Stoltenberg: Dworkin was a trans ally

’ve read all of Dworkin’s books and I think she mentions transgenderism once or twice

I only have two - Pornography and Intercourse and trans does not appear in the index in either.

Do you recall if she mentioned transsexualism or transgenderism?

I’ve read all of Dworkin’s books and I think she mentions transgenderism once or twice. It’s not a topic of much concern for her are at all. I honestly don’t think in a million years would Dworkin have imagined how things would turn out. But in any case it doesn’t really matter. This doesn’t actually detract from what she wrote and from her unapologetically fierce focus on the oppression of women (which, less face it, is enough to qualify her as a TERF nowadays.)

I think some feminists are so terrified at the thought that there are some differences between the sexes that cannot be explained away by the magic wand of socialisation, that they are willing to jump to the complete opposite view even if it actually ends up doing more harm to women

Dworkin tended to emphasise difference though - I tended to think of her as an essentialist.

My main concern with those who emphasise 'difference' is that the kinds of differences they highlight don't ring true to me - i.e. we'd 'rather' stay home and be housewives, we are not as ambitious, or we are naturally connected with nature and so on...

I know very little about Dworkin, but if she were alive and decided to go down the TWAW route, does that necessarily mean she would be correct in her thinking or the GC position necessarily wrong?
It would certainly be disappointing for many feminists, but ultimately the validity of any position depends on the sound arguments that underpin it, rather than being formed around 'celebrity' or famous figures. We would still be able to argue against gender ideology and put forward our criticisms.

The impression I've had over the years is that there was / is a strong sentiment in some feminist movements to deny or obscure any real and significant differences between men and women in an effort to transcend the rigid stereotypes associated with each sex. To escape the entrenched views that women and men had to be a certain way due to fixed biological causes, it seems like a swing to the other extreme was made - to downplay or deny any material differences between the sexes. Anything a man can do, a woman can also do and vice versa. Which is true, but up to a point.

These notions have filtered down to the general public as any conversation about acknowledging differences between women and men is considered impolite or even sexist.

I think some feminists are so terrified at the thought that there are some differences between the sexes that cannot be explained away by the magic wand of socialisation, that they are willing to jump to the complete opposite view even if it actually ends up doing more harm to women.

Husbands and wives tend to know each other's opinions quite well, especially opinions on shared interests/beliefs.

Granted. But in situations where this kind of shift in discourse happens so rapidly, and so radically, it can only ever be pure conjecture. 'Feminism' in itself has shifted significantly in meaning: i.e. the negative connotations now associated with radical feminism, as opposed to, say, 'intersectional' feminism. And interestingly enough, it's both sides accusing the other of misogyny depending upon which definition of 'woman' they accept.

Who is to say how someone from an entirely different era would have responded to such a seismic shift in women's rights and attitudes to women which seem to have truly galvanised over the past five years (interestingly enough in the wake of #MeToo). My own dear mum's been dead almost 20 years and had her own views about issues like this, but I have no idea how she would have reacted or responded. She's dead. Sounds very harsh to be sure, but baldly stating the words isn't going to make it any less a fact.

The other odd thing about CMK (and I was never that fond of her work) is that she is very much shaped by US law and legal thinking. Often her positions are directly relevant to that and to ideas of rights and subjectivity deriving directly from that. Reading her from outside this perspective as saying something more general about sex, gender and hierarchy is apt to give one a headache.

The Dworkin-MacKinnon Anti-Pornography Ordinance considers transsexuals as a separate category to women or men.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipornography_Civil_Rights_Ordinance

I'm not sure that 'transgender' was a term in very common use when Dworkin wrote?

There is something very distasteful about a man seeking to make capital from what his much more famous dead wife may have be,I ever had she still been alive.

Amen. 9th rule of misogyny: 'men always know the "real" reasons for what women do and say'.

We see you.

There is something very distasteful about a man seeking to make capital from what his much more famous dead wife may have be,I ever had she still been alive

I'd need to hear it directly from Dworkin before I'm convinced. There's also a tendency for people to change their minds on the issue when they learn all the facts and arguments.
Many people on this board were trans allies at one point, including myself. But even back then I thought there needed to be strict rules and not any male self identifying as female, without an operation and other requirements, could go into female spaces.

I really hate it when people take dead peoples arguments, formed and presented years ago and try to apply it to what's happening today. Like 'transing' Kurt Cobain, we don't know Dworkin's position because we can't ask her because she's dead.

What difference would it make if she was? Sure it was be a massive disappointment for GC feminists today but she would just be added to the list. If she was alive and was TWAW we could ask her about sport, prisons, surgery and children and just as she could argue for Self ID we could engage with her to oppose it.

Hmmn. Really not sure about that.

radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-does-john-stoltenberg-call-andrea.html?m=1

m.facebook.com/notes/nikki-craft/the-worst-kind-of-betrayal-what-john-stoltenberg-did-to-andrea-dworkin/162074477509339/

In falsely framing the reality of male supremacy as being based in biological “fact” about “real womanhood,” it completely misses the point about how male supremacy actually functions to construct the category “real manhood.” That lethal reality happens transactionally, not anatomically

I think we've come far enough now, to acknowledge that there are general sex based differences...rooted in biology. Stoltenberg seems to be arguing for a form of transhumanism......which may all be well and good as some kind of futuristic ideal, but doesn't accord with lived reality.

Its reactionary insistence on a biological boundary around the category “real woman” plays right into the male-supremacist agenda that wants, more than anything, to secure the borders of the category “real man.” Most upsetting to me, the anti-trans obsession of this faction of radical feminism has become a corruption of the egalitarian ethic and humane vision that underlay Andrea’s life and work

I think he is arguing from the basis of a misunderstanding of what gender critical arguments are.

Being a 'real woman' equates to conformity to gendered stereotypes, as does being a 'real man'. What gender critical views are saying is that being a woman/female is based on the fact of the biological body, not on being a 'real woman'.

Andrea Dworkin was writing a long time ago now.....and at a time when women wanted and needed to break free of 'real womanhood'. I think that is where the tendency ( which persists) to suggest that there were not any differences between men and women came from. That we were all human beings, first and foremost.

John Stoltenberg is arguing against biological essentialism and claiming that GC feminists are proponents of biological essentialism.

For all I know Andrea Dworkin would have been a trans ally, but JS is misrepresenting/misunderstanding the GC argument, so the article doesn't make much sense.