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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Pro-Trans article "Women *Can* Have Penises" , Katherine Jenkins Nottingham University

93 replies

theOtherPamAyres · 28/08/2018 15:36

theconversation.com/can-a-woman-have-a-penis-how-to-understand-disagreements-about-gender-recognition-101991?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1535457048

The article finishes with the conclusion:

what does it mean for the Liverpool ReSisters’s claim that “women don’t have penises”? Well, since gender identity is not determined by what kind of genitals someone has, a person with a female gender identity might well have a penis. In other words, yes, some women do have penises.

Katherine Jenkins, assistant Professor of Philosophy, Nottingham University

OP posts:
ChattyLion · 28/08/2018 20:40

Grin she should stick to singing

theOtherPamAyres · 28/08/2018 20:39

Wow. Loving the comments, so far.

Well done to those articulate, clear-sighted and reasonable-sounding MNs who, more than Assistant Professor Jenkins, actually helped people new to the subject "to understand the disagreements about gender recognition".

Here, have a Glitterball disco glitter ball Grin

OP posts:
ChiaraRimini · 28/08/2018 20:23

@FermatsTheorem I wondered about the Assistant Prof job title and googled. Nottm are offering Assistant Prof roles at a Grade 8 which is a grade lower than our starting level University Lecturer roles at my institution!!

Depressingly she claims expertise in feminist issues including sexual violence and violence against women- and still thinks it's fine to say that "SWHP". She doesn't get that sexually dimorphism exists. No wonder I have trouble persuading some of my STEMM colleagues that arts and humanities are not a complete waste of space.

womensvoicesmatter · 28/08/2018 20:22

frazzled1 and Ereshkigal that's my comment! (Of course it was by a MNer Grin)

Thanks and for your compliments, made me Grin and Blush.

I looked for an edit button after I hit publish as I did it in a bit of a rush. I thought it was a bit waffly and there are a couple of typos, looks like I was being too hard on myself, then!

Thanks for the vote of confidence, I'll make it into a note on the Women's Voices Matter facebook page.

Ereshkigal · 28/08/2018 20:17

Keep ranting!

GrinWine

carceralfeminist · 28/08/2018 19:58

Well done BOO32 Star
I hope to learn from your bravery.

BOO32 · 28/08/2018 19:46

I have finally commented on this in public. I have been quite nervous to until now, but having explained what is happening to my parents today to utter disbelief I can't be a coward any longer.

vesuvia · 28/08/2018 19:39

Katharine Jenkins wrote in the linked article -

"many people have a subjective sense of themselves as men, women, some other gender, or none at all, known as gender identity... there are good reasons to think that what matters for legal gender is actually gender identity".

Laws based on subjective feelings are not good laws.

Although gender identity is subjective, it does not follow that biological sex must therefore also be subjective.

LangCleg · 28/08/2018 19:09

It's so fucking self evidently stupid and it's proponents are such dull smug unwarrantedly superior bores who think what they are saying is hugely clever and brilliant and groundbreaking. Had a gutful of them today. End rant.

Keep ranting!

12thGuelph · 28/08/2018 18:56

If when you looked at someone you couldn't tell what gender they were, wouldn't that help deconstruct gender rôles?

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace · 28/08/2018 18:51

Oh Christ that's an embarrassment.

theOtherPamAyres · 28/08/2018 18:49

Has fellow philosopher and feminist, Profesor K Stock, seen the piece, I wonder?

I bet she'll be impressed that academics are now emerging into the light, to give their subjective and wonky views, and misinform people coming to the debate for the first time.

Not.

twitter.com/ConversationUK/status/1034464705128136704

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 28/08/2018 18:17

YY Lang. It's so fucking self evidently stupid and it's proponents are such dull smug unwarrantedly superior bores who think what they are saying is hugely clever and brilliant and groundbreaking. Had a gutful of them today. End rant.

Ereshkigal · 28/08/2018 18:14

Yes the comment by Zoe Becca is stunningly good. Wonder if she's someone here.

Almost worth reading the dumb article for. Almost.

LangCleg · 28/08/2018 18:12

Queer theory rots the brain.

BiologyIsReal · 28/08/2018 18:08

Well, as a very untypical woman (in that I "identify" more with the characteristics normally attributed to men), I really wonder how I have managed to survive for seven and a half decades without having a hissy fit and demanding that I be called a man.

