Do you not think that redefining gender as something essential, a feeling located in the brain/mind/soul rather than something that is socially constructed, is defining other people's identity though? I think this is what many of the women (not radical feminists) whose views I have read on sites like mumsnet have as a concern. Can you see that for many feminists, gender being an essential part of you, separate from either biology or lived experience/socialisation, feels like a backward step and some naturally are worried about it being accepted uncritically.
Your argument is with patriarchy and the tools it uses to exert control and further certain power relations. Your argument is not with trans men and women who have to try to navigate those systems along with you, as do non-binary people, agender people, gender fluid people, intersex people...
Essentialism is most often tied to ideas of biology, biological determinism, etc. I'm not sure I follow how you're separating essentialism out from biology here, I'd like to know more about what you mean.
An essentialist argument might be that because you have a vagina you must like pink things and be naturally maternal and like baking and must be a bad driver. While essentialist arguments can theoretically be based on gender (swap out 'because you have a vagina' to 'because you are a woman'), in reality they are
justified by biology.
Can you understand how your argument has essentialist elements to it? While you're saying people are justified in being trans exclusionary because to accept trans people is to give succour to essentialism, you're following with the argument that a trans woman cannot know what it is to
truly be a woman because there is something
essential to the experiences of cis women that trans women can't know. The logic is that cis women are positioned so as to be treated in a certain way by society from birth,
because of their biology, and so they are able to wear the label of 'real woman' as a result. A trans woman isn't a real woman because she wasn't positioned as female from birth,
because of her biology.
Of course, I must ask, if we accept this argument, what is the age cut-off for this? What of children who express that they are trans at a very early age and are allowed to live as their felt gender, and who transition medically as soon as they are able? What of a child who as soon as it can talk says "I'm not a boy, I'm a girl, mummy," and is allowed from that age to pick their own name, and is brought up as a girl from that point onwards? Have they had a sufficient amount of time being acted upon by society as a girl/woman to be accepted? If we agree that gender is all social construction, then if society has treated this child as a girl since she was very young, and let's say she passes very easily because her transition started young and she never went through male puberty... then by your logic she is a girl/woman, yes? Because it's not about the biology, it's about the way society constructs her and treats her, yes?
If we start talking about motherhood and sex being used as instruments of control... to a woman who has been living as female since they were very, very young, those things still apply in the same way, yes? If that person passes, and has no reason to announce to everyone and every institution they encounter "I'm trans" and instead does what every other woman does and just exists self-evidently as a woman (and previously as a girl), then the same expectations and social constructions apply. That she can't bear children means nothing - there are plenty of cis women who cannot either (and plenty more besides who simply never want to have children) but we know they are still women, and they are still victims of the system that grew out of using motherhood as a weapon of control. And we know trans women can still be raped. Some trans women are victims of sexual violence
because they are trans, but for those who pass from an early age, they are as much at risk of rape and other forms of sexualised and gender-based violence as any cis woman.
So they are 'real women' too, yes? I mean, they fit the rules laid out about it being how society constructs gender and acts on women in certain ways as a result, right?
So is there an age cut-off? And if there isn't, if
all trans women aren't 'real women' and threaten to undermine the position of cis women and all the desperately hard work they do to cast off the yoke of gender essentialism, then
why aren't those children included? Is it because there
is something 'essential' about being female?
This is a very long-winded (but important, I think, nevertheless) way of coming to the point that the debate around trans issues does itself no favours by focusing on ideas of essentialism versus social construction. Certainly, feminism in general does itself no favours by focusing on the zero sum game of black/white rather than doing the hard work of digging for nuance and understanding how power works.
We don't understand the brain, chemistry, or environmental factors properly. We make guesses based on the little bits of evidence we have, but those bits of evidence are regularly uprooted and replaced with different bits as we do another study, gain another advancement in medical science, and so on. We like to bluster and say "it's all social construction" or "it's all environmental factors" and some of us might say "you are what you are from the womb" - but the reality seems to be that it's a bit of everything, and what we don't yet understand is whether it's chicken first or egg. Just like with chicken and egg, we
can't know the extent to which biology has an effect on how we react to environment, or to what extent environment has on rewiring our brains. Not yet, anyway. We just know that the two
do interact, and it's messy and complicated.
I used to feel a bit uncomfortable with the "Born this way" thing in LGB stuff. Not because I doubt they've always known they were gay, but because of the implications about essentialism. I guess that's the same thing you're saying, right? But here's the thing: I understand the "born this way" thing has been used to counter the argument that LGB people can 'choose' to be gay or straight, where it's anything but a choice, it's just what you feel. How do you begin to dig down and uncover that exact moment you 'became' gay, bi or straight, and the reasons for feeling that way? And why should you? We have bits of information from twin and other sibling studies that suggest your placement as a sibling (e.g. middle child) sees you more likely to be gay if your mother only has sisters, and other such things (I can't remember the exact study I'm thinking of so the details are likely incorrect, but that's the gist of the thing it was showing). Is that nature or nurture? Couple it with the studies about extra bits biological and chemical junk (chromosomes, DNA, again, I'm sketchy on details, the one I'm thinking of had something to do with something turning on or turning off...) that were found in certain gay men, and we're none the wiser. We don't know enough to understand whether it was environmental factors acting on the mother that impacted the biological processes in the son that in turn made him more likely to feel a certain way when confronted with a particular environment growing up... but that right there is a big old mix of biology
and environment, all the while being confronted by social expectation and the construction of normative sexual orientation. So what's the
real answer? Dude's just gay, is all.
So instead of spending our lives blaming the gay guy for fucking with our attempts to show that gender roles and heteronormativity are social constructions every time he says "I was born this way," rather we understand that we
don't understand, and it doesn't matter anyway, because the enemy is those who would police the boundaries of 'acceptable' sexual activity and attraction, and those who use heterosexual female sexuality as a means of control over women, and traditional ideas of what it is to be masculine as a means of control over both men and women. Likewise, instead of spending our lives blaming a trans woman for fucking with our attempts to show that society constructs gender roles in order to keep us in line because that trans woman has always known she was female, rather we direct our ire and our anger at a society that would create these false binary oppositions in an attempt to control us in the first place.
I repeat, trans women are not your enemy. Trans women are your allies in fighting against the systems of control and oppression that profits so well as we pit ourselves against each other in policing what we are allowed to be.
) with spiritual/religious beliefs it doesn't map too well as a direct comparison. But I do think that some western society/philosophy seems insular and narrow minded (socially conservative?) compared with other world societies past and present. I blame it on religion and capitalism working with patriarchy for control and extracting profit for the few.
