if someone notices the bat in me house then i am team basebaal

and I'd love to be on the cover of Vogue twink edition << double spread with jeffree star and manny guttierez. hot.

 

[smokedout]

And they do that by asserting femininity is integral to womanhood, and making it impossible to obtain without consumerism.

(s)Lees is rich and can afford to perform it. It's unobtainable for most women (globally) bogged down with boring stuff like looking after kids, emotionally trying to hold families together, being forced through labour, and generally being poor, or unable to vote, or *literally* being second class citizens.

Lees is a from a working class background, used to be a sex worker and has done time, I'd say she's been bogged down with a fair amoumt of boring shit in her time.

She said in an interview that the best thing about being a woman is that you can wear nail polish ALL THE TIME, until it chips off.

I'm not going to spend much time defending Caitlyn fucking Jenner, but surely she was using that to explain that the best part of being a woman for her, having kept that part of her life secret, is now being able to be herself and present as she chooses all the time.

 

[pengaleng]

I'm not going to spend much time defending Caitlyn fucking Jenner, but surely she was using that to explain that the best part of being a woman for her, having kept that part of her life secret, is now being able to be herself and present as she chooses all the time.

oh come on i saw chipped polish on those nails indicating at least 5 days wear on the kardashians years before this bullshit, what a pile of shit she couldnt wear nail varnish

 

[smokedout]

oh come on i saw chipped polish on those nails indicating at least 5 days wear on the kardashians years before this bullshit, what a pile of shit she couldnt wear nail varnish

Doesn't really change the point though does it, she was still in the closet as far as her adoring public were concerned.

 

[pengaleng]

oh, yes, I got the point, i aint that thick

 

[smokedout]

Sorry I thought you were.

 

[MochaSoul]

Lees is a from a working class background, used to be a sex worker and has done time, I'd say she's been bogged down with a fair amoumt of boring shit in her time.

This kind of thing gets to me. Are you saying she's above criticism or of being pointed out as a player in a whole system of oppression because she has been a victim of said system?

 

[smokedout]

This kind of thing gets to me. Are you saying she's above criticism or of being pointed out as a player in a whole system of oppression because she has been a victim of said system?

No, just that to portray her as rich, which I doubt she is in the scheme of things, and suggest she has no experience of the boring side of life is not very fair.

 

[MochaSoul]

But she's performing a capitalist role for a capitalist institution in a capitalist system that oppresses all women (including her - I really don't think Vogue has any more interest in her than a marketing commodity). Her previous life outside of the context Fabric was referring to is neither here nor there, is it?

 

[elbows]

No, just that to portray her as rich, which I doubt she is in the scheme of things, and suggest she has no experience of the boring side of life is not very fair.

Ah yes the boring side of life. Nice choice of words, made me reach for this musical interlude.

 

[Cloo]

One thing I have noticed about the quality of online 'debate' is that people who have made transphobic comments are criticised for what they have said; trans women are criticised for who they are. They are referred to as men, have words like 'violent', 'demanding' and 'stomping about' used about them etc; and/or some alleged instance where a transwoman somewhere has threatened a woman is referred to as though it is a common view among trans women and that real feminists defending women are being silenced because trans women are so violent and scary.

 

[smokedout]

But she's performing a capitalist role for a capitalist institution in a capitalist system that oppresses all women (including her - I really don't think Vogue has any more interest in her than a marketing commodity).

Like most of the rest of us are unfortunately. I see what you mean, and possibly slightly misread Fabric's post, but I don;t think it's fair to present Lees as rich, and in a position she's in because she can afford it unlike other women from the boring side of life.

And to be honest I find it hard to get upset about a working class woman, who's had a pretty tough life, milking it whilst she fucking can. There's a whole load of people who I'd take aim at first who really are privileged twats with no life experience or substance to justify exploiting the capitalist system for all that it's worth when they get a chance.

 

[iona]

This just got published:
Why it’s so unhelpful to talk about the male or female brain | Aeon Essays

The bits about autism I have no clue what to make of but the rest is good - particularly the idea that storytellers over the centuries, even the victorian novelists, grasped non-binaryness better than we do now.

'Perhaps in Victorian society in particular, weighted by illusory trappings from interminable widows’ weeds to age-defying hair dyes for men, these novelists and the people who read their stories were better able to look past the window dressing that defines feminine and masculine, and simply describe – and appreciate – individuals as they were.'

The "extreme male brain" theory of autism is generally thought to be nonsense afaik.

 

[smokedout]

Reading like something from a bad 1970s men's magazine, Paris Lees's own words are here The 22 Sexiest Things About Sex :

"She doesn't even preface her list with any real acknowledgment that sex can be great fun, or that women's pleasure is important. It comes across like "women don't really enjoy sex, it's all just so dirty and embarrassing". Way to go, Hannah."

