Why do some feminists hate transgender people?

[D'wards]

Germaine Greer states that a man can never be a woman, despite having the full procedure. And is pretty pissed off that Caitlin Jenner might get the award for Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine. Another Guardian feminist writer, who's name escapes me, is famous for hating trangender women too.

I personally feel if someone says they were born with the wrong gender, then their gender is what they say it is, and that's that. Even more so if they are prepared to go through an operation and pretty horrific procedure to correct this

Oddly the Daily Mail and Guardian comments section are in synchronicity on this issue.

Caitlyn Jenner 'wanted limelight of female Kardashians' – Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer says Caitlyn Jenner went trans to enjoy the limelight

 

[weltweit]

I don't think Greer hates transgender people, isn't it possible she just doesn't think they are women, but does not hate them?

 

[Sirena]

Germaine Greer has flip-flopped a bit on this subject. Originally she followed the American feminists and found the whole thing objectionable.

Then about 10 years ago she had a change of heart and became quite mellow on the subject.

Now it seems she has changed again.

I suspect the reference to limelight is more about psychological projection than anything.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I'm pissed off Caitlyn Jenner might get woman of the year because she's a republican cretin. Still, it's Glamour mag, so it's hardly a Nobel.

Greer's got form for this.

Who the fuck would 'decide' to 'become' transgender just for a bit of publicity? Fucking hell. Disgusting bullshit.

 

[D'wards]

I don't think Greer hates transgender people, isn't it possible she just doesn't think they are women, but does not hate them?

I'm using hate in the way you might say Dapper Laughs hates women. Its obviously more nuanced than that, but its a helpful shortcut

 

[Vintage Paw]

It's obviously a complex subject, but I think to some extent it's that allowing trans women into the feminist club would mean having to re-evaluate and reformulate a few long-held beliefs and principles, and that can be quite an uncomfortable process. So they'd rather not bother, and they'd rather keep the club all to themselves, regardless of who it hurts (including themselves) in the long run.

I expect these same people would find no problem reading something like Ain't I A Woman? and yet wouldn't be able to transfer the same broad logic to the issue of a trans woman's place in feminist and other struggles.

 

[weltweit]

I watched Greer on Question Time this week and her views on China and human rights surprised me a bit. She basically said cut them some slack because they had massive famine with starvation and who are we to talk we used to supply them opium. It wasn't so much the view that surprised me, because I have sympathy with it, more that she seemed to have given the Chinese a get out on human rights which I didn't expect her specifically to do.

 

[a_chap]

Not being a woman, I'm not sure I have the right to an opnion on this subject.

 

[Sirena]

It's a difficult subject. A man does not become a woman simply by saying so.

There is a long period of transition and, while that is happening, he/she can be still very 'blokey'.

But all it requires is a bit of give and take on both sides

 

[Humberto]

It's a difficult subject. A man does not become a woman simply by saying so.

There is a long period of transition and, while that is happening, he/she can be still very 'blokey'.

But all it requires is a bit of give and take on both sides

blokey?

 

[Sirena]

blokey?

blokey

 

[butchersapron]

I'll get you judith butler

 

[brogdale]

I'll get you judith butler

 

[killer b]

I believe walking in high heels is the first skill m-f transexuals are required to learn in their quest to become a woman. If they fail at that hurdle, there's no chance of them ever being 'accepted'.

 

[butchersapron]

blokey

Nasty post this btw.

 

[umop apisdn]

Nasty post this btw.

Not really. They were quoting someone else.

 

[butchersapron]

Not really. They were quoting someone else.

Try again, sniffer.

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

...because patriarchy is built on the fact that people with female bodies supply future labour and it is in the interests of those who do not gestate to control those who do.

Part of that way of controlling gestators is through gender - the sex role that female bodied people are expected to perform.
Some feminists believe that non-gestators can never have the same gender as a gestator because gender (ie being a man or being a woman) is a necessary consequence of their biology in a patriarchial society and is inescapable except through the abolition of gender as a concept.

Transgender people are not accepted by some feminists as being the gender role that they adopt by choice as (they argue), gender is not something which is chosen but imposed as a consequence of sex.

 

[umop apisdn]

Sniffer? That sounds vaguely insulting. What do you mean by the word sniffer?

 

[J Ed]

The culture wars truly have arrived

 

[Vintage Paw]

Well, as long as we can all sit around and decide what trans people are for them, it's all good, eh?

 

[fishfinger]

Well, as long as we can all sit around and decide what trans people are for them, it's all good, eh?

Cisplaining.

 

[BigTom]

Not being a woman, I'm not sure I have the right to an opnion on this subject.