Trans genderism is underlining and cementing the view that male and female have intrinsically different personalities, attributes and characteristics.

It would be so much simpler to kick the very concept of gender into the bin and say "I'm just me".

This gender thing is the biggest load of bollocks ever.

JustLikeBefore · 28/08/2018 18:07

In my head these words were read in the voice of Philomena Cunk

Grin I think all of it should be read in the voice of Philomena Cunk.
MIdgebabe · 28/08/2018 18:07

female gender identity != woman. Someone buy her a dictionary

heresyandwitchcraft · 28/08/2018 18:06

I do sometimes wonder what the consequences would be if we all started using and pushing the 'agender' identity.
I see the merit of that question, but my answer is NO. I don't buy into this ideology. I will not pretend I even have an "agender" identity.... I know that that's how I'd probably have to be defined in this lexicon of terms, but it's almost as frustrating as "cis" to me.
I am a gender atheist.
I have no "gender identity."
I do not need a "gender" qualifier.

MrsKCastle · 28/08/2018 17:55

Jenkins defines 'gender identity' as the sex role which you feel most comfortable in when navigating our "gendered society".

Well, I don't feel comfortable being put in the 'woman sex role' in our gendered society. I feel distinctly uncomfortable and would most like to see an end to our 'gendered society. As FormatsTheorem says, I guess that makes me agender, along with other GC folk. I do sometimes wonder what the consequences would be if we all started using and pushing the 'agender' identity.

heresyandwitchcraft · 28/08/2018 17:52

I thought gender identity is a core belief of who you ARE (internally). The outward interactions are part of gender expression, right? The argument cannot hold lots of water, because "trans" and "transition" are now such loose terms, with a potentially INFINITE number of gender identities according to these theories. So she is being disingenuous unless she thinks that society has a set role for treating "neutrois" individuals. And it really doesn't rebut the feminist argument that these ideas are actually re-enforcing the rules of the "gendered society." Saying that it's all about social roles and how society treats you does tacitly imply that it's all more about how you fit in to "gendered" ideas sexist stereotypes.
It still doesn't answer why we should prioritize gender identity over sex (and the drive to conflate the two).
Or why we can't use common dictionary definitions.
Separate sex and gender identity if you like, and we can brainstorm how to reconcile these two concepts.
But you cannot take my ability to think, my language, or the legal category of SEX without a protest from me.

The need for external validation being a key component here is showing.

frazzled1 · 28/08/2018 17:42

The one comment is so so eloquent. Will be lifting some of it to write to my MP. Absolutely nails it. Star

You make a lot of good points about how society treats men and women differently, then make the leap to saying that men should be able to self define as women without consideration of three crucial points:

We’re not yet in a society where men and women are treated equally. Men who ID as women are not treated by society as women, they are still afforded privilege in many areas. They are being afforded privilege right now, for being allowed to trample over the legitimate concerns of women, to validate their feelings and demanding that they want to be treated as women. That no impact assessment on the effect on women and girls is happening, and that the message that women don’t even need to be consulted about the change of the very definition of the word woman, shows how little society regards women, still.

We’re not yet in a society where men and women behave in the same way, nor one where gendered patterns of violence don’t exist.

Men for example demonstrate behaviour based on experience of male privilege. Men also have male patterns of violence which are VERY different from the offending profile of women, as a group.

98% of sex crimes are committed by men in the UK, for example. And 1 in 5 women have been the victims of sex assault since they were 16. (The figure rises if you include assaults that happened when they were children.

The question is “does transition / IDing as the opposite sex change the offending behaviour of people with male bodies to match female crime levels?” and the evidence seems to be - no it doesn’t. Looking at UK prison stats as an example, 60 transwomen are there for sex crimes (this is possibly nearly 50% of them). This compares to only 3% of women (120), and 19% in the general prison population.

You’re completely ignoring the impact on other people, especially the rights of woman and children to draw their own boundaries.
You say:

“If we wanted to divide people into those who can perform care work well and those who cannot, then no aspect of gender/sex would help us do this, because the skills necessary for care work don’t have anything to do with gender/sex.”

And this goes to the crux of the problem. Nowhere in this statement did you consider the feelings, dignity, autonomy or safety of the person receiving the care.

