Question about Transgender...stuff...et al

[Sendo]

I'm all for equality. I'm all for treating people equally. I simply don't understand much of the issues around transgenders. The Girl Scouts thread for example makes me ask many questions, but I didn't want to derail the thread.

1. If the organization known as "Girl Scouts" allows in anyone who "is introduced as a girl" and identifies as a girl, including biological males who identify as females ... If they do that, then why not let in any child? If their only criteria is "acts" or "identifies" as a girl, then how do they define "girl"?????

If I (male-identifying male) see a male-identifying male wearing a pink shirt and remark "He's dressed like a woman," then I would be sexist. You might remark "What? Because he's wearing pink? Is there some Rosetta Stone that aligns colors to the X or Y chromosome?"

If a male-identifying male friend is being squeamish about getting his hands greasy when we are fixing his car together, then it would be sexist to say "Don't be such a woman."

So how does the trans-gender community identify what it means "to act/be a woman?" I'm sure many straight or gay men who are male-identifying and biologically male would object to many things. What makes a trans-gendered (pre or post-op) woman a woman? Is it the makeup? (Many flambuoyant or just plain vain people wear makeup. Anglo and American aristocrats 230 years ago wore lipstick and powder and blush, by the way) Is it dressing as a woman? (There are gay guys who shop in the "Women's Dept") Is it the name change? Is it using a woman's bathroom? (Mixed gender bathrooms are very common in some places)

Outside of some biological characteristics and a shared history of being oppressed, I don't think anything else makes a man a "man" or a woman a "woman." Kind of like my attitudes towards "races" ...

2. ... Which leads me to point/question/issue #2. Obviously the biological differences between ethnic groups are practically non-existent (two Kenyans are likely to share the same amount of DNA with each other as would a mestizo Mexican and a Mongolian with each other). In any case, what if someone said "I'm an African-American who happens to be born in an Anglo-American's body"? One could make all the same arguments with all the same pitfalls. The differences between men's and women's cultures are akin to that between Anglo-American and Afircan-American cultures.

For example, hip-hop is more associated with "black culture" and purses are associated more with "women culture." But neither one is genetically ingrained. Many whites have adopted (or co-opted) many features of black culture. There are hip-hop-loving "whites" and hip-hop-hating "blacks." There are women who shun jewelry and accessories like purses. There are men with purses, everything from the neutral messenger bags (guilty here) to straight up women's purses.

One man at my university had a masculine build, masculine mannerisms, facial hair, feminine girlfriend, all the cliches. Mr roommate and I shared a class with him. We kept forgetting his name and started calling him "sushi purse guy" (only between ourselves). It started as a bit of a tease, since it seemed out of a Martha Stewart catalogue or something (a large purse with pictures of sushi bits on it, if anything we were joshing about the fact it looked like it belonged to a 38-year-old. Like a kitchen wallpaper with the beige and brown pictures of rolling pins and measuring cups). Eventually though, it just became a fact of his appearance. I had a phase with neon T-Shirts and people who met me for the first time said "Oh...you're the guy who's always wearing bright neon." Whether "sushi purse guy" was a male with one unexpected "quirk" (only a quirk by 2006 American cultural norms) or he was a "biological male identifying as a very butch lesbian with a girlfriend" never occurred to me.

3. If any trans people post here, please enlighten me. What does it mean to be a woman or a man? (Let's ignore surgery and genitalia now for the sake of this argument) How would fatherhood differ from motherhood? If two gay men or two lesbian women can raise a child fine, then what is the difference? What is the feature that pre-op transgenders have that make them the opposite gender? When a pre-op transgender man-to-woman identifies a woman, what is this person claiming that's different? Is it simply to be called a woman? If anything we should make the language more gender neutral. Until @ was used for e-mail addresses, some Spanish speakers used for a schwa sound to make a gender neutral "[email protected]" Mandarin Chinese pronounces it/he/she identically. What does a trangendered person gain? A transgendered woman-to-man (if convincing) may gain access to seats of power, but what does a man-to-woman gain access to? Girl Scouts of America? Women's only bathrooms? Being addressed as ma'am? Why can't we just make all organizations gender blind and avoid perpetuating "manhood" and "womanhood" and the need to pass from one to the other?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I am not a transgender individual but I will try my best to answer your questions.


