to think Deborah Orr is stirring it nearly as much as Burchill, just less rudely?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Guardian article:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/19/feminism-trans-women-female-enough

I have never heard anybody except antiquated misogynists make out that female gender identity is all about your reactions to tools used for housework, and male gender identity is all about your desire to play sport. And whatever else Orr is saying, she does seem to think that is a valid point to make about how men and women identify with their genders.

I can see this columnist is making interesting points about how she'd feel female even if her body wasn't there because it's inside her mind. But isn't it really fucking offensive to, well, everyone in this debate that she seems to think being transsexual is basically about not liking how society treats the gender you were born?

I mean seriously - I am gobsmacked:

'I have a memory of when I was very young. I remember trying to persuade myself that perhaps little girls grew up to become men, and little boys grew up to become women. Even at that age, I knew it was impossible, that of course it didn't work that way.

I know, too, exactly what inspired that strange wish. My father had bought my mother a new iron for her birthday, and my mother had been really upset.'

(Btw, this is not a thread about a thread, but if you were sensibly hiding under a rock last week and didn't hear about Julie Burchill kicking up a shitstorm and various other people kicking one up back, that's what this article was clearly prompted by.)

I don't see how it stirring, she is just joining in the conversation, obviously there are strong views that need to be debated.

It's a good thing to exchange points of views.

Oh, I completely agree it is good to exchange points of view.

But, it seems to me that one of the huge issues people are disagreeing over is whether people transition because there is such a thing as innate gender identity, or whether they're reacting against the way society insists their birth gender should behave. Her argument is that she does believe there's such a thing as innate gender identity, but the example she gives is ridiculous.

Her passing feeling of being trapped in the wrong body was because her dad was being a sexist prick (however unconsciously), and her mum was getting upset about that. Surely people don't decide to transition because they think all there is to being female is that you get stuck being told to appreciate an iron as a present? Or all there is to being male is that you get to go off to the golf course? That would make all transsexuals unreconstructed misogynists, and would suggest it's perfectly ok to be so.

I don't know if Orr realizes that's what she is implying, but that's how it comes across.

Orr's article is nonsensical and deeply confused. She declares 'Trans people (that is, MTFs) are biologically or born female, but with detail of the flesh that traduces their ability to be physically and socially accepted for what they are.'

I find it really bloody weird that she dismisses genitals and chromosomes as 'detail of the flesh' and that she can assert this with no scientific back-up or explanation of her position.

Trans and gender issues are SO complex and delicate... it really depresses me that it only seems to be irrational one-sided views like those of Orr and Burchill that are getting mainstream publication.

Yes, it depresses me too mooncup.

If she believes that MtoF are biologically born female, that's her position, fair enough if she wants to discuss it. And it is interesting that she (as a non-transwoman) does reckon she has an innate gender identity. But she's shooting her own argument in the foot by bringing in all the other stuff.

there are so many parts to this debate,

Are people just trying to escape the society pressures that their birth gender dictates, because they feel that being the other gender will release them from certain expectations.

That would through up all sorts implications, as then it perception based identity.

If there is a sensitivity from women, because of perceived caricature, as there is a tendency to characteristics and oversimplification when there is a transition, it is a genuine concern, so should be discussed.

I'm really not trying to shut down debate or say we shouldn't discuss things, though.

I just think she's putting a stereotype of what femininity is out there, and presuming that this is what motivates people to transition. It seems to me bound to generate dissent from both sides.

I'm not sure I quite follow your post though, other than the point that we should discuss things - sorry. Can you help me out?

Yes quoteunquote, it's all so complicated and nuanced with so many implications that it deserves to be discussed very carefully. If only!!

I don't understand how anyone can say 'trans women are biologically women'. If we were in a position to distinguish between male and female neurological wiring then if someone was born with female neurological wiring and male genitals we could conclude that there was a discrepancy in their biological sexual identity - they would be a hermaphrodite, essentially. But they still wouldn't be a 100% biological woman.

In the absense of any neurological findings along these lines I think talk of innate gender identity is pretty meaningless, given that (as lots of research shows) girl and boy babies are treated differently from birth... whereas our memories don't go back further than 2ish. It's impossible to tell whether someone's sense of 'innate' gender identity really is innate or just implanted in them at a very young age.

ARGGGG!

you is EBIL!!

I was just starting to clean up my tip of a house after the JD/other threads

JB even

Sorry, loquace!

I do know probably lots of us are all talked out.

moon - some people do think they can detect gender-distinctive 'neurological wiring', don't they? I think the people arguing against make more sense, but I am not a scientist.