Does the same set or kind of issue(s) exist with ftm trans people? Wouldn't that give basis for a man to have an opinion, ie if you think ftm trans people are men then it follows that you'd think mtf trans people are women if you were a woman?

blokey

Are any cis women ever "blokey"?

 

[cesare]

Nasty post this btw.

Aye, on a spectrum of full on barbie to rambo I wonder where "blokey" sits etc

 

[goldenecitrone]

Who the fuck would 'decide' to 'become' transgender just for a bit of publicity? Fucking hell. Disgusting bullshit.

I know. A member of the Kardashian clan craving more publicity. What a mad idea.

 

[billy_bob]

It's a difficult subject.

No its not.

Greer and other prominent feminists who take a similar position on this have a vested interest in policing the boundaries of acceptable woman-ness, and in defining what consistitutes acceptable gender identity politics. Admitting the reality that those boundaries are porous and not fixed would undermine their own authority.

I've heard her attempt to excuse her position by arguing that even individual women aren't able to define what makes a woman, so how can a man do so 'simply' by undergoing a medical procedure? The inherent contradiction there (as she is an individual woman doing what she says others can't) undermines any attempt to dignify this as some kind of principled personal stance that she has a right to. Declaiming people as 'not women' because they don't (to her) 'look, sound or behave like women' makes her sound arrogant, ignorant and deeply hypocritical.

I once had a lot of respect for Greer, but this massively diminishes her. What gives her the right to define what gender identity anyone else is allowed to have?

 

[treefrog]

Given how appalling society's treatment of trans folks is, the idea that someone would subject themselves to threats, ridicule, violence and worse to get "attention" is fucking despicable.

These dusty old "feminists" who hide their shitty prejudices behind weaselly BS while trans women are raped in mens' prisons, murdered at a rate far higher than almost any other section of society and are far more likely to be homeless and unemployed because transphobia is so ingrained deserve no platform. Any feminism that comes with an exclusionary definition of what a woman is is trash.

 

[stethoscope]

Still amused at the essentialist arguments like this:

...saying they do not “look like, sound like or behave like women”.

I mean, really?!

Y'know, I used to have a lot of respect for Greer years ago, even the way she discussed trans issues in the passage she wrote in Female Eunuch. Then by the time she wrote the chapter about trans women (almost always about trans women, not trans men) in The Whole Woman, she really seemed to be losing her own arguments. Then there was the ridiculous outing of Dr Padman.

Taking that chapter title from the Whole Woman, it's like she's become a Pantomime Dame now. Every time I see her she seems to lack any really decent analysis on either trans or other issues, and has succumb to tired, cynical, and lazy cliché stuff for whomever will pay her some cash to pop up on a telly programme, or the occasional regurgitating of 40 year old arguments in a newspaper piece.

Frankly, Bindel has done trans critical radical/separatist feminism better than Greer for decades now, even though I disagree hugely with her.

Anyway, meh. Have posted a length over the years about all this and not sure if I can motivate myself enough this morning to write much. On the 'blokey' comment, I've written about this stuff before and its problematic because it tends to be framed in regards to a trans woman who does not live up to hyper-femininity or stereotyped 'female' things as being criticised as being 'blokey' (trans woman = really a man, not trying hard enough to pass). And of course, when a trans woman does express any outward femininity, they are attacked for that too as reinforcing stereotyped gender roles. Can't fucking win really.

 

[stethoscope]

I'm pissed off Caitlyn Jenner might get woman of the year because she's a republican cretin. Still, it's Glamour mag, so it's hardly a Nobel.

Also to say, this this this!

My issue with Jenner is that she doesn't particularly represent any trans people's live/experiences I know, and that she's republican. But, as you say, this is an award from a sleb gossip/fashion mag. That would be a more interesting critique from Greer - about trans women also having their 'value' and 'identity' as women reduced merely to their celebrity status, how they look, etc.

 

[danny la rouge]

The aspects I wanted to comment on was the free speech angle. I've seen it said that Greer may be wrong (I'd concur) but can say what she likes (I'd concur again) and therefore the petition to disinvite her from speaking at Cardyff University is an assault on freedom of speech (I'd disagree).

The idea that Greer has been prevented from airing her views is laughable: she has access to far more broadcast media than most, and her views on this issue have been widely distributed. I have seen the Kirsty Wark interview, and both the BBC and Guardian websites have given the interview prominence.


Brief word on her stance:

Her current stance seems to be the Life of Brian compromise.

"Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies."

So while she doesn't think transgender women are actually women, she'll address them as such out of "courtesy".