I'm all for equality. I'm all for treating people equally. I simply don't understand much of the issues around transgenders. The Girl Scouts thread for example makes me ask many questions, but I didn't want to derail the thread.

1. If the organization known as "Girl Scouts" allows in anyone who "is introduced as a girl" and identifies as a girl, including biological males who identify as females ... If they do that, then why not let in any child? If their only criteria is "acts" or "identifies" as a girl, then how do they define "girl"?????

I haven't been following the girl scout story as much as others but in specific regards to admission and identity I believe they allowed her in once she had a degree of gender reassignment surgery (anyone can correct me if I am wrong),so,if a biological male asked for admittance I do not believe that they would allow them in without some degree of opposite sex affiliation.


If I (male-identifying male) see a male-identifying male wearing a pink shirt and remark "He's dressed like a woman," then I would be sexist. You might remark "What? Because he's wearing pink? Is there some Rosetta Stone that aligns colors to the X or Y chromosome?"

If a male-identifying male friend is being squeamish about getting his hands greasy when we are fixing his car together, then it would be sexist to say "Don't be such a woman."

So how does the trans-gender community identify what it means "to act/be a woman?" I'm sure many straight or gay men who are male-identifying and biologically male would object to many things. What makes a trans-gendered (pre or post-op) woman a woman? Is it the makeup? (Many flambuoyant or just plain vain people wear makeup. Anglo and American aristocrats 230 years ago wore lipstick and powder and blush, by the way) Is it dressing as a woman? (There are gay guys who shop in the "Women's Dept") Is it the name change? Is it using a woman's bathroom? (Mixed gender bathrooms are very common in some places) What it means to be a man or to be a women depends on societal culture.In Western Anglo-American culture being a man means acting tough,never admitting emotion and a vast array of other negative traits while being a women often takes the form of submission and "beauty." (make up,and other "feminine" accessories).

I am not transgendered but if I were to take an educated guess I would say that the transgender community doesn't have a standard "feminine/masculine" expectations outside of "you know on the inside you are a man/woman and take steps towards making the transition possible though a sex-change operation" (not sure if that is the proper term anymore so again, feel free to correct me if it is not).

So,in this regard,with consideration given to societal expectations,it might be the make up,purses,and other "feminine" traits only so far as the heteronormative world sees gender.




2. ... Which leads me to point/question/issue #2. Obviously the biological differences between ethnic groups are practically non-existent (two Kenyans are likely to share the same amount of DNA with each other as would a mestizo Mexican and a Mongolian with each other). In any case, what if someone said "I'm an African-American who happens to be born in an Anglo-American's body"? One could make all the same arguments with all the same pitfalls. The differences between men's and women's cultures are akin to that between Anglo-American and Afircan-American cultures.

For example, hip-hop is more associated with "black culture" and purses are associated more with "women culture." But neither one is genetically ingrained. Many whites have adopted (or co-opted) many features of black culture. There are hip-hop-loving "whites" and hip-hop-hating "blacks." There are women who shun jewelry and accessories like purses. There are men with purses, everything from the neutral messenger bags (guilty here) to straight up women's purses.To my knowledge no one has come forward and said that they believe they are a African American (or a Latino,Asian,etc) trapped in another race's body.Race is a social construction while gender is something slightly more rigid (still socially defined yet unlike race almost non-ignorable).So,because of this, no one feels said need to change races.

Cultural identity,music,language,foods,story and so forth,can be enjoyed by most everyone of all races without retaliation (at least in non-radical circles). This is not something that a person needs ingrained in them physically since in order for it to be a part of them,so to speak,all they must to is experience said event related to that culture.

Race,culture is the same everywhere if one thinks hard enough.It is a shared concept inherit within all humans.If your example were to be true there would need to be all ethnic groups,in every part of the world,which possessed an innate feeling to be among another cultural group.To my knowledge no such data exits.

- - -

Hope that helped some.

[RedAnarchist]

If I (male-identifying male) see a male-identifying male wearing a pink shirt and remark "He's dressed like a woman," then I would be sexist. You might remark "What? Because he's wearing pink? Is there some Rosetta Stone that aligns colors to the X or Y chromosome?"

The colour pink has only been associated with girls, women and femininity since around the middle of the last century. Up until then it had been a masculine colour as it is a lighter shade of red and therefore associated with blood, violence, strength etc, whilst blue was seen as delicate, fragile, docile and the Virgin Mary.