Women have a right to be able to demand female carers. Particularly where we are vulnerable or in a state of undress. An elderly woman in a care home, for example, should be able to ask for a female carer, and not expect a “woman” with a penis to be helping her get dressed, or doing intimate care like washing her genitals.

A women asking for a smear test should be able to request a female carer and not have to have a “women” with a penis appear. Widening out beyond care, women traumatised by rape should be able to expect to not have to share a bedroom with a stranger with a penis in a hostel, refuge or crisis centre. Women should not have to share cells with criminals with pensis. Women and children should not have to come across penises in changing rooms or in hospital wards.

We should be able to have our dignity and boundaries respected.

Also - it is people with penises who harass, sexually abuse, sexually intimidate and rape women, as well as low level stuff like voyeurism and persistent, inappropriate sexual comments. If you call some of these people “women” and demand women allow them into our spaces, women and children will suffer. Transactivists like to counter this with “you’re saying all transwomen are predators, you’re a transphobe!”. But no, this is simply saying “transwomen show male pattern violence”. Nothing special, not all of them - but as a group, much more like men that woman as far as crime is concerned,

I agree with the points in your article that we need to distinguish between gender and sex and be clear we mean when we are talking about gender. We shouldn’t shy away from using the word sex when this is what we mean.

It seems to me that most of the modern wave of transwomen (that is, those who are transgender, not transsexuals with dysphoria) are identifying with femininity, not actual womanhood. They are identifying with an idea of what it means to be a “woman” gained from society, media, advertising and porn. We need a new word for this in my opinion. Not the word woman - it has a meaning already. It means adult human female. This does not include any person with a penis.

paintedwingsandgiantrings · 28/08/2018 17:41

Comments are open at the bottom of the article, anyone fancy joining me in leaving a comment?

theconversation.com/can-a-woman-have-a-penis-how-to-understand-disagreements-about-gender-recognition-101991?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1535457048

FermatsTheorem · 28/08/2018 17:34

*Jenkins defines 'gender identity' as the sex role which you feel most comfortable in when navigating our "gendered society". For women, I think most of us would just like to be treated like fucking human beings in our "gendered society", but I digress. This means that a male who feels 'most comfortable' being treated and regarded as a woman will have a female gender identity.
*

That's it in a nutshell, WeeBisom. Based on current gender identity politics, about 99% of the women I know would have to be counted as "agender", because actually we don't want to be treated as women, we would rather like to be treated as full members of the human race (something historically denied to us). Of course we don't go round bleating that we're "agender" because we know that biologically we're female, and that's just an accident of birth. What we'd like to have recognised (by men) is that we're just as bright, competent, politically astute, morally valuable and worthy of respect as they are.

WeeBisom · 28/08/2018 17:25

Jenkins is to at least be commended for coming up with a definition of 'gender identity' that is not hopelessly circular, but by her own lights this is not enough to justify males being in female spaces.

Jenkins defines 'gender identity' as the sex role which you feel most comfortable in when navigating our "gendered society". For women, I think most of us would just like to be treated like fucking human beings in our "gendered society", but I digress. This means that a male who feels 'most comfortable' being treated and regarded as a woman will have a female gender identity.

Jenkins argues that we should respect people's subjective gender identities because it is very uncomfortable and distressing for people to be treated differently from the gender they feel. The harm these people can suffer, and their feelings of discomfort, is enough to justify opening up women's spaces to males who 'feel more comfortable' acting as women.

But what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It could plausibly be argued that a large feature of the 'woman gender role' is the freedom to gather away from biological males. What it means to occupy the 'woman gender role' is to be able to get naked, or go to the bathroom, away from humans with male bodies. That is, I have an expectation navigating this 'gendered world' is that I will not have dick waving in my face - that is just part of what it is to be 'gendered' as a woman.

In short, it's a violation of my 'woman gender identity' for me to be forced to change and share spaces with male bodied people, because what it means to play the 'woman' gender role is to be free to socialise away from males. It thus makes me deeply uncomfortable and distressed to be sharing spaces with males. And if women are deeply uncomfortable and distressed with sharing spaces with males, then trans women cannot just straightforwardly gain access to women's spaces because Jenkins has made psychological comfort the most important thing to focus on.

If comfort and psychological contentment is all that matters, then both trans women and women will be equally uncomfortable and so the best solution is for trans women to have separate trans spaces.

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