Following on from the TERF thread...

IMO, the difference between genderists (trans or otherwise) and feminists, is that genderists see biological sex as something fluid and abstract and gender as concrete and immutable.

Thus, sex can be changed but all we can do with gender is to "queer" it. Or alter our "performance" of it.

Which is why we get the weird reversal (which originates with Butler AFAIK) that radical feminism's analyses of biological sex as concrete material reality and gender as social construct is us being essentialist. Because we insist that sex exists and it matters (or it certainly does if you live in a patriarchy).

This interview gives an insight into Butler, particularly as she manages to be reasonably straight talking in it.

www.transadvocate.com/gender-performance-the-transadvocate-interviews-judith-butler_n_13652.htm

I don't know how Butler is taught nowadays, but I hope she is read in relation to her position/reaction to MacKinnon. She is a strong critic of MacKinnon and basically calls MacKinnon's definition of patriarchy and female oppression (which is the standard radical feminist one) racist and imperialist. It's the intellectual equivalent of "check your privilege"/intersectionality as a way of telling women to STFU about male supremacy.

Personally, I think Butler's ideas on gender as a performance are massively privileged.

"but that many things that are thought to be biological differences between the two sexes are not really different"

Yes, I got this too.

I find the whole thing that binaries are bad and so must not be said to exist a weird trend.

Binaries, spectrums and mosaics exist in nature independently if whether or not it is fashionable to like them.

I agree Donkey I think it is sophistry and very fundamentally wrong. In human beings, the biological state of sex is fixed and dimorphic, not fluid and not on a spectrum. I'll need to reread Cordelia Fine - I didn't get from it that male and female are not opposite sex but that many things that are thought to be biological differences between the two sexes are not really different. I didn't read her as saying that there are not two sexes which are fixed states.

"sex" as biological state is as much produced through ideology as "gender" That it's not a dichotomy. So it can be seen as a fluid spectrum.

I'm sorry, but this is daft, and we can see just how daft it is by applying it to other mammals - do cats and dogs exist on a 'fluid spectrum' between male and female? How do we explain the fact that a female dog will reliably become pregnant if exposed to a male dog, if these designations are social constructs?

Butler was the reason I dropped out of my gender studies class in first-year uni many moons ago, and this kind of sophistry is why. What she's doing here is actually conflating sex and gender by using a verbal sleight of hand: if you say gender is socially constructed and ideologically produced, you must agree that sex (which is inextricably related to gender) is, at least in part, likewise constructed. But this actually scrambles the feminist understanding of the relation between gender and sex, by claiming they are parallel, mutually related and enforcing concepts, when in fact sex is the material reality on which gender (the ideological construct) is built.

If you google Judith Butler and her book, Gender Trouble, you might get a better explanation than mine at second-hand!

thanks for the clarification, UpTheChimney, will mull on that, but my instinct is to reject that notion.

At base male and female are reproductive terms, whatever is constructed around that is fluff as far as I can see (thinking about the other thread that had the great discussion about relative physical strength & power of men and women) But possibly too simplistic a take on it

I have DoG near to hand, will check what Fine says about it

Sorry, not quite following this, are you saying that this is what Butler argues?

As far as I understand it. But my understanding is somewhat limited (and I don't have my copy of Gender Trouble here to quote from). I read Butler because I have to -- I'd rather read Wollstonecraft actually

But Cordelia Fine, in DElusions of Gender also argues that biological sex differences, and the way we construct biolgical male and biological female as opposites, is not necessarily rationally "scientific"

Fabulous discussions, half of which I can't really follow, if truth be told. But the other half hit home hard. Beach's posts , especially. How I miss both you & dittany on a thread.

It worries me that there are not more places for women to discover feminism that are not trans-tainted.

and "sex" as biological state is as much produced through ideology as "gender"

Sorry, not quite following this, are you saying that this is what Butler argues?

Because I can't see how that stacks up as a position

we can't assume that the vast majority of people who are not trans have gender congruence or a lack of sex dysphoria
Thinking more about this, because it's a really good point & interesting ... part of Judith Butler's point is that while feminists have been comfortable with

sex=biological/gender=socialised roles/ideologically produced

the dichotomy is not an absolute, and "sex" as biological state is as much produced through ideology as "gender" That it's not a dichotomy. So it can be seen as a fluid spectrum.