[Reed]

The colour pink has only been associated with girls, women and femininity since around the middle of the last century. Up until then it had been a masculine colour as it is a lighter shade of red and therefore associated with blood, violence, strength etc, whilst blue was seen as delicate, fragile, docile and the Virgin Mary.

I wondered if it was a regional phenomena because in Italy one if the Serie A teams, Palermo, sports a Pink/Black strip and the Corriere dello Sport, the main football newspaper, is pink. Pink was also used by some of the Italian cycling teams.

[RedAnarchist]

I wondered if it was a regional phenomena because in Italy one if the Serie A teams, Palermo, sports a Pink/Black strip and the Corriere dello Sport, the main football newspaper, is pink. Pink was also used by some of the Italian cycling teams.

Juventus used to use pink as well, until Notts County went to Italy to play a friendly with them back in the early days of football.

[eyedrop]

The colour pink has only been associated with girls, women and femininity since around the middle of the last century. Up until then it had been a masculine colour as it is a lighter shade of red and therefore associated with blood, violence, strength etc, whilst blue was seen as delicate, fragile, docile and the Virgin Mary.

Way to go offtopic... Sendos made pretty clear that he knew that masculity and femininity are culturally determined.

If you didn't get Sendo's post it was about the contradiction in believing the 2 following statements:
*There are no definite feminine and masculine attributes (except physical), and following that no distinct feminine and masculine 'self'
*Someone can have the wrong body to the gender of their 'self'

[Sendo]

Way to go offtopic... Sendos made pretty clear that he knew that masculity and femininity are culturally determined.

If you didn't get Sendo's post it was about the contradiction in believing the 2 following statements:
*There are no definite feminine and masculine attributes (except physical), and following that no distinct feminine and masculine 'self'
*Someone can have the wrong body to the gender of their 'self'

Thank you. That's the heart of my long-winded....rambling.

I feel like it would be cognitive dissonance to explain the T in LGBT to someone by saying that "they are people who were born into the wrong gender's body" and then also saying that "ethnic and sexual stereotypes are a product of culture, not DNA. Compassion and weakness are not womanly any more than strength and poor hygiene are manly." Beyond identifying oneself as a woman in a man's body or vice versa, I struggle to identify what being a man or woman is. My mother is the best driver I know and one of the best I know at DIY (non-pro) mechanic work and the biggest gossip monger I knew was a male mate from high school. I know there are straight male cross-dressers and there are stereotypically prissy and dainty homosexual men in the world.

Beyond asserting "I am a woman in a man's body" I don't know what that entails. I see no rules about which behaviors are gay or straight or manly or womanly. I just see correlations based on prevailing attitudes and norms, but I also see a world that is shedding rigidly defined gender roles. Even in a less culturally "liberated" places like South Korea, there exist men with baby reverse backpack things doing grocery shopping. As previously mentioned, the color pink has switched "sides."

If the world continues on this path, what need for gender classifcation is there? (Besides medically) If a man wants to wear makeup or a woman wants to be a crab fisher, what will be stopping them? Do transgenderpeople that they will be better accepted in current society if they try to pass as 100% "woman" or "man"? Do they feel that life as a transgender will be less stressful than life as a cross-dresser?

I'm not expecting any definite answers. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. And I appreciate that no one has labeled me transphobic. If I say anything offensive, it's because I'm ignorant.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Thank you. That's the heart of my long-winded....rambling.

I feel like it would be cognitive dissonance to explain the T in LGBT to someone by saying that "they are people who were born into the wrong gender's body" and then also saying that "ethnic and sexual stereotypes are a product of culture, not DNA. Compassion and weakness are not womanly any more than strength and poor hygiene are manly." Beyond identifying oneself as a woman in a man's body or vice versa, I struggle to identify what being a man or woman is. My mother is the best driver I know and one of the best I know at DIY (non-pro) mechanic work and the biggest gossip monger I knew was a male mate from high school. I know there are straight male cross-dressers and there are stereotypically prissy and dainty homosexual men in the world.

Beyond asserting "I am a woman in a man's body" I don't know what that entails. I see no rules about which behaviors are gay or straight or manly or womanly. I just see correlations based on prevailing attitudes and norms, but I also see a world that is shedding rigidly defined gender roles. Even in a less culturally "liberated" places like South Korea, there exist men with baby reverse backpack things doing grocery shopping. As previously mentioned, the color pink has switched "sides."