I would think surely, by the time we're able to remember, we'd be waaaay down the path of nurtured gender identity. But then I suppose that is why it is all so difficult.

Do they, LRD? I've heard suggestions that there are areas that are typically larger or smaller in one sex or the other (similarly with gay v straight brains), but nothing that would suggest a 1:1 correspondence between type of brain and physical sex. Would be interested to hear more.

Also, of course, brains are plastic, so develop in response to nurture. So I guess one would have to scan babies' brains to know for sure?

www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/01/26/scans-show-difference-in-transgender-brains/

I am finding her very hard to read. Am up to the lock in gender sysndrome. I think she is confusing a sensation that many of us felt in childhood, envy of what was mapped put for the boys compared to what seemed to be our destiny, with what it must feel like to be a child who will become a trans-adult.

It is good to try emphathise, but...I don't think she has really captured that her experience might not be what it actually feels like for a transperson.

I grew ip a girl, that was accepted, I got the hump when I could see where being a girl meant "limitations imposed", I became a woman.

I don't know how many parralles or overlap I can draw (in terms of shared experience/sensation) between that and growing up a girl or a boy and getting in the neck the whole time becuase you found it impossible to comform to the gender expectations placed on you, you grow up and whether you try to make other people happy and be what they see,or you do what you need to do to feel comfortable in your own skin, you are still going to draw fire.

It is just too different a journey to say "I have had a taste of that" IMO.

The idea that your body tells your mind what gender you are and is always, infallibly right is ridiculous. It's the other way round. Your mind tells your body, because that, biologically, is what your mind is for

But we don't know that do we ? Sounds like she has picked a side and is going to stick with it willy nilly. I like the nature+nurture idea somebody put forward when I had my "gender is a social construct- oh god I feel like Buzz Lightyear!" moment. But I am not wedded to it. If we learn more, I'll flex.

I will try to read the rest. But...oufff I find her style a real struggle to wade through.

moon - yep, people constantly look at bits of brain architecture and try to find correlations with gender. Simon Baron Cohen and his 'male brain' shite, for starters.

I do think it's shite, but if that's what she's arguing from, she'd do well to cite it instead of assuming it's fact.

Sorry, cross posted with eccles. That's the sort of thing.

Also, of course, brains are plastic

Plastic enough that surgouns cut out half a little girl's brain including the areas that control movement, but her brain rewired itself and she walked out of the hosptial.

That is so plastic that it makes me wonder if all the "this is the bit that controls X" is a bit of an oversimplification.

But then what I know about brains could be written on a the back of a stamp leaving room to spare...so who knows.

Thanks ecclesvet! That is interesting and it would be good to read more research on it (e.g. see results from a larger sample, research whether all trans people's brains show these markers, and whether there are non-trans people whose brains also have these markers, etc).

Even if we do find out that all trans people have identifiably different brains from their chromosomal sex from birth, I'd still argue that would make them hermaphroditic/intersex rather than '100% biological [chosen sex]'.

I think it's a huuuuuuge oversimplification.

But you and I, I think, know about the same about brains from about the same sources, so I expect sciency types will be rolling their eyes.

It's just ... you know, if you were someone who'd had surgery and all, would you not be slightly offended someone was making out that your reasons for it were effectively the same as those of a small child who doesn't like daddy being sexist to mummy?

In the late 1980s, there was a schism among feminist activists whereby some radical feminists began excluding women whose female identity was anything other than entirely conventional

I am confused. I was a young woman in the 80s. Hung out with a lot of RadFems cos, well squatters can't be picky about the company they choose. I got it in the neck all the time for being conventionally female. Where were the RadFem lot that were Ok with high heels and lippy when I needed them?

In my circle the RadFem thing was almost resolutly about rejecting the conventional female role/image.

moon - well, and also, wouldn't we need to know more about the range of brain types of non-trans-people?

I would really be interested to see whether there's a spectrum of differences, or binary ones. Because the studies I've seen have been deliberately looking for binary differences so they can say this type of brain is male, and this type is female.

But does a feminine type of woman have the same type of brain as a non-feminine woman anyway?

was making out that your reasons for it were effectively the same as those of a small child who doesn't like daddy being sexist to mummy?

I think I might be yelling at the screen going "it's a bit more complicated (and a tonne more painful) than that"

loq - yep, I don't follow that either. I assume she must be meaning 'conventional' in a different sense from the usual?

I think I might be, too.

This why I did wonder if it wasn't stirring a bit.

Yes exactly LRD re the range thing.

I am certainly very ignorant re neurology/brain architecture - it would be great to hear from someone who knows more.

It would.