But it seems to me the trans*women throwing around the term TERF as an accusation are setting up another dichotomy, as if "cis" is a monolithic, unified identity.

I think it's often part of the state of being female to be in some sort of alienated relation to one's body and sexuality because of the action of patriarchy. Part of a number of strands of feminist thought/activism are about becoming more at one with one's own body, sexuality, etc (old 70s feminist who read Our Bodies, OurSelves at age 18. Brilliant book!)

we can't assume that the vast majority of people who are not trans have gender congruence or a lack of sex dysphoria

No, of course not. And I think that's part of the "radfem" (for want of a better term) or even "ordinary feminist". Sometimes, I'd go so far as to say that part of coming to feminist consciousness is realising the extent of the contradictions between one's internalised sense of self and the social, and often externalised, roles one plays a particular gender.

I think that's part of the point of separating out sex and gender in most strands of feminism/s.

I agree almondcakes. I don't consider myself trans but I felt that I was missing a penis from before I even knew what a penis was (about 4 years old). If I woke up tomorrow and I was a man I'd be overjoyed but I have no desire to go through mutilating surgery that won't actually make me a man. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm a woman and at the age of about 28 finally figured out that if I got chatting to a guy in a club he probably wanted to have sex with me rather than thinking I was an interesting person to talk to.

I'm guessing they don't let the real 70 year old vaginas, or the real unwaxed vaginas, or the real size 16 vaginas dance either.

Damn you, patriarchal standards of fuckability.

There are some really great posts here, especially beach 'a post about the difference between discrimination and oppression. Thanks.

On a less intelligent point, the quote above from the DML organiser has this gem referring to a "playboy" club:

"They only let the REAL vaginas dance. THAT’S PATRIARCHY. "

How are lesbians falling for this porn fuelled bullshit?

Buffy, I just think you are a person who knows something about the topic and has spent time trying to make it comprehensible to other people on this section. Which is really helpful.

They are too stupid to understand the basic tenets and observations of feminism. They are too steeped in male privilege (and obliviousness of that privilege) to have even the most basic clue what the sex class 'woman' is and why it is important to human females

Exactly Beachcomber. Transwomen are all raised as boys and everything that goes with it, and because their default setting is fixed due to patriarchy they expect women to do what they ask. Actually, ask is wrong. Demand is probably the better word here.

My point is that the ordinary, tolerant, right on person is intellectually and politically disposed towards sympathy towards someone who claims discrimination (which is a better word for what I mean than oppression) for themselves. Such a person is instinctively likely to support a trans person who says how difficult their life is because of who they are and how they feel and the fact that their identity is transgressive.*

Completely agree Buffy. I try (and likely fail on too many occasions) to not discriminate, because I don't like discrimination. But I also agree with other posters who don't want transwomen in women only spaces. I was, initially, against banning transwomen from women only spaces but the argument about unexpected penes changed my mind, as did the whole male entitlement thing.

Chimney, I did write out a response to your post but I have a poor Internet connection and it was eaten.

To cut a long rambling short, we can't assume that the vast majority of people who are not trans have gender congruence or a lack of sex dysphoria.

Thanks Buffy. It is actually be useful to me beyond the context of this thread and trans issue. I am grateful.

Perhaps to make things fairer, everyone on here should have to take on the identity of straw something or other! As it is about TERF, someone should volunteer to be straw radical feminist etc.

The issue with po-mo is that a superficial reading of it (my 1st years on queer theory for example, but I make them read it!) gets too easily into what a colleague calls "vulgar post-modernism" aka the "It's just an opinion. Everyone's got a right to an opinion, innit?" response.

And it gets mixed up with post-structuralism, which is, for me, the more powerful analytical tool.

Really thoughtful post-structuralism calls into question the grand narratives of the Enlightenment & the 19C, such as rationality, reason, etc This critique can be a powerful tool in feminists' hands -- but then good old Mary Wollstonecraft was fairly hot on human Reason not being entirely value [patriarchy]-free.

"1. That trans* as a movement is not smashing a gender binary, it requires a gender binary in order to transgress by claiming to be the opposite to what one would conventionally be, and"

This makes sense.