If the world continues on this path, what need for gender classifcation is there? (Besides medically) If a man wants to wear makeup or a woman wants to be a crab fisher, what will be stopping them? Do transgenderpeople that they will be better accepted in current society if they try to pass as 100% "woman" or "man"? Do they feel that life as a transgender will be less stressful than life as a cross-dresser?

I'm not expecting any definite answers. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. And I appreciate that no one has labeled me transphobic. If I say anything offensive, it's because I'm ignorant.

In which case than everything would revolve around the sexual organs of the person.However,since I believe you said in your first post that you have an understanding of the sexual part,this doesn't hold much sway.Essentially you are asking how would,or why,people who are transgendered in today's modern world know they are transgendered in a world that has so little blur between the genders that there is no discernible difference among the sexes and the defined definition.

I am unsure how such people would know under such circumstances.I will ask my transgendered friends what their take on this is and direct them to this thread.

[eyedrop]

So no one is going to say that it is not a contradiction or a strawman or something?

[bcbm]

i think this thread could do with having some common terms defined (http://www.glbtrc.colostate.edu/transgender-faq)

beyond that, i think a lot of the questions the op is asking seem to be directed at a whole group when individual experiences vary greatly and so there are no 'across the board' answers.

[GX.]

Outside of some biological characteristics and a shared history of being oppressed, I don't think anything else makes a man a "man" or a woman a "woman." Then you don't have a reference point to declare that a trans person's gender is invalid. I'm not really sure in your rambling post what the issue is but you seem to be confusing sex and gender (for example "What is the feature that pre-op transgenders have that make them the opposite gender?" implying they lack the one feature that matters, which post-ops have). But that doesn't mean they don't intersect in some ways. Since people don't, in most social interactions, have any indication of your primary sex characteristics they have to rely on secondary cues to gender your body (the most critical of those, and often the most important part of transition, being physical traits besides) which don't relate to your reproductive sex in a reductive way but are often taken for granted. It's a nice "trick" you can use to your advantage. So for a transsexual it's not so much that they think gender stereotypes are an ingrained part of their biology, they just aren't necessarily interested (which isn't to imply that many aren't) in challenging the way their bodies are gendered or the relationship b/t sex and gender roles. But again isn't universally the case, because

beyond that, i think a lot of the questions the op is asking seem to be directed at a whole group when individual experiences vary greatly and so there are no 'across the board' answers.that


So how does the trans-gender community identify what it means "to act/be a woman?" I'm sure many straight or gay men who are male-identifying and biologically male would object to many things. What makes a trans-gendered (pre or post-op) woman a woman? Is it the makeup? (Many flambuoyant or just plain vain people wear makeup. Anglo and American aristocrats 230 years ago wore lipstick and powder and blush, by the way) Is it dressing as a woman? (There are gay guys who shop in the "Women's Dept") Is it the name change? Is it using a woman's bathroom? (Mixed gender bathrooms are very common in some places) Guess what? I was a pretty femme gay guy before I transitioned so I do resent it when people imply that doing those things (clothes, makeup, behavior) makes you more/less of a man/woman. None of those were all that important to me and those aren't the biggest cues that give away your sex; there are trans women who don't wear dresses or makeup and they're still gendered as women. I would still want to change my body if there weren't any particular gender roles attached to it, that's not the motivation. And a lot of trans people aren't binary. I think you have a pretty narrow, unrealistic idea of transsexuals

[khlib]

Gender identity is different from gender expression:

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/395786_2777345947386_1070226633_2725143_2079251120 _n.jpg

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

Gender identity is different from gender expression:

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/395786_2777345947386_1070226633_2725143_2079251120 _n.jpg
You fucking rock!

[Sendo]

Guess what? I was a pretty femme gay guy before I transitioned so I do resent it when people imply that doing those things (clothes, makeup, behavior) makes you more/less of a man/woman. None of those were all that important to me and those aren't the biggest cues that give away your sex; there are trans women who don't wear dresses or makeup and they're still gendered as women. I would still want to change my body if there weren't any particular gender roles attached to it, that's not the motivation. And a lot of trans people aren't binary. I think you have a pretty narrow, unrealistic idea of transsexuals

You might want to work on your reading comprehension. I don't believe that clothes etc make you more of a man or a woman. I was wondering what makes you a woman now as opposed to a man. I don't think that a "femme" man is less of a man or a "butch" is less of a woman at all.