"the sort of women who spend their weekends listening to Kylie and drinking white wine spritzers. The kind of people who bought Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus in the 90s and rabbit dildos in the noughties – but only "for a laugh", because Samantha from Sex and the City had one"

"2 – Socks. When your trusted fuck-buddy stuffs socks inside your mouth and ties your hands behind your back while ramming you like a champ. You people all do that, right?"

"7 – Semen. Is great. I probably like it best when it comes as a surprise (no pun intended) like when you're shagging some guy at a house party and some next dude walks in and you're like "Hey, come join the fun!" but he's so horny as he pulls his dick out he just ends up jizzing over the both of you (seriously, what had we all taken that night?) – or maybe like when you're wanking some stranger off in a dark room and you suddenly feel this warm, wet dripping in-between your legs and down your thighs onto your leather miniskirt. Dude, you didn't tell me you were close! Hot!"

"8 – Your underwear. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I really don't think you can go wrong slutting it up with lingerie, champagne and copious amounts of you-know-what. It's traditional, innit?"

"11 – Watching yourself be a bad girl in the mirror. I really feel like a spit roast is wasted if the person in the middle doesn't get to see how it looks, 'cause it looks fucking horny."

"12 – Talking dirty. Agreed, it takes some chutzpah and genuine passion to pull it off, but what are you? A mouse? Or a fucker? You're a fucker – so call me a slut and tell me to suck it."

"18 – Doggy style. This is hot when you just want to get fucked like an animal – a dog, say – and it has the added bonus of leaving your hands and mouth free should his friends require simultaneous servicing."

Is now a good time to bring up the lyrics of some of the extreme metal bands you help promote in the music magazine you edit?

 

[Red Cat]

One thing I have noticed about the quality of online 'debate' is that people who have made transphobic comments are criticised for what they have said; trans women are criticised for who they are. They are referred to as men, have words like 'violent', 'demanding' and 'stomping about' used about them etc; and/or some alleged instance where a transwoman somewhere has threatened a woman is referred to as though it is a common view among trans women and that real feminists defending women are being silenced because trans women are so violent and scary.

I think there are different debates. The debate here isn't the same as a twitter fight and I think it's important to differentiate.

Personally, I'm not interested in what people post elsewhere, the internet is full of uninhibited hatred on any possible issue.

 

[MochaSoul]

Like most of the rest of us are unfortunately. I see what you mean, and possibly slightly misread Fabric's post, but I don;t think it's fair to present Lees as rich, and in a position she's in because she can afford it unlike other women from the boring side of life.

And to be honest I find it hard to get upset about a working class woman, who's had a pretty tough life, milking it whilst she fucking can. There's a whole load of people who I'd take aim at first who really are privileged twats with no life experience or substance to justify exploiting the capitalist system for all that it's worth when they get a chance.

I posted this earlier today

I need to qualify this because in mixed race families like mine there is a racism insidiousness that does penetrate households. It manifests in things like hair. My hair, that of my siblings and my cousins is graded according to nappiness by my mum, my aunts and other generally older generations. Straighter hair good, nappier hair bad. It seems like small thing but it does signal uneasiness with natural African aesthetics. I see that kind of thing as related to racism. Bad manners, clumsiness and intellectual slowness were associated with tribes people who refused adopt standards of whiteness the Portuguese had brought to Angola. All of those seemingly insignificant things were part of my mum and dad's socialisation which was steeped in apartheid (in case people thought it was only a South African thing).

I can get upset about the racism embedded in my formative years (described below) without getting upset about my elders in particular. That absolutely does not mean that I don't recognise what is involved in their actions/attitudes.

 

[Red Cat]

Apols Cloo for being so dismissive. I find it maddening that this is how things are.

 

[smokedout]

I posted this earlier today



I can get upset about the racism embedded in my formative years (described below) without getting upset about my elders in particular. That absolutely does not mean that I don't recognise what is involved in their actions/attitudes.

I know, it just feels a bit sneery to me, like when people go on about footballers. And from a political point of view, if her aim is to promote acceptence of transwoman then there are strategic arguments for accepting being named as one of Vogue's 100 top women. Single issue politics always comes up against stuff like this.

I'd much rather see her attacked for this though, along with the 99 other women, then see her attacked simply for being trans and the other women attacked for appearing alongside her.

 

[weepiper]

'The boring side of life'. Yes, all that endless childcare, housework, emotional labour, looking after elderly relatives, cooking and so on does just make us so dull in comparison to beautiful sexy exotic Paris, doesn't it.