What is it that makes you a woman now (ignoring the matter of surgery)?

I'm just asking for clarification. I've grown tired of hearing from people (transitioned or not) espousing your condescending bullshit. What is the difference between sex and gender? I'm so stupid for not knowing that! Good luck finding anyone on the street who knows the difference between a state, a country, and a nation. Instead of clarifying it in words (like someone over 5 years old), I get anger from you and a picture from khlib. This isn't some autistic pursuit; I was hoping to have a human clarify the situation for me, not repeat memorized soundbites.

I'm not a fucking moron and I don't need pictures. I know that a trans person has a self-identified gender in his/her/their head. What I don't know is what this entails. I don't define myself as a "man" or as a "straight man" or "male." I define myself as (insert real name here), an expat American, a hiker, a sci-fi fan, etc........and then straight male as a foot note.

If you can't guide me in the right direction or give me a sincere opinion, then just stuff it. I knew this would happen as I wrote the thread. I would get condescension and double speak.

Nothing anyone's said has dealt with the contradiction in simultaneously believing "It is possible to have a vagina but be a man inside or vice versa" and "Men and women are equal and there is nothing inherently masculine or feminine beyond social constructs. Men and women are just people."

[Landsharks eat metal]

Sendo:
I am a transman, and I have very often come up against people who aren't transgender saying they don't actually identify as their gender or whatever. While it's true that people don't tend to go around just thinking "I'm a man!" all the time, there are little things that people who identify with their assigned gender don't seem to notice quite as often (especially if their appearance is conventional for that gender.)

Such as being labelled. When someone calls you "he" or "sir", how do you feel about that? I'm going to guess you don't really notice, that it's normal for you. But when someone calls me "she" or "ma'am" (because I still look rather feminine no matter what I do), I either get really pissed off or just plain depressed.

Another thing is the body. I know a lot of people have things they don't like about their body, and some of them are so bad that people get depressed about it. For me, it's my chest that causes me a lot of pain. When I look at myself in the mirror before I've gotten ready, I see someone who isn't me at all. (That might be an alien feeling to someone who is not transgender, which is one of the reasons it's so hard to explain.) I have these delicate little facial features, no facial hair at all, and a gigantic chest, and the only thing I can think sometimes is "Fuck, I'm a girl." Some days I feel so bad about how I look that I don't leave my room. I bind my chest every day, but it never looks flat enough to me even though other people probably don't notice, so I make it even tighter to the point where it hurts so much that I want to cry, but that physical pain is much less severe than the emotional pain when I look down at my body.

And bathrooms. I absolutely refuse to use the women's restroom anymore (unless I have to present female for some reason) and some days, I don't feel confident enough about my passing as male to use the men's room. So I just wait until I get home, which could be hours. I realize I'm better off than trans women in this respect because men don't really seem to pay attention to each other in the restroom, but I could still get beaten up or something.

I am in no way trying to be condescending. I just realize that it's really difficult to understand. From what I've seen, people who identify with their assigned gender don't tend to notice as easily how heavily gendered many human interactions actually are.

(Also, I haven't had surgery or hormone treatments or anything yet, but I still call myself a man.)

[Sendo]

Sendo:
I am a transman, and I have very often come up against people who aren't transgender saying they don't actually identify as their gender or whatever. While it's true that people don't tend to go around just thinking "I'm a man!" all the time, there are little things that people who identify with their assigned gender don't seem to notice quite as often (especially if their appearance is conventional for that gender.)

Such as being labelled. When someone calls you "he" or "sir", how do you feel about that? I'm going to guess you don't really notice, that it's normal for you. But when someone calls me "she" or "ma'am" (because I still look rather feminine no matter what I do), I either get really pissed off or just plain depressed.

Another thing is the body. I know a lot of people have things they don't like about their body, and some of them are so bad that people get depressed about it. For me, it's my chest that causes me a lot of pain. When I look at myself in the mirror before I've gotten ready, I see someone who isn't me at all. (That might be an alien feeling to someone who is not transgender, which is one of the reasons it's so hard to explain.) I have these delicate little facial features, no facial hair at all, and a gigantic chest, and the only thing I can think sometimes is "Fuck, I'm a girl." Some days I feel so bad about how I look that I don't leave my room. I bind my chest every day, but it never looks flat enough to me even though other people probably don't notice, so I make it even tighter to the point where it hurts so much that I want to cry, but that physical pain is much less severe than the emotional pain when I look down at my body.

And bathrooms. I absolutely refuse to use the women's restroom anymore (unless I have to present female for some reason) and some days, I don't feel confident enough about my passing as male to use the men's room. So I just wait until I get home, which could be hours. I realize I'm better off than trans women in this respect because men don't really seem to pay attention to each other in the restroom, but I could still get beaten up or something.

I am in no way trying to be condescending. I just realize that it's really difficult to understand. From what I've seen, people who identify with their assigned gender don't tend to notice as easily how heavily gendered many human interactions actually are.

(Also, I haven't had surgery or hormone treatments or anything yet, but I still call myself a man.)

Thank you for the sincere response. I have a little bit of a better understanding and I hope you are able to carve out a life that makes you happy / society is more accepting.

I personally don't like gendered words in English. It's really annoying in the Romantic languages that every friend/boss/human must have gender explicit and it aggravates me that nglish does this. I loved the fact that Chinese/Korean/Japanese are gender neutral for the most part and while there are certain male/female only nicknames, you never have to be explicit. What's nice about Chinese and Korea (which unrelated to Chinese, but follows an identical naming system) with given names is that they are gender neural. I've also admired Spanish for its dual surname system respecting male and female lineage and you choose the one you want (but not the American custom of hyphenating names ad infinitum). Then again, casual Japanese is extremely gender-based. (Imagine if girls were expecting to say "widdle doggie" all the time, while the boys would say "fucking mutt.")

So while I don't feel the same discomfort trans people do at being called sir/madam, I am very very conscious of it. In some ways I just try to ignore it, though. I'm constantly referred to as "American" or "Foreigner" instead of "dear customer, " and I can't fight all the battles, but I am very aware of labels and how they can be hurtful. I can understand now how sir/madam could be a similar source of discomfort or pain.

I try to avoid being explicit in gender as much as the language of English allows me for the same reason I'll say avoid stating ethnicity in an anecdote unless necessary for context.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I'm all for equality. I'm all for treating people equally. I simply don't understand much of the issues around transgenders.
What's there to understand? Treat us like human beings, and allow us to make decisions about our bodies and identities.


If any trans people post here, please enlighten me.
It's not our job to enlighten you.

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

You might want to work on your reading comprehension. I don't believe that clothes etc make you more of a man or a woman. I was wondering what makes you a woman now as opposed to a man. I don't think that a "femme" man is less of a man or a "butch" is less of a woman at all.

What is it that makes you a woman now (ignoring the matter of surgery)?

I'm just asking for clarification. I've grown tired of hearing from people (transitioned or not) espousing your condescending bullshit. What is the difference between sex and gender? I'm so stupid for not knowing that! Good luck finding anyone on the street who knows the difference between a state, a country, and a nation. Instead of clarifying it in words (like someone over 5 years old), I get anger from you and a picture from khlib. This isn't some autistic pursuit; I was hoping to have a human clarify the situation for me, not repeat memorized soundbites.

I'm not a fucking moron and I don't need pictures. I know that a trans person has a self-identified gender in his/her/their head. What I don't know is what this entails. I don't define myself as a "man" or as a "straight man" or "male." I define myself as (insert real name here), an expat American, a hiker, a sci-fi fan, etc........and then straight male as a foot note.

If you can't guide me in the right direction or give me a sincere opinion, then just stuff it. I knew this would happen as I wrote the thread. I would get condescension and double speak.

Nothing anyone's said has dealt with the contradiction in simultaneously believing "It is possible to have a vagina but be a man inside or vice versa" and "Men and women are equal and there is nothing inherently masculine or feminine beyond social constructs. Men and women are just people."

You managed to come off as transphobic and ableist at once.

[arilando]

Gender identity is different from gender expression:

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/395786_2777345947386_1070226633_2725143_2079251120 _n.jpg
I disagree that Gender Identity and Gender Expression exists, as these are purely social constructs, and quite reactionary since they divide peoples personality into a masculine/feminine divide, which is extremely sexist and reactionary.

[GX.]