 

[elbows]

'The boring side of life'. Yes, all that endless childcare, housework, emotional labour, looking after elderly relatives, cooking and so on does just make us so dull in comparison to beautiful sexy exotic Paris, doesn't it.

The song I attached was supposed to go along with my choice of words and hopefully show an intent and meaning that was much clearer than my words alone. Plus I was making use of the use of the term boring as it was used by two other posters in recent posts before mine.

No idea if Im making sense right now due to a migraine just over 2 hours ago.

 

[smokedout]

'The boring side of life'. Yes, all that endless childcare, housework, emotional labour, looking after elderly relatives, cooking and so on does just make us so dull in comparison to beautiful sexy exotic Paris, doesn't it.

Boring wasn't my word, and I didn’t make the distinction. 'Exotic' though, are you really comfortable using that word to sexualise her?

 

[elbows]

It wouldnt shock me if I used the word in a way totally at odds with my intent, in a way that people might understandably take issue with, since the thought process that went into my post wasnt exactly sophisticated. As soon as I saw boring being used in that context, I just thought of the way it was used in that song, and didnt actually have any useful words of my own to explain what the hell I was doing. I still dont, I'm not that good at trying to explain lyrics at the best of times and right now for my brain this is certainly not the best of times. And maybe my interpretation of the song isnt the same as other peoples, adding further complication. Why am I even staring at a screen right now? The one drawback of ibuprofen preventing the hideous vomit and sleep phase of my migraines is that just a few hours after the migraine aura visual I am tempted to engage in certain activities again despite reduced mental faculties. Please note that this migraine talk is not an attempt to excuse any earlier errors, since that stuff was before the migraine, but rather part of my rambling failure to operate the controls successfully as I attempt to understand and respond to a recent post that made me think I may have made a mistake. Anyway this rambling just gives me another thing to apologise for, I should have waited till tomorrow.

 

[smmudge]

My original comment about equivalence was based around the use of the word "are" in the motto "transwomen are women". To say something "is" something else is normally interpreted as an equivalence (i.e. each element of one set maps precisely to one member of the other set -- also known as a bijection).

If by interpreted here you mean day to day, common parlance etc., rather than your fancy schmancy mathematical interpretation, I do not agree at all that "is" is interpreted as equivalence. In fact I think this is rarely the case.
A tree is a plant.
A house is a dwelling.
Cats are mammals.
To say I am a woman, I certainly do not think everything that makes me a woman, I share with every other woman. I think day to day we very rarely use or interpret "is" as an exact equivalence.

I still have no idea what qualities this "inner sense of man or woman" is supposed to have.

None at all. I have zero fucking idea. And no one can explain it. It's SO FRUSTRATING. If one is going to say that some has a particular quality, then one should fucking be able to state what that quality fucking is.

It's all smoke and mirrors, afaics because until someone can quantify it we might as well be talking about nothing.

To me that is the whole point though. There is no innate essence of being a man or woman. So when someone argues that someone else is not a man or not a woman, when they identify and live as a man or woman, well what gives them that right?

 

[andysays]

If by interpreted here you mean day to day, common parlance etc., rather than your fancy schmancy mathematical interpretation, I do not agree at all that "is" is interpreted as equivalence. In fact I think this is rarely the case.
A tree is a plant.
A house is a dwelling.
Cats are mammals.
To say I am a woman, I certainly do not think everything that makes me a woman, I share with every other woman. I think day to day we very rarely use or interpret "is" as an exact equivalence.



To me that is the whole point though. There is no innate essence of being a man or woman. So when someone argues that someone else is not a man or not a woman, when they identify and live as a man or woman, well what gives them that right?

There's no innate essence of being a tree, a house or a cat, to use your examples. When someone argues that they are a tree, a house or a cat because, they say, they identify and live as such, we contradict them on tbe basis that, according to socially (not individually) constructed language, a human cannot be any of those things, however much they feel they are.

We may, indeed we should, feel some sympathy for anyone who genuinely thinks they're a tree, a house or a cat, but we're not obliged to agree with them and we aren't oppressing them if we openly disagree.

 

[mojo pixy]

On the other hand, if someone were to stand outside for several years, growing moss and not speaking, arms held out trying to photosynthesize, I might be inclined to treat them as a tree out of sympathy, or just to acknowledge the effort they've gone to. Should doctors be obliged to give them chlorophyll pills? What would happen to someone who randomly chopped their legs off? Does calling them you plank become hate speech?

I'm being flippant. We all know trees have no legal recourse.

 

[andysays]

Sure, I'd want to treat them sympathetically, which might include treating them as a tree in certain situations, but that's quite different to agreeing that they ARE a tree.

And that is effectively what some of those pushing this 'identity trumps all' transideology demand we do