What is it that makes you a woman now (ignoring the matter of surgery)? What is it that makes you a man now?


I'm not a fucking moron and I don't need pictures. I know that a trans person has a self-identified gender in his/her/their head. What I don't know is what this entails. I don't know honestly; I disagree with the wording in that picture and think it's kind of confusing, but that's another matter.


I don't define myself as a "man" or as a "straight man" or "male." I define myself as (insert real name here), an expat American, a hiker, a sci-fi fan, etc........and then straight male as a foot note. So it doesn't matter much that you're perceived as a straight male, and afforded a lot of privilege based on this, because you don't want to acknowledge that this has any significance, even though power is delineated along gender in a lot of profound ways that you benefit from. I see this a lot where cis people think the gender binary is a huge problem, but only when it's trans people who live within the binary; somehow everyone else is exempt from these concerns. Funny how that works.

[GX.]

What is the difference between sex and gender? I'm so stupid for not knowing that! Good luck finding anyone on the street who knows the difference between a state, a country, and a nation. Instead of clarifying it in words (like someone over 5 years old), I get anger from you and a picture from khlib. Well I did clarify even if you didn't like my tone (sorry about that). I already explained this, how feeling like you're in "the wrong body" doesn't imply anything about gender expression, but how nonetheless these two things intersect in such a way that someone's sex of transition (male/female) matches up to the gender usually associated with that sex (man/woman). This is the case for most cissexual people two. As far as what goes into gender attribution, I don't know exactly. I'm sure it varies a lot between cultures but I don't know about anthropology.

[Igor]

It's not our job to enlighten you.


You managed to come off as transphobic and ableist at once.

So when someone posts an honest attempt to try and understand trans issues better, he gets called a transphobic for not understanding trans issues and leave it at that, because "it's not your job to enlighten him".

Way to gain sympathy for your cause.

[eyedrop]

I see this a lot where cis people think the gender binary is a huge problem, but only when it's trans people who live within the binary; somehow everyone else is exempt from these concerns. Funny how that works.

Fine, but how about actually tackling people posting in this thread? People that think the gender binary is problematic for CIS people first and foremost, and by extension for trans people.

[GX.]

Fine, but how about actually tackling people posting in this thread? People that think the gender binary is problematic for CIS people first and foremost, and by extension for trans people.

Because that's not what Sendo actually said or actually thinks. He seems to think even existing as trans comes with some kind of biological-essentialist claim about gender roles (I already explained that that isn't the case for me at least, and indirectly how "x trapped in x body" really fails to examine the messy, complicated way bodies are gendered; and I got some abusive language in return) while he's free to ignore his privileged status as a straight male. Gender is a social construct, sure. "social construct" doesn't mean non-existent. Also his definition of social construct excludes all the gendered meanings constructed around the body:


Nothing anyone's said has dealt with the contradiction in simultaneously believing "It is possible to have a vagina but be a man inside or vice versa" and "Men and women are equal and there is nothing inherently masculine or feminine beyond social constructs. Men and women are just people."

So his gender isn't up for discussion because he has a penis, or something. That's all I can figure out. I would guess that's why got called transphobic.

[Decolonize The Left]

I disagree that Gender Identity and Gender Expression exists, as these are purely social constructs, and quite reactionary since they divide peoples personality into a masculine/feminine divide, which is extremely sexist and reactionary.

This is true.

But we must remember that all terms are contextualized. And so within a sexist, patriarchal, and chauvinist society, people think of things in these terms. So it is in our interest to re-define them within this context in order to secure a safer space for further discussion (which would hopefully progress to the point you made here).

- August

[Hiero]

I have a quote someone of Simone de Beauvoir that states about woman as being the situation but not the destiny. Or something like that. It is a thought provoking position to begin with for gender discussion. In our current debate on gender, body has been heavily removed from the debate as being label 'biological determinist'. From a existential/phenomenological view body is the situation that one finds their self in regardless of their choice. What happens in gender debates where body is removed is the removal of the importance of the bodied experience. This occured to me when my girlfriend became annoyed when a transwoman (pre-op) on facebook kept complaining about being a woman (she has been a transwoman for just over a year). The thing that tipped her over was a statement about moving a table and claiming a guy was starying at her apparently shocked that a woman could move this large table. My girlfriend's response was "when will she start comparing period pain".

Now this though is often attacked as "transphobic" to claim transwomen undermine women's situation. That is the lived bodily experience of being a biological women (the period pains, birth, gender specific cancers, penetration)is a knowledge of identity lived through the body. That picture is a simplified illustration that misrepresents the embodied experience, it does not account for sensation. It is a more complex version of the Western conception of mind/body dualism. I think a fair compromise on both sides of the contradiction between biological women and transwomen is an acknowledgement of the importance of the situation but understanding situation does determine destiny. People have to acknowledge people's sensation as a primacy for their feelings, but also acknowledge people's reaction to similar sensations may not result in the same feelings.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Now this though is often attacked as "transphobic" to claim transwomen undermine women's situation. That is the lived bodily experience of being a biological women (the period pains, birth, gender specific cancers, penetration)is a knowledge of identity lived through the body.
Transmen have many or all of those experiences, but that doesn't make them women. And there are ciswomen who would happily give up those experiences without thinking it would make them less of a woman. The problem is making a certain experience of gender a universal one.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Way to gain sympathy for your cause.
Way to only quote part of what I said. You missed: "What's there to understand? Treat us like human beings, and allow us to make decisions about our bodies and identities."

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Also, the assumption of a universal experience of being a woman is problematic in that it ignores how class, race, religion, and culture affect and construct the concept of woman. In the 1970s, white middle class feminists saw their experience of being a woman as universal, and alienated working class women and/or women of color.

[Hiero]

Transmen have many or all of those experiences, but that doesn't make them women. And there are ciswomen who would happily give up those experiences without thinking it would make them less of a woman. The problem is making a certain experience of gender a universal one.


Also, the assumption of a universal experience of being a woman is problematic in that it ignores how class, race, religion, and culture affect and construct the concept of woman. In the 1970s, white middle class feminists saw their experience of being a woman as universal, and alienated working class women and/or women of color.

I never professed a unverisal experience of gender, I wanted to re-emphasis the experiences of body (individual experiences which will have commonality with other people based on class, race, religion, sexuality etc). My criticism was that body has been taken out of the equation, which then removes sensation.

What 90s and earlier 2000s feminism did, especially acadamic which has influenced LGBTQ like groups is to remove body and deal with social constructs only. Gender and other identities just became hollow categories in that discourse. To me, social constructs are lived through the body and reifed in practices and institutions. On this forum it is often thrown around that "these are just social constructs", but people actually live thoose social constructs and deal with thoose consequences (either negatives or positives).

I think we have gone beyond universalism/essentialism in this debate, but we need not remove body from the equation. By body I just don't mean biology or sex, but as a holistic unit that reacts to sensations. The body is the primary and first interaction with the world before social constructs.

[GX.]

What 90s and earlier 2000s feminism did, especially acadamic which has influenced LGBTQ like groups is to remove body and deal with social constructs only. I don't think that's true at all. The overwhelming trend in 90's pomo theory was to position the body as a product of discourse rather than something prior-to/outside of it, the argument being, to oversimplify a lot, that it's impossible to delimit the natural from the social. There's some value to that position but that that sort of theory failed to account for actual lived experience; for example it was on the whole pretty dismissive of transsexual experience while retching trans-gender expression from its social context and mining it to shore up their own theories (see for example Butler's horrible take on paris is burning in Bodies that Matter).

[eyedrop]

Because that's not what Sendo actually said or actually thinks. He seems to think even existing as trans comes with some kind of biological-essentialist claim about gender roles (I already explained that that isn't the case for me at least, and indirectly how "x trapped in x body" really fails to examine the messy, complicated way bodies are gendered; and I got some abusive language in return) while he's free to ignore his privileged status as a straight male. Gender is a social construct, sure. "social construct" doesn't mean non-existent. Also his definition of social construct excludes all the gendered meanings constructed around the body:

As far as I read him he was of the opinion that he plays the male gender role, like Peer Gynt plays different life roles. My gendered identity, and I play personalities all the time, is shallow as fuck. And no one should have anything against anyone wanting to play into other gender roles, either for aesthetic, romantic, fitting more into a role or whatever reason they want, its just that when it comes justified with 'I'm a man' it doesn't make much sense to me



So his gender isn't up for discussion because he has a penis, or something. That's all I can figure out. I would guess that's why got called transphobic.That wasn't what I got out of that at all.